Portland was amazing!

We've had a wonderful time in Portland. I will be adding more details and pictures very soon.

Portland, OR here we come!

This week we will be traveling to Portland, Oregon. We are excited and have heard lots of great things about this city! I've been doing some research and these are some great sites I recommend to anyone who is preparing a trip to Portland.

Design*Sponge is a great blog to use as a resource for any trip you're going to take. Check out the city guide on Portland. Also, look at the comments below on the website to get some more insider information.

Sunset also recommends the hotel where we will be staying.

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.