and with the blink of an eye, it was over.

My final weeks in Prague...
The Christmas tree in Old Town was beautiful!
Clare came to visit!
Al came to visit!
The Christmas markets were full of delicious treats... Trdelnik is my favorite ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trdeln%C3%ADk)

We had another successful potluck in Slezska for our holiday party!



missing these guys so much!

ice skating with Kim and Kendra!

There was a talent show, I played a song I wrote.
And Kim and I performed two songs together, I Will Follow You Into the Dark and Landslide.
Then it started to snow...


This is the Prague airport, about to get on the plane!
Then I woke up in Southern California, where it was 75 and sunny.

And tossed a frisbee on the beach with my boys. a beautiful day indeed.
na shledanou Praha, you will be missed.

Busking on the Charles Bridge

In December, the population of Prague tourists increases by what seems like 300%.
So my question is, how many Prague tourists want to hear Christmas songs being played on the Charles Bridge?

Answer: a lot!
I set up my Christmas song music, layed out my case and sang my heart out...
For about 20 minutes. Before a friendly police man told me to leave unless I had a permit, which I didn't.
The good news is that in those 20 minutes I made the equivalent of $18. Someone even tossed me a 2 euro coin! sweeeet!
A lot of people took pictures of me, and at one point I had a rather large crowd gathered around me.

My friend Katie joined in for Silent Night


So I set out to find a damn permit. And failed. The Charles Bridge office told me I could have a permit for January 23. LAME. I could be making so much money right now, except for that it's supposed to snow tomorrow, and has been raining allll week.

Prague is kind of beautiful

I'm going to miss this place, but I am ready to come home.
Prague is by far one of most architecturally beautiful places I've ever been.

I'm going to miss my daily walk home from class...

crossing over the Vlatava...

glancing over to the Charles Bridge...
The castle looming in the distance...




Most of all I will miss these crazy people who stand, in the hundreds, every hour to watch the clock do its little thing, and then clap.


Christmas market pictures soon to come!
my desk...

Thanksgiving in Prague!

Thanksgiving in Prague was better than I could have ever expected it to be. I hunted down a turkey, and by hunting I mean scouring expats.cz to find out where to buy a turkey. Turkeys are non existent in the Czech Republic so it was truly a mission, but alas I ordered one from a British butcher who had them on hand for expats on thanksgiving. I picked up the bloody bird Thursday morning and brought it back to my friend's dorm where our feast was to be held.

My friend Kendra and I spent all day cooking that turkey! We were soooo proud of ourselves it ended up tasting amazing!!!
Throughout the day people started trickling in the kitchen to cook things.
I had three classes that day, no day off for Thanksgiving in the Czech Republic, but I didn't go to any of them, for I had turkey duties. Yeah, that's where my priorities are.

Slezka, the dorm we had our feast in has a beautiful view overlooking all of Prague from the TV tower to the castle. Finally came time to carve the turkey!
Kendra and I are so proud of our baby bird!

SO MUCH GOOD FOOD!!!

I made my dad's recipe for sweet potato casserol, it turned out amaaazzzinggggg!!! I did have to search high and low for sweet potatoes though. Finally found them at the TESCO hypermarket, about 40 minutes from my dorm haha oh well, definitely worth it.

opening a bottle of CALI RED!
Kendra and I with essentials!
The whole table!

John, Will, Kendra, Mike and I!
Finally John's pasta arrives!!! 8 hours in the making! Emily doens't know what to do...

Then the night progressed to some dancing, on and off tables.
And Teressa and I matched...



So thankful for everything!

Berlin

Last weekend, the morning after Pink, 10 of us left for Berlin. Even though the train was early, the train station is an easy 8 minute walk from our apt so it was super convenient.
Holesovice train station

After nearly 5 hours on the train we arrived in Berlin! I stayed with my old roommate who is studying there right now, but I followed my friends to find their hostel when we arrived. We took the S Bahn (metro) way into West Berlin and then we walked for about an hour looking for the place- I guess you could say it was not conveniently located. After wandering around town and getting some food we headed over to East Berlin.


The East Side gallery is a portion of the Berlin wall that became a gallery of art in 1990. Recently the wall has been repainted.
We even saw one of the artists working on his piece.
Lots of images of peace, freedom, and love. It was truly beautiful.
A lot of the images that were painted this year were just redoing images that were painted in 1990... for example I found this picture of this car from 2005, and here is my picture from last week.

Then we went to dinner for Jess' birthday!
I had a chicken burrito- and it was delicious, unlike Prague Mexican food.

The next morning I met up with some of my other friends who had come separately and we went on the "NewEurope" free walking tour of Berlin. It was 5 hours long, but pretty great.
This was the first thing they pointed out to us on the tour- the Adlon Hotel, please notice my alteration to the image.
Holocaust memorial. 2,711 concrete slabs. No markings or signage or anything that says what it is, I would have had no clue if it weren't for the guide.

Berlin wall.

Crew in the top of the Reichstag.

Soviet memorial.
Wandering around Berlin with Shevani!


And that finalizes my travels for the semester... from here on out I'll just be exploring Prague!