European Chronicles June 28, 2011

            Well, folks, I’m not even sure where to begin. Today was jam-packed! We only really had one full day in Prague, so we basically tried to do it all. We began the morning with a tour that our hotel lady recommended. They picked us up—yeah!—and drove us (a bit frightening here) to a place somewhere on the other side of the river to meet up with the rest of the folks. We had a bit of time to kill so we walked around some. Guess what store we found? H&M! They are EVERYWHERE here! I won’t complain.

            We boarded the tour bus along with our other tourees and we were the only Americans. It’s quite fascinating to me that English is the common language among everyone over here. If they look at you and know you’re not from their country, they will speak English to you—and it’s not just to us. English was being spoken to Asians, Indians, Middle Easterners, other Europeans, you name it. I’m quite grateful for this. Anyway, our tour group had quite the diversity—Indians, people from Brussles, a couple from Lebanon, some from Spain—and others that I didn’t catch. We trusted in our umbrella holding tour guide (who I named umbrella boy) to teach us lots and lots…

            But, perhaps we shouldn’t have held him in quite such high regard—the dude was SO hard to understand! Sam and I caught more in the Spanish segments than we did in the English. His singsongy voice matched with NO facial expression just killed me. :The tooooour willll taaaaaaake an hooooour. Really? I got tired just listening to a sentence. That being said, we saw some INCREDIBLE things—unfortunately, I’m not completely sure what they all were, but they were awesome looking and old. I’m a big fan of old things—we don’t have “old” things in the States. When I post pictures (check FB), you can google these cool places. Or perhaps some history buff can help me label my pictures like the awesome guy on Nicole’s blog. Oh! The tour also had a boat portion. It was pretty neat, but it was HOT up there!

            The tour ended in old town square (shortly after the Brussels lady yelled at the tour guide for not letting her stop and go where she wanted), and we were hungry. We happened upon a Hard Rock Café and decided it sounded delicious. Guess what? It was! I had about the best burger I’ve ever had there AND we got free refills!! Yahtzee!!

            After lunch we wandered and wandered some more and wandered some more (not totally sure where we were going, but everything was amazing to look at so it didn’t really matter). We decided to find the Charles Bridge (the oldest stone bridge in the country? This part of Europe? Help me out history people!). Anyway, the bridge was awesome and we walked across it to our side of town (mind you, we walked A LOT today). We meandered around some shops (I really wanted to buy this shirt that said “Czech me out” with Prague written down the side, but I kept thinking I’d find a better price or better color in another store…then I ran out of stores. Sad! I probably won’t get my shirt…

            We kept walking, in hopes that we'd find our hotel. We thought about asking someone, but we just kept walking. Then, guess what? We found a familiar street and walked right back to our hotel. Go us! We took a short resty to rejuvenate ourselves. I read while the others slept (I don’t do well with afternoon naps).

            We freshened up a bit and decided to try to go find the Eiffel Tower thing we missed yesterday. We had a bit more education and sense under our belts today and we knew just what to do! We bought tickets from our hotel people, walked a bit to the thingy that takes you straight up the hill (it has a cool name, but I can never remember it), hopped on, rode up, and walked out into a beautiful park! We found the tower, got our student discount (you can be a student here until you’re 26!) and rode the lift to the top. The view at the top was BREATHTAKING! You could see FORVER! We quite enjoyed ourselves up there, so we decided to walk down instead of taking the lift to enjoy more of the view. Then it was back down the side of the hill thing and off on our way.

            We decided to find a mall because Nicole had mentioned some amazing juice there, so we hopped on a tram and hoped for the best. We found the mall and decided to get some grub at the food court. I decided upon KFC. Now (much like McDonalds) I would not choose to ever eat at KFC (unless I’m with my grandpa of course), but over here it’s just so much better! We used to eat at KFC in Romania a lot and I loved it! It’s actual chicken, lightly breaded, with yummy seasoning. Delicious! It took me back to my RO days.

            Then we wandered around some (sorry Dad!) and found ANOTHER H&M. Of course we had to go in. Sam found a cute dress and top and I got a shirt (I’ll admit, it’s the same shirt I got at H&M in Hungary, but a different color!).

            Back to the hotel we went, and up to the rooftop we sauntered. Dad and Sam had coffee, and I had a few bites of Dad’s cake, and we enjoyed the evening breeze. When we got back to the room I called my mama (Hi Mama!) and Lauren to congratulate her on her new job (YEAH LAUREN!!!), and I sat down to write to you lovely people. Thanks for reading. It warms my heart to hear that people have been following us and enjoying our tales from foreign lands. J

            Tomorrow is the LONG drive back to Budapest, picking up the dogs (oh joy!), laundry, and repacking for ENGLAND!!!!!!!!!!! Ciao for now!

