Photos from Trip

Hey everyone,

For anyone who wants to take a look at the photos, from our trip, a bunch of them are available at Steve's Picasa Account. Just click on that link or the one below to view it.

Shaffer Family Europe Trip

We're Home!

Right now I'm sitting in the kitchen at the Shaffer house. We're finally home!

Sorry for the lack of consistent updates and less reliable updates period toward the end of the trip. Links to full photo/video galleries and the like should be up as soon as we get all the media from all our devices organized and synchronized.

It's good to be home! Thanks to everyone who followed us on our journeys!

Megan & Steve - Scotland - Day 4

This is Megan updating you all on our 4th day in Scotland. Today was a great day because we took one of those bus day tours throughout the country to Scotland (in a nice charter bus). It was an all day excursion from 8 in the morning until 8 at night. We drove through all the pretty lush green hills of the Highlands. We stopped at a few places, one place you all might be familiar with....Loch Ness. No we didn't see Nessie the monster, but we did enjoy the view. I especially loved Glencoe which was breathtaking. We went to a good fish and chip place recommended by our tour guide (who was hilarious by the way). Steve had the fish and chips (which was yummy) and I had this chicken curry dish with chips (fries) instead of rice. It was actually pretty good. Many things on the menu I have never heard of before. There was an opportunity to taste whiskey but it was either taste some whiskey or eat some food (because we only had time for one), so we decided on food. We saw many parts of Scotland, and learned a lot. When we got back we walked around Edinburgh once more, and went through what they call a Close. The famous one being Mary King's Close, which was blocked off for tours only. We may go there tomorrow depending on time. Anyways we hope to put up some pictures soon. Cheers!
-Megan

Loch Ness

Glencoe

Megan & Steve - Scotland - Day 3

Hi all. Steve here. I'm writing this a day late, but hey we've been busy...

Yesterday was mostly a traveling day for us. We woke up (late...yes!) and took a train to Edinburgh.

Incidentally, did you know? In Britain, Burger King doesn't serve chicken fries or chicken fingers, but chicken bites. I know, crazy!

Edinburgh is pretty cool. It's a big city with a lot of history (it's the capital, don't ya know?). For this city, we downloaded an audio tour onto my iPod from Tourist-Tracks.com. It worked out pretty well actually. We stopped off for dinner at The Last Drop, right across the square from where they used to hang people (hence the name). We got some real Scottish food there too. Megan got a Scottish Sirloin and Steve got a Caledonian Steak Pie. Sorry Grandma, no haggis yet. And still not a true drop of whiskey yet either. The local beer is pretty good though...

And... that was about it for yesterday. Megan'll update with today a little later (or more probably tomorrow), which was very interesting.

Beautiful View of Edinburgh, the Capital City

Megan & Steve - Scotland - Day 2

This is Megan updating for July 27th, Monday. Well, right now I am eating the complimentary biscuits and tea at the hotel ^_^. Yesterday was a very nice day here in Glasgow. It is quite cold in Scotland, and rainy, but it is a nice break from the heat of Rome. We started our day by getting on the Citeseeing Hop-on Hop-off Tour Bus. I like these buses because the live tour guide is interesting, and the bus takes you where you want to go, and it is good for up to two days. We enjoyed seeing all the different architecture, and learning about the history. I did not know that Glasgow used to ship tobacco to America, and it brought them a lot of money until the Boston Tea party and we said NO to England and stuff.

Our first stop was to the Botanial Gardens. I liked this place because it was right next to the University of Glasgow, and the flowers were very pretty. It was a really cool area because it was a big college town. It was like being in Westwood. There were a bunch of neat shops, and buildings, and lots of college-age people.

After that we went back on the tour bus. I really liked the tour guides, they were really funny, telling jokes in their funny-hard-to-understand-Scottish accents. Our next stop was at the Cathedral of St. Mungo. It was originally a Catholic Cathedral, but after the Reformation it was changed to Anglican. I don't know who St. Mungo was. To be honest, the cathedral kinda creeped me out because it was very empty and dark and gothic looking. But the museum next door was pretty neat. It had religious art from all different kinds of religion, and it talked about the history of Scotland a bit. I really wanted to go to the Necropolis up on the hill (which we heard was cool) but we were running out of time on the bus tour, and just took pictures from far away.

