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DD#1 finished her last AP exam last week, so we decided to take advantage of some of her free time before her finals begin in a month to do a quick trip to Amsterdam. Neither of us had been there before, so we took the 4-hour train ride from Frankfurt on Monday morning and returned late Tuesday night. Although we could have used another day (or half-day) to see the flower gardens, we saw pretty much everything we wanted to see.

We arrived at 11:30 in the morning, so we checked into our hotel, had lunch and immediately bought sweatshirts - it was a lot colder than predicted. Of course, nearly every shop had a huge collection of rolling papers and bongs, unless it was a sex shop, but we were able to locate some warm clothes. Then we headed off to the Anne Frank House, which was very impressive. We climbed the steep, steep stairs to the Annex and saw the rooms Anne and the others hid in for so long. Very sobering.

We wondered the pedestrian mall, did some sightseeing and headed back to our hotel to change for dinner at the Boom Chicago improvisation comedy show. Although it was very smoky - as is everywhere in Amsterdam - it was a fun show and a good meal.

Tuesday morning, we got up and headed out looking for one of the many pancake shops we'd seen the day before, not realizing that Dutch pancakes are really more like crepes and are not a breakfast food (and also not that great). Then we walked up to the Central train station, where we caught a 1 1/2 hour cruise along the canals. This was warm and beautiful and the perfect way to see the "dancing" (leaning) houses and the real character of Amsterdam. After the cruise, we walked through the pedestrian area to the Irish pub for lunch, then on the tram to the Van Gogh museum, which we enjoyed. The Rijksmuseum is under so much construction that we decided it wasn't worth stopping there.

After a stroll through the red light district - in the middle of the afternoon - and then Chinatown, we picked up souveniers for our friends & family and headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage before the train ride back to Frankfurt. A quick but fun trip and probably enough of Amsterdam for me, as I'm not a big nightlife person and am not particularly tolerant of smoking, drug use and prostitution. But, the old buildings, the canals, and the artworks are all lovely, and spending time with dd#1 before she heads off to college in the fall was priceless, so it was definitely worth the trip!

Visit from my niece

We were lucky enough to have a visit from my niece Lauren and her college roommate Camilla this past weekend. They arrived on Saturday and we toured a bit of Frankfurt, even taking a boat ride on the river Main. Saturday night, after dinner at a local Greek restaurant and some premature birthday cake for Lauren, Lauren & Camilla went out on the town dds #1&2, and tried to get our 15-year-old from getting picked up by an older German man.

On Sunday, we had a fun day that started with a drive to Rüdesheim and then along the Rhine river as far as Köln (Cologne). In Köln, we visited the Dom and walked along a river front park to the chocolate museum. We got to see how chocolate is grown, see it made and even taste some samples. We left Köln and drove back toward Bonn to attend a medieval festival at Burg Satzvey, which was wonderful. Very authentic feel, lots of cool tents, costumes and weapons - dd#2's favorite part! We watched a bit of the jousting tournament and enjoyed performances of period music, as well as some good German sausage. By the time we got home and opened Mother's day gift, everyone was pretty tired.

Monday was a national holiday, but dd#1 had an AP exam and dd#2 had play practice from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., so Lauren & Camilla took themselves to Heidelberg on the train. They came home to a fun dinner of Raclette and some board games at home. Tuesday was back to school & meetings for us, while the girls explored the museums of Frankfurt before their flight back to London. It was a short visit, but very fun, especially since we were the only members of the extended family not to have met Camilla before. All-in-all, a wonderful holiday weekend.

Prague highlights

While my nephew & his wife were visiting us from the U.S., we decided to use our 4-day Labour and Ascension Day holiday weekend to travel to Prague with them. DD#1 didn't come with us, as she stayed home to study for the upcoming AP exams. The rest of us had a great time, however, on this weekend excursion.

We started the trip early on Thursday morning, driving the northern route to Czech so we could stop at the concentration camp Terezin on the way. As Americans, we knew nothing about Terezin before researching it for this trip. It was fascinating to see how the Nazis used this entire ancient town as a work camp, although Terezin was not a death camp. After lunch in a traditional Czech sidewalk cafe, we toured the museum in the center of town, learning more about the numbers of Jews who were relocated to Terezin, but then sent by train from Terezin to Auschwitz and many other death camps. After the museum, we drove to the Small Fortress, visited the cemetery and the prison. Our guide showed us the horrid conditions in which suffered the resistance fighters, Czech military, and other political prisoners of the time. Most outrageous for me was the way in which Terezin was use as a propoganda machine by the Nazis, pretending that the town was more a summer camp than a work camp and that the prison was decent and humane, in an effort to hide their atrocities.

We got into our hotel in Prague in time for dinner in a fun local pub on Thursday night, after dh & my nephew had a ridiculous time parking the car at our hotel. Friday morning, we met our guide and another family of friends from Frankfurt, for a 4-hour walking tour of Prague. We definitely recommend hiring a guide, as it's a beautiful city and has many fascinating sights, but would be tough to cover in a short time on your own. We saw the Dancing House, walked the incredibly crowded Charles Bridge (we don't recommend it while it's still under construction), saw the astronomical clock and ended up in a traditional Czech restaurant in Old Town for lunch. Dh really enjoyed the Czech food - lots of goulash, meat, sauces, potatoes, dumplings, and beer - but there wasn't as much for dd#2, the vegetarian. During the afternoon, we strolled the streets of the Old Town area, visited a street market and did some shopping, winding our way back to the river, a stop at a pub and then back to the hotel. We were tired from all our walking, so we ordered in pizza and played a hotly contested game of Charades late into the evening.

Saturday morning, our tour guide met the 6 of us back at the hotel for another 4-hour tour. We started the day on the street car, going directly to the top of Castle Town. The Prague Castle is enormous and is really a series of huge buildings, rather than one large one. The crowds were incredible, but so was the weather, so we didn't mind a bit. We went in the treasurey but not the cathedral and ended up in the Senate and the beautiful gardens there. Our tour guide made sure to get us to our chosen lunch spot - TGIFridays - where we all thoroughly enjoyed a welcome taste of home. I don't know why we don't have TGIFridays in Frankfurt. After lunch, we did some more shopping and made our way to Wenceslas Square. From there, we walked back to our hotel, did a little food shopping, and then headed out later for dinner in a Mexican restaurant. We had an early night, as Sunday was an early morning for the drive back to Frankfurt and then delivering Steve & Alissa at the airport for their flight to the U.S.

Prague is a beautiful city with incredible building and a long history. It's also an incredibly affordable city, even though hotel rooms are sparce and not inexpensive. When you're outside of the most expensive, tourist places, shopping and dining is incredibly cheap. It was fascinating for me to see how so much of our tour guide's commentary was colored by her feelings of and reflections on the communist rule, the legacy of the Nazis, and, as with so many Europeans, the current politics. We both felt that Prague would be a comfortable city for an American expat, as the people were very friendly, everything is so inexpensive, and English was everywhere, at least in the center of the city. The countryside in and around Prague is lovely, with rolling hills and fields. All-in-all, it was a great trip and a very different kind of place than we've seen in our other travels, so definitely a good choice for our long weekend travels.