A full month with a side of Prague, please.

I still hate the stairs. I still cannot climb the 52 stairs to my front door, without doubling over at stair 35, and breathing as though I just ran a marathon or finished a pack of Virginia Slims. No, I do not smoke, but it looks like I do, should you pass me in our winding old staircase. It has been 6 weeks and it has gotten no easier. David and I stand there unlocking our door and it is laughable how out of breath we are. Of course the irony is that we have been walking no less than 3 miles a day most days, and some days up to 7 miles! Our butts look good though, so there is that. 

I have developed a love/hate relationship with food in Scotland over these last weeks. I praise the UK for banning ingredients that are killing us in the states, and in the same breath can a girl just get some Kraft macaroni and cheese with all the questionable fake ingredients please? Maybe a little Velveeta shells and cheese with that scrumptious gooey pretend cheese? My mouth is quivering writing this. How about my poison laced coffee creamer that makes my mornings cheery? Nope. It is not going to happen here. I may have turned to Amazon to see how quickly I could get it shipped to me, and I kid you not, the only option was Coffeemate powder creamer and it was $28 and would not be here until beginning of May. I am confident that your name and picture will get put up on a wall somewhere once you hit "proceed to checkout" on Amazon UK.  Picture a "Wanted: Dead or Alive" poster with me pouring poison into my "I Love Scotland" coffee mug. I am just kidding of course. My mug is a wiener dog in a sweater and hat. 

You are possibly thinking "Wow, Cortney is not liking Scotland anymore!" This is not true. I have struggled with one thing more than anything else though. The weather. I proudly boasted prior to "living" here, that the weather would never get to me, that the daily rain and constant cloud cover would be no problem for me. Once upon a time I wanted to move to Washington state! I am queen of moody days after all. I despise summertime in Virginia. Hate it with everything in me. The difference however, is that in Virginia your summer is going to be a steady stream of humidity with sticky sweat pouring down your neck and in cracks of your body you shouldn't be seen wiping in public. You know this and you plan your life accordingly. Here in Scotland you literally can go 10 days straight and not see the sun. That part is steady, but then it rains, rains again, stops, and rains again. Sometimes it is a light rain, sometimes harder. Just as you put on your hood or take out your umbrella a sudden 20 mph wind gush will hit you and cause the rain to slap you right in your face. Ten minutes later the clouds disappear and the sun is beating down on you, and in excitement you strip your clothes off to just feel the old vitamin D on your skin, and bam! you get to your last layer and it gets dark and you feel snow coming down. Friends, this is not a lie. This is Scotland. Walking to church could potentially take you through all 4 seasons in 15 minutes. 

Just when you want to tell Scotland that you are not going to deal with it's schizophrenic weather patterns any longer, you take your vitamin D supplement and your B12, and you get on the train to a neighboring village to go on a hike through a place that makes up for all the gloomy days ... the forests of Scotland. 

You have all seen the dozens of pictures that we have taken while on these hikes, but I assure you that it could never capture the truly magical feeling you experience and see with your own eyes. Suddenly the cloud cover over the trees seem as though it should always be there and never leave. The steady sound of the streams that line so many paths in the forests here will calmly take away all the noises in your head and instantly soothe you. The moss growing on the trees and covering the stones seem otherwordly. You know this is where stories of fairies were brought to life. The trees tower high above you and each one is just as beautiful as the next. They seem to almost be talking in the breeze. Part of the reason we wanted to experience life here was for a change, for a chance to get away from the chaos, the daily routine, and the background noise of life. I get emotional when talking about the forest because it means so much to me. Once upon a time, many years ago, it was the forest in Washington state (Olympic National Forest) that settled my very troubled heart. The time spent there was my safe place, my healing place. It is this same feeling I get when I am here. In the amount of time that we have been here, and all the places we have been fortunate enough to see already, it is the Scotland forest that will forever be my favorite place visited. 

One of the perks of being here in the UK is the proximity of other places you can easily visit. Places you can only imagine visiting, or places that would normally cost a fortune to experience from the states, are much more affordable from here. We were sitting one morning after David had finished his work, and I was whining about the weather, clearly being a brat (pre vitamin days, ha!) and David decided to get me out of the flat. We got downstairs and walked 10 whole steps to an ancient place called a travel agency. David has Switzerland on his must see list (as it should be on everyone's list! I was fortunate enough to spend time there in my teen years), but it turns out Switzerland will always be on that unaffordable list no matter where you are flying from!) After checking out a few other places we deciced on Prague as we had heard so many good things and it definitely fit our tight budget. Flash forward a few weeks and we were ready to board our Jet2 holiday extravaganza. As you know, in the states we have Spirit airlines (they supply endless Tik Tok content of crazed passengers, embrassing Americans, and constant flight cancellations. I am good. I would rather take a canoe). Well Jet2 is better but not by too much. It was a very lively flight and let me tell you, I paid close attention to all safety measures and was ready to put that oxygen mask on my neighbor after putting it on myself first. Truthfully though, it was not too bad and in two hours we were in the Czech Republic! I mean, never in my life would I have ever thought I would be visiting Prague! Ask me to find it on a map ... I can't. 

