“So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.”*

So, I'm off on my next adventure (man, after this trip, I'm definitely going to go through travel withdrawal...).

My trip did not start off that great.  My terminal in the Philly airport had no air conditioning (hi, it's over 100 degrees outside, how do you not have air conditioning?) so it was ridiculously hot.  Then, we get on the plane, and their auxiliary power wasn't working, which meant we had no air conditioning while sitting on the tarmac, and we sat there for about half an hour.  I dont like being hot.  Even after we took off, the plane was so hot, it never managed to completely cool down even when the A/C finally kicked in. 

I was kind of grumpy by the time we landed.

The second flight was a lot better.  Nice and air conditioned.  The people in my row were nice.  Only issue I had was when we landed and I went to stand up and my leg was numb again (stayed numb till the next morning).  Stupid sciatic nerve. 

So, that kind of cemented me not running the half marathon here.  Which made me sad.  I had gone to the Doctor and she strongly suggested I shouldn't run it.  I was still contemplating doing it anyway, and just kind of walking/running it slowly and not even care about the time.  But, I decided that was a bad idea with a numb leg and the fact I haven't been running for about a month now.  Sigh. 

So, I am just trying to be content with walking around the city. 

Yesterday we went to the race packet pick up (K is still walking in the race, and I figured I may as well pick up my packet just in case I changed my mind at the last second).  The expo was in the center next to their stadium.  I LOVE their stadium..

I couldn't get the whole thing in the picture.  It's huge.  (ahh, there is a joke just waiting to be made there...).

Then, we walked around in the rain and went to the Pike Place Market (if I lived here I'd be there EVERY FREAKING DAY, the fresh food is awesome).  I tried to take a picture of me overlooking the water.  Instead, I got a picture of me and the road below us right NEXT to the water.  

You can KIND of see the water in the upper left corner there.  It was rainy and wet out.  (Welcome to Seattle I guess?).  It was hard to smile for real when I was so wet. 

After walking in the rain for a few hours, we went to the Taphouse Grill which had 160 beers on tap. 

This terrible picture is only about half of the bar, maybe a third?  There was a lot of beer.  It was hard to choose just one.  So K and I both did a sampler and got to pick 4.  I tried a Scotch ale, a hefeweizen, a lager, and a pilsner.  They were all pretty fantastic. 

Then, we came back to the room and my friend, Seattle's Best, came by the room to say hey.  We hung out for a while before grabbing some dinner and going to bed early.  I was tired (only slept for about 4 hours the night before), and K needed to be up by 5 this morning for the race. 

All in all, it was a fun first day.

Today has consisted of me watching the race from outside the hotel, walking around downtown by the hotel, finding champagne and beer (harder than you'd think) for after the race, and being lazy in the hotel room.  Not quite the same as running the race, but not a bad morning either. 

Ready to head back to the Pike Place Market for lunch and explore the city some more later this afternoon :)

Hope everyone is having a fun weekend!

*The Phantom Tollbooth

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

Thank you for being the best dad in the world.  I love you!! 

Last Pictures of the Trip! Budapest!

Yeah, I guess I disappeared there for a while...my bad.  I got busy and stuff. 

Anyways, I guess I'll finish up my last trip (just in time for me to leave for my next trip).

Budapest!

We took a boat tour on the Danube (yes, I voluntarily stepped foot on a boat and amazingly didn't get that seasick...maybe it was the free beer they served). 

This was a church that was actually carved into the cliffside of Buda.  It was amazing. 

Then, my favorite building (located on the Pest side).

This is their Parliament building.  Amazing.

The next day we just walked around the city.  Mostly the Buda side.  We took the funicula to see the Castle, the Cathedral, and I got to shoot a bow and arrow (I hit the target every time, but only one was near the bullseye). 

We also saw this awesome car:

Maybe I should do something similar? 

We left for the airport around 2 in the morning and flew back through Lisbon...so one last picture of our friend. 

The whole trip was just amazing.  I already want to return...

