adventures with shepeck

Karla's visit has been both eventful & freezing at the same time. So, where to begin? Upon Karla's arrival, we successfully kept her awake for literally the entire day, all the way until midnight. There were a few times when we could see the glaze in her eyes, but we just made her push on. I am pretty sure we were about as excited to get all the treats Karla brought with from the States as we were to see her ;)jk lady! We went to a party at a friends house on Saturday night, Karla wants us to get their house (basically she told us our house was ugly compared to theirs, which was heartwarming, of course).
Then, Karla & I left for Prague on Sunday, after a quick flight in which we got a sammie (they fed us on a 1 hour flight, living large over here!) We arrived at the b&b, and as you can guess karla was not excited by the look of it (the outside is about as rough looking as the inside pics). Ota (the b&b owner) greeted us in his pj's & robe (why not?) and we settled in. Basically we spent our two days there seeing the sights, drinking warm beverages in a valiant attempt to stay warm & wandering into random shops to steal their heat for a few minutes. The walk back to the b&b felt ridiculously long every night & it was exacerbated by the fact that we (me) literally could not figure out how to unlock the door so we usually had another 3 minutes of struggling to open the front door with numb fingers. We pretty much could have been wearing the exact same outfit every day in Prague, because we hardly removed our coats, let alone our hats.
Upon our arrival into Prague, Karla & I both took out 3000CZK each, about $175USD. This was supposed to last us most of the trip, so imagine my surprise on Sunday night (4 hours after our arrival), Karla only had 1100CZK left. I am fairly certain she was ripped off in a store we bought postcards in when at first she handed them Swiss francs to pay for her postcards. I was at another register, so all I overheard was, "This isn't our money." And Karla responding "oh, it isn't?" So, my guess is the lady fleeced her. Karla's bet is on some of her money falling out, which will seem even more realistic shortly when you all hear about what happened upon our return to Switzerland. So, after this money incident, I started to get a bit more intense & was insisting that we both wear our delightful money belts (*which I must note left a few scratches & bruises from all the digging). Our flight back from Prague to Zurich was delightful again (although we got a cake instead of a sammie, which neither of us were too happy about....) and I was lugging around a few bottles of Becherovka (I gag just thinking about drinking that crap). SO, we arrive in Zurich, have no problems with customs (although they did not stamp our passport which was upseting for ms. shepeck) and we are heading back to the apartment via the tram. We got off at our stop and started walking home when I hear a lady yelling and running behind us "hallo! hallo!" but I just kept walking thinking she must just be some crazy person or something. Finally I hear her catching up so I stop & turn as Karla continues walking. The lady is holding Karla's MONEY BELT and she hands it to me. I was like "Karla, get over here." We both thanked the woman profusely, she just looked at us annoyedly because she was out of breath & she walked away. I looked at Karla & was like what the hell? She had never tucked the money belt back in her jeans after we went through customs, it was just hanging between her coat attached to her belt & the belt came undone (it's just a fabric one that i had let her borrow). 1. This proves our theory about Zuricher's honesty 2. WTF, we made it all the way through Prague where we actually need to worry about pickpocketers & then we get back to Zurich & it just falls off. Wow, please take note all you future visitors, the money belt does not work if you put it in your pocket (joe circa 2002) or if you don't tuck it in (karla circa 2 days ago).
Other adventures include a lot of Catan playing, Karla is addicted to it now. A delicious Thanksgiving dinner courtesy of Karla last night at an Irish pub (good burgers). Turns out our Thanksgiving plans that we thought were on Thanksgiving are actually on Saturday. So, we have about 5 pounds of mashed potatoes in the fridge & a ginormous salad. No clue how both Joe & I read the invite multiple times & never noticed the word Saturday in it, but we did. So, luckily Karla was here because I am fairly certain our first holiday here would have been a bit depressing, but instead it ended up to be a really fun and delicious. Hopefully everyone in the US is enjoying their days off....joe is at work right now :( and that you are comfortably full, or in the case of megan dressed as a boat & probably still a bit tipsy from her nontraditional thanksgiving pubcrawl!