Top Ten Things I Did With You

Dear Lilly

Since this tour of Europe I’m taking with my mom (I can’t believe she won this trip, I’m still a little worried it’s a scam.) marks pretty much the first thing  I’ve done without you since we met in 5^th grade, I made a top ten list. Unlike our other lists about songs and movies, this one I did by myself, and this one's about us. I hope you like it.

Love,

Your best friend, Sarah

Top Ten Things I Did With You

#10 Going fishing in a row boat that we had to row ourselves. (Even though rowing isn’t really our forte.)

#9 Running away from what we thought was a bear. (Even though it was really scary at the time, it turned out to be really funny once we found out it was just a dog.)

#8 Playing Baseball in the park, with those random people. (You, my one and only teammate, were the best. We so would have won if that ball hadn’t hit you in the face and you had to go to the hospital.)

#7 Going snowboarding. (I felt so bad when you twisted your ankle and couldn’t walk for a week. But it was pretty fun before that.)

#6 That one time the kite got stuck in the tree and I went up to get it, and I got stuck and then you went up to get me, and you got stuck and we had to wait for your dad to get home. (We had a good talk about how the people who make up the rules of sports are either very creative, or slightly insane.)

#5 Swimming in the ocean. (Until you stepped on that sea urchin, but at least it got better relatively quickly.)

#4 Buying a puppy. (It was so nice of you guys to let me come with you when you bought your puppy, all those puppies almost gave me a cuteness overload. And then when you went with me when my family bought our puppy, we came full circle.)

#3 Finding an abandoned duckling and adopting it. (Harrison the Duck should be grateful to have you as an Aunt.)

#2 Laughing. (I laugh so much with you, even when I want cry you make me laugh. Thanks for being funny. )

#1 Everything. (I couldn’t pick just ten, everything we’ve done has been awesome.)

3 months later

Sarah’s Top Ten Favorite Places To Visit In Europe

(Written on the plane ride home.)

Note to Lilly, I’ve only been to number four, the rest are just countries I thought of off  the top of my head, or want to visit .

#10 England. (It was a very cool place to visit, it rained A LOT. Mom almost killed us when she started driving on the right hand side of the road, after that we stopped with the rental cars and just took the bus. Dad tried to make one of the palace guards laugh and he (the guard not my dad) started doing some drill thing with his gun, and scared the living heck out of us!)

#9 Scotland. (A very pretty place, The Edinburgh Castle was so very awesome. And no one made me try haggis so … A++)

#8 Ireland. (Was also extremely rainy, but beautiful. It was very green. We went to Berlin, I wanted to go to the small island of Sneem, but my parents said no. The Berlin Castle and Kilmainham Gaol, were some of the awesomest places.)

#7 Germany. (We went to Berlin. Even though I wanted to visit Hamburg, the home of the Hamburger. But I can’t say I was disappointed, Berlin was amazing. The Brandenburg Gate was so awesome, and I think that you would have loved Museum Island and the German Historical Museum, Lills.)

#6 Italy. (Italia! The home of my ancestors … if you go back far enough. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is not a precariously balanced tower of Pizza as I originally assumed. Kidding! I didn’t really think that, it was super awesome, we got pictures of all of us pretending to hold it up. The Piazza Del Duomo itself, is a slightly imposing but super incredible building. And the food was so delicious, I think I gained 20 pounds.)

#5 France. (Ah, Paris est magnifique! However, my dad did not want to wait in line to get tickets to the elevator at the Eiffel tower, so we took the stairs … I think I caught asthma on the way up. But the view was quite breathtaking. And the food! I think we stopped at every patisserie we could find. Eclairs are better in their natural habitat.)

#4 Spain. (Spain has some of the coolest buildings I have ever seen, *cough* The Plaza De Cibeles*cough* plus the Mediterranean Ocean is sooo beautiful!)

#3 Belgium. (The home of Hercule Poirot! Need I say more? The Grand Place and Place Royale are pretty spectacular.)

#2 Poland. (Krakow and Warsaw seem nice and very pretty. Try Kielbasa!  You can even go visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp if you want a depressing outlook into some of the horrors of ww2)

#1 The Netherlands. (Amsterdam seems pretty beautiful, go visit the Van Gogh Museum, or the Rijksmuseum, or maybe The Anne Frank House.)

Lilly and Sarah's  Top Ten Movies

Lilly in bold, Sarah in italics.

#10 The Great Outdoors (Gah! This movie was so funny. Oh, yes hilarious! I personally feel that the Cammie/Buck thing was unnecessary, but other than that this movie was practically perfect. That poor guy who got struck by lightning 96 times in the head!  Wasn’t it 97 by the time the movie ended? That is very true Lilly, I stand corrected.)

#9 Return To Me (It was sooo depressing at the beginning! But then it got funny. I love her grandpa and his friends. I wish I worked at an Irish Italian restaurant.)

#8 Overboard (I love this movie!  Except for Goldie Hawn's weird bathing suits, this movie awesomely awesome .)

#7 His Girl Friday. (Classic! So hilarious!  You gotta love Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, their banter is awesome.)

#6 Rio Lobo (John Wayne. Need we say more?)

#5 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (While we’re on John Wayne movies, how could we forget this one?  This movie was so depressing, but a very good one.)

#4 Happy Feet (Happy Feet?! Are you insane? That movie was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen! Well, I liked it!)

#3 The Goonies (Goonies never say die! Ahhh, another classic! Right down to Brand's weird 80s workout clothes. That turned out to be very practical on their adventure. We won’t talk about how Andy didn’t know if it was A sharp or B flat, even though those are the same key.)

#2 How to Train Your Dragon (The first one. This movie began my obsession with dragons, and my strong desire to ride one. Our dream is to one day open a Dragon Theme Park, so we can.)

#1 Star Wars (The entire franchise! Except for the prequels and the sequels. Well, maybe just the original trilogy. And maybe Solo. It's Star Wars! Need we say more?  I don’t think we do.)

*Note from the author: I have never actually been to any of the countries Sarah went to. So I apologize if I got some, or all of it wrong.