Na Shledanou

So now I'm home. First off, last day of Dublin. The main sight we saw on the last day of Dublin was the Kilmainham Gaol, a old jail that held many famous political prisoners in Irish history. We also got to bed nice and early because of our early flight the next day. Unfortunately, we missed this flight. We were on time but due to Ryanair, who will be getting a very angry letter, we missed the flight and were forced to stay in Dublin until we could get on the 1 other flight out of the airport that day back to Prague.
Once we arrived in Prague we had to go all the way to Vysehrad to get our suitcases then take a cab to the hotel. By the time we got to the hotel we had about 4 hours to sleep before we had to get up for our flight home. This meant we did not get to spend our last day in Prague like we were supposed to, shopping and such. Now that I am finally home though its a good feeling. It is a bit sad to leave Prague because it was a great experience and a lot of fun, but its time to rejoin real life as I now start working back in DC in less than 1 week.

Last Day of London and Beginning of Dublin

I already forget exactly what I did on my last day in London but I'll give a quick outline of our last day in London. I was awoken by my phone at about 9:30 in the morning to a random number. Fortunately, it was my friend John that I worked with at ICCF. He is getting his masters at London School of Economic but still works for ICCF and will be back there this summer so Maude will work with him. I met up with him and his wife in Covent Garden at a Starbucks. Then I went back to the hotel and Maude was up and we went out to see a few things. We walked back to Covent Garden to wander around and to walk through the market there. Then we went over to Harrods, which is a ridiculously big department store. From there we walked to the natural history museum which was actually really cool. By this time we were getting pretty hungry and we really wanted to get some indian food before we left London. My guidebook had a place called Masala Zone in it so we decided to try that out and it turned out to be really good. Of course, the last thing we did in London was head to a pub and have a few ciders and beers before we went to bed.
Yesterday we arrived in Dublin and our hostel is in a great location right in Temple Bar. We didn't do that much yesterday but hang out with a bunch of people at our hostel. I actually met a fellow Hoya who is a year older and we have several friends in common back at Georgetown. Today we did another free walking tour of Dublin that took us to some good places around the city like city hall, a very famous church, and Trinity College. The other major thing we did today was go to the Guinness storehouse to see how Guinness was made and to have a taste. Like everyone says, it really was the best Guinness you have ever tasted. Tomorrow we are going to this prison that is supposed to be very cool and we might go to the Jameson Distillery as well. Thursday I will be back in Prague so hopefully I can get another post in before returning to the US of A. When I get back I will try to give some more details about this trip and tell a bit more about what I did.
Also, keep an eye out I may be starting up another blog when I get back to the US. I'll be posting again soon and be back to the US in just a few days.

London Day 2

Well its only 3 so day 2 isn't really finished but i'm at the computer right now so I thought I would just write a quick post. This morning we got up and went over to Hyde Park corner to do a free walking tour around part of London. The walking tour took us to Buckingham Palace, where we saw the changing of the guards. Then over to St. James palace where Prince Charles and his family live. From there we went to Trafalgar Square and eventually on to Westminister. At Westminister we saw Big Ben, Westminster Palace (Parliament), and Westminister Abbey. The tour ended and we walked over to look at the Thames River and the London Eye. Then Maude and I got some lunch are are using the internet. We still have some things to see and do so I will update again when I can.

Brussels, Amsterdam and a day in London

This post is going to be very short because I am sitting in an internet cafe in London and want to go eat. On the 16th, Maude and I left Prague to do a bit of traveling before coming home. First we flew to Brussels because the flight was insanely cheap. We spent two and a half days in Brussels and I was shocked at how much I like the city since I had heard some mixed reviews. We stayed in a really nice hostel that was more like a small hotel and was right on the Grand Place, the best place for someone visiting to stay. The square was beautiful and we visited the European Union buildings and some other sites in the city. We also ate almost nothing but frites (french fries), belgian waffles, and mussels, all of the specialties and drank a lot of beer since Belgium is known for its great beer. We met up with a friend of Maude's from NYU and her boyfriend also and went to a bar called Delirium with over 2000 beers, it holds the Guiness world record for most beers at a bar.
After Brussels we got on the train to Amsterdam. Our hostel in Amsterdam was also nice and it was in a cool area right on the edge of the Red Light District. Sadly, the dutch government is slowly getting rid of the red light district and in a few years it will be gone, so its a good thing we got to see it when we did. We went on a great free tour as well and checked out everything else Amsterdam had to offer, on the tour they showed us a coffee shop called Grey Area where Snoop Dogg likes to spend most of his time when he goes to Amsterdam. More details later...
But now we are in London and today we walked (really far) to go to portobello market and see hyde park and kensington palace. Tomorrow we are going to do another free tour, keep you posted hopefully....

