Holiday dogs

While I meandered around Michael's aisles of holiday craftiness, I found cute doggie holiday hats. Naturally we gave them a try while we were decorating our tree this past weekend.

Shadow has very little tolerance for anything new or strange and decided that with such a scary hat on, the safest place to be was as far under the tree as possible. 

Gracie's response was a tad better and she patiently allowed a few photos, even of her good side!

Europe Part 4: Cologne

Our last major stop of our Europe trip was Cologne, Germany. In our planning (which I will talk about in the final Europe post) I was left to choose this last city and chose Cologne because of its location on the Rhine River and it's proximity to several other cities that would make for nice day trips. I heard great things about the river trips as well as the areas around Cologne. Unfortunately, by the time we made it to Cologne, the husband wasn't interested in any of that. So our last major stop was spent mostly wandering about the city, eating, drinking, and relaxing. It was nice but I do wish we had spent some time actually seeing a little more.

We loved our hotel and its' location - it was awesome! We could see the Cologne Cathedral from our room which was lovely during the day but even more magnificent at night.

Our hotel was across the street from a very cute German restaurant named Brucken - it means bridge. The restaurant had outdoor and indoor seating and terrific food, so much so, that we enjoyed several meals and drinks at the restaurant.

We visited the Cologne Cathedral and walked the 509 very small winding steps to the top (yes, it was really intense with A LOT of resting). Oh, and people were walking down the steps at the same time we were walking up which was a little scary.

Other random photos!

Europe Part 3: Munich

I bet you thought I completely forgot about our little Europe trip and the tons of pictures I have yet to share. Nope! While it is taking me an inordinate amount of time to look through our photos and get them up here, its a nice reminder of our fun time (about 6 months ago)!

Our third leg of our trip took us to Munich, Germany. We weren't honestly sure what we would find in Munich as many people described the city as industrial and not very interesting. But I have to say I really loved it. While the city is very large and modern, there are many things to see and do in the city and in the surrounding areas. We visited a palace with a wonderful set of gardens, walked around the central square, and enjoyed the city's love of beer among other things.
 
Around the Marienplatz (central square)

Nymphenburg Palace and gardens

English Gardens and the Chinese Tower Beer Garden

While we were there we also took a trip to the Dachau concentration camp memorial site. My study abroad with Wake Forest included a trip to the Mauthausen concentration camp site. I've tried several times to write here just what that experience was like but its very difficult. There is nothing quite like it and it is both extremely powerful and extremely humbling. What the people in the towns surrounding these former camp sites have done with the sites is amazing and the memorials are both intricate pieces of art and thoughtful ways to remember those lost.