Dobry Den, Moji Přátelé!

Dear friends, we’re back from our European adventures. Or, more specifically, my body is back, but my heart is still in the apartment on Kožná Six.

Speaking of my body: it’s kinda wrecked. And man, oh man, did I enjoy every single moment of wrecking it! Let’s take an inventory of the damage, shall we?

Feet: destroyed from walking in big black boots on cobblestones

Noggin/Nose: filled with yucky stuff, courtesy of a head cold courted on the 14-hour plane odyssey to get home

Tummy: slightly more rounded than when I left three weeks ago from joyously indulging in delicious forbidden foods, beer, bubbly, and Becherovka. (More on that later, of course!)

Right Knee: vaguely purple but mostly healed from a major knee-meets-metal-bedframe incident in Berlin

Upper Arms: sorta flabby from doing zero (ZERO!) real work with them for three weeks

Legs: status quo, thanks to aforementioned walking on cobblestones, hills, and stairs ALL DAY LONG every day for 16 days

Heart: full

On the work front, I’m back at the corporate overlords, digging out from under a pile of email and documents… and on the home front, I’m gearing up for a major October clean-up. My new month of CrossFit Austin classes start on Friday and so does my triumphant return to grain-free, sugar-free, caffeine-free, dairy-free living (Which means you can look forward to Czech-inspired dino-chow recipes). I’ll post more before Friday about my clean-up plans. Maybe you want to join me in a superhero training month in October?

Stories and photos of Prague and Berlin are on their way. I’m still processing all that I saw, heard, experienced, and felt, so it might be a bit ’til I can share it all with you. I thought of this quote from Tony Bourdain a lot on my travels; his words rang so true.

Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts. It even breaks your heart – in beautiful ways. But that’s okay. The journey changes you. It should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, in your heart and on your body. You take something with you – hopefully you leave something good behind. Is it possible to feel enriched and hollowed out at the same time?