a prague story part 2

landed in Prague without incident and were whisked (quite scary to be whisked) to our lovely hotel on the banks of the Vltava. we dropped our bags and decided to head to Old Town for dinner. first night was pretty chill because netter and i were both exhausted from the sheer amount of traveling and time change.

day 2 consisted of making our all important reservation at Cantina. one of the best mexican restaurants EVER! once that was accomplished we headed out to find things we hadn't done or seen on central europe vacation 2006. grabbed our first pizza meal and then saw cool sights like the powder gate (below) and a shoe store. ahhh!

we walked around the square and found ourselves at the wharf where they have boat cruises. netter suggested taking a cruise before our dinner and because i trust her travel suggestions completely, i hopped on board. (hee hee) the cruise was an hour and one of the best parts of the whole trip. we had a great time on the open air upper deck because everyone else stayed below. we put our iPods in our ears and sang, rocked out, waved at tourists on bridges and laughed and laughed all while seeing the stunning architecture and scenary in prague. this is always when i began to perfect my jumping in front of cool scenary abilities. i give all the credit to my action photographer - netter.

Charles Bridge in background

notice the iPod earbuds

Prague Castle in background with beautiful clouds

we spent time exploring the Easter Markets in Old Town Square as well as enjoying the scrumptious breakfast provided each morning by our hotel. this trip was great because we didn't need to wake up at the crack of dawn to make sure we spent as much time as possible seeing everything we wanted. instead it was a "chillax" vacation.

part 3 up next...stay tuned.

...an amsterdam/prague story part 1

my last minute trip to Prague was a great success...once we got there. here's part 1 of the story.

arrived at JFK with plenty of time to check in, grab some grub and hit the toilets before our 7 hour flight. while standing in line at Czech Airlines ("CSA") we were informed by a fellow line waiter that out direct flight landing in Prague at 6:15am was CANCELLED. horror of horrors! the harried customer service rep booked us on a flight through KLM to Amsterdam and then a connecting CSA flight to Prague arriving at around 11am. At least that is what she told us she did. little did we suspect our plans were about to be changed...

walked about 100 feet to stand in line at KLM. as we were getting checked into the flight we asked again about when we would arrive in Prague. the nice lady innocently told us 4:40pm. Excuse me! the lovely CSA rep had booked us on the latest connection from Amsterdam to Prague giving us a 5 hour layover in the city of fabulous artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer. luckily Netter and i are pretty low key and embraced the opportunity to explore Amsterdam.

we arrived in Amsterdam looking a little worse for the wear but were able to pull out some essentials for our Amsterdam whirlwind prior to checking our luggage (but neither of us pulled our umbrellas - this will be to our detriment later). shoved our carry ons into a locker and headed for the train ride we were told would take 45 minutes. about 15 minutes after we boarded the train we were in Amsterdam. got a daily transit pass and headed on the tram toward the van gogh museum. stopped along the way for some food, bought a necessary and very expensive H&M parasol/umbrella, took some pics and realized that we wouldn't have time to enter any museum but simply gaze at them from the outside.

best part of amsterdam for me was the flower market. boothes and boothes of merchants selling all types of flowers, plants, seeds, etc. along a beautiful canal. my one souvenir from amsterdam was a small wooden painted pink tulip key chain. think i need to go back to stock up on the dutch shoes and pictures of me in front of windmills.

we said a fond farewell to amsterdam as we boarded our flight at 2:30pm to Prague. i hope to visit again soon.

Here are some pictures from our time in Amsterdam:

Flower Market booths along Canal

Such a cool art installation - love the kind you can climb on and around

a little Prague preview

things have been insanely busy lately so haven't had a chance to fully commit time to blogging about the trip to Prague a couple of weeks ago.

this will be a little preview until the full story can be gloriously detailed with pictures. i promise it will be worth the wait.

the dancing returns

so you think you can dance season 5 premieres on Thursday May 21st. very much excited to dive back into the dance pool. hopefully the audition portion won't be too horrific. the actual competition probably won't begin until the end of June. once again...time to develop that patience.