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July 28

Hump Week not Hump Day

Most of us work (ed) and define hump day as that mid workweek day, the one that let's us know the weekend isn't too far away and we can make it. Most of us vacation for a week or ten days at a time and hump day is that point where you feel you have been away a long time and at exactly the same moment you feel like your vacation is over.  You start consulting your list of sights not seen and meals not reserved to pack it all in during the last half of the vacation.

I would never have believed we would be gone so long, that we would have a hump week, but here it is. We have been traveling for eight weeks, so next week is just about our midpoint, our hump week. 

You might wonder does that feel? 
It feels good to know that after eight weeks we still can have good conversation, still are laughing at getting lost, still looking forward to the next place we'll visit. 

Approaching hump week, we realized that we were at the point where we had to make the rest of our plans and figure out when we were coming home. So, in that sense, it is a bit the same.  
At the same time it feels a bit unreal that nine weeks in is only halfway through. Sure we miss our kids, and our family and friends. A few days we miss seeing the good new movies, a few days we miss having a familiar routine, a few days we miss knowing exactly where to go to get what we need. 

But if hump week is the midpoint where we could decide to cut the trip short, we aren't biting. It is almost like a long plane ride or a long bike ride or a marathon where you hit a wall. It feels like you could keep traveling forever and when Steve reads this blog entry I can guarantee he will say 'I told you I wanted to go around the world, see you could have done it'.

So on we go-through the Czech Republic, to Vienna and Budapest and Slovakia's High Tatras, crossing the Polish border to see Krakow and Auschwitz and back to Prague to finish our Eastern Europe whirlwind. 

We are looking forward to more getting lost, even less English and switching from making our beds and making our coffee to hotels from 2 to 5 stars along the way. Really haven't you always wanted to stay at the Purkmstr Hotel in Plzen, where apparently they never saved up enough to buy a vowel from Vanna White? Actually, other than my two lone Czech friends, I am sure no one even ever heard of Plzen, which in English is Pilsen - oh, you do recognize the word with the vowels, it conjures up images of frosty beer! .....and it is the home of Pilsner Urquell beer.


Or maybe you know the Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen, full of Czech immigrants.

In any case, we'll be there tomorrow, and even if the brewery tour is only fair and the beer is too bitter, the cellars will be 8C or 46F which is about half of the 98F in Prague today.  

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