Last weekend I put together a few more homemade cards and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out! One of these days I’ll make enough to pay for the cost of the Cricut…but for now I still know it’s cheaper to make cards than to buy them at a store! Here are a few examples:

Birthday Card


Birthday Card


Baby Card

The train ride to Prague from Vienna wasn’t as scenic as from Munich to Vienna, but it was very painless (in fact we wrote out postcards!) and we even got free food because we were in first class! (Yes, I still like free stuff…even though I’m out of college.) I’m glad we mixed up our transportation choices w/flights & train rides.

Upon our arrival and check-in we headed one block up the road and landed at Legenda Bar…which turned into our “spot” for Prague “night-life.” Belly up to the bar we enjoyed a couple very inexpensive beers and watched a VH1 countdown.

Thursday morning we started our adventure in the last stop of our European Adventure. Sad, but also exciting. Prague was the only city on our tour that wasn’t on the Euro which meant we could probably do more with our money. We started off by taking a walking tour of Prague…first things first we walked to Wenceslas Square where we saw the statue of “King” Wenceslas:

and also the Radio Free Europe building:

We found the main square which included the Astronomical Clock:

And then a storm rolled into town…it got windy & proceeded to rain the rest of the day! We crossed the Charles Bridge and found our way up to the castle.

After checking out different parts of the famous Prague Castle (most of which we weren’t allowed to take pictures of) we found the Prague Toy Museum:

They had the most Barbie’s I’ve ever seen! Even some unique ones I didn’t know existed. Can you find the creepy one?

Our second day in the Czech Republic we decided to take a road trip to Kutna Hora. Chris had heard about a “bone church” which we wanted to check out. The bone church is actually the Sedlec Ossuary which was a highlight of the trip! The church is decorated with bones from 40,000 human remains which have been artistically arranged. I thought it might be creepy but it wasn’t!


While in Kutna Hora we decided to grab some lunch and this poster was up in the restaurant that we ended up eating at:

And then we walked around town…it really was a cute place!

Saturday morning, for our last day in Europe, we took off on another walk around town. We ended up at the Charles Bridge and this time one of the towers was open so we went up to the top!


That afternoon we located two different David Cerny statues: Piss & Dead Horse. The statues in Piss had swiveling hips and they wrote phrases in the water (shaped like the Czech Rep) with their “streams.” Dead Horse is like the statue in Wenceslas Square…but with Wenceslas riding a dead horse!

That evening Chris & I took a nice walk around town taking photos, had a nice dinner and then took some more photos. I’m so glad we decided to fly from Prague to Amsterdam and then home rather than taking a train back to Amsterdam on our last night. It was a great way to end the trip.
Prague Castle

Prague

Charles Bridge

The next morning we caught a flight to Amsterdam and then on to Minneapolis. My parents met us at the airport which was really nice. The next week wasn’t easy but we made it through and were pretty much back on a regular schedule after that.

I had such an amazing time with Chris in Europe! I’m so glad we were able to take time away from “real life” and try new things together. I’ve decided that all engaged couples should take 2 weeks alone in a place where English isn’t the first language and if they can survive that then marriage should be a piece of cake! We were “alone” in hotel rooms for 2 weeks - a few days which included one or the other of us being sick - and came out with flying colors. I truly love Chris and look forward to many adventures together!

For more photos of our time in Prague, click here.

Other cities on our 2008 Amazing European Adventure include:
Amsterdam
Bruges
Brussels
Munich
Vienna

We took the train to Vienna from Munich on Monday afternoon and arrived in Vienna feeling much better. We had a nice lady stop and help us locate the street our hotel was on & got checked in at Pension Suzanne without a problem. Our room was gorgeous! We were in a new building which meant we had to walk across the street for breakfast, but the room was newly renovated and we loved it!

Our hotel was almost directly across from the famous Vienna Opera.

That first night we had dinner at Crossfield’s, an Australian pub in Austria. I didn’t really think anything of it until I came across a bunch of silly tourist items that said “There are no kangaroos in Austria.” I guess many people confuse Australia and Austria which is really funny to me!

Photo by thenerdsangle. Used via Creative Commons.
The next morning we took off for a tour of Vienna. The area we were staying in seemed very “rich.” There were a lot of high end stores and wine bars within walking distance. We also found our way to St. Stephen’s Cathedral which is in a huge square.

We took a tour of the inside and continued walking around Vienna. One of the strangest things we saw in Austria was this car being towed away. Everything was parallel parking and in order to get a car out of a tight spot they lift it straight up!

Another thing we came across was the “original teddy bear” store. Here I am being attacked by the stuffed bear outside the store (we walked inside, saw the price tags & walked out…these things were NOT cheap!).

Another thing we saw was the Hofburg Palace.

