It was a busy holiday season, but busy in the best sense because we were spending tons of time with family in Europe and on top of it all going on some pretty wicked trips! My parents were here just under a month and in that time we went to Prague, celebrated Christmas in Den Haag, hit up Barcelona and finished off in Fryslan, it was a whirlwind no doubt, but it was great!!
We went to Prague for four days before Christmas and we loved it! Prague is such a magical city, especially around Christmas time with all the twinkling lights and seasonal ambience. We had a great hotel located right on the Old town square which put us right in the middle of the Christmas markets, cafes, astronomical clock displays and beautiful cathedrals&churches on all corners. We did a lot of walking around, but also did an on and off bus tour which brought us around the city to see some areas we might not have made it to.
First off we visited Prague Castle, it is huge and has a bunch of different buildings, churches and exhibits you can visit. It was really busy there when we went because a former president had passed away the day before (he was the president responsible for democracy in the Czech Republic I believe, but I forget his name) and so there were a ton of ambassadors coming in to where he would lie in state. We went up one of the churches towers 200+ stairs in a tiny corridor, a work out but totally worth it once we saw the view. We had a great birds-eye view of the entire Castle grounds, very cool! On our way back from the castle we walked across the Charles Bridge, which is a very old, historic bridge in Prague and it is beautiful!! We walked across around twilight and the lighting on the water and the city was breathtaking.
We also went to the Jewish Quarter in Prague which was sobering. Prague is actually very close to a concentration camp, about an hour away and had we been there longer I would have really liked to do a day trip there, something that I think would be terribly difficult to see, but also something I feel like I need to see, someday. In the Jewish Quarter we were given a very good idea of what it was like to be a Jew during WWII, there was a massive memorial for Czech Jews listing all their names, it was massive. I think it is really hard to comprehend the enormous numbers of people that lost their lives and when you see them written out on walls it is overwhelming. There are various synagogues in the area that we were able to visit, including the oldest functioning synagogue in Europe. Attached to one of the synagogues and exhibitions was the Jewish cemetery, the graves look to be a couple of feet off the ground, but really there are several graves piled on top of each other, because there was not enough room, and it was a big grave site.
We also had some really fun nigh time activities including a Czech beer tour, The Nutcracker in a beautiful and old theatre and nightly cocktails in the old time bar in the basement of our hotel. The cocktails part was really fun, for those of you who know my dad you know that he has recently gotten interested in the craft of cocktail making, the history behind the drinks and alcohol and the different drinks themselves, a cocktail connoisseur so to speak:) This bar had pre-prohibition cocktail recipes, using different and now rare alcohols to make some really interesting and tasty drinks! It became a bit of a thing for us to have drinks every night and everyone had to try a new cocktail from what they had before. not to mention the bar was in this super cool basement/cellar with a very old time vibe and a live piano player, a highlight for sure.
We came back a few days before Christmas and jumped right into the celebrations. We had some dinners with my dad's family here in Holland, played a whitle elephant game with appys and treats on Christmas eve and attended a great Church service at our Church here, had stockings on Christmas day before we headed out to an amazing brunch at this great hotel on the beach here in Scheveningen. On boxing day we went to Amsterdam and saw the Van Gogh museum and the Bols museum (essentially the history and creation of Jenever-the Dutch gin) and then Skyped with the Van Huizen family back home, with more stockings:) Overall a great Christmas here in the Netherlands!
On the 27th we headed to Barcelona! Barcelona was really fun as well, even though sometimes our timing was off and so we missed a few attractions (we did not account for the holiday of new years, opps!) Overall however it was great, we had awesome weather with the temperature around 15-18 degrees or so (not tropical, but very pleasant!) We walked a lot again, seeing famous streets like La Rambla and buildings like Sacrada Famillia. The architecture in Barcelona is different from what we have seen so far, much of it being designed by Gaudi, it was very interesting. We spent some time at the beach and while it was a bit too cold to swim we still touched the mediterranean!
We celebrated New Years while we were in Barcelona, which was a really unique and crazy experience. I have never seen so many people on one street, unreal! It was also a little scary because throwing glass bottles onto the ground seems to be a bit of a trend and so we dodged a few flying shards and champagne being poured off windows as we made our way back to our place. Other highlights include, my dad chasing down a pickpocket who stole his jacket right off his chair (he got it back-the guy dropped it once he realized there was no wallet), spanish wine-yum!, visiting a music hall which had some of the most amazing stained glass I have ever seen, and exploring cool areas and streets that look like alley ways but actually have super funky shops and restaurants in them.
Back from Barcelona we had a couple of days to recoup before we went to Fryslan for the weekend our last trip with my parents before they were off on Sunday. We got a chance to visit my Dad's family on my Pake's family. We got to see where my Pake grew up and in what house, which was really neat. And we got to meet my Pake's only surviving sibling, his sister, a very special visit for all of us I think. We also had a chance to explore Leeuwarden, which is a pretty cool city. Frylsan in general is pretty awesome, we have been twice now and have really enjoyed it both times! We drove home on Sunday, left my parents at the airport and they flew home from there. Such a great trip with them!!
On Monday Jason and Lindsay arrived (Joel's oldest brother and his wife) and they are here visiting us and various other places in Holland for the next two weeks, lots of visitors for us!! Really fun to be able to hang out with so many family members and friends while we are here though! And what is next for us you ask? We are going to be around our place until the end of January and then we are off to Paris<3
PS I will try and post a few pictures from the last month and all the trips, but I have also posted them on facebook as there are so many pictures and blogger does not really post pictures that well
Cheers!
Megan&Joel
