European Vacation Part II

Well I hope you enjoyed my post about my European vacation part I. If you haven’t seen it you can catch up here So here goes for part II.

When I last left you we were headed to Budapest. We arrived in Budapest late in the afternoon. We had a quick dinner at the hotel. We stayed at the Radisson Blu Beke Hotel and it was very nice. A wonderful buffet for breakfast and dinner was offered. There was also this amazing little gift shop in the lobby of the hotel. I can neither confirm nor deny that I did some damage on my credit card there. ha ha. We signed up for a city tour at night. Oh my goodness it was beautiful. It was just getting dark when we took off so the city had a glowing shimmer to it. We visited Heroes’ Square and had a drive through the city which was especially beautiful at night. Our driver took us to the top of Gellert Hill (Citadel) where we saw the most spectacular view of Budapest. Gellert Hill is 771 feet high. At about 9:00 PM buses and cars travel this winding road so that everyone can get the best view of the city at night. Budapest is often called ‘Paris of the East’. I can certainly see why. It is beautiful!!!

The second day we were in Budapest we left the hotel early in the morning and did some sight seeing in the city. Budapest is another beautiful city but I think so far Prague is still my favorite.

We visited the 13th-century MATTHIAS CORONATION CHURCH. That is the steeple from the church in the background. You may have noticed that some of the pictures I take are at an odd angle, that is because the buildings are soooo tall and I am trying to get all of the building in the picture. I actually went down the street a bit to get the shot of this steeple.
The pictures below are from inside the church. The church was packed. It was hard to get a clear shot without someone’s head in the way.

This picture of the city was taken from the towers of Fisherman’s Bastion, Fishermen’s Bastion is only 100 years old but it offers some of the most beautiful views of Budapest.

One of the seven towers you can view from Fisherman’s Bastion
After we did the city tour we did a boat ride on the Danube River. It was slow and lazy and cool and just what we needed after our hectic time in the city. We saw some amazing views of the city from the River.

After the boat ride we went to a wonderful Hungarian restaurant and had a Hungarian specialty dinner with all the trimmings, and lots of singing and dancing. I will tell you the Hungarian Goulash was not like the goulash my mama used to make.

When we got back to the hotel the streets were wet from a recent rain. The city looked dark and glittery and beautiful.

After a couple of days in Budapest we traveled to Vienna Austria. It is approximately 174 miles from Budapest to Vienna. The countryside was beautiful. We arrived in Vienna in the afternoon and did a city tour with a city guide. It was hot!!!! Vienna was experiencing some of the hottest temperatures in recorded history.

Tyler loves ice cream!!!!!

After our city tour we did a tour of the Schonbrunn Palace. It was huge!!! We only got to see a small part of it and we couldn’t take any photos inside.

In Vienna we stayed at Roomz Vienna Prater. It was probably one of my least favorites of the hotels that we stayed in. It was actually a newer hotel on the outskirts of town. The air conditioning didn’t seem to be working properly and they never came by to clean the room. We had to ask for towels just to get us by. Lots of people complained about the air but it didn’t change anything.

We had a wonderful dinner at this little restaurant

We were serenaded by this precious man playing the violin and when we told him we were from Tennessee he played the Tennessee Waltz.

Our last night in Vienna we went to one of the City’s concert halls. An opera house orchestra and soloists performed famous works by Johann Strauss, Lehar, Mozart, and more. It was a wonderful time and even Tyler liked it. That’s saying a lot for a seventeen year old.

We are now headed to Salzburg and I will share the rest of the trip with you there. There was just too much to put into this post. I have lots of exciting things to share with you in Part III. I promise it is the final post about my European Vacation. See you then.

In the meantime. Remember.

Love your day your way!!!!

Who Will Come To Your Funeral?

Warning: This is just the ramblings of an old errrrr older southern woman. Yeah that’s right.

I attended a funeral this past week. A young woman in our town passed away. I was not a good friend of hers but her daughter was part of my work staff. My husband was work friends with her husband so yes I knew her. I knew that she was an amazing woman, mother, wife, daughter, aunt, friend, co-worker. This woman was only 40 years old with so much life ahead of her. She was diagnosed with cancer three weeks ago and before anything could be done she died.

