Les Secrets

Today mom and I went to Le Musée Les Secrets du Chocolat, and what a secret it is...it's destination, at least.
We attempted to go yesterday by bike...and failed extravagantly at trying to find our way. At least we got a good work out from that whole experience.
Last night, when my dad got back from work, my mom and him went out in the car to try and find it, so that not only would we know how to get there, but my mom would have gotten in some practice driving.

We made it successfully today (successfully as in we didn't die...barely). Just as we were pulling in, a bus full of british school kids was unloading. So when we went in, we were able to watch the beginning video in english with them. The video was quite humorous, being narrated by Chocolate, and the high schoolers were giggling all around us. It was nice to sit there and think about the fact that I never have to return to Forest Hills Eastern High School ever again! Especially if they are keeping teachers like Glover in there midst...yikes...
After the video we walked through rooms where they had little exhibits set up with slightly creepy moving mechanical people and explanations about chocolates past. We learned how cacao goes from bean, to velvety smooth pools of rich, swirling deliciousness. Did you know that the beans are actually white when they come out of the pod? I thought that was curious. We also learned that cacao PREVENTS cavities!
At the end, they have a demonstration room, and the woman was still there, having just finished giving the high schoolers a demo. So she gave my mom and I our very own show. It was cool, she showed us how they do molds and things. My mom learned how to make the chocolate we cover our famous sea foam in shiny and smooth, rather than with white scuff marks. She also explained how they make each different chocolate; white, milk and dark. White chocolate doesn't actually have cacao in it, it has the cacao butter extracted from the beans which is white, and that's why it isn't brown like the others. White chocolate is cacao butter, milk, and sugar. Milk and dark are different only because the amount of cacao powder and sugar. Milk has more sugar and less cacao...which is why dark chocolate is better for you. Less sugar.
Then we wandered through their store. I got a bag of hot chocolate (can't wait to try this!), and a little bathroom kit with chocolate scented lotion, body soap, and oil! I'm gonna smell like chocolate! Yum! My mom got a bag of chocolate tea, and an oil kit with chocolate oil scents. So now our house here will smell like chocolate too. We also each got a bag of little mini chocolate bars with our tickets. They have dark (chocolat noir or black chocolate is what they call it here), milk and white chocolate.
They also had a salon de thé (a tea room) where they sold drinks, and chocolate fondue. The whole room was decorated in dark blue and sea foam green...It put a smile on my face.
A very happy day! (Especially since I got to hear my mother drop a few choice swear words after taking a wrong turn...never heard her say the 'f' word before!)

Europa Park

Went to the coolest amusement park ever with Justine and her parents. It's called Europa Park. It's in Germany, about an hour from where we are living.
The park is divided into different countries; Germany, England, Holland, Russia, Scandinavia, Austria, Iceland, Italy, France, Greece, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. Each country is actually designed to look like the actual country. It was the coolest thing ever. The park was also all decorated for Halloween. There were hundreds of pumpkins...EVERYWEHRE! There were so many of them. And all the areas where you wait to get onto a ride were all decorated. It must have taken A LOT of work to get the entire park all decorated like that.
The first thing we went on was a haunted house kinda thing. You sit in a car with one other person and it takes you through a haunted house. It was cool. The beginning was the coolest. You wait in line, and then you are all shuffled into a room, where they try and scare you and the room moves down and then opens the doors to the area where you get onto the spinning car things.
Next we went to a roller coaster that was inside, so it was all dark. It was in what is normally just a giant ball, like the one at Epcot in Disney. But for halloween, they had it covered in fabric to look like a giant pumpkin.
After that roller-coaster, we rode  the Silver Star. It's one of the bigger coasters in the park and was super fun. The waiting line takes you through a mercedes building. So my dad was entertained while we waited to get on.

We rode a few other coasters and a couple water rides. The water rides were fun, because you didn't get completely drenched. Which was good because it was cold out, and we would have been really cold if we'd gotten any wetter.
In Iceland, they just built a new roller-coaster called Blue Fire. It's super fast and has a ton of twists and turns. My dad, mom and I all went on it. Justine had gone on all the other rides with us, her mom went on the smaller coasters, and her dad only went on the non-coaster rides. Justine said she wasn't sure if she wanted to go on it. She said she didn't like the loops, so she skipped this one.
I think, of the day, my favorite ride was a coaster that wrapped around these cool mirror covered buildings. You get onto the ride at the bottom of one of the buildings, inside, and it goes around and around and around on the inside of the building. The cars also spin, so as the coaster is coiling up to the top, the cars are also spinning.
Then, you get to the top, and you are VERY high up, and the coaster goes and you drop and spin and circle three buildings. The ride itself was a lot of fun, but the part I liked best was my mom's face. This is what made it my favorite ride.
My mom is afraid of heights. And this is one of those rides where your sitting in the car and you can't see the tracks at all, so you just feel like your in open air. She was freaking out. Her face was PRICELESS. When we got off, she just kept saying it was the scariest thing she'd ever done.
Justine and I laughed from the moment we got on the ride, and continued to laugh after we got off. We just couldn't get the look on my mom's face out of our heads...it was too funny.
We ended the day at a restaurant on our way home that Justine's parents said had the best tarte flambée. And they were right!

