London Baby

Okay so I know I'm behind on posting pictures. We went to London 2 weekends ago from Friday to Monday afternoon. It was amazing. We loved it. We stayed with some of Hil's old friends from the YSA ward there, and they were so much fun and entertaining. Their names were Imma and Maria. They are both from Italy and made us some delicious authentic pasta and pizza. We loved London. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm. Our favorite things in London were the parks, the markets and the fish n' chips. Here are some pictures, enjoy!


In front of Buckingham Palace, attempting to watch the changing of the guards.


Westminster Abbey


Me at Picadilly Circus


We went to the Portobello Road market in Notting Hill. It was so much fun. Amazing food! This is just one of many sausages and/or hot dogs consumed by Brett. They were delicious.


This bench has a funny story, too long to tell here. Basically it has our name on it and my birth date. Cool!



The parks were beautiful, as were the red phone booths :)


This is us standing in different hemispheres at the Observatory.


We found my favorite cookies in the world, Ben's Cookies at Covent Gardens! So yummy!!!


The Tower of London. We didn't have time to take the tour, but it looked awesome. We'll just have to go back :)


Us in front of the tower bridge


St. Paul's Cathedral


We found some really good fish n' chips and ate them outside looking out on the Thames River.

Hillary & Joe

Brett had the privilege to meet Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden a couple of weeks ago at the Embassy. He was really excited and was one of the few to actually shake Hillary's hand. He also mentioned that she was surprisingly short. He was even able to talk to Joe. Pretty cool!

The Netherlands

We went to the Netherlands last weekend. We started out in The Hague and went to the LDS temple, then went to Amsterdam. The temple was beautiful and it was such a good experience.

It was raining in The Hague, but very beautiful. The temple was the smallest one we've seen.

Some views of the canals in Amsterdam. We took a canal cruise and saw a lot of the city. It was beautiful.

We went to the Anne Frank house or the "Secret Annex" where the Franks were in hiding. It was very moving to see what it was like and what they lived in for so long. Please read this book if you haven't already.

"When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived...I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support." (1942)

"One day this terrible war will be over. The time will come when we'll be people again and not just Jews! We can never be just Dutch, or just English, or whatever, we will always be Jews as well. But then, we'll want to be." (April 9, 1944)

We also went to the Van Gogh museum. We saw over 100 of his paintings, including The Starry Night. It was really awesome.

Brett eating his favorite food: frites.
They were some of the best ones
we've had yet in Europe. The place was called Mannekin Pis :)

Germany

We spent last weekend in Germany. We went to Aachen, Cologne and St. Goar. The top three things we did were: 1) see the Cologne Cathedral, 2) visit a chocolate museum in Cologne, and 3) travel down the Rhine to the Rheinfels Castle ruins. All of the following pictures are from those places. It was a great weekend.

The minute we walked out of the train station in Cologne, we saw this directly in front of us. It was stunning. It was started in 1248 and wasn't completely finished until 1880-something. The history of it is amazing and it was awesome to learn about.

The bright gold shrine is said to hold the remains of the 3 Magi, or the 3 wisemen.

The Lindt Chocolate Factory/Museum. So cool, like Willy Wonka's, almost. Oh, and yes, that is chocolate pasta above.

This is in St. Goar at the Rheinfels Castle ruins. It was so cool. There were little passageways and dungeons that we had to have a candle to go into.

On top of the highest tower of the castle

Some of the mine tunnels that we could barely crawl down into.

These are pretty self-explanatory. Basically, I hit my head, and instead of seeing if I was okay, Brett decided to take pictures of my pain.



The Rhine river was so cool.