Beautiful Prague

May 4 - May 6, 2007
Prague...a great walking city, too much shopping, beautiful architecture and absinth. I think that pretty much sums up my weekend.

Friday -
Of course everyone knows that you can't travel and not expect a few bumps in the ride. We caught a 7:30pm flight on Friday to Prague and got there around 9:30. By the time we got through immigration, got our luggage, etc. our shuttle guy had been waiting about 30 min. The ride to our hotel took at least 30 -40 minutes and we finally got to our hotel around 11ish. I met a few more of my co-workers this weekend and it was definitely interesting. Lily and I stayed with Kirsten and Mandy, 2 girls who were working on the Croatia audit and spent the weekend before in Greece (i was so jealous). Kirsten is this really cute chic who's also super anal about stuff, but in a good way (2 hours early to the airport, lock stuff up in the safe, etc.) and Mandy is this really really sweet girl who loves to chat you up! Fun girls too so the room situation worked out great even though it was 4 girls in 1 room and 1 bathroom. Shannon and her hubby Kevin had a room to themselves and then the 3 guys stayed at a Rennaisance across the street. The boys were Rafael, Francisco and Kevin (KB as we call him, to distinguish btwn co-worker and Shannon's husband). So we had a pretty good group this weekend. Lily's friend from college, Dawit, lives in Geneva now and happened to be in Prague this weekend as well, so he basically hung out with us all weekend. Great/fun guy!!

OK, so we freshened up and left the hotel to find a restaurant to serve 10 people dinner at 11:30pm in Prague. This ended up to be quite the challenge. Most of the places we came across (we just wandered around since the hotel was in a great central location in Old Town) were open till midnight but of course no one wanted to serve 10 people that late. We finally ended up at this place called Hotel U Prince. Interesting place - they had this oldies band (by this i mean, a group of old guys playing instruments like an accordian, sax, banjo...very random) and it was crazy packed...i guess cause by this time it was midnight and they were one of the only places that would serve food! so they seated us and we proceeded to order bottles of wine. As usual, the service was pretty slow, but understandable cause the place was so crowded. apparently there was a wedding party going on there too since the actual hotel was supposed to be pretty nice. i was really surprised to find out how cheap the food was there! for $3 i got this great meal of ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta. This on top of the bread (not so great) and the wine. Definitely the cheapest meal we had all weekend. The waiter had to kick us out at 2am since they weren't serving food anymore and i think the place was turning into a bar. we were all pretty tired at this point, so we peaced out and went back to the hotel. Rafael and KB decided that they weren't ready to call it a night yet so they went their separate way to this bar/lounge/club, whatever it was that was right down the street from our hotel. Sounded like they had a pretty good time...but those guys are crazy!

Saturday -
We slept in :-) and ordered room service for breakfast while we got ready. Around 12:30ish we finally decided to head out and were pretty lazy about our day. The boys did their own thing

cause they got up before us and the girls (including Shannon, her hubby and Dawit) took a cab to the Prague Castle (aka - cathedral) and then walked back to Old Town afterwards. Luckily, the rain held off - so the weather wasn't too bad. This castle was amazing! The stained glass was something else all together, and the outside had these crazy/creepy looking gargoyles all over the place. I went with Shannon and Kevin inside the cathedral (the castle was really a cathedral) and the rest of the crew chilled at a little restaurant nearby and grabbed some beers/hot chocolate while they waited for us. i really loved looking at all the stained glass and probably coulda hung out there for a while, but since everyone was waiting for us we didn't want to take too long.
We took a nice little stroll back to the square, crossing over the Charles Bridge and checking out all the local vendors selling paintings, photography, characitures, jewelry, you name it. Unfortunately I had no Czech Krowne on me since I hadn't stopped at the ATM yet, so I couldn't buy anything. We also passed by several Marionette shops and I saw this cute little sheep in the window. For some reason it reminded me of the Sound of Music (one of my favorite musicals) and all the girls and I busted out in song. Poor guys - i don't know how they put up with us all day! Lily and Kirsten each bought one as gifts for other ppl, but I refrained...high on the hill was a lonely goat...
We got back to Old Town Square (where we had dinner the night before) and were starving by this point. We ate lunch at this restaurant where we could sit outside and enjoy some ppl watching. By the way, pictured to the left is Dawit eating chicken wings. Not sure who eats wings in Prage ;-). This restaurant also happened to be right across from the famous Astronomical Clock Tower, so it was crazy crowded with tourists...especially when it hit 5pm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Astronomical_Clock

