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Deployment Update
Cheryl on her R&R in October 2009
- very content but anxious to get home to America!
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Baghdad Bulletin
26 November 2009
Thanksgiving Day
Issue 15
Dear ALL reading this issue!
I've promised you photos of our memorable two weeks on our European R&R last month. But first, I want to give a sincere and heartfelt THANKS for each of you and for the amazing blessings that are in my life at this moment - too countless to write them all down (but I've tried to keep my own list!) I appreciate all of you who have me on your prayer lists at your churches and Sunday School classes! I told John last night that one of the reasons this deployment has gone so well is because of those prayers in Alabama, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Minnesota, South Dakota, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Montana, West Virginia, D.C., Georgia, Texas, Washington (state), Massachusetts, and of course, Maryland. It's quite comforting and overwhelming at the same time!
Also, another kind of thank you to you, the taxpayers of America, for my roundtrip airfare from Kuwait to Prague! Every military member has this privilege either to go home or to anywhere they choose for vacation. (Not all of them take leave, but most do.) Again, thank you. John met me in Prague, Czech Republic. Over the course of our journey we also visited Germany, Austria, and Hungary over two weeks. It was restful, informative, and emotional too.
We hope you like our photos. There are many more than I can include here, but anytime you want to see them, we'll pull them out for you! There are also going to be a few others posted on "View Past Trips" on this website.
Happy Thanksgiving to each of you and your families. I know that some of your families will have an empty seat this year and you are in my prayers too. We have a Thanksgiving Eve service at 8PM and another Thanksgiving morning at 8AM. Some of us volunteered to be servers for the military members at the dining facility. That's an honor I will not soon forget. Another reason to be thankful!
Warmly,
Cheryl
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This beautiful rose remained with me throughout the trip.
We saw it at a florist shop in downtown Prague the day I arrived.
Link to sightseeing: click here
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We're having our first dinner at the Prague Hotel Hilton before our first concert in Prague - a string quartet playing a wonderful variety of classical music.
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The piano in the background is in the Dvorak Museum. We heard a recital in another music room (with a white piano) on our second night.
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We enjoyed these grilled brats in Wenceslaus Square.
Prague is a city that is 1,000 years old. One thousand!
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Some of the cities mark the floods this way.
We're walking near the famous Charles Bridge.
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After 2 days, we traveled by bus from Prague, Czech Republic to Nuremberg, Germany where we boarded Poetry, our river boat home for the next week.
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We visited a famous Christmas store off the main square in Nuremberg. This fellow was too good to resist getting a photo with!
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Just before we reboarded the bus to take us to the port to see the ship for the first time, we ducked into this bakery and took some of the fruit pizza and our first hot chocolate to go! This handsome fellow is irresistible too!
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Here's our lovely little ship Poetry. She sails very smoothly.
Our stateroom was on the lower deck at the water line.
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This is the first of 26 locks on this voyage. The process is very interesting and they occur at night as well. When you look out your window (everyone has a window by the way!) the ship is mere inches away from the concrete wall. It's very impressive navigational skill.
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This is part of the dining room. There is one dinner seating - everyone fits - and the tables are not assigned. You can eat with different people every night if you wish. Lots of buffets for lunch and breakfast ("American" breakfasts - omelettes to order too!) Wine and softdrinks are included with dinner. The menus were very nice. There was always chicken and fish if the main menu was not what you wanted that night.
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This is the lounge where there is a evening lecture about the next day's itinerary. It's a wonderful, peaceful (and warm!) room to enjoy while sailing. Some nights after dinner, there were special programs - dancers or musicians from one of the towns if we were docked.
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Here's what our window looked like. A great view inside and out!
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Here's a visitor that was a wonderful surprise floating past our docked vessel. There were two of them.
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Here is the first of many pipe organs we visited - some we even heard. This is known as the largest Cathedral Organ in the world with 17,000 pipes, St. Stephen's in Passau, Austria.
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Finally, a picture of the Danube (The Donau). It's not blue!
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This was taken outside of the Benedictine Abbey of Melk, Austria. The library was beautiful (but the picture is blurry...). It houses over 100,000 volumes in a magnificent Baroque setting. The church was the most ornate place - almost too much so if that is possible (!)
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One of my favorite photos from this trip. This is on Poetry's upper deck. (Guests are asked to go downstairs during a lock operation!)
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This is the stage of the Kursalon, a Viennese hall in the City Park ( Stadtpark, Vienna), where tourists see and hear Strauss waltzes performed. We heard soloists and saw a couple dancing with instrumental accompaniment and this beautiful Austrian Bosendorfer piano. It was a very pleasant evening.
