Better late than never... My big October send off from DC

Hi everyone. Can you believe it. It has been nearly 3 months now since I moved to Prague. That's crazy. When I get a little homesick or a lot, this reminder of friends and family warms my heart. To let you in on a little secret, I can watch this video over and over, endlessly, never failing to shed a tear or two or more!

My thanks to Raymond who spent most of my big bash filming this. Kudos for selecting the perfect song!

Sure miss and love y'all! (Oh, no, I've succumbed to the pressure of trying to sound like a Northern Virginian. But, not such a big deal over here in the Czech Republic. Sometimes Czechs don't even think I sound American?! Go figure. I've been picked out as German or Canadian.)

Epileptic Yogi

I decided to try yoga tonight. For starters, it was in Czech. About the only phrases I picked up were right leg front, left leg front, head to knee. Besides that I was at a loss. To complicate comprehension further, I was in the back of the room next to an air duct, which distorted the instructor's voice something fierce. The icing on the cake though was that I elected not to wear my glasses. I guess you can see where this is going...


Thanks to my sister Stephanie, I'm not a complete dunce when it comes to yoga. Over Christmas one year, I had a private lesson with Steph (who is quite the teacher!), in which she taught me several of yoga's basic movements, for example, the downward facing dog. Without this introduction, tonight I would have otherwise been completely lost.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm caught up in a comedy of errors. Minus my glasses, I did my best to follow my neighbors. But a few times the woman next to me seemed to be looking at me for a clue. Haha. She definitely could use better judgment.


Overall, I have to say I liked our routine tonight; there was a lot of emphasis on balance. Forced to shift your weight to one leg, you rather quickly realize your limits. Standing on one foot or leg or sitting on my bum, fingers holding my toes, all the while attempting to extent my legs outwards - suffice it to say that I'm no pink flamingo. Yeah...piece of cake ... I was like all over that! Ugh, not really. No, instead, there were multiple moments throughout the night where I shook as if I were undergoing a seizure. The only thing missing was foam in the mouth.

On the bright side, everyone seemed pretty into themselves. Despite me feeling kind of self-conscious, when it came down to it, nobody was really paying much attention to me. Once I got over my own inhibitions, I had a few good internal chuckles.


So, wonders never cease: I think I'm going back. I have to get over the fact I'm the least skilled in the class, but we all can't be dynamite. I guess I'll settle for Napoleon Dynamite. I might just have some numchuck skill in me yet.

Sorry, but no pictures to post. Use your imagination.

Say it ain't so...

There are some days when I miss the United States terribly. I think fondly on our wide open expanses, the freedom one feels with the windows down, the radio blaring, hitting 75 or 80 mph on the interstate highway. My stomach still catches an itch or two when pictures of New York City flash on the movie screen or I watch David Tyree make a miraculous catch in the Superbowl. But there are days, when I’m glad to be distant and far away from the American media onslaught.

Having just watched the competing testimonies of Brian McNamee and Roger Clemens before the House oversight committee and after reading the New York Times article, “Clemens says Pettitte was Wrong about H.G.H. Remark,” I’m rather distraught. For the sake of Clemen’s own kids and the millions of children who have grown up idolizing The Rocket, I’d like to think he is speaking the truth, that he has, in fact, been falsely accused. I’m sorry to say that his story just doesn’t add up. I’m not a Yankee fan, but I seem to remember a close bond of friendship between Clemens and Pettitte. They played together as both Yankees and Rangers, sharing plans to retire. Throw into the mix affirmation by Pettitte and that rascally Chuck Knoblaugh that McNamee injected them, and the incident with Clemens and his nanny from seven years ago, and what you have is one royal mess - at least in my humble, across the Atlantic opinion.

The truth often hurts; it can even be outright offensive, but it still remains the truth. Without it, what do we really have - illusion, deception? The game of baseball has been forever tarnished. Our players are no longer viewed as Olympic gods, but as mere men and rightly so. We were wrong in the first place to expect and demand perfection, and they were wrong to succumb to the temptation they could deliver it. We were both sadly mistaken.

Home run records and low ERAs are great stuff, but integrity and honesty are the mark of a real man.

A Little Fresh Air Does the Spirit Good

On Friday afternoon I got a call from my friend and co-conspirator Imelda to see what my Saturday plans were. Fortunately, I had a blank slate in front of me, but not for long. Turns out Saturday morning I joined Imelda and her husband Ondra, Iva (a friend and colleague from the radios), and Mariana (a friend of Imelda and Ondra's) on a trip to Liberec and for a hike up to Jested peak - some 1012 meters above sea level. Despite a few initial glitches - my metro shutting down because someone jumped in front of a train and Ondra forgeting his hiking boots - the day was spectacular or what I and Mary Poppins like to call supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I didn't quite know what we had in front of us. I thought knowing Ondra and Imelda we'd probably do a hike with some amount of physical exertion. Let me tell you we took on one heck of an incline! Whoa. We decided early on against following the asphalt road. No, we were determined to climb right up through snow, rocks and boulders, and that is exactly what we did.

