Can it be the only other time I ever traveled to Europe was 28 years ago?  It was one of those trips with many stops, most of them unplanned. Along the way were many small miracles, mostly the kind where wonderful people reaffirm your faith in humanity.
 When I got to then Czechoslovakia I found the family of my father's second cousin, his son, my third cousin, and his two young sons at the time.  I was traveling with my now ex-wife Greta, and they hosted us with a sweetness and generosity I've never forgotten.

This June my daughter, named after my immigrant babička graduated college and embarked on her own trip through Europe.  That's something I'd very much wanted to do when I was young so between her mother and me, we helped make it happen for her! In fact, her mother accompanied her on her first leg, Scotland, and I then arranged to fly over and meet Maria in Prague somewhat later.

After a long hiatus of lost contact I finally recieved an email from one of those two young sons of my third cousin.  He's the only one who can speak - some - anglický.  He says the family is excited we are coming.  So, almost thirty years after introducing my distant family to my wife, I'll now have the exquisite pleasure of introducing them to my wonderful daughter!  How cool is that?

This blog will be mostly pictures posted of my trip with captions.  I'm an inveterate journalist/diarist and I'm not going to bore you with the details I'll inevitably write about elsewhere.

The trip lands in Europe first in Brussells, where I had a seven hour layover that gave me time to take a look at that city.  From there I went to Prague.  Use this link to an interactive Czech map.  With it you can follow us from town to town as I refer to place names in subsequent posts.