Who needs the Army? 'Czech' out Michael's dance moves!

Well, there you have it -- as it turns out, Miguel is QUITE the traditional Czech dancer! Click here to see for yourself! And here, too, for another!

Not bad, eh? :) I just made sure to document with the camera and watch that those girls kept their hands to themselves, ha ha ha!

We drove yesterday after posting and got settled into our hotel (another Novotel) in Prague. It's right around the corner from the Hilton where Obama and many more have stayed -- pretty cool! Not going to lie, though, our first impressions of Prague were slightly dysmal; we say that, though, after having been incredibly spoiled in seeing SO many incredible sights in the last week and a half, so take that with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, it was a cloudy day, and as we pulled into the outskirts of the city there was a LOT of graffiti, rundown buildings, and general dirty-ness. Our hotel was very nice, though, and luckily our impression changed before leaving today (Tuesday).

It did so beginning with the aforementioned dinner and Czech dancing. Though we sat across from pretty much all of the young kids on the trip who have whined and turned up their noses at every meal we've had, the food was VERY good, in our opinion. For starters Czech dumplings with ham and sauerkraut; main course was a meat shishkabob with green beans and au gratin potatoes; and for dessert a crepe filled with fruit and covered in chocolate and whipped cream accompanied by a small scoop of strawberry ice cream. Yum!! We chowed down anyway, but made sure to look extra satisfied as the finicky kiddos watched while eating plain bread and drinking their Cokes. Muahahahaha.... ;)

As promised, the entertainment played throughout and the wine and beer flowed (lots of refills by the guy in the picture above; he squirts it and then moves farther and farther away! Cool!). They sang traditional folk songs, showed the dances, and even pulled a few lucky participants up on stage (Michael included, of course). Lots of laughs, smiles, and general merriment!
Back to the hotel to rise and shine early today. Took a walking tour of Prague and were then able to open our minds up to it even more after seeing the beautiful downtown area. Still kind of a yucky day, but the historic parts are REALLY nice (as seen by pics), as are the traditional squares. We had a local tour guide who made it a complete snooze fest (seriously -- SO boring... and as a teacher I'm pretty easy to please because I totally get it, but c'mon, man...). So, it was hard to listen actively and really take in all the great information, but we got used to it and did so, and he really did have a lot of great things to share, despite the monotone and brusque personality.

Back on the bus, had a couple of rest stops, and have now arrived in Vienna, Austria! We have a little down time now to relax, then it's off to a Viennese concert!

We'll be in Vienna two nights, thank goodness, so no early wake up call tomorrow and no luggage to get out early to the porter, all packed up, etc. Woo! (We've had several one-night stays in a row.)