What promotes growth?

Sometimes your plans fail. This seems to be one of those life lessons that we get to learn…continually. But we also learn other things, like how to see the silver lining in the clouds. And how to smile and have a sense of humour. I am learning how to reach for my wild crazy dreams, and how to be okay when things don’t turn out as I had hoped. There is always a mix of the good with the bad, I guess that’s what makes life so interesting. I mean, if everything always went perfectly…and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it would probably get boring. I recently read a quote that I have been thinking about a lot;

“Great joy combined with struggle promotes growth.”

This seems true of life, and most especially it seems true of international family travel!

Daring to go places I had dreamed about, even though the timing was imperfect and even though we were imperfect, produced great joy. Joy for the beauty, joy for the excitement, and great joy for the knowledge deep in my heart that I was trying to live my life bravely.

On the other hand - just managing the daily tasks of life = struggle. We struggled to figure out where and when to get around and how to feed and house our large family in unfamiliar territory. We struggled with communication and some of the unique frustrations that come from being on the road together all the time. And we struggled when unexpected challenges came our way.

But I am learning that the combination of joy with struggle promotes growth. As a family, we were growing. Sometimes joyfully, sometimes painfully, but we were doing it together, and that was the dream!

Prague was also a dream. I initially went to the city of 1000 spires with a whole bunch of unrealistic expectations and came out happy and intrigued to see more. So, I planned a perfect day to have with our lovely German friends who had shown us around Dresden. I felt that it was our turn to play host, I wanted things to be perfect!

Things did not quite go as planned…

First up, we met in the Old Town Square of Prague. The sky was shining a crisp bright blue and it promised to be a glorious day.

European town squares are THE BEST! In the Prague Old Town Square there was a particular one-man puppet show that was all kinds of crazy! There were also gold moving statues and the best hot chocolate to be found!

The centre of attraction is of course the Astronomical Clock, it is a medieval masterpiece that features moving apostles who are accompanied by Death staring down at you. For more info about the clock, check out the story of our first adventure in Prague.

Things were a bit more crowded than last time we’d explored Prague, probably on account of the nicer weather, but we enjoyed seeing the clock and then made our way to Wenceslas Square. I was so excited to learn about the real King Wenceslas, it is so funny that on the other side of the world in Australia where our Christmas is a hot summer, we sing Christmas Carols about Good King Wenceslas! We sing the story about a Bohemian King going on a journey and braving the harsh winter weather to give alms to a poor peasant on the ‘Feast of Stephen.’ Wenceslas is the Patron Saint of the Czech Republic, he was