European Dream Vacation

Finally, at long last, I made it to Europe. My wonderful friend Richard invited me to go to his family reunion in Prague (where his mom lives.) It was everything a European dream vacation should be.

We spent a day and a half in Prague, which is GORGEOUS and cannot possibly be captured in pictures but here are a few:

me with the view at our restaurant

my favorite gate into Prague Castle (that guy on the ground is FREAKING OUT)

the large, beautiful cathedral inside Prague Castle

Then we spent about five days at Richard's family's country home about two hours outside of Prague. It was beautiful, and I felt like I woke up in paradise every day. I got to sit around and relax (Richard even put up a hammock just for me), and I learned to play tennis, discovered that I'm pretty good at Scrabble when I want to be, and went on a super long bike ride with Richard's mum. I don't know when I've been so relaxed!

view from front porch. gorgeous.

view of house. so pretty.

Then Richard, Henry (the brother), and I spent two days in Berlin, which was awesome. We got to see a good portion of the city and it was really impressive mix or old and new stuff. And I got to eat an authentic bratwurst (not pictured).

Brandenburger Tor was really cool. It was built as a tribute to the peace of the 18th century but then became a symbol of the Berlin wall AKA "a barricaded gateway to nowhere"

one of the parts of the wall that they keep up for tourists

Check Point Charlie

some totally awesome teeter-totters we happened upon. they were probably about 50 meters long. we need some in New York for serious


inside a really cool mall in Berlin

After Berlin, we headed back to Prague. Friday I spent wandering around Old Town by myself, just looking around and shopping. It was great!! So beautiful:

a self-portrait trying to show how pretty all the buildings are

a better picture of how pretty the buildings are. the amazing thing is that they're ALL like this. or prettier

I finally found a eurodog while there was no one there to stop me (Richard). I love hot dogs in all forms and really wanted to try this one. (It was a regular hot dog placed in a little hole in a roll.)

I saw the beloved Czech children's literary character Krtek shortly after I found and bought two of his books (they should have hired a native speaker to look over the translation, but they're still precious)

Saturday morning I went to the airport for home via a 7 hour layover in Copenhagen. I'm you will be as tickled as I was to discover that there is a bouncing castle designed like a plane in the Prague airport for the little kids to jump in. It was hard for me not to jump in myself:

Then off to Copenhagen. Yippee!! I was able to get two ancestral countries visited on one vacation. I had a lovely bike tour mapped out (bikes are HUGE in Denmark) but much to my dismay, I couldn't find a bike to rent. So I just walked around and saw some neat stuff. I'm excited to go back eventually with a bike.

I don't know what this is, but i thought it was very cool. Notice that there's some sort of maybe cat-like animal at the base of the spiral. Are their tails making the spiral?


Vor Frelser Kire (Our Savior's Church) was incredible. I was too tired to go up the spiral (90meters) but I think it was one of the nicest things I saw--so striking. Here's a close-up of the spiral for good measure:pretty cool, aye?

Then I went back to the airport and went home. And by home this time I mean my brand new apartment in New York (moved in like 5 days before we left). And thus ends an incredible European Dream Vacation.

The end.