Catching Up

Ok so I haven't blogged in quite awhile so I'm just going to do a real fast run through of things I have done and places I have seen over the past few weeks. If you want a lot of detail on what I did you will have to ask me because this post is just going to touch on each place so people know what exactly I have been up to on the weekends.
First, several weeks ago my parents were in town and i met them in Berlin. Berlin, simply put, was a really new and modern city and I really like it. Since pretty much everything there was rebuilt after World War II its totally different than Prague, but I am a fan of the new, clean look of a city like Berlin. It was nice to travel with my family since we hadn't seen them in a few months and because it was nice to stay in a beautiful hotel. All in all Berlin was a really good trip and easy to make on the train. While we were there we saw things like the Brandenburg Tor, Humbolt University, the Parliament, Checkpoint Charlie, and the East Side Gallery.
The east side gallery is the longest remaining part of the wall and still stands in its original location. The gallery has a number of paintings done on the wall by famous artists and this above was one of them.
At the end of the weekend, Maude and I and my family all boarded the train back to Prague. My parents would spend the next or so days in Prague, seeing all the sites of Prague and making a day trip to Terezin. We took a 1 hour bus ride outside of Prague to the small town of Terezin, this town was once a fortress but during World War II served as a ghetto and prison. It was not actually a concentration camp, though many people did die here. It was more of a halfway house through which Jews were shipped to Auschwitz. The town as a whole, specifically the small fortress where Jews and political dissidents were housed, was still a pretty depressing site.
At the end of the week, right before my family left, Maude's mom and brother arrived to Prague. We all had dinner on old town one night but then shortly after my parents had to return to the states. The rest of that week we spent some time with Maude's family and seeing any sights we had missed until then. Right after they left I was scheduled to go on two day trips through my school CIEE. On saturday I travelled to Most and Osek, Czech towns on the border of the Czech Republic and Germany. Honestly, there wasn't much in these towns except in Most we saw a church that the Communists actually spent years moving before they destroyed the entire town to turn it into a coal mine. On the whole this trip really wasn't very exciting except for the lunch, which was free and quite tasty.
On Sunday I then travelled to Jachymov and Karlovy Vary. In Jachymov there was a camp for political prisoners of the Communist regime. We met and spoke with a man who was a political prisoner in this camp and we took a tour of the Uranium Mine that he was forced to work in while he was a prisoner.

This is the front of the Uranium mine we went in, the day before we came they actually had to ventilate the mine to make sure that the levels of radiation within the mine would be low and the mine would be safe for us to enter.
After we finished in Jachymov we got back on the bus and travelled to Karlovy Vary. Karlovy Vary is a hot spring town. There are natural hot springs running through the city which are funneled into like faucets where you can fill up a cup and drink it for its healing properties. However, it has a lot of iron in it and it tastes sort of like you are drinking blood. The town is most famous for a major film festival that is held there every summer and for its Grand Hotel Pupp where the James Bond film Casion Royale was filmed.

This is the Grand Hotel Pupp where Casino Royale was filmed.
Another weekend is approaching, though I am not going anywhere, I just plan to do some work and go pedal boating on the Vltava river in Prague. However, over the last weekend that passed I went to a small town in South Bohemia called Cesky Krumlov. Maude, Jena, and I made the 3 hour trip on Friday to stay 1 night there. We stayed at Hostel Skippy, which was a little far from the town square however it had a terrace that was sitting right about the Vltava river that flowed through the city. We saw all the sights, including the castle that is in the town, within a few hours of being there. So we got a few bottles of wine and relaxed on the terrace of our hostel where we met a cool Australian couple who were spending about 5 months just travelling through Europe. We hung out with them for awhile and got dinner with them. Then the next day we got lunch and had a little time to kill so we just went down along the river and read and slept because the weather was beautiful. Overall, the town is was really nice and the trip was relaxing.

So these are the last few trips I have taken in a nutshell. I have a lot of work to do in the next week and a half so I won't be doing too much that is interesting. However, after my school here is over Maude and I will take a trip for about 12 days. We are going to Brussels, Amsterdam, London, and Dublin before we return back to the US. I will try to put some brief updates on here about the trip as its happening but if not I will at least make sure I get a lot of pictures for after.

The Language

I know I posted before and mentioned words such as zmrzlina, five vowels in a row before a consonant. However I just thought I'd share this sentence in Czech. It basically means "stick your finger through your throat". Strč prst skrz krk. This is an entire sentence without vowels, further pointing out how ridiculous and hard to understand this language is. My czech teacher also told me that she thinks there is an entire fairy tale told without vowels but I haven't been able to find this yet.

Video Update

Well the next normal blog post will come shortly hopefully and will be about Berlin and my parents visit, I keep forgetting to get pictures off Maude's camera. Though I'm not sure who is going to care since I think my parents are the only ones who read this usually. But for this post I'm just going to throw a few short videos of some things on here. I have been doing a terrible job of taking video of things while here, I blame it partly on myself and partly on other people who always get mad when I try to film them. But here are a few of the videos that I have gotten.



Right here we have a video from the trip Maude and I took to Istanbul. We have no idea what they are saying but its a large procession of men chanting something, possibly in some sort of protest. Not really sure what it was about but I thought it would be good to catch on video



This one is a random street perform in Saint Michel in Paris. Look on top of his head, yes that is a very large glass bottle with live fish inside.



Not sure if I put this up before and don't feel like checking but here is a clip of the Superbowl, which you saw if you watched, and a little look around to all the other American students watching it there with me.



So Henry and I went to the SK Slavia Praha vs. Sparta Praha game on Monday. These are the two best teams in the Czech professional football league (soccer) and they are both based in Prague also so its a huge rivalry. The game we were at was probably the biggest non-playoff game of the year in the Czech Republic. We were rooting for Slavia and we were sitting next to the main Slavia fan section. This is a video of the crazy Slavia fans and the beginning of the game.