And the Lipizzaner Horses. We watched the practice which was interesting. At first it was really boring. The young horses came out and basically walked around which was annoying. Thankfully we stuck around a while & saw some older horses which were basically doing the grapevine…it looked like they might fall over!

On our last day in Vienna we went to the Belvedere Palace.

Chris (and his mom) are big Klimt fans and we got to see a replica of the 1908 Exhibit. The palace usually has a small selection of Klimt’s work but at this time there was a whole exhibit which was really neat.

Photo by etereamente via Creative Commons.
And here is one last photo…we made the most of our time in Vienna, although it wasn’t my favorite stop on the trip.

For more photos of our time in Vienna, click here.

Other cities on our 2008 Amazing European Adventure include:
Amsterdam
Bruges
Brussels
Munich
Prague

Ok…wow…time for a deep breath and a little reorganization! Four months from today I will be marrying the love of my life! This past week has been good - we haven’t made any serious decisions, but we are set up to make a couple very shortly. (And, Chris & his dad bought their suits last weekend so that’s one less thing I have to remember.)

What’s done?
* Ceremony/Reception hall booked
* Dress purchased
* Photographer located
* Food selected
* Photo booth reserved
* All suits purchased

Still to do (big items…there are plenty of small things left too!):
* Entertainment
* Person to perform the ceremony
* Determine how much Beer/Wine we need & find a bartender
* Bridesmaid dresses
* Centerpieces
* Invitations
* Flowers?
* Marriage License
* Pre-marriage sessions?

Yikes! That’s a lot. I plan on having at least a plan for the first 6 by the end of the first week in December.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

While in Bruges we walked to the Beguinage and I found this awesome Heart in the brick building. It wasn’t super easy to get a photo of, but I’m glad we did because it’s one of my favorite (yet most simple) photos from the trip!

Original Photo:

Puzzle (click to play):

This year I am thankful for Chris, my family, my friends, my health, great experiences over the past year and in the year to come and hopefully some good changes in the world in 2009.

I plan on enjoying the holiday by having a nice relaxing weekend at home with my fiance after we spend Thursday with my family. I wish everyone else a happy, enjoyable weekend as well!

And, I guess to be totally honest, I’m thankful for Google too.

Photo by gravityx9 via Creative Commons.

We arrived in Munich, found our hotel (Hotel Uhland, which we loved) and decided to make our first stop the famous Hofbrauhaus! We enjojyed a delicious meal of pork, potatoes and gravy while sharing great conversation with a couple who we shared the table with. The woman spoke English, German and Italian and the man she was with only spoke Italian so she was translating between us and was a riot because she would start speaking Italian to us until she realized our blank faces meant we didn’t understand at which point she would draw an imaginary wall between her & her man and talk to us in English. It was funny.

I’m glad we went there the first night because Chris woke up the next morning not feeling so great. Thankfully he was feeling well enough to go on a trip to Fussen, Germany to visit the home of Mad Ludwing: Neuschwanstein Castle.

We took a guided tour which included a stop at a lake near the castle and also views of Hohenschwangau, where King Ludwig II grew up.

We had to walk about a half an hour up hill to get to the castle but the colors were SO gorgeous…it was amazing. If Chris hadn’t been sick it probably would have been the best part of the trip. Once we made it to the top we got a tour of the castle but no photos of the inside were allowed so we took a couple shots out of the windows. The king spent a total of 172 days in the castle before his death and at that time only 16 rooms were complete! He “committed suicide” (aka was murdered by the parliament because he was crazy and spending too much money) and construction was immediately halted. Six weeks later the castle was opened up as a tourist attraction.


After the castle tour we walked further (Chris really is amazing…I know he felt like total crap) to get the view from a suspension bridge.

That night we took it easy with plans to go to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial the next day. We had to get up pretty early to meet our tour group for the trip to Dachau Sunday morning. Entrance to the memorial is free but I am so happy we decided to take an English speaking tour guide because even with him picking out the highlights and not letting us stop ready everything, we were there 3.5 hours! The first thing you see as you approach the concentration camp grounds is this famous door:

Arbeit Macht Frei basically means “Work brings freedom” which indicates that this is a work camp. Of course, just because the men worked didn’t mean they got freedom…but it usually meant they could live to see another day. Our guide told us that approximately 40,000 people died at Dachau (compared to 40,000 per day at Auschwitz). At the camp we saw replica bunkers and also how the beds were constructed during different parts of the wars (sometimes they had their own bed…most of the time not). I think our guide said that 6 of the 8 guard towers are actually originals. The security was pretty tight. If any of the men stepped on the grass they were shot at. If they made it across the grass there was a concrete ditch that I’m not sure anyone could get out of and then a tall fence with barbed wire.

