Memorable

On our first day of touring around Prague, we saw the Charles Bridge, the Square, Prague Castle and several other places around downtown.  Surprisingly, this was our most memorable sight and the only thing we took pictures of on day one:

What Not to Do

Last night I was down at a coffee shop with a friend and a lady there had a seizure.  The moments that followed should be recorded as "what not to do if someone has a seizure."  Thinking back to the experience, I should have taken charge of the situation, but for some reason I thought they would have a better idea of what to do.  Next time, I have told myself that I will respond quickly to such a situation.

We were just sitting and chatting and all of a sudden all the ladies at the table next to us jumped up.  I saw a hooka (argela or shisha) fall over, so I thought there might be a fire (it happens sometimes).  I never saw flames so my next thought went to, there was a child somewhere it shouldn't be.  Finally we realized it was a lady having a seizure.  The first thing they did was sit her up while she was still seizing and proceed to give her mouth to mouth.  The mouth to mouth quickly came to a halt as she began vomiting.  They continued to hold her in the upright position and throw bottles of water at her and run away screaming.  Finally, and surprisingly, she came to and they immediately stood her up to get into a chair.  Everyone left her alone at this point and she continued on with her evening as if nothing had happened.  When it came time for her to go home, yes, she drove herself.

The Rock 2

We just got some pictures from some friends, from our Weekend excursion the other weekend, that I felt needed to be posted as well.  Enjoy :)

1st Birthday (Overseas)

I would have to say that my first Birthday overseas was a good one.  I am now 27 years old, I hope that my life has been fruitful so far, but I hope that it will be even more fruitful in the coming years until the day that I leave this world for another, better one.

We actually celebrated my birthday with friends the night before my birthday.  I unfortunately had to make my own Gluten-Free cake, but I am thankful that I was even able to have cake :)  My favorite thing about birthdays here are the flaming sparklers atop a birthday cake, not simply candles that are easily blown out.

The morning of my birthday, we got on the VIP bus to head to the capital city.  I am not going to lie, Andrew and I were both a little nervous about boarding this bus and traveling with all that has been going on in World news lately, but there were absolutely no problems on either leg of our trip and we felt completely safe the entire time.

When we arrived in the capital and checked into our hotel, we promptly went to Chili's followed by Starbucks and a movie.  It is such a treat to be able to get away to the capital and get some American things.  Not quite the same, but close enough to make us feel at home.

After the movie, we dinned at Fudruckers.  Not quite the burger and fries dinning experience we know in America, but a fine dinning, sit at a table and be waited on dinning experience.

At Fundruckers we enjoyed milkshakes:

 Andrew enjoyed a southwest burger and fries:

Notice his bacon is not really bacon but more like bologna

 And I enjoyed a delicious steak and potatoes:

 The next morning we ate breakfast at a nice little bakery that sells Gluten-Free bread on Sundays.  Unfortunately we were not there on a Sunday, so they had nothing Gluten-Free for me, but we decided to support them none the less by ordering coffee and omelets.  Yum!

As we were leaving the bakery, we saw this herd of goats crossing the street and heading down the road.  Not particularly an uncommon site, but I still can't get over being in a big city and seeing a guy herding his goats.

After all of our birthday celebrations were done, we headed off to the dentist.  The dentist was a whole new experience overseas.  The dentist had his own office.  He had no assistant (at least not the day we were there) and did all of the work and cleaning by himself.  He seemed to be quite a good dentist though, and had lots of complaints about my previous dental work.  Unfortunately we will be making a few more trips to see him in the coming months when we get the time.

We also had our first language evaluation while we were in the capitol.  We were both nervous about this, but felt in the moment that it was going pretty well.  Unfortunately when we were finished, the proctor did not think that we did as well as we should have done.  We will not get our final results of the evaluation for a few more weeks, but it was a bit discouraging to hear her reaction.  We have had a difficult time finding and keeping language tutors in our time here.  Because of this, we unfortunately have a few gaps in our learning and are a bit behind where we need to be.  But we are encouraged, because maybe we did do alright and she was just over exaggerating, but none the less, we are going to continue to try to learn this very difficult language and keep at it even if it does take us longer than it would others.

The Rock

Here are a few pictures from a little weekend excursion we took.  We were very excited because now as residents we were able to get in for a little over a dollar, whereas non-residents (aka tourists) have to pay about an arm and a leg for the entrance fee.

I have been wanting to get a picture with one of the camel crossing signs, but it is difficult to get the bus driver or taxi driver to stop on the side of the road.  Since we rented a car for this trip, we were finally able to stop and snag a picture.

It was such a beautiful day for our excursion!  It even rained on us a little bit, but it was a welcomed rain in the desert.

Don't jump Drew!

Andrew ridding a camel

I tried to get a picture of myself on a camel, unfortunately I got none of the camel, oh well.  Also, notice the necklace I am wearing now.  I purchased this from a village lady.  It was advertised as camel bones, but I'm not entirely convinced.  Also I think she was impressed with my bargaining skills.

Easter

Easter this year was different than any other Easter we have had before.  This Easter we spent half-way across the world among a people who do not celebrate Easter.  We made the best of it though, and enjoyed ourselves none the less.  We celebrated Easter on Saturday evening rather than Sunday.  Here, our weekend is on Friday and Saturday not Saturday and Sunday.  While we did take off language on Sunday, we still celebrated Easter on Saturday.

We and another American couple, friends of ours, planned to celebrate with some local friends.  It was a good opportunity for us to show them how we celebrate in the States and what it is that we are even celebrating.  Our other American friends hosted the dinner.  They bought and cooked a leg of lamb (while it's not necessarily what we always eat for Easter in the States we thought it was definitely fitting).  Combined, we prepared lots of American sides (aka macaroni and cheese) and a couple of deserts. The meal was completely Gluten-Free as well!

The food turned out very delicious.  I think our friends were disappointed that the biscuits were not sweet.  Here, they call cookies biscuits, so they were a little let down even though we warned them they were not sweet cookies.  After our meal as tradition holds, we read the Easter story.  We all had a good time and I believe it was a good, successful first Easter overseas.

SCUBA

We have not gotten the chance to go SCUBA diving again (hopefully soon we will), but we were just able to get ahold of some pictures that Andrew took the last time we went SCUBA diving.  Andrew was using a friend's underwater camera, and we just got the photos from him.  Warning: Most of the pictures are of me, Andrew was behind the camera.

So, I don't always trust my mouth to keep the air thingy in, so I hold it a lot to make sure I'm not going to loose it.

Swimming around by a shipwreck.  This was pretty crazy.

Yay, finally one with Andrew!  Although he's almost out of it.

I'm not entirely sure what I am doing with my hands here.

To get SCUBA certified you have to take off your mask and put it back on several times throughout the training.  This was the most difficult thing for me...I've got my eyes closed real tight.  Also please note that due to my height, my wetsuit is not nearly long enough for me, so the shirt I am wearing underneath is showing quite a bit over my wrists.

It was fun.  Quite scary at times, but I am looking forward to going again sometime soon!