Normally I write my blog entries in Word when I'm bored and lying around the apartment. But right now I'm at CET using the internet and actually writing this into the Blogger application. I guess there's not much to update in this particular entry...later I'll write one about my weekend trip to Copenhagen, which was amazing but also amazingly EXPENSIVE. (It's the 6th most expensive city in the world. Let me put it this way: I paid $12 to go on an amusement park ride.)
Other than that, this Thursday our entire program is leaving for a weekend trip to Budapest! It sounds really awesome and best of all, really cheap. I've been spending money out the wazoo somehow for the past week or so and a break will be nice. After that I've got a weekend in Geneva (the 7th most expensive city in the world), where I'm really excited to speak some French. And after that...just one more weekend in Prague and then a few days. I'm already getting really sad about it. Sometimes I just want to give the whole city a big hug, if that makes any sense.
One thing I'm also looking forward to is the opening of the Christmas Markets in Prague! The big one that I already knew about will be on Wenceslas Square, near my school. But when I got home from Copenhagen on Sunday I saw that there were already lots of stands set up on Namesti Miru, the metro stop near my apartment. So far there's nothing actually in the stands yet but there's a big Christmas tree, and I can't WAIT for the crafts to start selling.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Katherine a Lauren navštívily Prahu!
Note: This all happened November 9 -11 and I'm just now getting around to posting it.
This weekend Katherine and Lauren flew in from Rome for a visit! Unfortunately we were cursed with some shitty weather but it was still a really fun time. I picked them up from the airport a little before noon on Friday, and after dropping our stuff off we hit the nearest KFC. Lame, you may say. But they’ve been in Italy for two and a half months, where there is neither fried goodness nor meat. So some fried chicken was in high order.
Then we started our superspeed tour of Prague (which really isn’t that superspeed because the city is not that big.)
First we went to the Loreta, which is a 14th-16th century church by the castle. It’s a cool little place, but what makes it really worth seeing is the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows, because there’s a bearded lady on a crucifix there. Explanation from my guidebook of Prague: “She was St. Starosta, pious daughter of a Portuguese king who promised her to the king of Sicily against her wishes. After a night of tearful prayers she awoke with a beard, the wedding was called off, and her father had her crucified. She was later made a patron saint of the needy and the godforsaken.” Weird. You’re not supposed to take a picture, but I did.
Next we went to St. Vitus Cathedral. I would have liked to walk around the castle gardens a little, but it was rainy and cold so didn’t seem worth it. We then made our way to the Charles Bridge, and walked over that into Old Town. We walked around Josefov and saw some of the synagogues…walked around Old Town, saw Tyn Church and the Astronomer’s Clock…walked around New Town and tried some hot mulled wine, which I wasn’t a fan of. Then we went to the Palladium, the AMAZING new mall that just opened a week ago. The shopping there is good, but we really went so I could show them the top floor, where there are something like 15 different restaurants that are all ADORABLE and different kinds of food – Italian, Lebanese, Japanese, Indian, French, Mexican, etc. We had drinks at one of the bars located in the center. And there was a cute bartender, which is rare in Prague, so, yeah.
By then it was around 5 pm so we decided to head back home and rest a little before dinner. We got dinner with Brandon, Bill and Clay at a restaurant right near my apartment.
I just had the usual fried pork, but Katherine and Lauren shared a big two-person meal that basically hit them with every traditional Czech food in one platter. It had roast pork, duck, and more meats, two types of cabbages, potato dumplings, bread dumplings, and possibly more. Ridiculous.
We went back and hung out a bit more before going out to Cross Club, the one place that every single person visiting Prague is dragged to.
It was a little more crowded than I like and we were really tired so we weren’t there too long. For some reason a German guy started talking to all of us and he was telling me some story about Bill Clinton and racism, and I’m not sure what his point was but he kept using the n-word and I was like ooookay, bye now. I got fried cheese from a stand on the way home. It was yum.
The next day we got up and tried to decide what to do. Ideally we could have gone to Petrin Hill or Vysehrad, but it was still rainy and freezing. The girls were NOT used to cold weather; they had to wear tights under their jeans (something I’ve been meaning to buy but haven’t got around to.) So instead we went back to the mall for lunch, and ate at the Angus Burger place. There’s both a restaurant and a service counter, and we got burgers from the counter. They were decent but overpriced, so I don’t think I’ll be trying that one again. We then went back to Old Town so they could find postcards and souvenir-type stuff. We looked at the Astronomer’s Clock again to see it chime, and I realized that some of the figures on it were missing! I guess maybe they’re out for cleaning?
