The Shwits

It’s a Nice Day for a…Wright Wedding

in Dubrovnik, Croatia!

9 September 2016

…it kind of messes up the whole “Crosson” Europe the “Wright” way thing, but I guess we will manage. 🙂

Unfortunately, this is the only picture we have of the day so far. We’re still waiting on the professional photos. I can say, though, that the day could not have been more perfect.

We stayed in the Hotel Dubrovnik Palace, which is a beautiful hotel about 4km (2.5mi) from the Old Town of Dubrovnik. Friday morning, the day of the wedding, we woke up to a horrific view from our balcony.

We spent the morning on the hotel’s “beach” – I say “beach” becuase, at least in the parts of Dubrovnik we saw, there aren’t true beaches. To swim, you just jump off the cliff or, sometimes, you could walk into the water via stone steps or metal pool-style stairs that have been drilled into the cliff.

Mid-afternoon, I left Shane at the pool and headed to the room for hair and make-up. Once I was ready, the photographer and I left for pictures, and only then was Shane allowed to come back to the room. So, in case you were wondering, NO! He didn’t see my dress before the ceremony. ❤

The rest of the evening was perfect. There was a little bit of rain about 20 min before the ceremony started, but other than that it was a beautiful evening. We were tucked away in an overlook near the hotel, just us and the vows we wrote for one another.

After the ceremony we headed into the Old Town for pictures, which, based on the preview we were sent, will be AWESOMEEEE! We spent the next two hours canoodling through the streets of Old Town, while the crowds literally parted the ways for us (bridal superpowers!). We also got tons of cheers, high fives, and congratulations!

We ended the evening back at the hotel for dinner and drinks, and that was that! Intimate, fun, and relaxing; everything we envisioned.

The rest of our time in Dubrovnik was the Honeymoon!

In case you don’t know, the HBO TV show Game of Thrones has really put Dubrovnik on the map the past few years. It was the main filming location for all the King’s Landing scenes through seasons 2 and 3. We love GoT, so the morning of the honeymoon day 1 was spent in the Old Town doing a GoT walking tour! We used a company called Dubrovnik Walking Tours, and our tour guide worked as part of the ground crew when during filming.

Fun Fact: In season 6, only one scene in the entire season was filmed in Dubrovnik.

Which makes it even more incredible that such a huge tourism industry has been built around the show since there were only 2 seasons when the city was really being utilized for filming. There are other filming locations (as we learned) that are near Dubrovnik, but just not in the Old Town.

Little Finger & Sansa do some sneaky talking here.
Blackwater Bay, Myrcella’s send off to Dorne, and The Red Keep (the fort).
The Purple Wedding location.
The Walk of Shame stairs!
View of the Fortress of St. Lawrence (The Red Keep) from the walls.
View of the Old Town from the Fortress of St. Lawrence

We hit all the major spots: Blackwater bay, The Red Keep, the stairs from the walk of shame scene. Best part, our tour was only 8 PEOPLE which may not seem like a big deal, but during tourist/cruise boat season most walking groups you see are 20+. We were more than happy with this company if there’s anyone out there considering a walking tour!

After all that walking… we needed lunch. And a beer. #notsorry

Ok fine, I wanted this picture in beceause I am ROCKIN some day 2 wedding curls! …and I actually look tan. #notsorryagain.

Anyway, next up – wall walking!

I think its safe to say this is what Dubrovnik is known for. As you would imagine for a medivial city, the Old Town of Dubrovnik is surrounded by a large fortress wall (at least that’s what I would call it) and you can walk the entire perimeter of town.

I had three main thoughts while doing this:

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!
“Mom said we will take way too many pictures of the same thing” – 5 min into walking – “Mom was right”. (does that count as two thoughts?)
This is a long walk.

Here are a handful of the ‘way too many pictures of the same thing’.

Naturally, all this wall walking makes one tired & thirsty. We needed a little pick me up, and we got one in the form of a cliff bar! Just through the city walls through barely marked doors are two bars that sit on the cliff face. The first one we went to, Buza Bar, served beer, wine & pringels. That’s it.

The view of the bars looking down from the wall.

The real entertainment comes from the beautiful view, and the crazy peole jumping off cliffs.

We ended the day taking the cable car up Mount Srdj for a fantastic view of the Old Town!

The next day was diving day. We were lucky, the hotel had a dive center connected and we took advantage!

We’re just diving along! I’m in the front, Shane in the back.

Our first dive was pretty cool because it was our first boat dive, and cave dive! We took the boat out to the island of Lokrum, which is the closest island to the Old Town. From the back side of the island we dove into a trench, and followed it through a small cave. The cave opened up into a small lake called “The Dead Sea”. We surfaced here, scared the sh*t out of the swimmers in the lake, looked around for a few minutes, then decended and went back the way we came!

We also did our first night dive which was, for me, my favorite dive of the day! We saw octapus, cuttle fish, & an eel!

Not us, but a cool shot of the sea grass.

The morning of our final honeymoon day was spent by the pool, but the second half we ventured above the water to the island of Lokrum. A 15 minute ferry ride later, and we were surrounded by peacocks!

We had two goals coming to Lokrum: visit the Iron Throne and swimming!

The Iron Throne (from Game of Thrones) that was used during the filming in Dubrovnik is kept on Lokrum in a small museum dedicated to the show. Best part…

YOU CAN ACTUALLY SIT IN IT!!!!

awesome.

Next stop, swimming!

