Prague

For the Veteran's Day weekend, we headed off with some friends to explore yet another new city.  Prague is a wonderful place, very lively and full of beautiful architecture.  Despite the chilly weather, we had a great time taking in all the sights.

Charles Bridge and the Castle

Prague has the best street performers by far

St. Vitus Cathedral

A cute little building on the Golden Lane, which is part of the Castle

Astronomical Clock

An early morning along the river

Dawn on the Charles Bridge

Sunrise from the Charles Bridge

A trdelnik, which is a delicious pastry made by wrapping a sweet dough around a stick, roasting it over hot coals, and then rolling in sugar, cinnamon, and nuts.  We fondly referred to these as "turdles," and they pretty much fueled our entire weekend.

The three of us, with Charles Bridge in the background

A Baby Shower

Last week, my bestie Jessica threw me a fabulous baby shower with all of my closest friends here in Italy.  The afternoon tea theme perfectly fit the dreary, rainy day as we spent several hours sipping tea, opening gifts, and celebrating little Baby Bwick.  

"Baby Love" cupcakes

Lots of yummy treats

Many kinds of tea to choose from

Gorgeous flower arrangements

The adorable favors

I can't wait to read to the baby!

Guessing the size of my belly

Beautiful wishes for the baby

This baby is already so loved.  Thanks for the awesome shower Jessica!

Cinque Torri

While trying to prolong our Labor Day trip as long as possible, we took the long way driving home and stopped at a few other interesting spots before leaving the mountains.  One of these was Cinque Torri, a group of five rock towers.  Nowadays, this area is popular for skiing in the winter and hiking and rock climbing in the summer.  During WWI however, this was the site of some harsh battles between the Italian and Austrian troops.  Many of the structures built by the Italian army have been reconstructed into a museum of sorts.  We spent a couple hours walking around, with Donovan lamenting his lack of climbing gear the whole time.  Luckily it's close enough that we can easily come back next summer.

A Weekend in the Mountains

One of these days, I'll get the hang of posting about things in a timely manner and not four weeks later.  

Over the Labor Day weekend we headed north to the Dolomites.  These mountains are a favorite hangout of ours, especially for skiing, but this time we enjoyed the end of summer with some hiking.  The weather was perfect, the views were incredible, and Baby B climbed his first mountain (with momma doing all the work).

It looks deceiving, but I promise mine is apple juice

Road Trip to Germany: Part IV

I have one more post on Germany before I get on to some new things (fun news, weekend trip to the mountains, etc.)  Technically this post isn't even about Germany, but rather Austria.  After dropping the guys off to finish up their training, Jessica and I took the long way home through Salzburg.  What we really wanted to do was find a meadow and sing every song from The Sound of Music, but we settled for walking through the downtown area and touring the castle.

Road Trip to Germany: Part III

For our main sightseeing event in Nuremberg, we went to the Nazi rally grounds. We could have fit more sightseeing into the day, but the guys (who are experts at land navigation and certainly know how to read a map) led us in the completely opposite direction.  So what was supposed to be a quick subway ride turned into a subway ride, an hour of wandering through a random park wondering where in the world we were, asking a very nice lady (who spoke no English) for directions, eventually realizing we were in the wrong part of town, another subway ride, and finally a tram ride to the rally grounds.  All part of the adventure, and we had a nice little tour of the city along the way.

The rally grounds are actually quite extensive, although a lot has been destroyed or covered over.  We only looked at the Congress Hall, which was designed to hold 50,000 people.  It's a huge structure, and even though it was never finished, it is a powerful reminder of the events that took place.

With all the walking, not to mention all the extra walking we had done through random parts of the city earlier, we were more than ready for a lunch break.  Obviously, this meant bratwursts.  I got mine with the most delicious potato salad ever made, while Donovan chose the sauerkraut (and then sneaked bites of potato salad off my plate).

After we refueled, the guys decided it would be a good idea to round out our sightseeing excursion by paddle-boating around the lake.  Once out on the water though, we realized paddle-boating is actually sort of boring, but we did get some nice views of the outside of the Congress Hall (which is much nicer to look at than the inside) and some cute duck families.  Not the worst way to spend half an hour.