I might have turned 20, but I'm still 2 at heart

Off to the zoo for my birthday!
Woke up bright and early, and drove to Amnéville to go to the aquarium and zoo. When we got to the area that they are located in, we discovered a very interesting thing. They were in a touristique area. And there was a bunch of things there. An imax, an ice skating rink, a skiing place (we weren't sure how that worked), restaurants, and all sorts of other fun places.
The aquarium was a bit of a bust...tiny, and a lot of the animals were missing...
But the zoo was AWESOME...and expensive. Happy Birthday to me!

The zoo has something like over 2,000 animals in it. And there a bunch of babies born there every year! We saw a baby hippo, white leopard, wallaby, and many other youngsters that had been born in 2009.

But the best part, was the spectacle de rapaces (raptor spectacle). Oh. My. Goodness. Call me medieval, but it was hyper-cool.
It started with two guys riding out on horses, and then two people came out with hawks on their arms and they flew to the guys on horses. They did all kinds of awesome stuff. They had hawks, falcons, eagles, owls, even vultures!
They did some tricks. One with a guy on horseback swinging a weather pouch around his head and the bird (never can tell the difference between the falcons, golden eagles, and hawks) would dive at it. The trick was that the man was able to catch the bird with it, by having wrapped the string around it's ankles. It didn't hurt the bird, it's not like it went crashing to the ground. It just flew down and landed, and waited patiently for a trainer to come over and pick him up.
Another trick they did was with a guy on horseback pulling a canvas bag behind the horse, and two trainers let two birds go and they dove at it. It was awesome to watch.
They had birds flying all over the arena. They would fly from the middle of the arena, to the wooden walkway above, just a foot from your head.
At one point, one of these massive birds, called a Sea Eagle, was flying up to the wooden railing above the stands, and didn't quite get a good grip on the railing, ended up falling backwards and in the process of catching himself from falling, he landed, literally, on a woman's back sitting in the stands. Not only is this bird MASSIVE with a very big yellow beak, but it has huge talons.
The woman was perfectly fine. She just laughed it off. Especially since the bird hopped off, and was now standing on the bleachers along with the audience. He bounced around for a bit, nibbled at an old woman's shoe, all the while looking around and listening for his trainer to call him. It was hilarious. The best part about it, was that this was all happening two feet away from where my parents and I were sitting.
They also brought out owls. Which was a really cool part. The owls were never out at the same time as the other birds...and we think we glimpsed a moment of why that is.
One of the owls had flown over and was perched by one of the entrances into the arena, and the trainer made his way across the opposite side of the arena and called for him to come over. But the owl was too distracted. He was watching a free bird off in the distance, flying around. He kept looking at the trainer, shifting his weight, and then looking back up at the other bird. He sat there for quite some time. The trainer actually started to walk back across the arena, stopping every so often to attempt to the get the owl's attention. But he was too intent on the other bird. I think he wanted to go after it. But my mom thinks he might have been afraid of it. We aren't sure. But in the end, the trainer finally got the owl to come to him (a whole five feet away).
The "grand finale" of sorts for this show, was that they brought out basically all the birds and had them flying all over the place. It was so awesome. The guys on horseback were also throwing slim bits of meat into the air and the birds would dive and catch them. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

After this, we wandered over to the sea lions and saw a quick show with them and seals. Then there was supposed to be a spectacle with the tigers. And after having seen such an awesome hawking thing, my imagination was running away with itself as to what they would do with the tigers. Unfortunately, the only thing they did was talk about it (in very rapid french) and throw chunks of meat into the exhibit. The tiger was just sorta stalking around, and wasn't all that interested in the meat. So we decided it was time to go home.

This was one of the coolest birthdays! And sunday I got to go to an amusement park and ride Europe's biggest rollercoaster! I'm confused now...did I turn 20, or 10 again? :D