Except by swimming I mean Shane convinced me to jump off a ~~500ft~~ 20ft cliff! Just a little disclaimer – I’m not good at jumping off things. It’s not really my favorite. But when in Croatia, do as the tourists do, and jump off that cliff! We took a video of it, but we’re cheap and don’t pay for the blog subscription that allows video embedding.

Instead, please enjoy the following screenshots from said video which, I think, give the highlights.

“You ready?!” – Shane

Do I look ready?!

Graceful jump…

…and respectable landing.

“Don’t think, just do it!” – Shane, from the safety of the water.

Pure terror face. I like to call this pose ‘air planking’.

The most unattractive face I’ve ever made.

I survived! ok ok so it was fun. Did I want to do it again? NOPE!

We wrapped up Lokrum by checking out The Dead Sea and the cave we dove through, by land.

That about sums up our time in Croatia! We left feeling like we were not quite ready to go, but completely happy with our wedding and other adventures. Croatia is a country we will absolutely need to go back to!

And from there we were off! We headed back to the U.S. to Banner Elk, NC for A Shwitastic Party, which was completely different than Croatia, but equally as fantastic. More on that later though…

Tot ziens!

Whitney

Weddings, weather, & more !

So I’m a little late getting this post written but better late than never, right?

Between work, travel, and finishing up things for our own wedding festivities next month, Whitney and I have been very busy lately. It seems like everytime I would sit down to work on a post, we would immediately get drawn into something else. Anways, enough with the excuses, on to the post!

Weddings

Over the first weekend of August, I was back in the US for the Johnson/Smith wedding in good ole Greenville, NC! For those of you keeping tabs (obviously everyone reading this does…), we can add this to string of travel I have going recently – May: London, England; June: Arolla, Switzerland; July: Amsterdam, Netherlands/Paris, France; August: Greenville, NC, USA. Of course things will continue into September but we will come to that later.

So Greenville, NC….home of the East Carolina University Pirates and a lot of Walmarts. It’s hard to believe that this was my first time back to Greenville since Whitney and I completed our masters. Aside from all of the new Walmarts (seriously, there at least 4 there now….two super centers), Greenville has changed dramaticlly since our time there. Most of our old hangouts are gone now, replaced by classier establishments which, if we are honest, is not necessarily a bad thing. Greenville and ECU more specifically has always had the repuation as a party school and they are trying to clean it up. It was fun to see all the changes, but I digress from the topic at hand – I was in Greenville for the wedding of our good friend Mike Smith!

Mike, Whitney, and I began our masters at the same time and have been friends ever since. Sadly, however, Whitney was unable to accompany me on this trip to due work (but as shall see in the next section, she is probably glad she didn’t). Much as Whitney did last year when she traveled back to the US for a wedding, this was an extremely short trip – leave on Wednesday, back on Monday. Not fun travel-wise but worth the trip!

I arrived in Greenville late on Wednesday night, so Thursday was a relax, recover, and explore Greenville day. Friday night and Saturday brought wedding festivities and seeing long lost friends! First and foremost, the wedding and all related activities were fantastic. Congratulations Heather & Mike – it was an honor to be a part of your big day!

As I said, the wedding was also an excuse to see lots of friends, many of which I had not seen in a number of years.

All-in-all, it was a great weekend. Beautiful wedding, good friends, and warmth/sunshine (something we don’t get here in Holland). At this point I should also mention that the majority of the wedding and friend pictures were not taken by me. Luckily all those long lost friends like to share photos – thanks guys!

In other wedding related news, I think Whitney and I are finally all set for our own wedding extravganza in a couple of weeks. We just finished up confirming all the details for our Croatia ceremony and we hear that our celebration stateside is looking equally exciting (although we aren’t allowed to know the details). To say that we are excited for both parts is an understatement. We leave in three weeks!

Weather

I could have easily called this section “Travel” or more appropiately “How can this many things go wrong with travel in one trip?!” but weather is actually the common theme throughout.

As I said previously, my trip stateside was extremely fast and my time in Greenville was excellent. However, everything outside of Greenville was not so great. The trip was book ended by some pretty bad travel. In retrospect, I can laugh about it, but at the time, not so much.

As is always the case when we travel from Groningen, we have to take a 2+ hour train ride to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. So, off I go at 5:00 on Wednesday morning to catch the first train out of the city. As is expected from dutch weather, it was raining that morning so I had a nice, wet 20 minute walk to begin my trip (too early for buses and too much luggage for the bike). Despite the wet start, I made it to Amsterdam with no problems and off I went to Philadelphia, PA. So far so good.

At this point, I cannot help but to call out American Airlines – my Amsterdam to Philadelphia flight was on a very outdated plane. Small, leather seats, no seat back entertainment system, and tv’s hanging from the ceiling.

Now I am by no means a travel snob – we always travel economy and we love to fly with budget airlines – but come on, it is 2016! Why is this plane still being used for an 8 hour, international flight? I get that planes are expensive to upgrade/replace, but my airfare from Amsterdam to Greenville, NC certainly wasn’t cheap! I don’t think I am too out of line to expect a little more. Anyways, off topic, back to the post.

