Last day in Prague. Last day of our wonderful European tour!

Dancing building on the river.

Us with the Charles Bridge in the background.

Lennon Wall.

Ceremonial Hall in Jewish Quarter.

Charles Bridge behind Blake.

Miss Sophie's had a converter that works for our computer! Yay! So I will include a few photos from today!

Today was a lot of fun! We explored the Jewish Quarter, which was very interesting. We also saw the Lennon Wall, and the dancing building. I'll put up pictures when we get home. For now, we're going to have a nice dinner, and walk around Old Town Square one last time!

We leave Prague at 8:15 am tomorrow (Friday) to go to London. From there we catch a plane to Houston at 10:25 am. We should arrive in Houston at 2:35pm Friday. I can't believe our two weeks in Europe is practically over. It was truly amazing though, and I am ready to get home.

Love to all and see you soon! :)

A full day in Prague

Looking over the city of Prague after visiting the monastery!

Inside the Starhov Monastery library! Sorry the picture is kind of blurry. There were tons of people in there. It was really neat though. They had tons of really old books and Scripture from the 16th century!

What's left of a dodo bird. They are all extinct now, but the library had one on display. They lady tried to explain to us in Czech using a magazine article that it was killed in 1697!

Us in front of the St. Vitus Cathedral. It is amazing inside! One of the largest cathedrals in Europe!

Much love! We'll be home in two days! I can't believe it!

I'm running out of batteries on the computer so this is going to be a quick post-- mostly pictures! We really enjoyed Prague today. We spent most of our day at the Prague Castle and Starhov Monastery!

I don't think the Europeans got the memo...

So many people here smoke! It's amazing! They're all about being environmentally friendly, but they're not environmentally friendly to their own bodies. Not to mention, their cigarette butts cause tons of trash. Everywhere we have gone in Europe we have noticed this problem. I think the Brits are the best about it because it is not allowed in most pubs and restaurants. We end up sitting inside at a lot of restaurants because we don't want to smell smoke while we're eating. Today I saw a mother with her three year old. She had a cigarette in one hand and in the other her child's chicken nugget. She would take a puff of the cigarette, and then blow on her daughter's chicken nugget trying to cool it off for the little girl to eat. It was unbelieveable!

Other than that, we had a wonderful day exploring Prague! We just got back from a great Jazz club in Old Town Square. It's late so I'll write more tomorrow!

Love to all!

Prague or Dog?

Our hotel in Prague-- Miss Sophie's!!

Flower clock in Zurich. They seem to have one in every major Swiss city.
Relaxing at Lake Zurich.

I had to include a picture of Lola. This is here in Blake's suitcase before we left! We can't wait to see her on Friday!

The title of this post was the question was asked ourselves so many times this year. Do we want to go to Prague or get a dog? Well, we were blessed to be able to do both. We absolutely adore our little Lola bear, as most of you know, and right now I am sitting typing this post in Prague! The night train was interesting. No, Stephen, the night train did not include any night cheese, unfortunately (or forunately, if that night cheese was stinky).

Before getting on the night train at 10:40pm, we spent the day in Zurich killing time. We locked up 3 out of 4 of our bags and walked around the city. It was beautiful just like Holly Porter said it would be! We spent a lot of time sitting at the park gazing over the lake at the mountains. We ate a doner (turkish gyro?) and chocolate chip gelato for a snack. Then in the late evening we had dinner at the Movie Restaurant. The salads were awesome!

Finally, it was time to get on the train. Blake and I were both a little anxious about this new adventure. Who would be in the cabin with us? Would our stuff get stolen? Would we be able to sleep in the 14 hours on the train? So many questions. When we found our cabin, we noticed there were 6 beds. Three on each side, and we prefrenced the bottom bunks. Initially, there were supposed to be 5 people in there total! We were freaking out a little! One of our "cabin mates" who spoke fluent Italian, Swiss German, English, and a little Slovac convinced the train car operator to open up another cabin. Thank you, Lord! So we ended up with three people in our cabin. The other lady was very sweet and definitely not a threat at all. The ride was a little bumpy, and we stopped quite a few times, but we slept the best we could considering.
This morning we woke up and had bread and coffee for breakfast. Europeans love to eat bread! Also, no one had taken our things.

God has really blessed us since being in Prague so far. At the train station, some little girls gave us their metro passes for free even though we tried to pay them! Then we got to our hotel (Miss Sophie's)and found out they upgraded us to an apartment with a kitchen! I feel like throughout the trip our hotels have slowly gotten better. I am looking forward to our time here, and I will be sure to post since we have free wi-fi! :)

I'll put the pictures up later. We're going exploring for now! :)

A Lazy Day in Lucerne

My view during diner. Brilliant!

