Lucky 6

Prague is timeless.  People have been calling her cobblestone streets home for thousands of years and somehow, despite all of her history, despite all that there is to see and immerse yourself in, she still feels comfortable, feels like home.  

I felt welcome in Prague like I was happy addition to her family.  I wasn't there terribly long, 10 nights according to the hotel bill, but it felt long enough to begin to understand the Czech way of life.  I soon knew how to get from point A to point B without the desperate need to clutch my map.  I was proud to be able to find my way when the taxi driver would drop me off at the wrong hotel, wrong street and wrong historical monument (it happened more often than you'd think).  I had gotten  myself into a routine there, so I'd pass by, nestled cozy warm in my scarf to protect myself from the bitter cold winds, and the same puppet shops and beautiful buildings would hold me comfortably in their streets as I walked by them every day.

In America, we are much more hustle-bustle than even we can tell.  Mealtime in Bohemia is an event.  Eating was just a detour to good conversation, funny stories and quality time with friends.  It was difficult to have a "lunch-hour" there unless you went to fast-food or a street vendor.  Even our tour guides wouldn't charge us for the time the spent eating with us.  For them, it was a time to get to know one another a little better, learn about each other, discuss our differences and celebrate our similarities.  To feel so similar when separated by oceans, mountains and continents, language and history is a great feeling.  America has celebrated its 200th birthday, Prague, it's 2,000th.  And still, life ticks on, the same; celebrating family, tradition, religion and pride.

Go to Prague.  Walk the streets, smell the smells, see the sights and soon, she will call you hers and you will call her yours. 

Lucky Five

Attention: the wait is now over.  

New post commencing.  

No thanks necessary.

Here is a photo.  I will be describing it.  You will enjoy it very much and will tell every single one of your friends about the irresistible nature of what you read.

I am now beginning my description.  

This is a photo of a puppet shop.  There are many puppet shops in Prague.  There are many puppets in puppet shops in Prague.  This one had a cute carousel in the window.  The puppets walked around in circles with no people to hold the strings.  If it weren't for the mechanism inside the contraption itself, I'd say that they were regular Pinocchio's.  There were Pinocchio puppets in the puppet shops.    

Lucky Four

I'll give you another post off from my face.  Again, thank me with a birthday present (it's tomorrow).

My hotel was called the Mamaison Pachtuv Palace and our room overlooked the Charles Bridge and the Prague Castle (which I hear is hosting Sting the singer for $1.3 million...they only asked him because I turned it down).  It was a truly beautiful sight.

See!  I wasn't kidding.

You can see the bridge's lights reflecting on the Vltava River and of course, the yellow hues glowing in the distance to accentuate the Prague Castle in the nighttime.  Beautiful.  

Lucky Three

Oh, so my beautiful face is too much for you?  Geez, I'm so sorry, I'll give you a break from it today and will instead describe to you the splendor of Prague's famous Astronomical/Astrological Clock like I promised.

Thank me later.

With a Christmas gift.

Or a birthday gift (it's coming up and you'd know that if you were a good friend).

So.  The clock.  

That is the clock.  

I'll describe it from the bottom to the top because as I'm writing this, I can see the bottom of the picture best.  I offer you a warning.  This post is mostly void of my dry hilarity because most of my descriptions come directly from my most recent published work.

Enjoy.

  Now, when you're in the square, looking at the clock, it is surprisingly close to the ground.  Every noteworthy clock I've seen has been up in a tower or high on the side of a building for all to admire from afar.  This clock is much closer to the people.  I think that if you were tall and had good jumping skills, you could probably touch the bottom ring of the lowermost portion that you see there.  You would't be able to reach the figurines for sure, but the lower etchings of the bottom of the circle, maybe.  

So now that you have scale of clock-dom in mind, here is the low-down on this wicked cool piece of clockwork.  This timeless timepiece of medieval ingenuity has been ticking away in its unusual nature for over 600 years and is the only one of its kind still working.  Every hour, on the hour, there are masses of people who all gather together to watch the 20 second show and listen to the medieval trumpet player in the tower echo across the square.  

