a lot of people really love to travel but not so many people love the airport. i'm going to go ahead and guess that not a lot of people like the actual "traveling" part of traveling - the act of getting from one place to the other, whether it's by plane, bus, or train. i really love it. i love packing (even if it's always, without a doubt, no question about it, done at the absolute last minute). i love going to the airport and walking to the terminal and going through security. i even like going through the metal detector. but good news, europe doesn't travel just by air. europe travels by busses and fast trains and slow trains and in between trains and trollys and it's fabulous.
i'm in the czech republic this week, bouncing back and forth between prague and marienbad, a smaller spa town in the western part of the country. i got to prague by bus and spent the night there. in the morning i took a train halfway to marienbad but had to switch onto a bus because the tracks were derailed or something. then i hopped onto another bus before i was finally here. and you know, i loved it. i met a guy who had just spent a month traveling throughout africa, a funny couple from the czech republic (they're actually the reason i made it to the last train without getting lost), and a weird old man who was missing a lot of teeth. besides the weird old man who wanted to meet my grandma and come visit me in hawaii, they were all really great. and even he wasn't that bad.
i love people watching and wondering where everyone's going, getting onto a bus and wondering who you're going to sit next to, sitting in the train compartment waiting for someone else to come in, making a home away from home. maybe it's just because i'm restless. maybe it's curiousity or just a desire to constantly be in motion, i don't know, but 5 hours on a bus or 3 in a train or a couple in the sky are absolutely fabulous.
it's probably a good thing, because i've been spending a lot of time lately transporting myself from place to place. just before i came to czech, we went to the vineyards about an hour northwest of vienna, past grinzig. needless to say, it was beautiful. while i'll admit don't know much about wine except that it comes in white, red, or pinkish, it didn't make it any less pretty. we wandered down through the maze of vineyards and found a little house where we enjoyed white wine and sunshine.
today i went towards the center of marienbad where there's a fountain that dances to music. it rivals the fountains in front of the bellagio. okay, not really, but it's still cute. there's an ice cream stand next to it that's been there for as long as i can remember. i used to beg my parents to buy me ice cream there all the time when i was younger. i finally realized that parents will say no, but grandma always says yes, so of course i had to enjoy a cone of ice cream for old times sake.
i hardly ever feel that i'm thousands of miles away from the united states and it's hard to wrap my head around the fact that a plane ride home is 10+ hours. i didn't really realize how far i am from home until recently, and then suddenly it hits me that i'm on the other side of the globe. i can't say that i'm out here alone - i'm surrounded by good people and great friends - but when tragedy hits back at home, it's hard to be out here without the friends i grew up with. rest in peace, courtney. your smile and your contagious laughter are missed. your memorial will be beautiful, just as you were, and i wish i could be there. thank you for the great memories and the amazing times in high school.
you do not have a soul, you are a soul. you have a body.
miss you, court.
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