Because of some changes in my flight plan, once making it to Philadelphia I had a 6 hour layover. Not enjoyable, but doable. Six hours later, I boarded for Charlottle, NC only to be delayed due to weather for roughly an hour (not in Philadelphia, but in Charlotte). As such, I landed late in Charlottle and had to run through the airport to make my final flight to Greenville, NC. I made the flight and, despite some more minor delays (again, weather related), I finally landed in Greenville around midnight, ~25 hours since leaving our apartment in Groningen. Should be the end of the adventure, right? Well, in normal circumstances, yes. But this trip was not normal. Since I arrived at midnight, the car rental desk (where I had a reservation) was closed. The next logical thought would be to get a taxi but once again, this is Greenville. For whatever reason, taxi service in Greenville is TERRIBLE. Calling any of the operating taxi companies results in nothing more than a “we can get you one there at some point, no estimate of the time”. From three years living there, I can tell you with near 100% confidence, they never come. Yes, I tried and no, they never came. Being that Uber or Lyft do not operate in Greenville, I was stuck, with no phone (I had yet to get a SIM card for the US and was only making calls using google voice on airport wifi), no ride to my hotel, and the airport was closing. Luckily, the kindness of an airport employee saved me by givng me a ride to the hotel after he got off work. This type of stuff never happens when Whitney and I travel together…

So that was my travel experience just getting to Greenville. Not so bad right? A few delays, one long layover, a bit of airport running, and a rather comical method of getting to my hotel. It could have beeen worse.

On Sunday, I was scheduled to leave Greenville at 6:00 in the afternoon. So following brunch, I had some time to kill and decided that seeing a movie was as good an option as any. During the movie, I got a notification that my 6:00 flight was delayed due to weather in Charlotte. Not a big deal. This process continued for the next 20-30 minutes, with each notification bringing a later flight time. Again, no big deal, these things happen. It wasn’t until the 4th or 5th notification that I really began to worry and, sure enough, my flight got canceled. A perfectly clear, sunny day in Greenville and weather on the other side of the state had canceled all flights for the day. So following the movie, I was able to reschedule for the next day (Monday). Because the cancellation was due to weather or “an act of God” in airline terms, this meant I was to recieve no help for the extra night in Greenville. Luckily, I was able to extend my car rental for no additional cost (how often does that happen?!) and avoided additional hotel costs by staying with the parents of our good friend Brian Sufrinko. This worked out rather well because it meant more Sufrinko time!…

…and more Sufrinko dog time! Juneau and Anika are our buds from our time in Greenville and Pittsburgh and I hadn’t seen them in a long time!

Monday morning brought the news that Delta flight systems had crashed and flights world-wide had been canceled. Luckily, I was on American Airlines but heading to the airport, I was not optimistic. Everything worked out and I successfully made it Charlotte, only to have another 6+ hour layover. The first long layover was doable, but this time it was torture. On a positive note, the Olympics were on so at least I had some entertainment.

When I was finally able to board for my flight to London, we were, surprise surprise, delayed due to weather. So there we sat on the tarmac, waiting for all East and North bound flights to be rescheduled. Nearly two hours later, we finally took off. Again, trying to see the silver lining here: at least this was a nice, new plane and no one sat beside me. A window seat, with extra room, and an entertainment system. Nice!

If you have ever flown into London Heathrow, you are aware that it is a very large airport. I you haven’t – London Heathrow is a very large airport. As such, it’s nice to have some extra time to navigate switching terminals, going through customs and security, having a cup of coffee after an all night flight, etc. Well, due to my delay weather delay in Charlotte, I had none of these luxuries. I had exactly 40 minutes until my final flight to Amsterdam and I used every second of it. I made it to my gate just as they were doing final call for boarding.

And finally, to top off the whole experience, my luggage did not make the short connection. So, while I was in Amsterdam waiting at baggage claim, my luggage was still sitting in London. Remember how I said this was during the whole Delta power outage fiasco? Well this meant that I had to stand in line for an hour and a half just to file a lost luggage claim (it was successfully delivered to our apartment a few days later). My flight landed in Amsterdam at 2:00 and I finally made it home to Groningen a little before 7:00. As I said eariler, this type of stuff never happens when Whitney and I travel together…

& More

Now that the majority of our wedding and party details are set, we plan to take the next few weeks to do a lot of nothing! The only thing we have scheduled is a quick diving trip to a local indoor facility this weekend for a few practice dives before Croatia. Other than that, we will be trying our best to soak up every bit of sunshine we can so that we don’t look like ghosts in our wedding pictures. Don’t believe that summers are really that bad here? The National Dutch Weather bureau just officially declared this summer a disappointment. We used to say that the weather here doesn’t bother us, but I think it’s starting to wear on us a bit.

Until next time,

Shane

Groningen, Paris, & Amsterdam Too !

Guess who came to visit?

If you guessed Shane’s family, then you guessed Wright!

My almost in-laws and nephew (6 more weeks! – not that anyone is counting) made the trek from southwest Virginia to spend 10 days in Europe with Shane, Meatball and me.

Two planes and a train ride later put them here in Groningen for the first portion of the trip. This was their first time to Europe, and I think Groningen was the Wright place to start! They were able to relax a little, recover some from the jet lag, and see our stomping grounds!

Night 1 and Alex was asleep before dark. In his defense, dark is at 11pm…

Linnaeusborg at the Zernike campus – Shane’s work.

On the last day in Groningen, we rented a car and hit the road! We drove about 45 min northeast to the village Pieterburen. Groningen, the province, is bordered by the Wadden Sea and the North Sea which are home to Harbor seals and Grey seals, respectively. Pieterburen is most known for it’s ‘Zeehondencentrum’ – translated ‘Sea dogs center’ – aka Seal Rescue Center!

Go ahead, mentally prepare for the cuteness….

