czech it out

who knew that a week full of hannah montana and high school musical could be so great and refreshing!  i just got back from the middle school service project to chrastava, czech republic.   we built a community playground that is run and owned by one of the few churches in czech.  the country is only 1.5% christian and over 70% athiest!  the church we worked with had about 50 members and i think about half of them were out there helping us.  czech is a very crazy language to try to understand.  i got to know a lot of the girls i will be working with this next year.  they are precious and so much fun.  i accomplished one of my goals on trip: driving in europe.  with the help of a navigation system and a missionary named linda, i drove though czech, poland, and germany in search of a esso station that takes the military gas stamps.  we actually found one!  even though i've only been here for about a week and half, the trip is already proving to be quite triumphant in terms of other goals.

1. eat at a restaurant by myself-  this happened at the air port in philidelphia.  unfortunately, it was order at a counter style, so i didn't get to say, "jenna, party for 1" like i'd always hoped.  none the less,  i had a great time people watching.

2. navigate myself through a foreign airport- this happened in both the philidelphia and munich airports.  it was way easier than i thought

As i've been euro-ing (living in europe) here in germany, i have had several epiphany moments...

1. people really do drink hot coco in august (including me... its freezing here and the boxes i mailed with all my jackets have not arrived)

2. windows are my new favorite thing.  every time i go to open mine, i get really excited.  its giant and opens in 2 different ways depending on which way the handle is facing. oh, those germans... so precise.

3. the U.S. flag i've always thought of is actually wrong.  so your probably thinking, "how could somebody not know what their own countries flag looks like."  well, you are about to join the club.  all the soldiers on post obviously wear the flag on their right arm sleeve.  its a normal U.S. flag but the blue part is in the top RIGHT hand corner, which is actually the correct flag.  i've always thought it was the upper left corner...but no, i was wrong.  this discovery turned my world upside down.  the richardson school district failed me miserably.

4. i read almost twice as much as i used to.

5. the autobahn actually has a speed limit most of the time.