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.

scoliosis? or just a bad haircut?

So, I decided this time around I would get my hair did in two stages. Yes, I meant to write "get my hair did." This phrase, when written in my facebook status update, resulted in a barrage of accusations of me not really knowing how to speak English properly. This is not accurate. I wrote it like that on purpose, and yes, that is what I actually say out loud and in real life. I think it's funny :)

So, Day One is hair cut day. I got a very generous gift to a hair salon a few months ago, so I decided I would get my hair cut there and my hair colored at my local Aveda salon the next day, as I am very loyal to the brand. So my hair is being cut and the stylist says to me, "you know, your hair is uneven." I reply, "oh really? I never noticed." So the stylist then tells me that she fixes it and I thank her. I walked out of the salon loving my hair cut!

Day Two. I wake up and what's the first thing I see? The left side of my hair is a half an inch shorter than the right side. This is precisely how much of a difference the stylist told me she saw before she fixed my hair. So I arrive at Salon 2 to get my hair colored and point this out to them. They're nice to me and tell me that no one with an untrained eye would ever notice.

Let's take it back a few years now. I was probably in 4th or 5th grade when my everyone in my grade took a field trip down to the gym. There were some cloths set up in the corner of the gym to allow for privacy. What's going on in here?? It's Test for Scoliosis Day! I'm not sure it was just me, but when I was younger I desperately wanted to have something wrong with me. When I was around 4 I used to throw myself on the floor and not move and yell out that I needed a wheelchair. I was clearly in desperate need of attention. So I'm anxiously in line awaiting my turn behind the curtain. They call me in. They have me bend over. They run their fingers down my back. (How is this stuff allowed in an elementary school???) And then I get the best news ever! I have uneven shoulders! They tell me that I should definitely get that checked out by a doctor (wait - who are you guys then?) One other kid, I believe it was Milton, got the same diagnosis. Let me tell you, we were celebrities for the day! We had scoliosis. Well, sorta. I run home all excitedly to tell my mom that we need to get me to the doctor STAT cus there is something wrong with me! I have uneven shoulders! So, to sum this up, my mom says no and I never go to the doctor. Milton's mom had the exact same reaction. So that's that then...

...Or is it? I firmly believe that these uneven shoulders have finally done their damage. My hair is now uneven. Could this have been prevented if my mom had taken me to the doctor when I was ten? Who can say, really. How can you take your child seriously when she used to throw herself on the floor and claim to be handicapped? I would have ignored me too. I wonder if Milton used to throw himself on the floor as a child as well and that's why his mom ignored his uneven shoulders?

My Favorite Earrings

So about six years ago I was in this really cool shop and found the best pair of earrings. They were silver twisty earrings. They were so unique and cool. I started to wear them every day and always got compliments on them. It didn't take long for them to become my favorite pair of earrings. It also didn't take long for me lose one of them. That's right, just one of them. I was devastated. I looked in every purse and pant pocket I had, as well as scoured my room. But my search was fruitless. For approximately five years, I had one single reminder of my favorite pair of earrings that I *used* to have.

The disappearance of this earring came at a hard time in my life, because I had also recently lost my favorite "going-out" earrings. They were the earrings I always wore on a night out on the town. They were pink chandelier earrings, and I loved them so! They sparkled and added just a little extra something to my outfit. After having them in my life for about a year, I took them on vacation with me to the Bahamas. We were having a great time! Oh, all the dancing we did! But, at the end of one fateful night, my friend and I sat down to rest our weary legs that had been dancing all night. We were talking and I reached up to adjust my earring, when I gasped and cried aloud "I'm missing an earring!" I quickly reached to the other ear to take out the other earring so I didn't look like a ridiculous, one-earringed crazy person, when I screamed in horror "I'm missing both earrings!" It was a terrible discovery. Then guilt set in. I was guilty of neglect. I had neglected to put on those plastic backing thingies that come with each pair of dangly earrings (who knew those had a real purpose?), and I had been dancing the night away without once checking on my earrings. It is the latter that makes me cringe thinking that my dangly earring may have spent some time stuck in my hair before finally falling to the floor. No doubt, not simultaneously. But I was young! And in the Bahamas!

