Toledo

We took a day trip from Madrid to Toledo. Here is a photo tour of the city...


Alcazar Fortress


Moorish architecture seen throughout the city


Toledo Cathedral





Kurt, Adam, Melanie, and Carrie

Tapas

On the train back to Madrid

Return to Madrid

For Thanksgiving 2008, it was back to Madrid, Spain with our friends, Adam, Melanie, Kurt, and Carrie. Since we had already been to Madrid in November 2007, the main thing on my list to do and see was visit the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia to see Picasso's Guernica (shown below). This painting was commissioned by the Spanish government in 1937 and represents a protest to Civil War. It is based on the devastation following an air attack on the town of Gernika-Lumo. While Carrie, Melanie and I went to the museum for a day, the husbands went to a Star Wars exhibit.

Another aspect of this trip to Madrid that was different from our first, we took what was supposed to be a 4 hour tour of the city that ended up taking more like 6 or 7 hours. Although it was a cold and long day, our tour guide had a wealth of information to share with us, and we learned a lot of little factoids about the city and its history.

For example, this Tio Pepe sign located in Puerta del Sol is posted in reaction to a former law making such signs illegal.

Sights from outside the Palacio Real


Catedral de la Almudena

Without this tour, we would've never known that the most beautiful view of the Cathedral was from a parking lot around back!

Our Lady Almudena- legend has it that this statue was hidden in a city wall

Hotel frequented by famous visitors

Home of Spanish author Cervantes, who wrote the first novel, "Don Quixote"

Thanksgiving Dinner, yep, McDonalds...


Inside the Atocha Train Station- an atrium with a turtle pond

Praha

My grandparents and I arrived in Prague on a Thursday night and stayed through Sunday evening.

We stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel along the Vltava River and right next to the Cechuv Most (bridge). I have now stayed in some of the best and worst of hotels in Europe!

This is the beautiful Prague Opera House where we attended Mozart's The Magic Flute. It was a very memorable night, my first opera!


Ashley and Mimi

The Jewish Quarter is made up of several well-preserved synagogues and a cemetery.

This is the Astronomical Clock on Old Town Hall. It keeps track of Bohemian and modern time, sunset, zodiac, and saint of the year...pretty impressive for a clock that was built 500 years ago.

Tyn (pronounced teen) Church

Along the Vltava River


View of the city


Petrin Tower (on Petrin Hill) is a 200 ft. tall replica of the Eiffel tower, but it's location on the hill brings it to the same elevation as the real thing.

View of Castle Square: You can see the Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral (behind the castle)


Art Nouveau Stained-Glass Window by Alfons Mucha (1931)

Tomb of St. John of Nepomuk (a saint of the Czech people), said to contain more than a ton of silver

Nesting Doll from Prague

Prague was the first Eastern European country we've visited and I am looking forward to visiting again before our time in Europe is through. Thank you, Mimi and Herb, for a wonderful trip!

Dining in Deutschland

After our long day in Frankfurt, everyone was ready for a break, so I went to work the next week and Mimi and Herb toured around our village and Heidelberg for a couple of days. Herb made a wonderful meal one night, we went out to dinner in Darmstadt another night, and also tried a local restaurant in Zwingenberg. My grandma and I learned the hard way that 'leberknodel suppe' is liver dumpling soup (somehow I turned that into "lebennodel" which I don't even think exists...and would be translated to love-noodle soup, sounds lovely, right?). Needless-to-say my grandma was suprised when she was served a rather large meat ball in broth...whoops. Meine Deutsch ist nicht so gut.

Frankfurt Marathon Relay

After returning home from our trip to Schoenecken and Trier, it was off to Frankfurt the next morning so that I could run my portion of a relay marathon with our friends Carrie, Adam, and Melanie. For registration purposes, we had to give a team name and we chose "Runners of Catan," derived from "Settlers of Catan" a game that involves a number of resources (that's why my shirt says 'wheat'...others were 'sheep', 'ore', 'brick', 'wood', etc.). Basically, the marathon distance (26.2 miles) was split into four parts of varying distance...mine was supposed to be 7 miles and then some, but ended up being more like 8 because the hand-off area was quite long. I was a bit nervous to be running in a race by myself , but ended up surpasing my goals and even had 1 mile under 8 minutes which I don't think I had done since 8th grade! It's pretty great when the adrenaline and pace of other runners can help to push you to go faster. I also realized that this is a much more comfortable distance for me than the half-marathon...I didn't feel like I was going to pass out after the race this time:)

Now, I don't have any pictures of the following event as proof that it actually occured, but my grandma was there to witness the whole thing...Because we were missing our fourth and final runner, our team did not cross the finish line and therefore did not receive our race medals. I felt that we all deserved those medals and had paid for them, so hours after I had finished my portion of the relay (my grandparents and I went to a museum and had lunch after I was done) I went to the events center to try to pick them up for our team. No one really knew where I could get them without crossing the finish line, so that's what I did (I tried for about 20-30 minutes to find another solution, but rules are rules as all of you living in Germany well know). Dressed in a skirt over running tights, a fleece jacket, hat, and backpack, I ran into the spotlight, fog and glitter-laden events center with people chearing me on to the finish line, probably thinking "this poor girl doesn't know how to dress for a running race...she needs all the help she can get." It was maybe one of the most ridiculously things I've ever done, but all of the "Runners of Catan" now have there Frankfurt Marathon Relay medals...totally worth it.

Thanks to Mimi and Herb for being such troopers as I dragged you around the Frankfurt events center trying to track down the medals!

Trier

Trier is one of the oldest towns in Germany. Founded in 16 BC, Trier later became the capital of the West Roman Empire and was conquered by Germanic tribes in the 5th century. This is also the birthplace of Karl Marx and has some of the best-preserved Roman ruins in Germany.

Electoral Palace- Former residence of the Trier electoral princes and present seat of the of the regional Rhineland-Palatinate authority (aka: another beautiful government building). Impeccably manicured gardens surround this building.

Aula Palatina (310 AD) has served as a Roman throne hall, army barracks, and Protestant church...how's that for multi-tasking?

This is a more detailed picture of the same building. Note the damage to the exterior was not completely repaired after WWII. It was quite interesting to tour a city nearly destroyed in WWII with a native German...at one point I was told, "The American's did this...". Well, yes, yes, they did...but I think there was a reason for it all, right...? Awkward, but eye-opening to get this perspective.

Porta Nigra, Roman gateway

While sitting outside at this cafe, I couldn't help but feel that we were in Rome, Italy. It was a lovely trip to Trier with the Friedman's and Irsfeld's.