Monday, September 19, 2005

Three's a crowd, fresh beer and sweet home Chicago.

So I've hit week three now in this country and it just hit me yesterday that I really "do" live here. I say this because of my return trip back from Prague.
More on Prague later.

Anyway, anytime you go on vacation there's always the hope of it never ending and you want to stay on vacation forever. But I'll admit, sometimes on a trip back, how ever amazing it was, you're glad your coming home. Coming home to familiarity. The fantasy of "holiday" (vacation) is great, but its nice to be back home after a long trip. Well, I'm so familiar after coming home from vacation that I go back to good ol' Chicago. I arrive at O'Hare/Midway and go on with my business. Yesterday was quite different. Yes, I went on a weekend trip to Prague and it was fantastic, but the return trip home was really different as I was landing in London rather than Chicago. The whole concept of returning home really hit me.

I'm so used to coming home to Chicago after a trip and now it was different. I came into Gatwick (London's version of Midway) and I didn't have to take the blue line or orange line. Something that I'm use to. Or have friends pick me up and we'd catch a drink to talk about stupid stories that had happened while I was gone. Nope. All to myself. I had to figure out how to get home. I figure that out eventually, only to find out that the train I usually take was undergoing repairs. (They engineer everything during the weekends here) So I had to figure out what bus to take. That was annoying. I could have taken a cab, but I was determined to figure out the bus route. Anyway, long story short, I take the wrong bus and end up walking about 20 min anyway back to my place. How frustrating. It takes me about 2 hours to get home and I was hungry and frustrated. Ugh.
To continue my usual format.. I'll have stupid little blurbs about what's going on.

I miss..
Its amazing how much I depend on public transportation now. I miss my car a lot because of it.

The Bears.. woohoo.. I wish I watched some of the game.

Travels..
Prague is a beautiful city. I'll post pics when I have a chance to upload.
I can go on and on, but basically the architecture in this city is breathtaking.
A lot of is survived WWII so its very cool to see. Pictures really can't describe what you really see. The disappointing part was the castle wasn't as breaktaking as I thought it would be. From a distance it looks cool, but once you're within the grounds, its okay. The best part was Old Town Square. Now that is amazing. Digital SLR freaks, this is the place to take pics! I have little stories here and there about the trip that is best reserved later on. Things were so cheap too!

Fresh Beer
One night was really fun because we took part in a "Pub Walk." A tour guide took us to different pubs trying different beer. That was really fun. We learned some history about beer and the beer is so good! It's so fresh. If you are a fan of
Pilsner Urquell this is the place to drink it. Obviously. I also had the original Budwizer beer too. Better than the American version that's for sure. And all these beers are .5 liter too. My tolerance is definitely up that's for sure. Nonetheless, I couldn't keep up with the two guys I went with. They are 4-5 years younger and drink like fish. I couldn't keep up at all.

Three's a crowd
So I went with 2 other guys. One of them is my coworker and reports to me and the other was another coworker that works with a different group in the company. Anyway, those two were pretty close to begin with so you can imagine how I felt being the third wheel. =/ Oh well, nothing against them, but I miss my friends that I can travel with! Not that traveling with three is bad, as I've done it before successfully, but socially it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. You always feel a closer bond with the group of people you travel with afterwards, but this time it didn't turn out that way. Not that I was looking for it, but its different for once. Maybe its this weird thing that my social circles are clashing in that I use to keep work relationships and friends separate, and not they are one of the same. Its weird working with coworkers and then seeing them yet again on vacation or during the weekend. Not sure if I'm a big fan.

What's next?
Find new social circles! The search for the filipina with a british accent continues! I want to visit Greenwich this weekend and stand inbetween two
time zones. We'll see how it goes.

1 comment:

kristine said...

when i think of prague, i think of... nothing.

except that dad told me that prostitution was legal there.

btw, i created this blog just so i could respond to yours.

check mine out, or at least look at what i called it. lol.