We left home Monday morning quite early and drove up to my aunt’s house a few miles north of Albany, NY. We spent the first full day there, Tuesday up at Lake George and surrounding areas. It was nice and had some great views of the Adirondack foothills. Wednesday we went through Albany to see the governor's mansion, capital, and tulip festival which was nice. Then we headed down to Jersey where we had good Chinese food, caught our car (which was running late and had Nana a little scared), and headed to JFK. The driver was less then personable so we really didn't know what we were passing, but noticed a few landmarks from the car through fog.
We had to wait to check-in like an hour, but after that it only took like 20 minutes to go through security and be at our gate. Everything took off well, despite being a little tight squeeze on the plane. By the way, British Airways keeps you well fed! They served us different kinds of food constantly- snacks, dinner, breakfast, you name it! We had some delay on the landing, then the runway, then the leaving of the plane. Apparently a plane not to long before us landed and the tires exploded. That put the airport down to one runway for arrivals and departures, and basically set everything back… in total we were about 3 hours late getting into Prague. The nice thing from London to Prague was we were in the exit aisle and although there were three seats, no one else was in our row.
As far as our apartment goes, it’s amazing. We’ve got so much room, more then we really need. The family that lives here left us a book full of instructions on how to use everything like our German designed washer and dryer. German is another language I don’t speak (I’m adding to that list daily here!) The inside of the apartment is great, but one super-different thing is how you get into a building. Every building has an outside door for added security, cool right? Well ours is uber-creepy. It opens on its own once you turn the key. It moves and creaks very slowly, and has an “eye” that if you get in front of the sensor it will stop moving. It’s not too disturbing now, but the first night- I went outside, the creaking door, spot lights coming on, men laughing in another language; most intimidating thing ever! But we’re good now.
Our first full day in the city was great, we slept. Once we did get up we headed towards town which means a decent walk until we get bus passes, and on this particular day a decent walk in the rain. We ate at KFC, which was amazing because first it was good, second because one of the meal options was the “Kentucky Menu” which was of course the fried chicken option. The guy working knew we were not Czech just about as soon as Bryan started talking. It was quite entertaining. Few differences; no ice included in beverages and condiments you have to pay extra for. Pretty much made my day. We also went to the office, found out I’ll actually be working in the office more then we thought, more like everyday, so at least I’ll have something to do! We also are going to Bulgaria, and Bryan will be going to Macedonia (jealous!) Otherwise nothing too much is set in stone.
We got the chance to hang out with some people remotely our age from the office last night, which was really nice. One couple lives really close to us. And tonight we were thrown a surprise party. I’m still not sure why they are calling it a surprise since that was about the first thing we were told about when we got here. But it was good. We actually ended up on that side of town after just walking around all afternoon and just went to their house. Then on the way home, we were rained upon intensely. But we made it home without really looking at the map. Bryan was grateful I was navigating (at least I think so).
We’ve seen a lot of the city, it’s beautiful. We will get the chance to get out more soon. We’ve got to go grocery shopping soon too! There’s local small places, but the bigger stores, Tesco (British chain, like a Wal-mart, has a lot more) are a little farther way, so we haven’t made it there yet. And just for anyone concerned, there is not only an Ikea in this town, there are two! Amazing!
In other news, Bryan broke a sconce the second night we were here. The apartment is an attic therefore there is slanted ceilings on one side of the house... well Bryan stood up and above the couch is a lamp, well his big head, or shoulder, or neck, or whatever it was busted it up. I was laying in bed and groaned aloud when I heard the crash. So now on our things to do will be to replace that.
That's about it so far, we'll keep ya updated. Be sure to check out our flickr account for more photos (it seems to take forever to upload on here!) http://www.flickr.com/photos/britspit/
-Brittany
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