This is again the Slavia fans, I thought I'd include 2 because they are so intense and because the number of different cheers and things they do is incredible. You really need to be a fan (fanatic) to sit in this section.



This last video is a quick panorama of the view from the Eiffel Tower. Its a bit tough to see because its night time, but it looked great while we were up there.

was Constantinople, now its Istanbul

So one week ago, on tuesday, Maude and I set off on a plane to Istanbul, Turkey. The title of this post comes from a popular song that I'm sure most of you know. The reason for the two names, if you weren't sure, is that while under Roman rule the city was known as Constantinople and was primarily a Christian city. However, when the Ottoman's captured Constantinople they changed the name to Istanbul and promptly began changing it. For example, they changed the Aya Sofia from a Christian Church into a Mosque. But anyway thats just about the name now I will talk about the trip.
We landed in Ataturk airport and hopped in a taxi to Sultanhamet, the downtown area where most of the sites are. Sultanhamet is in the European part of the city (part is in Europe and part is in Asia) and the European part is where all of the sites to see are.
By the time we got in Tuesday it was too late to do anything really so we just wandered around the city a bit and got dinner at a little place two doors down from our hotel that had some incredible lamb sausage kebaps and this really good seasoned and toasted bread. We then went to bed pretty early to be ready to do some walking the next day and see some of the sites.
Wednesday we slept in then got up rested and ready to go walk around a bit. Our first stop was the Aya Sofia. We followed the tram path from our hotel right next to the park between the Aya Sofia and Blue Mosque and decided to hit the Aya Sofia first. The Aya Sofia was built somehwere around 530AD, so a really long time ago. It was originally a christian church, this is evidenced by two remaining pictures of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus on the inside. The building was then converted to a Mosque when Istanbul was captured by the Ottoman empire. The outside and most of the inside look like a Mosque, however in the 1930s Ataturk converted it to a museum as a symbol of religious tolerance. He did not want the two religions fighting over who held the rights to the building.

Here is Maude standing in front of the Aya Sofia and me stading on the inside. This is only a portion of the inside. It is fairly empty inside but impressive and very large. It is obviously being restored, etc. but it is amazing the condition it is in since it is over 1500 years old. The building was definitely one to see.
Right after this we walked through a very nice, small park that had beautiful green grass. This is impressive to me because it has been so long since I have seen real bright colors, Prauge is rainy and grey...though I think we are finally reaching spring here and i'm finally seeing sun in this city. But anyway, after we walked through the park we went to the Blue Mosque. I was more impressed by the Blue Mosque than by the Aya Sofia personally and this was also the first mosque that I have ever actually entered. The Blue Mosque doesn't look too blue from the outside, but when you go in, there are decorative tiles everywhere that are blue. To enter we had to go around the side entrance and remove our shoes then we could enter. We also were not allowed to walk around the entire mosque since we are not muslim.

So the first picture is clearly Maude and I in front of the blue mosque, the second is the inside of the mosque, and the thir is an example of the blue tile that is covereing the walls and ceiling of the mosque.
After we left the mosque and got our shoes back on we headed down toward the water to see the "Little Aya Sofia", this is not really at all like the aya sofia, it is actually a small working mosque but with a lot of history. We went into the little aya sofia also, my second mosque ever, and this one was totally empty except for Maude and I. However, this mosque seemed like it was actually used by people and wasn't just a tourist attraction. We were also able to walk all around the mosque so we could see all of the different parts.

After leaving the mosque our guidebook led us a bit astray and we wandered through "real istanbul" for awhile. We were without question the only white people and we weren't really sure where we were. Finally, we backtracked though and eventually made our way over to the Obelisk of Theodosius, the remains of the Serpant column and the park where chariot races once took place. It wasn't that much to see but it was a cool park to just sit in and people watch. After this we walked back to our hotel and we were done with our sightseeing for the day. I can't even remember where exactly we had dinner but on the whole we didn't do anything special at night and we got a good nights sleep and were ready for the Baazar on Thursday.
The Grand Baazar is ridiculous, I can't really think of a more apt way to describe it. The majority of it is actually inside and it is an enormous complex of hallways going every direction possible. All sorts of stuff was for sale including pashminas, turkish teas and turkish delight, chess boards, leather goods, handwoven carpets, and an assortment of other things. The stuff was relatively cheap but you had to haggle to get anything at a reasonable price because the initial costs were way too expensive. I ended up getting a few things for other people and got myself a scarf and some apple tea and turkish delight. Turkish delight is a sort of candy that is hard to explain its like a jellyish feeling square that comes in all sorts of different flavors. We wandered around the baazar for quite some time because it was so large, but eventually, after getting everything we wanted, we left the grand bazaar and headed over to the spice bazaar just to see what it was like. The spice bazaar was much smaller and had a lot of the same things, except there were lots of shops selling all sorts of different fresh herbs and spices. I didn't buy any because I figured I wouldn't really be able to put them to good use in Prague and it would be awhile before I got home. It was interesting to see nonetheless.

