the day has finally come--- i leave prague in the morning.
i should be home around 10pm tomorrow night.
it has been incredible and there is no point in even trying to explain the last two weeks.
i can't wait to see you all!!!
i will be replaying my last stroll across the charles bridge in my head over and over again until i get to hug you!
see you soon <3
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
the final stretch
Why hellllllllllo there blog reader! And hello to you too, December!
Let me start with this point and then jump to the updates on my life, please bare with me here.
I’ve been updating less and less because I’m not even sure who is still keeping up with this… as the semester winds down I find myself somewhat in shock how removed my relationships with all of you back home have been and how little communication we have had. Of course I knew it would be limited, but I figured skype, email and facebook would have aided much more in keeping me updated in your lives. Its been quite strange only talking with very few of you on an inconsistent basis and I find the thought of actually seeing you very soon ( AHHH YAYAA!) to be an almost scary and overwhelming thought. Some of you have been an absolutely wonderful support system with sending mail, calling etc. and I understand that we are all very very busy people, it is just a strange realization for me. I hope that you bear with me and have a little sympathy for my exhausted mind and heart as I return into the far away land of America.
Alright, now that that is out of the way here are the updates:
- Tammy and Mimi were here for their visit and we traveled to Cesky Krumlov (x2 for me), and the wonderful city of Vienna where we saw the two palaces of the Hapsburgs, the amazing christmas market anddd the oldest zoo in the world filled with baby pandas, baby polar bears AND a baby giraffe. It was pretty much the best thing ever.
- Our last two class trips will be this week, one to Pilsen to the beer factory responsible for created the first ever pilsner beer (I’m getting a really good education over here), and then one to Dresden for a brief history lesson and a chance to see the oldest Christmas market in Germany.
- SAVE KNUT!!! http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2008/12/03/barton.germany.bear.sale.itn?iref=videosearch
- i saw cold war kids play a show here at lucerna a few weeks ago and it was freaking INCREDIBLE!
-The countdown is really on! In less than two weeks I will be leaving Prague! I’ve got tonssssssssss of school work to do and lots of things I need to soak in before I leave, but I feel pretty good about coming home.
- I arrive late on December 18th and will most likely be in a coma until Christmas…But I can’t wait to hug the crap out of you all, and I never meant that more in my life! (If I knew how to express an even higher level of desire to embrace people I would say it here…)
This last month has been really great and I think all that I have learned here is slowly starting to work it’s way from my heart into my mind.
I would like to think that my traveling and ideas of what it means to travel has greatly improved--- and this growth has bled over, becoming the perfect subscription to my constant tunnel vision.
It seemed that the less and less I used maps and directions the more and more my mind allowed me to see what was right in front of me.
I’m not saying that I’m not still highly concerned with the future but I can feel a change in myself of learning to live more and more in the present. Prior to this trip ‘the present’ was more of a theory than a fact of life to me, not in the gravity sort of way because I can feel that… more like actually wrapping my mind around every detail of the big bang. I guess what I’m saying is that traveling has allowed my thoughts to better understand what I am actually feeling in the moment. It’s very exciting!
I owe many thanks to the individuals who have pushed me in this area and allowed me to take this on at my own pace. You know who you are and I sincerely appreciate you more than words can say.
That being said, I would like to explain where the root of all this reflection and nostalgia is coming from: The other night we all went to our Czech professor’s house and his wife cooked goulash for us! It was pretty delicious and if that wasn’t exciting enough, when we walked in the dining room there were about 8 bottles of bordeaux sitting on the table… I’ve told many of you about the great conflicts that have occurred between the group of students on this trip but let me tell you, if we would have just had a plethora of bordeaux lying around I think this semester would have gone a lotttt smoother than it did!
So, I was already in good spirits, having a really good conversation with Brookelynn and Justin on the couch and then, suddenly, in an instant, I saw the wine kick in. It was a beautiful moment for us all.
We went around and did one of those “complete the story” games where one person says about 3 sentences of the story and passes it on to their neighbor and you see how crazy the end gets. Of course, you can all safely assume what I added to this story… yes, I added the characters of Tupac, a penguin and a giraffe to lead the rest of the characters to safety. From then on out the story was obviously amazing…
Anyways, after we ate our meal someone suggested that we all go around and say what we miss most from home and what we will miss most about Prague… and this is where the not so great spectrum of the wine started to rear it’s head. Everyone started making long winded speeches about how they’ve changed and how this semester has affected them and blahblahblah girls started crying (yeah.. in case you forgot.. i am a girl...) It was a little messy and totally unexpected!
There suddenly was so much pressure to say something profound and meaningful about the past 3 months of my life and all the people around me and I had no idea what to say! When it was my turn to profess my love to everyone, thank my professors and talk about how I’m a better person, I decided to instead, call everyone on their bullshit. Haha-- I didn’t get profane or anything but I pointed out the elephant in the room that I felt everyone was ignoring. Don’t worry, everyone laughed and generally agreed with the comments I said. Honestly what is said is kind of a blur because I was filled with so much adrenaline, anxiety and yes, bordeaux… but I do recall saying the exact phrase: “In a strange way, I want to thank all of you for exceeding my expectations on how difficult this trip would be.”
And that pretty much sums it up.
All you need to know beyond that is that after all of these speeches were finished-- me, Brookelynn and the boys rounded out the night at a bar closer to campus where we listened to lil wayne and skipped in the street...
That’s all that I’ve got for whoever of you are actually still reading.
