Catching Up

Dear faithful readers,

I am sorry for the long gap between entries. Know that I still love you all. With that being said, I am back.

When I last left you I was preparing for the arrival of parents. My week with my parents was amazing and it flew by.

After my parents left Prague, I departed for Paris to visit Lisa.

This past weekend I went to Krakow.

Tomorrow is my birthday.

Until next time

Alex

What is that you say? You want the details? Fine.

I will start with my parents journey to Prague. My parents (and only readers of this here blog) arrived on Thursday April first. We hoped in a cab and went over to their hotel in Namesti Republiky. I knew their journey was off to a great start when I had to give our cab driver directions to the hotel… a truly scary notion considering their hotel was in the heart of the city. My folks unpacked and we grabbed some dinner. As my parents evening was winding down, I prepared to go back to my dorm and rest up for the long week ahead of me. That was until I received three different phone calls urging me to join my friends at Radost. After putting up a fight for 5 minutes, I gave in and thus kicked off my week of zero sleep. After a long night of dancing and fun at Radost I went to sleep, only to wake up at 9 to spend the day with my parents. I spent Friday showing my parents around Prague. Friday night my parents took a few of my friends to Jama and we had an awesome dinner. Friday night my parents declined my invitation to join my friends and I at Lucerna for 80’s music night. Their loss. Saturday we spent more time exploring Prague and seeing the sights. After an early dinner, I ditched (sorry) my parents and went on a pub crawl with some of Kacy’s friends who were visiting from all over Europe. Sunday morning I put on my tour guide hat and escorted my parents around Prague’s historic Jewish Quarter. Sunday evening we say Don Giovanni in the marionette ( I spelled marionette correctly on my first try!) theater. Monday morning I met my parents bright and early at the main train station in Prague. Our plan was to spend the day in the western bohemian city of Plzen. Plzen is home of the Pilsner Urquell brewery, the most famous brewery in the Czech Republic. Going to visit the brewery was a sort of pilgrimage I felt I needed to make during my time in the Czech Republic. Anyway, we went on the brewery tour and learned all about beer, and got to try the freshest Pilsner there is, and yes it was delicious. After our lovely tour we went to Na Spilce, a famous Czech restaurant located within the gates of the famous brewery. While waiting for our food a rowdier group of Sparta Praha soccer fans entered the establishment. Known for their mild manners and kindness, I wasn’t to worried about their presence. Within a few minutes of being the establishment, a few bad apples starting brawling. No I never would have imagined a group of soccer fans, in a brewery could get rowdy, but what do I know. Well, as the fighting broke up my parents and I decided it would probably be a good idea to exit the establishment. That was probably a good idea. As we exited at least 200 riot police began to storm Na Splice. These guys were in full riot gear, complete with batons, tear gas, and barking dogs. After that we wandered around Plzen and ventured back to Prague. Monday evening Sara, Celia, Jenny, Walt, Becca and myself went to dinner with my parents. We went to the circle restaurant which I just found was called Kultak. Tuesday I had a midterm and a fieldtrip so I was unable to see my parents. Wednesday was my parents last night in Prague. On the recommendation of my Jewish History professor, we went to a delicious restaurant in the Imperial. After dinner I said my goodbyes to my parents and just like that our week together was over.


Paris:

Friday morning 3:30 a.m. my alarms sounds. I had fallen asleep a mere 3 hours earlier, yet I was now awake. How could this be? Well, in order to go to Paris for a reasonable price, Becca, Sloyer and I decided to take a 6 am flight. Whoop. By 4 am our Taxi was at our dorm ready to take us to the airport. The most amazing thing happened, Becca was on time that morning. This is because I told her to be downstairs at 3:50. Sorry Becca. Our cab ride was semi frightful. At one point in the ride I looked at the speedometer which read 140 kph or 87 miles per hour. Now it is important to note that from my dorm to the airport there are zero highways. Meaning that we were driving at a speed of 87 miles per hour on normal streets. But we alas we arrived safely at the airport and checked in for our flight. We flew a discount airline called Wizz Air, and the seating is a mad dash to the plane. We arrived at the airport in Paris, however it was not the main airport Charles De Gaul. The airport we flew into was called Beauvais and it was about an hour and a half outside of Paris. So after the long bus ride, a ride on which I had the worst seat on the bus, dead center in the back row, we arrived at the bus station and thanks to the wonderful direction I had gotten from Lisa we made it to the area where our hotel was. After looking for about 30 minutes we found the luxurious Paris Bruxelles Hotel. Lisa came over to the hotel and took us around the Jewish area of Paris, and I finally got to eat my eagerly awaited falafel, which exceeded expectations. We then spent the day touring the city and we had a delicious dinner at some restaurant (great detail… I know). After dinner we were exhausted so we headed back to the hotel, and hopped into our beds. The beds were a testament to my exhaustion, because they were pretty crappy, and didn’t have real pillows.

Saturday we woke up nice and early and again spent the day touring Paris. We went to the Eiffel Tower (where I bought the coolest sunglasses ever), The Toulerise gardens, the Champs Elysse and of course the Longchamp store (kill me). After our long day we went back to Lisa’s to hang out until dinner. Before dinner we went to an awesome underground bar that was definitely playing Hebrew music, so that was cool. We ate dinner at this tiny Italian restaurant and that was really good too. We didn’t finish dinner until about midnight. That really wasn’t an issue, because we had no hotel for the night. You see we had an 8 am flight Sunday morning out of Beauvais. That in itself isn’t too early, but we needed to be at the bus station at 4:45 to take the bus back out to Beauvais. So, we decided we should pull an all nighter. So at around 1:30 Sloyer, Becca and I left Lisa’s apartment and decided to tramp around the mean streets of Paris for a while. We went back to the Champs Elysse and walked around for about 30 minutes, and then took refuge in a semi-shady bar. At 4:15 we hailed a cab and it took us to the bus station. The cab ride was scarier than the one we had taken in Prague. The driver wasn’t a big fan of stopping, so he would just weave in and out of traffic and would just pull uturns instead of waiting for lights. But we made it to the bus and to the airport. By the time we hit Beauvais Sloyer and Becca were pretty zonked, and I was getting my second wind. They did not appreciate my singing of Madonna’s like a prayer (although deep down I know they loved it). We returned to Prague by 10 a.m. and that was Paris.

Coming soon:

Krakow, and my birthday (I have a glow in the dark shirt)!


Also Sara Sloyer took the liberty of writing a birthday blog entry. So read it!