Karen's Dangling Conversation

This is taken from the Daily Om . I thought it was a really good example of taking ownership for our own lives. Namaste Devoting time each day for happiness will change your day and change your brain chemistry. It can be so easy to get caught up in the rigors of modern life that we tend to forget that happiness need not come with stipulations. Happiness becomes something we must schedule and strive for—a hard-won emotion—and then only when we have no worries to occupy our thoughts. In reality, overwhelming joy is not the exclusive province of those with unlimited time and no troubles to speak of. Many of the happiest people on earth are also those coping with the most serious challenges. They have learned to make time for those simple yet superb pleasures that can be enjoyed quickly and easily. Cultivating a happy heart takes no more than five minutes. The resultant delight will be neither complex nor complicated, but it will be profound and will serve as a reminder that there i...

The Top Ten Things we Love about Prague! 10. We loved the Anna Hotel ....not so much of a high rating for comfort...the beds..not so comfortable, but the internet was super good and free, breakfast every morning was good and free and the location was great! 9. The neighborhood laundry mat : You have to understand that Brad obsesses about laundry any time we go on a trip and so Amanda and I were so happy that this little laundry mat was just around the corner from our hotel. Apparently it is one of two in the whole city. It had a cute little seating lounge complete with drinks and a guest book to sign and free internet. Brad was cozey in his little den while he waited for the laundry. 8. Neighborhood Grocery every half a block: There are a serious amount of stores in Prague, every inch is covered in stores of some kind and bakeries. I don't know how they can all make a living. We loved our little corner store that has fresh baked bread and pastries in the morning and lots ...

Friday, our last full day in Prague. We met our tour guide Renata again, this time for a tour of the castle of Prague. If you ever need a tour guide in Prague we highly recommend her, she is just full of information and her english is very good and I think anyone who can withstand the constant barrage of questions that Brad throws and still keep smiling deserves a medal. She was great! She let us know a whole bunch of history about the castle and the monastery there. We had a very well planned day of exploring and shopping and then she left us in the Old Town Square once again. We decided to have some more of that wonderful ice cream at the Grand Cafe on the square. So we sort of had a backwards lunch because this guy really wanted us to go upstairs and have coffee and so we went and ordered ice cream. And it was really delicious so we were glad we did but we wanted to find another hot dog stand for lunch so we headed to Wenceslas Square and found a really good hot dog stand, b...

Thursday, was a free day and we took full advantage by sleeping in and being lazy all morning. We decided to go and ride the tram and see where it would take us. Prague not only has a wonderful underground metro, it also has a really nice tram system that operates above ground and makes it ideal for sight seeing. We headed down to the tram stop, about 1 1/2 blocks from our hotel and made sure to stop in on a local bakery to sample some of the local fare. It was wonderful and fresh....yum! We boarded the tram and went all the way to one end. Got off and got back on to ride back the other direction. We made stops along the way where ever we wanted to. You just get on and off as needed. We stopped at a large grocery store out in the subarbs of town. Brad wanted to compare prices and we decided to stock up on treats to bring home. We got back on and headed back through town and out the other side. It was fun to see everything. Then we went back and stopped at a major shopping ...

Wednesday, we again met our tour guide but this time she had arranged for a car to take us outside of Prague to a town called Kutna Hora. We stopped first at the House of Bones and even though Ranata kept telling us there were lots of bones I was flabbergasted when we walked in. It is housed in an ornate looking chapel from the outside but when you walk in it is really the house of bones. Bones everywhere, put into artistic little piles, making plaques on the walls, even the chandieler is made of bones. It was simply overwhelming how many bones in this place. They are human bones taken from people that were found buried around the town from ancient wars and also from times of plagues when many people died at once. She said the Catholic church used these bones as a warning to people to say you better repent and to remind people that we are nothing and that we need God. We rejoined our driver and headed to a beautiful cathedral in Kutna Hora, a really nice example of flying buttre...

Tuesday we met our guide Renata at our hotel. A very pleasant Czhec native who is a tour guide here. We spent a pleasant morning with her walking through the old Jewish Quarter of town and listening to a very interesting history of the German occupation here. I was very moved by some of the things that we saw and heard here. In one of the synagogues is a memorial to all of the Jews who were put to death during this time. The names were written on the walls and there were so many, more than 70,000 it took up all of the walls. In another part of the museum there were children's drawings saved by a woman who was an art teacher and encouraged the children to express themselves through drawing. She was eventually put to death as were most of the Jews but the pictures survived, hidden in a suitcase until after the war. These drawings depicted things like life in the camp, life before they came to camp etc. One that really struck me was a picture of a dinner table with many empty...