We were pretty cold after walking around more so we found a nice café and had hot drinks and apple strudel. Then Lauren decided it was time for some new shoes. The shoes she’d been wearing all day were thin flats and her feet were soaking wet, so we went to Humanic and she bought a pair of boots. We went home after that and took a two-hour nap.
When we finally got up we went to a restaurant I like on Vinohradska for dinner. We ate SO MUCH. I’m kind of used to it, but they weren’t, so even though we had planned on going to Futurum that night we just stayed in and let our stomachs deflate.
Then this morning they woke up at 8:30 to get to the airport. Nothing remarkable happened except…IT WAS SNOWING! It’s snowing right now as I’m writing this! I love snow and it’s going to look awesome, but: it’s November 11th. I still have another month of snow in Prague!?
This weekend Katherine and Lauren flew in from Rome for a visit! Unfortunately we were cursed with some shitty weather but it was still a really fun time. I picked them up from the airport a little before noon on Friday, and after dropping our stuff off we hit the nearest KFC. Lame, you may say. But they’ve been in Italy for two and a half months, where there is neither fried goodness nor meat. So some fried chicken was in high order.
Then we started our superspeed tour of Prague (which really isn’t that superspeed because the city is not that big.)
First we went to the Loreta, which is a 14th-16th century church by the castle. It’s a cool little place, but what makes it really worth seeing is the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows, because there’s a bearded lady on a crucifix there. Explanation from my guidebook of Prague: “She was St. Starosta, pious daughter of a Portuguese king who promised her to the king of Sicily against her wishes. After a night of tearful prayers she awoke with a beard, the wedding was called off, and her father had her crucified. She was later made a patron saint of the needy and the godforsaken.” Weird. You’re not supposed to take a picture, but I did.Next we went to St. Vitus Cathedral. I would have liked to walk around the castle gardens a little, but it was rainy and cold so didn’t seem worth it. We then made our way to the Charles Bridge, and walked over that into Old Town. We walked around Josefov and saw some of the synagogues…walked around Old Town, saw Tyn Church and the Astronomer’s Clock…walked around New Town and tried some hot mulled wine, which I wasn’t a fan of. Then we went to the Palladium, the AMAZING new mall that just opened a week ago. The shopping there is good, but we really went so I could show them the top floor, where there are something like 15 different restaurants that are all ADORABLE and different kinds of food – Italian, Lebanese, Japanese, Indian, French, Mexican, etc. We had drinks at one of the bars located in the center. And there was a cute bartender, which is rare in Prague, so, yeah.
By then it was around 5 pm so we decided to head back home and rest a little before dinner. We got dinner with Brandon, Bill and Clay at a restaurant right near my apartment.
I just had the usual fried pork, but Katherine and Lauren shared a big two-person meal that basically hit them with every traditional Czech food in one platter. It had roast pork, duck, and more meats, two types of cabbages, potato dumplings, bread dumplings, and possibly more. Ridiculous.We went back and hung out a bit more before going out to Cross Club, the one place that every single person visiting Prague is dragged to.
It was a little more crowded than I like and we were really tired so we weren’t there too long. For some reason a German guy started talking to all of us and he was telling me some story about Bill Clinton and racism, and I’m not sure what his point was but he kept using the n-word and I was like ooookay, bye now. I got fried cheese from a stand on the way home. It was yum.The next day we got up and tried to decide what to do. Ideally we could have gone to Petrin Hill or Vysehrad, but it was still rainy and freezing. The girls were NOT used to cold weather; they had to wear tights under their jeans (something I’ve been meaning to buy but haven’t got around to.) So instead we went back to the mall for lunch, and ate at the Angus Burger place. There’s both a restaurant and a service counter, and we got burgers from the counter. They were decent but overpriced, so I don’t think I’ll be trying that one again. We then went back to Old Town so they could find postcards and souvenir-type stuff. We looked at the Astronomer’s Clock again to see it chime, and I realized that some of the figures on it were missing! I guess maybe they’re out for cleaning?
We were pretty cold after walking around more so we found a nice café and had hot drinks and apple strudel. Then Lauren decided it was time for some new shoes. The shoes she’d been wearing all day were thin flats and her feet were soaking wet, so we went to Humanic and she bought a pair of boots. We went home after that and took a two-hour nap.