After lunch the girls wanted to check out the shopping, so we walked around some more (starting to get a little used to ALL THIS WALKING). The crystal shops had some really beautiful stuff - way too expensive for any of us, and the girls window shopped at all the jewelry shops on the way since Amber and Garnet are really big there. I'm not big on the jewelry so I just chilled and waited. We came across a Zara - so too much time was spent there. Apparently there isn't one in Chicago which really surprised me, so the girls were way too excited about that store! I ended up finding a shirt that's kinda different from my usual taste, but I got talked into buying it and ended up wearing it out. It was really comfy, so I was happy w/my one purchase from Prague. THEN we had to go to Sephora for Lily and some bead shop for Kirsten and Mandy. Finally after all that we headed back to the hotel. I was seriously exhauted by this time and we got a little lost on the way back. It wasn't too hard to find our way again, but I passed out for a good hour before having to get up again for our dinner reservations.

Lily is really big on eating well in these different cities. She wants to check out the best restaurant in town if it's possible and not ridiculously expensive. The best restaurant was booked, so we settled for the 2nd best - it's sister restaurant (according to our hotel concierge). These places are owned by the Kampa Group. Dinner was at Hergetova Cihelna. Fairly expensive (especially for Prague), but really good food! Had some more wine and just enjoyed our meal. Pictured to the left is the water fountain that was outside of our restaurant.

I should probably mention that there's a little "initiation" that everyone in the group has to go through when the go on their first trip. Mine was Saturday night. I won't go into details, but pretty much everyone had a lot of fun, it didn't get too crazy and no one got hurt :-). Pictured to the left: Kevin (Shannon's hubby - a little drunk, Kirsten, Dawit, Lily and me). We went to 2 different clubs...first, Mecca. I had heard it was a pretty good club and so had Dawit - so we figured it wouldn't hurt to check it out. Well, I have to say I was pretty disappointed. First, it was outside the city so we had to cab it. Second, cover was crazy expensive!! $20/person. Seriously? who pays that much in prague!! well, we did. it definitely wasn't worth it, but we hung out for a while anyways. The music was too hardcore techno for anyone to dance, so we just hung out and talked amongst ourselves. Next we went to another club. I don't remember the name of it, but we had a good time dancing at this one. I got some good pics and video clips of the boys (and some of the girls) acting pretty silly. After a while (I think it was around 4am this time), Kirsten wasn't feeling too hot so we had to go back to the hotel. I wasn't done yet and neither were the boys, so I left Lily and Mandy to take care of Kirsten and I headed to that bar/lounge/club around the corner with KB, Rafael and Dawit and finished out the night. The place was practically empty so we just acted like eediots and danced around...the robot and the "sprinkler" even made special appearances that night! Royce - you'd be so proud :-).
We were joking about how everyone was gonna talk about those "crazy Americans", so we made it well known that "we were Canadians" and Rafael added "I'm Mexican"...So that was the quote to finish out the night. Good times, lots of silliness and a very very late night. The sun started rising as we headed back to our hotels... (pictured from the left is Dawit, KB, and Rafael)

Sunday -
soooo tired! Kirsten and Mandy had a 2pm flight so they had to get outta the hotel by 11:30am. Room service was ordered again...gotta love it! I stayed in bed since I had such a late night and was really wiped out. I love me some croissants, so Lily ordered a few for me and I proceeded to eat them lying down in my bed. Sorry Mom! Don't worry - that was a rare occurrence, but I was too tired and lazy to even move. Lily couldn't finish her pancakes so I polished those puppies off as well. Then I chilled in bed for another hour or so before finally getting up. Lily and I did a little more walking around and just hung out for the rest of the day. Our flight left at 7pm, so we caught our shuttle from the hotel at 4:30. That's pretty much it - passed out in the plane...i'm getting pretty good and sleeping sitting up.

So that's that. A great weekend in Prague. I can't wait till next weekend in Budapest! I get to meet up with my friend Ankur from Dallas who lives in Hungary. Should be good times :-). I'll probably be ready for another fun weekend cause this is my last "full" week on this audit. We have a ton to do so it's probably gonna be a little hectic. Still not nearly as bad as in public accounting, so I can deal with it :-).