Here you can see just one of the many hallways in the bazaar and a picture showing piles of different herbs and spices that were for sale in the spice bazaar. The two bazaars took up most of our day, but the spice bazaar was right near the Bosphorus (our hotel was near here as well) so we walked over to take a look across the river and watch a lot of Turkish people fishing off the sides of a bridge. We also saw a restaurant at the edge of the water where the kitchen was an open air boat sitting on the river, so the whole time it was rocking up and down and I imagine it would be a pain to cook like that especially because it was pretty windy when we were watching.
Friday we slept in, as we usually do, and after lunch headed out to see a few more things around the city. Our first main stop was Gülhane Park, which was just a very large park with a nice pond and fountain and flowers in bloom everywhere. We walked the length of the park and just looked around at all the green, the flowers, and the pleasant scenery. The park was adjacent to our next stop, which was Topkapi Palace. The palace had more of this lush greenery and included a few mosques and a number of other stops such as horse barns and a few museums as well. Our last main stop for the day was the Basilica Cistern, essentially an enormous underground cavern with lots of pillars that used to hold all of the water for the palace. It was an impressive cavern, though it was dark so good pictures were difficult (I got a postcard with a good one on it). Also, there was still some water left at the bottom of the cavern and there were some large carp living in the water, they may be the descendents of some carp that were there in 530AD when it was built who knows.

First is Maude is Gülhane Park, note all the blooming flowers, and second is me in the Cistern, in the background you can see a few of the columns. Also on friday we took the tram and the funicular up to Taksim square and walked down the main avenue where all the best shopping restaurants and bars are, this is actually pretty far from where all of the sights are in Sultanhamet.
Saturday was our last real day in Istanbul and really we had already seen all of the major sights. So we decided to take it easy, wander around the nice parts of the city and just walk and people watch. We sat in the park between the blue mosque and aya sofia for awhile and just enjoyed the beautiful weather. The one other thing we did was hop on a ferry and take a short 15 minute ride across the Bosphorus to Üskudar, a part of Istanbul that is in Asia. There wasn't really much to see there so we hung out for a bit, took some pictures and hopped the ferry back across the river. The real reason we did it was to say that we had been to Asia since neither of us had ever been before.

Not all that impressive looking but here is a view from the ferry of Asia out across the Bosphorus.
Finally, Sunday had arrived and it was time to return to Prague. We just relaxed in the hotel until we got a shuttle to the airport and on the shuttle we met some other students studying in Prague as well. We navigated our way through Ataturk airport and made our way to the plane and were on our way back. Sunday night we arrived back in Prague in time to get some dinner and try to unwind a bit before classes the next day. It's Wednesday now and tomorrow afternoon we are off again. This time to Berlin to meet my family who are flying in for a little over a week. Sunday we will all take the train back to Prague and hopefully during that time I'll be able to put up a little info about what we did in Berlin.

The City of a Thousand Spires

It has been about 2 weeks since I last wrote, I first did nothing exciting and then got busy and somehow I ended up not writing anything until now. This post is about Prague, the sights of Prague anyway. I figured it was a good time for this with Maude's Grandparents trip just past and my family arriving in just a few short days. So I suppose this post will just be a brief description of a few of the most famous sights in Prague that I have seen and will be taking any other visitors to see. First up is old town square. Old town square is really just a large square where all the tourists congregate and things are more expensive. However, it does have some good history, it contains some of the oldest buildings in Prague and is a world heritage site. It also contains the infamous Astronomical Clock, where every hour people gather to watch the chime (this is completely and utterly underwhelming, but I guess it can't hurt to see it). The building however is extremely old and is attached to what once was the municipal house for the city of Prague

Here is a shot of a portion of old town square and one of the astronomical clock. The statue in the picture is of Jan Hus, a man any good student of history knows. He was a religious dissenter and was the founder of the Hussite movement, one of the many movements opposed to the Catholic Church. He is sort of viewed as the founder of or the symbol for the "Czech nation".
After you see old town its just a short walk down the road to check out the Jewish Quarter. The Jewish Quarter isn't that exciting really, there are a few really old synagogues. One synagogue is actually called the "Old-New" Synagogue. The only really cool thing in the Jewish Quarter is this old cemetery where graves are literally stacked on top of one another and in some places look like they are about 15 feet high. The tombstones are just pushed together and jut in every direction on top of a massive pile of bodies.

