A Blog in Reflection

One year ago today, I left on the adventure of my life.

I packed all of my bags, said "Ciao!" to my friends and family, and high tailed it out of the country. That got me to thinking about all of the amazing places I've been in 365 days and holy crap, there are a lot of them.

You are more than welcome to peruse my adventures as they have happened to me here in this blog, but here's a little (geo)graphical explanation of my adventures: Map o da world. Or if you don't want to see the names of the places, here's just a picture.

But the link should show you all of the names of places too. Granted, I probably forgot some a long the way (like Assissi.... I loved Assissi. St. Francis is awesome)(And Duluth. I was for sure in Duluth this summer), got them out of order, or didn't list every time I was back in KC this year. But the main point is here are the 25 (more like 27 with the ones I forgot because I'm a dumb ass and Google Maps won't let me add more than A-Y) cities that I've considered part of my journey this year. 

I don't know if this year will hold as many cities, or as many "adventures" but I'm glad this one was so thrilling. 

Though I Czeched out of Prague ages ago...

Aren't you thrilled?  You should be excited for two reasons: 1) I'm actually posting about Prague now! and 2) I'm done with classes at JCU! That means one step closer to home!!! In the words of Patricia Kazarow, 'Wahoo!!!"

Ok, now Prague. (And while I'm thinking about it, remind me to tell you Charles stories. There are two)

So day two in Prague arrived, and it was much like the first one-kind of rainy.  But that's ok! Because I have a mildly sunshiny personality, and I'll make due with any thing to be in Prague. So basically the first thing you should know about walking around Prague is that it's common to forget you are not actually an animated cartoon with forest creatures following you around.  It looks like a fairytale! Not even a joke. You basically cross one bridge and suddenly all you can think of are Disney Princess songs and twittering birds. It's almost ridiculous. But not really because I love it.

So the first thing we did was grab Starbucks. And there is not much more delightful than a take away cup of coffee that is larger than a Dixie cup. You think that's a joke, it's not. It's a wonderful invention by apparently caffeine crazed people from the US. But that's ok, I love it.  Then we caught a tram to go meet one of Erica's friends: Gabriella.  What a delightful person! She is studying in Prague and was gracious enough to not work on her paper for a few hours and show us around! So we went up to the Prague castle and walked around the area, saw some great views, saw a pretty spectacular cathedral with some amazing stained/painted glass. Once we were done taking pictures of that, we decided to go see one of the major squares with some markets (and the name escapes me now, but that's what you get from a person who wrote a philosophy paper today), and while we were there we got some delicious pretzel-cinnamon-sugar things. I don't really know what they are called, but they were circular and warm and delicious. See? Even the food is fairy-tale themed. Then we managed to walk around a bit more (saw a 'large' ice rink....  lies.) T

Then we went to a French lunch!  Oui! Ok, you caught me. We really did go to a place called the Cafe Louvre, but I'm not so very French. Anyway, we had a delightful lunch of Quiche and good times.  Then Gabriella led us up to another excellent view before she darted off to work on that pesky paper.  We photo bombed each other and then headed back down the hill to do some shopping and look around a bit before dinner. For dinner we headed back toward the Christmas markets (where there were obviously the most people) and we had a delicious dinner under a canopy watching the people go by. I personally had some goulash with dumplings, and that was quite good. And being the good roommates we are, we all had to share, so that was fun.

Then we decided to walk around the Christmas market (now that we're there to shop and not just to pass through) and it was so much fun!  All kinds of places open and selling food and ornaments and hats and gloves and everything else!  It's like window shopping, but they are in little vender stalls.  At one point, Molly and I lost the other two and went up to a vantage point to seek them out. Upon finding them in a crowd (and watched them look for us) we called them and made them dance for our return: always appropriate task.

So after finding all kinds of worldly goods, we were just reveling in the atmosphere and started spontaneously singing Christmas carols. Well, eventually we found ourselves standing in a circle, by one of the most crowded places in the market and singing full volume all of the Christmas songs we knew, regardless of whether there was a distinct language barrier.  And after about 30 minutes of this, a man came up to us speaking in rapid-language-I-don't-know and we assume that he was complimentary! So that's good. And we spent half the time fudging up the lyrics, or giggling, but it was amazing. And since we didn't get a video the first time, we walked back toward the giant Christmas tree and starting singing Hark the Harold and O Come All Ye Faithful back to back. During this rendition, we were not only applauded, but someone was taking video of us. So that's pretty fricking spectacular. And we had fun, so that's totally worth it.

After that little crowning jewel, everything was pretty much a slide from there. We met up with Gabriella for another hour later that night, and saw her at this adorable cafe the next morning (and had some cake-very good) and then back on the plane.  What a stunning last trip.

Now that all of my papers are done, it's just finals and packing (PACKING!?!?!??????!?!) and that's always a good time.... ish....

Prague Day 1: Getting Searched and Searching for Ghosts

If I knew the real way to say 'Hello' in Czech, I would, but for now you'll have to deal with my made up phonetic version: Doh-bree-e-den.  Wasn't that wonderful? It's amazing that I don't teach languages.  I'm talented.

