A couple of girlfriends convinced me to go back to Amsterdam one weekend late in 2005, so I did. It isn't terribly difficult to push me into traveling anywhere. I learned this time that there is a parking lot where you can leave your car and take a fifteen minute train ride into the city, and the lot is under 24 hour watch by a guard. AND it's cheaper than parking on the street, especially when one gets booted. Oh well.

I wasn't there long enough to do much other than go the Heineken Museum, which is lots of fun, and the Sex Museum, which is boring. I didn't take many pictures because I've been to the city a few times and didn't feel the need. I hope you'll be able to distinguish which photos are from the beer museum and the porn one.

Warning, these are NSFW (not safe for work). Photobucket has already pulled a picture of a naked plastic Marilyn Monroe, but not one of a (fake) man flashing museum goers. I'm going to upload it again and see if they're still offended by breasts and not a penis.

I don't think I would really bother posting these at all, to tell you the truth, except that in some ways Amsterdam has to be seen to be believed.

( Amsterdam )

Josh and I went to Prague over MLK weekend (January) in 2005. I had been a couple of months before, before but hadn't seen all that I wanted to see. More importantly, though, I thought Josh would really enjoy it. His paternal grandparents were Czech Jews, and though Josh strongly resembles his mother, he has a lot of his dad's characteristics as well. The first time I was in Prague I walked around the city and thought "This is weird... everyone looks like Josh." And when Josh and I went together, he walked around the city and thought "This is weird... everyone looks like me." As a side note, there is Kentucky Fried Chicken everywhere. We now refer to it as "PFC".

We took the train through Dresden into Prague, which is a beautiful trip. In the city we just walked and stopped at places we found interesting, like the church on top of the hill and the bridge. We spent a lot of time in the Jewish quarter, taking in the museums (where some of the few relics from pre-war Jews exist, thanks to the Nazis protecting them as artifacts of an extinct race) and the synagogues. We bought a big crystal to hang in our window from a street vendor; now that we've moved back to the US, it's still hung in our place, and serves as a nice reminder for us. The guy told us it was "good feng shui" and I have to agree.

One day, we took a day trip to Kutná Hora, where the famous Kostnice Sedlec. It is an ossuary decorated entirely in human bones. You can read more about it on Wikipedia. The short version: in 1278, sacred earth was brought to the cemetery, which made it a popular burial spot. Around the time of the Black Death they ran out of space and built a cathedral to house some of the bones. There is a chandelier made of every bone found in the human body, a coat of arms, and stacks of bones in the four corners of the chapel. It is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen, but fascinating, and quite memorable. We paid the extra dollar for the right to take pictures, and wow, I don't know if I would believe it without seeing it.

So here we go, this is Prague. There are a lot.

( Prague )

I haven't updated this in almost a year... having a baby will do that to you, i guess. Anyway, I will press on with updating my photos from 2005 and 2004. A few folders are missing (namely pics from New Orleans and one or two other places), but I do have them someplace now and will post them eventually.

So next up, pics from Amsterdam with Josh and two friends of ours.

I went to Amsterdam and all I got was robbed and booted...

Well, that wasn't quite all, but we did get our car broken into (causing one of our traveling companions to lose her entire backpack, including her passport, her laptop, and many other things) and it also got booted, to add insult to injury.

But we still had a surprisingly good time and learned some valuable lessons. we took a boat tour and did a couple of the things tourists do in Amsterdam, such touring the Red Light District and the Anne Frank Huis, but not a lot of the stuff you're thinking of. We stopped in Haarlmen (which Harlem in NYC is named for) and decided that if we ever went back, we were staying there next time and taking a train in. It was April, so on the way home, we stopped to see the tulips in Lisse, parking the car off the road and wandering through the fields. We probably weren't supposed to do that, but truly, it was amazing. The smells and the colors were incredible.

So here it is: a smattering of photos from our trip.

( Amsterdam )

This was our first trip to Trier, when our friend Gwen was visiting from the Hamburg area.

( Trier )

We took a day trip to Frankfurt for Josh's 24th birthday, July 28, 2005.

( Frankfurt )

After the WGYF conference ended, I went to London for a week with Josh. We got engaged at the London Eye halfway through the trip. London is my favorite city in the world, and this was the first time I had been back since my study abroad in 2001.

( Trafalger Square )

( Tower of London )

( The Thames River )

( Madame Tussaud's )

( Notting Hill Festival )

( Hyde Park )

( Miscellaneous shots from London )

A couple of my photos from Lancaster, England. These are from the World Gathering of Young Friends (aka Quakers), August 2005.

( WGYF )

( Pendle Hill )

One of my favorite places in Europe is Brugge, a small town about an hour west of Brussels. I went there with Kat when we went traveling, and took Josh there a year later when I had a weekend off from work.


( Town Square )

( Canal Tour )

( Around Brugge )

( Belfort )

( Spangdahlem )

Pictures from around Kaiserslautern, around our wedding (March 31 2006).

( From downtown )

( The Pfalz-Museum )

( Wedding pictures )

( Burgschaenke )

( Stuff )