At the moment I seem to be unable to locate a picture of the cemetery, though I have no good ones and plan on getting more when my parents arrive. So instead this is a picture of the Old-New Synagogue, its actually very old. Also, just a note, if your ever in Prague (or anywhere) don't go to the Jewish Quarter on Saturday...nothing will be open. You probably realize this, but when your showing people around you don't think of it and you might just show up with everything closed.
From the Jewish Quareter, its not such a long walk to the Charles bridge. This is an old bridge, only for walking, adorned with a number of statues and usually covered by tourists and street vendors. However, it really is the best and most scenic way to cross the Vltava river to get to Mala Strana or up to Prague Castle. Unfortunately, I have yet to take good pictures of the bridge itself, but below is a picture of the tower that you pass that is the end of the bridge.
On the other side of the bridge there are a few cool small things to see like the Lennon wall and some David Cerny statues, but the real attraction is Prague Castle. I'll spare you all the details of the castle, but just know that its less of a castle and more of a royal complex set up on a hill. The two most impressive things about it are the views it offers of Prague (though this is what Petrin Hill is for) and St. Vitus Cathedral. St. Vitus is an impressive church...
and this is a picture from the back of the church. Just a note, Maude's grandparents had hired a private tour guide to show them the city and tell them about everything and we thought we would go along to learn some things we didn't know. Well the first stop was here at the Cathedral and we were already forced to fire him, he sucked. Despite promises of excellent english, he was young and Russian and his command of the english language made me seem proficient in German (haven't even studied it for over a year). Also, he hardly ever talked and really didn't know much, Maude and I combined with a little help from a guide book knew more than he did. So don't ever hire a guide name Maxine (male) from Russia, he is just bad. But after ousting Maxine that day ended up being fine with Maude and I giving the tour.
If we now head back to the other side of the bridge, I'll name just a few other famous things worth seeing and maybe I'll add some others after my parents come to visit. Next is Wenceslas Square, it really is just a enormous square filled with people and some cars and a lot of shops. Nothing too historical on most of the square until you get to the end where you see the national museum and the statue of Wenceslas and the memorial to Jan Palach. Wenceslas was one of the most famous rulers of the Czech lands, I believe he actually united all of bohemia and maybe moravia under his rule. He is seen as the founder of the "Czech state". Jan Palach on the other hand was a student during the communist era who burned himself alive in protest of the Communist rule. I'd just like to say I think this is ridiculous, its obviously not going to accomplish anything and it would be really painful. Palach didn't even die while of fire also, he died 3 days later in a hospital...so he had to suffer for 3 days from that. Moral of the story, don't light yourself on fire its not effective and its painful.
Here we have the end of Wenceslas I was talking about and Carole (Maudes Grandmother) in Wenceslas enjoying a smazeny syr or fried cheese, a delicious snack you can find all over Wenceslas.
For now, I'm just going to mention two other things briefly that are worth seeing. The first is the "baby tower", the baby tower is an enormous radio tower built by the Soviets for jamming radio, radar, whatever. However, just after it was completed, the USSR fell and the tower was converted into an actual radio and television tower. David Cerny, the famous and controversial artist, was commissioned to redesign it somehow. His idea for this was to put giant statues of babies climbing up and down the tower, its sort of ridiculous really but interesting to see. The other thing worth seeing is Vysehrad. This is the neighborhood where my school is located. It was once a fortress (it sits high on a hill) and was actually the seat of the first Czech queen. Everything there is old and pretty and it offers another great view of all of Prague. However, I will write more about Vysehrad later and maybe some of the other things to see after my parents come.

This is the baby tower at night so you can't really see the babies but later I will get one during the day so you can see them
Right, I forgot to explain the title of this post in full. I said that The City of a Thousand Spires is Prague's nickname. This is because if you look out over Prague there are a lot of spires from various churches and buildings. However, the actual number of spires is somewhere around 100. Though I will say if Minarets counted, Istanbul would have an insane number of spires because of all the Mosques. That leads me to my next post, two days ago I got back from Istanbul. Within a few hours a post on Istanbul should be up as well. And I promise to do a better job so look for a post on Berlin on Monday or Tuesday.

Julius Meinl in Wien

So last week we were all still feeling a little skeptical about traveling after our experiences with food poisoning and hospitals in Budapest. However, we had already planned a trip to Vienna and Thursday we hopped on a train at 4:30 for the 4.5 hour train ride. The trip that was to ensue could not have been more different than our excursion to Budapest. Vienna was the best city I have seen so far and the weekend as a whole was incredibly fun. The great experience started off with our arrival to Vienna and then to the flat we were staying in (Max's place in Vienna). Not only was this not a hostel, but it could not have been in a better location. It was as downtown as you could get and at the end of the street was all the high end shopping and also the Hofburg Palace happened to be right there as well. Public transportation was not needed at all with the exception of getting to and from the train station.

Here are some pictures of the flat (Melinda happened to be in one of the better picture of the place). But this place was so much more comfortable than a hostel ever could be so this was already a great start to the trip. Thursday night by the time we went looking for food pretty much everything was closed so I just got a bratwurst on the street and we went and found some tasty gelato for dinner. Then we went back and went to sleep for a wonderful nights sleep in Vienna.
Friday morning we got up and simply started walking, we were so close to everything we could practically see it from the apartment and we just started going. We grabbed a quick lunch at a small italian cafe and then headed to the Hofburg Palace (about 3 minutes from us).
Here is the front of the palace, much of this post will be pictures taking you along the little walking tour we were on. If I forget the names of things I'll just describe them and you can ask me about them later or look them up. After the Hofburg palace we walked through the archway you see and headed up past the Spanish Riding School (horses) and to the National Library.
Here is the national library, we didn't actually go inside but the building from the outside was impressive and I imagine that the inside would be as well. After snapping some pictures of the library and some surrounding statues, etc. We kept walking straight ahead to the Museum Quarter. A large square of museums with everything from a Natural History museum to a modern art museum and the Leopold (the one we actually went to).
Inside the Leopold there was primarily Austrian art and the biggest exhibition was a famous Austrian named Egon Schiele. There was some interesting exhibitions in the museum but when we were done, we were ready to continue along and see a few more things. The next major landmark we hit was the Parliament building.

