A-ha! Praha!

Our next stop was Prague, Czech Republic.  Prague ("Praha" in Czech) is a beautiful city.  The Old Town Square was interesting and unique (with a crazy astronomical clock from the 15th century).  The Charles Bridge was a great stroll.  We enjoyed just exploring the city.

Old Town Square:

Cool astronomical clock:

Check out the hordes of people waiting for the top of the hour to watch the clock start its crazy sequence:

Caitlyn loved playing with the bubble makers in the square!

We didn't love the Czech food.  It was very heavy and mostly consisted of meat and potatoes.  Here is some goulash (and beer, of course--a staple of a Czech meal):

In local bakeries we found these donut-like pastries called trdelnik that were warm and delicious:

Prague is known for beer.  A lot them were delicious, but the green one was awful!

We strolled across the Charles Bridge several times and really enjoyed the sites.  The Rick Steves walking guide was really helpful in showing us unique aspects of the bridge.

We visited the Prague Castle, with its beautiful cathedral:

And we really just enjoyed walking around the city enjoying the pretty views:

We met up with our friends Jim and Lisa, who live in the Czech Republic and came up from Brno to spend the day with us.

We also visited the Jewish Quarter, which has a complex of 5 different temples/museums telling the history of Jews in Prague.  In one of the temples the walls are covered with names of Jews from Prague who died in the Holocaust.  The sheer number of names was sobering.

The old Jewish cemetery:

Another temple.

I'm glad we visited Prague, as it gave us a nice feel for a former Communist country, and the views around the city were breathtaking.

I am a jelly donut

We began our final two weeks in Europe traveling to three different countries.  Each was unique and interesting.

We started off in Berlin, Germany.  This is a fascinating city given the history of both the Holocaust and the Berlin Wall.  The city truly embraces that history, telling the story without compromise.  It's really interesting to see the German people self-reflect about the horrors its leaders inflicted on so many people.  We met a guy on the street and ended up chatting with him for about 30 minutes about that history.  The Germans spend a whole year in school learning about the Holocaust, and the teachers present the true story.  (This is quite a contrast to the very end of our trip to Morocco, when the security guard checking our passports told us that Hilter was not that bad and that it was all "just politics").  Acknowledging the atrocities is very much a part of the fabric of German culture.

But before we look at pictures of the solemn sites, there's, of course, the food (sampling the local fare is one of my favorite parts of traveling)!

Donor kabob--very tasty.

Caitlyn most enjoyed the schnitzel!

We found this great beer garden that also had a playground.  Fun for the adults and the kid!

Berlin is home to some beautiful sites.  I really liked the Reichstag building (the German parliament).

Although we did not have advance tickets, we convinced a security guard to let us climb the tower of the Reichstag at night (it helps having a cute kid with you!)  This was a really fun experience with great views over the city.

Caitlyn enjoying the audio tour of the walk

View of the Brandenburg Gate from the Reichstag Dome

We spent a lot of time walking around the city.  Here is us in front of the Brandenburg Gate:

Throughout the city there is a brick path that marks where the Berlin Wall once stood.

And there are parts of the Wall still standing.  This was really fascinating given that I remember when the Wall fell.

We visited the Jewish Museum of Berlin, which tells the full story of the Holocaust.  The museum itself is underground, beneath the outdoor memorial, pictured here:

We also took a day trip to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.  This was a solemn and memorable experience to see where thousands of Jews were brought and eventually killed.  Seeing the crematorium was chilling.  Here are a few pictures from Sachsenhausen:

The entry gate where thousands of Jews passed through
before they were eventually killed

There were several houses still standing that presented the living conditions.
Horrid does not begin to describe it

Our final stop in Berlin was the Pergamon Museum, on Museum Island, which houses the Pergamon Alter and the Ishtar Gate of Babylon.  These were really impressive.

Berlin was a fascinating place--not our favorite city to visit, but interesting nonetheless. I'm glad we took the opportunity to see these sites and learn more about how the Germans deal with their storied past.

It's all Greek to me...

We spent two and a half days in Athens in April and had a wonderful time.  We really loved Greece and hope to make it back sometime soon.

The food was delicious (and cheap!), the ancient sites were beautiful, and the people were extremely friendly.  Below are some highlights from the trip.

First, the food...

Our favorite thing to eat was the 2 euro souvlaki that we found on "souvlaki row."  (We would call it a "gyro," but these places referred to them as "souvlaki").  They were huge sandwiches of lamb and beef wrapped in a pita with tzaziki sauce.  We had these for our meal several times.  Caitlyn REALLY enjoyed them. 

We don't know the exact name of our favorite dessert item.  We think it was "kokopena," but we just called them "honey melty poppers."  We stumbled upon them at a bakery and then kept going back for more because they were so addictive!  They were soft doughy sticky balls that literally melted in your mouth, and honey would ooze out once you took a bite.  Mmmmm...

