2018 in Review

As I often do at this time of year, I take some time to go back through all the photos I have taken and assess everything I’ve done and achieved. On a daily basis it can feel like I haven’t done much, or I’m just treading water. But the overview shows my just how full my life really is. Some of these pictures you may have seen before, I ask for your patience!

January – was full of making. I got back into my love affair with miniatures by putting together a tiny library that James bought me, and then played with water colours using the new paints I’d received for Christmas. There was a trip with a friend to the Rijksmuseum, and on a separate trip to the Maritime Museum. We also went to our first concert of the year; Depeche Mode!

Would you like to know more?

Leipzig – Wave Gotik Treffen

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Esteemed Audience! We have made a recent(ish) trip to Leipzig! Now I shall regale you with the tales of our adventure!

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Along with 20,000 other people, we descended for the four day music festival that is Wave Gotik Treffen. It happens every year over the Pentecost long weekend. Would you like to know more?

Prague – Part 1

With the kitties shiny new passports we were able to dump them in a cattery, and jump on a train to Prague! (We are loving parents, I swear!)

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As an amusing side note, we managed to forget our own passports and may have had just a small international altercation and possibly a fine going over the first German border. (Yay for friendly German Police!) (Yes, you read that sentence correctly!) Good thing we were still awake for it given that it was a sleeper train! But we were never asked for our passports again the whole trip. So there you go.

The word that kept coming in to all our minds was “awesome”. The city was AWESOME. Such a magical fairytale city that truly looked like it had been pulled from the pages of my childhood storybooks.

The buildings are so …

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… highly …

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… ornamented …

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and around each corner, another turret or spire piercing high into the sky (Church of Our Lady before Týn – 14th Century)!

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Then wonder of wonders, the Astronomical Clock (1410).

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Then high on a hill, overlooking it all, there’s Prague Castle (870 – kinda).

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And the Charles Bridge (1357 – better photos to come) connects it all together.

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I have been over …

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…and under …

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some of the oldest buildings in the world. And I can’t even remember how many churches I’ve been in! We’ll count them together shall we? (Yes Mum, this time I got photos for you!)

Now I’m going to share that adventure with all of you!

Adventure is out there!

Oh the places you’ll go, the things you’ll see! – Dr Suess

So this post may not be entirely normal, as this weekend I did something that I’ve never done before. Actually, I did several things that I’ve never done before! The first was boarding a train to travel internationally.

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Now, this may not mean much to most people, but when you grow up in Australia, when you catch a train, you can only ever get to other parts of Australia. Even traveling in a straight line for days, you still only reach more of Australia!

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We were on a train for just over 3 hours (a trip to Canberra), and ended up here…

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Yes, that’s right. We went to PARIS! *has a moment* Left on Friday night after work, and were back Sunday afternoon.

We have a gift though. We crossed countries (I’ve now been through Belgium! Another first!), and changed major international city, and still wound up in the Red Light District.

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This is the day we woke up to. Weather was threatening rain, and given a friend of mine had just left Paris a few days earlier and it had been so hot she was unable to sleep, I was grateful for the respite in the heat.

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This is the most comfortable bed I have slept in since arriving in Europe, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I can’t wait for our stuff to arrive. And the hotel had REAL black out curtains. *cries tears of joy*

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Over breakfast we planned out our day. Wouldn’t be France without croissants and espresso. We’ll just gloss over the fact that this is what Himself has for breakfast every day…

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Yet again, the architecture defines the city. The beautiful ironwork balustrades, covered with plant boxes, shutters, and the windows in the rooves. This is Paris.

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Then it as off to the Metro to begin our days excitement!

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I can’t get over how well looked after, clean, efficient, and old the metro is!

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This’ll be a big week for posting folks, I hope you don’t mind too much following along on our adventure! 😀