Ohhh Emmmm Geeeee! Told you!

Meet Alice the Harbor seal. Darn adorable Wright? Unfortunately, she made it to the rescue center because she was trapped in a fishing net. She, and the other seals at the facility, are rehabed and then eventually released back into the wild. You can actually sign up to go on a ‘seal release’ expedition, and travel with the rescue center staff to the Wadden Sea (in this case) and watch/help with their release. I’m 100% sure we will take part in this sometime before we leave The Netherlands!

After 4 days in Groningen we packed up and headed for

The City of Light… Paris!

DCIM100GOPROGOPR0436. — 4 Wrights and a ~~wrong~~ Crosson at the Arc de Triomphe!

Heading to Paris I had three goals:

Macaroons.
Crêpes.
Escargot.

Priorities, am I Wright?

Goal #1 – Macaroons: Check!

So pretty, so delicious, so expensive!

Goal #2 – Crêpes: Double Check!

Speculoos
…and Nutella. Cause I know you were curious.

Goal #3 – Escargot: Fail

…but that’s OK because we ate dinner ON the Eiffel Tower!

I must give Marsha all the credit here, because she was the one who first told us about this. We spent our first night in Paris on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, enjoying a beautiful sunset view and a delicious dinner. This is something that Shane and I would have seen, and talked ourselves out of doing had it been just the two of us so thank you Marsha for requesting it! It was definitley the Wright choice!

After dinner we spent some time enjoying the view. Because of dinner, we were too late to go to the summit. Maybe next time.

Oh, and this perfect (completely coincidental) picture happened.

The next day we headed to the Sacré-Cœur, or the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris. It’s located on the highest point in the city, and therefore you have quite a view from the front steps.

As one might imagine, to get to the highest point in the city you have to climb some steps. By the end of the day we had tallied 65 flights of stairs. There were reasons I needed so many crêpes…

And because we’re a glutton for punishment (OK, I was – Shane and Alex were just drug along for the ride) we hiked up some more steps and into the dome of the basilica! Worth the stairs in my opinion.

View of the front from the dome.

In keeping with the church theme, we made a pit stop by Notre Dame on the way back home (and no, we didn’t see the hunchback… unless you count the creatively dressed begger out font). And we ended the day at the Catacombs! These were REALLY cool! I think everyone thoroughly enjoyed this.

The catacombs started out as a limestone mine, but after extensive unregulated mining they ran into the problem of cave-ins. Long story short, in the 19th century the mines were reinforced and turned into an ossuary – aka: Bone house – for approximately 6 million Parisians. The femur bones and skulls were arranged throughout and turned into a public attraction for the privileged and eventually the public. It’s so crazy to walk these passageways and know you’re looking at ACTUAL HUMAN BONES!!! Super cool & I guess kind of creepy?

We started our last day in Paris with a lovely walking tour! (Be proud Aunt Ann!). This one was called ‘Paris Landmarks’. We started at the original Opera House and then worked our way through the Place Vendôme (where the Ritz, Chanel, and other way way fancy stores are), the Tuileries Gardens, and ended in The Place de la Concorde.

We added to our walking tour with a stroll through the Luxembourg Gardens after lunch.

And to wrap up our time in Paris, The Louvre!

One thing to note about the Louvre. We heard it was huge. No one anticipated just how HUGE this place is! I think the hardest part was finding the Wright entrance once you were inside, and then navigating to where you wanted to go. You literally needed the map. We heard stories of people getting lost in The Louvre, and I can absolutely see why! It took us about 20 min to find the exit once we decided we were ready to leave.

Attention spans and museum opening times only allowed for a few hours here, so we hit some highlights. The Mona Lisa (of course!), Nike, Napoleon III apartments, and the statue room (don’t know what it’s really called).

Last up, Amsterdam!

Shane and I were so curious for the fam to see Amsterdam and hear their impression. It’s just such a different city than Paris, and even Groningen. Compared to Groningen it’s much busier, more tourists, and a little dirtier (because of the tourists). Amsterdam’s size though can’t really compare to Paris, it’s definitely smaller, and I think it feels more friendly and welcoming. Perhaps that’s just the nature of the Dutch. Anyway, the first two days we hit some major spots.

Dam Square, The Royal Palace, Anne Frank House and THE letters. We even caught a canal cruise! Which was a fantastic decision! I know you can’t catch my oozing sarcasm in that statement but it was a total bust. The heat wave + no breeze + cheesy pre-recorded commentary made for a not so pleasant experience. I mean, Alex fell asleep.

Ya win some, ya lose some, Wright?

The final day we took a little side trip to Zaanse Schans which is about 30 minutes by bus from Amsterdam. It’s a small town that has kept the same 18-19th century feel, and they have 9 traditional windmills that are still functioning today!

So! I think that about sums up our trip! I think we picked all the Wright stuff to see for our mini-European vacation!

All in all, this really was a fantastic trip and we were happy to play hosts and tour-guide! I asked the Wrights, which of the three cities they saw was their favorite? To my surprise, it was Groningen! I think I can speak for Butch, Marsha and Alex when I say that they seemed to really enjoy the the ‘city-but-a-small-town’ feel that Groningen has, as well as the variety in the buildings – the old historic houses mixed in with the new.

Like we say after any visitors… who’s next?! The door is always open, and Meatball is waiting!

Oh, and sorry for the extra long post…

Tot ziens,

Whitney

Arolla, Switzerland

Last week I had the opportunity to attend an Evolutionary Biology Workshop in the Swiss Alps

(yet another perk of living in Europe – spending the week in the Alps, no big deal…).