The lower-most portion of this 600-year-old mechanical marvel is the astrological calendar; there are symbols around the circumference that represent the months of the year.  What you see there on the face is a replica.  The original, dating back to 1805 by the painter Josef Manes, can be seen on the stairway walls of the Prague Museum of History.  

The center section represents the astronomical movements of the sun and moon relative to the sunrise and sunset of Prague.  This clock shows three independent movements: the sun's revolutions around the Earth (the common belief at the time the clock was built), the orbit of the moon around the Earth and the ecliptic cycle of the stars.  The colors on this section are also relevant, with the horizon represented where the orange and blue segments meet, daylight on the left, twilight on the right and night in the lowermost dark circle.  

The uppermost portion of the clock is to represent the balance within a Christian heart.  On either side of this clock face are four moving statues representing the threatening vices of medieval Prague: vanity, hoarding, death and pleasure.  Below the clock face are four immovable figures that represent medieval virtues: a chronicler, an angel, an astronomer and a philosopher.  Directly above the center of the clock are the 12 apostles, and as every hour passes, they pause to give their blessings upon the city as the skeleton, who represents death, tolls the bell as it chimes the hours across the square.  Then above the two doors where the apostles pass, there is a gold statue of a rooster.  After the hours toll, he crows a crow that can only be heard to fully appreciate.  I wish that I had a sound clip for you but I don't.  Imagine a party horn mixed with a deflating balloon and a wheezing farm animal.  Something like that...

There's the rooster, ain't he cute, oh, and some of the cheery apostles hosting their blessings upon the city.  That rooster's crow really is hilarious!  Go to Prague.  

Next time, I'll be showing you more sights of the city...I'll probably turn on the humor again, so don't fret.  

Until next time!  (insert image of me giving you a gangster peace-out...if I had a pic of me doing that, I'd post it but I promised you no more of my face today...I'm a good word-keeper and promise-hold-up-to-er)

Lucky Two

OK.  So I decided that I teased you all too much by waiting mere hours since my last post.  It was cruel and I apologize.  SO.  To make it up to you, here is another amazing photo.  This is my mom and me again!  Whaa??  I know!  Crazy, right!  We look so much different without our winter coats, sun glasses and scarves on!!  This photo was taken at a fancy-shmancy dinner in Prague, hosted by an important client.  It was a twisty-turney kind of day.

Let me start from the beginning.

This was Wednesday, November 16th, 2011.  I was in Prague because the company I work for hosts an amazingly successful and enormous exposition every 4 years in some spectacular place on the planet and this year, they wanted me to go along (hence LUCKY).  Wednesday was the second day of the show, and a long day at that.  

My mom was the booth manager -if you will- and had to make sure things ran smoothly, had to know where all our staff was at any given time and also had to take care of any issues that came up/deal with clients if there was an issue.  That final reason is also why I was there.  My job was to smile, help people if they came by, be friendly, smile, take care of concerns, fetch things and fellow employees if need be and smile (did I say that already?).  Well, after a long day of smiling, running around, passing our publication out, being friendly and taking care of business, we had a gala dinner 2 hours after the show closed.  

The show closed without a hitch, but...we lost a salesperson who left their belongings in our booth.  Since my mother was in charge of the booth, we couldn't leave without delivering this person's stuff to them.  Ugh.  We ran around the center looking for our missing salesperson, sent messages to people as they came by to send her over if they saw her and all attempts failed.  We knew this person was in the building so we took their stuff over to the "front office" which wasn't really an office, but you understand the concept.  

Our salesperson wasn't there either, but we did find a man who knew where to find them and he hand delivered the belongings to the no-longer-missing salesperson.  Phew!  Now, we head outside to catch a taxi. It is REALLY cold outside and what did Stephanie forget?  I'll give you a hint: my hands were cold.  We walk down to the main street where the taxi stop is and there is a line forever long of other people waiting for a taxi.  I'll never understand why they didn't clear a path for my mom and me...we are basically the most important two people on the planet, but whatever!  So, we are in line.  Standing.  Not moving.  Being cold.  I'm taking the circumstances like a champ...if I don't say so myself.  

