Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Springtime in Prague



Holland!!

I finally made it to Holland to see Stijn and his family! My mom and I were supposed to fly there for Christmas but I was sick. So I went for Easter instead. We had a great time. And it was fun for me to reminisce about my first time in Europe in 2005- when my brother and I went to Holland to visit Stijn. That was the trip that started it all for me- I remember thinking I could really spend a few years in Europe...and now here I am! I never thought it would actually happen. Here are some pictures:










Easter in Prague

I actually didn't spend Easter in Prague- I had a 5 day weekend so I went to Holland (see next post). But here are some pictures of the Easter Markets in Prague. Also, it is a tradition in the Czech Republic for guys to hit girls with sticks on Easter (I'm not sure how this came to be, but...) and then the girls are supposed to give them eggs, candy, etc. Doesn't quite seem fair to me...







Sorry for the Silence!

I have been really terrible at updating my blog lately. Here is a highlight from last month:

On April 5th, I saw Obama speak at Prague Castle. Now, most of you know that I'm not very interested in politics (nor am I very knowledgeable on the subject), but I have to say it was pretty cool. I have never seen a president speak, much less in another country! The speech started at 10 a.m., but people were there much earlier to try to get a good view. I, on the other hand, rolled out of bed around 8:30 and slowly made my way to the castle. When I got there, one of the volunteers who was working at the entrance gave me his last "special invitation" which allowed me to go to the front of the line and stand in the section closest to the podium (I still wasn't very close, though). I don't think this is the way it was supposed to happen, because I have friends who got to the castle at 5 a.m. and they didn't get anything. They ended up in the back section. So it really wasn't fair. There were around 20,000 people there I think. You can read the text of Obama's speech here, and below is a video I took.