So no pictures this time. I left my camera upstairs and I really don't want to go get it. That would be due to the fact that it looks like a hundred very tiny men took machetes to my feet. Ah yes, the joys of a mud-walking tour. We left Bonn very early Thursday morning and headed north towards the Netherlands. We made a pit stop at a MoorMuseum in northern Germany and then headed on to a "if you blink you miss it" town in the Netherlands called Pieterburen. There we did a mud-walking tour of a special intertidal zone called the Wadden Sea which is home to lots of seals among other things. I don't actually know this from experience because we didn't see any seals but that's the rumor. Anyhoo, a mud-walking tour is exactly what it sounds like. We all rolled up our jeans/changed into shorts and doned whatever crappy shoes we had brought along and went on a hike through mud, knee-high mud. Now, we were not warned that it would be that muddy. So I just brought a pair of cheapo target shoes that I bummed from my mom. What we really needed was high-tops or some other similar type of shoes that closes around your ankle. About a quarter of the way through I lost my shoes (sorry mom). They just couldn't handle the mud and slipped right off my feet. This wouldn't have been a big deal except, being an intertidal zone, there were shells everywhere. So I walked barefoot the rest of the way, hence the tiny men with machetes metaphor. My poor feet are holding up fairly well. They look worse than they feel anyway. So now I have Aggie Vets in Europe battle scars.
[insert hilarious picture of Kati in the mud having walked right out of her shoes so now she's treking back to her formerly white shoes in her bright blue socks]
We stayed overnight in Pieterburen and then went to a seal rescue and rehabilitation facility. This place is a world renowned center for seal rescue. They have like a 93% success rate with the seals they bring in which is incredible. Unfortunately we couldn't read any of the panels or info packets because everything was in Dutch but I think we got the general idea. Then we got to watch them feed a couple of absolutely adorable 1 week old orphaned harbor seals.
[insert adorable picture of a couple of scary looking, gowned up workers feeding a cuddly seal through a tube]
After the rehabilitation center we left the Netherlands to head back to Bonn. On the way we dropped off the entire group minus me and Christine at the bus station so they could catch a bus to Amsterdam for our first free weekend. Christine and I stayed in Bonn one more night and left for Prague early this morning.
Our flight was at 7am so we had to get up at 4am. Now one of the weirdest things about being here is that we are actually pretty far north and it's summer so the days are insanely long. It start getting dark until 10pm. Marty asked me yesterday what time the sun comes up and I actually had no idea because the earliest we'd gotten up was 6am and the sun was streamin through my window. Today, I found out. The sun rises around 4:50am. What?! Christine and I had a pretty funny experience in our taxi to the bus station this morning. He was just pulling away from the curb infront of our student residence and there was construction blocking the road. So you turn around, right? What a waste of time! No, we drove up onto the side walk and by-passed the construction. Think about how many people you would maul if you did that in the states? Also, there's the whole jail thing. Anyway, we finally made it to Prague early this morning and we've spent the day attempting to find our way around having absolutely no knowledge of the Czech language. Fun stuff.
Today, we went to Prague Castle which actually looks nothing like a castle. We decided it looks like a compound. It's a bunch of hotel-ish looking buildings surrounding St. Vitus Cathedral. Nice garden though. We just kinda goofed around for a while and then went to a great matinee classical concert. It was performed in one of the exhibit halls in one of the buildings of the Prague Castle. It was just a flute, viola and piano and about 50 people listening. Very intimate. They played some of my favorite classical music which was great. I really enjoyed that. After Prague Castle we walked across the famous Charles Bridge where local artists sell stuff and then walked around the main town square. We watched the Astronomical Clock at 4pm which, as the guidebook suggested, was incredibly unremarkable. They make it out to be this big production and then barely anything happens and it takes about 15 seconds. Oh well, at least we can say we did it. Now we're about to go scope out the jazz scene in Prague, which apparently is a big thing.
[insert gorgeous picture of Christine and I infront of a fabulous view of Prague]
That's it for now. More to come later.
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