England, France, Italy and Germany to be specific. I know, it's very glamorous.

When I was in the 7th grade my brother and I got to go to Germany with my Gram and Gimmy to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins. It was awesome. On the plane ride over we got mini versions of real food, three meals! Josh and I were obsessed with the mini coke cans. And it was our first plane ride with a movie screen. At one point I was asked to close my window shade to that it would stop shedding sunlight on the screen, and so that the rest of the passengers would be able to see the movie. Not wanting to give up my view, but also not wanting the passengers to hate me, I put a blanket over my head, covering me and the window. Win win!

In Germany I remember going to this little outdoor village market thing with Gimmy. We would get bread at one place, meat at another place, cheese at another, hot pretzels, etc. I remember thinking it was just like Beauty and the Beast, (you know, when Bell goes to the outdoor market thing with her grandfather and they get hot pretzels...).

I also did something awesome. The house that my aunt and uncle lived in was connected to another house. The family in the connected house had two kids, both girls, and we hung out with them while we were there. They had a balcony that was right next to, but a bit higher than, the one connected to my aunt and uncle's. So, I wrote a letter addressed to the oldest girl (Josh's age) "from Josh". Her name was Laura, and I remember making the L like, all fancy, like from the beginning of a fairy tale (we had read a lot of Brother's Grimm while we were over there).

The letter "from Josh" consisted of how amazing and beautiful he thought she was. He finished off the letter with an "original" poem, just for her. It went like this:

I told the witch doctor I was in love with you.
And then the witch doctor, he told me what to do.
He said that Ooh, eee. Ooh, ah ah. Bing, bang, walla walla bing bang.
Ooh, eee. Ooh, ah, ah, bing bang walla walla bing bang.

On our last day in Germany I put the note in a plastic bag with a rock and threw it over onto their balcony.

Josh got a letter in the mail a week later, back at home in MI,  from Laura, saying it was the most beautiful poem she had ever read. Josh was confused.

And that was the last time I was in Europe. I remember crying when I left saying I wanted to live in Germany forever!

I'm really excited for this trip. We're planning to go some time in mid-September, for 3 or 4 weeks. Yay!!!

We went to the post office to get my passport all taken care of. The Hollywood Post Office is an eccentric one. There are always long lines with interesting people and some post office workers who seem to be doing this job because they are forced to. Anyway, I went to the designated passport line, and I had all of my passport papers in my hand. I walked up to the lady and she started staring at the papers in my hand like I was holding a jar with guts in it or something. Her eyes were all bugging out and she was all paralyzed. So I smile and tell her why I'm there, fully knowing that she's going to give me some reason why she can't help me. Not taking her eyes off my papers she's like "No... no, you have to go way down there", and points to some other random window that is not designated as the passport line. But it worked out fine, because the lady at the non-designated passport line was super nice.

It was so hot, like 100 + degrees, and they had this huge, loud, industrial fan right next to the passport photo taking section. So basically they had me sit on a stool, in front of a white backround, next to an industrial fan. So the fan and I were preparing to have our picture taken, and she's like, saying something, but I can't hear her because the fan is trying to cool off the entire Post Office, and that requires some hard work and noise. So she yells "look here!", pointing to the side of the camera (instead of right at the camera), which I thought was weird. Then she was giving me more direction and the fan was being too loud and the next couple minutes were bascially the lady trying to talk to me and her moving her hand in a way that made no sense communication wise, and me smiling for the pic and yelling "what? what?".

Finally the picture was taken. Yay! It looks like right as the picture was taken someone that I knew came in and I looked off to the side. And it looks like I'm wearing blue eye liner. And I'm really shiny. But remember, it was really hot that day. All that said, it's actually not that bad as far as passport pictures go.