czech me out! prague!

I just left Prague yesterday and i have to say it is by far my favorite city that I have visited on this trip. The weather was perfect - sunny and warm enough to wear a jacket while walking around and not get sweaty. The architecture was so beautiful. The castle and St. Vitus Cathedral are on a hill, so when you're looking up at them from the Old Town side of the Charles Bridge, the view is just spectacular.

I took the train into Prague from Berlin which was a little bit like herding 1000 elephants into a shoebox-sized cage. Every ticket agent assured me that I did not need a reservation with my rail pass, so after the 3rd time, I believed them. The train arrives and all I know is to get on a second class car. So I get on and it's madness! Pure madness I tell you. So I'm trying to find a seat and I see a seat that says "Berlin-Praha" and think, "well, that's where I'm going, so I guess I'll sit here." (You know, cus these seats might split off from the rest of the train and take me to my destination while the other seats go to theirs). So yes, obviously these seats were reserved and as two lines of people with massive amounts of luggage fight each other to continue in their respective directions to find empty seats I resign myself to the fact that I just may have to stand for five hours. But then! I find a considerably shabbier looking car with empty seats. Yay! A home for the sans reservations. So I look to my left and see an extremely creepy, probably homeless man, and to my right and see a friendly looking young girl. I sit next to the girl. She actually recommended this hostel in Florence where I have just arrived. Thanks! So on this train the creepy guy keeps going to the bathroom to smoke and I saw the tallest kid I've ever seen in my entire life. His head almost reached the top of the train! And he was young so he'll probably keep growing. Cool.

As a side note, I have nothing against the homeless. I just don't like sitting next to them on trains. On one train journey in France I approach my seat to find a man with no shoes and one sock halfway off his foot and a previously lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. I look at him, I look at the seat number, I look at my ticket. He gives me one of those looks like "oh hey i'm in your seat, sorry about that. I'll just slide over one seat. It's not like I have a reservation for this reservation-required train or anything, and you look like you would like the company!" So I sit down for two seconds and then said, Eff this, and found another seat.

So I get off the train at Prague and think, what kind of third world country have I arrived in? Turns out they're just renovating the train station, but the downstairs is much more modern. So I take the metro to my hostel, get lost, find my hostel, and then head out for some food and a ghost tour! Well I found food (Subway! I hadn't eaten in eight hours and this did the trick). But then I got lost trying to find the ghost tour so I just gave up. I had the hostel all to myself the first night, which I thought I didn't like, until the next day when I got new roommates. A chinese woman and her mom who tried to steal my bed! She literally took my stuff off the bed and switched the sheets with another bed! When I came in, they were both like "oh. oh, we were told we were the only ones in here." Grrr.

More about Prague! So I took a few walking tours - which I love to do! We saw the astronomical clock which has been voted Europe's most disappointing tourist attraction (true!), the Jewish quarter which has a terrible story attached to it. Hitler loved Prague so much so he preserved the Jewish quarter there so that it could be used as a museum for an extinct race. Yikes. Inside the museum are paintings done by little kids at the Terezin concetration camp outside of Prague. These were hidden in a suitcase and discovered later, after most of these kids had been killed. These drawings are the only evidence that these kids ever existed, as the nazis used to destroy all evidence that the kids they killed ever existed. Really sad stuff.

So my favorite part of Prague was the Charles Bridge. It's just so beautiful! I must've walked across it 50 times, having to dodge tourists and construction to do it. I loved standing on the bridge and looking up at the castle. The views from the castle are also pretty amazing. And FYI, the only way you can get in to the church at the castle is to say you are catholic, or that you want to bow to the Czech kings. Oh, by the way, I had goulash. It was delicious!