Till the next adventure...

food, food and more food (oh, and there's work in there somewhere)

So this entry is all about eating...basically besides "work", we've just been going out to dinners. You'll notice that I don't really talk about my work very much. A few people have even been asking me about it and my co-workers, etc. Basically I'm doing Sarbanes-Oxley work but it's nothing new from what I did at PwC. Just some details that are different. The biggest difference is now I only have to work 8 hour days. And even then, it's a pretty chill environment. When talking to Shannon the other day I even said something about being on vacation. She cracked up and reminded me that I was actually here working. That's probably about all you're gonna hear about my work. Nothing exciting or interesting, but it's kinda nice that way. My co-workers are good. Rafael is the main person that I'm working with on this audit. We have different teams at different locations so I'll be working with new people when I go to Romania in June. Shannon and Lily are our IT people and are staying at the same hotel as us so we go out to dinner with them, etc.
Shannon's husband, Kevin, flew in to Amsterdam on Wednesday and is here for a few days...hanging out in Amsterdam during the day, going to dinner with us at night and going to Prague this weekend. He seems nice enough, very easy going and the best part is he's also from Bama! kinda random. Anyways - he's done some touristy stuff but also hit up the Coffee Shops. Something I noticed while here...you should partake in all the cultural activities - it makes you smarter ;-). Kevin's first day here he went straight to a Coffee Shop and somehow lost his map. Basically he said he found his way back to the hotel by following the train tracks! Amazing...it makes you smarter! That's basically become our coined phrase of this trip.
OK, so Lily had been talking about this Pancake Bakery since she got here. It sounded so good that we decided to go there for dinner (you can eat breakfast food any time of day!). The girls got back to the hotel kinda late so we grabbed a cab to take us 1 mile to this place. It's right down the street from the Anne Frank House. Our cabby was hilarious. Somehow it came up that Kevin had gone to a Coffee Shop so the cab driver recommended that we go to The Grasshopper (which was also recommended to me by one of my friends). The cabby said that he didn't smoke, but he was definitely on something! Funny guy, very entertaining and told us his life story...those guys are great. So he took us to the Pancake Bakery and the pancakes were these gigantic crepes. We got 2 - 1 with strawberries, powdered sugar, whip cream and ice cream toppings and the other with bananas and nutella toppings. Both were great but the strawberry pancake won out. Lily and I also split an extremely large omelet. I took pictures of all the food and will put them up in a few days.
So our dinner was fantastic...we left the Pancake Bakery extremely satisfied and walked back to the hotel to burn a few calories. Apparently it was noted that I eat a lot for my size...actually, I think it's only with dessert - somehow I can always make room for it!
The walk back to the hotel was great. The weather was perfect again and we just strolled along the canal. A lot of people had their blinds open so we were checking out the inside of their houses....amazing!! I can't even imagine how expensive these places must be!!

Thursday, May 3rd-
Today was a busy day of work, so the day flew by! Got back to the hotel and had to pack up everything so we could check out for the weekend...we're going to Prague! We realized that there was this really nice Italian restaurant right next to our hotel, so it was agreed to go there for dinner tonight. Bice - they actually have one in Chicago, NYC and several other big cities around the world. I packed up while waiting for the girls to get back (they were driving in from Breda, so it took a little longer to get home). Rafael had to do some work so he skipped out on dinner and went to the hotel bar (I think he spends more time there then in his actual hotel room!). We got to dinner around 8:30 and the place was definitely fancy schmancy. The food looked great though, so we were in!
Our waiter was pretty good - I wish I got his name so I could give him props, but oh well. He was from Italy (Naples actually) and quite the character. Service was slow - but that's to be expected here...We ordered 2 bottles of wine, Falanghina, which was awesome! The bread was great, some kind of parmesan-type break and we mixed the balsamic vinegarette and olive oil for a great dipping sauce. For dinner I tried the Linguine with Seafood....little did I realize that my plate would come out with a huge shrimp head on it. It was so disgusting!! I was thinking - am I gonna have to get the meat outta this thing? Thankfully it was just on there for "decoration" and the meat had already been taken out. My pasta also had mussels on it - which i'm not a huge fan of, but tried it anyways. The sauce was great - so all in all, my meal was good. Again - always room for dessert! Lily and I split a hot chocolate souffle with vanilla ice cream and rasberry sauce. AMAZING!!! great finish to a good meal.
I hope you didn't read this if you were hungry, but that's what I've been up to for the past couple of days. Today's another busy day of work and then we're heading to Prague tonight for the weekend!! Unfortunately it's supposed to rain, so that might be a little bit of a damper but we'll make the best of it.
Have a great weekend everyone!!

Gelukkige Koninginnendag!!