Yes the first picture is of Parliament, and yes there is a house on top of the Parliament building. We have no idea why it was there (maybe construction or something?) just that there was an entire small house on the top of the Parliament building. The second picture is the front of the Parliament building and the Athena statue. While the Parliament was very nic and somewhat impressive, it was nothing compared to our next stop, the Rathaus (town hall essentially).
Interestingly enough there was a little winter fest going on at the Rathaus with a large ice rink and some stands with hot chocalate, drinks, snacks, candies, etc. Regardless, this building was incredible and really steals the show from the Parliament building. After this we headed back in toward our flat to see a huge and famous church that was right down the street from us. I believe that roughly translated it is something along the lines of St. Stephans or Stephans Place Church. I can't really remember the exact name at the moment so thats why I forget what it is.
The church actually burned awhile back, not to the ground (and it was repaired) but that is why there are black char and burn marks on the outside. This church was beautiful both outside and inside, and it had a tower on the side that by paying 5 euro or so you could go up in and get a view of Vienna from above. As we left the church our sightseeing for the day was finished but it wasn't time to go back to the flat quite yet. First we headed over to Cafe Demel, a famous cafe often featured on the food network for their cakes and desserts, especially their Sachertort a treat invented in Vienna.

After we enjoyed our Sachertort we headed back to the flat to rest for a little bit before dinner. I actually headed out to a Starbucks for some internet so I could used skype for a phone interview while Maude, Jena and Melinda hung out for an hour or so. After hanging out we decided that we would get some real Austrian food for dinner aka Wiener Schnitzel. We found a nice little Austrian restaurant and had an enjoyable dinner. Later on we headed over to a bar called Zwölf Apostele Keller (Twelved Apostles Cellar) and enjoyed some quality Austrian beers while we were there. After a good and busy day we headed back to the apartment to get some sleep and get ready for Saturday.
Saturday we woke up with the intention of heading to the Naschmarkt (a big outdoor flea market of sorts) but it was raining in the morning so we decided to skip that and head to breakfast and then to the Albertina Museum. Breakfast was at a little cafe/restaurant called Coffee Day. Though this sounds very American, there are none of them in the United States and it actually orginated in India and is now also in Vienna and a few other West and Central European Cities. They did have some great breakfast foods and coffee and tea though and some comfy couches to sit on while we ate. It also happened to be right across the street from the Albertina so all we had to do was run across to the museum to wander around and see some more art.
In the Albertina we saw some famous artists like Picasso, Monet, Dürer, and Rembrant as we wondered through. We also got to see an interesting photography exhibit and some of the old rooms that former Monarchs lived in because the Albertina is in the palace. Finishing up with the Albertina we walked around the palace into another very small museum that held some of the old Hapsburg treasures.

Here we have 2 examples. First a crown of gold and all sorts of jewels (diamond, emerald, ruby, etc.) The second is some sort of stone that is 2680 karats, not sure what it was but impressive nonetheless. After leaving the Schatzkammer (museum with the jewels), we made the most important discovery of the weekend. While back near our apartment, right ont he corner of our street actually, we saw it. Julius Meinl. The best store ever. Its a gourmet grocery store the likes of which you have never seen. It was huge, 2 floors, with the its own bakery, deli, cheeses, the freshest fish I have seen in months, and the best and freshest fruits and vegetables. The food was so great and so much better than anything we have seen in Prague that we decided not to go out for dinner Saturday night and to just buy some food and cook dinner in the apartment. We ended up buying some fresh breads, meats, fruit and vegetables and made our own baguettes and had some fruit salad. We also picked up a few bottles of wine and somehow hours had passed before we knew it and we ended up spending all night in just hanging out on Saturday and drinking wine. For a picture of Julius Meinl see Maude's facebook, I'm pretty sure she put one up on there and I don't have them on my computer yet.
Overall, Vienna was an awesome city, perhaps my favorite. As a trip I don't know if it could live up to spending Valentine's Day and my 21st birthday in Paris with Maude, but it was certainly as close it possibly could be. It was a great trip and a city I will certainly return to in the future, if for nothing else then just for Julius Meinl.
The next two weekend I will be spending in Prague so I will try to do a post on the touristy things of Prague during that time and maybe another one on the visit of Maude's grandparents, cousin Connor and brother Ollie. They will be arriving a week from today. After that however keep an eye out for my post on Istanbul, Maude and I will be spending our spring break (6 days) in Istanbul at the end of March. Check back after this weekend for another post...

