Prague

Depicting Purgatory
Close up of Purgatory
View into Old Town
Old Town Square


Christmas Market, brrrr......


Street Musician
Watching the man play Australian musical instruments.

Prague Castle and the river.
The old bridge has statues every couple hundred feet depicting different moments of Christs life.
Water glasses musician and yes Musician he was incredible! His poor cold hands!
See all the fun street vendors, I love it!
The towers are the bridge towers on each side and WOW looks straight out of a fairy tale.

The building in the middle is where we stayed.
Loved getting to see the American flag waving some where besides base.
Beautiful entry way to Prague Castle.
Taking it all in.
Seriously incredible!



The Gold filigree was amazing.
Traditional nativity made out of straw.
Gargoyles!

View from the castle. The dome on the right was a block from where we stayed.
World War Two memorial. A torn and rent Czech flag. and the dates of occupation 1938-1945.
Old Jewish Quarter, incredibly beautiful architecture .

I love that the bottom clock is in Hebrew.
Old/new Jewish Synagogue. It was partially destroyed during WWII.

Traditional Czech coal roasted bread, slightly sweet.

Aren't they the cutest?!

Some stupid man designed beautiful marble cobblestone sidewalks hundreds of year ago. SUPER DUPER slippery. Like I said stupid man! This was under an archway so no snow but still wet so you can actually see the floor! Amazing I tell you!
View of the embassy from the Apartment with snow of course.
Playing with her new Russian stacking doll. Holy Shamoly cheap! If you want one for you or your kid email me before we go in Feb. and I will pick you up one or in Shelly's case 6.
I found the most amazing Czech naturalist store, Everything was hand made out of natural products in Czech Republic and they had FABULOUS wood toys amazingly cheap so I picked up a couple swords ( can you say six American dollars!!!!) and some other goodies. The other stuff Gid doesn't know about yet.

He has some fantastic bed head. I though I should capture it for posterity.

My pictures of our trip to Prague. It was incredibly beautiful, freakin cold ( 15 degrees and a blizzard while we were there) and very cheap compared to the rest of Europe. I LOVED it! Heck with Paris we are going back for our Anniversary so we can enjoy the music, museums, restaurants and churches more without kids.

We stayed at the US Embassy Apartments which is literally next to the US Embassy in the high security zone in the heart of Prague. So we had a armed guard literally stand in front of just our car and protect it all night. Otis (my SUV) has never felt so loved! It was fatastic as we were so close to everything that we could walk( with kids) even though we had to trudge through a foot of snow to do so because they dont shovel side walks and they dont plow roads so needless to say it was a MESS but a beautiful one. Look at the ground in my pictures there is supposedly cobblestones under that. We went to the castle, different churches, loved the beautiful old bridges that we tramped across everyday, The old Jewish Quarter and Synagogue, Old Town Square, the clock, shopped , and enjoyed trying local food( the local food is GROSS even worse than German if thats possible but its the effort right?!) but they have tons of other restaurants too. We of course enjoyed the Chinese but we love Asian any where. We found an amazing New York Bagel place( called Bohemia bagels) -yummmmmmmmmm close to the Embassy too. There were six Irish pubs within a block of us since the Irish Embassy is next to the American one. Not that we went with small children but Prague has everything. EVERYTHING was in English and Czech since they have so many international visitors a year so they all speak Czech, English, and German. So I was in Heaven since I could actually read signs without some serious effort!

We loved all the street musicians, artists and the festive Christmas atmosphere. The kids were in Heaven and just wanted to stop and watch each one but it was too cold to stay still for long.

The Apartment was fantastic as we had a great kitchen( bigger than the one I have) so we could eat in if we wanted which happened about 50% of the time since the kids were just done around 4. It was also fun to watch people go in and out of the Embassy and we had a great view of some Cathedral which was a block away and then the Castle which was very close to us.

Prague is now by far my favorite European city and I'm so thankful for Ben's job so we could stay at the Embassy since normal Hotel rooms with kids suck. Next Post Plzen, where a bunch of non drinking Mormons went and toured the famous Plzen Brewery. The kids loved it and it was awesome, even if we didn't drink the free Beer at the end! The story of that next time.

* Yes, there are 47 pictures in this post! Just think about how long it took me to upload that many to the blog and enjoy.