Prague

So it's been about 10 or 11 days since I've been in Europe. First time across the Atlantic Ocean, having crossed the Pacific Ocean to teach English in South Korea. I was there for a year, and then traveled around China and Southeast Asia for another 5 months.

I flew from Lima, where I lived for the past year and a half or so, to New York, where I spent 10 days between NYC and Washington DC. The weather there overall was excellent, and I had an excellent time visiting friends and seeing the sights. Then, on the 29th of September (10 days after leaving Lima), I took my Air Berlin flight to Düsseldorf, Germany.

I couchsurfed there and in Köln, meeting some great people along the way, and marveling at the fantastic European architecture and doing some great people watching, watching native Germans in their native context for the first time.

After Köln, I took a train to Freiburg, in Southwestern Germany, where I met up with my good friend, Sebastian. I met him last year while traveling in Arequipa, doing a tour to the Colca Canyon. After telling him of my plans to fly to Germany and then take a course in Prague, he immediately suggested he take some days off and drive around Germany a bit for me, which I'm extremely glad I did.

The past week or so I spent with him was excellent, meeting lots of great new friends, and driving around Germany and Switzerland. We visited Zürich, Luzern (both in Switzerland), München (Munich), Ulm, his hometown Cottbus, and finally Berlin. The past couple of days I stayed at his sister´s apartment in Eastern Berlin and had a blast (albeit a bit cold) walking around the beautiful communist era buildings and soaking up the history of the city.

Now I'm sitting on a 5 hour train ride on DB (Deutsch Bahn, I believe - German Trains (?) ) from Berlin to Prague. An odd side note is that, although I've always been told (and had that experience most of the time so far) that German trains are on time to the minute (which they actually usually are), this train was a whole hour late; my second late train so far. But other than that, fantastic.

The views out my window are beautiful, from the German side, and now in the beautiful Czech country side as well. Fantastic fall colors abound in the forests all around me. My seat actually faces towads the back (as many others do), so it's a bit weird to ride into Prague "backwards". I'm very excited to arrive and contact my Couchsurfing host. It's also exciting to be in a new country and to begin my 4 week TESOL course tomorrow morning.

That's about it for now... I'm glad I actually took the time to write something with a bit more substance than my usual travelpod posts, which I do hurredly as to not take too much time from spending time with my friends or uploading pictures or what have you. This time I actually took a few minutes to reflect upon the past couple of weeks and try to capture the feelings and emotions I have.

It's a gray, fall day in the Czech Republic, and I should be arriving into Prague main station in about an hour or two. At least it's not raining... yet.

Till' next time!