In a nut shell, the purpose of this workshop was to aid people early in their science careers (aka me) in the process of grant and proposal writing. Basically, to survive in science research, and more specifically, academia, you have to convince agencies and governing bodies to give you money to do your work. As you can imagine, this is no small task. When you’re someone like me and that research involves a group of fish from central Africa, this tends to be a bit more challenging – the normal response when describing my work: “but why, who cares”? With this in mind, off to Switzerland I went to gain every bit of help I could get!

Without going into too much more detail, the workshop was a collection of scienctists, both in early and late stages of their respective careers from all over the world. This is by far one of my favorite aspect of working in science – people from all walks of life coming together with one common interest. No one cares about where you are from or what you believe or don’t believe. Everyone is just excited to meet other people and hear about their work. That and talk about Donald Trump….everyone wants to talk about Donald Trump. Sorry world, it’s not a joke.

As I mentioned above, this workshop was really intended to help people like me develop their skills in grant writing. So, to aid in that process, we were dividied into teams of 5 and tasked with creating our own research project, writing it as a formal proposal, and presenting it at the end of the week. Along the way, we were given constant feedback by 5 senior scientists in Evolutionary Biology, all of whom have had lots of experience with the granting process. All-in-all, it was a great workshop!

For the sake of those non-sceincetists reading this, I’ll stop with the science talk now and move onto the other exciting aspect of staying in the Swiss Alps for a week…the Alps! To say that it was incredible is an understatement. In fact, the pictures that follow do not even do it justice. It was amazing, so beautiful!

To begin with, Arolla is not easy to get to. It is a small alpine village at an altitue of about ~2,100m (~6,900 ft). So, just getting there required a flight to Geneva, then a train from Geneva to Sion (~1.5 hrs), and finally, two buses to get from Sion to Arolla (~1 hr). On the plus side, views are incredible the entire way. The down side: a long trip and a bit of car sickness winding up the mountains on the bus.

As I said, Arolla is a small village…

We stayed at the Grand Hotel Kurhaus, which was orginigally built in 1896 but has more recently been upgraded to modern standards. The hotel was great! It was full of memorbilia from early exporation of the Alps but, due to my lack of knowing French, I was not able to read too many details. Nonetheless, very cool to look at the old pictures and equipment.

While the purpose of the workshop was to work and develop grant writing skills, it still allowed plenty of time to explore the local area and, for those interested, lots of hiking opportunites. And hike I did! This is something that I did not realize how much I miss. Living in a flat country like the Netherlands, there isn’t much in the way of hiking. Sure, people here go ‘hike’, but it’s not really what I have in mind. To me, hiking is about elevation change, scenery, and getting away from everything. The Alps provided all of these! The Alps also provided much less oxygen than I am used to when hiking….talk about a workout!

I won’t go into detail about every hike I did, but I will say that I certainly got my fill. Luckily, there were two other workshop participants who also liked to hike so the three of us pushed it every chance we got. Our longest hike (on our half free day): ~6 hours, to an altitude of 2,928m (+9,600ft), covering a distance of +17km (~10.5 miles). Along the way, we crossed a galcier, hiked through knee-deep snow, went up and down ladders bolted to the side of the mountain, and even did some rock climbing. It was hard and I paid the price for it later but totally worth it! My love of hiking has been re-awakened. We will definitely be going back to Switzerland for more hiking!

So, as I’ve said multiple times throughout this post: a great workshop and a great trip! I met amazing people, learned valuable tips on future grant writing, and enjoyed beautiful scenery. What more can you ask for?

In other exciting news, in about 10 days time the Wright clan will be coming to visit! Dad, mom, and Alex will be making the trek to Groningen, after which we will also visit Paris and Amsterdam. To say that Whitney and I are excited is an understatement. We love to travel and see new places, but it’s not so often that we get visitors! We have lots planned and will share the details following their visit.

Until next time,

Shane

Happy 2 Year Netherversary !

Hi all!

Just a quick post to say Happy 2 year Netherlands anniversary to us! This past Friday marked the occasion, and what a better way to celebrate than to do a little exploring in Groningen.

My aunt and uncle, who we visited in London, were in town this weekend so we finally got around to checking off some of those “we really should do that” kind of things.

First stop, back to Humphrey’s where we went for our one year Netherversary! Unfortunatley for Humphrey’s (because I know they are concerned), I think it’s officially lost its Netherversary restaurant status. It was shown up on Saturday night by this Italian restaurant, Gustatio. Shane and I aren’t huge pasta eaters, but this place made me want to eat pasta all the time. We won’t wait a year to go back!

Anyway, Saturday we took my aunt and uncle around Groningen. They were able to see things like our awesome Saturday market, the 400 year old university buildings in city center, and their completly opposite counterparts out at the Zernike campus where Shane works. Also, we FINALLY went in the Martini Church!

We’ve talked about the Martini Toren (tower) before, which is the main tower in city center. Behind this is the Martini Kerk (church). We were able to pop in and finally see it, and it was well worth the quick trip. We literally walk by this church once a week if not more, so I’m proud we finally did it!

We also made a stop in the Prinsenhof Gardens. This garden is connected to probably the nicest hotel in the city. The gardens are open to the public, and something else we walk past all the time, so we took a stroll.

Overall, the weather was great, the company was fantastic, and we couldn’t have asked for a nicer visit! We had a lot of fun showing off our little city.

