Waiter? Czech please!

So hopefully you got the joke from my last two posts - you didn't actually think I was going to leave you hanging and not knowing what we actually did on our travels!! So anyways, I left off at us leaving to go to Prague after spending a night in the London Gatwick airport - here we goooooo!!

Arriving around 10am, we were a little exhausted - you can imagine how comfortable a row of airport benches can be as a bed. So our immediate task was to meet up with our "hostel" manager and get the keys. I say "hostel" in quotes because it was more like an apartment - that we ended up getting to ourselves... in the middle of downtown.... above a bar... YAY! Hahaha. Needless to say, we were tired, so the first thing we did when we got there was take a huge nap until the middle of the afternoon.

Tram line running past a mall in downtown Prague, Czech Republic

Walking around Prague was interesting because it wasn't like any of the other major cities that we had visited thus far. The streets had fewer people (which was a nice change), and the building had a completely different look to them - the infamous Bohemian style - maybe because it's located in central Bohemia? But you know, just assuming here hahaha.

Planning to do most of our sight seeing on day 2, we spent most of the afternoon shopping (we thought Prague was going to be cheaper than the rest of Europe but we were sadly incorrect). This would be a good time to point out that in the CR they use a different currency than the rest of Europe - they use the Czech Koruna - where about 26Kr is the equivalent of 1€. The fun part about that was spending 105Kr on a drink from Starbucks (you knew we were going to, so stop pretending like we didn't)!

They still had the Christmas cups in March! Merry Christmas!

A quick stop at the grocery store to get some eats, and we were back in the apartment hungry and ready to cook a feast! And by feast, I mean some pasta and veggies - close enough right? Our evening was quiet and relaxing, with some braids, a small workout demonstration by yours truly and Steph, and tales read aloud from "Talk to the Snail: Ten Commandment for Understanding the French" by Stephen Clarke. See?

Commandment #1 - Thou shalt be wrong (if you’re not French)

Yes, we spend our evenings in interesting ways. So, we hit the hay early ready to get going for day numéro deux. This post seems long enough as it is, I will continue at another date.

Just a small note - we have been even more busy lately - planning our trip to Italy (we leave in 2 days) and designing yet another web site for a local business owner here - we'll post the link once it's done. All that in addition to our normal daily activities. I'll try to see what I can do about updating at least until the end of Portugal by the time we leave on Friday! Wish me luck!

Pore choo gal

Hey remember that time we went to Portugal?

I don't remember much, so I can't write any details.

We went to Portugal on Thursday. Apes and Steph returned on Sunday. I returned on Tuesday.

I am Portuguese.

Czech us out!

Hey, we went to Prague and then we left and went to Portugal.

That is all.

Long overdue... or just due?

LONDON TOWN! Continued from before....

Where are we? I don't know - I guess it's been so long since I have written that I can't remember. Easy fix - just have to look at the blog, don't I?

So, double decker bus tour eh? Bet you thought it was fun, well, you're dead wrong! It was awful! Yes, I am kidding once again. Got ya! Anywho, by this time, we are le tired and waiting for my sisters (+Abe - Deni's bf) to meet us in Central London! Yes that's right, my crazy sisters were visiting! Oolala! So after a few phone calls, we finally met up with them at Victoria Station Mall, where low and behold, Deni was getting her hair straightened - leave it to her to be doing that to pass the time!

Ju, Apes, Deni, Abe, & Kiki

To join in, Steph decides to get a strand or two of her hair curled - oh so lovely! Now if only this lady wasn't so persistent in trying to sell us her hair tools, we could have gone on our way a lot faster. "Hey lady! Did we mention that the outlets in Canada are a little different than the ones here??" Aka we're not buying one. Why do I always sidetrack like this? I'm so awful. I'm sorry if you're reading this.

Gotta look the other way, remember?

So my sistas, the sistas, Abe (lucky Abe with 5 women) and myself walked down past all the fun scenery (you remember what I said - Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc.) to the River Thames to hop on a boat for a cruise. A beautiful cruise on a brown river - my favourite pasttime! Oh you didn't know that? Well then, you didn't know me! The non-tour guide tour guide was hilarious, and the boat was basically empty. We had a marvelous time along the Thames with beautiful evening photos. Voila!

The boat had SO MANY PEOPLE!

Tower Bridge at night - oooh aaahh

I literally just took a 7 hour break from writing... so I've lost my train of thought. Ahh... so I will continue... but we're just going to zoom through the rest of London.

• Finished the boat cruise - back to hostel then dinner at a gourmet burger restaurant
• Met random guy from Canada at the hostel's pub and turns out he went to high school with Steph's boyfriend (obviously)
• Ventured out and about the next day and then took the train north to Sheffield (and Chesterfield for Apes & Steph)
• Steph and Apes were visiting their cousins
• Abe, Ju, Nicki, & Deni went to Sheffield to see Abe's old stomping ground
• Back to London on Monday afternoon - I did the double decker tour with my sisters while Steph and April went shopping
• Parted ways at the end of the day, grabbed some fish & chips and headed for the airport to spend the night for our 7am flight to PRAGUE!!