When we finally got up we went to a restaurant I like on Vinohradska for dinner. We ate SO MUCH. I’m kind of used to it, but they weren’t, so even though we had planned on going to Futurum that night we just stayed in and let our stomachs deflate.
Then this morning they woke up at 8:30 to get to the airport. Nothing remarkable happened except…IT WAS SNOWING! It’s snowing right now as I’m writing this! I love snow and it’s going to look awesome, but: it’s November 11th. I still have another month of snow in Prague!?
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Cestovala jsem do Dresden!
Last Saturday afternoon (as in November 3) me, Rachel, her friend Susie and Susie’s roommate Megan (both of whom are studying in Madrid) took a train from Prague to Dresden. The ride was fine, we got a compartment to ourselves, but about halfway through the lights went out and it was pitch-black in there. It made me think of the 3rd Harry Potter movie, when the dementors attack the train. Kiiiinda creepy.
Anyway, we got to Dresden, where it was drizzling, and found our hostel pretty easily. Now let me just say this: I will never, ever ever stay in a hostel I love as much as I loved that one. Our room was the CUTEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN. When we walked into our room, we thought we’d accidentally entered a 13-year-old girl’s bedroom. The walls were plastered with pictures of celebrities from magazines. Lace canopies hung over the bunk beds. Christmas lights were all around the room. There were even STUFFED ANIMALS TIED TO OUR BEDS WITH STRINGS. If we hadn’t been starving, we probably would never have left the room.
The staff at this place was also awesome. The girl working the desk was Irish, and when we asked her for good restaurant suggestions, she named about twenty and marked them all on a map for us. We ended up going to a place called Plan Wirtschaft. Service was incredibly slow…I think we were there for about 4 hours total, including waiting time beforehand. But it was a really good dinner – I had ox meat (!) with potatoes, and then Megan and I shared a dessert that was some sort of sweet bread dipped in hot vanilla sauce. It was definitely more expensive than a meal in Prague, but worth it.After dinner it was nearly midnight, and because Susie and Megan had to leave early in the morning for their plane back to Madrid, we walked around the city a bit and took pictures of the “old” buildings. The interesting thing about Dresden is that although it was destroyed by World War II, they rebuilt the city center to look as though it were hundreds of years older.
Then we went back and slept. There was another person in our room, and she was a bitch. We were trying to be as quiet as possible getting back in the room, and she woke up and bitched that “it was late.” Then when Susie and Megan got up to leave at around 4 am, she bitched that “it was 4 in the bloody morning.” I’m sorry, but aren’t you paying €15 a night for a 6-bed room? If you’re too cheap to get yourself a private room, you have to deal with the consequences.
Rachel and I got up the next morning at around 9:30 and, per the Irish girl’s recommendation, got a breakfast brunch at a place called Cup & Cino. I ate a lot of croissants and had a tasty hot chocolate with a cute heart of cinnamon floating on top. Seriously, I don’t think there was a single thing in Dresden that WASN’T cute. The area around our hostel in general was very cool, with tons of restaurants and shops (almost all of which were closed, unfortunately, because it was Sunday.)
We then set about walking around the city…and as it turned out, there wasn’t much to it. We saw two cathedrals, the palace, some little parks and some museum lobbies all by 3 in the afternoon. Which is not to say that I didn’t love Dresden, because I definitely did. It’s not much for sightseeing, but if you just wanted to chill out with friends for a few days it would be a great place. One funny thing I noticed was that all the dogs there were HUGE. There are tons of dogs in Prague, and they come in all sizes, but I’d say the average dog is cocker spaniel sized. In Germany they were all humongous German Shepherd types…which I guess makes sense.Once we were done walking around, Rachel and I found a cute (there’s that word again) café where we sat by a fake fireplace and drank hot chocolate and tea. We weighed our options – there was a train at 5:09 and at 7:09. We decided to go for the 5:09, because we really had nothing else to do there. The train station in Dresden was very modern and nice, and we got Burger King (again: DELICIOUS) and ate it on the way home. Overall it was a fantastic weekend and I’m so happy I was actually able to go to Germany, because until I decided to go to Dresden it looked like it wasn’t going to happen.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Hokej, etc.
Now that I’ve finally made it through describing the Central Europe trip, I can move on to other things that have happened in the meantime.
On Tuesday, October 30, CET took us all to an ice hockey game between HC Praha Slavia and HC Praha Sparta. They’re both part of the Czech national hockey league, and they’re both teams from Prague. I have no idea how Praguers go about choosing a team to support, but this happened to be a home game for Slavia, so I am now the proud owner of an HC Praha Slavia scarf and will follow them to the bitter end. Or at least until I go back to the US and stop caring about ice hockey.
