Our First Trip to Europe - Day One

We're off to the aiport, very excited!

We flew Iceland Air into Reykjavik and got our passports stamped "Iceland" ... never got to step foot out of the airport, however.

Next stop, Helsinki. My birthday, on 9/26, was being celebrated by this big sign (never mind that in Europe my birthday would be 26/9.. shhhh). Again, we never got to step foot outside the airport.

our destination: Prague, Czech Republic! We arrived on the evening of Sept 25.

My pen-friend, with whom I have been corresponding for 22 years, met us at the airport. Joyous face-to-face meeting!

our hotel room

loved the cobblestones everywhere; I thought of quilts, of course

pen-friend's daughter, H., helped guide us around Prague

Our first full day in Prague was my birthday! Best birthday ever! We were led all over Prague and saw as much as we could in one day. Never walked so many kilometers in one day in my life. My legs were wooden blocks by the time we fell into bed that night, but I was happy as could be.

My husband, an architect, looks at buildings in interesting ways. I had a lot of fun watching him. We saw changing of the guard at Prague Castle, and the inside of St. Vitus Cathedral.

I lit two candles: one for my dad who died in 2002, and one for husband's aunt who died at age 101 a couple of days before we left for Europe. And there's another quilty floor...

Above: balcony is where the first post-revolution President, Vaclav Havel, gave his first presidential speech. Their revolution in 1989 was bloodless and is called the Velvet Revolution. Havel was very much For The People and guided their new democracy into a strong foundation.

Below: Charles Bridge

more beautiful views of Prague; R. and Husband are showing the flood level in 2002. Wow!

Our evening ended with a birthday dinner at a restaurant where we sat at a table in the window. We were the window dressing! Dinner was delicious. For beer, the beer was pretty good. When we got back to the hotel, we found this little birthday gift: free wine.

I'm not a drinker, but tasting the local fare was interesting, and I did actually like the beers and wines better than any I have tasted here.

End of Day One: we fell into bed and slept soundly.