Keep up with the countdown, 13 days til I return to the states and talk all of your ears off!
(and im soooooooo excited that crystal dennis and SAMMY will be staying with us for so long during the holidays! :) )
Let me start with this point and then jump to the updates on my life, please bare with me here.
I’ve been updating less and less because I’m not even sure who is still keeping up with this… as the semester winds down I find myself somewhat in shock how removed my relationships with all of you back home have been and how little communication we have had. Of course I knew it would be limited, but I figured skype, email and facebook would have aided much more in keeping me updated in your lives. Its been quite strange only talking with very few of you on an inconsistent basis and I find the thought of actually seeing you very soon ( AHHH YAYAA!) to be an almost scary and overwhelming thought. Some of you have been an absolutely wonderful support system with sending mail, calling etc. and I understand that we are all very very busy people, it is just a strange realization for me. I hope that you bear with me and have a little sympathy for my exhausted mind and heart as I return into the far away land of America.
Alright, now that that is out of the way here are the updates:
- Tammy and Mimi were here for their visit and we traveled to Cesky Krumlov (x2 for me), and the wonderful city of Vienna where we saw the two palaces of the Hapsburgs, the amazing christmas market anddd the oldest zoo in the world filled with baby pandas, baby polar bears AND a baby giraffe. It was pretty much the best thing ever.
- Our last two class trips will be this week, one to Pilsen to the beer factory responsible for created the first ever pilsner beer (I’m getting a really good education over here), and then one to Dresden for a brief history lesson and a chance to see the oldest Christmas market in Germany.
- SAVE KNUT!!! http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2008/12/03/barton.germany.bear.sale.itn?iref=videosearch
- i saw cold war kids play a show here at lucerna a few weeks ago and it was freaking INCREDIBLE!
-The countdown is really on! In less than two weeks I will be leaving Prague! I’ve got tonssssssssss of school work to do and lots of things I need to soak in before I leave, but I feel pretty good about coming home.
- I arrive late on December 18th and will most likely be in a coma until Christmas…But I can’t wait to hug the crap out of you all, and I never meant that more in my life! (If I knew how to express an even higher level of desire to embrace people I would say it here…)
This last month has been really great and I think all that I have learned here is slowly starting to work it’s way from my heart into my mind.
I would like to think that my traveling and ideas of what it means to travel has greatly improved--- and this growth has bled over, becoming the perfect subscription to my constant tunnel vision.
It seemed that the less and less I used maps and directions the more and more my mind allowed me to see what was right in front of me.
I’m not saying that I’m not still highly concerned with the future but I can feel a change in myself of learning to live more and more in the present. Prior to this trip ‘the present’ was more of a theory than a fact of life to me, not in the gravity sort of way because I can feel that… more like actually wrapping my mind around every detail of the big bang. I guess what I’m saying is that traveling has allowed my thoughts to better understand what I am actually feeling in the moment. It’s very exciting!
I owe many thanks to the individuals who have pushed me in this area and allowed me to take this on at my own pace. You know who you are and I sincerely appreciate you more than words can say.
That being said, I would like to explain where the root of all this reflection and nostalgia is coming from: The other night we all went to our Czech professor’s house and his wife cooked goulash for us! It was pretty delicious and if that wasn’t exciting enough, when we walked in the dining room there were about 8 bottles of bordeaux sitting on the table… I’ve told many of you about the great conflicts that have occurred between the group of students on this trip but let me tell you, if we would have just had a plethora of bordeaux lying around I think this semester would have gone a lotttt smoother than it did!
So, I was already in good spirits, having a really good conversation with Brookelynn and Justin on the couch and then, suddenly, in an instant, I saw the wine kick in. It was a beautiful moment for us all.
We went around and did one of those “complete the story” games where one person says about 3 sentences of the story and passes it on to their neighbor and you see how crazy the end gets. Of course, you can all safely assume what I added to this story… yes, I added the characters of Tupac, a penguin and a giraffe to lead the rest of the characters to safety. From then on out the story was obviously amazing…
Anyways, after we ate our meal someone suggested that we all go around and say what we miss most from home and what we will miss most about Prague… and this is where the not so great spectrum of the wine started to rear it’s head. Everyone started making long winded speeches about how they’ve changed and how this semester has affected them and blahblahblah girls started crying (yeah.. in case you forgot.. i am a girl...) It was a little messy and totally unexpected!
There suddenly was so much pressure to say something profound and meaningful about the past 3 months of my life and all the people around me and I had no idea what to say! When it was my turn to profess my love to everyone, thank my professors and talk about how I’m a better person, I decided to instead, call everyone on their bullshit. Haha-- I didn’t get profane or anything but I pointed out the elephant in the room that I felt everyone was ignoring. Don’t worry, everyone laughed and generally agreed with the comments I said. Honestly what is said is kind of a blur because I was filled with so much adrenaline, anxiety and yes, bordeaux… but I do recall saying the exact phrase: “In a strange way, I want to thank all of you for exceeding my expectations on how difficult this trip would be.”
And that pretty much sums it up.
All you need to know beyond that is that after all of these speeches were finished-- me, Brookelynn and the boys rounded out the night at a bar closer to campus where we listened to lil wayne and skipped in the street...
That’s all that I’ve got for whoever of you are actually still reading.
Keep up with the countdown, 13 days til I return to the states and talk all of your ears off!
(and im soooooooo excited that crystal dennis and SAMMY will be staying with us for so long during the holidays! :) )
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