I know it has been awhile since I last posted and I have no excuse other than the craziness that is my life right now. I am down to only 12 days left (eek!) and I am trying to cram as much in as possible, especially in terms of my research. Things have gone well but there it a lot left to do. So in the midst of my dwindling time what did I do? I took a little trip! Back in the summertime Nick and Diana informed me that they would be coming to Europe with Nick's grandparents in November and they invited me to join them for part of the time, so it has been planned for awhile and I knew that I had to work around it. Last Tuesday all the planning became a reality when I met up with Nick and Diana in Paris and spent two days there before heading to Leipzig, Germany. And while we stayed in Leipzig (where Nick's Oma and Opa come from) we went to Dresden on Friday and Berlin on Saturday. It was an amazing experience, and now more than ever I want to learn German. (I hated being in a country and not being able to understand more than a few words of the language- if I could even distinguish one word from another!) Here are several of my favorite parts of the trip:

1. Watching Diana in the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay. I have been to both museums before and I was excited to go back, but what I was really looking forward to was watching my sister, an art history major, see them for the first time. She was so happy and just in heaven- it was great! She kept seeing paintings and crying out their names and hitting Nick in her excitement. Nick was such a good sport as we drug him around art musuems for about five or six hours. And he really liked Notre Dame (I convinced them that we had to go) much to his surprise.

2. Going to St. Denis. This church is not only important to the history of Gothic architecture but it is also basically the graveyard for French royalty, and since it was one of the places I didn't get to on my first trip to Paris so I had to go this time. It was so worth it! I was so excited walking around and seeing the graves of people like Dagobert, Fredegunde, Clovis, and Catherine de Medici. (Extra points if anyone but me knows who any of these people are!) As Nick would say, I am definitely a Dorcas Aurelius, but I don't care!

3. The Christmas markets in Germany. I swear, every city we went to had these markets that made you feel just like you were in a magical, wonderful, Christmas land. The smells of the pastries and baked goods (SUCH GOOD GINGERBREAD!!!), the lights, the real evergreen trees and boughs everywhere, and the decorations were amazing. The Germans definitely know how to do Christmas!

4. Going to the Marianfelde refugee camp with Nick's grandparents. In the early 1950s Opa and Oma escaped from East Germany to the west, and Marianfelde was the refugee camp where they stayed after their escape. It was incredible to visit this place with people who had stayed there and the hear their experiences. As they described their feelings and the process they had to go through to escape I was humbled and amazed. They were so brave! I am so grateful for the chance I had to go there with them.

Those are just some of the highlights from the trip; there are many others that I could share but I don't want this post to be too long!

Although I really enjoyed myself, I have to confess that it was extremely comforting and felt like a relief to come back to Italy again! Not only can I understand and speak the language here, but Italy is so familiar to me now. I will miss is it when I leave. I am glad that I did take a spur of the moment trip to Rome the Saturday before I left for Paris so that I could see it again. I went with my friend Hillary and her sister Miriam, neither of whom had been to Rome before so again, it was fun to walk around the city and watch them see things for the first time. As we came up out of the Metro to the Colosseum I was just waiting for the freakout I knew was coming and they didn't disappoint. And even though I had seen most of the places we went before, they still made my heart jump in my chest. Plus, I provided Hiliary and her sister with a good laugh of my own when I stood in front of a statue of Caesar, put my hand over my heart, and said "Hail Caesar!" (Yes, I am a nerd!) It was a fun day, and we even ended it by attending a Dada and Surrealism exhibit at the Museo del Resurgimento which was pretty amazing.

So that is what I have been up to lately . . . oh, yeah- and research too! I actually took some articles and a book pertaining to my research that I have been meaning to read for a long time on the trip with me and with all the time I spent on trains, planes, and buses I actually got a lot of good, helpful reading in. I didn't take any pictures to prove it, but I promise it happened! I did, however, take some other pictures of the trip, so here they are!

The Berlin Wall Memorial (it was only just after 5pm but it was already super dark outside!) This is one of the few pieces of the wall that is still standing in its original spot.

A piece of the Berlin Wall

Cute photographer Diana! (She and Nick took a lot of great pictures that I am sure they will post to their blog after they get back!)

The Reichstag in Berlin; the seat of German governemnt.

The Frauenkirche in Dresden with a statue of Martin Luther. This church was destroyed by bombing during WWII, but the residents of Dresden gathered together all the pieces they could find and reconstructed it. It is a famous symbol of hope and reconstruction for Germany after the war.

A rose window inside St. Denis near Paris.

An outside view of St. Denis.

Some of the royal graves inside St. Denis.

Diana ordered salmon for dinner one night in Paris - yum!

The view on the balcony of hotel room in Paris.

Me with a statue of Marcus Aurelius inside the Louvre. (This is where Nick decided it would be funny to call me a Dorcas Aurelius!)

Diana and Nick going up the stairs to see Nike (or "Winged Victory") in the Louvre. Nan was so excited to see this, and it is one of my favorites too!

The Trevi Fountain in Rome. (If you throw three coins in the legend says that you will come back to Rome, and I think it's true because last time I was here I threw three coins in and I came back!)

A hug for the Pantheon!

Looking up at the ceiling of the Pantheon.

Inside St. Peter's in Rome. There was so much light coming through the windows- it was breathtaking!

The dome in St. Peter's.

The dress code to enter St. Peter's - they take it super seriously too!

Outside view of St. Peter's.

The Colosseum!