Luckily, we know the people behind us.  They call a cab independently and when it comes, they squeeze mom and me in too.  I am the 4th person in the back seat, sitting on my heels on the seat while my friend, Jan, sits in the hole behind the passenger seat.  Un.  Comfortable.  :(  

But warm.  :)

So, we tell the taxi driver to take half of us to the one hotel and the rest of us to a different one.  He was confused to say the least.  Prague is in the Czech Republic and English isn't their first language.  CRAZY, I know!  So, the 5 of us in the cab litterally all have different versions of an English accent and he was less than understanding.  He was also like 12 and couldn't even drive an automatic transmission.  (I will tell you all about the adventures in Prague taxis in another post).

On an ordinary day, it would take 15 minutes to get to both of the hotels...today...since we are short on time, it takes us more than 30!  Long story short (too late), we get to our hotel when the gala dinner is supposed to start.  BOO.  

When mom and I get to the hotel, we tell them to have a car/taxi in 10 minutes (a car costs at least twice as much as a taxi but are through the hotel and are generally bangin'-nice cars).  We run upstairs (mom had ordered her dress to be pressed due to wrinkles that morning and when we got upstairs, it was still where she left it...needless to say she was very less than pleased...yay me), change into our formal dresses (luckily, mom brought 2), change shoes, touch-up make-up and scoot our little keesters downstairs to catch the car.  

Pshoo!  Now, we get to the restaurant in record time, enter the doors, see our lovely ladies at the door and there ends up being a seating chart.  WHAT?  :(  At this point, I'm in a slight panic that I will be at a table with a bunch of old guys or something... 

I'm not.  Better.  I'm at table 1.  (I'm scared again: don't the important people sit at table 1?  Am I supposed to be charming and adorable to high rollers or their wives or something?)  So, I ask: "who all is at my table?"  Someone I don't know, someone else that I don't know, don't know 'em, nope, Jan!  I know Jan!  She and I got cozy in the cab!  YAY!  :)  Not scared anymore!!

Table turns out great, fun, laughing, new friends.  Phew.  :)

Now, I'm no wine-o, but that wine served at the dinner was so stinkin' good.  I should have asked what it was, but I drank several glasses and had a great time!  There was dancing and laughing and many new friends made!  Great night.  So.  This photo is of me and my mother in the midst of the dancing and might I say how lovely we both look!  

Ooh, and see how we are both in navy blue...well she always copies what I wear.  I swear she jumps into my head and picks out an outfit to match me every day.  But in her defense, the dress she was supposed to wear was black, but the hotel screwed up there...

Now you will have to wait until tomorrow for another photo and description.  Just so you know, I will also throw in a few pics here and there from India as well, just to keep you on your toes.  

Lucky One

Hello.  I am lucky.  I am Stephanie and I work at the best company in the world.  This is a photo of my mother and me in Prague.  This photo is taken right by the city's famous Astrological/Astronomical Clock.  (When I post a pic of the clock, I will explain why it is both of the horoscopes and of the stars...sit tight, I know you're anxiously awaiting the information.)  

Ok.  So, back to me (a much more important and interesting topic).  This photo happened around lunchtime on one of our first days in the city.  We walked from our hotel, near Charles Bridge, to Old Town Square to meet our colleagues.  We were late because we did not know how far it would be, but only 10 minutes late, so yea, could have been worse.  After we met up, we went shopping, had lunch, bought jewelry at a garnet shop and met up at a local brewery/restaurant with the rest of our staff for dinner.  

The restaurant was across the street from a hotel, the Kempinsky, I think, and there were beer taps built into some of the tables.  Genius!  Especially in a city with hundreds of brewery's!!  We ate food there that was enormous.  Huge Food.  That should have been the name of the restaurant.  "We serve huge food and have beer taps built into the tables."  Great slogan.  They should pay me now for boosting their attendance numbers and such.  

Stay tuned, for tomorrow or later on today, or maybe next month, I'll post another photo and write about it.  Exciting, I know.  Don't die before then and tell your friends to read too because they'll thank you and give you a super enormously expensive Christmas gift because you tuned them into my amazing blog.

That is all.  For now.  K, bye!