To be honest, I think Saturday was the longest period of time that I've spent in the great out doors in quite some time. Boy, was this trip ever needed! My lungs felt as if they were given new life. I seriously had a high breathing in the fresh mountain air and exercising just about every muscle in my lower limbs. When I first heard we were headed to a tower, I had my doubts. Prague has a very distinct TV tower that dominates the sky above Vinohrady, where I happen to to live. It's not exactly my cup of tea: the structure is quite bold - a cold metallic structure save for several sculptures of crawling babies some artist added several years back. I'm not very big on the Communists' love of putting ugly harsh structures in historic parts of town or worse in the middle of mother nature. However, I was surprised when we entered Liberec and I viewed Jested from down below. I found it to be a majestic addition to the mountain view. Jested tower and hotel, which was built in the later part of the 60s, actually had some architectural charm and oddly pleasant Communist decor. I felt as if I were in a James Bond movie as we sat in the hotel's panoramic restaurant eating soup and drinking pudding-like hot chocolate. The absolute coolest thing was watching hang- or para-gliders float around in the ether just outside of the window by our table. After our nice break inside, getting warm and nourished, we decided once again for the road less travelled. We basically walked down a closed ski slope. There were signs notifying us of high risk areas and great potential of accidents, but we proceded down the hill as if blind. It would have been much nicer to have skis, but I took this as a challenge. My legs are strong like a bull, so I managed the steep descent with aplomb. At one point I opted for my buttocks to carry me down part of the slope. It was quite the trip and caused only minimal wetness to my jeans. Our downward journey was a race against darkness, which fully engulfed us at the bottom of the mountain.

Before we started yet another mini-adventure to find the car, we stopped along the way at the ski jumping center. It was just our luck that an international ski jumping event was taking place. Remember Eddie the Eagle from the UK back in Nagano or was it Salt Lake City? I can't remember. It doesn't matter - I'm a new fan of the sport. I mean - You will never ever find me strapping on two skis, sitting on a bench at the top of monstrously steep hill, only to ski down the hill, picking up momentum and then flying into the air, finishing this crazy feat with a two-ski landing. For me, watching something so beyond me is a huge adrenalin rush. I could have stood there all night watching the jumpers. I think I lost my breath each time a jumper took to air - it was just that darn cool. Okay - I think I've used "cool" one too many times. I'm just lost for words trying to describe my great wonder and joy experiencing Jested on Saturday afternoon. It was the simply the best!

Giving credit where credit is due

Well, I really have to give it to those Giants. They really pulled it off, making the seemingly impossible possible. Instead of NPR on my alarm clock, I wake up to the BBC World Service in the morning. The past couple of weeks have been a doozy. Let's see, a week or two back around MLK, Jr. day, it was headlines about the market crash in Asia and Europe. Then it was the American market. Last week it was Heath Ledger's death. But, this morning it was news about the Giant's pulling off the biggest upset of all time. Man, the Giants made it on the BBC! This was news! And, finally something to get up for. I literally jumped out of bed and went to turn on CNN International. I just had to see footage. It was all the more fantastical since I made the fateful decision to turn the TV off at 3:45 or 3:50 am... I can't remember now. Only after the fact did I realize that I missed the most exciting part of the game. Boy, was I disappointed this morning, kicking myself in the butt - if I could! Cut me some slack though... I was watching in the wee hours of the morning, knowing I had bloodwork at 9 am and then a full day of work.

Sports are great. Granted, football is still a funny game to me with large burly men running around the field trying to sack a skinny guy with the ball, but a good game is simply a good game. There's something about these underdog stories that lifts the soul, puts a spring in our step. Because gosh darn it, if Eli Manning can do it, so can I! That's how I went to work this morning - don't know about you?!

So I watched a good chunk of game at work in our cafeteria. We actually watched it via the Armed Forces Network (AFN). Disappointingly there were no U.S. commercials; rather we sat through ads for the "Edelweis Ski Lodge" in Garmisch for U.S. service personnel and short celebrity athlete shout outs to the troops. Oh, and there were some weird ads for defense contractors and who knows what else. I've never quite been so inundated save for when I submitted to an army physical when I was considering becoming a cryptolinguist.

On a side note, I failed my army physical on account of taking acne medicine. In a strange way, I thank God for pimples - that decision was taken out of my hands. I must admit, however, that I scored 100% on the hearing test. I was flabbergasted when I came out of the sound-proof chamber and the doctor patted me on the back. All these years I complained to my mom that I just never heard her. She would accuse me of selective hearing and I would refute her based on my many hours and days logged in the highschool swimming pool. You know... chlorine gets to you. Well, that whole theory had the plug pulled.

I turned out to be one of the only girls at our Super Bowl event. There was Lucie from HR that dropped by with a few other Czech colleagues, but I lasted the majority of the game - minus the last 20 minutes or so. It was just fine. I need to thank my brother Mark for preparing me to handle the male world. I still vividly remember being roughed up on our basketball court by Mark. I told him to give me a break, but he refused and said it would do me well. And, he was right. But, I would be remiss if I did not tell you my male colleagues were perfect gentlemen. We just enjoyed the game, eating microwave popcorn bag after bag and topping off my tupperware-filled with brownies. Oh, and yes, there was Czech beer - naturally.

Since I missed the best part of last night's game and I need some more spring in my step tomorrow morning, I've got to end here and go watch a rebroadcast of the game on German TV.

Uncle Rahn, Tyler, Aunt Pat, Alexis - be proud of your Giants! I am!