Hey, about 10% of a year down already. That flew by. Today was the first travel day which meant I was up at 4am to shower, assemble the last of my things and be downstairs by 5am. It was buses to Belgrade via Budapest. What should be a six to eight hour drive by car took a total of 19 hours door to door. That’s all I have to say about that.

Today was the last day in Prague and I had a lot to do before traveling the next day. I spent the morning packing everything up and then I embarked on a task I’d put off for a long time; figuring out the Czech post office. As it turned out the post office itself wasn’t that difficult to figure out apart from being the one place in all of Prague where no one spoke any English. The real challenge, I discovered, is that I was woefully ill equipped to send packages. I had no boxes, no tape, no paper  and nothing to actually pack items in. So I literally spent the entire day walking around Prague (nice because I got one last look at everything) scrounging for news paper and tape etc. Oh, and then I finally learned that the post office does, in fact, sell boxes and was able to buy some there. By the time that was over I was exhausted and wanted to sleep but I still had work to do so I went to Bad Jeff’s BBQ for a second night in a row being as it was literally right on the corner. This could have been an early night but work kept me occupied until around midnight.

The focus today was still on getting back to 100% and catching up on work so it was a pretty uneventful day. Started out with breakfast at Kavarna Zanzibar and then headed to K10 to work for most of the day. In the evening I went to Bad Jeff’s BBQ which is an American BBQ joint one black from my apartment. I’d been putting off going but I’m glad I did. American BBQ, American whiskey, American music and a ton of Americans. Highly recommended to any Prague ex-pats feeling homesick. I had the ribs (obviously) and they were very well done, on par with just about anything I’ve had in Denver but certainly not other places in the U.S. The sides were nothing to write home about, though, and by Prague standards it was an expensive meal. I made it home and actually went to sleep early for a change.

After a busy week the last days in Prague are devoted to catching up on work and taking care of any last minute preparation for the transfer to Belgrade. I went to the now familiar Kavarna Zanzibar for a slow breakfast and to catch up on reading before heading to K10 to do some work. We had a town hall meeting at the vineyard near K10, Vinicni altan, to discuss travel plans. It was a cute place and the view is very nice, I would have liked to have lingered but I had to head back to K10 and continue working. In the evening we had our farewell event at Restaurant Jelica BioGurmania which featured an acrobatic performance and a Bollywood dance performance by some of our fellow remotes who killed it despite having only a couple of practice sessions. Facing another busy day and still feeling a little under the weather I called it an early night and made it home just after midnight, woot.

All travel today, not very exciting. Early flight to Barcelona from Geneva with a long layover before connecting back “home” to Prague in the evening and heading right to bed. I will say this, though. The Barcelona airport is gorgeous, possibly nicer than DEN. There seemed to be an odd lack of chairs, however, which makes admission to the Pau Casals lounge rather critical if you’re stuck there for any amount of time.

More driving, albeit less than yesterday, as we headed down to Geneva for the evening. Lake Geneva is gorgeous but the town itself bears no comparison to Prague. We had lunch at the Four Seasons restaurant which was great but mind-blowingly expensive. ($30 per glass of champagne!? $50 for a burger!?) Once again we strolled around town to see some of the major tourist sites like the flower clock. We did a cruise around the lake which was very affordable by Swiss standards and included some great views of the surrounding mountains. Another recommended activity. There were planes to catch in the morning so once again it was an early/work related evening.

Today was dominated by the back roads dominated and very scenic drive to Zurich. By the time we arrived all of the late evenings was catching up with me so we called it a fairly early evening with a walk around down town and some dinner at a simple brat place. On the square where we stayed near the Opera House there is a place called Moevenpick Ice Cream which I highly recommend… if you feel like spending $50 on some ice cream. Of course, this is about part for the course for Switzerland. Don’t expect to be able to leave your room for less than that regardless of what you’re doing.

A fairly early start to the day had us headed down to the Prague train station to catch a train to Regensburg to see my all time best friend and free range degenerate, Peter. Naturally we ended up sitting next to a mother and daughter from Idaho on the train and chatting with them helped pass the time. I had to do some work after we got to Regensberg and checked into our hotel but after that we met up with Peter and went out for a pretty steadily escalating evening that concluded with us sitting on the banks of the river having beers around two or three am. Having not heard from Peter since seeing him there I can only assume he fell in after I left.

The first time I went to check out Prague castle and St. Vitus Cathedral they were out of audio tours. As a guy who likes to know every single thing about the sights I’m seeing I couldn’t let this stand. So today we went back and picked up some audio tours. I didn’t realize it was a thing but we happened up right at the changing of the guard at noon which was very cool as well. We spent the afternoon at a cafe in the garden of the castle doing some work before attempting another early evening so we could catch a train in the morning.