The game was a lot of fun, and made me want to go see more pro sports once I’m at home. The crowd wasn’t super enthusiastic, save for the two ends of the arena, where the hardcore fans sat, but cheap beer and the fact that I was watching a Czech ice hockey game saved it all.
Halloween was pretty much a non-entity this year, because our entire program had our politics midterm the next day, and the events of the night before kind of put a damper on whatever fun might have been had. But on Thursday night the Veverkova apartment had a little party with sambuca (black) and blood orange juice and vodka (orange), as well as fake spiderwebs around the room. It’s always nice when big groups hang out here, because there are a bunch of people I don’t get to talk to on a regular basis.
The next day, Friday, was a total waste. Me and Anna ate mac & cheese, spent several hours in the internet café next to my apartment, and then played demos for stupid computer games we downloaded (Diner Dash = BEST EVER.) I had a nice dinner with Rachel and her two visiting friends, Susie and Megan.
But then that night I finally got to see AMANDA! She came all the way from Madrid “to visit Brandon” but I think we all know just seeing Brandon isn’t worth that time and effort. The night was actually kind of disappointing, though, because we went to Akropolis, and it sucked. Akropolis is kind of dull in the first place, in my opinion, but that night it was packed and smoky. You could hardly get a beer, let alone dance.
The next morning I met Amanda and Brandon for brunch at Zanzibar, though, and it was tasty as always. Zanzibar has the best crepes – I always get them with maple syrup and whipped cream, and they never fail to satisfy. Brunch was very nice, but then I headed back to my apartment to get ready for what I will cover in my next post – DRESDEN!
On Tuesday, October 30, CET took us all to an ice hockey game between HC Praha Slavia and HC Praha Sparta. They’re both part of the Czech national hockey league, and they’re both teams from Prague. I have no idea how Praguers go about choosing a team to support, but this happened to be a home game for Slavia, so I am now the proud owner of an HC Praha Slavia scarf and will follow them to the bitter end. Or at least until I go back to the US and stop caring about ice hockey.The game was a lot of fun, and made me want to go see more pro sports once I’m at home. The crowd wasn’t super enthusiastic, save for the two ends of the arena, where the hardcore fans sat, but cheap beer and the fact that I was watching a Czech ice hockey game saved it all.
Halloween was pretty much a non-entity this year, because our entire program had our politics midterm the next day, and the events of the night before kind of put a damper on whatever fun might have been had. But on Thursday night the Veverkova apartment had a little party with sambuca (black) and blood orange juice and vodka (orange), as well as fake spiderwebs around the room. It’s always nice when big groups hang out here, because there are a bunch of people I don’t get to talk to on a regular basis.The next day, Friday, was a total waste. Me and Anna ate mac & cheese, spent several hours in the internet café next to my apartment, and then played demos for stupid computer games we downloaded (Diner Dash = BEST EVER.) I had a nice dinner with Rachel and her two visiting friends, Susie and Megan.
But then that night I finally got to see AMANDA! She came all the way from Madrid “to visit Brandon” but I think we all know just seeing Brandon isn’t worth that time and effort. The night was actually kind of disappointing, though, because we went to Akropolis, and it sucked. Akropolis is kind of dull in the first place, in my opinion, but that night it was packed and smoky. You could hardly get a beer, let alone dance. The next morning I met Amanda and Brandon for brunch at Zanzibar, though, and it was tasty as always. Zanzibar has the best crepes – I always get them with maple syrup and whipped cream, and they never fail to satisfy. Brunch was very nice, but then I headed back to my apartment to get ready for what I will cover in my next post – DRESDEN!
Central Europe Part IV
Wednesday: Vienna
None of us were sorry to bid farewell to Bratislava on Wednesday morning. I’m sure the city has a lot more to offer than what we saw, but there was just no salvaging it after the awful rain. We were moving on to bigger and better things: Vienna!
Naturally I had to listen to the Billy Joel song while we were on our way. The weather in Vienna was still cloudy and damp, but not outright raining, so it was bearable. After dropping our stuff of at the hotel, Jiri led us on a loooong march out to Naschmarkt, where we had lunch. Naschmarkt is a big, semi-outdoor market with lots of little mini-restaurants of all sorts of food. Brandon, Anna, Mike and I ate at a Mediterranean food one, and I had really good pasta there. It was cool eating in the little restaurant because there were only three tables, but it was also a bummer to realize that now we were in Euro territory.
