Ah, it's nice to be back at my good ol' com. Back this morning at 5:56AM, our flight got delayed a bit back at Vienna airport.

A bit about the place (Vienna): there's crazy fog down there. As Daniel put it, PSI 200+ You seriously canNOT see anything beyond 100 meters. We didnt spend too much time there, just about one day and a bit, so can't really say much about the place. Well. On to the other cities!

PRAGUE: For the competition and a bit after that we stayed in Hotel Expo. URL: www.expoprag.cz not a bad place, food a bit (ok, a lot) salty. That was where we practiced for our competition & won the GOLD. Wohoo! When Isaac lifted up the trophy it was seriously anti-climatic as the top of the thing fell off. Couldn't stop laughing.

After Expo was Hotel Harmony. Daniel, Marcus, and me were fooling around trying to create parts in our room but couldn't. (hotel Harmony, trying to Harmonize, get it? No? Dang.) Anyway, that place has SERIOUSLY bad fengshui. Marcus' bed was facing the door. First thing we did was move it next to ours. Next day after room service came it was back at the original position so of course we moved it back.

What did we do in Prague? Well, besides the competition, we did some sightseeing. Saw Charles Bridge (named after King Charles the Fourth. Or First, not sure, the guide had a strong accent), Prague castle (now used as the official seat of the Czech government), St Vitus Cathedral (another cool Gothic cathedral, wish I knew how to put photos in blog posts)... hard to write down, too much to say.

KUTNA HORA: A small mining town north of Prague. (north, right? oops, east. Ok, EAST of Prague) Ex-mining town, rather, since most of the silver is exhausted anyway. We went to St Barbora's Cathedral and SANG there. That was definitely a memorable experience of the trip. FIRST TIME singing in a GOTHIC CATHEDRAL!!! (Now we know what Mr Toh means about the "dome shape") Anything else? Yeah, we ate at this restaurant with really good hot chocolate and where Celine got freaked out by a drawing on a door. We went to the bone church there too. 4 mounds made of human bones, with a crown above supposedly symbolizing the people waiting for salvation. 3 out of the 4 had crowns. Chandelier made out of bones. Schwarzenberg coat of arms made out of bones.

CESKY KRUMLOV: A nice picturesque town south of Prague (I KNOW its south, I don't have to check) where cars drive on the pedestrian walkways. There was a St Vitus church there as well. Apparently it still celebrates mass, but we weren't able to go because it was locked when we tried. So we went back up to the 3rd floor corridor and said the Rosary.

Speaking of the corridor, we stayed in Hotel Dvorak. I still don't know how to pronounce it, and I'm pretty sure the rest of you don't either. If you do, tell me. Dvorak really deserves its 4 star rating. The rooms are just... wow. Speechless. My bathroom had two sinks. There was a flat screen TV in the room. There was a sofa bed. There were great views out of the windows. There was an extra door that couldn't be opened (it MAY lead to either a gym or an interconnecting room). There was Celine living in the room next door, so in the morning Daniel went and knocked to give morning call.

VIENNA: Capital of Austria. We stayed in Wombats City Hostel which was situated along Vienna's equivalent of our Orchard Road. Not sure how to pronounce the name of the street though. We visited St Stephen's Cathedral, which is gonna hold special significance for me, since the church I go to is also St Stephen's. Hm, anything else? We visited an artist's house, Hundertwasser I think. Anyway, his name means "a hundred waters". Apparently he changed it after going to Russia.

The flight back was pretty much the same as the flight there, except it got pretty boring at the 9hr mark. Two different overhead luggage bins opened during take-off and landing, respectively. My guess is because someone's bag/jacket arm blocked the latch.

Do I have anything more that is relevant to add? I don't think so. So until next time, this has been Endru reporting on the 9th of December in the yeart of Our Lord two thousand and six.

*[Cjchoir]*