Day One December is Eastern Europe at its most forbidding, yet here we are, barreling towards Karlovy Vary (or Carlsbad, as it was formerly called) to take the waters at the largest spa town in the Czech Republic. We have put all our trust in Camilla Parker Bowles, the name we have given to our GPS navigational system. In her genteel British accent, she routes us through the countryside, avoiding all the highways. We think Camilla's on her best [View Full Entry]

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After at least 7 years dreaming about going to Prag, I finally made this dream come true :-) The city is amazingly nice and interesting and the architecture is such a beauty. This city is a jewel! We ate our first lunch: a great and delicious piece of smoked ham and then walked a lot through all the little streets. We had lots of latte macchiato, hot typical czech punch to warm us up. It was so cold, but so cold..... Why ? it was not foreseen and even with 5 layers of pullovers I could not get warm! However, this [View Full Entry]

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Hello Everyone! Things here have been pretty exciting- I've just returned from a week in Dresden (Eastern Germany) and Prague (Czech Republic) and a week ago from Malmö (Sweden). I have a new appreciation for the size of europe- pretty much wherever I want to go on the continent or in the UK, the plane ride takes approximately an hour. Seriously. To Prague it was an hour. To Dublin its an hour. To Copenhagen its an hour. I really really like the travel capabilities. Sweden Irmela and I stayed for five days with a good friend of hers , Lotta Hamfelt [View Full Entry]

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Since i wrote last i have done the whole northern loop. From Paris we went to Bruges. which is a little medievil type town that doesn really have much to do. There is a quote from the movie In Bruges that goes a little soething like this.... "Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn , so it doesn ." but one thing it does have going for it is the FOOD! glorious food.. Firstly belgium invented the fritz or fries as we [View Full Entry]

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All right.. so the first month while we were here... we going on trips to other Czech towns, exploring the city of Prague, and of course Czech intensive class.. Now the real classes have begun. I just finished my third week of classes. Well, for me it was the second because I skipped the first week to go to Poland :) I am very lucky to like all my classes because most of my friends have at least one class they don't like. So what classes am I taking? Jewish History in Eastern and Central Europe. This class is sooo interesting.. [View Full Entry]

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It was off to Prague bright and early on the bus with Dax. We stopped off on the way at Terrizen Concentration camp for a tour and a look at what really went down in these Nazi run playgrounds. Its hard to believe that humans could actually treat other human beings this way...The cells were tiny and dark and the conditions were undescribable. We even got to see the execution grounds were their was a deadly feeling in the air...All together it was a really confronting experience and tis so hard to believe all this went down only 50 odd years [View Full Entry]

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Today was another travel day. I left Cesky Krumlov this morning, anticipating another stay at the garage-like station in Cesky Budejovice where I had to make a transfer again. But no need - this transfer was at the main station. The main station had such frivolities as multiple tracks, an enclosed area, food sales and workers (actually it was quite normal). What a huge difference. While I was there, I went into one of the nearby stores to find a replacement jacket. I figured with food as cheap as it is here, maybe I could find a cheap jacket. Wrong. 5,700 [View Full Entry]

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So we didn't do much yesterday before the bike tour. Just people watched and showed Gina some of the town. The bike tour, Praha Bike, started at 5:30pm. There were only 7 of us. My group of 5 and 2 girls from Minnesota/Chicago. They had also came over from Munich so we shared Oktoberfest stories. The tour started out rough. We all got ponchos because it started to drizzle. David, our tour guide, took us over the river and made us carry our bikes up a few flights of stairs. Not fun. We were all winded only 10 minutes into the [View Full Entry]

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Yikes, a quick flight 750km north to Prague and I've gone straight from summer to autumn. It was unusual to be in Prague without constant sunshine and hot weather, but the three days here have been cold and dull. Beer in the square just isn't the same when it's chilly. On top of this, most of the bridge is undergoing renovation, ruining any photographic opportunities. Nevertheless, it was great to be back in Prague and nice to be in a familiar place that you don't need to explore completely in a few days. The off-season has also kept the crowds down [View Full Entry]

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Prague, Czech Republic Monday, September 21, 2009 Oh, Golden City, how you can enchant a simple country boy from North Carolina. I speak, of course, of Prague, the former capitol of Bohemia and current capitol of the Czech Republic. As part of this rest break, I decided to break out of my comfort zone (countries where I can at least halfway read the signs and know enough language to muddle about) to venture into some new territory. Since the 1990s, Prague has been a big hit on the backpacker circuit both because of the mystery of it being a former Soviet [View Full Entry]

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