Czeching on folks!

Well, this past week has been pretty busy but a very good week over all because I've been able to do several things I really enjoy doing, such as visiting with guests who have been at the Eden House, having them at our house for a meal, going out to eat at everyone's favorite place-Arriba's!-and going to a movie. "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life."




This week we had four meals with folks at our house, went to eat at Arriba's! with an Eden House guest, and I saw Accidental Husband at the movie theatre with someone in for medical care. Each week when I update my blog, I sometimes feel like my life sounds so mundane to those who follow our life. It seems like all I have to share with you is the number of meals we had at our house and the movies I saw, but each one of those events is at the heart of what we do here. Really, I love my life and what Glenn and I are doing. We have the coolest "jobs". We have the privilege of getting to know folks at the heart level and that blesses me to the max! I just wish I could figure out a way to translate that into more than meals and movies!

By the way, if you're curious, you can go to the above web site and see what is playing at our neighborhood theatre. I'd be interested to know if the same movies are currently showing where you are!




Changing the subject a little, I got an early Christmas present from Glenn (but I'm hoping he'll forget that he already gave me my present and get me another one!) Ever since the ladies road trip that I took with Wendi and Ginger a couple of weeks ago to the polish pottery town during our camping trip, thanks to a GPS, I've wanted one for Glenn and me! The "freedom" it gave us ladies...to go, have fun, and not be afraid of getting lost on the way there or back! It was great!




Thursday evening I found Glenn in Electro World looking at GPS's and with a word of encouragement from me to go ahead and buy it, we became high tech M's. One of the difficult things of living overseas in a country where you don't speak the language is how to read and understand written directions. Glenn had to go to the internet and download the manual in English for us to use the next day on our trip to Czech Republic.




This is our first time to drive our car out of Budapest and the GPS made it so easy. (The reason we haven't driven before is that the car we were assigned was not reliable enough to go out of town where the tow companies were few and far between! We were recently assigned a newer vehicle when one of our folks moved to London.)

So, here we are in Prague (called Praha in the Czech language) for a meeting, having arrived without problems thanks to our Tomtom One, which we are fondly calling Tom.




This might be our last visit to Prague for quite some time so we wanted to do all our favorite things "one last time". With the reorganization of our company, we won't be having meetings and seminars here in Prague.

What trip to Prague would be complete without a visit to Bohemia Bagel, the home of American bagels and All-You-Can-Drink fountain drinks with ice!?! (Actually, we are noticing more and more restaurants are serving drinks with ice. Ahhh, progress!)




The evening stroll through Wencheslas Square with the anatomical clock and a gazillion tourists.




The gorgeous buildings still catch me by surprise!




We WON'T miss the parking headaches though! There are no available parking spaces. On the city streets are "permit only" parking. Our biggest problem on this trip was figuring out where we could park our car for 5 days. We are staying in a friends' apartment who is out of town this week and she led us to a man who rents out parking spaces behind his apartment building for $12 a day. A real bargain!

This picture was taken on Friday evening about 6 pm.




This picture was taken on Saturday morning. Not on the same street, but the same neighborhood. All the cars must belong to people who live outside the city and who drive in to work!!! The streets have gotten so congested with cars that what used to be a two way street is now one way because part of the street has been given over to parking spaces. More and more streets are becoming one way, which presents a real driving nightmare unless you've got Tom in the car with you!!!




Never seen this before but already have seen 3 this trip! Elevators outside the building. What a way to lose your bag of groceries! No, actually, these outside elevators are being used for cleaning the facades of the buildings and are much less intrusive than the wooden scaffolding that they usually use.

The last section of the yellow building on the left is the office in Prague. Many, many wonderful memories at this location. Meetings, Ebenezer (First-termers debriefing) worship services, graduation ceremony, catch-up time with our former boss, visits with Evelyn in the finance office (!) and marathons with Hawk on our computers. Sweet memories.

As I mentioned earlier, we are staying in a friends' apartment while she is out of town. Today is Sunday and Glenn is "resting" by reading a book. See that space beside him, to his right? That's where I was earlier for 1 1/2 hours today, napping. Truly, a day of rest.

We went to worship this morning at the Prague office, then met with our NEW boss who lives in London from noon until 4:30. We ate lunch with Bob at the food court in Flora mall and then just sat there and got to know each other, talking mostly about work, getting caught up on the changes and what they will mean for those of us in Member Care and MK education. It was good. We could have talked longer but we were all tired and so headed "home" to rest. Glenn was reading and I was napping next to him. zzzZZZ!

I woke to the smell of dinner cooking and the sound of Glenn saying, "Pete, it's time to get up!" Man, what a great day. What a great life!

And I guess I'll save the story behind the name Pete for another blog entry.

We're in a training seminar all day on Monday, visiting with families on Tuesday and Wednesday before heading back to BP on late on Wednesday. Glenn leaves for Greece next Monday.