I really, really loved Prague! I can't get over it. And I was sad to leave. But now I am in Florence where it's going to be hot! I can't even wait to eat gelato and pizza. And then more gelato and pizza! I don't know where to go next. I have two days left on my rail pass. I'm thinking Venice, then back to Paris, where I will have to fly home :(

Pay to Pee - Berlin Style

Let me just start off by saying how much I loved Berlin! I knew the second I got off the train that I didn't have enough time there, but had already booked my trip to Prague so I had to leave in two days' time. (I am NEVER planning ahead again!) I started off the trip the way I always do - with a Sandeman's New Europe free walking tour. It's such a great way to get your bearings and see some cool stuff. We started at the Brandenburg Gate, walked over to the Holocaust Memorial, saw where Hitler's bunker was (it's now a parking lot), saw some Trabis, some remnants of the Berlin Wall, and learned a lot of history in the process. I've always been interested in how the Berlin Wall worked. It was actually a wall built around West Berlin, so not just through the city, cutting it in half. East Berliners weren't allowed to leave, and West Berliners were allowed into the East once a year and at an expensive price. Families were torn apart, people lost their jobs because they happened to wake up one morning on the wrong side of the wall and couldn't get to work. It was crazy, but fascinating and I plan on learning a lot more about it once I'm home.

Another interesting tour I went on was the Red Berlin tour with the same company. We went into one of the "ghost stations" that was closed the entire time the wall was up. Some of the subway lines started in West Berlin, cut through East Berlin, and then ended back up in the west. From the '60s to the '80s the stations in the east were closed, walled up, and manned by guards and the trains would just pass right through them without ever stopping. This particular station hasn't been renovated and still has this scary, kinda Nazi-ish writing on the walls. Really interesting history.

So, I usually tend to just wander around when I'm sightseeing, but without fail I'm going to have to pee at some point. OH MY GOD WHY IS GERMANY WORSE THAN FRANCE WITH THE PUBLIC TOILET SYSTEM??? I have never paid so much to pee in my entire life. I never paid less than 40 cents to use the bathroom. I even had to pay for the bathroom in a museum where I had already paid to get in. What kind of craziness is that?? And tell me why did I pay EIGHTY CENTS for the toilet at the train station. That's seriously like a dollar. When I tell my future children that the reason they can't go to to college is because all of mommy's money is circulating within the German public toilet system, they're going to be upset.

So Berlin was really fantastic and I've actually been thinking of making a return trip there. I'm in Prague right now which so far I love! I've already gotten lost about 50 times so I decided to call it a night and venture back out in daytime. So one of my favorite songs is "Never tear us apart" by INXS and that video was shot here in Prague! (I learned that from Pop Up Video - oh hey '90s reference!) That song has been stuck in my head since I got here!

two weeks in two minutes!

So I'll try to sum up my first two weeks as succinctly as possible. It's frustrating that you still can't get internet everywhere in Europe. At least not good quality for free.

So leaving for the airport was the crazy mess it always is. I don't like flying and I don't like the thought of not getting any sleep for a long time. This on top of leaving my cat and family for five weeks made me an emotional wreck. But that's nothing new.

So I land in Paris extremely exhausted. I get to my hostel around 10 and can't check in til 4. Fantastic. But I knew this and was prepared. The worst thing I could've done to myself was go window shopping - but that's exactly what I did. I must've picked out 50 pairs of shoes that I was dying to have, but couldn't buy any of them cus I didn't want to lug them around. My first day in Paris was spent looking for Yop and visiting the Musee de Cluny - the medieval museum. I recommend both. My outdated, useless Let's Go book said the Cluny museum is free. Wrong. 8 euros. But it was fine. There were lots of pretty tapestries including La Dame a la Licorne. My second day was spent picnicking with my friend Sandrine and two cute little kids that were staying with her. This random little girl wandered up to our picnic and begged for food. Then we played some Uno and had a grand old time.