After lunch we met our tour guide for the next few days, Wolfgang. Wolfgang was a grad student at the University of Vienna; I have no idea how he knows Jiri but apparently he’s given the tour to CES students before. To be honest he wasn’t a great tour guide, because he tried to show us so many things that he didn’t go into detail about any of them and for the most part none of us remembered what they were. According to the itinerary he gave us, this is what we saw after lunch: Karntner Strasse; Stephansplatz; St. Stephan’s cathedral; Graben; and Kohlmarkt.
Out of those, the only ones I am sure of are St. Stephan’s cathedral and Stephansplatz, the square around it. St. Stephan’s was huge and impressive and Gothic, and I loved it because I love Gothic cathedrals. It was characteristic of Vienna – EVERYTHING is huge and impressive there. You couldn’t walk more than 100 feet without coming across another giant statue, monument or building.
We got out of the cold at around 3:30 pm by going to a Viennese coffeehouse, the Café Central. Viennese coffeehouses are famous, partly because it’s very common for Austrians to buy a cup of coffee and then settle down for hours at a time to read and relax. I ordered a cappuccino even though I don’t like coffee, but the cake I got made up for it. It was called "Mohr im Hemd“, which apparently means "black man in a white shirt“, which according to Wolfgang "isn’t racist“ but I guess I’ll just take his word for it. Anyway it was a delicious chocolate cake with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. Amazing.
The second part of that day’s tour was afterwards and apparently we saw the following: the University of Vienna, city hall, Parliament, the Hofburg (former royal palace), the Museum of Art History, the opera, Heldenplatz, Maria-Theresien-Platz, and the Secession. I recall the university campus as being very typically college-like. Other than that it’s all kind of blur of pretty buildings.
Finally we had some free time, which I chose to use to go shopping. I bought a pair of cute shoes at Humanic, which I realize I could have bought at the store in Prague, but…I have no excuse. The thing we didn’t realize, however, was that almost every store closed at 7 p.m., and we weren’t meeting for dinner until 8. Luckily me, Kristie, Marina and Caroline found a jewelry shop that was still open and went in. The awesome English-speaking shop lady turned up the music, pulled out a bottle and asked us, "Want some champagne?“ Turns out she had worked as an au pair in West Chester, NY for a while and talked to us about how spoiled all the kids there are. The champagne was basically a ploy to make us buy jewelry but it was highly entertaining.
Thursday: Vienna
The next morning we had the next part of our tour. Briefly we visited an old folks‘ home, but not really – we just walked through the lobby to go see the courtyard, which had an old Jewish cemetary in it! A nice reminder of what’s coming for the residents, I guess. Then we went to the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance, where Wolfgang works. There was an exhibit all about Austria immediately before, during and after the German annexation and occupation, and Wolfgang gave us a presentation on it all. Our final stop was the Belvedere, Vienna’s famous art museum, but all we got to do was look in the lobby, which I thought was weird.
Then we had free time until 9 pm that night. By this point the weather had taken its toll on me: I was definitely sick. Everyone else went to the art museums; I went to the hotel to sleep. It took forever to get a cab and get back there, but I did manage to get some rest until I had to get up and meet Brandon, Mike and Anna so we could go to BURGER KING!
Burger King was delicious, I gotta say. They don’t have them in Prague and they are excellent burgers, after all. So while it is kind of pathetic that I ate Burger King on one of my two nights in Vienna, I do not regret it. At all.
Most of us met Jiri and Wolfgang at 9 that night and Wolfgang took us to a restaurant bar where he laid out some options of where else we could go that night. Since it was such a big group of people, Anna and I decided to strike out on our own, and found a club that was mentioned in her guide book. It ended up being the best decision ever. At first the club was kind of sketchy and lame – we got there around 11 but there was almost no one there. Plus it was expensive. But we sat at our little table anyway – we’d paid friggin‘ €12 just to get in, might as well stay – and when we looked around at 12:30 it was full of people! The entire ethnic population of Vienna, apparently. These were not your typical Europeans…they actually knew how to dance. It was really very impressive.
So basically we spent several hours there blowing all of our remaining Euros on mojitos, wine and beer. I wasn’t really drunk when we left (thank you, Double Whopper with fries) but we were still amazed that we found our way home.