I do know that this woman was loved. You could hear it in every comment, every tear that was shed, every story about her, every hug to her family and in one way or another every person that was present.

There were hundreds of people there to pay their respects. The small funeral home in our hometown was probably overwhelmed with the amount of people crammed into this small building. Actually there was a line of people that wrapped around the building. In the south we call this “the receiving of friends” it is usually held in the evening for a couple of hours and then the graveside service is held the following day. You go to the local funeral home and stand in a line and socialize with people you haven’t seen in a while and make the obligatory remark “It’s good to see you I wish it wasn’t under these circumstances” and “why must we wait until times like this to get together?” Yes why indeed? You may hear comments like “ohhhh the flowers were amazing” and “we couldn’t believe the turnout”.

Do you ever wonder who will come to your funeral? Do you care? I am curious. I know this probably sounds narcissistic but don’t tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind. I think this is something that comes to mind when you realize you are probably more than halfway through your life.

Does the good works of someone or maybe how many friends they have or what they have contributed to their community determine how many people will come to pay their respects when they die? Maybe it is because they have a large family and lots of their friends are coming to pay respects. I know it isn’t the age of someone because it seems the older people get the less friends and loved ones they still have around. Does it matter? NO. You will not even know. But still I think about it when I attend a service.

Lord knows it can’t be based on how many Facebook or Instagram, or any other social media site, followers you have. You can run into “them” at the grocery store and they don’t even recognize you, or feel familiar enough to speak to you.

My husband refuses to attend most funeral services. I tried to explain that it is not for the deceased but for their living family members. It is a show of respect for them. At least I hope this is some of what it means to most people.

Sometimes I think we attend because we think we should. I certainly wouldn’t want someone to attend my funeral because they “think they should”. If this means only two or three really close friends or family attend mine then I’m ok with that. And I hope they bring balloons and ice cream and cake. And daisies. Those are all my favorites. And even if I can’t enjoy those things then I will know that someone else has.

Love your day your way!!!

European Vacation Part I

Hello friends. I have been missing from my blog for a few weeks and missing you but things here have been really crazy. Here is the story, beware this may be like the old days when your friends invite you over to look at vacation pictures or slides or whatever, here goes:

A few months ago my husband and I decided to take a trip out of the country. We hadn’t been on a big trip in a couple of years. Mark, my husband, was very interested in seeing Germany and some of the countries around it. We went online and started looking at some travel packages. In the meantime I was talking to my nephew Tyler, he is 17, and he said he would love to see Germany. So I said “well you should come with us you can think of it as an early graduation gift”. He actually graduates next year. So the plan started to take shape.

We actually went with a tour company called Globus. We knew for the amount of time we had, about 12 days, and all the countries we wanted to see this would be our best chance to see everything we wanted to see.

Mid June is actually a time of year that my work is slow before really going crazy during the summer. So We chose the dates June 15-25.

We decided to visit Central Europe where we would be traveling through five countries. Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria.

Of course the time leading up to the trip is usually unbelievably stressful for me. I do it to myself. I know I will be having people come to the house to care for Kitty Kitty and Molly, so me in typical me fashion goes crazy trying to make my house look perfect. I don’t know why I do this because it never happens and it is just fine anyway. But as I said I had a huge list of things to do like cleaning the house from top to bottom, making my yard and shrubs look immaculate, clean out my garage, oh and work up until the day before I leave so I will stay caught up on work. Silly silly me. I didn’t get any of those things done and the trip came and went and just as I said it was all fine. I know my sisters had to see my less than perfect house, garage and overgrown yard, and it was ok. My sister in law always keeps Scruffy for us because he is a little needier.

We arrived in Munich on Sunday morning around 8:30 AM. We had to wait a bit for a shuttle to take us to our hotel. We stayed at the Hilton Munich City hotel. There was a little problem with an extra bed for Tyler but they quickly moved us to another room so all was good. After a small nap we went out to see the sights. Munich is a very busy city even on a Sunday. There was a festival going on in the town square so we walked into town and listened to some live music and of course tried the beer.

