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Great blog post, that is worth sharing and reading.

 Would it be different if the Cuban people were totally free? YES, because then they would control the path of their destiny but they are not totally free. So yes it was fun but no I won't be visiting for a while. 

I ended up going to Washington D.C. last weekend for a family members wedding. It was honestly one of the best weddings I've ever been to. They put so much effort into their wedding and it was amazing to see my larger family which I don't get to see that often. 

I really like Washington even though I was only there for a short period of time. First thing I noticed was how clean the city was. The next thing I noticed is how entrepreneurial the city is, small businesses galore. But I guess that isn't just a Washington thing, it is what the US is really good at....innovation.

I ended up going to a small breakfast place called Paul's, established in 1889. American's are amazing at customer service. In Canada I find that staff are often very quiet and not interested in providing top notch service. Any store you walk into in the US, you are greeted and ask what they can help you with. Also the breakfast place, like much of the eateries I was able to go to in that short time have kitchens that you can watch the staff cook your meals. We don't really have this kind of thing in Canada, but it made me feel that the food was that much better. 

Like I said at the beginning of this blog, I honestly had about 5-6 hours of time to see some of the tourist sites. I woke up at sunlight on Sunday which was excellent because the roads were totally empty. Best time to walk around cities to see stuff is Sunday morning. 

I was able to see the White House, the National Mall, the Monument, The Capital building, The Treasury Department and also able to stop into the Smithsonian musuem for American History. I saw the new Martin Luther King memorial and really enjoyed his quotes that were written on the stone walls. My favourite out of everything had to be the Lincoln Memorial. As many know, he was a large force involved in abolishing slavery. It is hard to believe how far the US has come in such a short time if you think about it. Remember MLK was around during the 60's. 

Perhaps the funniest thing happened on the plane ride home. I was flying with United and we were on the plane but one of the overhead compartments wouldn't close. So the maintenance workers came on board to try and fix the thing, no luck. I was sitting beside someone from the Marines and they suggested to duct tape the thing. After about 45 minutes the Stewardess announces that they have the supplies to fix the overhead cabinet, hahah could you imagine that the supplies are actually the duct tape. I waited 45 minutes for someone to get duct tape. Then the workers boss came around to inspect and ripped the duct tape down and wrote deferred on it. An hour and a half later they finally were able to get the cabinet closed. 

Anyways Washington is somewhere I definitely want to come back to and would want to stay for a few days. So much to do and see there.  

 

Back to the trip I just went on. The last destination on my vacation was Prague Czech Republic. I hopped on a bus from Germany and it took about 3.5 hours to get there. It wasn't a bad ride. As I reached the outskirts of the city of Prague, one thing became increasingly evident to me. That was the graffiti on the buildings.  As you can see from the picture below. There wasn't any in tourist district, but once you got off the main streets the graffiti was quite evident. I think it has to do with the country just finishing an era of communism not that long ago.

Regardless Prague is a beautiful city. So many old buildings, so much history....it surrounds you everywhere.  I was in shock at how old some of these buildings were, the architecture was unlike anything I have ever seen before. Of course, I have never been to old Europe so this is expected. 

Unlike Germany, this trip was more about appreciating the Arts, the architecture of the buildings and the beer which was superb. In the 5 days I was there, I managed to catch the ballet performance of Swan Lake and an orchestra concert. One thing I did that totally suprised me was the Prague Zoo, it is a must visit. The Toronto Zoo doesn't compare. I'm not a big fan of keeping animals in cages but for what it is worth the Zoo was designed well and unique. There was a shop that I stopped off that was a bit off the beaten path called the "Choco cafe". It was worth it. 



I visited the Strahov Monastary and visited one of the oldest libraries.....

 The one thing I really regret was that for this portion of my trip, I didn't visit any of the small towns outside of Prague. Those are some of the best experiences but oh well next time I guess.