some things just never change

We're in the home stretch of this whole "abroad thing" right now and I honestly can't believe it. I've been creating checkpoints for myself along the way ;little events that I am looking forward to, but that also act as significant markers of time passing. This past weekend marked my second to last major checkpoint: Meryl and Diana's visit to Praha!

After a great Wednesday night of listening to Jo's uncle Bruce playing at Retro, I woke up early to pick Meryl up at the airport. It was actually a pretty nice day, despite threatening weather reports and so I decided to create my own walking tour for Meryl, of which I plan on repeating step-for-step with my parents in 2 days! The tour covered Vinohrady, Wenceslas Square, Old Town, Lesser Town, Bridge and various stops on the way at some favorite places [including the PEACOCK garden] It's really incredible how you can see most of this city in one day. In an attempt to show Meryl the more creative side of Praha, I got us some tickets to go and see a show at the Alfred vedvore Theatre where Jo and I saw the Movement Theatre show a couple of weeks ago. We were supposed to see a improvisation pantomine show, but I'm pretty sure we ended up walking into the wrong theatre and instead we saw a show called Trains. It was interesting and visually stimulating, but most of it definitely was over my head. The show capitalized on the sounds train makes and image of never ending train tracks.

On Saturday, we woke up and went to the new Gregory Crewdson exhibit at the Galerie Rudolfinum. I had never seen any of his photographs before and could not believe how incredible they were. Each photograph was basically a single film clip. With such vibrant colors, huge formats, and bizare scenes, his photographs seemed very realistic, in a creepy kind of way. Afterwards, the 'museum fatigue' began to set in and so I took Meryl to the lovely Shakespeare and Sons to relax, take pictures and have some delicious coffee.

Diana came into Prague from London on Friday, and it was just like good 'ole times at Hamilton. What a treat... I never would have guessed that Diana, Meryl and I would meet up in Prague together. I really liked being able to show Meryl and Diana all my favorite places in Prague so far. And as Jo says, Prague is just full of so many little hidden spaces. At this point, I had started thinking that I was definitely ready to go home, but after walking around and doing some of the touristy things again this weekend, I realize how much this city has to offer and just how beautiful it really is. I guess when you remain within your daily routine, only going from home to school, things become mundane. Nevertheless, I'm glad I still have one more month left...