Well, we made it through the first week. One country down, seven to go. It was amazing. Prague is a beautiful town filled with mind-blowingly beautiful buildings.
I like the many bridges over the river that divides the city in half. Although, I don't really care for the hour long history lessons we get daily from our parents.

One of my favorite parts was the Black Light Theatre. It was also amazing. There were odd dances done by odd acters in odd costumes. Since the background was black, the had black harnesses that blended in and made them seem as if they could fly.

I will miss Prague. But I am excited to explore Germany.
-Allie Z

Czech out time

Tonight is our last night in Prague before catching a train to Germany to meet this blog's namesake, Dagobert. Allie and Noelle have been patient with us as we drag them around the town, droning on about architecture, the Velvet Revolution, gothic this and that. This city reads like an architecture textbook, where you can sit in one spot and point out perfectly preserved examples dating from medieval times to modern. Yesterday we rode the street car up to the castle to finish our look around that was interrupted by rain the day before. We jammed into the street car with a bunch of Czech college kids on their way to class. They were excitedly chatting with one another in Czech, which as I mentioned before, we can't understand a word of. Apparently they are interested in the same things that young Americans are because their conversation sounded just like this, "Blah, blah, blah, Facebook. Blah, blah, blah, Angry Birds. Blah, blah, blah, "you da man!""




We love bizarre sculpture and yesterday we ran across some more pieces of outdoor art. We googled "creepy Prague giant baby statues with dented in faces" to find out the meaning and it turns out a famous and controversial Czech sculptor, David Cerny, is responsible. In fact, he did the peeing men we ran across in the last post. It turns out the peeing men are not just randomly peeing, their urine would spell out phrases from famous works of literature, like mischievous boys writing their names in the snow. We sought out another one of his works, good old Wenceslas riding an upside-down dead horse.



We did manage to make it to the castle, and it is huge. In fact, its size is so overwhelming that it's difficult to even get a picture of it. Unfortunately, we arrived at the same time as all the buses with their guided tours. Guidebooks always warn you not to be an "ugly American", well we saw and heard plenty of ugly Japanese, Germans, Russians....you name it.



As large as the castle is we felt the need to escape down a back trail and have a picnic away from the tour groups.Tonight we'll forego our usual Daddy-cheapskate meal of dry bread, cheese, and water and head out to a cafe in the square. We may even find ourselves a hospoda and grab some hovezi gulas s knedlikem and a privo.

Prague in a Fog

We awoke to an overcast day that eventually turned to a downpour. It was a refreshing break from the heat that seems to exacerbate the jet lag. After breakfast we mostly did our favorite big-city thing: wandered the streets aimlessly. It's amazing what you'll come across just by getting off the tourist trail. Prague is a delightful city, but like many attractive places the deluge of tourists and aggressive souvenir vendors can wear thin. We got out early in the morning and had some of the side streets to ourselves. After lunch back at the apartment and a nap, we took the tram up to the Prague Castle. It is by somebody's measurement the largest in the world. It doesn't look like a castle in the traditional Disney sense, but more of a fortified palace. One thing is for certain, it is huge. We got caught up in a torrential rainstorm and the kids were delighted to see the gothic cathedral's gargoyle downspouts doing their job and spitting water away from the stone walls.




Our apartment, the "new" building from the 1800's.




Breakfast at our temporary home.




This is one of the narrowest streets, but that doesn't prevent cars from racing down it. We've had to scramble to shelter in a doorway many times.





Random street sculpture. A still image doesn't do it justice as each man was motorized, with swiveling hips and up-and-down aiming. Kids and adults alike were giggling at this discovery!

We're here!

After a long, sleepless flight we have finally arrived. Actually, it wasn't sleepless for Noelle. There is an advantage to being the smallest one of the group.



The heat wave and jet-lag have made touring Prague a challenge, but we have managed to walk around the narrow cobblestone streets. They are a maze of barely navigable streets arranged helter-skelter around the old town center. Our apartment is in the center of the old town, only a block off the main tourist area but fairly quiet and uncrowded. Yesterday we set out in the heat for the main bridge and tourist office to get a map. We used our intuition to blindly set out in the direction of the bridge and quickly got mixed up in all the alleys, plazas, and dead-ends. Two hours later we found the bridge and got our much-needed map. It turns out had we gone right out of our door instead of left we would have walked one block to the bridge.



View from the Charles Bridge

We like to learn some basic phrases in whatever language is spoken in the countries that we visit. From the moment that we set foot here we realized that it wasn't going to be easy. Czech is a very complicated language, with no words looking similar at all and even the most simple of words being multi-syllable tongue twisters. We simply annoyed the locals trying to stumble through their language so now we just jump straight into English. Prague is very heavy with tourists, but mostly Russians and Germans from what we can tell. In spite of that, it is a great introduction to Europe. An amazing city with incredibly preserved architecture and history.



Escaping the heat along the river.




Gothic spires and sculpture

We're off!

We spent our last days day before the big trip exploring San Francisco with Jolene's parents and nephew. We visited the zoo, ate, slurped tea at the Japanese Tea garden, ate, hiked up the stairs to the Coit Tower, ate, and puzzled over the works of Pablo Picasso at the De Young Museum. And then we ate some more.








Wow. At the base of the Coit Tower, looking over the city.




Mmm. Chocolate and cinnamon french toast. My last real meal for a long time-Allie.



my favorite playground in the world ... but I haven't been to the world yet. this one is in san francisco-Noelle.

Tomorrow morning we get up at o-dark-thirty and catch a flight to Atlanta and then Prague, Czech Republic. We fly out of Atlanta late tomorrow and then wake up in Prague on Thursday. We've never been to Prague but it has been on our to-do list for years.

In Your Face, Mom and Dad!

        Now we are a week away and counting. Noelle and I are in Chester, a tiny town in California. We get to have fun with our grandparents while our parents get to do errands. Yay! We leave for San Francisco on the 20th. Exciting.

Summer in the USA

One month and counting before we shove off for Europe.

Allie and Annika enjoying the cool waters of Lake Tahoe.




Smile while you can Noelle, soon you'll be enduring the stinky "squat and aim" toilets of France.