Friday: Vienna and back to Prague
Normally we would have just hopped on the bus and returned to Prague, but there was one last thing left to do before leaving: celebrate the Austrian independence day! We went to Heldenplatz, which I guess is a main square there, and saw some of the celebrations. In comparison to the way Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, it was somewhat unimpressive. A large part of the Austrian army was there, because the Austrian army is tiny and basically comprised of teenagers fulfilling their compulsory service. We saw the president give a speech, but obviously couldn’t understand it because it was all in German. There were a lot of stands set up with information and pictures about the air force. My favorite thing about it was the gigantic donut pretzel I got for €1.50.
And then, it was back to Prague for us. Probably a good thing…somehow we managed to avoid anyone hating each other after the trip, but had we been stuck together a few more days it would have been inevitable. Overall it was an amazing time. I got to see a lot of places and things I never would have otherwise, and I did feel that I learned a lot about Central Europe.
None of us were sorry to bid farewell to Bratislava on Wednesday morning. I’m sure the city has a lot more to offer than what we saw, but there was just no salvaging it after the awful rain. We were moving on to bigger and better things: Vienna!
Naturally I had to listen to the Billy Joel song while we were on our way. The weather in Vienna was still cloudy and damp, but not outright raining, so it was bearable. After dropping our stuff of at the hotel, Jiri led us on a loooong march out to Naschmarkt, where we had lunch. Naschmarkt is a big, semi-outdoor market with lots of little mini-restaurants of all sorts of food. Brandon, Anna, Mike and I ate at a Mediterranean food one, and I had really good pasta there. It was cool eating in the little restaurant because there were only three tables, but it was also a bummer to realize that now we were in Euro territory.
After lunch we met our tour guide for the next few days, Wolfgang. Wolfgang was a grad student at the University of Vienna; I have no idea how he knows Jiri but apparently he’s given the tour to CES students before. To be honest he wasn’t a great tour guide, because he tried to show us so many things that he didn’t go into detail about any of them and for the most part none of us remembered what they were. According to the itinerary he gave us, this is what we saw after lunch: Karntner Strasse; Stephansplatz; St. Stephan’s cathedral; Graben; and Kohlmarkt.
Out of those, the only ones I am sure of are St. Stephan’s cathedral and Stephansplatz, the square around it. St. Stephan’s was huge and impressive and Gothic, and I loved it because I love Gothic cathedrals. It was characteristic of Vienna – EVERYTHING is huge and impressive there. You couldn’t walk more than 100 feet without coming across another giant statue, monument or building.
We got out of the cold at around 3:30 pm by going to a Viennese coffeehouse, the Café Central. Viennese coffeehouses are famous, partly because it’s very common for Austrians to buy a cup of coffee and then settle down for hours at a time to read and relax. I ordered a cappuccino even though I don’t like coffee, but the cake I got made up for it. It was called "Mohr im Hemd“, which apparently means "black man in a white shirt“, which according to Wolfgang "isn’t racist“ but I guess I’ll just take his word for it. Anyway it was a delicious chocolate cake with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. Amazing.The second part of that day’s tour was afterwards and apparently we saw the following: the University of Vienna, city hall, Parliament, the Hofburg (former royal palace), the Museum of Art History, the opera, Heldenplatz, Maria-Theresien-Platz, and the Secession. I recall the university campus as being very typically college-like. Other than that it’s all kind of blur of pretty buildings.
Finally we had some free time, which I chose to use to go shopping. I bought a pair of cute shoes at Humanic, which I realize I could have bought at the store in Prague, but…I have no excuse. The thing we didn’t realize, however, was that almost every store closed at 7 p.m., and we weren’t meeting for dinner until 8. Luckily me, Kristie, Marina and Caroline found a jewelry shop that was still open and went in. The awesome English-speaking shop lady turned up the music, pulled out a bottle and asked us, "Want some champagne?“ Turns out she had worked as an au pair in West Chester, NY for a while and talked to us about how spoiled all the kids there are. The champagne was basically a ploy to make us buy jewelry but it was highly entertaining.
Thursday: Vienna
The next morning we had the next part of our tour. Briefly we visited an old folks‘ home, but not really – we just walked through the lobby to go see the courtyard, which had an old Jewish cemetary in it! A nice reminder of what’s coming for the residents, I guess. Then we went to the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance, where Wolfgang works. There was an exhibit all about Austria immediately before, during and after the German annexation and occupation, and Wolfgang gave us a presentation on it all. Our final stop was the Belvedere, Vienna’s famous art museum, but all we got to do was look in the lobby, which I thought was weird. Then we had free time until 9 pm that night. By this point the weather had taken its toll on me: I was definitely sick. Everyone else went to the art museums; I went to the hotel to sleep. It took forever to get a cab and get back there, but I did manage to get some rest until I had to get up and meet Brandon, Mike and Anna so we could go to BURGER KING!
