Tuesday, June 30, 2015

{ two weeks with annie }

Dear Friends & Family,

First of all, John and I will be back in LA in two weeks...TWO WEEKS!!
*takes deep breath*
I'm having a hard time writing about it because I haven't been able to handle the emotions that comes with leaving Berlin and our friends. 

So I'm just going to go ahead and start writing about our time with John's cousin, Annie. She came to visit for two weeks; her first half spending it in Berlin and the second in Paris with cousin Shannon. 

I was happy to have Annie here to get to know her better, and with six weeks left in Berlin, it was a perfect opportunity for me & John to see the touristy things again for the last time. 

The two and a half years John and I have lived in Berlin, we have never visited the concentration camp that is just outside of Berlin. Annie was really interested in the history of Berlin and wanted to go, so we went to Sachsenhausen the first Sunday of Annie's visit. I had already taken Annie to Checkpoint Charlie, the outdoor portion of Topography of Terror, and on Saturday John joined us walking along the East Side Gallery all the way to Museum Island. We did a LOT of walking while Annie was here. I took her through the neighborhoods John and I like to go to and walked around while John was at work. We also took Annie to some of our favorite places to eat in Berlin. 

The day Annie and I left to Paris, Charlie came to Berlin after parting ways with John in Barcelona to travel around Italy. He spent the weekend with John while Annie and I were going to Paris to spend time with Shannon and her husband, Guillaume. 

This was Annie's first time to Paris, and I was excited to explore it with her. John and I visited Shannon back in 2013 after living in Berlin for three months. Not a lot has changed, but Shannon and Guillaume are expecting their first son in September. They are still living in the same apartment John and I stayed in but have sold it, and they are moving out the same day John and I leave Berlin. 

With Shannon's pregnancy, her friend offered his apartment for a few nights while he and his girlfriend were in Nice. They also lived in the 11th arrondissement; only a 20 minute walk from Shannon and G.  Again, a lot of walking was done in Paris, and I loved every minute of it!

Here are just some of the photos from our trip:
*again, I've been having issues with the quality and size of the photos, so it's best to view on a computer/laptop and to click on the photo as a slideshow...















xoxo,
The Prindles