On Monday morning we had a short city tour of Munich and went back to some of the places we had been the day before. Lots of people in Munich ride bikes. There are designated bike routes everywhere. Our tour guide told us they always have the right of way. He may have been joking about that.

Later that day we traveled 255 miles into The Czech Republic to Prague. I was blown away by the beauty of this city. Prague is considered one of Europe’s most exquisite cities. We stayed at the Grandium Prague We saw the Astronomical Clock. I am adding a link here so you can check out the history of this clock. It is so amazing. http://www.pragueastronomicalclock.info The clock strikes on the hour and the “show” lasts for 26 seconds. You can see all of the people waiting for the top of the hour. It really is something to see.

We also did a boat ride in Prague and saw several beautiful sites from the river.

The Charles Bridge

As I said I was blown away by the beauty of this city. Just when I thought I had seen the most beautiful site I would turn around and there would be another one. Ahhhhh this was my favorite city.

After we left Prague we drove into Slovakia. We were only there for a short stop in the city of Bratislava. An adorable city with lots of open air vendors. We had time here for lunch and a little shopping.

Prague to Budapest was about 329 miles so stopping in Slovakia was a nice break. I did buy a few linens, a hat, I love my hats, and ice cream.

Now on to Budapest. I will cover more of the trip in part 2. I will tell you that I got incredibly homesick. I’m not sure why it’s the first time it ever happened this strong. I’m not sure if I was missing the fur babies, my friends, or maybe because it got incredibly hot and crowded or I just missed home and the familiar. I felt so very far away. Anyway a wonderful trip one I will never forget. Stay tuned soon for part 2. Heck there may be a part 3 to this European adventure.

Remember.

Love your day your way

Mimosa Trees and a Flower Moon

Hello friends, how are you?

I will tell you how I am. HOT!!!! And not in the good way either haha. Summer has arrived a little early here in East Tennessee. The last two weeks have found us with temps in the low to mid nineties. What? What happened to the spring? And it’s also humid so it’s sticky and sweaty by noon. The weather, as far as sunshine and no rain, has been wonderful. That makes for nice days on the lake, picnics, and hanging out on the deck under my big umbrella but who has the time for that. Not this girl not right now anyway.

Because of some co-workers’ vacations I have started a seven day work week. We will see how it is going by the end of the week. This is only day two.

A couple of weeks ago me and my niece Amy went antiquing in a small town near us, Etowah. We had been a couple of years ago and we were so sad to see the difference this time. What had been a small but booming town with several shops and restaurants along the Main Street had almost become a ghost town. The last time we were there we visited at least six antique shops and a couple of furniture stores and ate at a great little diner. I know booming right? you know what I mean. Well this time there was one clothing store and one antique store. There was no where on the street to eat. So sad to see the smaller shops moving out of town.

The Gem Theatre is truly a gem. Built in 1927 as a movie house the Gem Theatre was the hub of the city as far as entertainment. In 1991 the city acquired ownership and throughout the year different productions are put on by talented area residents.

The L&N Depot is also a treasure. The old depot now houses a museum.

L&N photo credit- City of Etowah

There is so much history here. You can get more information about the depot here: http://www.cityofetowahtn.com/2186/LN-Depot

We did go up the street to a great little restaurant called The Farmhouse. They serve country southern cooking. It has been there for many years. It was still as good as I had remembered.

We also visited the local farm market. I love going. They have the best vegetables and other things.

So you can see they have lots of other hand made things as well. This farm is run by the Mennonite community in Delano Tennessee. It is very similar to the one closer to me in Tellico Plains. Remember last year I bought the braided rug. Here is a picture. Of it. I’ll show you a few purchases from this trip in my next post.

I still think this sweet town is worth visiting if nothing else for the one antique shop, the Farmhouse Restaurant, the Gem Theatre, and of course the L&N depot.

I got a couple of good shots during the full Flower Moon earlier this month.