My friend John married his lovely bride Svetlana this year, not long after I got back from visiting the wrecked nuclear site of Chernobyl near Kiev, Ukraine. Svetlana is from Russia, and some of her friends were in town from that part of the world.

Introduced to a few of them, they jokingly took several steps back as if I was radioactive. Even though one does get a “healthy” dose of radiation at Chernobyl, it’s not something the average visitor needs to worry about.

Interestingly enough, many pilots and flight attendants get more radiation dosage than employees of nuclear facilities, and apparently, might get more annual radiation dosage than almost any other profession. Frequent flyers run the risk as well.

But, let’s see: I spent a decent amount of time at Chernobyl, so that’s about 2/3 the annual dosage of a radiation worker in that one trip. On top of that, in roughly the past year I’ve flown back and forth to Europe twice, flown between the UK, Paris, and Ukraine a few times, went to New Orleans twice, San Antonio, and Hawaii, plus several other trips I can’t remember.

Hmmm…maybe the wedding guests were right to step back a little. Nevertheless, I wonder which super power I’ll eventually get. I hope it’s not something dumb like being a Wonder Twin.

All kidding aside, I was very fortunate to be able to travel as much as I did this past year. In a few weeks I’ll do a recap of 2012 in its entirety, but I wanted to cover some of my favorite shots from my trips to Europe. Since people seem to like pictures of the famous landmarks more than street scenes, I concentrate more on the former here. And, since I already talked at length in my previous posts (here, here, here, here, and here) I’m not going to say much this time.

Hope you like the photos!

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