As you can see, I've done a little updating to my blog layout. I was getting bored of the plain background, and although I liked the dynamic view of my posts, the template was buggy and did not like to have my pages show up in the toolbar. The previous layout also wasn't very friendly with my widgets, which I like to have visible (plus, my mum begged me to put a picture of myself back on the home page - she keeps telling me she misses my face - which I couldn't do on the old layout).
So, I looked through my pictures, did some editing, and chose the one you are seeing now! This shot was taken from the lookout of the South Tower (287ish steps up!) of the Prague Castle, and I think it is an appropriate representation of the city! I just hope my mom doesn't complain about the colors again *hint* *hint* I think this layout is still pretty reader friendly, although I wish I could have the dynamic view with the addition of sidebars and without the bugs, but we can't have everything, now can we? Just make sure to check my "Blog Archive" on the left sidebar to make sure you are all caught up on my posts. Okay, are we good? Good. Let's get to the other updates!
I am working on the Vienna post (promise!) and I will start the Rome post soon after. In the meantime, I wanted to share a few things & thoughts! It has been tiring to travel for four weekends in a row, and although I am sure you are just super duper interested in what I have been up to while away from Prague, some of you might be curious what I am doing here, too! No? You're not? Well, I don't blame you, it hasn't been particularly exciting...but, I'll tell you anyway!
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| Here is a little taste of Vienna to break things up and get your mouth watering for that post! |
SoOoOo...I have been spending full days at work lately, as we are working our butts off to get all of the necessary content uploaded for the website launch later this month. Wait...this month is almost over! Yikes! We are hoping to have all of the content that we have received from each region uploaded by the end of the day tomorrow. We can do it!
This content comes from all of the different regions, and most has not been translated from the regional language into English. Guess who gets to translate them: this girl! Yup. Now, you all know I am not fluent (or really even intermediate) in any secondary language, so how, you ask, am I translating articles from Polish, Portuguese, and Greek? Google Translate! No joke. I am using the tool to translate the articles, then rewriting and polishing them up. So, basically, the quality of the English articles might not be fantastic. Oh, don't worry, they read nicely, but who knows if their content is very accurate to the originals. Fortunately, the people I work with are very good at understanding languages they don't speak, and most of the time we can figure confusing phrases out, but honestly, it is impossible to tell if what Google Translate spits out is what the original article meant. This has been quite an experience! It's not so bad, except that my head wants to spontaneously combust after a while. Let's hope it doesn't!
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| http://buquad.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Cartoon-Translated-Literature-complete-e1267584365610.jpg |
Speaking of (and I'm really really sorry to my teammates and coach who are reading this), I haven't consistently worked out since I've been here, which will be seven weeks this Saturday. First of all, I'm wondering where the hell all of that time went! Second, I've noticed that being on a regular work schedule where I spend a full work day in the office (and usually a couple hours working at home), the days fly by! I really need to start exploring after work! Typically I wake up, get ready for work, go to work, go to the grocery store, go home, do nothing, do some work, take a nap, make dinner, do more of nothing, go to bed, and repeat. I have gotten really really bad about staying in all the time. It's so stupid! Here is my resolution to spend more time doing something around the city in place of doing nothing in my flat. Hold me to that, okay?? Also, hold me to getting on a regular workout schedule! It's just so dang hard to wake up at 6am when I could get up at 7:30 instead. Ahh, the struggle. Okay, had enough whining?
In other news, I found an incredibly cheap roundtrip flight (less than $100!) to Rotterdam. If you remember, when Carly, Jacqueline, and Katie came to visit, we made some friends who live there! One of them, Robin, invited me to visit and offered to show me around the city. I really want to go, and I really really want to go during Tulpenfestival! Can you even imagine how beautiful it must be to see rows and rows and rows and rows of brightly colored tulips, just lined up across huge fields?! I think that would be an incredible experience!!
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| This picture of the Tulpenfestival comes from the blog "My Love Journey in Holland" and can be found at http://mylovejourneyinholland.blogspot.cz/2012/03/countus-tulpenfestival.html |
This picture makes me want to book my flight right now, but I am not sure how I feel about this trip yet, so I will keep you updated on my plans. I think it will probably happen, but we shall see!
So, I have figured out that with a little editing, my washed out pictures turn out fabulous! Okay, they turn out better than without the editing! For example, a side-by-side comparison: the before and after of the picture I used for my new blog background!
Lookie there! My washed out-looking picture ends up much more vibrant and beautiful! I can't wait to go through all of my pictures and see how wonderful they look after editing. Well, I can kind of wait, because it will be a lot of work, but the outcome will definitely be worth it!!
Other exciting things going on in my life: tonight I finally get to hang out with Camille again after not seeing her for almost a month (how the heck did that happen??)! We are going to some Erasmus party with a bunch of people from her program - should be a good time! I am also super excited to actually be in Prague this weekend, because on Sunday I am going to try out a local English-speaking church that I have been wanting to check out since my first week here, and also on Sunday I WILL GET TO PLAY VOLLEYBALL YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!! There are a couple groups around who get together on Sundays and play some pickup beach ball, and I have been wanting to go since I found out about them, but I have been away every single time they have played. I will FINALLY be in town this Sunday, and there is absolutely no way I am missing a chance to touch a ball after at least 2 and probably closer to 3 or more months of not playing. I am so excited!!!!!! I hope I'm not too rusty!!
One more thought for the day: I am incredibly, incredibly lucky to be having this experience. A lot of people get to study abroad (I never thought I would actually get to be one of them!), but a lot of people don't. If it wasn't for the anonymous benefactor at my school, I don't really know how I would have managed this trip. Sure, I promised myself that I somehow would, but after being here for almost two months, I am really realizing that it might not have happened. I also realize that without that financial support, there would be absolutely no way I would have gotten to travel so much! A few of my trips were included with my program, but Berlin and Rome were not, and the handful of other big trips I am planning are not, either. Without that scholarship, I would never have the opportunity to experience Europe like I have and will!
On that same note, I might either have to eat Ramen (well, the Czech version - yes, there is one) for the rest of my stay or find some random jobs to do, because I want to travel so much more!! I am going to have to put myself on a budget - yikes! A little discipline is good, though, and something I have been lacking in for the past 7 weeks....oops.
Those are all of the random thoughts I have for now, people! I hope this will tide you over until I take the time to actually sit down and focus on chronicling my time spent in Vienna and Rome!!
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