European Chronicles June 27, 2011

           We’re in PRAGUE! I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Prague, not sure why exactly, but as far back as I can remember it’s been on the ultimate “to do” list. Now, friends, I can put it on the “to done” list. Yeah! But…let me back up a bit first…

            The day did not start in Prague, but in a quiet dog-free house in Budapest. Street worker homeboys woke me up at about 0700 yelling to each other in Hungarian. I quickly shut the window and tried to get a few more minutes of sleep. I believe about thirty to be exact.

            Then I emerged from my room preparing to ready myself for the day. Breakfast, shower, dry hair—uh oh! Problemo!—in the middle of drying my hair I hear a funny sound, smell an awful smell, and look down to see red flames inside the hair dryer. BIG UH OH! I quickly shut it off and unplugged it. I let it cool down for a second and attempted to turn it on again (I know, I know, not a good idea!), but alas, my poor little travel hair dryer had seen its last day—dumb thing was young too! I wasn’t quite sure what to do about the mess of half wet/half dry nastiness on my head, so I concocted a semi-front French braid, scrunched the rest of it, and threw it into a bun—not my best look people, but what could I do?

            Then it was off to the races again (or the European freeways). To drive on the freeways here, you have to buy a pass (in each country!). We went to the Shell station nearest the house, and what do you know?—closed! Awesome. So, we trot on over to another Shell station, purchase some beverages and an autoplayamamateresa (or something like that), and head out.

            The drive wasn’t that bad, but it was LONG! Let’s see….what did we do to occupy our time? Mad libs, magazines, Kindle, the letter game (which is quite hard in different languages), listened to some gnarly music, a few pit stops, a few more freeway passes, lunch on the go, and after about six hours, we finally made it to Prague. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the GPS wanted us to go back to Budapest at one point along the journey—glad we caught that and corrected it before we drove too far in the wrong direction.

           When we got to Prague—three countries in one day is pretty awesome by the way—we were hoping and praying that the GPS had the correct address. The streets here are complicated to say the least, but we were overjoyed when we saw a sign directing us to Hotel Julian. We turned the street and saw the hotel—but where in the world should we park? We were told that there was a lot, but we couldn’t see one anywhere. We circled the block some, pulled in somewhere, and a dude started talking to us in Czech wanting money—guess that wouldn’t work. We circled again, pulled into what we thought was the parking lot, only to be told in broken English that it was not. Hmm… what now? Ok, drop us off Dad and we’ll check in and ask. Good news, bad news: good news, the hotel has a parking lot and she could open the doors for us. Bad news, we didn’t reserve a parking spot. Really? Travel agent lady was supposed to be on top of that! An email will be going out shortly. Good news, there was one spot left. RELIEF!

           Ok, we got checked in, found our room, booked a tour for tomorrow—so excited—and asked about an ATM and a place to eat. We walked a bit, got some cash (or crowns I think they call it here), and ate dinner. At dinner we looked at a map and noticed that there’s an Eiffel Tower replica here. It didn’t look too far from us, so we decided to venture over there after dinner. Bad idea? We headed in what we thought was the right direction, but ended up going up this UBER steep hill, walking toward something tall, not really sure where we were going. We decided that it perhaps looked more like a radio tower than the Eiffel Tower, but what do we know? We did not go any further, but ventured down and enjoyed the immaculate sights of the city! This place is seriously incredible. I’ve never seen such detail on buildings before.

          We then meandered back toward our hotel. Upon arrival, we decided to see what kinds of desserts the restaurant here had. The place was super rustic and had awesome decorations. I had a pancake with fruit and ice cream—which is really more like a crepe. Delicious! The only bad part—it took FOREVER! There was really only one lady doing all the work, and I’m pretty sure they had to go grow the grain to make the wheat to make the crepe. Really.

           After dessert I wandered up to the rooftop terrace—ok, how stinking cool is THAT—and Sam joined me shortly after. They played Whitney Houston and the like and we quite enjoyed the sights of the city below us. I took a few funny photos with a statue up there before retiring back to our room.

           Tomorrow we’ll have breakfast about 0840, be picked up for our tour around 0920, enjoy the three and half hour tour starting at 1000, and then see what other escapades we can get ourselves into.