We saw the old & new crematoriums and also a few memorials and churches put on the grounds after liberation. The memorial with the triangles was built to represent those groups who were suppressed during the war…unfortunately the designer choose to leave out a couple of the groups. Here are the colors and who wore them (if someone was in 2 groups the triangles were put together to make a star):
Colors Worn:
Red - Communists, Social Democrats, Anarchists, other “enemies of the state”
Green - Criminals
Blue - foreign forced laborers
Brown - Gypsies
Pink - Homosexuals
Purple - Jehova’s Witnesses
Black - Asocials (vagrants, bums, prostitutes, hobos, etc)

That evening for dinner we had soup & a sandwich at a great restaurant near our hotel. Maybe I’ll look at my notes & find the name some day…if anyone’s interested, write a comment & I’ll be sure to look it up. Anyway, it was tasty & we went back to bed as soon as we were done. Unfortunately, this is where I got sick. It wasn’t pretty (including me puking in the garbage at a Munich train stop)…but thankfully I was able to drink water and not eat after that until dinner time when I felt fine. I had some slight sickness in the days after that but nothing like Chris. Ok…back to the trip. We decided to walk around Munich since we hadn’t seen much of the city. Number one priority was to go to Marienplatz to see the Glockenspiel show. Turns out that this is the second most ridiculous tourist attraction in Europe! It’s basically a set of statues that move up & down or in a circle depending on what they’re standing on and all of this is done to the bell towers. We were listening to a tour guide talk while we waited and it turns out that there is a PERSON who has to start that show multiple times a day and I thought it was weird that it wasn’t automatic! That morning we also went up in the tower at the Cathedral of our Blessed Lady and had a great view of the city.

Before catching our train to Vienna we also found the English Garden and walked through that for a while. It was across the street from a University so there were students scattered around studying or relaxing in the nice weather.

For more photos of our time in Munich, click here.

Other cities on our 2008 Amazing European Adventure include:
Amsterdam
Bruges
Brussels
Vienna
Prague

This week we got an email from a friend of ours who said their family would prefer not to exchange presents with friends this year, but instead spend some time together during the holidays! I emailed her back right away saying that I agree - that I no longer exchange Christmas presents but instead make a donation to a charity in honor of my family & friends. That I feel like there are plenty of people who go without every day who could benefit greatly from a hot meal or a jacket or one new toy to last them the year.

Then, today I was reading some articles on my reader & I came across this one from the guy who writes for (and is, actually) No Impact Man. He said that in 2007 his family didn’t buy presents for each other. They did give their 3 yr old daughter some used toys to unwrap while the other kids were opening presents, but it turns out they weren’t interesting to her past the unwrapping part!

Anyway, it’s nice to hear that other people have survived the holidays without spending tons of moolah on stuff that people may or may not want. I know it’s a much more enjoyable season for me when I don’t have to fight the crowds and worry about if I can find the perfect gift for someone. And, if I do come up with a perfect gift…well, then it would be a perfect birthday present!

Photo by danagraves and used via Creative Commons.

This year, as in most past years, I will NOT be shopping on “Black Friday.” However, I just found out from my RSS feed of Get Rich Slowly that there’s a name for that action….I will be participating in Buy Nothing Day!

And, although I don’t plan on participating in the day any further than just avoiding the crazy crowds, they do offer up a few interesting ideas for ways to convince (or inconvenience) others to join you…
Credit Card Cutup: “Volunteers stand in a shopping mall with a pair of scissors and a sign offering a simple service: to put an end to extortionate interest rates and mounting debt with one considerate cut. Be careful though: in some first-world countries, carrying scissors in public can get you arrested as a “terrorist”.”
Zombie Walk: “The cheerful dead wander around malls, marveling at the blank, comatose expressions on the faces of shoppers. The zombies are happy to be among their own kind, but slightly contemptuous of those who have not yet begun to rot.”
Whirl-mart: “This activity has the advantage of being most likely to piss off security personnel. You and nine of your closest friends silently drive your shopping carts around in a long, inexplicable conga line without ever actually buying anything.”

So, yeah. Whatever you’re doing Friday…have fun. If you need to reach me I’ll likely be home watching a movie or doing something crafty (or both!).

I noticed that the gas station by my work was down to $1.75 yesterday. That place is almost always $0.10 more than every other station I drive by so I was on the lookout for some inexpensive (relatively) gas and I found it! I ended up stopping in Brooklyn Park and paid only $1.64/gallon! Yippee! I actually passed another station with $1.62 before getting to my destination. That is pure craziness…and I love it.

Sorry - I know this isn’t super exciting…but I have a feeling some day I’m going to say “I wonder when the last time I paid $1.64/gal for gas was” and now I’ll know. Because, seriously, who remembers the last time gas was $1.50/gal in Minneapolis?