On Monday I was looking forward to sleeping in the extra 15 minutes, but then I remembered that we were taking my grandma back to the train station. I got ready and went to the city with Robert and babička. Once we had dropped her off, I went to my Czech lesson. After my lesson I went to school and did my best to catch up on my journal and blog after a long weekend. I had a busy two weeks coming up, so after school I went home immediately and called all of the girls that I had plans with. I also managed to call my mom for our monthly check in before I had dinner.
After dinner I continued to work on my plans and I asked my host parents if it was okay for me to go do all of the things I wanted to do before ski week. They of course said yes, but were sad to hear that I would be gone for 9 days straight.
On Tuesday my host dad flew to England for a few days for a work trip. In the morning I said goodbye and then went to school. After school Gigi and I went to a cafe before we met up with Hannah. We wanted to hang out with her and show her around a bit since she was still pretty new to the city. We ended up just going to another one of our many cafes that we go to. After drinking some coffee and chatting about how her exchange was going, we all went home.
When I got home I called Juliana to finalize our plans for the week. While I waited for my mom to get home I did some laundry and watched some Netflix.
For the first time in a few weeks I actually made it to school before 7 when it starts on Wednesday. After lunch at school Shri and I went to the principal’s office to get our Rotary allowance and I helped Shri pay for more lunches.
After school I ran to the mall and quickly bought a few birthday presents for Juliana and then I ran to catch my train home. When I got home I tried to clean up my room a bit and put away all of my laundry. Then I got everything out for ski week and my weekend with the girls before ski week. It took a lot more time than I thought it would to make everything fit in my suitcase, but I made it work eventually. Once I was packed I had dinner with my mom and brother and then I did my last bits of packing before going to bed.
I went to school at the usual time in the morning, but I only went to a couple of lessons before I left to help Gigi get a birthday present for Juliana. Then we went to the train station and found our train to Prague. Juliana had gotten on a train a bit earlier than us from Ostrava so that we would arrive around the same time in Prague. We had been texting with her most of the trip to Prague updating each other with how close we were and if we were delayed. Then at one of the stops we looked over at the train across the platform from ours, and we saw Juliana as her train left the station! I’m sure everyone sitting around us thought we were crazy for being so excited about it, but we didn’t care.
Once we arrived in Prague we went to the middle of the station and found Juliana. Then we bought some tram tickets for our stay. Juliana’s host brother goes to university in Prague so he has a flat there, that he let us stay at for the night. So once we had bought our tickets, we made our way to the flat to drop off our things. Then we changed and hung out until we knew where we were going next.
We made our way back closer to the city center to meet up with some of the Prague kids for a birthday dinner. We went out to a Mexican restaurant were we all got tacos and virgin margaritas. We all ended up trading tacos since we all got different ones. After dinner we all payed and everyone wished Juliana happy birthday.
Ryan, Gigi, Juliana, and I were all going to a concert for her birthday since her favorite rapper from her city was preforming on her birthday in Prague. So we slowly made our way to the club where the concert was going to be. We showed up early, but there was still a huge line of people to get in the door.
As soon as we got in the door we all split up so that we could get everything done in time and still get good places for the concert. Juliana and Gigi waited in line to buy shirts before the concert while Ryan dealt with coat check, and I ran to get our spot in front of the stage.
At around 8pm the first DJ came on, and we got warmed up for all of the dancing and jumping around that we would be doing later when Aminé came on. Before the concert we had met some Germans that were standing near us. We knew all of the words to every song that he played and we were in a pretty good place in the crowd. Finally at around 9pm Aminé came on and we were all so excited! He is from Portland Oregon so Juliana and I felt very much at home.
Halfway through the concert he picked a random girl from the crowd to come on stage. He buys a patch for his “concert pants” from each city that he visits, and then lets someone sign it and write whatever they want.
Once the concert was over we waited in line at the coat check which took forever. Gigi ended up having to argue with on of the people working there to get her coat since they lost the ticket when she gave it to them. Eventually it all worked out and we said bye to all of the people that we had met.
After we finally got out of the club we all hugged Ryan goodbye and told him that we would see him in a few days at ski week. Then we walked to go catch our tram to Juliana’s brother’s flat. As soon as we got there we brushed our teeth, changed and went straight to bed for another early morning the next day.
As soon as we woke up, we packed our things and headed to the train station. We got there a bit earlier than expected which was perfect since we needed to buy breakfast. After going to the store to buy a few things to eat on the train, we still had more waiting time. We went upstairs and had a coffee while we waited for our trains.
We said goodbye to Gigi and sent her on her way back to Brno while Juliana and I looked for our train to Ostrava. Since we were celebrating our birthdays we decided to pay the extra little bit for the nicer seats on the train. Most of the way back we just slept after a long night since we had comfortable seats.
When we got to Ostrava we made our way to her mom’s office so that we could put our things in the car before going around the city. We talked for a bit and got a grocery shopping list and some money before heading off to run a few errands around town.
First we went to the ski rental shop to try and rent some skis for Juliana for her ski trip at the end of the month. Then we went to the mall and did some shopping even though neither of us needed to buy anything. We finished off our remaining time with a big grocery shopping trip. We bought a few things that her mom had needed for the weekend, along with the things that we needed for the lunch that we were going to make. Once we were done shopping we walked to where we had agreed to meet Juliana’s mom. When she picked us up we immediately went back to the train station to meet Maggie who was also going to spend the weekend with us. We had to wait awhile for her train to arrive, but as soon as she got there we got in the car and made the journey back to Juliana’s house.
Back at her house we helped Juliana pack for ski week as well as trying to reorganize our own things. After we were all packed and ready for ski week, we mostly hung out, drank tea, and chatted about what we had been up to since the last meeting.
We had a small dinner in the evening with Juliana’s host parents before going to take showers. Maggie braided my hair while we watched some videos together. Eventually we all went to bed after another kind of long day.
The next morning was our last day before our big ski week began. We slept in a little bit and discovered that Juliana’s parents were out when we first got up. We decided to make French toast breakfast for everyone since that was something all of us knew how to make quite easily. We burnt the first few pieces since the stove got really hot really fast, but we figured it out eventually. Everyone seemed to like the French toast which I think made all of us happy.
Once we had cleaned up our breakfast mess, Juliana decided to try and make her favorite no-bake cookies. They ended up not really working like they usually do, but they still tasted good. After cleaning up that mess too, we made some tea and headed upstairs for a break.
For lunch we decided to go easy and just make some tortellini and a nice salad that Juliana eats all the time in the US. We all worked together to make all of it in the tiny kitchen. Finally it was done, and we all sat down for another American meal. The salad was really good, and was super fresh. It was a spinach salad with blueberries, strawberries, goat cheese, and a balsamic dressing.
After lunch we cleaned up our mess again and made more tea to drink while we all hung out in Juliana’s room. We got bored again after just sitting and talking for about an hour, so we decided to try to make the brownie recipe that my dad had sent me. They actually turned out pretty well, and I was quite happy. Once we had cleaned up from our baking project, we had a small dinner and went back upstairs.
There is a loft area in one of the rooms that we were staying in that we hung out in for awhile. There were a ton of puzzles and games in the loft that we came across as we sat and chatted. Maggie and I got inspired and decided to try to do as much of the puzzle as we could before we fell asleep. It was actually quite difficult because it was 1000 pieces and most of it was black since the picture was of the solar system. We worked on the puzzle for a few hours before all realizing how late it was, and how early we had to get up the next day. So we cleaned up the puzzle and said goodnight.
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