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This was intermission during the Strauss Waltz concert
in Vienna at the Kursalon.
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We had our Sachertorte at the famous Demel Bakery. Here you can sit at a table and watch the chocolatiers work behind glass. More wonderful hot chocolate on another rainy day, but the weather didn't matter!
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Too bad this picture was blurry, but I can still taste how good the chocolate was. The real whipped cream was unbelievable.....
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We took the tram/trolley outside the city to visit the Zentralfriedhof - the Central Cemetery - to visit the graves of Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and others. Here is Beethoven's final resting place. (He and Schubert were interred in this cemetery in 1888.) Can't you just hear those symphonies? There is a monument (no grave) to Mozart nearby, and Schubert wanted to be buried next to Ludwig.
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I have a special place for Brahms in my heart. Later that day we visited the Kunsthistorisches Museum, with its wonderful collection of Ancient Musical Instruments. We saw several pianos that belonged to, or were played on, by Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Clara and Robert Schumann, and Brahms. They are much smaller than you would imagine. We have no photos of those because photography was prohibited. (There was also a fabulous Ephesus display in that museum. It was like revisiting Turkey again!)
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Later that day we visited the Mozarthaus Museum. This was where he wrote the " Marriage of Figaro." That night, we were fortunate to attend that very opera in the Staastopera - Vienna State Opera house! It was a Tuesday night and SOLD OUT on a cold, rainy night. The weather didn't matter. What a great day!
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We had another day to visit more parks.
This is the famous Waltz King statue in Stadtpark, Vienna.
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I love this photo. John is talking to Ludwig Beethoven in another park, Beethovenplatz, where we found two favorite composers.
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This was fun. Here's Johannes Brahms in the Karlsplatz. In the fall, in Vienna, with John. Wow - what a combination......
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This may seem odd to you. It's actually part of the Prater Ferris Wheel, built in 1897. It started with 30 of these cabins but was damaged in WWII. This was the cabin behind ours. It is set for a dinner party. People rent it for special occasions (wedding receptions!) and each course takes 1 revolution - approximately 30 minutes. We met some German ladies who were starting a river cruise from Vienna the next day.
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Here's John in our "gondola." (For once, it's not a photo of us eating!) What a great view we had of Vienna! We were 212 ft high on a clear day. No rain this day. But the weather didn't matter (!)
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Now to Budapest, Hungary. We crossed the Chain Bridge and took a hillside tram (you can see it on the left). What a picturesque city. Our ship finished her journey docked below this bridge.
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We visited the Marzipan Museum. It's a candy store! Each of these pieces of fruit are made of candy with an almond paste. There were roses and all kinds of figures made of this wonderful delicatessen. The museum had people and buildings made of the stuff! There was even a Mickey/Minnie couple....
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I could not resist this bed of pansies. There were several to enjoy. We happened upon a wedding finishing in a little church, an excavation of ruins, and more hot chocolate!
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You can see how lovely this city is.
The bridge we walked across is below us.
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Doors - I was fascinated by some of the old doors. This one has all of the Apostles on it at the base of St. Stephen Basilica. We were able to walk in during a Sunday Mass and take photos! I dropped a Euro and lit my first votive candle ever. I thought of my Catholic friends back home and the Chaplains and Service Members I've met at the Chapel at Prosperity.
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We climbed to the top of St. Stephen Basilica, in downtown Budapest. What a site!
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Now we're back down on the ground. You can see St. Stephen behind us. A sweet couple with their baby daughter and puppy dog took this photo of us after we took one of their outing for them. Budapest had wonderful museums and restaurants.
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A little silliness taking a photo of ourselves. This is the last photo of us on the way to the Prague Airport. I was determined not to be sad. It was hard to leave John that morning. We had such a good time by boat, train, horse carriage, ferris wheel, tram, bus, a taxi going somewhere I can't remember, and LOTS of walking. You can learn more about some of the places mentioned in these photos by going on the web. These are just a fraction of the photos and highlights we experienced two weeks. There were more castles, organs and organ recitals, cathedrals, wonderful restaurants, opera houses, monuments, plazas, art museums, and history history history! What you see here are some of better photos I could attach in a relatively short time in the late evenings from Iraq! Also, there are additional photos on the WYWH website, thanks to Diane Paone, my webmistress in New Jersey. Please go to " View Past Trips" to see her handiwork. She hopes make everything available to you by the long Thanksgiving weekend. I'm thankful I found Diane. She's been another blessing for me this year.
Happy Thanksgiving to each of you.
Love, John and Cheryl
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