After our mini-hike!

Our view while hiking.

View from the park.

Today was laid back. We slept in a little, and woke up to a clear view of the mountains through out window. We walked around the lake for awhile. Then we ate lunch in the train station before getting some blueberry yogurt in freshly made waffle cones. Yum! As you can tell, food has been a mainstay thoughout our trip. Fortunately, we've been walking a lot. hehe. We took a bus to Kramerstein. Kramerstein is a beautiful public park that over looks Lake Lucerne. It surrounds the school I was at during my time here to study abroad. We sat looking over the lake for awhile. Then we took a very mini hike through the woods close by. It was lovely to just be together in such a beautiful place.

On our return to the city, we had a pretzel and sausage. Then we took a nap for awhile. We ate salads for dinner at a cafe two doors down from our hotel. They were very enjoyable! Dinner was followed by a stroll around the city. Now we are relaxing in our room again! Tomorrow we leave for Prague! We'll be taking a night train so that should be interesting.

Weekend Market, Lake Lucerne, Weeping Lions

The pictures post in backwards order--sorry! The weeping lion of Lucerne.

Blake in front of the church.

View from the steamboat.

Us at the dock on Lake Lucerne.

Flowers at the market!

Last night we had an amazing dinner with the Domenchek family. There house is BEAUTIFUL! It is very contemporary but warm, and it has a wonderful view of the lake through huge glass windows on the front of the house. The family was lovely, and we really enjoyed chatting with them. We got home late so I didn't have a chance to write last night again.



We awoke this morning to the sounds of the weekend market below. It is one of my favorite things about Lucerne because it is so quaint and wonderful that they bring out their finest flowers, veggies, cheeses, pasteries, and more for everyone to buy. There is also a bizarre on one side of the river. We sampled many items, and we ended up with two sausage links, two pastries, a basket of blueberries, and two tiny pigs for my collection. We really enjoyed it!



We grabbed two pretzel bread sandwiches on our way to the Lucerne Lake boat tour. It was a three hour tour of the lake, and it was absolutely stunning. We actually saw the Domenchek's house from the lake--very cool!



We walked around the church on the hill here called Horfergen, I think. Then we went to see the weeping lion of Lucerene. He makes me very sad as he is stabbed in the side and weeping. It commemorates the massacered Swiss guards from the French Revolution in 1792.



There is a festival going on here right now called the Blue Balls Festival so there are tons of different types of foods and crafts booths set up all around the lake. We got some Asian food for dinner at one of the booths. There are quite a few people here too. At night there will be concerts so we will go out later to enjoy those. Joss Stone, a singer who Blake really likes (I don't know here stuff that well), is playing tonight. Tickets are sold out though so unless we find some cheap on the street we probably won't go. It's neat to be in the music/artsy atmosphere though.



We bought a charger for the computer so that I can write, and Blake can charge his phone. The hotel is also close to a free wifi modem, so I will write tomorrow!

Kuh Schtyling

View from our hotel room at the Pickwick Hotel.
On the Kappel bridge you see above.

Last night we were watching German TV, and we ran across a show about kuh schtyling, which is cow grooming. The man they interviewed was a kuh schtylist, and his job is to cut and style and cow's hair. We had no idea what he was saying most of the time, but we died laughing every time we heard them say "kuh schtyling". Now it is a running joke whenever we see cows in the countryside.

Anyway, we are in Luzern, one of my favorite cities in the world. Our hotel is actually right above a pub and looks out over the Kappel bridge. It's an amazing view! The only draw back is we're sharing a bathroom. We haven't seen many people though, so it should be okay.

We're getting ready to go eat with Anna (my buddy from when I was here two summers ago) and her family at her house! I'm very excited! I'll try to write more later and post pictures!

Love love love!!!

Lausanne--unbelievable

Lausanne from the train going to Lucerne.

They have a flower clock here similar to the one in Geneva.

It's hard to see the mountains beyond the fog, but it's beautiful in person.

Lausanne, Switzerland is unbelievable! This morning ate some peanut butter on toast (we brought the peanut butter from home, and bought the toasted crackers at the supermarket). Then we took the metro to the train station. Our train was right on time, and everything went smoothly. The scenery was beautiful. We walked around the city today in awe. It started raining so we ran into a little cafe for dinner. Conicidentally, it was a hamburger joint. By hamburger, it meant ground beef on French bread. hah. It was good though. Our hotel has free wifi, but our computer is running out of battery. I'll try to write more if I can later. If not, I will tomorrow?

