May 2010 Evacuation and June 2010 - R&R to Europe

As many of you know by now, due to the red shirt protests I had to evacuate my residence. The embassy gave us various hotel options throughout the city to chose from as an evac point. Since Joe was on work travel the entire month of May, I chose to evacuate to the Marriott as neighbors/friends of mine were going to the same location and helped me out. My friend and I were calling it staycation 2010 and enjoyed going to the pool and the spa the first week. We were off from work for roughly two weeks as the embassy was closed. We were pretty much on lock down in the hotel. By week two, we were all ready to go home. The Marriott took very good care of us though and ensured our safety for two weeks. The embassy offered to evacuate all dependents home to the US under a voluntary departure, however for various reasons I decided to stay. Many friends and family back home thought I was crazy, but I had my reasons and I have no regrets.

During all of this, it was all up in the air as to whether we would still be allowed to go on our R&R trip to Europe in June. This trip has been on and off so many times we were starting to wonder if it just maybe wasn't meant to be. As a result we were very last minute in making all our reservations but managed to pull it off. Our schedule is below:

June 3 - 6: Visited my brother and his family in den Haag, Netherlands. My parents came from MD and my sister from CA. We attended the First Communion of my nephew Jonathan.

June 6 - 9: Stayed in downtown Amsterdam with my sister and her family.

June 9 - 13: Wengen, Switzerland with my sister and her family.

June 13: Travel by car to Zurich, lunch with my sister and her family and our long lost German relatives. Depart Zurich by plane and head to next destination.

June 13 - 18: Prague, Czech Republic - just Joe and I.

June 18 - 24: Vienna, Austria to visit friends John and Mel.

The posts following this will have pictures of our trip from each stop. Hope you enjoy them!