End of the Semester and Away from Prague

Hello all, I just wanted to write and update. I apologize for not updating my blog very quickly in the recent weeks. End of the semester work kicked in and final preparations to leave Prague fast approached.

The end of the semester went fairly well. Classes gave out much work and I was stuck in the coffee shop for 3 weeks straight trying to finish final work, papers, projects, and studying for approaching finals. My friends and I would all congregate in the same coffee shop for those 3 weeks, completely overwhelming the staff. Apparently doing work in a coffee shop is truly an American thing. In the end, it was and is the most comfortable place for me to get work done, so we apologized to the staff there and went along with our work.

I finished all my finals and work by 16 December and took a nice sigh of relief. That day (Wednesday), my friend Mike was leaving in the morning. He had finished all of his work early and his parents were arranging his travel back instead of the AIFS personnel. His parents got him a flight home for that morning on United. He woke me around 7:00 to say goodbye. He was the first one to leave for the program.

The next day. I went to pick up Jonathan at the airport. It began to snow and the random snow storm Prague had in October, it was the first real snow of the season. I grabbed the bus and met him at the airport. He got off the plane and was........well.........cold, haha. The weather was a bit different for him from the weather he was used to in Kenya. We made it to the dorm and got settled. We wandered around the city for a bit and came back early due to Jon's jet-lag. Jon got to skype with the parents that night and my brother and mother got to see one another for the first time in a year.

We woke a bit early the next morning and wandered around the city with Daisey and Jon got to see all the sights of Prague and all the wonderful Christmas Markets. That night we had a goodbye beer with everyone in the program in the Pub downstairs and then said goodbye to everyone. My brother and I hung around with my suite-mates for a while before making it into bed.

We woke the next morning and said goodbye to my suite-mates before they headed off to the airport. It was said to see everyone leave. Thank goodness for Facebook. Jon and I then went into the city and did some laundry. Jon was quite excited to be able to use a washing machine and dryer. We finished our laundry, then headed to lunch before dropping the laundry at the dorm. He and I then went out to the Christmas Markets again to gets some food and do some last minute Christmas shopping. We made it back to the dorm and hung around for a bit before heading out to catch our bus to Zurich.

Our bus ride to Zurich was very very very long. We finally made it by 11 a.m. Sunday morning and found our way to the hotel. We then settled and wandered around the city for a bit and grabbed our train ticket to Milan for the 22 December (tomorrow). We hung around and got some food and then went out with a few British guys we met at the hostel and got a beer that night.

Today we went up to Uteilberg (the mountain overlooking Zurich) and hiked for a bit. We then wandered around the Christmas Markets here again and did some shopping. In between hiking and shopping we got some lunch. Jon and I found a stand where there was a Kenyan woman selling handmade things from Kenya. He and she got to talking for a while. It was a surprise to say the least. He and I are now hanging out for a bit before we grab some dinner and a beer.

Tomorrow we will travel and make our way to Turin. It is time for Christmas with the relatives.