Babushka Mania

We arrived in Prague yesterday. A five hour train trip from Berlin. Initially the only seats we could find on the train were in the smoking "section" of one of the cars. What this meant is that this section was divided off from the non-smoking section by half of a glass wall. It didn't seem too bad until everyone kept pouring into our section to light up, then retreated to the somewhat less hazy nonsmoking area once they were finished. After inflicting some minor lung damage, we discovered that our Eurail passes entitled us to 1st class travel at least until the border between Germany and Czech republic. We escaped to the "luxury" of first class, likely knocking some people unconscious on the way with our bulky backpacks. I have a renewed appreciation for Vancouver's nonsmoking bylaws!
Czech is unlike any other language i've ever seen. At least many of the German words somewhat resemble several English words strung together in a big clump, but Czech is an odd mix of vowels and consonants, with strange accents decorating every word like Christmas lights. One look at the metro map had us confused enough to surrender to the fleet of taxi drivers praying on non-Czech speaking tourists. I think our taxi driver was a an ex-olympic shotputter/ underground Czech "don't f- with me" mobster. Seriously I thought the car might bottom out when he got in. Of course we didn't object when we circled the ciy five times before arriving at our hotel, we quite enjoyed seeing the scenery.... again, and again, and again as the meter ticked along. Our hotel is great, very clean and offers a great breakfast. Strangely, our room is filled with the aroma of cooking sausages 24hours a day... mmmmm nothing like waking to the aroma of greasy bratwurst!
Prague is an absolutely beautiful city. There are a lot of tourists here and it ir fairly expensive compared to Berlin (which incidentally seemed cheaper than we thought). Shops are filled withed with crystal, marionettes, wooden toys and every variation of Babushka doll you could ever imagine... Beatle babushkas, Star Wars babushkas, Disney babushkas, British monarchy babushkas, Baywatch babushkas.... you name it. David Hasselhoff and Prince Charles are in the running for ugliest babushka on the planet.
I apologize for rambling but I have two excuses to offer... 1. We are enjoying our first bottle of good wine since we've been abroad (gasp- a whole week without good wine!) 2. Unlike our last hotel we do not have unfettered internet access at our current location so I am on a bit of a binge!
Time seems to have slowed down so much since we left, it feels like we've been gone for at least 3 weeks. Maybe it's because of our accelerated pace in the weeks prior to our departure. I can h0nestly and unashamedly say that I already miss home. We have had such a great time with all of you in the last couple months- it makes it that much harder to be away from you now. Once again, I will take this opportunity to advise each of you to join up with us over the next year.
Okay... enough rambling I guess, our little noodle bar cafe is closing- time to move on. Pleeeeeaaase email or comment on the blog- we live for your emails, even if it just to say hello and let us know that you read and maybe laughed at the blog. It is our only contact with home and it encourages us to keep posting!
xoxoxo