Czech, Germany, and the Big 10k

Its been a while, friends. Once again, I find myself at a loss for good reasons that I haven't blogged in the last few months. My last excuse was a combination of withdrawl and denial. This time I can only plead laziness. Turkey season, the twelve days of Christmas and the turn of the year all came and went in a whirlwind. Most of my whirlwind experience was spent at Swingos Grand Tavern. I sold filet mignon and bathtub-sized banana splits like a maniac. Alas, those days are over now. January 2nd was my last day. Two days later, I was on a plane back to Europe. Pictured: The last night at Swingos. From the left: Christine, Bonnie, Andrea, Mike, Sean, Patrick.


The plan all along (though I occassionally second-guessed it) was to find gainful, interesting employment in Cleveland for the remainder of 2006 and to return to Kralupy for a student ball, a music festival, and one of the most beautiful places in the world sans tourists. And so it was. I did my best to hit the ground running and in the first three days managed to attend a wedding, a student ball, and more than a few pubs with friends I'd been missing terribly. In a lot of ways it feels like I never left. I'm sipping the same brew, laughing at the same stories, and dancing traditional Czech dances with people who call me "Miku" because they don't realize that English grammar doesn't change names like theirs does. My Czech came flooding back as soon as I stepped off the plane, and that alone had me smiling for a good couple of hours. It feels really good to be back here. Pictured: Prague


3 1/2 days after arriving in Prague, I found myself stepping off of a bus in Berlin, Germany. The following morning I met my long-time friend, brother, and partner-in-crime, Kyle, who had flown in from Scotland. Having thoroughly (which is a really hard word for Czechs to say) enjoyed the city last year, it only seemed right that I take Kyle on a grand tour. My pictures are a bit limited, because in all honesty, I have more than plenty of pictures of the same places from last year... just hit my archived post from February (or March?) 2006. So the two of us toured, sipped german hefeweisen and gluhwein, and made fools of ourselves on more than one occasion. All elements of a quality German sojourn, I think. We also met a two young ladies from Peru and Denmark, with whom we toured and gorged ourselves on schnitzel. Pictured: Brandenburg Gate; Kyle and I at the Pergamon Altar; Kyle, Adriana, Sedsil, and me at a little German pub.




After a few days in Germany, Kyle and I bussed back down to Prague. As mentioned previously, part of my choosing to return now was for the Lednovy Underground Music, in which I have taken part the last two years. This year was by far the best. My great friend Kevin, who lives in the town of Ostrava, took a 5 hour train into Prague just to play drums with us for 20 minutes. What a great guy. There are quite a few other pictures of Kevin elsewhere in this blog. So it was Kevin, myself, Boris (also pictured frequently) on saxophone, Petr on guitar, and Michal on bass. The crowd included so many of my old students who have been requesting the same songs for the last two years. It was so fun... though exhausting. I hope to have pictures of that soon. The next couple of days were spent touring the lovely city of Prague... let's be honest, I give a pretty incredible tour. You should probably hire me. The Prague leg of our world tour involved quite a few late nights, most of which can be blamed on English teachers at Gymnazium nad Aleji. I'm confident they'll disagree, but don't listen. Pictured: Kyle and I above the Charles Bridge; Amy, Kassidee, Ben, Kyle and myself at a random pub.



So Kyle hopped on a plane back to the states (with a layover in Istanbul??) on Tuesday night, and since then I have been relaxing and meeting with friends and students. I even had a chance to help Zach teach one of my old classes. I plan to continue with much of the same until my departure on January 29th.

As for whats next, I'm not ready to think about it too seriously. For better or worse. I'll likely post a more sentimental/introspective/panicked perspective of whats to come in a later blog.

As for the 10k mentioned in the title, scroll down to the bottom of the page real quick. You just may be the 10,000th visitor. Congratulations. As for the honor of being your e-distraction of choice, I'd like to thank the academy, my parents, my friends, and of course Time Magazine for choosing me as the 2006 Person of the Year. Maybe I'll put that on my resume.

Thanks for reading. I'll post again soon.