The End of March and the Beginning of Spring

Hello Friends!

March is nearly over and I thought I should update before I have more to say after Spring Break. :) (You will thank me later, I promise.)

This month has gone by super fast and yet super slow at times (That happens when you are waiting for your boyfriend to come and visit you.). After Ireland we spent some time doing some homework (kind of) as well as a little opera culture and a Thai Massage (Did Laura mention that? hmm...Not sure if she did or not.) The opera was eh, okay, but the Opera House, now that was AMAZING! The massage was wonderful as well (compliments of Bradley for my birthday. :))

Last weekend I turned 20 (I have officially entered the world of non-teenism)! It was an exciting day (It was a little dampered by the fact that I had Sociology and International Relations Midterm so study for.) filled with letter opening, present opening, and a wonderful Nacho Bar put on my lovely flatmate, Hannah. :) On Monday, I was pleasantly surprised by a chocolate cake delivered to my flat (Thanks to Skyler, James, and Caleb.). It was a nice distraction from studying and good motivator to take the test and come right home. :) I am happy to say that I think I passed (with flying colors) all my midterms.

In the meantime last weekend, my beautiful friend, Laura, took a little trip back to the good ol' state of Kansas for her brother's wedding (I missed her.). From the little I have heard about it, i believe it went very well and she had a good time. She made it back to Prague 10 minutes before we were planning on leaving to see the Cinderella Ballet. It was a crazy story but she was suppose to be back before lunch but because of missed flights and mechanical difficulties it was past dinner by the time she made it. Poor things almost fell asleep during the ballet (It was good but a little different version than we knew. Again the Opera House was beautiful!). After rushing through her midterms and booking a last minute flight to Rome, she finally repacked her suitcase and flew to Italy to meet her sister and brother-in-law for a long awaited vacation in her dream location on Friday.

This weekend I have been passing the time with facebook, shopping, sleeping (I haven't felt the best but vitamins and cold meds are taking care of that. :)), and waiting anxiously for Bradley to get here. He is on his way now and will arrive only nine hours later than expected (Praying all the flights continue to be on time and Paris isn't too complicated.) Oh I also did some homework. That was fun. :) I should sketch some too........

Well, I hope all of you had a fabulous Spring Break (Since most of you are back at school by now. Unless you are too cool/too old for school and didn't have Spring Break, in which case I hope you have been having a great life.). I heard Summit went amazing! I know I speak for Laura when I say we wish we could have gone and experienced it too. Maybe next year....

We miss you all sooo much! Thank you for your prayers and we are praying for you!

Love,
Gracia

Ireland wanderings

This past weekend, Gracia, Hannah, and I had the opportunity to travel to Ireland! I was worried that because it was such a short trip we be abl

e to get a good feel for the country, but it turned out to be the opposite; all the random adventures we had certainly turned into an awesome experience! Here's a basic idea of our 

whirlwind trip (with a few random details thrown in there...).

Friday:

*Got to the airport via taxi after missing the bus by 5 minutes (got there 5 minutes before the gate closed)

*Flew in to Dublin and found our way to the bus station to catch the 2 hour bus ride to Kilkenny (were the last ones on the bus right before they shut the doors, with one seat left after us)

*Arrived in Kilkenny, found our hostel, and did a little shopping on High Street

*Enjoyed the evening scenery of the castle, river (complete with swans...), side streets, and churches

*Had coffee and dessert at a fun restaurant then found a small pub advertising live music

*Listened to "the Kilkennys" (Irish accents, acoustic guitar, mandolin, celtic hand-drum, bass, and an occasional flute/pipe) play folk songs, often joined by the locals in the pub

*Slept comfortably in our hostel (which was much warmer than our hostel in Vienna!)

Saturday:

*Made breakfast in the kitchen at our hostel then went in a few shops

*Took a tour of the Kilkenny Castle (we were able to take off our coats outside because the sun was shining, it was amazing)

*Sat outside at a cafe and had coffee and scones

*Toured a historical restored house with a rooftop garden

*Enjoyed the rolling green hills out the windows on our bus trip back to Dublin

*Made it to the hotel (almost lost Hannah's wallet, but thankfully we got back to the previous bus just in time for search and rescue!)

*Went to eat in Swords, right outside of Dublin by our hotel, (had to run through the rain to get there) and enjoyed sitting and talking for the rest of the evening

Sunday:

*Took a taxi back to the airport to catch our 6:50 a.m. plane!

It was a truly enjoyable trip, even though we could've wandered around Ireland for much, much longer! This past week has meant another set of classes and such, it all goes so quickly. Although the plan was to go skiing this weekend, the details got mixed and we ended up not being able to go. However, instead we decided to make Friday Gracia's "un-birthday" since I'll be at home for my brother's wedding on her real birthday. We throughly enjoyed coffee, Thai massages, and an evening at the Statni Opera where we watched La Traviata!

I promise, we really do go to school here too :)

Love you all and miss you,

Laura

Kutna Hora and the bones

Hello my dear friends!

It is now my turn to blog and as usual I have procrastinated and I am sorry for that. Sometimes it just slips my very forgetful mind. :)

Moving on....This past week we (Hannha, Laura, Liz, Emily, Caroline, Logan, Clay, Nick, Patrick, and me :)) went to this town called Kutna Hora which is known for its bone church and St. Barbara's Cathedral. It only took about an hour to get there by train and it was under $10 round trip. The first thing we did there when we arrived was visit the Ossuary, or the bone church. It was rather creepy at first but once you got past the fact they were once living humans with lives that were extinguished by the Black Plague, it wasn't that bad. :) Actually it really wasn't but that could just be me and my scientific mind in awe of the anatomy creativity.

This is the outside of the church. It was not very big but it made up for it on the inside. :) The outside was surround by a cemetary that apparantly is highly sought.

This is part of a pile of bones that is strategically placed so they will not fall down. This was a bit on the creepy side.

The most distrubing part about this is I could have just reached out and touched them.

The chandelier made completely out of bones. So beautiful...I think I want to decorate my house like this. (Just kidding!)

After visiting the church of bones we went out for lunch at a small restaurant we found nearby. It was good but I have had better. :) We made it to the really touristy part of town and from there our group split up into two groups which made it a lot easier to move around. I went with three of the girls and went in some little shops and then headed to the cathedral.

It was very beautiful and the walk reminded me of something out of a movie. The cathedral is the big building in the distance. We spent the rest of the day wondering around to an Italian Palace with a cute little courtyard and then made it home by around 9:00 pm. It was a good day.

As for the rest of the week, it has been spent doing school and site seeing some of the city for our Art and Architecture class. On Sunday we went with Fred and Kelly again to church in Benetky. It was fun and we were able to talk to a girl our age who spoke English. This next weekend we are headed to Ireland, my birthday trip. :) We are really excited about and will update you on how it goes. Love you all! God Bless!!

Na Sheldanou! (Goodbye!)
Gracia