No just kidding I'll write more.
This past week was vacation time for us Belgians and it was probably the best vacation I could ever ask for. Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon , My friend Audrey came over which is pretty much synonymous with awesome things happening. We camped out in my room, watched musicals, went to Bruges and Brussels. That's the Beauty of Belgium , you want to go to another city , you get on the train and go to another city because you know the ride wont be long.
Monday morning 4 am or so to be exact- I get my ass out of bed ( I don't know how I did it) and grab my suitcase and head to the airport. I got there with plenty of time to spare I'd rather be early than late especially at the airport. Nothing evokes more pity than the traveler sprinting to their gate with their luggage and everything they had to take off to get through security. SUPER LUCKY ME , I'm in the plane the pilot mumbles something in Czech and then in English, we don't have clearance to leave yet. No biggie just twenty minutes. finally get clearance. JUST ABOUT to take off. They put the wrong luggage on the plane.SOMUCHRAGE. An hour late, I arrive in Prague. My whole reason for going was to see my friend Verca . She was an exchange student in my school in 09/10 , and we just happened to become really great friends. Even after she left we would send each other post cards , emails and skype . I walked out to the arrival area and it was so crazy to see her again after a year and a half .
She studies at Charles University in Prague and her dorm is really close to the center so everything was so close and the public transportation system is very easy. Monday night we went out with some of her friends all of them were really great and all spoke some level of English, which is good because all I can really say is 'Beer' in Czech. But what else do you really need to know?
The rest of the week we were in her city , Ceske Budejovice. It's in Bohemia and its one of the main reasons why i love European cities . It's a city without all the overwhelming-ness of giant, tall, crowded American cities. In stead of up its more ...out. We spent the week visiting everything we could , we biked to a castle , hiked in the mountains near Austria/Germany, visited Ceskey Krumlov ( A baroque city) and at night there was always something to do in the city another hang-out to visit . Friday night we went to a concert , I didn't know the band until she showed me the night before but they we're really great. The lead singer of the band, a guy from New York . After the concert a dj took over and the guy came out from backstage and i'm just like HEY YOU'RE FROM NEW YORK ?! ME TOOO. This startled all the other Czech people there, Americans aren't afraid of being forward. He was really great though and we actually got to go backstage and hang out with the rest of the band , the members we're from all over the world which was really cool and they all didn't mind hanging out .All of her friends were really great too, one of them was a former exchange student a rebound from Brazil and she kept telling me " You aren't like other Americans" which made me so happy ( yay defeating the stereotype) . Saturday morning we went back to Prague , bright and early and saw ALL THE SIGHTS or most of them , there are so many. Granted it was a Saturday so you had to beat your way through droves of Russians and Chinese tourists but the city is amazing. It has so much history , art , music , colors. It's overwhelming you get scared that you'll forget something and so you take a picture but you know that the picture will never be the same as actually looking at it . That night we were pretty tired so we went to a tea room and just sat and talked , catching up , looking back, it was great. Sunday we went to the Mucha Museum , if you don't know who Mucha is you should look him up .
It was hard to say goodbye Sunday afternoon , because you don't know when you'll see each other next . She's in college now and soon I will be too , and unfortunately its not on the same continent . But I've said this before when you make a friend in rotary you're friends for life.
Either way it was a phenomenal week , I could have gone to Prague with the rotary but it would have been a packaged tour where they truck you around like cattle. I wouldn't have been able to hike in the mountains, go to concerts, go to authentic Czech pubs or get a tour of an awesome country by a good friend.
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