Sunday night was NOT a good night on this trip. Amanda caught the bug that Brad had and she spent the entire night and much of the next morning throwing up. Oh it was soooo sad! I tried all of the mothering things I could possibly think of and Brad gave her a blessing but I finally had to just drag her bedding into the bathroom and tell her to lay down when she could. This was about 5 am and then Brad and I tried to get some sleep. We had to fly out that morning, Monday to Prague and we were very worried that she wouldn't be able to get on the flight. Finally about 11 am she settled down a little and some how we all limped out of the hotel at 12Noon and headed for the airport. It was not a good day but somehow we all made it to Prague and due to Brad's good planning found our hotel quickly and put Amanda back to bed, after finding her some sprite and crackers. Luckily whatever this bug was, it seemed to dissappear quickly which we were very grateful for. Thankfully I d...

Amanda so excited to see Versailles! Our tour guide, we'll just call him Pierre, he was very french and so funny....and I don't think he was trying to be! Today was Sunday and it was our day to go to Versailles. We took a tour there and we really enjoyed the Fountains. Brad & I had been there before but did not get to see the fountains. The gardens are amazing and spectacular on their own but when you add water and music to the fountains it is out of this world! Amanda and I ran around trying to see all of it, which was impossible in the time alloted us, but we did get to see most of it. Brad took his time due to his disability and he decided not to go on the palace tour which gave him more time in the garden and seeing the fountains. He really enjoyed it! Amanda and I went on the Palace tour and we had a very french tour guide, he was a little hard to understand but he was entertaining! From there we tried to find someplace fun for dinner and settle on a little ca...

Saturday was a little eventful as Brad awoke with some version of the stomache flu. He tried to say it was just something he ate but we think he had some kind of bug. We ended up lazying around the hotel until about 2pm when the maid became persistant that she wanted to clean our room so up and out we went, back to Paris. We headed to Notre Dame Cathedral and to our favorite part of town. It contains some of the cultural quarters of the city. After we enjoyed seeing the flying buttresses of Notre Dame we went into the most interesting part of Paris, where a lot of the students hang out and it is just buzzing with good food and all kinds of culture. We stopped at my favorite bakery but sadly they had no Tarte aux fambroise (raspberry tart) so we moved on. We stopped at a little restaurant and had some delicious food. I had the crepe complete which was a crepe with ham, scrambled egg and cheese. It was amazing. Then Amanda and I found a little crepe place and she tasted her fir...

A Tart Aux Frambois a day is all I ask of Paris! YuM! On Friday we slept in a little then we got up and after a wonderful (free) breakfast at the hotel, we headed into Paris for our museum day! I just have to say how good breakfast was, I had 3, count them, 3 croissants with breakfast, with butter and jam, they were soooo good! One of the reasons why I love France! We started at the D'Orsay Museum, one of my favorites. lots of Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre Renoir, Rodin & Denis just to name a few. I have to say that my favorite painting this time was the Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait de l'artise, a self portrait. I have seen this painting many times in print but never in real life and I have to say it made all the difference. It is beautiful and colorful and full of texture as all of his paintings are. I was mesmorized by it and had to have a second look before we left. I was dissapointed to find that Starry, Starry Night is still o...

We arrived in Paris on Thursday morning (4/29/10). After an uneventful direct flight from SLC airport to Charles Degul Airport. The flight was about 10 hours and surprisingly Amanda and I slept about 4 hours. So we arrived about 11am Paris time and checked into our hotel. We stayed the first night at the Hilton located near the airport and right next to the train station, which made it very convenient. Poor Brad with his sprained ankle, he took two severe spills on the uneven sidewalks as we left the train station, he had his little rolling scooter and it caught on the sidewalk twice and he was spilled out onto the ground. We checked in to our room and slept for about 3 or 4 hours. Then we headed into Paris to go on our night time tour down the Seine. The boat tour was fun and we saw some of the wonderful sights of Paris all lit up, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, several really beautiful bridges. We finished with a bus tour of night time Paris and ended the tour at the Champs D...