My first impressions of this new country to me were not what I was expecting. We got there at night and after being picked up by our hotel driver I was beginning to think we had made a mistake. Almost every building outside and around the city had grafitti on it. Loads of it, and not the artistic type I have grown to love in cities I have visited. Gorgeous Gothic buildings destroyed by jumbled spray painted letters. It made me mad, but I was hoping that the closer we got to the heart of Prague, the more we would see that scenery we had only seen in pictures so far. As we got closer to our "boutique hotel" the grafitti lessened and we started to see massive Baroque buildings lit up in the night.  My heart started to get more excited, and then we pulled up to our hotel. Well now, that for sure did not look like the pics, but here we are! We checked in and took the tiniest elevator to our room. Europeans love to take two twin beds and shove them together to make one whole bed. I wonder, do people ever fall through the middle? It was past 8 and we were afraid no restaurants would be open for us to eat dinner, but we were assured that was not the case. Little did we know (more on that soon) We drank Czech beer, filled our bellies and went to sleep on the WORST mattress ever. It was concrete with a sheet over it. My back still hurts, and that is no exagerration. 

Day two meant we hit the pavement running. A short walk to one of the prettiest museums we had seen and a gorgeous view of the city landscape. I was wanting warmer weather and higher temps, but it seems Scotland loves me so much that it wanted to follow me to Prague. Sigh. Nonetheless, we walked toward city centre and immediately found a beer tour (shocking, I know). The city was great, but truthfully David and I were wondering what all the fuss over Prague was about. Then it happened. We turned down a street and suddenly everything changed. The same style Gothic building rose high above into these ornate and colorful cathedrals. Streets lined in cobblestone with quaint shops, restaurants, quirky museums, candy stores, and street vendors. I remember constantly looking up at all the storybook buildings and subsequently tripping over cobblestone constantly. It did not matter though because it was like walking through a storybook. Disney has nothing on Prague! There were masses of people everywhere you looked and that day we didn't care. The next day we were a little less patient with all the people, ha! The history and the architecture is like nothing I had seen up to this point. We attended a chamber music concert in a Spanish synagogue in the Jewish neighborhood of town, and it brought both of us to tears. We ate delicious pizza in the center of Old Town, surrounded by the lights that decorated these stunning buildings. It was truly magical and we could not believe we were experiencing it. We spent the entire day and evening walking and exploring the city and by the time we got back to the hotel we fell onto our concrete slabs and slept. 

We had the pleasure of making friends with a man from Prague when he visited our home a year ago, and I reached out to him to see if he was willing to meet us for a drink. He agreed and simply put, he was one of our favorite experiences in Prague. Alexandr is the epitomy of the perfect host and the one drink turned into two perfect nights of him showing us his beloved city and taking us to spots away from tourists. We got to see real Prague! We ate delicious foods (Snail anyone? Steak tartare anyone?) we drank and drank some more. His lovely girlfriend from Ukraine joined us, and while she is still learning English, we were still able to learn so much from her. Until someone from the Ukraine is sitting across from you, I do not believe you can fully grasp the heaviness of the situation there. She has been seperated from her father and brother for two years, with no end in sight as of yet. Men there must stay and fight for their country when called, and they do. Her smile dropped and the sadness in her face was heartbreaking. She is safe and loved by Alexandr and it is evident. 

While out on the town for two nights, we learned that Prague is the true city that never sleeps. On a Tuesday night, a work night mind you, it is 11 pm and the pubs and restaurants and breweries are packed. Packed! Yes, they all have to work tomorrow but their life does not revolve around work. It revolves around friendships, lingering dinners with loved ones, relaxing and enjoying a pint or a cup of coffee, and just living their best life. Of course I love my early nights where after dinner we are on the couch relaxing, watching Netflix and early to bed, but there is something about not revolving around your work life in everything you do. Most Europeans get an immediate 30 days vacation a year, not including sick days. They actually want you to take it! The turnover rate at work is lower because they are taking time to "live". Family is the most important and we have just lost our way in America. Please know, I am here living this life because I work for a company who worked with me on this, so I am one of the lucky few, but not everyone is so lucky. Ok, stepping off my soap box now. 

In the end, Prague is a lovely city and is so worth a visit! We enjoyed ourselves and will forever have these memories. If you ever visit, look Alexandr up. I am sure he would be happy to be your guide! 

A month and a few weeks down and Scotland is our second home, there is no doubt. When we landed back in Glasgow and heard that all too now familiar accent, we smiled at each other and we felt comfort being back in this moody and dreary and magical country.