Champagne is the Devil and I'm Back in Prague

So New Years Ever was amazing and I'm so happy I got to have one last amazing night in Austin before leaving. I got to see people I haven't seen in three or four years. It was like a big Daily Texan reunion. 

Unfortunately, champagne is the devil and so when my dad woke me up at 9 a.m. on Jan. 1, well... I wasn't really feelin' it. 

But it was moving day so I was still super excited and it didn't take too much to drag myself out of bed. 

After getting ready and cramming last minute stuff into bags I got the brilliant idea to try to weigh by big bag again just in case...

This was such a good idea (not that it wasn't a huge pain in the ass).

Turns out my big bag weighed something like 60 lbs. and the weight limit is 50, so I had some shifting to do.Thankfully, it was because my backpack was full of clothes and my big bag was full of food and books and clothes and yarn... Aside from the yarn, these things tend to be heavy, especially in mass. 

Once things got moved around I had a 2 lbs. leeway just in case my scale wasn't super accurate. 

My dad and I drove to the airport (in Houston, bleck!) and we chatted a ton along the way. I mean, I like to talk, but for some reason you just couldn't shut me up. I guess I was nervous or excited (probably both?).

Once at the airport we were both refusing to cry (at least in front of each other). For those of you who have been with me from the beginning, or have read back entries, you know that when I left for Taiwan my dad starting balling like a baby and then I found it absolutely impossible to hold it in and I cried all through security and most of the time I sat waiting at the gate to board the flight.

I'm not a crier but c'mon, when your dad starts crying it's impossible to hold it in.

We got through it this time though. We hugged like 18 times and then I finally just rushed through the door with my 80-thousand tons of luggage.

Despite the set backs that morning we had still arrived the generally prescribed two hours prior to take off. I was never really worried anyway, but given that it's a holiday and supposedly TSA is cracking down and such, it would be good to have a window for things to go wrong. 

It took me less than 20 minutes to check-in and go through security. Did no one fly for their holiday trips this year?

Otherwise, everything was pretty uneventful. There was an elderly Indian couple sitting next to me and neither of them knew any English so I couldn't chat with them. This meant 10 hours of silence aside from the occasional request for water from the flight attendants. 

The plan was to sleep on the plane. I did not. I watched The Social Network, Megamind, and Eat Pray Love as well as an episode of "30 Rock."

So by the time I get to Amsterdam to go through immigration it's 8 a.m. there (or 1 a.m. in Texas) and I'm feeling pretty crunchy since I was considerably hungover on the 10-hour flight. 

By the time I reached Prague it was nearly 11 a.m. (4 a.m. in Texas) and I was pretty tired. However, once I stepped out, saw my roommate who kindly came to help me bring my bags home and got into the cold air, I was awake again.

And crazy talkative. Poor, roommate. She probably wanted to rip my voice box out, but this is what happens when I don't get to talk for something like 14 hours.

Anyway, my bags are unpacked and I'm thrilled with my room. There's snow on the ground outside and I'm definitely going to be sleeping with about a hundred blankets and every piece of clothing I own every night (I'm a wuss, shuddup). 

I still have to go get my boxes from my friends' house but decided to put it off since I hadn't slept in 26 hours and wasn't confident in my ability to navigate transportation there and back. 

Tomorrow I have two job interviews and then two more the next day. Hopefully I'll have a couple more set up this week. Cross your fingers that I have a job by this time next week.

Wish me luck!

P.S. My Project-365 is up and running with the first two pictures of the year posted. Check it out and start following Eyes of a Traveling Texan!