Hi everyone!

I feel approximately 95% human again after a wicked combination of jet lag and moving in 100+ degree weather struck for the last week and a half.

More recaps of our Europe trip will go up as we wade through 2000! pictures and I can convince Steven to write a few 🙂

Since we’ve been crazy busy the last couple of months (the end is in sight!! -happy dance-) typical things like grocery shopping, working out, Indy attention, binge watching Netflix, and general relaxing have gone out the window. I used to be the type of person who freaked out if I missed a workout no matter what the reason, i.e. working out every day while I was on a cruise. That’s cray y’all.

I haven’t worked out, run, swam, rode a bike, been to the gym, yoga’d, or anything like that since the beginning of May. And of course after eating our way through Europe, I’m not as fit as I like to be.

But it was totally worth it. Partially because I got to eat and drink everything set in front of me without worry. And partially because breaks are super healthy. As in, whatever you do to work out should not feel like another chore on your to-do list.

Now that we’re back and somewhat unpacked, I feel ready to start looking at some short races to sign up for in the upcoming months. I’m also SUPER excited to start working out again! It’s gonna be awesome!

See ya later with (maybe) an Amanda workout!

Hi again!

WiFi has been spotty at best so posting updates has been a little on the slow side. But that makes this more suspenseful right?!

Sigh. Never mind.

So after Budapest, we took a train up to Prague where first, the train was crazy crowded. Like, hope you don’t have to go to the bathroom unless you’re willing to literally climb over people crowded. And second, the conductor in Vienna forgot to do a full validation on our tickets so we had a bit of confusion\stress on that end.

We made it to Prague anyways and in one piece!

Steve and I stayed at Charles Bridge Hostel which, ironically, is right next to the tourist trap epicenter known as Charles Bridge (it was awesome cause we were right in the middle of everything)

This was the view out of our window

The hostel also had a cat named wifi. I grew pretty attached to wifi whole we were staying there.

Steve and I walked down to grab some beer and traditional Czech food at Olympia and were astounded at how much food and beer we got for less than $30!

We walked forged our way across the Charles Bridge to make get back to the hostel and crash, but we were interrupted by spontaneous fireworks that we had a front row seat to!

Our second day was filled with museums, castles, ice bars, and questionable museums on sex machines (and you thought this was a family trip lol)

Godmother death was a pretty popular person in older Slovak beliefs

We also saw the clock…

And we toured some of the gardens before heading up to the monastery for some life-changing beer. BTW, those monks do it right!

Later that night, Steve and I went with Andrew to the observatory to look at their telescope (we saw Saturn!!) And guess who got hurt…..

Side note:there’s a running joke in my family that its not a true vacation until someone visits the emergency room

Steve indoctrinated himself to the family by spraining his ankle -facepalm-

Luckily, it was only Steve so the test of the family was finally able to relax and enjoy the vacation (jk although we were a little relieved). Luckily, it was only a minor sprain and we had some awesome people around to help out!

The next day we took a train back to Vienna where lots of wine was drunk….

See ya later!

I’m writing this with 2.5 hrs of sleep while on a standing room only train to Prague. Luckily they fixed the AC before a small country boarded so it’s not sweltering like it was earlier.

Anyways we have been having a fantastic time on our vacation thus far! The two days a travel was a lot but we were able to spend a day and a half in Budapest. On a side note, if any companies in Budapest are hiring mechanical engineers, call me! Will move to awesome city!

Right after we found our hostel (Maverick City Lodge for those who are wondering) Steve and I found a cheap outdoor beer garden (0.5L beer for 350 ft/$1.50) and sat and just about fell asleep in the hammocks.

 

We met up with the rest of the family at St Stephen’s Basilica. After climbing about 10,000 stairs we were rewarded with stunning views of the city from the top of the tower!

My mom was driven by a calling to find the café with the best known strudels (she has the nickname Tour Guide Barbie for a reason 😉) so we wandered/marched over to the Pest side and climbed up a surprise small mountain to find this…

We did find the strudel place, but after unexpectedly traversing the entire city on foot in 90 degree weather, I really only remember the cold water and lemonade

The next day Steve and I ventured out on our own and decided to be those obnoxious tourists for a day. Best decision ever! We toured the major sights by bus and ferry which kept us cool

The highlight from all that was putting our feet in the fountain to cool off before climbing a tree and generally acting like 5 year olds 🙂

We met up with the fam again for dinner at Kaidia and had an OMG AMAZING DINNER. Definitely recommended! I got the duck with spinach gnocci and Steven got the goat cheese chicken (I totally won the who-ordered-the-better-dish-competition BTW)

We split off after that to join our hostel’s pub crawl with Emma and Stefan and Courtney and Sam. We somehow made it back to bed as the sun was rising at 4am so I’m assuming we had a great time 😀

I’ll be back soon with an update from Prague!

Ciao!