Shane heads to Switzerland in June for a week long course. Until then, we will be enjoying the long days, sunshine and warm weather while we’ve got it!

Tot ziens,

Whitney

London, England

As you can probably derive from the title, we went to London!

We had a 4 day weekend here in The Netherlands, so we decided to take advantage and hop one of Groningen’s daily flights over to London to visit my aunt & uncle and explore the city!

…. and explore the city we did! I’ll break this up into days, because thanks to my Aunt Ann, aka: the ultimate London tour guide, we saw (and learned) a lot! Let’s begin.

London 101, Day 1: Lots. of. Walking.

And that’s not a bad thing! You might have noticed this from other posts, but just wandering around a place is one of our favorite ways to get to know it. And what a better way to start the day then with a walking tour!

We did a fantastic walking tour of “The City” with a company called London Walks. In case you’re like me and have no idea what “The City” of London is (I mean… aren’t we already in the city??) it’s actually a city within London itself. It’s also referred to as “The Square Mile” because it’s area is a square mile. It’s here where the London that we know today began.

Our tour started at the monument to the great fire of 1666. I vaguely knew that London burned at one point, but I didn’t know that the city (or various part of it) burned over and over and over. Seriously, if something was damaged or no longer around, and someone asked you what happened to it you could just tell them ‘oh, it burned’ and it would probably be true. 1666 was particularly bad, since it wiped out all of London. Hence the name ‘the great fire’.

The rest of the tour walked us through the major highlights of The City. This part of town is known now for a few particular buildings: The Cheese Shredder, The Gherkin, The Walkie Talkie. We saw all of these, as well as a few other spots, learning some history & architecture along the way.

You think you’re going into a church, but really it’s the shell of one that was destroyed in 1941.

After the tour, we refueled with a little lunch, and then headed to the Millennium Bridge (built for the millennium), passing St. Paul’s Cathedral along the way. We only walked by it, but it is such a beautiful place. It’s on our list of ‘must sees’ when we come back.

We walked along the south side of the river until we hit our next big stop; the Tower Bridge! Shane and I were particularly excited about this because 1) it’s iconic, and 2) you can walk the upper portion of the bridge where they’ve installed a glass floor.

Naturally, we had to do it. Aunt Ann, being the smart lady that she is, sat this one out. Something about being 42m (138ft) above the Thames with only a piece of glass under her feet didn’t sit too well. And I won’t lie… it was reallllllllllly creepy. I literally tiptoed over the thing. Kids are out there dancing a jig and i’m over here holding the railing like it’s going to save me if the glass breaks. (Which apparently, it has before. Glad I saw this after). Eventually, we warmed up to it and took this fun shot!

After the bridge, we hopped on a boat up for a short trip down (up?) the Thames to the London Eye! Shane wasn’t exactly thrilled for this one, but he didn’t have a choice. It was cool, nice views, I enjoyed it but it’s not something I need to do again.

London 101, Day 2: History Day

We woke up on day 2 with (not surprisingly) sore feet from the day before, but ready to go! If you noticed in the pictures, the weather at this point in the trip, and for the remainder of the trip, was absolutely PERFECT. It made up for the sore feet.

Anyway, first stop of the day, The Tower of London!

As one might assume, the Tower Bridge leads to the Tower of London. The original castle, The White Tower, was built in 1078 and now it’s still the official palace and fortress of Queen Elizabeth II. The crown jewels are in the Tower of London, which we saw, and were quite impressive. Go figure, you’re not allowed to take pictures. Anyway, we continued our tour of the tower with this guy!

Who is he you ask? A Yeomen Warder, aka: a Beefeater! And a quite hilarious one at that. These guys are the (now ceremonial) guards of the Tower of London. Back in the day they once watched over prisoners, and generally kept the place safe. Today they still keep the place safe, they actually live there, but with no prisoners. They also lead free tours, which we both highly recommend. We learned about the various murders and executions that once took place there, and saw the chapel (which you can’t do without the tour). It’s in the chapel where Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, was buried after her execution. After the tour, we did a little castle-wall-walking and then we were on to our next adventure!

Next stop, Westminster Abbey!

Again, no pictures were allowed inside, but Shane and I were both really excited about this place. Even though it’s just looking at stones and inscriptions, seeing the burial places of people like Charles Darwin, Issac Newton, Jane Austen, & Charles Dickens was a pretty neat experience. Not to mention, the Royal wedding was held here! The free audio guide gave a great highlight tour, but even without it you could stay there for hours just admiring the greatness of things. Well worth the visit.

We topped off the afternoon with a little stroll by the Parliament buildings and St. James’s Park, took a quick look at Buckingham Palace since that’s all you can really do, and then headed home for the day.

London 101, Day 3: Hampton Court Palace

Saturday morning, our last full day, the four of us headed out of town to Hampton Court Palace. This has been home to a number of people, but most notably to us was Henry VIII and William of Orange (he’s Dutch!).

Most of the day was spent touring the palace (again, audio guides! Highly recommended). It was quite striking the difference between the part of the palace that was constructed during the Tudor times of Henry VIII vs when William of Orange lived there. By the time Willie moved in to the palace Henry VIII’s choice of decor was soooooo last century. He needed to keep up with those French Jones’ so he redid 3 sides of the palace. Unfortunately for the Dutchie, he didn’t have much money (he invested heavily in wars) so he could only afford to redo 3 sides, and had to opt out of the gold gilded ceilings.