Next stop was London. I loved London! I had perfect weather and got to see so much. I visited the National Gallery, Tate Modern, and the British Museum where I saw the Rosetta Stone. It was pretty cool. I took a day trip to Stonehenge, which I was surprised to see is literally right next to a highway. I was quite impressed with what I saw though I admit I thought it would be a bit more imposing than it was. Still great though. I went shopping at Camden town and Spitafield which were both awesome. My friend Hilary and I even had some adventure on the bus on the way to Camden. We were riding on the top deck when we all of a sudden hear a scream. We have no idea what's going on but we hear "you killed him!" and then "you almost killed me!" I thought maybe the driver hit someone but surely we would've noticed that. So apparently some crazy guy just up and hit another guy on the bus, then got off and walked away. It must've been pretty intense though cus those were some serious screams. So we decided it's best to walk the rest of the way to Camden and who do we catch up with 20 minutes later? Yep, crazy violent guy. He didn't hit us but it makes you think about just how crazy the people around could actually be. Be careful out there!

Next stop - Amsterdam. I took a night cruise from Harwich to Hoek Van Holland which was pretty awesome. The ferry was a legit cruise ship. It didn't quite have everything a Carnival Cruise would have but it was still pretty cool. I had a nice room but couldn't really sleep well with the rocking and the clock on the TV whose light could be seen from outer space. I had one nice day in Amsterdam and two rainy days. On the nice day I took a free walking tour guided by a really cool stoner. The tour was supposed to be three hours but took four. It was just really laid back and leisurely. The guide didn't really seem to care about anything. But he was real cool. I learned that the Dutch didn't always have last names, but a French king took over and made them pick their own names. Apparently to be funny they chose names that translate to "of the testicle" which are still used to this day. I still need to verify this fact. When it rained I visited the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum. The Van Gogh museum was amazing! I also went to the Anne Frank Huis which was very moving. I think the saddest part about that was, at the end, we could see a newspaper ad that her father had taken out looking for Anne and her sister Margot, not knowing that they didn't make it. It was really emotional, but I highly recommend visiting.

Next stop was Den Haag. I loved it here! The Mauritshuis is a fantastic little museum with some great works of art, including the Girl with the Pearl Earring by Vermeer. I also discovered the works of Jan Steen while in Holland. I like his work but I wonder why he makes the children he paints look soooooo freaking creepy. I also walked down to the beach which was really lovely and took a trip over to Delft. Delft is a really cute little place. With the leaves changing color and falling it was really beautiful. I probably had the most fun up to that point riding on the back of my friend's boyfriend's bike. It was very exciting!

Aaaand next up is Geneva! Geneva wasn't part of the original plan but I have a friend starting business school there so I added it in to the agenda. We had a great time! We found a really great tapas restaurant in the Vielle Ville and took about 100 pictures of the jet d'eau, to add to my 100 that I already have from a previous visit to Geneva. The weather was perfect and we had a great time!

I'm now back in my former hometown of Grenoble where I'm just passing through on my way to Aix-en-Provence. I'm at my old haunt McDonald's where I'm using the Internet without buying anything. I can see that the outlets are still covered up which I'm pretty sure that I am responsible for. You see, when I was living here a few years ago I had a computer with a bad battery and it would only work when plugged in. So I would nab a spot by an outlet and take over. Whenever someone asked to use that outlet I would of course say no. If they pushed the issue I would explain my dilemma, they would then say it would be just a few minutes. I trust no one so I knew this wasn't true. There was one day a guy just wouldn't give up. (Ed. note - I wasn't using the only outlet - he could've bothered someone else). So we went back and forth. Nothing escalated, but the next day, all the outlets were covered and no one could plug in. This meant that I had exactly two minutes to use the Internet at McDo before my battery died. Ahhhh memories.

Ugh so the guy next to me is skyping and keeps making kissing noises to whoever he's talking to. I think that has to be one of the worst noises ever. It also reminds me of a story. One day I was in Barnes and Noble on 86th treating it as my own personal public library as I was wont to do. I was sitting on the floor reading a magazine when I hear that god awful kissing noise coming from another aisle which I can't see. I thought to myself, "who would make out at a barnes and noble??" I then hear "sir, I'm going have to ask you to stop licking that magazine."

And scene.