booty and bugs . . .

. . . neither of which are related.

when i was in doha last week, i picked up a couple of tawdry magazines to read by the pool at the marriott. in touch weekly had a picture of a swimsuit-clad miley cyrus on the cover, which mentioned 'beach body showdowns', so i was forced to buy it so i could feel bad about my 48-year-old flab. when i get to the showdown section of the mag, i notice that all the celebrities are wearing what looks like a ruffly, zumba skirt cover-up-thingie over their bikini bottoms. nope - turns out someone used a black marker to black out each starlet's lady-part region. can't make this stuff up; wtf:

though the reading material was trashy, the view of doha from my chaise was not:

i departed the sweaty city of doha a couple of days ago on a british airways flight to london. after the cabin doors were closed, our cockney little air hostess announced they would be quickly moving through the aircraft to spray insecticide and we should probably shut our eyes and not panic. end of announcement; thank you for flying ba.

back in big d. its hot and buggy here already -- maybe the ba flight attendant can move quickly through my backyard and make it all better.

last night heidi, richard and i had a jumping contest - video coming soon. spoiler alert - old people can't jump.

tricia (missing jeff)

p.s.:  i have a mathematical equation for you: if 'trudy' consumes 3 bowls of salted mixed nuts per day for 13 days, how many kilograms does that equal? answer: who cares; you're still fat.

appliance slayer

yep; that's me. we've killed yet another washer/dryer contraption. this is our 4th or maybe 5th -- i've lost count.  i started a washload of clothes at 11am today and at 8pm, they were still soaking wet. trying to explain a spin cycle (or lack thereof) to 3 different maintenance men was challenging. so they just brought me another. and 5 minutes after the maintenance guy left, this one stopped drying and started beeping at me. i think its hungry. i think i'll take an axe to the refrigerator now. i was also just informed that you can't actually change clock setting on the microwave; you just have to unplug it and replug it in at 1:00 cause that's what time it sets itself to. i know this is not a real problem; its just a real ridiculous problem.

its been a frustrating week here in the mid-east. in checking in for the flight back from doha, i had to check my carry-on bag because it was too heavy. i neglected to remove the valuable items from it because i figured it was safe in the hands of etihad airlines - wrong. the sparkly new ipad3 i bought jeff for his birthday is apparently magic in that it disappeared from my bag somewhere over the friendly skies. the airline says i should have locked the luggage.

tomorrow its back to doha for my final week here. which really excites me.

happy almost earth day!

t.

sandbox hopping (in continuing the easter theme)

almost as soon as we arrived back in the uae, we left for qatar. jeff is supposed to be on a project there and hopes to spend the next 6 months lounging about at the doha intercontinental beach club. currently we're staying at the oryx rotana hotel right by the airport. not a bad place to stay (the gym is pretty modern), but there's not really anything close by to walk to, so i'm bored.

the whole taxi situation here is a bit different too. in abu dhabi, they're all metered and regulated, so you know what you're going to get. here, the drivers all pretend their meters are broken and they just make up prices on how much it costs to go from point a to point b. i've attempted to haggle with them, but then they just pretend they don't understand what you're saying.

i've been to the one museum here (where i took all the pictures of the quran); been to the souk, etc. thought about going to the zoo, but its far away from the city and the taxi drivers say between 100-200 qatari riyals for the fare.

each hotel here is very big on buffets and last thursday, we were up to our elbows in all you can eat seafood night at the 'al fanourah'. we were joined by jeff's co-workers bruce, jaime, chris and chris' lovely wife joanna.

it was jeff's birthday weekend, so we strolled around the museum park, took in a movie ('cabin in the woods' - it sucked), and had a celebratory italian dinner.

birthday boy:

view of the west bay:

lonely boat:

jeff gets embarrased at 'cucina' the italian kitchen at the renaissance, while being sung to in a languange we couldn't understand:

back to abu dhabi today, just until saturday when jeff has to come right back here for a meeting. i may just go home to dallas a bit early as the visitation is not so much a visit as an endless wait.

ttfn,

tricia

another whirl through prague

wednesday, our last day in prague, we hit old town again (well, it was close by and there was a continuous street festival) -- and i met this guy (the fascination with farm animals continues):

and we saw an easter tree.

and we consumed more beers and 'trdelniks' at the easter market. this is a 'trdelnik' pastry -- sounds like turd; tastes like heaven. its basically sweet dough wrapped around a fat stick and cooked over coals.

after partaking in too much czech goodness, it was time to head back to frankfurt to have dinner with susie-mom, jake, nicole and the kids.

since jake is employed (and not on vacation like most of the rest of us), it was an early night; he had to get up the next day at 5am to hike 12 miles with a 25 lb. backpack and 10 of his buddies in the rain (the army sounds tough, doesn't it?).

