Hello from Prague! Jessie and Maria here in an incredible city let me tell you!! Its been a while since our last update so I will back back back it up so you all can be caught up! Okay so Noordwijk. Pronounced Noord-vick. Absolutely beautiful, and just what we needed, a little relaxation after such big, busy cities like Dublin, London and Paris. Our hostel was across the street from the beach and we basically spent all day laying out and soaking up the rays! The water was freezing, but Jessie and Liz braved the cold up to their waist. The first night we were they we caught the sunset and enjoyed some of amsterdams finest.... bud-wiser. :) The next day is when we layed out and then around 5 we found out about a Dutch Reggae festival that was a good half hour walk from our hostel. We took the advice and went on the trek. Somehow we found our way there, weaving through sideroads in the country, we just fell upon it. It was a lot of fun, and I guess had been an all day festival but we were only there for the final two acts. The main act, Beef... (funny name we know,) was actually quite good! In fact we really enjoyed ourselves. Everyone seemed pretty drunk by the time we got there, and it was quite unusual to see all the 15 year old high school students going up and ordering beers and stumbling back to their clans. Oh those were the days, we are sooo much more mature now. So the concert was great the beach was great amsterdam was really great and then... GERMANY!!! As you all might know the World Cup is going on so Sunday night we took the train to Bochum which is right outside of Dortmund, where the concert was. We got in pretty late and woke up early monday morning to head off to dortmund and make sure we could find where the concert was held. We found it with no problem and had about 6 hours to kill, so we decided to wander about. We fell upon a huge outdoor World Cup festival with food and beer tents, a huge stage, which they barely used, and a large LCD screen that showed all the games. It was an awesome find and we saw many different people supporting their different countries, Japan, Germany, Austrailia, Brazil, and maybe like 3 US fans. That day we were able to see Austrailia play Japan, and the US lose to Czech. Quite a disappointing loss, but we couldnt dwell too long on it because Anthony Kedis was waiting to see me. Needless to say we rocked our socks off at the concert. Absolutely Unbelievable time!! We got some really good pics and a great video about 4 mins long for Give it away Give it away Give it away now!!! So the next morning we woke up bright and early to get the day started right and head off to the Czech Rep. to go to Prague. Well needless to say our early efforts didnt really pay off because we had about 4 hours of train delays throughout the day and didnt end up getting into Prauge until midnight. It was a long day on the train, but we kept ourselves occupied with beer and cards. Today we walked for-ev-er!!! Our hostel isnt the closest thing to every sight we wanted to see, but we decided instead of taking the subway we would see a lot more if we just wandered around. It was a very successful choice and we fell upon the Frank Gerhy Dancing House, some Cathedrals, and Museums. Tomorrow we plan on taking a walking tour so that someone more educated than us can tell us what the hell it was we saw today. It is a 6 hour walking tour, and costs about 900... You all might be thinking holy s*** right? Well divide that by 23 and you get how much it really is in USD. Here in Prague they use Crowns, which is quite confusing, we ended up paying about 60 dollars more for our cab ride the first night we were here, because we were tired and confused and not ready to do any sort of converting. I think there was a giant neon sign above our heads saying "These people have no clue, take advantage of them". So after the walking tour tomorrow we will be leaving Prague and heading off to.... drumroll pleaaaszeee... Venice Italy. We are very very excited (for lack of a better word) to be in Italy. It will also be our first overnight train experience, so hopefully that all goes well, about a 14 hour train ride. We will spend the day in Venice and then head towards Firenze aka Florence that night. We have made camping reservations (Dad- i think the same one Enzo was telling me about) so that should be a grand time. We actually have the next week and a half planned out and hostels booked, so that is relaxing/refreshing to know. Two nights camping in Florence and then to Roma. Lauren and everyone else that has been in Cinque Terra, we need advice on the city/hostel we should hit up. I know youve told us before but we need a little reminder. Let me think... anything else interesting to say? Ok we will talk about the restaurant dinning experince here in Europe. Basically everyone seems to really take time out to enjoy their food and wine (not water, no one drinks water and its seems hard as hell to get anyone to give us a little ice). They sit for hours and chat and enjoy each others company. You have to actually ask for a check when you are ready to go because they will not bring it until you say so, even if they know you are done eating and drinking. Also it seems that it is not customary to tip the service staff over here. It was a hard concept for us to grasp at first, we felt guilt, then that feeling quickly passed as we realized that people really dont tip over here. What are you gonna do? Not tip i guess. The girls and I were talking today about how hard it is to try to adapt their time schedule. As much as we like sitting around after a meal doing nothing, we feel antsy and just want to get up and go after we are done. I guess its just in our blood, but maybe once we venture to italy we will be able to adapt more to the laidback SLLLLOOOW time schedule everyone seems to be running on over here. Finally it has been getting warmer, today felt like about 80 and we are enjoying the sunny weather, havent had a rainy day yet (knock on wood). Tom says our luck, when we camp out it will be pouring the whole time, we hope he is wrong on that one. We have also been very lucky with choosing our hostels (again, knock on wood) We havent had a repulsive one yet, in fact the one we are at in Prague, even though its slightly away from the main part of the city, is very clean, very roomy and the cheapest we have stayed at so far. About 14 euro a night. Not bad, Not too bad. Unfortunately everytime we think we are saving a little here and a little there we feel (mainly us girls) that it will be okay to indulge in a little shopping. Okay so we have done a LOT of shopping. More looking than buying, but we have definately Bought!!! We have all got some pretty cute clothes to bring back to the states, providing they hold up for the next couple of weeks. Liz was joking one day saying that when we all buy new outfits it is like we have 3 new wardrobes because we have been sharing clothes a lot (no not underware megan). The boys get a little agitated with our wandering eyes in the shopping area, so sometimes we decide we will just split up and save them the headache. I think we all enjoy the time apart but not as much as the time together... awwww. I think we are all tapped out of things to say, keep those messages comming we love hearing from all of you. Take care and until next time Ciao Baby!! Italy is calling our names!! The Krafty Kansans