We thought inside the palace was quite spectacular. Even more so, were the gardens. Not to mention it was the warmest day so far & perfectly sunny. We also saw the largest and oldest grape vine. Didn’t take a picture of it, but it was large. And a grape vine. I’m sure you can imagine it.

After spending most of the day in Hampton Court, we headed back into the city with a pit stop at Trafalgar Square before heading home.

So! A few take aways from London:

London is an awesome city. You should go there. We forgot how much we missed the hustle and bustle of a big city. And public transportation! I know that seems silly since it’s not like we drive anywhere, but I just really liked using the Tube. And yes, I minded the gap.
Cask Ale is Shane’s new favorite style of beer. I didn’t really talk about this, but of course we had a few pints. One place in particular was part of a ‘go back to real ale’ movement, which means un-carbonated beer. Sounds weird (to me at least), but it was good.
Walking tours are the way of the tourist world! I know we said this to you already, Aunt Ann, but you have made us a believer! We have the bad habit of wandering around and not knowing what we’re looking at. It makes the trip much more meaningful when you actually DO know what you’re looking at! Go figure.
Audio guides…Use them! Again, we usually avoided. Mostly to not be ‘those tourists’. But ya know what? YOLO, and get an audio guide because you’ll actually learn something. And who knows if you’ll ever go back to that place again.

So, we had a fantastic time in London with gracious hosts! And actually, we will get to return the favor and show them around our stomping grounds here in a few weeks! They will make the trip from London to Groningen. But, until then…

Tot ziens!

Whitney

Spring has Sprung !

I would just like to start by saying {please dont let me jinx it!} we’re heading for spring folks!

Proof you say? I took this picture at 7:15pm. It’s daylight, there is actual visible blue sky, and the wind isn’t blowing (you’ll just have to trust me on that last part). That’s spring in the north of The Netherlands!

Anyway, not much has been going on since our trip to Prague. Mostly a lot of wedding planning, which leads to a lot of budgeting, which leads to a lot of quality time with Meatball. …I don’t think she minds the extra attention.

That being said, we haaaave managed to not be completeeee hermits the past few months.

Non-hermit Activity #1: A Dog Show!

Maybe you remember the friend who has a Great Dane? He made his first blog appearance a while back when he decided Shane’s lap was a perfect place to sit. Anyway, in his free time, he likes to show off his gentlemanly side at dog shows. He happened to be participating in one here in Groningen so we went! Neither Shane nor I have ever been to a dog show, and it was great! Not only did we get to watch this handsome guy compete, but we saw some other cool dudes too.

To top it off, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever was there, and in the ring right next to us! A litte backstory. Just before we found out we were moving to The Netherlands Shane and I were seriously considering getting a dog. I took a bunch… a BUNCH! of online “what type of dog is right for you quizzes” and came up with the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, or a ‘Toller’ for short. Online quiz = I neeeeeeeeeeded this dog! Then we moved, and that was that. Long story short, I was super excited to see them not on the internet.

Tooooooo cuteeeeee! Maybe one day.

Non-hermit Activity #2: Nerd Night!

So, back in February, it was announed that gravitational waves were detected for the first time ever. Not sure what I’m talking about? Here is an article about it. I would attempt to explain it, but let’s be real I’ll do a terrible job.

Back to Nerd Night. I am engaged to a closet physics and space lover. That sounds weird, but he just finished reading Stephen Hawking so I think you get my point. He found out that David Reitze, the director for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) which made the discovery, was speaking at the university.

Bribed with free coffee and a pack of gummy bears, we ventured out on a THURSDAY NIGHT to see the seminar, and I must say, I am THOUROUGHLY glad I am engaged to a nerd! I can’t really begin to explain the lecture. I can say that he was very inspiring, as he is someone who is clearly so passionate about his work. He did an excellent job at presenting a topic that generally pretty mind blowing (at least for me) and putting it in such a way I actually understood and enjoyed my time there!

Non-hermit Activity #3: Jumbo Kitty

Ok, so this isn’t an activity at all, but there is a kitty who just hangs out at the grocery store (Jumbo). He’s too darn cute to pass up. He just sits there in his produce boxes waiting for the pets and for all the suckers to go in, buy cat treats, and feed him on the way out.

Non-hermit Activity #4: Suprise, America!

I went home for Easter! Ok, I really went home for a work trip to Baltimore, but they were kind enough to let me do a stopover at home for the Easter holiday. 2 surprise days at home are better than none! And yes, we still get Easter baskets.

I packed a lot into those few days home. Did a little wedding dress shopping, saw Sissy’s new apartment, & got some quality front porch time. Ironically, it was cold and rainy at home. Shane reported “beautiful” weather… sunshine and 65F (18C) degrees.

The Monday after Easter, I headed up to Baltimore for work & I was able to see Vanessa since I missed her at Christmas, and finally meet Solomon!

Lovely view from my temporary office.

So, that’s life right now! We’re heading to London in about a month & counting down the days!

Until then, tot ziens!

Whitney

Prague, Czech Republic

At the risk of bragging (but, I am), one the best things about living in Europe is our ability to travel with relatively little effort or cost.

Unlike in the US, where the price of most domestic flights make it nearly impossible for a weekend get-away (sure you can catch deals from time to time, but more often than not you are left driving if you really want to travel), Europe and it’s numerous budget airline options gives us an opportunity to minimize travel time. Being that we are already approaching the two year mark (half way!) of our scheduled time in the Netherlands, we really trying to make a concerted effort to use such travel ability – besides, how many times can you say that your weekend away was in another country? <- I mean this for those of you living in the US (aka 99.9% of the people reading this). So, with that in mind, on to our latest adventure.