Burger King was delicious, I gotta say. They don’t have them in Prague and they are excellent burgers, after all. So while it is kind of pathetic that I ate Burger King on one of my two nights in Vienna, I do not regret it. At all.
Most of us met Jiri and Wolfgang at 9 that night and Wolfgang took us to a restaurant bar where he laid out some options of where else we could go that night. Since it was such a big group of people, Anna and I decided to strike out on our own, and found a club that was mentioned in her guide book. It ended up being the best decision ever. At first the club was kind of sketchy and lame – we got there around 11 but there was almost no one there. Plus it was expensive. But we sat at our little table anyway – we’d paid friggin‘ €12 just to get in, might as well stay – and when we looked around at 12:30 it was full of people! The entire ethnic population of Vienna, apparently. These were not your typical Europeans…they actually knew how to dance. It was really very impressive.
So basically we spent several hours there blowing all of our remaining Euros on mojitos, wine and beer. I wasn’t really drunk when we left (thank you, Double Whopper with fries) but we were still amazed that we found our way home.
Friday: Vienna and back to Prague
Normally we would have just hopped on the bus and returned to Prague, but there was one last thing left to do before leaving: celebrate the Austrian independence day! We went to Heldenplatz, which I guess is a main square there, and saw some of the celebrations. In comparison to the way Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, it was somewhat unimpressive. A large part of the Austrian army was there, because the Austrian army is tiny and basically comprised of teenagers fulfilling their compulsory service. We saw the president give a speech, but obviously couldn’t understand it because it was all in German. There were a lot of stands set up with information and pictures about the air force. My favorite thing about it was the gigantic donut pretzel I got for €1.50.And then, it was back to Prague for us. Probably a good thing…somehow we managed to avoid anyone hating each other after the trip, but had we been stuck together a few more days it would have been inevitable. Overall it was an amazing time. I got to see a lot of places and things I never would have otherwise, and I did feel that I learned a lot about Central Europe.
Central Europe Part III
Monday: Mikulov
On Monday we took a tour of the town of Mikulov. We saw our five billionth castle, and no, it was not any more interesting than any of the others. In the wine cellars we also saw the largest barrel in Central Europe. So…now I can say I’ve seen the largest barrel in Central Europe. Mikulov is a very cute little town, though, and I liked walking around it. I also had the BEST HOT CHOCOLATE EVER in a café. It was more like melted chocolate. Mmmm.
In the afternoon we went to another wine cellar about an hour away, which belonged to someone our bus driver knew. These cellars were medieval. We tried more wine there, obviously.
But now that I mentioned our bus driver, let me say how AWESOME he was. He didn’t speak much English but oftentimes, after we’d drag ourselves back onto the bus after looking at a castle in 40 degree weather for 3 hours, he’d be waiting there with pastries or candy for us! Good old Pan Ziman. Love that man.
I don’t think we did much else in Mikulov that night; just went to dinner and then bed.
Tuesday: Bratislava
Tuesday we awoke and our luck had run out – it was pouring rain. And it continued to do so all freakin‘ day, so that unfortunately my experience of Bratislava was not ideal. We only had one day to see it because supposedly it’s not a very interesting city, despite being the capital of Slovakia.
Our first stop was Devin Castle, which is about 30 minutes outside of the city. In good weather, it would have been really cool, because it’s actually castle ruins rather than a preserved one. It looked like a castle I’d expect to see in Scotland or something. That said, the experience was fairly miserable because we all got soaking wet and freezing walking around the stupid thing.
The day didn’t improve much when we then arrived at our hotel. During the Communist regime, the Hotel Kyjev was the only hotel in Bratislava where foreigners were permitted to stay, much like the Hotel Intercontinental in Prague. So basically it was this big, weird Communist hotel where seemingly nothing had been updated since the 1970s. I guess it wasn’t actually terrible – I’ve stayed in worse. And I didn’t have any complaints about my room, personally, other than that me and Anna could never open the goddamn door. But other people said their bathtubs looked as though someone had been murdered in them and never cleaned up. So…yeah.
