Bone Voyage!

That’s how many minutes we’ve been gone from California… and, more impressively, how long I’ve kept track of the SAME hair tie (holla!). Men, you won’t appreciate this, but I know ma’ girls will.

This post is dedicated to the rest of our time in Prague and a day trip to Glashütte, Germany- -Ted’s mecca. After 11 days and 10 nights here, I don’t want to leave.

First, I’ve decided to introduce a “live-o-meter” for each city we visit:
1 is “Heck no, I couldn’t live here”
5 is “I could willingly tolerate this for a few years”
10 is “See ya never, California”.

Live-o-meter stats thus far:
Stockholm: 5 (too chilly and fairly expensive)
Berlin: 5 (too large which made it feel impersonal)
Prague: 7.5 (fickle weather, small feel, walkable, downright gorgeous, preserved history,)

Prague’s weather has been a steady mid-to-low 50’s alternating between rain and clouds which is a bummer because the city is so golden and beautiful under sunshine. Even still, we visited the Prague Castle and were rewarded with great views and the prettiest cathedral in recent memory, St. Vitus. I’ll keep the history lesson brief, but construction first started on the castle ~1,145 years ago- -mind boggling given it’s beauty and complexity. For context, the United States is only 239 years old. Some shots of our time on the castle grounds below, but more here.

The next day, we got out of the city to the teensy tiny town of Glashütte, Germany, about 3.5 hours by train. It’s a quaint town with lots of charm, but the closest most people get is Dresden, 45 minutes north.There is really just one reason to go to this town–fine mechanical watches. Honestly, nearly all the top German watch brands come out of the same town, with their manufactories just meters apart; there’s a respectful rivalry here that goes back to the mid 1800s. Ted actually wrote a great piece on timezone.com which was picked up and featured on their front page (!!) if you want to nerd out. We did a factory tour of Glashütte Original which was really neat. It was also our anniversary, so a big shoutout to my main squeeze for a great 3 years and many more to come.

Then, on Thursday 4/21, the weather fairies got their acts together and produced one hell of a day. I’m talking, shorts, sunnies, flip flops, and a legen– -wait for it- –dary picnic. The day started in the best possible way- – a farmer’s market. One of my favorite hobbies is eating small snacks from varied booths and our loot consisted of a goat cheese quiche, blueberry crumble pastry, and artisan espresso. We also met a lady selling homemade hot sauce, which is basically a unicorn in the Czech Republic. We obvi got some of that magic and brought it along to our picnic in an ancient fortress.  Ted also picked up a .5L beer from the market for 9 crown which converts to $0.37. Sorry I’m not sorry but it was basically a perfect day.

Friday was another great one as we came to the sad realization it was our last full day in Prague. There were some  other foods we were dying to eat, like the best donut in the history of the world for example, from Maso a Kobliha (which translates literally to Meat and Donut). We decided to werk (werk, werk, werk, werk) for that fried pillow of custardy goodness and literally jogged to the restaurant from our house. A brief 3 miles later, it was so worth it.

Saturday started wayyyy early as we tuned into Game 5 of the Sharks playoff series at the dark hour of 4:30am. Sharks defeated LA to push into Round 2, which was SO awesome. The game was action packed and it was crazy difficult to cheer in hushed tones as not to wake the neighbors. Then, we packed our bags, said a reluctant goodbye to our AirBnB, and walked down the 97 steps to the street level for the last time. On the plus side, our quads are rock hard after 10 days of those stairs.

Random side note: I checked my Fitbit and we’ve walked 219.8 miles in these 40,084 minutes. So that’s pretty neat.

The next post will focus on Vienna, Austria, which is where we are now. Until then….

Bone Voyage,
Sara

Posted from: VRBO in Vienna, Austria