Where did I leave off? German MTV? Lack of books leading to practice towards my neverending goal of being left-handed? Who can think when they're this tired anyway?

My birthday rocked. I'd say that's all I have to say, but it's not. It started off with me sleeping in...or attempting to, and then having my lovely sister return the courtesy I extended her on her birthday of calling at 7am for happy wishes and chit chat. For the record, I was in Barcelona at the time and had to catch a train and that was the only time that day I would be able to call her, but anyway...

I'm on the phone and my wonderful boyfriend gets home from work (around 8am) bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Since we're both wide awake at this point, we decided it was perfect time for some pancakes with the mystery czech pancake mix (at least there were pictures on the box of the closest thing to pancakes to be found) which turned out to be a success. I skimmed through our german spice rack and realized we had cinnamon. All I have to say about that is yum. I actually had a full belly before going back to bed and sleeping away half the day...or trying to and running across the house to answer the phone for birthday wishes from most of the Schroeder side of the family. Mom must have sent everyone and their dog my phone number. At any rate, it was quite pleasant to talk to the fam, most of whom I haven't heard from in forever, and I still got much needed rest. I just need to note how much I miss my biggest brother who I haven't seen in over a year.

All I asked Logan for for my birthday was to not have to plan anything. I don't care if we sail the world or watch a movie, I just didn't want to arrange it (and didn't want to know what it was beforehand). We started off strolling all around downtown Prague, aimed at one of our favorite bars called Propaganda for some tastey bloody marys but they were closed due to rennovation. This wasn't much of a problem because we were both starving and that stop was right on the way to the surprise restaurant for dinner - The Lemon Leaf. DAMN good Thai food. We accomplished some runny noses and even watery eyes and had the blissful afterglow of spicey food. Mmmm...endorphines....we're sooooo going back there before we leave. You take spicey food for granted when you live in California and have at least a taqueria on every corner...granted mexican food isn't exactly curry, but you get the drift. I found "salsa" at the supermarket here in the international foods section, got the spiciest one available, and it still tasted like chopped up tomatoes, maybe with some salt and pepper. Anyway, it was easily the best meal we've had (treated ourselves to) in the czech republic...I can't say europe because we had THE BEST QUICHE in the world in Paris. It was absolutely amazing and our hearts were broken when we went through Paris the second time and they were closed for the night, but I digress...

The meal was followed by another stroll around the Charles Bridge area just as the sun was setting (we got a great picture of the castle off in the distance, which stands as the only picture taken on my birthday) and then made our way across the bridge to one of our favorite Irish pubs, JJ Murphys, for some guiness and bailey. A little history - Logan got me addicted to this combination, strangely enough, in Seville, Spain because we needed to stay up all night until the train station opened in the morning and figured that the only place people might speak english is an Irish pub, which was pretty accurate...well, they at least understood english. I got my first drinks of the night there and we slowly walked back across the bridge to our flat to meet up with our flatmate to go out for the night. It turns out that we made our way to Logan's hostel to start the night off with some cheap drinks and a lively atmosphere. We met up with the bartender at his bar downstairs (a friend of ours) with the intention of going to a club downtown. When we finally got ready to leave, it ended up that we had a crowd of about 20 people staying at the hostel who wanted to come out and party the night away with us. I'm special...everyone wanted to come out because of ME, I'm sure. That made it all the more exciting, and we somehow walked from Prague 7 to Prague 1 to the club for a night of madness. Nothing notably exciting happened, but it was much fun and many, many free drinks for me. I had a perfect, happy 21st and felt fine in the morning. We both woke up ridiculously early for some reason, and at the same time, so we jumped across the street to our favorite usual place, Cafe Archa, for a hearty breakfast that neither of us could finish. And of course, went directly back to sleep when we got home.

When we both woke up for good the next day, some time in the early evening, we got lunch/dinner at what we dubbed The Lesbian Pizza Place. The only people in there were couples of 2 females...I mean, it could have been a very woman-friendly place, or maybe there were just a bunch of friends that decided to go there on a regular basis to split a pizza, but we took our time in our sleepy, relaxed state and nibbled at a pizza for quite a while and THE ONLY people that rotated in and out of there were females in twos. No thang, they had great, quick service and good grub so we'll probably go back there again before we leave. From here, we decided we were in a movie mood but there wasn't anything new out. We walked away from the theater but ended up walking back because we still didn't want to do much but watch a movie IN ENGLISH so we saw 2 movies we'd already seen (we kinda ducked out of one toward the end to see the other one)....it was a treat but I decided that since Logan had off work 2 days in a row so it was my "birthday weekend" and we had to keep being lazy and going out to eat and such. Good times, and we hit up Cafe Archa again on our way home for a late dinner. All in all it was a fantastic birthday weekend and I couldn't have asked for anything more.

Now I'm soaking up free internet at Logan's work and trying to stay awake with him for his 12 hour shift. They really need another receptionist. Anyway, his parents got here a few days ago, along with his younger brother, and they've been feeding us. They got us berries at a farmer's market and have taken us out to eat at some of our favorite places in exchange for showing them around Prague and getting woken up at 8am. It's been quite nice, but today we're both rather worn out and sleepy, and my glands are swollen fighting off something. Luckily we have tomorrow to sleep and may just treat ourselves to some Thai food for dinner. Mmmm....I'm already drooling.

5 more hours of the night shift, then 2 more hours of staying awake to say goodbye to his parents who are off to Venice tomorrow morning. I hope the night starts to fly by soon....

Much love. Email me.