Czech Nature

The amazing astronomical clock on the city's
town hall building.

So here we are completing our tour of Prague, Czech Republic. Loving the land, art, history, and architecture. The people, though... We're not too pleased. Maybe it's because we're in what we've come to call tourist-land? Maybe it's the language barrier? But, really, the people aren't very nice. When we first came into town they didn't stamp our passports so we tried asking around about where we could get that done. Turns out it's not really necessary in the EU. However, whenever we asked someone they would send us to a different person who would send us to a different person and so on. Finally we asked the receptionist at our hotel. Again, he tried sending us somewhere else. We explained to him that whoever we ask, we get sent somewhere else. At that he laughed and said, "That is just Czech nature." I see. I don't think I like Czech nature.

Brandon's disappointed face
that came with each beer he
ordered here in a town known
for amazing beer.

The restaurants have horrid service. This may go along with "Czech nature" but I feel like I'm causing my server a huge hassle just by asking for some more water. And, along with the bill, they always give a little piece of paper with the math and expected tip scribbled on it. Our first thought? "Don't tell me what to tip! You didn't even check on us once. We had to flag you down. And you want 20%? Yeah, right."

Today we were partially scolded by our waiter because we wanted to share a meal. He said that's just not the Czech way. If we want something small, we should go to McDonald's. We go to a restaurant to eat a full meal.

These were everything I wanted them
to be.

That's alright. The food isn't super exciting anyway. Except for the desserts. There is delicious ice cream everywhere and today I had some sort of sweet pastry baked in a tubular shape (see picture). It was wonderful.

St. Vitus Cathedral. I'm sorry,
the picture does it no justice.

On a lighter note, this city is absolutely rich with history. There's no way I could list it here but I can say some of these buildings date back to the tenth century and was the home of the Good King Wenceslas (you know, that guy in the song). We went and saw the castle and the castle's church and surrounding town. It was all amazing. Like a fairy tale. The castle church - St. Vitus Cathedral - is probably the most massive, most immaculate church I have ever seen. It has so much detail with spires, stained glass, gargoyles, and everything. We can see the church from everywhere we go in town, it is so big.

Prague is a town filled with towers. There are clock towers, guard towers, gate towers, and viewing towers. We bought a pass to gain access to all of them, plus a couple of other sites. All that to say: we have done a lot of climbing in our stay here. I am so ready for our train ride tomorrow to give my legs and feet a bit of a rest. But all of the towers were awesome. It was neat to climb them and learn about what they were used for and why they are there.

There was one tower that gave a lot of history to the bells of the city. I didn't realize how much respect went to the bells but they have a history, a purpose, and some stories to go with them. It's said that every year on the Thursday before Easter all of the bells will make a trip to Rome to receive a blessing from the Pope. Even objects that are made from melted down bells remember their history and make the trip as well. It is said that, because of this, soldiers couldn't find their guns before a battle in World War 1.

A spy setup in the top of a
bell tower.

Another tower is an old bell tower in a church and was used by the communist secret service agents to spy from. They used many towers around town because they provided a good view of the land so they could watch out for "people of interest." Most of these "people of interest" were from the foreign embassies. The tower we went up had a view of about ten different embassies, including the American one.

The carving of 1678 was in a statue at
the top of a gate tower.

Something that I have found incredibly interesting in these towers is all of the graffiti and carvings in the walls. These towers are so incredibly old and people have been carving their names in them since their foundation. The oldest I found was from 1678. We also did an underground tour and a couple of the rooms we went into were used as dungeons. The prisoners carved their names and messages into the walls of their rooms. It was amazing to see and to be able to touch something with such a story.

So that was Prague! There really is a lot more, but too much to be able to write in a blog. We're still having a fantastic time. My gut is healing pretty well. I've taken off two of my bandages. One of the incisions is being slow to heal and my belly button is pretty ugly and bruised. But I'm on my way back to being normal again! I totally climbed all of those towers at what I think was a pretty decent pace.

We carved our initials in a lock to put on one of
the statues on Charles Bridge. It's supposed to
be good luck or something like that.

So until next time my friends! Next stop: Munich, Germany.

Where, oh where, has my appendix gone?

The Freedom Train in Boston is a red line that
the tourist follows to different sites where
cool things happened in our nation's history.

