Saturday, 27 May: We toured around Prague with Emrys' mom and her travelling buddy. We made it to a few sites we hadn't been to yet. One, U Fleku, was on the 1000 Things to See Before You Die list. A scary title for a book, but figure the experience is worth a shot. So, we had an over-priced lunch at a very very old restaurant. Not too bad of an experience for a rainy afternoon. After that, we went to Vysehrad, an old settlement just south of the most popular parts of Prague. We hadn't been there yet, although we had passed it from nearly every side. It did have great views and an interesting cemetary full of grave markers of all sorts of famous Czechs.
Sunday, 28 May: My birthday! I got to sleep in. Geo made me breakfast. We watched a movie. We went to church. Chris, the worship leader, was heading back for the US after the service today, so he had a good-bye party at his flat. It was really nice.
Monday, 29 May: Mandi and I spent the entire day shopping for something to wear to the opera. We looked with Sara at some second hand stores, which was a good idea, but I didn't really find what I was looking for. After a few hours with Sara, Mandi and I went ourselves to some other stores with more expensive clothes, and I found nothing there either. We made dinner. Geo was with the new group of T-birds, doing his TA thing. Our friend Justin came back from a visit in the states. He has an internship here in Prague with Exxon Mobil for the summer. He stayed with us for 2 nights.
Tuesday, 30 May: We finally did one thing we've been wanting to do here for a long time...we rented a Smart Car! For only 5 Euros, you can get a tiny little car with a max of 100 Km per day. We had a blast. It rained a lot while we were driving. We were the first drivers of this particular car...it had 47 Km on it when we picked up. Later that night, we went to the Opera. That was my birthday present. We saw Mozart's "The Magic Flute" at the State Opera House. It's beautiful (the theatre and the show itself). Before the show, we went to dinner at a nice place in the Jewish Quarter. "We" were Sara and Emrys, Geo and Mandi. It was a nice evening! And since I didn't manage to buy a new outfit for the opera, I was quite relieved with the cold and rainy weather. I had something suitable to wear in my closet under those circumstances.
Wednesday, 31 May: A rather unproductive day. I guess after all the excitement of the previous days, I needed some downtime. I didn't leave the house until nearly 3 pm. Geo was out in Celakovice again all day. He took the car and got lost the first time he went. It's hard to drive and navigate at the same time around here! He made it though and he was glad to have the car, because he was able to move some stuff around for Justin, who was moving into his new apartment for the summer. Mandi and I made dinner again for us, but our friend Tomas came over to eat with us after his day at DHL, where he is interning for the summer. We made some cookies and then Geo came home. I got a turn to drive the Smart Car!
Thursday, 1 June: Another cold day. It's only 7 degrees today. That's cold! Geo and I got up early today to run to the grocery store to stock up on the heavy stuff while we had a car to move it around. We got water, beer, and shelf milk. And hopefully enough toilet paper to last the next 2 months. Then we took the car back (it was kinda sad after we dropped it off...how quickly you get used to having a car again). We met up with our pastor at the church office, which is near the Prague Castle. We did some reorganizing of the space they rent for the church headquarters. We're going back again tomorrow for a little more helping! It's fun to do some projects involving remodeling and renovation.
We have a busy weekend planned: a softball tournament, a BBQ at a farm, a dinner party at our house. And we have to get packed and ready to go for our Croatian Vacation on 6 June. I never would have thought we would be so busy with things to do in the Czech Republic. It's never-ending fun around here, I tell ya!
