Birthday Shout Out

Happy Sweet 16 to my baby brother, Tom!

 

 

 

 

Bon anniversaire à moi!

I was lucky enough to spend a long weekend in Paris to celebrate my 23rd birthday.  Paris is a city that I’ve wanted to go to for as long as I can remember so it was literally a dream come true.  I met Natalie and her friend Margot there after they spent the week traveling the south of France.  We spent the first day seeing all the sights and having a picnic for dinner at the Eiffel Tower.  On the second day, Margot left to go back to DC and Natalie and I spent the day at Versailles.  After we returned to Paris, we toured the Sainte Chapelle.  Sainte Chapelle was built by Louis IX (the only French king to become a saint) to house the relics of the Passion of Christ.  The church is famous for its 15 stained glass windows that tell the story of mankind from Genesis through to Christ’s resurrection.  We treated ourselves to a nice dinner to celebrate my birthday and Natalie’s last night in Europe.  On our last day we planned to visit a museum but as it turns out all the museums in Paris are closed on Mondays.  Oops!  So we walked around and treated ourselves to some macaroons and visited other important sights such as the House of Chanel.  Here are some photo highlights but many more can be found on Picasa.

Versailles

Sainte Chapelle

macaroons!

School in Nature

View of the Sumava Mountains

In Czech Republic, it is customary for schools to take week long trips twice a year.  Once in the winter to go skiing and once in the spring before school ends.  Known as “školu v přírodě” in Czech, it literally translates to school in nature.  Earlier this month, my school spent a week in the nature for its spring trip.  Twenty kids from the school went and we left Monday morning and arrived back in Prague on Friday afternoon.  We were lucky enough to have decent weather the whole week.  We went on a a day trip to a play area complete with a teepee for the kids to play in and another trip to a castle.  We also had a carnival complete with a pinata and costumes. Here are some photo highlights from the week!

Sofie and Petr ready for bed!

All the kids in front of the teepee

Velhratice Hrad - the castle we visited

Princesses ready for the carnival

Boys ready for the carnival

Visits from Home

At the end of May, I had my very first visitor here in Prague!  My friend Rachel was spending a week in Italy with her family and decided to travel to Prague afterwards to visit.  We had a great week and she was able to see everything in Prague.  We celebrated her birthday and I was able to take some time off work to do some things that I hadn’t yet had a chance to do in Prague.  Here are some photo highlights from our week!

at Prague Castle

Beautiful white peacock at Wallenstein Gardens

Old Jewish Cemetery

Rachel and her birthday carrot cake

 

Field Trip to the Zoo

Last month, we took all the kids to the zoo for the day.  We were lucky enough to have nice weather and the kids had an excellent time! Here are some photo highlights.

On the bus ready to go!

Petr loved the penguins!

Acting like tigers

All the kids!

Český ráj

Český ráj which literally translates to Bohemian Paradise is a national park in Czech Republic and is considered by many Czechs “the most beautiful nature in all of the Czech.”  Located in northern Czech Republic, it is famous for its many sandstone rock formations and castles.  Natalie and I took a day trip to hike from one end of the park to the other which took a little over 6 hours.  Despite a thunderstorm and slightly getting loss (the trail is marked but the trail markers are not so obvious), it was beautiful day and a wonderful way to get out of the city.  Here are some highlights, but there are more pictures on Picasa.

The not so helpful trail markers.

Trosky Castle

Mother Nature's attempt to ruin our Cesky Raj experience.

Rock formations

¡Feliz cumpleaños a Natalie!

Port Vell

In celebration of Natalie’s 100 seasons birthday (aka 25) we traveled to Barcelona for the weekend.  Barcelona has been a place that I’ve wanted to visit for a very long time and after some minor delays with our flight we finally made it.  We had perfect weather the entire weekend and we were able to see everything we wanted to see.  We visited Sagrada Familia and La Pedrera, both works of Antonio Gaudi.  We spent hours in Park Guell enjoying the sunshine and a little picnic.  Of course, we made time for the beach which was a short 10 minute walk from our hostel and enjoyed many tapas and paellas.  Here are some photo highlights but there are many many more on Picasa.

Casa Batllo

at Park Guell

Paella

La Sagrada Familia

Playa de la Barceloneta