We settled into our apartment in Prague, which was happily much more spacious and less odorous than our houseboat. We reveled in the exchange rate between the dollar and the crown, but flailed in the face of unwritten social rules regarding tipping. We went to the grocery store and bought donuts. The core of the ringed pastry ambushed Micah and Maria with Bavarian cream filling. It was the best of both worlds, donuts have reached their telos in Czech pastry...

We went to Amsterdam. "Part of the ship, part of the crew" - the vagabonds Just kidding. Our first day in Amsterdam we visited the Anne Frank House in spite of the threat of anti-Jewish violence. Security was on high alert in the wake of several successful raids on suspected terrorist cells across Europe. We refused to let the terrorists win and visited the museum anyway. The small living quarters with blacked out windo...

Two events marked the train ride to Berlin: we ate a lot of cheese and Giana began to suffer from a respiratory illness. Likely my own illness, having retreated into Giana's lungs, was making a comeback. By the time we checked in to our hostel boat (yes, our hostel was on a boat) Giana felt very sick so we got an early dinner and went to bed. The next day Giana decided to rest for the entire day so Maria and I hit up Berlin. We walked from our hostel b...

We experienced Dublin twice. We arrived on the ferry from Holyhead (Wales). We arrived at the hostel and it looked okay, great location, right on the river. But as we searched for our room in this 400 person hostel, we realized we had made a grave mistake. After setting up in our 24 bed, heavily doted bunkhouse, we picked up some food for dinner at a nearby grocery store. We then attempted to cook our meal in the basement kitchen, while dozens of peopl...

Our last morning off the continent we chased a bus through the streets of Dublin, struggled to check in at the airport, and boarded a snug Ryan Air flight. We landed in Brussels and immediately noticed a difference: the buildings were pretty. We soon noticed another difference: only the advertising was in English. With landmarks and street names in French, Dutch, and German we promptly got lost, taking two hours to make the 18 minute walk from our bus stop to th...