Barcelona

At some point I will try to get some captions on these pictures. Barcelona was a great trip and besides being a great city to visit we got to see Javier's cousin Javier! I think we've seen just a fraction of what there is to see in Barcelona but what we did see was amazing. A lot of the pictures in this album are of Gaudi's architecture. Its really worth seeing in person, I'm not sure the pictures do it justice. Enjoy!

20080926 - Barcelona

The City of Lights

Flights to Barcelona were cheaper from Paris than they were from Frankfurt so it was the perfect excuse to hit another of Europe's must see cities. Here are some pictures from our quick tour in Paris. We just had a day and a half, but we managed to see the highlights and check out a few of the most famous museums.

20080924 - Paris

Heidelberg with the Goas'

Our last day trip before heading off to Paris and Barcelona was to Heidelberg. It was Javier's first time there too so it was fun watching him experience it. Here's a few pictures from the trip.

20080923 - Heidelberg

An overnight to Burg Eltz, Trier and Luxembourg

The first weekend Javier's parents were in town we headed to Luxembourg by way of Burg Eltz and Trier. . It was a great mix of things to see and still managed to be a laid back trip.

Our first stop was Burg Eltz. It was the first time for me and the view from the top of the hill was breathtaking. I didn't realize how deep into the valley the castle actually was until we started walking.



Our next stop was in Trier. I have enjoyed previous trips to Trier so we decided to spend the afternoon there. We visited the Thermalbad ruins and Porta Nigra. We also managed to make a stop at the Villeroy & Boch outlet before it closed. We head a great italian dinner and headed to bed so we could get an early start to Luxembourg the next day.





There was a lot to see in Luxembourg but we just focused on a few things. We decided to take the bus tour so we could see both the new and old parts of Luxembourg. We spent some time in the Museum of Modern Art. The building itself was pretty cool. They built this very modern museum on top of old ruins of some kind of castle. You can see some of the walls in this picture to the right. On the left of this picture is actually the castle itself, moat and all. The museum was free since they were changing their main exhibit but there were still some cool things to see. Our favorite exhibit was this Michael Jackson piece. I was going to post a picture, but you've just got to see the video:


Then we headed to the Bock Casemates. Though the crawl spaces were dark and closed in it was neat to explore. Here are a few pictures of the old cannons we found:


Our last stop was the American National Cemetery in Luxembourg. It was right outside of the city so we made the stop. It was a surprising to see...I didn't know we had a cemetery here. It looks a lot like Arlington if you've ever been there. Here's a pic of Javier standing in front of all the crosses.

Javi's parents are in town

I know that I am very behind. I thought maybe I could get away with just posting albums but I thought this first one might need a bit of an introduction.

Javier's parents came to visit so we had two weeks of day trips and overnights planned to show them all that Europe had to offer. To ease into our traveling (I can get a little crazy...just ask anyone that has traveled with me) we spent the first few days in Wiesbaden and in Rüdesheim. The weather was beautiful and they loved all the shops as well as the views of the Rhine. Though we've seen these sights before, its always fun to watch people experience it for the first time.

Here are a few pictures from Rüdesheim.

20080919 - Rudesheim

Berlin

I know I am long behind on posting so I'm trying to just get a few out at a time in hopes of catching up before another month passes by. September was full or travels. My first trip: Berlin.

It was a great city to visit and had so much to see. I spent almost 4 whole days and still didn't get to see everything. I did manage to go to the Berlin Philharmonic and visit the Pergamon Museum. All my pictures are below. If Google's web albums is cooperating today, I'll try to add some captions as well.

20080912 - Berlin

One of the days I was in Berlin I took a guided tour through Sachenhausen, one of Germany's concentration camps. It would be wrong to use the word enjoyable, but I did find the tour very educational and insightful. I thought it was important to see. Here are some pictures if you're interested.

20080912 - Sachsenhausen

Brussels Beer Fest

Well we just got back from Brussels Beer Fest and what a fun time. Its nothing like your Oktoberfest beer fest but it stands on its own for other reasons. It set up more like a wine fest with small tents for vendors so that participants (a.k.a. the drinkers) can sample a bit here and there. Each beer also comes with a unique glass that is supposed to heighten the flavor.

So in following suit with my astute wine choices (I pick by labels) I decided it was appropriate to pick beer based on the glasses. Here's a sneak peak:


The rest are coming, Google's Picasa Web Albums no longer lets you embedd albums so I've got to wait until that gets fixed to post the rest of the pictures.

Update: Google finally fixed their Web Album links and I can post albums again. Now that albums are up and running again I have no excuses. More pictures and posts to come of September's festivities. For now, here are the rest of the pictures from the Brussels beer fest.

20080906 - Brussels Beer Fest