We went back on the bus and stopped at the main square which was called....uh......George Square or something. We got some information, and pictures, and just sat in the garden to people watch. Here, they are very proud of their alcohol, and have at least two pubs on every city block. For dinner we had Japanese teppanyaki grill, which apparently is new to the UK. there was like no one there, and the bartender was very friendly and talked to us for like the whole night. The people here are very friendly and nice, and it has been a wonderful experience so far. We can't wait to head out to Edinburgh today, and see what other exciting things await us. TTFN!!!
-Megan

Ciao from Positano!

What's up! It's Daniel writing a full entry for the first time. So here we are in Positano, using all 4 of the other days to relax. July 26, we flew out of Rome saying our last goodbye and heading for Positano.Driving along. Unfortunately with my dad driving.(Haha just kidding)Talk about winding! We drove on the side of the mountain, and were about 6 inches from hitting a car. Every turn I felt either like we we gonna crash into the rail and fly into the sea, just plain crash, or I would get butterflies. Finally we got back to our hotel, (just to say it's probably rated tenth fanciest in the world) and changed into my pajamas, about 1 minute later I got the news of "Dinner in 10 minutes" "Great" I thought "I have to change again" 5 minutes later the taxi arives, fortunately a good sized car and a good driver (if he wasn't experienced who knows what would of happened on those kind of streets) and arrived (probably rated fortieth fanciest in the world)we had a nice dinner and came home (I wanted to make the rest short)Ciao!

Steve & Megan - Scotland - Day 1

Hey everyone!

So Steve and Megan split off from the rest of the group today to take a four-day excursion to Scotland. Hopefully the rest of the family will be updating the blog too so you can follow along with their trip down the Italian coast as well.

We got up super early this morning and took a taxi to the airport. After a couple flights, we touched down in Glasgow, Scotland. After checking into our hotel, we walked to mass at St. Andrew's Cathedral, which was surprisingly empty (I hear that's happening quite a bit in Europe these days), but it was a lovely mass. After mass, we got dinner at an awesome Indian buffet (cheap and absolutely delicious!). We haven't yet dared to try Scottish food, but we may get there yet.

That's about it for today though. We're gonna get some sleep and hit the town full speed tomorrow.

Rome - Day 3: Colosseum & Scala Sanctam

Sorry, I'm writing this the day after, but I think the memories are fresh enough...

Well, first was the Colosseum. The place had a nice tour flow to it so you could just walk around and look and learn and whatnot. The Colosseum itself was certainly something to behold. Just to imagine that the ancient Romans could build something so grand and complex in just 7 years was astonishing. Did you know they used to have shows in there that actually alternated gladiator battles and maritime battles? They would actually flood the mainstage with water and have battles between ships in there! On top of that they had tons of trap doors and lifts underneath the floor to raise props, gladiators, and animals onto the arena floor. To get to these, they had a whole network of tunnels under the stage and into the barracks and other buildings outside the Colosseum. You guys...this is pretty sweet!

After that, we went to the Scala Sanctam (or "Sacred Steps"). These are the 28 steps that Jesus climbed to meet Pontious Pilate. Way back when, the Church moved the actual steps from Jerusalem to Rome. They've covered up the original marble steps with wood because honestly, we're not really worthy to trod on these steps. People climb these steps while praying on each step and meditating on the Passion of Our Lord. But because we're seriously not worthy, we go up them on our knees. It gets a bit painful by the end, but as painful as it is, it's seriously nothing compared to what Jesus endured for our sake. So it's a really cool way to rededicate oneself to Him.

To top the night off, Megan and Steve went out for a nice Italian dinner at what we thought was going to be this place called "Giovanni" that Megan and her parents visited last time they were in Rome and apparently has the best Tiramisu ever! However, it seems that many places in Italy are closed on Saturday and Sunday, and unfortunately, this is one of them. We went to another place nearby and still had some very good Italian food, but the holy grail of Tiramisu still belongs to Giovanni according to Megan.

