My Eastern Europe Debut...

Chels and I decided we would be so sad leaving America from Christmas break that we needed to have something to look forward to right when we got back. So thanks to a last minute travel deal, last weekend we were off to Prague for one last getaway before the onslaught of busy season.

Our "travel deal" involved flying an airline that allowed ONE carry on (as in, no purse if you have a roller suitcase). Yeah, that was fun finding out upon check in. Let's just say I ended up putting on a couple of shirts and 3 scarfs just to get my boarding pass.

We were so excited to see our room!!!! So nice (for Europe)... and for what we paid haha.

Homemade iced tea from the hotel restaurant. Except that it wasn't.

Day 1 waiting for the tram...

Rick Steves... I never leave home without him.

It was so cloudy and foggy the whole time we were there... these were the best aerial shots I could get.

At the top of the hill near the castle entrance...

Castle entrance...

Pretty cathedral in the castle quarters (Mom, notice the footwear :))

One of the highlights of the trip was the toy museum... this is the first Barbie ever made! They had barbies from all throughout the years... Kates you would've loved this. Except they had all their limbs and clothes on so you might not have recognized them.

Loving the decor of our lunch restaurant... 

Expensive lunch! Not really - that is only 25 bucks.

This is what EVERYONE wears there!!! Floor length mink coats and hats... so hideous.

Views from the famous Charles bridge...

"Old town"

When in Rome...

We were laughing at the dead give-away we were American tourists. White tennis shoes. LOL

We hit up a string quartet concert one evening.
Low point: they ruined my favorite piece by playing it 5 times too fast
High point: I'm pretty sure they played the theme song to Aladdin's flying carpet level from old school Super Nintendo

Chicken dinner. Tasted like a rubber ball.

Spent Sunday visiting the Jewish quarter in town. This was one of the cemeteries

Chels at one of the synagogues...

Coffee break!

 My fave synagogue of the day... it was pretty inside.

Good girl trying the local cuisine...

Bad girl sticking with tried and true pasta...

Metro!! It was so clean!! Loved our Prague "tube" experience.

Communist building in the center of town.

Story. of. the. trip. Reading to Chels all the live long day. But I hate not knowing what I'm looking at, and audio tour guides/guided tours are so not my thing!

New town.

Our trusty tram... spent a lot of time on these!

 
Last day... on the bus to Terezin (concentration camp 1 hour outside of Prague)

So, we may have missed the stop. Had a nice little stroll backtracking to Terezin after making the bus driver pull over on the highway in the middle of no where to let us out. Haha, Dad, forget you read that part.

We walked so much that day... not really sure how happy I was at this moment to be in the boonies of Czechoslovakia...

Terezin town center...

Inside the camp. A very sobering afternoon.

These sinks were built to fool the Red Cross during their mandatory visit to the camp (they were sent to inspect the conditions the Jews were being kept in). But it's all fake - the sinks aren't even hooked up to plumbing.

This is where they took group showers... their purpose with this was to get the Jews comfortable with group showers so they wouldn't resist when led into the gas chambers. So. Sad.

Back on the bus to headed Prague. We were pretty excited about this.

And it wouldn't be right to not include the next picture. Our super cool "deal" meant that we had to fly during non-peak times. We were scheduled to leave at 10pm, but that definitely didn't happen. This sums up how we felt about killing time in the Praha airport until 1am...

All in all - a great trip! But I can't help but think of Prague as a sad place. Everyone is so unfriendly and the whole town just feels oppressive. To quote Allison... it's probably remnants of being under Soviet rule... "you don't just bounce back from something like that" HAHAHA! Well said!

Ok, I'm signing off. Goodbye for a while... my first busy season London-style awaits... if you need me, call me at the office!

Heaven on Earth

Christmas vacation in Florida is my favorite 10 days out of the year... a week and a half of laying out in the sun and caching up with family was just what the doctor ordered (this year particularly more than others). Here are a few pictures from 2010's little piece of heaven:

Pool/beach view from our room...

Grocery shopping for Christmas dinner... Dad's classic annoyed face caught on camera. This might have been after I sent him back for smaller marshmallows.

Christmas morning at the hotel before heading to Grandma's...

Not the best, but it's the only family shot we got the whole time we were there...

Breakfast with the fam Christmas morning. My meal isn't what it looks like... so don't judge.

Mom and Grandma with Grandpa's old Christmas aprons... but this is the closest Grandma got to the kitchen all day :)

Mom and me cooking Christmas lunch...

Grandma, Bodie, Aunt Beverly and Uncle Fred hanging out waiting to eat...

Waiting for Christmas lunch... happy camper (?) on Grandma's bed watching Star Wars!

Mom putting the finishing touches on the meal...

Post lunch nap/Lord of the Rings marathon.

LOL on many levels... can anyone spot the 12 year old (Al)? And we banished poor mom to the row behind to wage war against the wasps that were attacking us armed with nothing but the sunscreen spray bottle.

This is pretty much where you could find us all vacation long...

Our view all vacation long...

Celebrity sighting at the pool!!! The guy in the middle of the picture looking up at the kid is Peter Johnson Jr. from Fox News!

Pure happiness.

Katie and I love ruining Dad's attempts at a nice picture of the three of us.... Allison never gets the memo.

I know it's the blurriest picture ever, but just had to include because this is what consumed each night at Grandma's - Donkey Kong on Wii.

Met up with Allison's friends from Wheaton who live in Boca... such a cute little family (the newborn does have a head, we promise).

The countdown until next year has begun... 0 days down, 355 to go.