My friend who was with me in the Bahamas made a valiant effort to bring these earrings back to my life. She called me one day to say she was in the store where I had bought my earrings and found the exact pair that I used to have! She brought them over, and devastatingly, they were not the same. My bubble was quickly burst.

Just a few short months after this, my birthday came around, and this same friend, who knows how much I love dangly earrings, bought me a new pair, which immediately became my new favorite! They were of a bronzish hue, with blue sparkles. They were beautiful! These became my new going-out earrings and I wore them constantly. These earrings even moved to France with me and traveled throughout Europe. Then they moved to New York City with me and I knew we had found a home. It was Christmas time, and I had just returned from my office's party We had such a good time, those earrings and I! It was a late night and I went right to the bathroom sink to wash up so I could jump right into bed. I took out my earrings and placed them on the windowsill above the sink and peacefully retired to my room for a night's slumber.

I awoke early, and not so refreshed the next morning. I went into the bathroom and I noticed it immediately. Something was missing. And that something was one of my earrings. I knew exactly what happened. My roommate's goddamn cats had found themselves a new toy and swiped one of my earrings. Words cannot express how much I hated these cats. They were terrorists. The mischief that these two could get themselves into was unlike anything I had ever seen in my life. I actually love cats, but there was just something about these two. And now they had taken my earring. ONE earring.

This was three years ago and I haven't found a pair of favorite earrings since. I have actually been on a constant search for the original favorite earrings, the silver twists. I've found variations, but not the exact pair. The other night, I found a beautiful pair of earrings, which had potential. I inquired as to what time the shop closed and was told 8pm. I returned at 7:45 to find that it was closed. I asked the employee (a different one that was not there two hours before) if they were really closed. She said yes. I said that I was told they closed at 8. She looks at her watch and says, "well it's 7:45." I was not happy about this. I turned this rage into a very intense Internet search for those original earrings. After hours of searching, I'm happy to report that I found those earrings! A wave of happiness and relief came over me! I am happy to report that they are in the mail and on their way to my house!

I've had some reservations over the last few days, that it won't be the same with these new earrings. I'm a different person now. Maybe they won't bring the same joy to me as they did years before. Only time will tell. Well, seven to ten business days to be exact.

upcoming adventures!

as of late, my cat would have a more interesting blog than mine, so i have chosen not to share the mundane goings-on in my life over the past few months. i work about 17 days a week, or so it seems, and i sleep or study while i'm not working. my cat, on the other hand, has had some serious medical adventures, starting with an ingrown claw and ending with hyperthyroid. the excitement never stops!

but i am an embarking on a new voyage! it's a short one, but one i'm looking forward to. i will be leaving on a five week european adventure at the end of august. my goal is to hit up some cities that i've never been to, and hopefully see some friends that i've made during previous travels. i definitely want to go to berlin and prague. once i start naming cities, i end up with a list of 50 places that i want to visit, and that's just not possible. this trip may actually require some planning. i can't wait for a break from reality! and when i return hopefully a fulfilling and rewarding career awaits me!

random stuff and sweden!

so maybe i should wrap up my paris experience since i've left everyone hanging. to sum it up, i've really never had a better time in my life! i met some great people and really enjoyed my french classes. i got to experience paris in a way that most tourists never get a chance to. my friend sandrine took me to many plays and showed me parts of paris that i never would have found on my own. immersing yourself in a foreign culture is definitely the best way to travel, although i know that's not possible for the majority of people. i consider myself very lucky for the all the time i've spent in france. not just these three months in paris, but also my semester abroad in cannes and my year as a language assistant in grenoble. little does my former company know that by telling me that my "position has been eliminated" that it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