Budapest and Our 4am Trip to the Hospital

So when I left you last I had returned from an exciting 21st birthday in Paris with Maude. The weekend after that was spent bumming around Prague just hanging out and not doing anything terribly exciting so there is no reason to tell you about it. Last weekend however, the last weekend in February I traveled to Budapest, Hungary.
At 3:30pm on Thursday, I hopped a train along with Maude, Melinda, and Saadia for the 7 hour train ride to Budapest. The train ride was long but fine and we arrived to our hostel about 11pm. By the time we got in and went out to look for food pretty much everything was closed with the exception of some 24hour fast food places and some gyro places along the main street near us. So we went out wandering around a bit and found something to eat. Then we just took it easy, went back to the hostel and hung out for awhile so that we could wake up the next day at a decent hour to see the city.
We ended up getting up around 10am and slowly got on the move. We were right in the center of our things because I picked a hostel with a great location so fortunately we were able to walk pretty much everywhere. First, upon the recommendation of a friend, we went to this little place not too far from the hostel for brunch. It wasn't an american restaurant but it had pancakes and bagels and I had a tasty bagel sandwich of some sort. After that we set out to see the sites of Budapest. The four of us walked along, discovering a few things that were very cool along the way by accident (to see some of these check out my pictures on picasa http://picasaweb.google.com/nmiller214, they will be on there pretty soon). The first major highlight of our walk though was the Parliament building. The Parliament is an enormous neo-gothic building that holds Hungary's political body.
After checking Parliament and all of the monuments and statues surrounding it we walked toward the Danube River and followed the river up to the chain bridge. The chain bridge is a huge bridge that crosses from the Pest side of the city over the the Buda side.
As you can see, there are chain like supports that hold the bridge up and give it its name. Once you cross into Buda, the first thing you see is the Royal Palace. This building is much less impressive than Parliament, but its certainly worth going up to because it sits high above the city and offers a great view. It was pretty far up and we had already walked a lot so we hopped on the funicular and rode up to the top. From here you had a great view of the river and the Pest side of the city from above.

After checking out the views and the palace we walked around the Buda side of Budapest for a bit longer, saw a few other cool sites, churches, etc. and had a good late lunch. Finally we walked back down the big hill and decided to catch the metro back toward our hostel. We made it back at the perfect time to get a nap before heading out for dinner.
Once we all woke up, we got dressed and went to this place we had seen earlier, and heard was very "trendy" called Donatella's for dinner. Initially, we thought we were not going to be able to get a table because we had no reservation. Luckily it turned out that there was one large table (it could fit 8) that was available and that the 4 of us were able to sit at. This dinner was great and had amazing italian food, me might as well have been in Italy. I don't remember the pizza in Italy being any better than this when I was there. After Donatella's we took a friends recommendation and found this bar called Szimpla Kert. It was one of the coolest bars I have been to and it was huge. There were 5 bars inside and lots of different rooms to sit in, though we were lucky to find a table for all of us in an upstair room right after we got there. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera and the place is hard to describe, but it is definitely a place worth visiting when in Budapest. Upon leaving the bar, our night was over and we headed back to the hostel to get some sleep so we could check out a few more things on Saturday.
Saturday morning we all woke up feeling good and were ready to get out and see the other main sites Budapest had to offer. We were walking to the Terror Museum, a museum about nazi and communist occupation in Hungary, which we heard was very interesting and well done when we decided to stop for food. By the time we got close there wasn't much around except there was a TGI Friday's nearby. We had already planned a nice and authentic Hungarian dinner and after being in Central/Eastern Europe for 2 months its nice to have something that reminds you of home once in awhile. Or so we thought. Turns out that would be an awful decision. Only a little while later when we were in the Terror museum, food poisoning claimed its first victim. Melinda got sick while we were at the museum so we left and went back to the hostel because she was feeling awful. At this point we thought it was only her and that the rest of us would be fine. Saadia didn't feel like going out anymore at this point but Maude and I didn't want to waste the day so we continued to through Budapest to Heroes's Square, the Baths (giant hot spring bath houses) and the Castle.

The first picture above is one of the castle from afar. Unlike Prague Castle, this is exactly what you would imagine a castle to be. It was small but it has a large gate with a bridge leading up to it that crossed over what was left a moat. This was the first time I had ever seen an actualy moat. The second picture is the bath house, inside is a variet of hot spring baths of differeing temperatures. In this particular bath house, the pools are coed so bathing suits are required, but there is an extensive set of pools. After we walked around a bit more, we thought we should head back to the hostel before we got dinner. At this point, both Maude and Saadia began feeling sick, though I was still feeling alright. Since everyone was feeling badly, we didn't end up going out anywhere though I did hang out at the hostel with a British guy and an Australian girl who were travelling around as well. Later on that night, both Maude and Saadia ended up getting sick and Saadia was so dehyrated that she ended up fainting. At this point we tried to call an ambulance but to put it briefly that was a fail. Instead I called Worldwide SOS and found a good hospital then we got in a cab and were on our way. While there I only got a shot to help keep my stomach settled and Melinda was much better by this point, but both Saadia and Maude were sick and had low blood pressure so they were given ivs to help get them hydrated again. At this point everyone was a little soured on Budapest and our train back to Prague was in only 2 hours. Though I will say Budapest is a very cool city and is more metropolitan than Prague, somewhere I would certainly visit again. Just on this trip we were ready to get back and rest so we managed to make our 9am train after departing the hospital at 7am and we got back to Prague safe and sound. Another small sidenote is that I am pretty certain it was related but I actually did not get sick until Tuesday, not sure exactly what happened but I woke up early Tuesday morning feeling awful. However, everyone is feeling much better now and I enjoyed all of Budapest when we weren't sick so don't let this stop you from going.
I'm writing this post on Budapest now but I actually just got back from Vienna with Maude, her roommate Jena and Melinda. Vienna is my favorite city that I have seen so far, it was simply awesome so my next post will be on that...and hopefully soon because I already have the pictures up and ready to go on my computer!

