A year ago: Gaming?

I actually don't know exactly what I did a year ago... It was either last weekend or this weekend that we had a two-day weekend so we stayed back and did homework. Wait-- I think we went to St. Polten and got our Eurrails activated. Yes. That's what we did. However, there's no pictures for that, nor did I write anything, so alas, all I believe I remember from this trip is that it took longer than what we were expecting, so we didn't get as much homework done as we wanted.

However, I will treat you with some random photos!

Let's begin with a nice picture-- this is of Our Lady Rosa Mystica and the Immaculate Heart of Mary behind it.  I would see this every time I walked up the stairs from 1st to 2nd floor. It's really neat since my household is Roses of the Immaculate Heart and our Big Sister household is Rosa Mystica!

This is what our door looked like. Claire's name tag looked empty without having a  felt oval for household, so we made her one for being a groupie. Take note-- she does not endorse this!

Claire collapsing in our room/her suitcase after returning from a long weekend's journey.

Now for a couple really random ones:

Meet Johnny the Printer. He traveled all the way from Southern California to join us on our trip to  Austria. Sadly, he was not able to travel anywhere outside the room, but he guarded our room with great courage so we knew we could leave it safely unattended as we sojourned. Take note of his hands and the love note he is holding. After being squeezed into a suitcase with many souvenirs and clothes, Johnny made it safely back to the United States where he now resides with Clairisita.

Yes. This is random. This is a banana Claire brought back from the Mensa. It has no significance other than its randomness.

A year ago: Poland

Last year, I figured out that I can survive on 4 hours of sleep! But, I'm sure if I tried doing that now, it wouldn't work very well...

Last year, I also did all the write-ups for Poland, so here are the links, and I will post pictures below.

Poland, Day 1: Czestochowa and Auschwitz
Poland, Day 2: Krakow and Divine Mercy
Poland, Day 3: Krakow, Nowa Huta, and Wadowice

Me and Julie in front of the Cathedral in Krakow.

Legend says that these are the bones of the dragon
that used to guard the cathedral.

Matki Bozej Bolsenej (Our Lady of Sorrows) in the
adoration chapel of the Franciscan church in Krakow.

The Mothership which brings Souls to Heaven!
More commonly known as the Shrine of Divine Mercy.

Alexis, Hayley, Mary Kate, Sr. Joan Paule, Claire, Julie, me, Sr. Carrie Ann,
Josh, and Dorothy at Padre's, an Italian and Indian restaurant in Poland.
The food was absolutely delicious!! (see below)

Julie and I split this chicken and pasta dish and... 

...the ice cream covered with chocolate powder. I think it's
because of Clairethat we have these pictures...

This is one of my favorite pictures from Poland. Julie and I are
standing in the field across from our hotel where
Blessed Pope John Paul II met the 3 million people when
he came back to visit his home country as Pope.

In Nowa Huta, we did Praise and Worship at the steel cross
that the steel workers fought to keep standing.

The church in Nowa Huta that was built to
model Noah's ark (three floors).

Blessed Pope John Paul II's report card.

Blessed Pope John Paul II's skis and boat oar.

Blessed Pope John Paul II's vestments from when he was
Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, and parish priest.

Me in front of the parish church in Wadowice where JPII
received his first sacraments and heard the call to the priesthood.

Pope Cake! I'm not sure what it's really called, but when JPII
came back to visit Poland, he said that this was his favorite
kind of cake, so it's called Pope cake now! It is quite delicious,
but I wouldn't have minded splitting it with someone-- it was sweet!

A year ago: Skiing in the Alps and Prague

A year ago, I was caught up on my blogging! On Friday we went skiing in the Austrian Alps, then on Saturday, we did a day trip in Prague. Here are the links for those trips:
Prague, Czech Republic
Austrian Alps Skiing

I really don't know how we did this-- we went skiing and were all sore from that and then hopped on a bus at 5am to go to the Czech Republic! It's pretty insane...

Alas, last time (as my brother pointed out), I did not post any pictures, so therefore I will post pictures on this post.

Me, Markita, and Tim after our adventure of skiing/snowboarding in the Austrian Alps.

You can't see us very well, but this is Claire, Markita, and Julie by the river in Prague, and the little tower on top of the hill is the Fake Eiffel Tower. I never intended to get a picture with it (because it is much better to see the real one...), but I did, so, oh, well!

Markita and me overlooking the city of Prague. Eastern Europe is so beautiful!

Julie and Markita "with" one of the castle guards after the changing of the guard. When Kita stands on the curb, it makes her look taller!

Me and Claire having fun taking pictures by the Vlatava River  in Prague.

It is safe to walk here-- this is what their 'person-crossing-the-street' signs look like. They're pretty cute because the people are wearing traditional garb! [I hope to make a post of all the different ones.]

A year ago: London

 London was our first trip on our own, which meant that it was a complete adventure! I think I covered the main stories in my post last year:
http://outsidethekartause.blogspot.com/2011/02/london.html

No first trip on your own would be complete without missing a bus or two. However, our morning did not begin with us missing the 5:50am bus, but me almost missing the fire alarm! There was an alarm (I thought for someone to wake up) going off at 3:15am and I was praying that someone would turn it off when Julie said to me and Claire, "you guys, I think that's the fire alarm" to which Claire and I groaned and asked, "why are they giving us a drill now?!?!" So we waited outside for 10 minutes during which the fire trucks came. It turns out that some cables were smoking, but it was safe enough that we could go back inside. Thank goodness!

So then we go to bed again, wake up at 5am for the 5:50 am bus which took us to the train station where we picked up our Vorteils cards, ran up to the platform, and missed the train by 10 seconds. And that was just the beginning. We also got on a train late, the wrong one, and had to run to our gate at the airport! Thank goodness we didn't have EU/UK passports, so we had the short lines for passport control!

What a fun time we had! It was great being in an English speaking country (so we could ask for directions-- really helpful when you don't have a city map!), but we found that we missed the Kartause. There's no place like home-away-from-home!

Regina, Julie, me, and Kita checking out the landmark red telephone booth!
I  think this is my favorite picture from the whole trip.

I'm a groundling at the Globe Theatre! Now, where is Shakespeare?

Kita, Claire, and Julie at the Pub in London where we enjoyed Fish 'n' Chips.
That is, after we enjoyed hot chocolate... and ketchup...

Me, Regina, and Julie "feed the birds" on the steps of St. Paul's for tuppence a bag.