streets of prague

i spent an afternoon at this one intersection of two cobblestone streets. i was listening to linkin park on my ipod and watching all these people walk by. i'll show you photos later of the people, but here is the place.

one thing i loved about prague is how much everyone walks, and all the bridges over the Vlatava river. i took the metro to Malostranska one rainy night and walked along the river. the sky really was this blue and the wet streets reflected everything.

here's brad kaspar. he's one of my best friends and the only reason that i knew czech republic would be so awesome. brad and i lived together in kay house in college, worked at honey rock for a summer, and have had some great road trips. he moved to czech two and a half years ago and lives on the czech-polish border in cesky tesin. a lot of people mistake him for a czech now because his language is really good and he just looks like one. anyways, suffice it to say brad is unusual: he lives life with more gusto than usual and he cares about knowing god way more than the usual, and i believe he is living a very full life. and brad makes everything more fun than it would otherwise be, because he takes chances and has an attitude of "go for it".

you'll be walking along, a streetcar will whiz by, you'll hear the rock music playing from bakeries and cafes, and in the middle of all these modern signs and sounds, you can look up on the hill and see castles! its so wierd. this one is prazsky hrad, where i think the king/president still lives.

ok, so the photos are finally up for this post... there's some kind of bug in the picassa-blogger transfer.

the newton clan

this is why i'm going to be an emergency pediatrician. his name's sam.

after new york, i headed west to lancaster, PA. if you've ever been there, its basically just like new york city, except way more farms, way fewer people, no subway, and everyone speaks english. or dutch. newton and i have been friends since the summer 'o 2001, when we led campers on wilderness hikes at deerfoot lodge in upstate new york. we both love the outdoors, and have made it a point to get out in the woods at least every couple of years... when life gets crazy, i can go in the woods with a friend like newton and it feels like i've stepped through a portal, outside of time. i sincerely believe that being out in the woods or on the water is central to the human experience, and we become impoverished without it. here's ben, lindsay, and sam, on their guatemalan hammock in the backyard. there is so much joy in their house that you cannot help but be warmed by it.

and here's newton loading up the car for our canoe trip... the canoe is one ben brought from deerfoot, so you know its been through it.

new york city

3 weeks ago I went to new york for the first time. i was really impressed by the subway system. i don't know who first thought of moving the people around underneath the streets of a city, but its just brilliant. it was friday night when i arrived in queens, where my friend amit lives, and i jumped on the purple line, following it by stadiums, apartments, fields, throught a tunnel, and into manhattan. there were 3 kids, i think siblings, on the train coming home from baseball practice. there were people coming from work, or going to work, or going to meet friends... and we're all here, together, in the train.

amit is an emergency physician at a hospital in flushing, (the most ethnically diverse zip code in the US) and a great guide who made my time in new york richer. on saturday we went all over the place, riding in the chinatown shuttle, the metro, and yes, a crazy taxi that almost made me throw up. here we are underground at astor place, amit perusing the New York Times.