oh my gosh. i have no idea where to begin for this post!! the last week has been incredible, we have seen and done SO much that it feels like we have already been here for a month, and it’s only been 7 days!!

we started off our european adventure flying into paris, and then jumping on a train right after we landed that took us to stutgartt, germany. scott has some family friends who live in this beautiful city, and they were so kind and welcoming for letting us stay in their home while we adjusted to the time change and the jet lag for a couple of days!! both days we were there it was 40 degrees celcius so VERY hot, and one of the best parts of our 2 days there was when we all took a picnic up to the most beautiful look-out over the city and the black-forest, and it was also an old war-ruins!! we sat up there and watched the sunset over meats, cheeses, breads and wine – it was laid back and PERFECT 🙂

from there, we headed down to ingolstadt to visit a friend of scotts who he went to school with in finland 6 years ago – vroni & dom took us in as their guests for the night and it was SO much fun cruising around their cute little town (taking photos, of course haha!) and then to their local beer gardens for some “mas biers” and a traditional bavarian beer garden supper!

from ingolstadt we took another quick train bright and early in the morning to munich, where we walked down the main street before any of the stores were open and before all of the tourists got there – i was BLOWN away by the amazing architecture and how everything looks like a castle, haha! we sat at the cutest little cafe and had a slow relaxed breakfast, just taking it all in. one thing i have learned about europe so far is that people here take the time to appreciate life. they are not rushing through their meals or their coffee, or even their visits with friends. things are slower and more relaxed, but also more genuine and intentional. such an amazing way of life, and definitely a mindset i would love to take back home with us!

we stayed in munich for 2 nights with another one of scotts gracious friends that he met while in finland. sebastian met us downtown later on the first day after we had done some shopping and we went to one of the local beer-gardens for another german “mas” beer and some lunch. later on his girlfriend anika joined us and we did a walking tour of the city with our own personal guides 😉 so fun!!

life in germany… beer’s, trains and subways 😉

the next day was our biggest adventure so far as anika and sebastian had to work so they offered us their car to drive down to the neuschwanstein castle (which was about 2 hours of driving). assuming their GPS would be easily switched into english, we hopped in the car to quickly find out that our language options were: french, italian, german… HA! it was exciting  and we were laughing a lot about not having a clue what we were doing or where we were going, but we somehow made our way without even one wrong turn!! a better recap of that day is in our quick little checkin video that we posted on facebook, so to check out how pumped we were after visiting that INCREDIBLE castle, check out the video by clicking here.

we are SO crazy grateful for all of these amazing friends who have been hosting us throughout this trip ~  we are now staying with some other amazing friends, andy & josi and also with another great friend philip in their hometown of villach, austria until thursday when we will go to venice ~ SO ~  i will do an austria recap in a few days – but this country has left me absolutely SPEECHLESS to say the least – i have never in my life imagined a more beautiful countryside, even in the pouring rain (photo below with our crew here!!)  be sure to check back for that update next week, and if you want to follow our daily adventures you can follow me on instagram @megcourtney1!