Another memorable meal was at a little family-owned restaurant on a side street.  There was no menu--the server just brought us up to the kitchen to show us what they had made that day.  The woman kept giving us (and Caitlyn) hugs--she reminded us of the woman from My Big Fat Greek Wedding!

Speaking of food, we visited a local meat market.  This is the kind of thing we saw -- they surely use the whole animal!  It actually was not that surprising to us given what we had seen in Morocco a few weeks earlier.

The ancient sites in Athens were amazing.  We visited the Acropolis, which contained the Parthenon and other Greek relics.  

Caitlyn and Josh "played" baseball on the Acropolis!

We also visited the Acropolis Museum and the Ancient Agora, both of which were fascinating.  Here are some highlights:

One of the first known voting machines

One of the first known ballots.  Citizens would vote to ex-communicate someone
from society by writing the person's name on a ballot like this one.

Caitlyn saw the tourist train riding around town and kept asking to take a ride, so for our last night we took the train all through town.  She was really happy.

We also really enjoyed strolling around the Plaka district and just taking in the sites.  Josh bought some "worry beads," a traditional Greek toy for men, to fiddle with as we walked.

Greece is definitely on our list of places to visit again.  In the meantime, if anyone finds those honey melty poppers please let us know!

"I am freaking Africa..."

(Josh here, writing from Bari's account as she already uploaded the pictures.  By the way, for those of you who have seen it, did you notice The Book of Mormon reference in the title to this post?)

We went to Africa for a day trip.  Seriously.

We realized, from our indispensable Rick Steves guidebook, that it would be possible to visit Tangier, Morocco from Sevilla.  As is abundantly clear by now, we are gluttons for adventure, so we figured, "why not?"  This included some logistical hurdles:  I rented a car at about 10:55 the night before (just before the car rental place closed), and we woke up at 5 am to drive the two and half hours to Tarifa, a port on the southern tip of Spain.  We then took a 35-minute ferry into Tangier, Morocco.  Although it is only 14 miles and 35 minutes away, we  entered a totally different world.  There was a lot of Arabic everywhere, many people were  dressed differently from Westerners (for example, a lot of women wear head scarves, although it is no longer a religious requirement), and we heard the bells of the Muslim call for prayer several times throughout the day.  Upon our arrival we met up with Sarhan, a guide we hired for the day.  We began with a driving tour of Tangier and the surrounding countryside.  We visited Cap Spartel, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea.  We saw donkeys on the side of the road...

...but the highlight was riding a camel!  Caitlyn loved it, except when the camel leaned forward a ton to sit down at the end. 

Baby camels

We then did a walking tour of the city of Tangier, which included a stop for lunch at a traditional Moroccan restaurant (tangine clay pot chicken and couscous).  We encountered so many different and interesting things that we have never seen before.  Below are some pictures that try to capture the day:

Various spices and grains for sale

This bread was delicious.  We bought some a few times during the day.

In the town, one highlight was walking through the various markets.  It was fascinating to see every part of an animal--and I mean every part--for sale.  For some reason, I guess Bari chose not to post the picture of the whole cow's head!

We also walked through the Kasbah neighborhood, with its beautiful views, distinctive white and blue facades, keyhole shaped building entrances, and unique arches.

Toward the end of the day we ditched the tour guide and explored on our own.  We found an area where men were making blankets and rugs on looms.  One shop owner, Mohammed, was extremely friendly, and after chatting for awhile we bought a camel hair blanket, a scarf for Bari, and some dish towels (all very inexpensive).  He and his sons had handmade each item.  We ended up talking to him and his sons for awhile, mostly through his broken English and hand gestures.  He insisted on giving Caitlyn the pink hat below as a gift.

About 9 hours after landing in Africa, we boarded the boat back to Spain.  As a final emphasis that we were in a totally different country, the Moroccan security guard checking our passports said to us, somewhat in passing, that "Hitler wasn't that bad.  All of the stuff people said he did--that was just politics."  (We were carrying a painting that was wrapped in a newspaper that had an image of someone who looked like Hitler.  We didn't notice it until the guard pointed it out.)  Wow.

After arriving back in Tarifa, Spain, we rushed back to the rental car company in Sevilla so we would arrive by 11:00 pm that night--so we would only have to pay for one day.  We made it with about 15 minutes to spare!  (Then, after a very long day, we had a hard time reaching our hotel because of the parade Bari talks about below, and we stayed up until around 2 am watching it from our balcony!  Luckily Caitlyn slept through the noise.)

Going to Morocco was a fascinating experience--one of the most unique things we did during this entire adventure this semester.  I'm so grateful for the opportunity.