Sorry, but no pictures this time. Megan and I took my parents camera, but not the cable to downlaod the pictures, and our camera is still back in London. So unfortunately, we probably won't have any pictures on here until we get back to the U.S.

Rome - Day 2: Vatican Day!

From Daniel: "We went to St. Peter's Basilica, and we went to church at 5 PM; we didn't understand anything. We also went to the vatican museum, and we took pictures of us mimicking the statues' poses. Dad got ripped off by a taxi driver, and he offered for us to go to his friend's restaurant, which was €10-15 per pizza (rip-off as well)!"

From Steve: Unfortunately, Daniel wasn't old enough to go on the tour that the rest of us went on in the morning: The "Scavi Tour." This was really cool! We went down into and through the excavation that was done to verify the placement of St. Peter's grave.

========WARNING: LONG HISTORY LESSON=============

And here's the history lesson: Apparently, St. Peter was buried in a Pagan cemetery (or Necropolis) secretly, in a dug-out hole (not a coffin), after he was crucified. So while on the tour, we saw a good amount of family tombs from the 1st - 3rd centuries as well. In 313 AD, Constantine made Christianity legal to practice in the Roman Empire, and ordered a basilica to be built on top of Peter's gravesite. In order to do so, they had to actually cover over parts of this Necropolis, since it was on a slope. This is why we saw the family tombs in the excavation. The excavation was carried out by Pope Pius XII in order to fulfill the final wish of Pope Pius XI to be buried as close as possible to St. Peter. What they discovered was that the basilica was in fact built on top of Peter's gravesite, but that Peter's remains were not in the grave; it was empty! It turns out that between the time Peter was buried and the basilica was built, a small monument was built on top of Peter's grave, and a supporting wall was built next to it (at various times, for various reasons), all under secrecy because this was all still before 313 AD. The wall, as it turns out, was covered with Christian writing in Latin that looked like grafiti, with only two symbols in Greek, saying "Petras Anni," meaning, "Peter is here." When they removed the stone with those two characters on it from the wall, they found Peter's bones inside! After they identified them as Peter's, they removed them and put them into plexiglass boxes. But later on (Forgive me; I can't remember the dates very well at this point), they put the bones back in the wall, but left them in their plexiglass boxes so they could be preserved.

=========END OF HISTORY LESSON================

What we're able to see of all of this today is mainly four things:

1. If you don't go on the Scavi Tour (which only like 150 people get to go on per day), you'll see the "Tomb of St. Peter" as it is presented to the public. In the basilica, right in front of the main altar, you can look down and see it from above. Or you can take a walk down a level and see it up close. It's essentially a monument to St. Peter.

2. On this tour, we were able to look into the left side of the back side of this monument and see the original burial place of Peter, which IS directly below the altar of the basilica. It's just a tiny hole really, because as soon as they found it and found it was empty, they stopped excavating it. From this angle, we also saw the left side of the small monument that had the retaining wall.

3. Behind Peter's original burial place, there is a small, but beautiful chapel that they said was used for special services (I wonder what those are, and marvel at how cool it would be to celebrate mass there!)

4. On the right side of Peter's original burial place, we got to see the wall the I've been talking about with a small hole in it, and we could see just the first of the boxes with Peter's actual bones in it! If you ever get a chance to see the tomb from the public front side, you can notice a reddish slice of rock on the right side with a candle constantly lit in front of it. This is to mark the location of that all-important wall.

