i’m so ridiculously behind on this journal, so i wont really go into tons of detail about the rest of the time we spent in prague. but basically, we spent the following week not sightseeing at all. my friend from back home hooked we up w/ a project to earn some extra cash, so i spent most of the week coding away in yan’s living room. it’s really not that bad working abroad. wake up late, get lunch in a cafe, do work while listening to loud music at yan’s house. definitely could be worse!
each day i would usually work until yan got home from work, and then we’d go out to get dinner and usually drinks as well. we ate at this incredibly good steak restaurant one night. w e went to a czech beer garden another night. we checked out a drum and bass club at one point. oh, one night we were walking down the street and randomly found this small teahouse that was decorated all crazy inside. they had hookahs there so we spent some time kicking back on cushions, smoking hookah, and drinking tea while reminiscing about crazy experiences that caryn and i had in india and that yan had in s.america.
it was a really chill week, and honestly it was really nice. it was almost like being back home again. work during the day, hang out w/ friends at night. kinda nice to take a small break from traveling, not have to move around all the time, have a place that in some way feels like “home”, and have good friends to kick it with. heh, we even had a cell phone that yan loaned us so we almost kind of felt connected. my parent’s called me, and so did natasha, sage and jamie. it was really nice to hear from people back home!
one day when we were riding the metro, we totally randomly ran into one of caryn’s friends tiffany. how bizarre is that?? to just completely out of the blue see someone from home in the metro in prague?! crazy!! anyways, we went to dinner w/ her later that night at this cool cafe/bar/restaurant called Radost FX. once again, we had a bunch of drinks, but felt sober once finished.
the next day, yan got the day off… because his car had gotten broken into! doh! so, we decided to head for the beach. the beach? in the czech republic? well, it’s not a beach at the ocean, but they have an area near a large river, and people just lay around on the grass and enjoy the sun. there’s even a little bit of sand to make it more beach-like. the river water was dark , murky, and freezing but yan and i went in anyways. later that night, all of us went to this gypsy restaurant. the food was pretty good, and they had live music which was really entertaining. some guy at one of the tables started singing all loud, joining in w/ the music. seems like everywhere we go the restaurant customers are singing w/ the bands!
after dinner, we decided to walk back to yan’s. all of a sudden, there was all this crazy lightning and insane winds started blowing. we hurried back to yan’s but not quick enough… the sky opened up and it started pouring like crazy. and then, a few minutes later, the rain stopped. after getting back to yan’s, caryn and i spent most of the night packing. ugh!
the following day it was time to go. so sad! it had been such a nice 8 days, and it really sucked to be leaving…
*v
I had two incidents like that… I ran into a junior high classmate in Notre Dame in Paris, and saw a friend of a friend onstage at the Globe Theater reconstruction in London (he was participating in a cool program that lets theater students get lessons at that theater). It’s so weird, yet very nice.
Finally new posts… I was beginning to think you had given up on the journal… I would have called you, too, but my cell phone doesn’t call international and no home phone.
I’m looking forward to hearing about Africa…
I’m confused. Are you backtracking? I thought you started out passing through Eastern Europe, right after Northern Africa and before the Middle East and Egypt.
yeah, the route we took is a bit weird. we hit europe, then continued eastward through the middle east, india, southeast asia, japan… and then took the transsiberian across russia westward, and ended up in europe again, and then went south into africa. you can see the route if you click on “RTW itinerary” at the top of this page!