Yoga at Trafalgar Square! ROOOOOOOOAR!

Sleeping at the airport is not something that I recommend doing... but we're cheap and didn't want to bother paying for a room when we would just have to leave at 4:30am. So we slept on the seats in the waiting area - as did a bunch of other travelers. I guess it's a good option haha. Anyways, needless to say when we arrived in Prague the next day, we were quite tired.

This means that the story of London is done!! YAY! So I shall explain Praha in the next post. Adieu! Ciao! Adios!

so slow......

ACK! I suck at this.

Summary as what's happening right now (AKA why I don't have time to write):

• I just got a job teaching English to kids aged 7-11, so I've been busy dealing with that.
• My friend Lisa is visiting for the week (from London, UK) so that's keeping me busy too.
• My other job (posting stuff on a family web site) needs attention as well - more posts = more money for me.

I will update more about our travels as soon as I can. For now, I love you and miss you all.

London (cont'd)

Alright, so you've read up to the point where I was mentioning just how gross the hostel coffee tasted.... let us continue:

We ventured our way along the London Tube system on this lovely Saturday morning.... did I mention that the tube is quite extensive, and since we were staying a little ways from the downtown core of London, that it is tricky to know exactly WHICH train will get you to where you want to go - well, only when there is crazy construction! So crazy construction - on weekends, the city shuts down parts of (or entire) tube lines so that they can be repaired. We did not know this until we got to a station and realized the train wasn't going any further. Hmm... what do we gotta do? Ah yes, go back the way we came and try again. So that's what we did! 30 mins to an hour later, we get to where wanted to be, along with a good lesson learned - "Even though the map says it's the way to go, it probably isn't". That's the moral, right? Or am I getting it wrong?

You think you're so good, don't you London Undergound?

So, we're where we need to be. Multiple friends suggested that we take the Bus tour of London - tickets are good for 48h and the boat cruise is included. Why not then eh? 22 pounds later, we've got our tickets and we're boarding the Yellow tour (for those of you who know the London bus tour, the Yellow tour is the narrated one). "YAY! A NARRATOR!" we thought to ourselves, but little did we know that this man was going to make fun of me as soon as I got on the bus. I was wearing headphones (not listening to music - I had just turned it off for the tour), and the narrator states into the microphone for everyone on the top deck to hear "Well, this girl doesn't even want to pay attention to me, she's got headphones in. Pay 22 pounds for a tour that you don't even want to be on." That's not the embarrassing part though. The part that got me was when April and I walked up to the top deck to find everyone laughing at me because I was the girl with the headphones. To make matters worse, there were no free seats up top, so we ended up walking back down to sit by the narrator and chat him up during the tour (at least until some people up top got off the bus). [I feel like this story was one where you had to be there to get the full effect of the embarrassment - to you, the reader, it might feel like I'm just explaining a simple event in great detail. Let us know what you think with a comment.]

Ju with headphones and a ticket ready to board the bus!

Away we went on the double decker bus, and oh the sites we saw!! Buckingham Palace, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, the Clock Tower (what we refer to as Big Ben), Hyde Park, St. Paul's Cathedral, and much much more.

Here are some samples of what we saw:

Apes 'n Ju in front of the Clock Tower (you can see the London Eye in the background).
*Please not that Apes' will not like that I posted this photo*

Piccadilly Circus - kinda like the 'Times Square' of London

Ya we did!

Next post of London will include - seeing my sisters, going to Sheffield, and leaving London.

One Thursday in Monaco

So one Thursday (Feb. 26 to be exact - Happy Birthday Dad), Apes 'n Ju took Steph to Monaco to see the sites, hear the sounds, and smells the smells (yum).

Look at the fun we're having!!

So we missed the express bus and had to hop on the other bus (the non-express one if you can believe it). Anywho, the view on this route is much nicer, but the bus, in general, is usually busier. This random Thursday was no exception and the three of us had to stand. No big deal. So there we were - standing and talking and having a blast, when all of a sudden, this group of North Americans who were on the bus as well were looking at us all suspicious-like. One of the girls turns to me and is like "Do I know you?" - surprised by this, I obviously say back to her "Of course you do Agnes!". WHAT A SMALL WORLD! Agnes, this girl I went to high school with was on the bus to Monaco with some friends she was visiting on the same random Thursday that we were! Wow!

Anyways, we ended up showing the big group, and Steph, around Monaco - the palace, fontvieille, the beach, the casino, the cathedral, you know, the usual stuff. It was a lovely day, photos were taken (of course by Princesse Stéphanie) and fun was had. We even had time to do some cannon yoga!!

Ohmmmmmmm....

The whole crew even came out to the pub quiz that night! YAY! Oh wait, we lost hahaha.