Picture if you will, a grey, overcast, rainy day in the north of the Netherlands. It’s a Sunday morning. Whitney has just gotten out of bed, made some coffee, and has sat down at the computer for what I assume is some mindless playing on the internet. Little do I know, she has a plan. For whatever reason, she had it in her mind that on this particular Sunday morning, she wanted to travel. Not necessarily on that day, but she had the travel bug. The result? Before her coffee had even cooled enough to drink, we had a trip planned over Valentines Day weekend to go to Prague. Why Prague you ask? It was a cheap option and someplace we had never been. So, that brings us to the present and last weekend when, after a crazy week of work for the both of us, we hopped a train early Friday afternoon, went to Amsterdam, and then had a short flight over to the Czech Republic.

I should also preface this by saying that we went on this trip with absolutely no plan. With work being so busy, we had given this trip no thought, and knew only two things about Prague: 1) there was a big castle and famous bridge we should see and 2) the Czech Republic is apparently quite well known for it’s beer. Sounds like a weekend plan, right? However, I must also admit that this is the way we like to travel. What better way to experience a new country/city than to just wander around for an entire weekend, seeing what you happen to find along the way? Sure sites like Trip advisor and Yelp are useful, but we prefer to make our own discoveries.

Day 1 – Friday night:

By the time we got to Prague and found our hotel, it was already dark. Nonetheless, we dropped our bags and headed out to explore. Conveniently enough (thanks to Whitney’s planning), our hotel was only a few minutes walk from Old Town Square and the Prague astronomical clock (which, during the day is extremely crowded – I highly suggest seeing it at night).

After some local cuisine, we called it a night. Lots to see on Saturday!

Day 2 – Saturday:

Saturday morning started off by revisiting Old Town Square (this time with our new GoPro camera so we could get panoramic pictures….you will be seeing a lot of these from now on).

Notice the gold plate and line on the ground in the picture of Whitney? Well, to be honest, we didn’t see it until we got home and looked at the pictures. Turns out this is the Prague Meridian:

“From 1650-1918, a large column, one of the oldest columns in Europe, stood in the square. Every day at twelve noon it would cast its shadow on a certain section of the square. This was the meridian used to verify the exact solar time. The column is gone now and so is its shadow. But you can still see in the paving of the square where the noon shadow was cast” (http://www.pragueczechtravel.com/prague-tips/prague-old-town-square.php)

This is one thing to keep in mind about Prague: it’s a very old city with a long, sometimes complicated history – something we were very ignorant of before traveling there. Luckily, it’s infrastructure was spared during World War II but it was still under Nazi occupation. In fact, it was under communist rule until the 1980’s.

Next it was off to find the Charles Bridge. Spoiler alert: we found it! And it was beautiful (as was Prague in general). We were on the bridge fairly early in the morning, and as such, it wasn’t very crowded. However, we saw it again later in the day and it was packed! Travel suggestion: go early to see the bridge, it’s worth it. Additional fun fact: the bridge first opened in 1402!

After the bridge, we simply wandered. Mostly in an uphill direction (elevation? we don’t have that in the Netherlands!).

We eventually made it the Prague Castle, which according the Wikipedia is:

“a castle complex…dating from the 9th century and the official residence of the President of the Czech Republic. The castle was a seat of power for kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman emperors, and presidents of Czechoslovakia. The Bohemian Crown Jewels are kept within a hidden room inside it.”

And here we thought the White House was cool…

Within the castle complex was St. Vitus Cathedral, which was amazingly beautiful. I think the pictures can pretty much speak for themselves.

After leaving the castle complex, we again wandered through the city, this time with no direction in mind. For the rest of the day we simply picked random streets, ate lots of food from street vendors, and stopped whenever something interested us.

One ironic site we came across: the Stalin Monument. As I mentioned previously, there is a history of communist rule so it wasn’t so much of a surprise that there would be a monument related to this. However, what was surprising was that there wasn’t actually a monument. It seems that following the fall of communist rule, the city was purged of all communist relics, which meant Stalin had to go. In it’s place is a large metronome, with a beautiful view overlooking the city. The things you learn…

Day 3 – Sunday:

The one remaining item we had previously heard about was that we had to visit the Old Jewish Cemetery, which is apparently rated as one of the top “must-see” cemetery’s in the world (who know such a list exists?). Being that the cemetery was closed on Saturday (sun down Friday to sun down Saturday is the Sabbath and hence any Jewish related attraction will not be open – good thing we lived in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA and now know that!), we decided to visit it Sunday morning before heading to the airport. I honestly never thought I would say a cemetery was worth visiting, but it was. So many graves that they are literally stacked on top of each other, dating back to the 14th century! In this case, the pictures do not do it justice.

Because we were pressed for time, we didn’t have the chance to visit a lot of the buildings related to the cemetery (the Old New Synagogue for example). This is something we definitely want to do when we go back to Prague – yes we are definitely going back to Prague.

And so that’s our Prague adventure. A quick trip, yes, but certainty worth it. Prague is an amazing city and I honestly cannot wait to go back. If you ever have to chance to visit, I highly recommend it. Not only is it full of culture, history, and beauty, it is also (in the words of a fellow American traveler we came across): “like, 100% cheap, for real”. It’s always easy to spot the American…

Until next time,