Where to Begin...

this really will seem all really fragmented but now it looks like I can finally put that whole huge uncertainties bit of my time in czech out of my mind.. I figure I'd try and pull together a post. (wish i'd been taking more photos..)

Visa!
The embassy's finally promised my visa by Friday but why the guys organizing my placement here didn't know that I should've applied for a short-term one while waiting for my long-term one is beyond me.. If Alenka didn't mention it god knows how much longer I'd be left hanging. Really not too please bout that.

Apartment!
The bank's given me an awesome apartment to stay 200m from work!! I really was about to break into a happy dance when I heard the news, thank god I'm getting to move out of the room (in a building with no phone lines.. 10 minutes by bus to a train station which was 30 min from the city where my office is..)

Vienna!
Highlight would definitely have to be that wasted trip last week when I rushed here from Czech at 0930 only to realize it was a 2-day public holiday (followed by a weekend) which sent me straight back on the next train just straight out not believing how silly I'd been (vlasti had mentioned it was national day but I just couldn't connect the dots..)

Cafe hopping in this city is just becoming such an addiction... spent ages just reading in "the one lenin, trotsky n freud used to challenge each other at games of chess in".. then onto another.. and another one... oo.. Sacher Torte! (was so excited to grab some at Hotel Sacher!).. that really was some cake! that non-english speaking korean guy I was with was really thrown off by how ridiculously happy I was as I was sitting there with it..

Wedding!
I swear the slivovitz (plum brandy) I was shotting at this tasted distinctly and literally like spew. Met heaps of great people though in this small town wedding.. it made me think about heartland america more than europe.. and I just cannot BELIEVE the bride n groom spent a couple of hours of their 1st day together at the Pokies. Hanichko (the girl I went with) passed out midway through the night which might've dampened things cept she was right, once these guys get a couple of drinks into them, they really have no problem at all with anglitsky.



Birthday!
Huge Roasting Pig! Crazy downpour in an outdoor pub! Random Pickled Sausages! Lots.. n lots.. of Pivo (beer)!
Peta's mother (who despite being fabulous incessantly tried to get me drunk) is Mayor of one of the villages close by so we went down there too... really wish I'dve prepared something more in terms of "country presentations" guess it wasn't really on the priority list.. really hate how I lost all my digital photos in January. really do. The girls there were 15, I could've sworn they were at LEAST 22. hot though.

Prague!
Smazeny Syr!! - been wanting to try this ever since the "canadian in prague" video and it is EVERYTHING I imagined it to be.. mm.. soo good after a drink. Had it after a night out with Ruth n Ellen (two Irish girls I met in Krakow) at Hapu (this cosy little bar in Zizkov with amazing (and freshly juiced) cocktails... and Duplex, decent beats, hot dances, plenty of underagers (they all looked liked deer.. it just MUST have been their 1st time out in a club), "world" priced drinks, huge terrace balcony overlooking wenclesas square.

Ellen's insisted I urge EVERYONE to give a Black Russian with a smidgen of Guinness layered above it a shot. It actually isn't as bad as it sounds.

Somehow became part of a weed circle in Akropolis the night before.. that was a pretty good night too.. really chilled out great progressive rhythms.

Le Clan - "Private Club for Good People" , don't even know where to begin with this one.. thoroughly deserves its own post in time to come.

Backpack! Backpack! Oh bring back my Backpack to me! Rolly suitcases really suck when train n bus stations aren't designed for em. A Backpack is definitely on my Vienna shopping list!

Krakow!
Had SUCH an amazing breakfast.. was craving a full eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, mushroom, beans on toast brekkie for yonks.

I think Auschwitz deserves its own post too so, I'll leave it till then.
But in case I never get around to it..
It is a memorial, think of not the masses, but of the individuals, think of each father, each mother and child, think of the lives they had, the lives they would've had. - Laura Milmeister

The sight of tens of thousands of shoes piled up to a child's height.. a huge hall filled with hair... thousands of suitcases that they thought they would come back to..

OBNOXIOUS TOURISTS SNAPPING AWAY AT EVERYTHING WHILE MUNCHING ON THEIR AMERICAN HOTDOGS !!

the heartwarming visiting jewish group, in embrace around the pond of ashes, singing...