Czech It Out

we are sitting at this place in prague and with the nicest computers we have used the whole trip and somehow managed not to pay anything?! not complaining!

a lot has happened since berlin. freddie came and went, we saw "the best of mozart and strauss with ballet and singers" with the prague royal orchestra, dined at some fine establishments (but not too fine, we're maintaining our "budget"), tried some new foods that we cannot pronounce, seen baby Jesus pop out of a clock, seen baby Jesus in the form of "The Holy Infant of Prague", climbed ten jillion steps to the top of St. Nicolas to catch the view from the belltower, and attended a festival in the town square ...sort of by default, how do you miss a festival in the middle of town!? American music is undoubtedly far more enjoyable than Czech music.

we have found that one of our new favorite things is opening the windows to our apartment (which is mighty fine by the way) put on some enya and listen to the rain outside with the bells and nature sounds of the birds chirping. how can you resist? although, the other night ruthie and i were terribly disturbed to find that michael jackson has come and gone-truly the end of an era. freddie wasn't as concerned as we were as we started repeating his classic hits on our personal favorite television channel "deluxe music" (which was a lot like our favorite channel in copenhagen-disco karoke).. we quickly found that we will miss those "free willy" days...R.I.P Michael.

tonight we will climb the bazillion stairs that lead to the prague castle. there we will find the harmonious sounds of the prague royal as they serenade us with tunes from vivaldi ("four seasons"), mozart, and we forget the other one. although it is not "enya" it is sure to be quite inspirational.

OH, and we almost forgot to mention that we had the absolute worst burger today. it was the color of ruthies dress-coral if you will...but we're still having the time of our lives!!!!!

prague is the jam.

Clean Clothes...Hopefully!

today we went to the jewish museum and then hit up the shopping streets. we were pleased to see another part of berlin that we were fond of. ...pictures to follow later.

we are doing laundry at the hostel and we found it humorous how old the machines were and for about 10 minutes after loading our clothes, we just sat and stared at them. We still have not gotten them out of the dryer...hopefully they will still be in one piece and the color we remember them being.

after a great 2 nights in berlin, we are excited about the adventures to follow when we arrive in prague tomorrow!

Black Light Special

There really is not much to update on, we just have internet right now so we might as well post something.

a few crepes later, we ended up at our hostel and found ourselves awake after we had crashed for about 2 hours on the beds, i mean the cots. :)

we chatted for awhile about how thankful we are to be here...(THANKS MOMS,DADS, AND GRANDPARENTS)

now we are enjoying a smoke free environment - a rarity - and catching up on some e-mails.

I WISH I COULD WATCH WIMBLEDON!!! go federer and a.rod! - i don't even know what is going on with this so anyone who wants to update, feel free!

ß3ÄÖ,

mari and ru

Berlin on a Bike

Today....we rode bikes around Berlin. It was fun.

Mariannes bike was named Mary J. Blige- classic.

We saw this cool statue. marx and engels, the fathers of communism. this was the only picture we got (and it was 5 minutes in to the tour).

our guide was really nice....from the grand state of TEJAS....dallas to be precise. although a little redundant, very helpful in the history of berlin. we kept riding by all these famous sites that looked like nothing. but we did ride by hitler's bunker...wooooo. it happened to be a bunch of apartments. the berlin wall was pretty cool. ruthie had the priviledge of being the buttbabe. that meant riding behind everyone to make sure everyone was ok. mari was the assistant buttbabe....naturally. at the end of the tour, ruthie got a free coke and two original pieces of the berlin wall, all for riding as slow as christmas in the back and making sure no one got lost. marianne should have gotten her diet coke for free, too. but she didn't.

...this was at the end of the tour. it really was fun... this is just marianne in a weak moment. i think it's hilarious.

we are having so much fun and cannot wait for PRAGUE.

Running off The Generator

when we headed out for our journey to berlin we were surprised at how the people seemed to catch our eye rather than the sights. we later found out that this weekend in berlin is a gay and lesbian festival and think we might of found some of its attendees here a little early.After a delayed flight, we finally found our way to our hostel- THE GENERATOR. it struck our attention with a huge polar bear greeting us at the entrance, pink floyd over the surround sound and black lights in the entire building that made us glow the moment we stepped inside . we found it funny that our room resembled somewhat of a crusie ship. With red, white, and blue walls and one picture to decorate it, we tried to head to bed, but were continuously awakened by the German men waiting to get in their bathroom convientently across the hall from us.

for your personal enjoyment we decided to add some photos. enjoy!

Hello Backpack, Goodbye Luxuries

Thursday morning, we met up at the Daniel House around 9 am, we chilled for a little bit, Ruthie napped while Mari went to class, and then we just beebopped around until we went to dinner with Maggie, Mari's precious friend from Auburn. We tried to go to bed early, Mari at the D House and Ruthie at the Montana Hotel on Gloucester, but failed. JET LAG BABBYYY.
The following morning, we woke up at the crack of dawn to catch our flight to COPENHAGEN. Love it here. Tonight is our last night before we leave in the morning for Berlin. Cope is awesome. Mari read that it is the happiest nation in the world...It has to be true because it's so great here. The people are so sweet and the city is so clean. We walked the entire town yesterday (June 20th). We ended the night by going to the Tivoli Gardens that everyone had been raving about. Apparently, it was supposed to be beautiful at night so of course we waited til 8 (doesnt ever get dark here) to go. We found ourselves in somewhat of a dollywood setting? we decided we could take advantage of the roller coaster over the eastern ruins just fine! After a lost stomach we ventured over to the stage to find a Michael Buble wanna be with a 16 piece band blarring away. The American music was comforting and we quickly found the old couples dancing quite humorous. (no worries, its on the video!) With sore legs and an aching back, we chose today to shop...to bad it's SUNDAY. Nothing is open. Oh well! We decided to go on a bus tour to Hippie Town...naturally. What Hippie Town? We couldn't find it. it appeared to be a rock walkway down to the slums? no thanks. We decided coming back for a delicious burger sounded more enjoyable! after having done pretty much everything there is to do in this town, we have found ourselves here so you can keep up with us. Peace from the East.

mari and ru

next stop : BERLIN. Question: Do they really have big feet?