adventures in europe

Yes, dearest readers, I had spent some time gallivanting around a small portion of Europe! Although as lovely as Europe was, it was really cold and cloudy most of the time, which, I think, took away from the beauty a bit as a lot of the time I caught myself wishing to be at a warm beach. Our bones were made for the sunny beach, not the winter's biting winds.
 
Also, and I mean this in the best way possible, my parents were more interested in churches and architecture than the other three who tagged along, but we had a very nice time nonetheless. But I think next time I could survive crowds just to go in the summertime, and eat more gelato.

First off, we had to fly up to Maryland and spend a night before catching our flight to Germany, where we would meet our sister-in-law and her two boys. So we hopped on a train and spent a day in Washington, D.C., and looked around a few museums.
 

We arrived in Baumholder, Germany safe and sound. The day after we arrived, we went down to a town called Heidelburg for the afternoon with the sister-in-law.

 Next after Baumholder was the real destination: Amsterdam, the Netherlands. My dad was teaching at a small seminary there for only a day, but we got there earlier so we could run around Amsterdam (which was the coldest out of all the places we went!). There were people from all over at the seminary- New Zealand, Philadelphia, to name a few. 
 I didn't take any pictures in Amsterdam (so shoot me. I actually didn't take many pictures at all while in Europe...shameful...) so we'll move on to our next stop.

Prague, Czech Republic. I think this was my favorite place. Every night we would go to the Old Town Square and get chocolate crepes and a pastry called trdelnik (pronounced tra-del-nik), which was covered in cinnamon and baked over hot coals.
During the day, we wandered around the rest of Prague and explored whatever caught our fancy.

 Then we flew back to Germany to spend our last days with our brother,  who had just come back from a 9 month tour in  Kuwait. Our sister-in-law was absolutely glowing when we came back.

 And then, onward to the States! We had spent a lovely time in Europe, but were exceedingly happy to be going back to the sunshine and heat. I spent my last few moments spending crowns on coke, partly because crowns look super cool and sound pretty cool.

 We had to stop in Charleston, SC before continuing all the way home in a rental car, but we didn't mind. The weather was beautiful and Charleston was very pretty.

And finally, we were home. Time spent away from the States meant that I didn't get as much access to the internet, which gave me plenty of time to read a book called 'Unbroken' (which is absolutely amazing, I totally recommend it. Check it out) and plenty of time to think.

I missed all y'all and your lovely comments, and I'm happy to be back in sunshine! (and hey, since I've been back, I've posted twice! That has to be some kind of record for the past two months...)

Savo'lass a lalaith,

-The Writer