Hampton Court - 31.8.12

Today we went to Hampton Court.  There were very impressive kitchens, apartments, armory, gardens, etc.  There was a painting of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John stoning the pope--very appropriate for Henry VIII's palace from back in the day.  We got back to Waterloo station and rode the Eye.  I think it would have been worth it if I had had a romantic date, or if the bearings got stuck and it very slowly flipped us over.  We realized it was my dad's birthday, and we went out to Thai food downtown.  On our way to the bus, the Kuwait Lamborghini club must have driven by.  I guess if I had such a car, I would want to drive it around London downtown on a Friday night, too.

Westminster, British museum - 30.8.12

This morning we got up, ate some fried tomatoes for breakfast, and took the tube over to Westminster Abbey.  I got to say hello to my friends Isaac Newton and James Joule.  Lord Kelvin's grave was cool to the touch--I think it was because heat was flowing naturally into the warmer abbey.  Anyways, we spent a bit of time in the abbey, then went over to the British museum.  On my way in I walked past the original greek statue of the discus thrower without even noticing it was there.  I was in a hurry to see the statues that the British empire had graciously "saved" from the parthenon in Athens.  After seeing mummies, asking socrates a question, pretending to read cuneiform, and seeing and other artifacts from antiquity, we went to Picidally Circus which doesn't allow cars to drive in a circle around it, and I held a jacket in Harrod's that cost 13,000 pounds.  I'll have to save up.

Let's see... Alpha, Lambda, Epsilon, Xi... That's my name carved in a 2000+ year old stone!  I'm so proud.  I know enough Greek from math to read a little bit.

To London - 29.8.12

We got up, packed up, and headed to Cologne.  We didn't know that there were lockers for luggage in the train station, so my dad watched our luggage while we looked at the cathedral.  We came out, locked up our luggage, he looked at the cathedral, and we all looked at the cathedral treasury.  There are some really nifty old gold things in there.  We climbed the belfry and listened to the smaller bells there ring once at 2:45, then went to the top.  It was a somewhat nice view of a city I don't know well, but an amazing view of the cathedral.  We got on the train and went to Brussels to transfer through customs.  That's the only place I have ever been asked what I would be doing in a country.  Then we got on a train that took us to some fields in the middle of nowhere in France then suddenly darkness.  England looks noticeably different than the continent.  No orange roofs.  We took the tube to Baker street, got a snack at a shop, and now we're about to sleep in a bed and breakfast.

Bonn - 28.8.12

We got up and had a good continental breakfast with cheese, meat, bread, yogurt, and a boiled egg.  Then we went to Bonn Hauptbahnhof and bought train tickets to London for tomorrow.  They were about 500 euros for the three of us, which is the most I have ever spent on train tickets.  Then we walked around Bonn for a while and saw the German history museum and Beethoven's house.  We went had my parents' first dönner.  I was looking out the Strassenbahn and saw a woman I recognized, so we got out.  It was my friend Sunny!  We ran into her just by coincidence in a part of town where she didn't live.
At dinner time I was so hungry I could eat a horse, so that's exactly what I did.  As a missionary I went past a sign in Beuel advertizing grilled horse many times and always wanted to try it, so I brought my parents to the restaurant and ordered a traditional Rhineland horse steak.  My parents ordered "normal" food, but mine was extraordinary.  It was probably a young horse, too, so whenever I hear a little girl say "I want a pony" I can say, "I do too ... with rasins and almonds on top."

To Bonn - 27.8.12

This morning we slept in until 10, which was nice because of the jet lag.  Well, I got up at 10 and ate breakfast.  My parents slept in a bit more than I did, but we were off at the early hour of 2PM to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.  I tried to pull more money out at an ATM, but it kept denying me.  After a few calls to Visa, I figured out that I could only withdraw 200 euros at a time.  Then we were off
We rode the ICE train through the beautiful Rhine river valley to Bonn with my parents taking pictures of the castles, vineyards, and the Lorelei cliffs.  We dropped our luggage off at a bed and breakfast, and went to Troisdorf to visit my friend Oliver Cabalo.  He and his wife had a baby since I last saw them.  We had a lovely German dinner at his house: smoked meats, cheeses, salami, various dark breads, and cherry-hibiscus juice.  Then back to Bonn to sleep.

Hanau - 26.8.12

The area in which I served the longest as a missionary was Hanau, so it's the area where I know the people the best.  Today we got up early and went to the church in Hanau.  I was very happy to see all of my friends from Hanau.  I played the piano in priesthood meeting even though I'm not very good.  We went to sunday school with the missionaries, one of whom recognized me and remembered my name from when I picked him up from the airport almost 2 years ago.  I was asked to give my testimony in German during sacrament meeting.  After church we went to the Gruenkes' house for lunch, and bishop Gruenke took us on a tour of the old town in Nidderau, which I didn't know existed.  We saw the unlabeled birth house of Rudolphe Lindt.  Yes, that Lindt.  Then we took a train from Hanau to Waechtersbach to visit the Penrods, a family whose son I baptized while a missionary.  He was asleep the whole time I was there, and the father was away, but I'll probably see them again.  We rode a train back to Frankfurt and talked a little with the Merstrands.  It's been a long day.

Welcome to Germany - 25.8.12

We started today by landing at the Frankfurt Flughafen after a short and sleepless night flying across the Atlantic.  We went downtown and I bought a cell phone for my stay, and I used it to call the Merstrands, the family we're staying with for the first few nights.  They were at the airport dropping off my friend Jeanette, who is somewhat unexpectedly flying to Provo right now.  She said goodbye and "my family's great!"  So I am now in the bedroom of a family, and the only person I know isn't here.  They are really great, though.  They picked us up from the train stop and drove us to their apartment in the little colony of American embassy workers in Dornbusch.  They told us about the Orgelmeile, a series of organ concerts at various old churches in Frankfurt.  We took naps for a few hours and went and listened to organ music for a few hours while walking around by the Main.  Here's a sample of a song played in the church where Goethe was confirmed.

In the airport - 24.8.12

I lied.  I do have time to post.  I'm in the Albuquerque airport.
My sister Chelsea is in Shenyang, China right now.  Her husband Kevin works for the American foreign service there.  When I get to Germany, I will have siblings in China (123° East) and Utah (111° West), and I'll be in Germany (10° East), so we'll be almost exactly in tree equally spaced points around the globe longitudinally. The sun never sets on the Christensens.  And speaking of which, I'll be in Britain in a few days!

A Long Expected Party - 23.8.12

I'm about to embark on an adventure.  I'm going to Germany.  My parents and I are leaving tomorrow morning, and we'll travel around western Europe for a few weeks, then they'll head home and I'll head to Hamburg, where I'll be working for fall semester.  I've been planning this for about a year.  This is a part of the BYU German internship program, and I'm being given some academic credit for my time in Germany, but I have to write a few papers, take a class, and keep a daily log, hence this blog.  I'm going to be posting to it every day, except tomorrow I'm going to spend all day in the airplane.  But today I'm just in New Mexico waiting for the time to pass.

I met a guy from Estonia today at overlook park.  You can see him in the picture.  It also rained.