Monday, April 30, 2007: Happy Queen's Day!!
So obviously, today's the much anticipated Queen's Day and they really weren't kidding when they said it was crazy...so to start from the beginning, let me tell you how my day started.
Shannon had to go pick up Lily (another IT auditor) from the airport in the morning since Lily was going to be working on the Netherland locations this week. Not like I really minded, but I was informed that I'd be going with her to the airport. I really hate being told what to do and would have gladly said yes if I was asked, but whatever...no need to start things off on a bad foot. So since today was gonna be madness, I knew that they would be closing off certain streets around Amsterdam as well as not running the trains or letting cabs go through the city. We stopped at the concierge desk to check on the road blockage and this guy said it would be no problem getting to the airport. HOWEVER, he failed to mention that we wouldn't be able to get back to the hotel!! Can you see where this is going? It only took us about 15 min. to get to the airport, no traffic cause everyone and their mom was in the city! We pick up Lily (who, by the way, was the only person I had met previously at my job interview and is tons of fun!) and head back to the city. We're literally 2 BLOCKS from our hotel and we see road blocks in front of us. Uh oh...so we pull up to the politie (police officer) and ask him if he'll let us through since we're staying at the Marriott 1 block away (we could even see it!). But no - he wouldn't let us through and said for us to drive around the other way. Well, brilliant guy - all of the area around the Marriott was completely blocked off so we came to find out that there WAS NO other way. So let me also say that Shannon is not an aggressive driver...and anyone who's ever driven with me knows that I am ;-). With the mass crowds of people walking and biking all over the place, she couldn't go anywhere! Poor Shannon - she had to deal with the stress of trying not to run over people plus she had to listen to me and Lily be backseat drivers and tell her where to go (try this street, try that street)...eventually we had no clue where we were and no street map! One of the other guys had mine and she didn't have one in her car. So I couldn't take it anymore and asked Shannon if it would help for me to try driving. She immediately put the car in park in the middle of the street and got outta the car, obviously frustrated. I jumped in front and started moving through the crowd. Within 10 minutes, we got through the ridiculous mass of people and found our way to familiar area...the Rijksmuseum, which is a few blocks from our hotel. We found an open spot of sidewalk (yes, sidewalk) and I busted a U in the street and popped our baby Benz SUV onto it. Since it was Queen's Day, people were parking anywhere and everywhere since parking was free and there would be no towing until Tuesday. And that's that...i wasn't gonna mess with it anymore and we'd been on the road for 2 hours by this time. We lugged Lily's suitcases to the hotel and got her checked in and then met up with the rest of the crew at the Museumplein. There was a huge concert going on over there so we wanted to check it out. Pretty ridiculous... it was like woodstock or some huge music festival that was put on by a local radio station and had over 35 DJ's, bands, singers, etc performing throughout the day. So we hung out there for a while and chilled with the rest of the team and then they had to head back to Zwolle for the coming week. Not sure why the left so early (it was only around 1pm), but they probably didn't want to get stuck in traffic I guess.

So after hanging out at the Museumplein for a while we wanted to see what else was going on. We'd already seen the "flea market" side during the 2-hr drive to find a parking spot. Basically Queen's Day is the 1 day a year where anyone can sell anything on the street without a license. It's basically a garage sale on every street, on every corner, in front of every store. Even all the restaurants had little buffet lines set up in front of their stores to catch passers-by. Mom woulda had a field day...thank goodness she wasn't there ;-). Just kidding mom - you know I love you!

So we walked along the crowded streets and did A LOT of people watching!! Drunk people, crazy people, old people, young people, people with their babies in strollers (which I did not approve of) and just lots of general debauchery!! It was the most insane thing I've ever seen!! As the day went on, it just got more and more crowded. There were DJ's blasting music on every corner and people were dancing in the middle of streets and in all the squares. They were serving beer and other drinks outside so people were just having a great time. They compare it to Carnival in Brazil. It's not like it's just one specific area where this happens. It's all over Holland and especially in Amsterdam - the entire city shuts down for this. People are everywhere!!! I think they estimate that there are up to 2 million people outside in Amsterdam on this particular day. Can you imagine that??

So around 4 or 5pm, we were getting hungry and decided to head back to the hotel to get Shannon. She had gone back for a nap and it was just Rafael, Lily and I left to explore. To get from the Leidseplein (normally a 2 min walk) to our hotel, it took us 30 minutes! The only reason we could move at all was because we were being pushed from behind...basically being herded like cattle. I tend to get a little claustrophobic thanks to my years at an over-crowded high school with no windows, so I really needed to get outta there. Once we got back to the hotel, we agreed not to go back out into the madness.
The hotel restaurant was packed, but we weren't willing to venture anywhere else, so we called Shannon and she came downstairs to meet us. After an early dinner we all went back to our rooms and passed out! It was really an exhausting day. I woke up around 10pm and the party was still going on! I could hear it from my hotel room and I was almost tempted to go back out but wasn't gonna go by myself, so I thought better and just stayed in. The festivities lasted until around midnight or so...
and that was my first (possibly only) Queen's Day. What an experience! We really lucked out with the timing of this audit, the weather and our location. I'm so glad I was able to make it out here for all this!! I made it through my first weekend overseas!! We'll see how next weekend goes - we're off to Prague on Friday! I love short work-weeks :-).