Love to all! Thanks for the comments! Love it!

Escargot, Crepes, and Crossaints--Oooh La La

Finally figuring out how to eat the escargot!

Eating our crepes! Yum!
Us in front of the church.
Us in the dome at the top of Sacre Coure
Blake at the bottom of Sacre Coure

We have definitely enjoyed our time in Paris! When we arrived in Paris we ate a very French lunch. Blake had some kind of chicken neck (we ordered blindly because we couldn't read the menu and the waitress didn't speak English--literally poinbted to an item) that tasted so delicious. His order also included chocolate mousse-- so good! I ordered escargot. Yes, that is snails. I was thinking they would serve it the way my Dad and I order them in Houston where they pull out the meat and put it in a basically a pastry. Not the case in Paris. The waitress brought out 6 complete snail shells and some spring-loaded tongs. I could NOT figure out how to use the tongs to get the meat. I was so embarrassed and frustrated. Finally, I found a little pick under the plate. Ah-ha! Grab the shell with the tongs and use the pick to pull out the meat. Brilliant! Took me awhile though. Blake thought it was quite funny to watch and had no idea how to help. After we checked into the hotel (we had to wait until 2pm), we bought a bus pass for two days. It was a hop on, hop off deal. It took us all over the city. During the afternoon we climbed to the top of a hill to see the beautiful Sacre Coure cathedral. It was amazing inside, and we also climbed to the very top of the dome. The view was beautiful--probably the highest point in Paris. We walked through the streets of Paris, and eventually found a place for a very fresh seafood salad for dinner.

This morning we had chocolate filled croissants (sp?) for breakfast. Then we hopped on the train and made our way to La Madeleine Cathedral. They had some amazing modern art inside. AFter that, we hung out around the Louvre (we didn't actually go inside. We'll have to save that for another trip), and walked through the surrounding gardens. It was beautiful! Throughout the afternoon was saw various famous Parisian sights such as the Arch de Triomphe, Notre Dame, Jardin de Palais Royal and many others. We grabbed bagette sandwiches, and followed them with crepes filled with granulated sugar and nutella! Yum!

Tomorrow we're catching the train to Geneva, and we're staying in Lausanne! I'm excited to be in Switzerland again, and I know Blake is looking forward to it as well!

Love to all!

Last Day in London! Now we're off to Paris!

Today was a lot of fun! We started out at the Tower of London where we saw the Crown Jewels (amazing) and an exhibit on Henry VIII. It's the 500 year anniversary of the beginning of his reign. After that we check out the inside of Westmister Abbey. On our way in we found out that it is 15 pounds for each of us to get in. We were stunned by the price! I know it has gone up significantly since I was here two years ago! It's still one of my favorite places to visit in London though. I think Blake enjoyed it too. Our last stop of the day was the Benjamin Franklin House. It was very anticlimactic. I wouldn't recommend it to first time visitors to London becuase it doesn't really tell you anything new or interesting. Now we are off to bed so we can get up and catch the train to Paris!

London is great, free wi-fi hard to find

Sorry it has taken so long to post! Free wi-fi has been very difficult to come by, but we finally found a McDonald's close by that has it! Yay! We're having a wonderful time although jet-lag makes it very difficult to get up the morning! The first day we got here we wondered around like zombies looking at some of the sights, but we were really too late to get into anythiing. Saturday we took a tour bus with a tour guide to Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge. Windsor Castle was beautiful! Bath is a quaint little town. Stonehenge would have been a lot cooler, but the bus driver had to turn around literally 5 times including backing the bus half way down a tiny street in Bath. By the time we got to Stonehenge, it was closed. Fortunately, we were able to see it from outside the fence. Yesterday, we enjoyed Green Park, Buckingham Palace, Wellington Arch, and walking around the edge of the River Thames. We also bowled with our free bowling pass at Namco, which is kind of like Main Event. We thought it was quite hilarious that we were bowling in London, of all things, but the free wi-fi lured us there. Unfortunately, I didn't have the computer, just Blake's phone. Today is our last day in London so we're packing it in. I'll have to post pictures later because we've got to get going. Love to all!

Time to fly!!

I didn't think I would use this blog again for a very long time, but Blake and I are two days away from leaving for Europe again! I am so excited to experience traveling together in Europe! I know we're going to have a great time and take lots of pictures! We're bringing a tiny laptop so hopefully we'll be able to keep everyone up to date on our activities! Tomorrow I will try to post our approximate itinerary!