Amsterdam

I just got back from a week of Christmas fun in Missouri. One of the first things my parents said to me was "when are we going to see some Amsterdam pictures on the blog?" So after an accidental month long break from blogging here is a photo recap (in no particular order) of my long weekend in the Amsterdam.

Becky and I enjoying gluhwein at the Christmas Market 

I found a run club!

Dutch Trading Company from the canal cruise

One of Becky's many cat friends in Amsterdam

One of the many cute streets

One of the many cute canals

A boat like the one we cruised on

Canal cruise selfie

Christmas lights in Leidseplein 

Chandeliers on the fancy shopping street

Museumsplein

Ice Skating at Museumsplein

The Christmas Market in front of the fancy department store

My favorite meal- pancake with bacon INSIDE and chefs on top

watch out for bikes!

Interactive art outside the Rijksmuseum

Practicing my model skillz

I want a red vespa and a cute tree lined street (or just one of them)

Sigh… in De Pijp

Museumplein

Houseboats!

At the Markt

First day at the market we bought fries and waffles- SUCCESS!

Firefly

Last weekend I joined two of my closest DC friends and some of their friends and some of their friends' friends and several thousand other people in Dover, DE for Firefly, a three day music festival. We camped out so in order to have our sites next to each other we all met in Annapolis Thursday night. After 4 hours of sleep we got up at 4 am, finished loading the cars and headed to Dover. As soon as we hit the city limits we hit traffic and were at a standstill. Finally we moved a little and an hour later we were at camping registration and another hour later we finally had our campsite. We had four cars so we were able to set up a pretty big area.

The rest of the weekend consisted of getting up and ready early (that sun wakes you up!), hanging at camp till a little after noon, heading in to the festival, listening to 4 or so shows (some up close some way far back), eating, going to the THICKET (a silent disco in the woods), and crawling back in to the tent sometime after midnight.

Vampire Weekend

We we first arrived on Friday the crowds weren't bad at all, but people continued to roll in and with the addition of one day ticket holders on Saturday and Sunday the place got FULL. There was a line for everything, but mostly the lines went quickly.

Dispatch

My favorite shows were The Avett Brothers, Dispatch, Vampire Weekend, Foster the People, and Tom Petty. The sun got to me during the day, so night shows definitely had an advantage.

San Francisco

As we approached San Francisco we pulled over for a view of the Golden Gate, but this is all we saw:

Friday night we headed out to get seafood and enjoy some of the nightlife. I took Instagrams as bread crumbs to find our way home:

Saturday we were up early to see Alamo Park and the Painted Ladies (Full House anyone?):

Then to the wharf and our view of Alcatraz:

and SEA LIONS:

All over SF there were great murals on the sides of buildings, I especially loved this Peacock:

After spotting a naked bike ride, eating dim sum, and strolling Union Square we headed with the Car to Lombard Street and zig zagged our way down:

Gave one more attempt at the Golden Gate, this time we saw the bottom:

We headed the burbs for dinner at a nice steak house and drinks at an Irish pub with live music. Sunday most of the crew left, but I had the run of the city. I was a little tired but I made sure to stop by one of my favorite stores we don't have in DC (UNIQLO) and then caught a local play (Arcadia) before I made sure to take a ride on a street car:

And head back to the airport and back to DC after a great weekend with childhood friends:

Wet, Wild, and Wonderful

Last weekend I jumped in a car with two friends and we caravanned with two other friends to West Virginia. We had purchased a living social adventure deal for a weekend of camping and rafting. After 6 hours of driving and gas stations and a Wendy's we arrived at the campsite near Beckly, WV. We checked in with the Living Social crew and they hooked us up with a sweet "rustic cabin" near the bar. 

Being it a Living Social Adventure I was a little worried that the crowd would be rowdy 21 yr olds, but it really wasn't there were people from 21-40 and couples, big groups of friends, bachelor parties, and families.

The first night we had two free drinks at the camp bar where they had live music and we chatted with some of the other campers. It was Jenn's birthday so we had cake by our cabin and hung out with other campers around the camp fire.

Saturday morning we didn't have to meet for the river till 10 am so we took our time getting up and getting breakfast. The weather was pretty nice, but since we were worried about the water temperature we all rented wetsuits, geared up and hit the river.

Our guide was a seasonal guy from Cincinnati, he was really cool and very good at guiding our boat. We only had one person fall out and we got her back in within seconds.

They took video of some of our trip and was playing it on the tvs around the campground. The picture below is a picture I took of the tv.

me on the front right

After about 5 hours of class 5 rapids (haha ok... there were some 1,2,3 &4s too) we cleaned up and headed to our BBQ dinner at the camp restaurant.

PBR

After dinner we headed to the camp bar where everyone was hanging out and they had an open PBR bar from 6-10 pm. 

The next day we had breakfast at a cute cafe in the neighboring town.

hmmm should we eat here?

That was previously a church.

from the balcony

We stopped in a store down the street and found it empty with the following sign:

trusting West Virginians

On our drive home we stopped in this White House to use the restroom (aka The Greenbrier).

Day 3: Montserrat

After two days in Barcelona we decided to take the train a few hours out of the city to the Montserrat Monastery. We took the metro to a train to a rack rail train to get there, but it was all easy and relaxing rides through the Spainish countryside. 

The Monastery is on top of a beautiful mountain with great views of the valley. 

round rocks

great view

monastery

Inside the Basilica is a famous Black Madonna. Apparently she was being carried across the mountains, but got too heavy so they stopped and left her here. They really left her down the hill side in a grotto, but more recently they carried her up to the Basilica. There was a long line to see her and touch her "orb" which apparently is still a pilgrimage destination.

you can see someone with the Black Madonna in the upper middle

the Black Madonna

courtyard

more rocks and buildings

After visiting Mary we grabbed some sandwiches, water, and chocolate and hiked down to the grotto. There were statues and scenes made from stone and iron along the entire walk. The hike was only a few miles but pretty steep for a majority of the way.

lunch stop

iron work

On the way back up we made a Spanish friend. A girl around 8 years old decided she would race us back up. Every time we rested she would stop and when I tried to pass her she started running. It was the encouragement we needed to make it back up the hill.

Kendra