Onward to Vienna

We took the train from Prague to Vienna, and it was almost like the Hogwarts Express!  Each car had their own little compartment type seating and there was a candy cart that came around.  We shared our car for a few stops with a lady that pretended she couldn't speak English (she learned how to speak English really quick when she needed help with her bags), the little faker. 

Once we got to Vienna and found our hotel, (also very near a sex shop) the very first thing we did, was hop on the Metro and went to the trash plant (I'm so my father's daughter). 

But come on, seriously.  This place is like the Willy Wonka factory of trash plants.  It was so cool looking (even the non-nerdy people in our group were impressed). 

After that, we went to the Hotel Sacher to get one of their famous desserts:

Meh, I was only mildly impressed.  We ate better things on the trip :)

We walked around a park for a while and took some pictures of the statues they have in the town,

(I really liked the music note in the grass).  But to be honest, at this point, we were kind of pictured out, so we didn't take too many pictures that day.  After walking in the park, we headed over to the opera house and we got some SRO tickets to see The Flying Dutchman.  I have to say I really enjoyed it, but if I ever get the chance to go again, I'll totally splurge and get actual seats.  It was hard to stand and watch for 2 hours.  My feet were already tired from all the walking in Prague and earlier that day.   

The next day, we went and visited the Palace which was right by our hotel.  I can't get over how big the royal summer house was.  It was insane. 

This didn't even capture the wings that extended down the sides of the courtyard...

Then, the backyard...we never even made it to the end of the garden.  We had been there for 2 hours already and still had more to go see elsewhere in the city.

We went to the National Museum and saw a Klimt exhibit, and then, went to some cobblestone part of town, and then back to Parliament (I think it was Parliament?)

After this, we went to another famous coffee shop (no clue what it was called, I just know it was in an old library and had amazing apple struedel). 



Then, we went to their amusement park with the famous ferris wheel, but I was more amused by the live merry-go-round they had (until I saw how pathetically lethargic the ponies looked, then I just felt bad for them).

Then we went to St. Stephen's Cathedral.

It was starting to get late, and things were closing after this, so we headed back towards the main road in town, and rented some bikes to ride through the park in an attempt to work up an appetite for dinner.  Then, I think we just went and got some schnitzel at a famous schnitzel place and then went back to the hotel to pack to leave for Budapest the next morning. 

I hope I didn't leave anything out!

The rest of Prague...well at least the rest as far as I could write about...

Ok, I'll try and wrap up the rest of Prague in this post.  But it's going to be hard!

We woke up on Sunday ready to explore.  The first thing we did was go across town and visit Kafka's grave:

Of course, the first thing I noticed was this awesome flower cart right next to the cemetary:



So pretty!

But, then we actually went into the cemetary and the grave was so beautiful. Such a lovely memorial for such a disturbed individual.

After leaving the cemetary, we headed over to the other town square that is apparently more of a boulevard.  I don't know.  It's what the tour book said. 

Then we climbed some big staircase into a park at the top of the hill (it had a beer garden, we were willing to climb). 

We got this awesome view of the city from halfway up.

Then we met up with a Jersey City Beer Garden bar tender (we make friends everywhere we go...) that recently moved back to the Czech and he took us around to a local pub (where we watched the finals in hockey and had the most amazing food). 
Our last day in Prague, we went to the Jewish ghetto and visited the Kafka museum (seriously, that man was kind of ridiculous.)  His diary entries were just complaints about waking up and working and other silly things like that.  I don't think we would have been friends if we ever met in real life. 

However, the museum had a funny peeing statue outside it. 



After the museum, we worked our way over to the John Lennon Peace Wall and passed this awesome lock gate thing.  I don't know what it was for, but it was cool.  (Seriously, I'm the worst describer ever).

So, now the wall.  Notice the lovely inspirational quotes.  "I'm a dreamer", "never settle", "fuck bitches".  Wait, what?

The pink writing is the most out of place...