And...that's about all I can write for now because this is getting very long, and we're paying by the minute in a tiny internet shop place. Ciao for now! Here's some pictures:

Rome - Day 1

This was our "try to see all the big sights in one day" day and go back to the best ones later. So we jumped on a double decker bus tour and saw a little bit of almost everything in 6 hours. It sounds great, but it is a little challenging when it is 90 degrees and humid. Thank God Rome has a lot of fountains and cool (temperature and aesthetics) churches. Rome has magnificent churches around every corner filled with art work, tapestries, domes, and chapels. Visit the Trevi Fountain, take pictures, go across the street to an incredible church, say a prayer, take in the artwork and architecture, move on to the Pantheon (which is now the Basillica of Mary of the Martyrs), but first we must duck into Santa Maria Sopa Manerva Church (which has the tomb of St, Catherine of Siena in front of the alter) 100 yards away. Unbelievable!


Every church we passed on the bus would be the most magnificent church in any state in the US. Very frustrating to not have enough time to see them all. By the way, Rome has cool delicious water constantly flowing out of drinking fountains everywhere. I'd like to see that tried in California Tomorrow we will go to the Vatican and maybe the Coliseum on Saturday. Still having a great time.

London - Day 3 & Plane Ride to Rome

Yesterday was quite an interesting day in London. After sleeping in slightly later than is proper, we split into two groups to run around the city. As we'd pretty much seen all the big tourist sights the day before, we decided to go probe the museums.

Group "Young Adults" (Steve, Megan, Mike, & Will) checked out the Tate Modern Art Museum and then the National Gallery (the parts we didn't get to see the day before). Tate was certainly interesting; there were things enjoyed and things not enjoyed by each one. We got to find out how interested and authoritative Will is on Cubism. Overall, it was a rewarding experience. Oh, and we got to cross London Bridge (the current one, not the Havasu one) to get there, and saw Sir Francis Drake's ship and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on the way. From there, we traveled across the Millenium Bridge and took the Underground to the National Gallery. By the end of it all, our legs and feet were very tired, but we got to see some awesome art by some more classical artists. Will and Mike checked out the Impressionists while Megan and I wandered around elsewhere (though I'm not really sure what period we were in).

Group "Young and Old" (Dad, Mom, Ian, & Daniel) checked out the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. We started at what might be the largest and most architecturally striking natural history museum in the world. We checked out Darwin's section and saw Lucy, one of the potential missing links. But she was too short to be a missing link to Uncle Dave. They had a tremendous section showing the different stages of human development (this is where we snapped a picture of Daniel with a 7 foot tall fetus). We next visited the science museum where they had endless cool interactive displays for Ian and Daniel (and Dad) with a very cool history of medicine floor for Mom. On the lighter side, Mom and Daniel visited a fun live butterfly exhibit while Ian and Dad discovered the only pigeon in the world with a goiter below its beak (we named it a Goiterbird since we discovered it).

After our day at the museums, we all met up for the fanciest Pizza Hut dinner I've ever had. It was a nice sit down restaurant with Pizza Hut pizza, but also fancy appetizers, and we even got wine with dinner (At Pizza Hut!). The most interesting part of dinner was that when Megan sat down, she hung her purse on the back of her chair, but when she got up to leave, it wasn't there! We searched high and low, but no luck. So, we cancelled the cards and her phone (which we later found out was actually back at the hotel anyway). All in all, the only things of value that were stolen were our brand new camera and the purse itself (which ironically enough is supposed to be a pick-pocket-proof purse); everything else is very replaceable.

However... We got a call while boarding our plane today from a British number we didn't know. When Dad traced the call back it was the police! Apparently, they had arrested two men for stealing, and they had our camera (they had ditched everything else, since it wasn't of value to them). The police were able to trace the camera back to us because they looked through the pictures and found a picture of Ian in front of our hotel's sign and a "Shaffhausen" coat of arms we had found and taken a picture of while walking through London (awesome detective work, police dudes!). They'll be dropping the camera off with us when we get back into London on 30 July (that's how they write it 'round here).



This morning ran rather smoothly, except for the fact that we were only allowed to carry on 1 bag each, and we had a great deal more baggage than that! As I write this, we're on a flight from London to Rome. I'll check back with you all in Rome!

London - Day 2

Hallo from London!