After lunch at the hotel we took a tour around Bratislava. I can’t say much about this other than I didn’t pay attention because I was cold and wet and miserable, and our tour guide was not an actual tour guide but a “real Slovak girl“ whose hair dye was dripping down her face the entire time. Bratislava looked like it could be quite pretty in nice weather, but it basically sucked while we were there.
We finally got a respite from the horrible weather when we got a lecture on Slovakia’s recovery from Communism at an American-created center for democracy. It was really, really interesting. Slovakia has always been more agricultural than the Czech lands and thus it’s always had more economic problems, which became even more pronounced after 1989. Nowadays it’s still poorer than the Czech Republic, but Slovakia is actually closer to adopting the Euro than the Czech Republic. The problem is that now they have a very socialist president who’s kind of moving them backwards. I guess we’ll see how it goes.
After the lecture we had free time the rest of the night. I ran to Tesco and bought rain boots, because my sneakers were COMPLETELY soaked through by that point. Then about 8 of us went for dinner at nearby pub. The food was pretty similar to Czech food, but a bunch of people got halusky (some kind of gnocchi-ham thing? I’m not sure) and it came with little Slovak flags in it. That was cute. That was the only picture I took on my entire day in Slovakia.
On Monday we took a tour of the town of Mikulov. We saw our five billionth castle, and no, it was not any more interesting than any of the others. In the wine cellars we also saw the largest barrel in Central Europe. So…now I can say I’ve seen the largest barrel in Central Europe. Mikulov is a very cute little town, though, and I liked walking around it. I also had the BEST HOT CHOCOLATE EVER in a café. It was more like melted chocolate. Mmmm.
In the afternoon we went to another wine cellar about an hour away, which belonged to someone our bus driver knew. These cellars were medieval. We tried more wine there, obviously. But now that I mentioned our bus driver, let me say how AWESOME he was. He didn’t speak much English but oftentimes, after we’d drag ourselves back onto the bus after looking at a castle in 40 degree weather for 3 hours, he’d be waiting there with pastries or candy for us! Good old Pan Ziman. Love that man.
I don’t think we did much else in Mikulov that night; just went to dinner and then bed.
Tuesday: Bratislava
Tuesday we awoke and our luck had run out – it was pouring rain. And it continued to do so all freakin‘ day, so that unfortunately my experience of Bratislava was not ideal. We only had one day to see it because supposedly it’s not a very interesting city, despite being the capital of Slovakia.
Our first stop was Devin Castle, which is about 30 minutes outside of the city. In good weather, it would have been really cool, because it’s actually castle ruins rather than a preserved one. It looked like a castle I’d expect to see in Scotland or something. That said, the experience was fairly miserable because we all got soaking wet and freezing walking around the stupid thing.
The day didn’t improve much when we then arrived at our hotel. During the Communist regime, the Hotel Kyjev was the only hotel in Bratislava where foreigners were permitted to stay, much like the Hotel Intercontinental in Prague. So basically it was this big, weird Communist hotel where seemingly nothing had been updated since the 1970s. I guess it wasn’t actually terrible – I’ve stayed in worse. And I didn’t have any complaints about my room, personally, other than that me and Anna could never open the goddamn door. But other people said their bathtubs looked as though someone had been murdered in them and never cleaned up. So…yeah.
After lunch at the hotel we took a tour around Bratislava. I can’t say much about this other than I didn’t pay attention because I was cold and wet and miserable, and our tour guide was not an actual tour guide but a “real Slovak girl“ whose hair dye was dripping down her face the entire time. Bratislava looked like it could be quite pretty in nice weather, but it basically sucked while we were there.
We finally got a respite from the horrible weather when we got a lecture on Slovakia’s recovery from Communism at an American-created center for democracy. It was really, really interesting. Slovakia has always been more agricultural than the Czech lands and thus it’s always had more economic problems, which became even more pronounced after 1989. Nowadays it’s still poorer than the Czech Republic, but Slovakia is actually closer to adopting the Euro than the Czech Republic. The problem is that now they have a very socialist president who’s kind of moving them backwards. I guess we’ll see how it goes.
After the lecture we had free time the rest of the night. I ran to Tesco and bought rain boots, because my sneakers were COMPLETELY soaked through by that point. Then about 8 of us went for dinner at nearby pub. The food was pretty similar to Czech food, but a bunch of people got halusky (some kind of gnocchi-ham thing? I’m not sure) and it came with little Slovak flags in it. That was cute. That was the only picture I took on my entire day in Slovakia.
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