After that, we went to the castle and cathedral.  The castle was pretty, but the cathedral was jaw dropping. 

Then, the toy museum with the perverted statue (or should I say the perverted people that TOUCH the statue?).

At least I got to pretend to be Superman...

And we ended the day with a trip up to the mini Eiffel Tower: 



I love Prague.  I want to go back and actually have time to explore.  We kind of did the whirlwind tour...

I wish I could come up with a clever name for the first day of our trip...

My next few posts are going to be about my trip.  If you don't want to read about it, here's your warning :)

We left for Prague on Friday and flew through Portugal to get there.  We had a 3 hour layover in Portugal, and while normally, I don't really care about layovers.  It sucked big time.  We were tired.  We had already been flying for 7 hours and still had another 3 to go before we reached Prague, and that 3 hours was just spent fighting to stay awake. 

However, we did come across a friendly face in the airport:

So, we were the ONLY people that seemed amused by this RIDICULOUS bear.  Everyone else just stared at us like we were insane for taking our pictures with it.  How do you NOT take a picture with it???

We FINALLY get to Prague, and our driver is waiting for us (I sound so high class there, no?  I had a driver waiting for me?).  It was actually just a van from the hotel that came to get us, but we weren't complaining.  We were too tired to try and figure out their public transportation.

The driver was awesome.  He had been sitting in the lot too long waiting for us, so he was going to have to pay to get out.  So, instead, he just piggybacked his way through the exit behind a car in front of him and avoided the toll.  He then proceeded to drive 90 mph through the city to our hotel.  (And my parents think I drive fast...).

We get to the apartment we are staying in, and the owner sits us down and gives us our first beer (just the first of many):

She basically refused to let us go upstairs and sleep.  She made us go walk around the city for a few hours, and then we could come home and go to bed (and do our best to avoid the whole jet lag feeling for the week).  She was very adamant about this.  So...walk around the city we did.

Right next door to the hotel, this lovely brewery:

Could we have picked a more perfect hotel/apartment set up? 

And, keeping with a theme we had for this whole trip, we were within one block of a sex shop (seriously, EVERY hotel we stayed in was less than a block from a sex shop, we made fun of Figgs for his selection of lodging). 

So, other than the breweries and sex shops, we also did make sure we visited as many monuments, castles, etc as we possibly could.  I won't post all the pictures, but you can get an idea from these:

Um, I'm not entirely sure I remember what everything is...so you don't get any labels.  Worst trip description ever. 

While there, their hockey semi-finals and finals were taking place. And it was the Czech Republic vs Slovakia (how much more awesome can you get?).  So, they set up in the square of old town with a large screen and speakers, and broadcast the game, and so many people flooded the square to watch:

Then, we went to Starbucks to wait for the bell tower to go off on the hour (hey, give us a break.  We were tired and it was the only place that wasn't packed full of people).  I tried to take a picture to make fun of myself for going to a Starbucks in Prague, and...all I succeeded in doing was taking a picture of myself where I look insanely tired, and you can't tell at all where I am. And then, I proceeded to fall asleep at the table for ten minutes while waiting for the clock to go off. 

You have to turn your head for this one.  Blogger is sucking it up with the pictures again.  I'm tired of fighting it.



But there's the belltower going off.  Not that you can tell or anything.

Then, we walked around some more, and at this point all of us were exhausted and still had about 2 miles to walk to get home.  We were not happy. 

But then, we came across this awesome work of art on some wall (the graffiti there was insanely prolific), and just had to laugh at how aptly it summed up how we were all feeling.

We finally made it back to the room and I crashed for about 14 hours.  But when we woke up the next day, we all felt fantastic and we were great for the rest of the time we were there.  I guess the hotel lady knew what she was talking about when she wouldn't let us sleep.  :) 

Ok, so I'll try to combine my next two days in Prague into one post.  Then, the rest of the cities should be much quicker!  We just did SO MUCH in Prague, it's hard to be succinct.