So the only fiasco that we encountered in going to Prague was actually getting there. The original plan was to get up before dawn, get to the airport, and get basically to Prague in time for a proper breakfast. Well, that would be far too easy, so instead, we were notified that our flight was cancelled, and that we were being moved to a later flight... One that left 7 hours later. BOO. So we sucked it up and left 7 hours later instead (and I did enjoy that little bit of extra sleep).

None the less, we made it to the airport in time for the rest of the world to also want to be leaving Italy. Why does everyone want to leave? Not a clue, but basically all of Rome was in the airport in one small room. Not even kidding. It was the most hellish airport experience I've ever had. We waited in a que line for a good hour, get our passports glanced at and then literally thrown into a mosh pit of angry travelers who don't know how to prepare for security scanners. (In my personal opinion, this means that you shouldn't be traveling, but they don't let me run things. I'm not in charge.) So instead, it was the biggest pile of hot mess you've ever seen in your life. Approximately 300 people all mobbing toward 8 security scanners WITHOUT QUE LINES. What?!?!?!  What happened Italy? String would do, long pieces of tape, reconfigured spiderwebs, ANYTHING but it just turned into an anxious swarm of unhappy. And because there were no que lines, or any guiding factors really at all, the people kept pushing toward the front without regard for those in front of them, trying to sneak in to the scanners first, and generally pissing off everyone else. Then all of the people who were running late (ie erryone) were extra anxious because there were 7 people who were on time in front of them. Woof. Town. So after another hour of that, we made it to the gate, slightly bruised, and temperamental, but going to Prague!

Boring plane things, blah, PRAGUE. Now to get from the airport to the hostel there are several things you have to do. 1) Get Czech money. That's approximately 25 Krona to 1 Euro. So get something that feels like a lot. 2) Get a 24 hour pass. 3) Take the bus. 4) Take the Metro. 5) Take the Tram. 6) Walk around and get kind of lost because we don't read Czech, and it's dark. We then walked up a hill to suddenly find our hostel! Huzzah! Czech in, (there are going to be a lot of those in here, get used to them) drop off our stuff, and find some dinner.

So we wander, wander, wander, and after walking into several adorable stores (hey dad, I found one with a toy John Deere tractor. For the low low price of 1125 krona!) and eventually found food. In this tiny little restaurant, there was a lovely television screen showing pictures of what we determined were deer-kats: they looked like meerkats, but patterned like baby deer.  And if that's not enough of a draw to go to a restaurant, I don't know what you want.  (Besides maybe Gates BBQ. OH FOR THE LOVE OF GATES). At this point we decided that we wanted to go on a ghost tour. On your marks, get set, GO-we have 20 minutes to find the ghost tour listed in the brochure.

Now if you've only been in a city for a few hours and it's dark, and you haven't walked anywhere, trying to find an office on some random street is not the easiest thing to do. But with spidey senses tingling, we managed to run right into it. And lucky that we did. In order to get the 10 o'clock tour, one other couple had showed up. Unfortunately, the 10 pm tour is only supposed to happen in the summer, as in not December. Oops. Apparently, the other couple had been told that if more people showed up, that he would give the tour, SURPRISE! Here we are! Saving the day or ruining the day, depending on who you are. Oh well. So we giggle and sign up for tour.  He shoos us out of the little office while he puts on his costume. Oooo scary.

So he comes out of the office in his red cloak/hood that is intended to be the costume of the traditional Czech executioner. Fun stuff right? And we go back into the office for a quick introduction and a survey. Survey? Oh yes, how would you prefer to be executed? A) Noose. B) Axe. (the joke here was that it was the middle school boy spray, same dif) C) Sword. (my answer) D) Hammer. E) Fire. F) Water.  There were little tallies next to all of them, with the most popular being axe. So while you ponder that, just picture us going on the most hilarious ghost tour ever. I mean, I've been on several ghost tours where they tell you creepy stories, and some of them are half believable, and even frightening, but this one was just straight up joke. He tried to scare me once, I wasn't too frightened, as in I had a super delayed/faked scream. Funny, but not the reaction he was looking for. So he decided to scare Kate instead, that one worked.

After the hilarious tour, we walked around singing Harry Potter Puppet Pals (what do you mean this isn't Czech?) and wandered around the pretty much closed Christmas market. Tried a bit o grog which was disgusting, and then called it a night and went back to the hostel for some shut eye.

And I will leave you hanging on that terrifying note. Expect day 2 of Prague tomorrow.

I'm Alive!

So the updates that happen before you get real updates go like this.

1) I'm back from Prague and it was beautiful.
2) I'm 98.7% done with my Gaga paper-and that's beautiful.
3) I miss all Christmas concerts hard core (read: CinCC and Winter Blessings)-they're beautiful
4) That was my last weekend trip of the semester. AND THAT MEANS THAT IT'S ALMOST OVER.
5) Read #4 again, except with my panic voice.
6) I'm sleepy.

Good night wonderful people, I'll work on pictures and blog things tomorrow.