edinburgh, scotland

The hostel here has an 'internet cafe' so I've got a couple minutes to catch up on emails and such. We made it to Scotland today after a quick plane and a bus or two. We flew EasyJet this time and I found it to be much nicer than RyanAir. Anyway, the hostel here is really nice (and cheap, under $20 USD a night) and is right on the water. It was a little wet this evening and will probably stay that way for the next few days. Oh well! We'll make the best of it!

Traveling to the UK has been a nice break from the cold weather in Prague. It's much more mild here. It's also nice to see green grass everywhere. Sorry, still no pictures! I've taken over 650 in the last 3 days so you can expect a lot when I get back on the 3rd.

london

Well, I found a computer to use and there's a wireless signal coming from a few doors down here at our hostel in London. We arrived last night just after dark and got settled in before going to dinner in the theater district. I don't have pictures for you because I've got no way to upload them to this computer, but I thought I'd update you on the big trip.

We flew through Dublin into London yesterday using RyanAir. It went smoothly and we found the 'general admission' seating to be funny. On Tuesday we fly easyjet to Edinburgh, Scotland and we'll be able to compare.

Expect more when we get to Scotland!

fifty cent

Tonight was spent enjoying some of the finer things Prague has to offer. These being hordes of young Czech kids in flat brim hats and XXXL hoodies, second hand smoke and American rap. The 50 Cent concert sold out the T-Mobile Arena (10900 capacity plus 2500 on the floor) and provided a great time. The music was great, the atmosphere was hilarious and the things that were lost in translation could not have been more entertaining.

General admission left us in the first row of seats. This meant a great view without elbows in the face.

prague update

Well I thought since I'm spending the majority of my time in Prague, I'd give a little update on Prague. The weather here has gotten much colder, much wetter and much less sunny. The cobblestone sidewalks and streets get dangerously slippery when they're wet. I certainly wouldn't want to drive on them when it's below freezing. With another friend visiting this past weekend (from Belgium), we got to experience the now perfected Matt Beenen walking tour of Prague. The weather outside was nasty so in the spirit of having something to take pictures of, I decided to snap a few inside the St. Vitus Cathedral, seen above.

I also decided that it's time to reveal one of the staple foods for an American student studying in Prague. Bohemia Bagel is just a 5 minute walk after a 15 minute metro ride. Here, you can get sandwiches (hot and cold), soup, coffee, breakfast foods, burgers and of course, bagels. Prices aren't the typical Czech cheap but are still very reasonable (well under $8 for a good meal and bottomless drink). The colder weather is preventing us from making the journey as often as we used to. I'll snap a picture next time I'm there with a camera.

vienna, austria

On Satruday morning at 10:30 our bus left the station from Prague and headed for Vienna, Austria, through Brno. The ride went quick as I managed to bust through 300 pages of Dan Browns "Angels and Demons". When we arrived we went straight to The Wombat, our hostel, and got settled in. We spent the night making a plan for the next day and celebrating Jon's 21st birthday. He took the picture below, of our room at the hostel.

The next day we woke up and glanced out the window of the third floor and saw nothing but snow blowing through the streets. Looking down revealed two inches of fresh snow on the ground. This made the day a little bit more difficult. As things warmed up and it started raining everything got slushy and wet. This meant few pictures and even less time outside. We used the time to see some museums.

We went to the Museum of Arms and Armor, The Museum of Music, The Museum of Ephesus (ancient Turkey) and the Museum of Natural History (one of the oldest museums in the world). These offered warm, dry weather and plenty of entertainment for the afternoon. After many hours of walking through endless halls of dead birds, insects, mammels and ancient artifacts, we decided to head back to the Wombat and rest.

The next day we woke up to bright sun and a cool breeze through the cracked window. The weather was perfect and we left the hostel early to take advantage of it. We spent the morning walking through the city. We visited Belvedere Palace and it's gardens. We then made our way to the north end of the city to see the river. Despite it's unimpressive view where we happened to run into it, we knew that the Danube was the longest river in the European Union and the second longest in Europe. At least we could say we saw it, right?

The afternoon was spent in the city center where we saw St. Stephen's Cathedral. It seemed to be the center of attention with a few impressive streets full of shops and boutiques starting at it. Everywhere we looked there were small cities of sheds in preperation for christmas markets. Holiday decorations were strung between the buildings and it was obvious that people were out in full force, enjoying what could be the last dry, sunny weekend of the year.

With the remaining hours of daylight, we trekked across Vienna to the Southern most outskirts of the city. What would a trip to Vienna be without a visit to the worlds oldest existing zoo, Tiergarten Shönbrunn? With a storm rolling in, we called it a day and headed back to the hostel. The next day, we spent the morning lounging in the Wombat before heading out to the bus for a five and a half hour trip back to Prague.

no hustle, no bustle

After sleeping in this morning and reading for a while (Dan Brown's Angels and Demons) I decided to take some pictures. Jon decided to go find some nature and I was gonna go into town and take pictures, before it got snowy. About 15 minutes later, the sky cleared up and I decided to go find some nature myself. I had read that to the North-West, the city ends abruptly, so I decided to check it out myself.

I ended up at the end of the tram line and found a park. I was stunned at how quickly I felt like I was the only person for miles. I hiked around for around 2 hours until the sun started getting close to setting. I would have liked to stay on the hill, but didn't want to hike back down and then back up to the road in the dark.

Not knowing how late I would be out, or where I would end up, I brought a lunch with me. The rocks in the sun at the top of the hill were a great place to rest and eat. These are some of my favorite pictures from today. Unfotunately, none of them really capture what it was like up there.

To give you an idea, here's the first picture I took, before I headed down to the valley and up the hill. Circled in red is the tree that I'm sitting by in the last picture.