Forgive me for taking forever and a day to update...it gets kind of hectic having friends in town and travelling! I know, I know...poor me, right?
So Christmas was spent with family after all, albeit extended, in Oma's hometown of Augsburg. It's so weird returning to a place that I previously experienced at the ages of 9, 12 and 19 and yet still feeling a sense of complete awe, but on an entirely new level. I also enjoyed the company of my great aunt and cousins...I put my limited German vocabulary to use as much as possible and they did the same with their English. Somehow we made it work - I honestly haven't laughed that much in a long time!
I arrived in Germany just in time to hit the Christkindlmarkt on Christmas Eve, where I enjoyed gluhwein and seelachs brot (my favorite). Christmas dinner was German traditional - a fine sauerbraten with bacon dumplings, and red cabbage salad. They even surprised me with a beautiful pen set and some Mozart marzipan direct from Salzburg!
Mikki arrived in Prague the day after I returned from Augsburg, and as if on cue, snow began falling...and falling and falling and falling, making the entire city look like an idyllic setting for a Christmas card. We did a lot of Prague sightseeing right away as well as a day trip to Kutna Hora. It was kind of ideal since I hadn't done much travelling/sightseeing since I'd arrived (given the start of my training course and then work immediately afterward). But the best part was just having a familar face around! It was reminiscent of those old times in NYC: Mikki, me, a bag of Sour Patch Kids and "Golden Girls" re-runs playing on the laptop! I hadn't quoted Rose Nylund in 4 months!
New Year's Eve was fun, if a tad anti-climactic (aren't they always?). I prepped pasta salad for a TEFLer feast and then we headed out to watch the fireworks at Namesti Miru. I seem to remember a penis-shaped bong, black ice, chair-dancing, stolen Mexican salsa and a rifle being part of the evening. And someone telling me that my dancing on a table got us kicked out of a bar. You figure it out.
And then, of course, there was the road trip to Paris! You can keep NYC -- gay Paris is the greatest city in the world! Fortunately, Mikki was keen on my idea of quality travelling -- i.e. plan like the gestapo beforehand -- and we crammed as much sightseeing into those 4 days as physically possible. It would take a seperate blog to list everywhere we visited, but some of the more memorable sights included: the Louvre, the Luxembourg Gardens, Musee de Moyen Age, Notre Dame, Saint-Sulpice, Champs Elysees, Arch de Triomphe, the Paris Catacombs (very "Phantom of the Opera"-like), an antique flea market, Oscar Wilde's gravesite and assorted smaller galleries and museums. My personal favorites were an evening boat cruise on the Seine (freezing our butts off in the process) and walking along Les Quais. Of course, we didn't forget to sample the excellent wine and crepes. We also checked out Les Marais, the "gay"-borhood of Paris and that was just incredible as well. I am officially in love!
True to form, we set aside one day for Parc Disneyland Paris! Let's hope you wouldn't expect anything less. After being here for the holidays, I needed my dose of fine American capitalism. And Lord knows I got it - and then some - in the form of fish and chips that set us back 10 Euros each :-) Of course I loved it, though. It was surreal, a bit like visiting an old friend in a foreign country. And for the first time, I had to bundle up to visit a theme park...imagine that! Anyway, we rode the French version of my favorite attraction, the Haunted Mansion - the French incarnation of which is titled Phantom Manor - a personal record of FIVE TIMES because the crowds were so light! It's interesting to compare/contrast theme parks. It's much smaller than the American versions in L.A. and Orlando, and some of the rides are considerably different. For example, their Space Mountain kicks ass, but their "It's a Small World" feels cheap and slapped together on a budget! Plus their is smoking everywhere and you can order drinks at Mr. Toad's Pub before embarking on the Mad Hatter's Tea Cups.