thursday, jeff and i spent a rainy day in amberg searching for frosty beverages and warmth -- score!

friday, we arose early to swerve back to frankfurt where we would spend our last day/night in germany with susie-mom. we also found a great irish pub there, but my camera was exhausted. here are a few pics of the scenery surrounding our hotel and old town frankfurt before my camera fainted.

susie looks so happy with me doesn't she?

to close out our germany visit, we got susie drunk at the hotel bar then stumbled off to bed. saturday morning we headed in opposite directions -- susie back to the sooner state, and jeff and i to the sandbox.

pics of the sandbox coming soon.

hugs,

tricia

hopping around prague

tuesday morning, we arose early in order to hit the starbucks we found in old town square (queue the angels singing) and hopped on the 11:30 bus tour around the city. we had a lovely tourguide originally from poland who had about 17 syllables in her name, so she just went by kate. she had just the right amount of snark and history to make the initial walk/drive to the prague castle, which is the biggest castle (still standing) in the world and took over 6 centuries to build it (man, that guy must have been really tired). here's wiki's take:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Castle.

while walking to our tour bus, kate pointed out some interesting sites to ooooh and aaaaah her followers.

here's the astronomical clock (the oldest one, built in 1410 - wiki has more incredible info; i'm just loving wiki today - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Astronomical_Clock):

here's the powder tower (where gun powder was stored during the war):

the municipal building:

first glimpse of the castle:

en guard!!!:

OK; enough with the castle. i'm sure i'm boring you with my fabulous vacation by now. but one more thing -- we stopped at a restaurant on the castle grounds, sat on their balcony for czech beers and watched an entire pig cook on a spit. i think this place was even called 'the royal pig'. there was a painting of a pig wearing a king's coat and a crown on the wall. the middle-easterners would perish on the spot. our tour guide told us the restaurant had originally been the 'playground' for the king's lions - http://www.prague.cz/lion-courtyard/.

we finally left the castle and toddled off to see more old stuff.

vitava river:

and i insisted upon finding the funicular (i LOVE these things). we didn't ride it though cause we were short 1 cz koruna (or crown):

here's that eerie sculpture of the victims of communism (from the back);

i almost fell down these 'stairs':

this is the frank gehry 'dancing house':

after taking in the sights via autobus and on foot for hours, we did the hokey pokey back to the intercontinental so jeff could enjoy a scotch and a cigar on their rooftop balcony.

signing off with the castle in the sunset.

the next day, wednesday, we go back to frankfurt to hang with the fam, search for irish pubs and find the best mexican food in germany.

xoxoxoxo

tricia the loser

is this confusing?

cause i'm confusing myself with my own posts (lies?)

the post from 4/8 was to just let everyone know we were out of europe and back in the middle east (and i was brain dead and didnt post much chatter.) the next two entries are an attempt to take you all through the following week of staggering drunkenness that remained our plan for the duration of our european tour. we had no fear of the polize or of wild pigs or of getting old. we just know that many beers needed to quaffed.

so the germany story starts on the blog dated 4/12 -- after that, they should be in some sort of loose sequence that can probably be followed by tipsy people.

maybe i shouldn't consume ambiens before writing these.

so there we were . . .

. . . driving to prague - well, i was driving. on the autobahn. all those cute little german towns start to look the same after a while when you're flying by them at 160km per hour.

as soon as you cross the border into the czech republic, you have to stop and buy a toll-tag sort of thing (i'm not sure how they'd know you didn't stop to buy one - although i guess we did have to put this sticker thing in the front window - but i'm sure the polize are not completely focused on that). anyway, we fueled up at the same time and it was over $100 for 3/4 a tank of gas. yes, the europeans are blaming president obama for the sky high fuel prices there too. my personal assistant (jefferson) pumped the gas, then started to pull the car over to park next to the 'bavarian rip off palace' to pay. and the attendant called the police thinking mr. sanders was fleeing the scene. then jeff got schooled in czech by some little bald dude in a janitor's uniform. border excitement, right there.

upon arrival in prague, we made our way to old town square in search of our first frosty beverage. there was another easter festival/market going on, so it wasn't hard to find liquid hops (get it?).

view of old town square from the clock tower:

the 'harry potter' church:

after consuming some exceptional cz beer and a stale, giant pretzel, we decided a bit of exercise would be in order and climbed to the top of the clock tower with a hundred other tourists. alright -- that's a lie; we took the elevator:

then we saw some indians (well, AN indian -- and i mean that in the nicest possible way):

then i forgot to keep taking pictures and we went back to the intercon and passed out.

next day -- hop on, hop off bus tour! the easter theme continues!

more pics of old, european sh*t tomorrow.

auf whatever,

tricia