This morning we woke relatively early, ate our baked goods and went to my favorite beach on St. Thomas: Lindquist Bay. Lindquist is one of the few undeveloped beaches on the island, and this has been controversial recently. All beaches in the Virgin Islands are public, and landowners must provide reasonable access to the public over land. Lindquist was bought by a large US developer, fences were put up, and several years of lock and fence cutting took place on the trail to the beach. Now, the fence is open for pedestrian traffic, and a security guard actually sits (naps) there [View Full Entry]

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This morning we got a ride down to Magen's Bay, which is about 3 minutes from my sister's apartment. We spent the morning there while our hosts worked at local schools for the morning. Magen's Bay was typically packed with cruise ship tourists on Thursdays when I lived here, but this being the lowest month of low season, there were no cruise ships in town and maybe 10 locals swimming on this mile long beach. Completely empty beaches are a trend you'll notice the next few blog entries. September is low season because it's hot and muggy, and there's the possibility [View Full Entry]

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Sunscreen for the beaches of Thailand? check Winter gloves for the mountains of Switzerland? check Bathing suit for snorkeling in the BVI? check Warm coat for winter in Tokyo? check This is an exerpt from our packing list. Sounds a little random and a little nuts but when I tell you we are going around the world it begins to make sense. We created an opportunity to travel out of a challenging situation at work and will be on the road for the next several months on sabbatical. We bought our tickets through the oneworld alliance - 20 "segments" over 4 [View Full Entry]

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Seattle - Dallas - Puerto Rico - St. Thomas, USVI Our first stop is St. Thomas, J's old stomping grounds and current home of his sister and her boyfriend. We're inexplicably allowed 6 segments in the North American continent, so we made use of it by hopping down to the "Caribbian". Leaving Seattle at 6 AM, with about 6 hours of sleep in the last 48, we arrived in STT at 9:30 PM. We were filmed leaving the airplane by a TV crew that was filming a reality show for BET along the lines of The Real World. The Puerto Rico [View Full Entry]

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An observation: Over the course of our trip we encountered people speaking many different languages: French, German, Italian, Spanish, Czech, and Hungarian. The one common denominator for everyone was English - that's the only way Italians could communicate in Prague, for example. It was interesting to hear two parties from different cultures using our language (foreign to both of them) to interact with one another. We encountered the same thing in Thailand and Malaysia where European tourists conversed with the locals in English. I've always felt somewhat inferior because I am n [View Full Entry]

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This church was by far the most gaudy of the Baroque churches we saw. It is not the same as the church of St. Nicholas in the Old Town Square - this one is in Little Quarter. Apparently the Baroque churches were made this way to attract people to the church after attendance had been low. I was surprised at the number of violent images and statues in the church of various saints "smiting" people. Also, this church is a good illustration of how small the cross and Jesus are in relation to the statues of saints themselves. The minimization of [View Full Entry]

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No place we went on our trip was busier than Prague. The old downtown square was bustling every night till after midnight. [View Full Entry]

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Walking tours are very popular in Prague. Guides for each company carry different colored umbrellas to lead their groups. Some of these groups get up to 50 people! We opted for a 2 hour tour of the Old Town Square and the Jewish Quarter and really lucked out with only 2 other people in our group. :) Our guide was a law student who had worked for a summer in Yellowstone and travelled the US by Greyhound bus. She had an excellent knowledge of the city and spoke English very well. We got a great sense of the history of the [View Full Entry]

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Just a quick post on food in Prague... It became kind of a joke this weekend that my meals included "hidden ingredients": - a wheat roll contained golden raisins - a cheese and vegetable sandwich harbored hard boiled eggs between the bread (not visible in the case) - a black forest cake contained cherries disguised in the cream layer - a major ingedient in my beef stroganoff was pickles (unexpected but oddly not bad) * I dislike raisins, hard boiled eggs, and candied cherries!!! In the Old Town Square, several of the outdoor cafes had stands selling delicious "wafers." They are [View Full Entry]

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Today we decided to tackle the Prague Castle area of town. This is definitely the most touristy and crowded place in the city. We encountered more tourists and tour groups here than at many of the major attractions in Paris. Overall, Prague was full of tourists as levels we would not have expected this late in the season! The currency is more affordable than EU countries, and than Switzerland so we can see how that would make it attractive (1 US dollar = 24.4 Czech crowns). The "Castle" isn't really a castle per se - it's a compound of buildings including [View Full Entry]

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