First stop - Dublin! Our Europe dream vacation has begun and it's expected to be amazing. We took a red-eye flight to Boston, getting little to no sleep, and then another red-eye to Dublin. Boston was pretty cool. We went along the Freedom Trail and saw some cool sights. Before we even left I was feeling pretty sick. Sunday night I had a massive migraine and felt very feverish. Thank you to those of you who joined us for frozen yogurt, by the way. You guys made our short stay home quite refreshing. Anyhow - Through Boston I started getting stomach cramps and (the secret D word). The migraine and fever remained. I was taking medications to try to calm things down but nothing seemed to work. I felt as though Montezuma had a little more revenge in store for me.

Here's my gut. It looks big, huh? Sorry.

When we landed in Dublin we went straight to a pharmacy to see if I could get a different medication. The pharmacy sent us across the street to the doctor, the doctor sent us up the street to the hospital for some tests, and the hospital sent me into surgery and proceeded to remove my precious appendix. So that was Dublin. The whole time we had set aside for it was spent in the hospital. The staff was very nice and took good care of me. Brandon is frustrated because we both know that the swelling was from (the secret D word) and what I really needed was antibiotics. But when the doctors went in to check on my appendix, they said that the swelling was way too close for comfort and they took it out for safety's sake. I don't need an exploded appendix. I suppose I don't need an appendix in general. I don't even miss it.

So now here I am with three holes in my gut. After I was released from the hospital we had enough time to do a bus tour, which was a bit more bumpy than expected. Luckily, we have our last two days in Dublin, so we can go back and check on what we want. We still need to do the Newgrange tour and there are some pretty famous author locations we saw on our bus tour that I would like to revisit.

Look at those cool cats! This is us
with Marc and Rimalda way
back at Crater Lake.

Next stop after Dublin was Amsterdam. We took a wheelchair through the airports and it was awesome. No line waiting for us! I think a lot of people doubted my need for one... But walking hurt! First thing in Amsterdam, we met up with our good friends, Marc and Rimalda. We met them when they were doing a world tour a few years ago. They asked to share our campsite at Crater Lake and we've been buddies ever since! Marc said, "Call us up if  you're ever in Holland!" I bet he didn't realize we would actually follow through on that one!

So the four of us went to a concert that night at the Paradiso Concert Hall. It was a man named Donavon Frankenreiter. His band is pretty rockin' on stage. His CD is a bit more mellow. At the end of his show he did a song with his little boy on the drums. It was super cute.

Red light windows in the
Red Light District.

I'm still working on recovering from surgery so we didn't do as much as we would have liked to, but we saw quite a bit. We hit up the Van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum, and a sex museum. Van Gogh had a lot of art and it was cool. The Rijkmuseum had a lot of history of the country, which Brandon really enjoyed. And the sex museum... well, that was interesting. Amsterdam has what is called The Red Light District and they are pretty well known for this one part of town. It used to be where the sailors would come to port and seek out some lady friends during their short stay on land. There are doorways down the streets that have red lights over them. In each doorway sits a lady. We went in the daytime so as to say that we went, but to avoid as much seedy activity as possible. The women were really just hanging out, waiting for their next customer. Some would call out to the single men walking down the street. It was definitely an experience.

Current day! Totally love these guys

We had the chance to take a train out to Marc's parent's house where he and Rimalda are housesitting. It was great to see some countryside, relax with some friends, and have great food.

One thing we are enjoying on this trip is seeing all of the different architecture. It's all amazing. Amsterdam has such old buildings all lined up. A lot of the apartment buildings used to be docking warehouses. They have hooks up top that were used to load things in. The hooks have remained, and now people use them to move large furniture into their houses. A lot of the building faces also look like they're about to fall forward. I noticed many crooked buildings. I tried to get a good shot, but I don't know if a picture can truly portray the experience of seeing it.

So now here we are in Prague. That will be my next blog. I know I haven't been as vigilant as I would like to be. Hang with me. I'll get a schedule down by the time I get home. So, good night, my friends. Until next time. If you're the praying type, prayers for fast healing for me would be fantastic. I would love to get to exploring without cringing in pain so often. And I've got some towers to climb tomorrow!