i've been pretty lazy since getting back home just over two months ago, but i now have the time to do what i really want to do rather than spend every day regretting ever taking that former job in the first place (which i did really regret). i've started an italian course with my cousin. last night was the first class and it was a lot of fun! my french helps a little bit, but it's still a completely different language and i stumble a lot. i'm going to stick it with it though because i really admire those who can speak multiple languages and i'd love to be one of those people. i've also started a bartending course in preparation for my trip to australia, which will hopefully happen early next year. i think back to how i really never felt like i belonged in the corporate world and i just want to have a fun job, so i'm hoping i'll find work in a restaurant on the beach somewhere in australia and a little bit of bartending experience should help with that. and i really want to see a kangaroo! there was a little zoo in the jardin des plantes in paris that had some wallabies. the day i went with my friend erin must have been close to 100 degrees so the wallabies were just laying there. i want to see things that hop! and have pouches! i hear that in australia there's a whole island full of kangaroos. i want to go to there.

so the president of the united states sent me a letter saying that due to my unfortunate economic situation, the government will give me money to go back to school for a certificate program. what luck! so i picked one out (event planning! yay!) and called the school about getting my free cash and they said "no." but i already have my heart set on it, so you know what, i'm going to do it anyway! it's an online program and i'm not sure i'm disciplined enough for that, but we'll see what happens. if it looks like i'll need to be in the country to actually do well in the courses, then i'll have to postpone australia (but it will happen - that's for you mom. it will happen.)

so i went to sweden! my friend jen is quite the world traveler, and if there's a long weekend, you can almost guarantee that she's leaving the country. so this past labor day her trip was sweden. she and her friends had an extra bed in their hostel so i bought myself a plane ticket and went to sweden! we spent three days in stockholm and had a really great time. our hostel was a boat on lake malaren. the rooms were teeny tiny and i had some difficulty getting down from my top bunk, but we were on a boat, and that's all that mattered. we had fantastic, sunny weather. i don't think i've walked more in my entire life than i did during those three days, but we saw so much so it was worth it. we met up with jen's friends hilary and francis and saw all the sites. i really enjoyed the vasa museum, which houses a salvaged ship that sank in the 1600s after only about 20 minutes at sea. the recovered some bones of some of those who died in the wreck and put them on display! they were able to discern what they looked like based on just their bones and had these really life-like busts on display. another museum that we all really enjoyed was the junibacken museum which is dedicated to the work of astrid lindgren who wrote pippi longstocking. after posing for pictures in the playground inside the museum we continued on for the magical train ride. there was more for us in store on this train ride than we could have ever imagined! as we rode the train, some of the author's stories were narrated for us. so we heard about the kid who tried to jump off of a house and "nearly killed himself," the kid that they attached to a flag pole, and the kid who died by saving his brother from a burning building. the surviving brother than visited his dead brother in the underworld and it sounds like he may have stayed. so i guess they both ended up dying. what wonderful stories! anyway, the best part of the train ride was when it LIFTED INTO THE AIR!! that's right, we started flying. it was amazing. i believe my exact reaction was, "ooohh this is wonderful!" and it really was! we also visited the skansen open-air museum which is made up to be a mini-sweden. there are old houses from the different areas of sweden which depict where a shoemaker might live or a banker might live. hilary was actually taller than most of the houses. she's so tall! we had a really nice dinner at a restaurant called pelikan which is in the newer part of town. we had a bad experience with swedish meatballs the night before so i got salmon instead. i'm not much of a seafood eater but i thought i'd be adventurous. i then saw someone who ordered the meatballs and they looked amazing! but i guess my salmon was good too. on our last night, jen and i stayed out by the airport since we had an early flight. our hostel was called the jumbo hostel and it used to be a plane! it was soo cool. it still had the luggage bins and the windows. and it was a brand new hostel so it was clean. i had a double sized bed with the softest sheets ever! and a flat screen tv!

well i guess that's it for now. my life is really boring so i'm not sure anyone will want to hear about it. so who knows when i'll write again.