allyson and bryan

Living Like a Rock Star in Prague /


One of the highlights of our journey has been meeting up with friends from home at different points around the globe. We've been lucky to share experiences in countries as diverse as Fiji and New Zealand (Heather and Eugene), Vietnam (my brother), Africa (Jen, Drake, Sarah and Lynn), and now Prague (Kelly and Jerry). Each of these times and places has been incredibly unique and exciting, made all the more special by the collective memories we now have with important people in our lives.

We arrived in Prague on Saturday after another overnight train, having left Krakow at 10:25 p.m. the previous night. This time, we ended up in a sleeper car with six bunks and six-hundred degree heat. This time, the train decided just to stop, bewilderingly, at 12:30 a.m. somewhere over the Czech border -- and not start again until 4:30 a.m. for no reason we could determine. Suffice it to say that it wasn't the most pleasant night we'd spent.

So all the better to meet up with Kelly and Jerry later that morning. Kelly and Jerry both work for Bruce Springsteen and are on tour with him right now, traveling through Europe for two months as Bruce plays to crowds Italian, German, Spanish, Swedish, Irish. They had five days off in between shows and we decided to convene in Prague. Luckily for us, Kelly and Jerry travel in style while working, and for a few glorious days we got to shed our backpacker standards in lieu of hotels with slippers, fancy steak dinners, and 50" flat-screen plasma TVs. (They let us crash with them in their fully-stocked, fully-funky apartment hotel.)

In Prague itself (when we were able to tear ourselves away from Andel's), we toured the Jewish quarter, the castle and the communist museum. We spent a lot of time wandering around the old town square, navigating through the vast sea of tourists and seeking out the lane less traveled. It was a lovely time.

In addition to friends flying in from the U.S. to join us, we've also been the privileged guests of a few internationally located pals. As you know, Tim and Inka welcomed us into their Freiburg home last month, and tomorrow we fly to London where we'll stay with trip-made friends Andy and Clare. The four of us are going to Scotland for three days but otherwise we'll be chilling in Reading, England, meeting their sure-to-be super friends, reuniting with a long-lost orphanage volunteer, and reveling in English-language everything. On October 29 we have a one-day layover in Dublin -- and then we fly home.

I simply can't believe we'll be on U.S. soil in less than two weeks! Thanks to our friends and family who've made this once-in-a-lifetime all the more amazing -- including those who keep in touch by e-mail and flickr and this here blog. It means the world to us and we love you all.

stars, they're just like allyson @ 11:17 PM  

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