This is Mike. I'm writing after a long, long day so please excuse any typos or grammatical errors. Today was a very eventful but very fun day. We started the day with a continental breakfast and got on the tube to Piccadilly Circus. There, we got on one of those ubiquitous double-decker buses for a tour of London. We got off pretty quickly, though, at Trafalgar Square. We had gotten off because I had mistaken the Nation Gallery for the National Portrait Gallery, but it turned out to be a fortunate mistake as we were very happy to see the historical square. First, we went to the National Gallery and quickly went through the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries of their collection. It was a wonderful collection with a lot of paintings. I particularly liked the Van Goghs.

After the museum, we walked down to the square below. There were a lot of statues and fountains. Here are pictures of us in front of the largest fountain and a huge lion:

We have many more pictures from the square, so be on the lookout for them on facebook in the weeks to come.

From there, we continued on the tour bus to Westminister Abbey and the building of Parliament. We walked around for a good while and got plenty of pictures, which we will also post on facebook soon. The architecture there was really incedible. So was the weather today, by the way. There was a beautiful blue sky with impressive clouds, all of which kept the temperature perfect for most of the day. We also avoided the rain, which is supposed to come tomorrow, although only lightly.

Next stop was a transfer from the bus to a boat tour down the River Thames. Our skipper doubled as a tour guide and informed us about all of the buildings along the riverbank, including a replica of Sahkespeare's Globe Theatre, the London Eye (the huge Ferris Wheel), and London Bridge (I have now been to two of the four various incarnations of the London Bridge). The skipper was our second tour guide with that dry English humour, which we all appreciated. There was also one of the famous guards at the tower, here is a picture:

The end of the boat tour brought us to the London Tower, one of the oldest buildings in all of London. It is an old-fashioned castle where many famous people were famously beheaded. There was another dry-English-humoured tour guide. There was much to see there and Daniel, in particular, enjoyed seeing all the old suits of armor (Henry VIII's, in fact). We got fish and chips after that and then headed back home on the tour bus. On the way back home, we got some really great Chinese food in the tiny Chinatown.

We're all tired now and either already asleep or ready to be. I think by tomorrow the jetlag will have totally worn off and we'll all be wide-awake and eager for our second, more slowly-paced day of sight-seeing.

Old post from yesterday: Jetlag

Fwhoof! What a day/night/umm...what time is it?

We had a super long flight from Chicago and now we're in London. So far we've touched down, checked in, miraculously found a mass close to us at 6 PM, went to said mass, and taken a maze of underground rides in the process. All in all, it's been a great, if tiring first day in London. A few of us are going to do something tonight, but we're not exactly sure what yet.

Sunrise Over Clouds

Also a quick note on our internet connection...
We've gotten Dad's blackberry up and running but found that everything else costs unless you're at McDonalds. So we're going to try to keep this blog updated, but pictures, videos, responses to comments, and the like may be few and far between. Stay tuned though. The best is yet to come!

Half-Alive on the Underground

Very quick update

Hey everyone. Just a quick update. Internet has been difficult to come by and I've tried to update the blog twice since the last post, but it hasn't worked yet so far. In any case, we're in London now. It's 9 am on Monday, and we're going on the big red bus tour today.

I'll try to get the old posts on here as soon as I can, and hopefully new posts will be up quciker...

LAX - Chicago

Hey everyone,

Steve here. We're on the plane to Chicago. They've got internet on here, so that's how I'm able to update this (it's pretty cool). We're all in nice neat little pairs: Me & Megan, Mom & Dad, Mike & Will, Ian & Daniel, one row after another.

It looks like we'll be getting into Chicago O'Hare at around 7:00 PM (Chicago Time), and then we'll be heading out to London!

Megan and Me on the plane

Welcome

Hey everyone,

Welcome to our blog. This blog was inspired by our cousins over at http://fischinger.com/ who are also writing a European travel blog. Their's is much cooler since they have their own domain and fancy formatting, so definitely check it out if you haven't already.

Right now, we're still at the Shaffer residence, frantically getting ready to head off to LAX. Buckeye is barking. We're going to try to fit all 8 of us and our luggage into one minivan, so wish us luck!

Here's Daniel getting ready...

Getting Ready