21 in Paris

Ok so a little over a week ago I took my first trip outside of the Czech Republic. Maude and I packed our bags and hopped on a place to Paris on Thursday February 12. This meant that we would be spending both Valentines Day and my 21st birthday in Paris. Since we didn't get in till late on Thursday, we went straight to the hotel (my parents got me a hotel for my birthday so I wasn't in a hostel). After we got into the room we went to wander around a bit and find a late dinner.

We were staying right in Saint-Michel so there were lots of places really close by. Not too long after going out to look for somwhere to eat we came across this really cool street pictured above that had lots of small restaurants along it. We found a really good italian place, with an even better prix fix menu to eat at and we both really enjoyed our meals. Later on we also got a very good crepe breakfast in another little restaurant on this street. Sadly, I don't remember the name of the street.
Friday morning we woke up and the weather wasn't great, it actually misted pretty much all day, but we were determined not to let that stop us. We set off walking around to see some of the most famous things that Paris had to offer. Our first stops, both of which were right down the street from our hotel, were Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle. Notre Dame is an enormous gothic cathedral right in the heart of Paris and it actually sits on a sort of island along with Sainte Chapelle right in the middle of the Seine River.

Pictured here on the left is the front of Notre Dame and on the right is a portion of Saint-Chapelle. Both of these were incredible buildings and the inside of Notre Dame was enormous, it reminded me just a little bit of Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.
After we saw these we continued to walk, crossing to the other side of the Seine and following the water until we made it to the Louvre. We thought that we wouldn't really have time to walk through the Louvre because its so big but we went to see the famous glass pyramid anyway. I know we will be back to Paris, perhaps even before I come home from study abroad, so on my next trip one of my goals will be to actually walk through the Louvre and see the incredibly underwhelming Mona Lisa.

Here is a picture of me looking awkward in front of the glass Pyramids of the Louvre. The pyramids were extremely controversial when they were designed by I.M Pei and placed here at the front of the Louvre. The larger pyramid is actually the entrance and you walk into the pyramid before descending down into the first part of the museum. Continuing on our way after this, we walked through the Tuileries Garden, which I imagine is much more beautiful in the spring and summer. It's probably also a lot more crowded though so it was a nice walk. It led us right to the Champ de Elysee which we followed all the way up to the Arc de Triomphe.


After all that walking we were getting hungry so we hopped on the metro right here and took it down to the Bastille stop. We got off the stop right at the traffic cirlce where the Bastille once stood. There wasn't anything there now but I guess we can say we stood where the Bastille once did. At this point we found a cafe, Cafe Bastille, and went inside for a late lunch. This busy day had made us pretty tired so we went back over to the hotel for a quick nap before dinner. Dinner friday night was my main birthday present from Maude. It was an unbelievable dinner cruise down the Seine river that started and finished right by the Eiffel Tower. The dinner cruise was one of the highlights of the trip I'd have to say, it was a really nice time and we had a great waiter who spoke perfect enlish and got really excited about how much he loved the US when we told him we lived near Washington, DC. Not really what you would expect from a french waiter.
Here is a photo of me and Maude on top of the boat while we were passing the Eiffel Tower. This photo was taken by another friendly French man, we didn't really run into an American hating French people like sterotyped, in fact French people were a lot nicer to foreigners than Czech people generally are. After finished up this great dinner we headed back over toward our hotel and found a street that my roommate Brandon had told me about, he was abroad in Paris all last semester. We went to a really cool bar with lots of French people where all of the bartenders and waitresses were wearing masquerade masks and almost every shot you could order was a flaming shot. The drinks however were insanely expensive, about 11euros for a mix drink and 6 euros for a shot. But the place was really cool and I was about to turn 21 so we stayed for awhile and had a few drinks. This was the bar that I turned 21 in, and not too long after midnight Maude got me some sort of flaming shot that tasted a lot like liqurice. Finally, we went back to the hotel and went to bed after a long, but really great day.
Saturday was birthday and Valentines Day and we didn't really plan or want to do anything special but go up on the Eiffel Tower at night. We spent most of the day just wandering around the city and actually came across some famous places accidentally. But really the best part of Saturday was after dinner, which was at a slow but very tasty fondue restaurant, when we went to the Eiffel Tower and went up to look out at Paris.


This is a picture of Maude and I up on the Eiffel Tower, you can't really see much of the city in the picture but really we had a great view and it was really great despite the fact that it got pretty windy and cold up there. The video is also of the view from the Eiffel Tower. I don't have a video of it unfortunately, but we were also fortunate enough to see the lights on the Eiffel Tower go off and flash, I think this happens every hour or so until a certain time at night.
Sunday morning we woke up after a great weekend and went to have our last brunch in Paris, we wandered around and bought some postcards that I will eventually be sending home. Finally, we got a ride back to Orly, hopped on the plane, and it was a short flight before we were back in Prauge. All in all it was an incredible weekend and a story I will be able to tell about my 21st birthday forever.

This weekend Maude, Melinda, Saadia and I will be travelling to Budapest in Hungary, a city that people who have gone say is amazing so keep posted and I will try to get a post up about that a little faster than I did about Paris...