Swissland in a Smart Car!

Well, as most of you know, Nathan came to visit me pretty early on in the semester. I decided it was time to return the favor and head to Switzerland myself! It was a great decision :)

Right before I left Nathan and I decided we were going to rent a car and drive it around Switzerland. No, not just any car. This car:

Shocking as this may be, it was a slight nightmare getting from Aix to Lugano, Switzerland. The issues started early- the Italian train workers were on strike. My first train was fine, but my second train was deviated to a terrible regional train that was packed full of people. The third train was decent, but ended up being nearly 45 minutes late. They apologized for the 20 minute delay. Apparently the other 20 minutes I should have expected? Anyway, as a result, Nathan and I missed the 'good' route to Lugano and had to wait in Milan for about an hour before taking "nasty Italian regional trains" into Switzerland. I'm pretty sure it was about 3am when we got to his apartment!!

We got up in the morning and decided to walk to Italy! Ha! So much fun to say. Actually we took a little train to the border area and walked across from there, but still cool. The goal was to go to this market in Ponte Tresa; however, for some reason it wasn't happening that day. No worries, we ate amazing authentic Italian pasta instead!! Yay for real carbonara.

The next thing we did was plan out our day. We had a car. A real live car!!! After being in Europe, carless, for 3 months, the possibilities seemed endless. We quickly worked up a route and decided to head out for the day.. in a car!! Did I mention that ???

Here is where we ended up going:

Lugan-->Vaduz, Liechtenstein-->Feldkirch, Austria-->Davos, Switzerland--> Lugano

It was so weird to be in a car again, especially when that car was a teeny, tiny smart car. It's actually quite roomy in the front and, unless you look behind, it feels like a normal car!! It was a great day to travel around a site-see. The GPS was set for 'shortest distance' not 'fastest route' so we accidentally took some amazing mountainous roads. The best part about having a car? The ability to see things you'd never see otherwise and the ability to stop whenever you see something amazing. On the way back to Lugano the first night we stopped in the mountains, turned the car off, and looked at the stars. I've never seen more in my entire life. It really was quite beautiful. Here are a few snapshots from the day.

Just your average view from the road... we saw a castle or waterfall
just about ever few miles. It was incredible. 

Made it up the windy mountain roads! The GPS route looked like
silly string because of all the switchback turns!

The center of Vaduz, Liechtenstein. It was small, but awesome.
They're important enough for a McDonald's and their King is actually
one of the wealthiest leaders in the world!

Feldkirch, Austria. The hills were definitely alive. It was stunning :)

Driving around was really great. I loved getting to see all of the different places. Nathan was/is an awesome road trip partner and his driving skills aren't half bad! There are a shocking number of tunnels in Switzerland so we set up a tunnel tally and it was over 12 before we even got back to Lugano. Speaking of tunnels... there was one I think Nathan will remember. Perhaps the one where a blinding red laser attacked us!!! Why? Nathan was speeding. Hello Swiss Speeding Ticket. Fail

We got back to Lugano a little after midnight, a successful day! 4 countries in one day isn't bad work at all!! All that was left was to wake up the next morning and get back out on the road. After our first day, I was really excited to see more of the Swiss Land. The day's itinerary was pretty packed, but we achieved most of it. Here is where we went:

Lugano->Lucern->Interlaken->Grindelwald->Lauterbrunnen->Thun->Lugano

First stop: Lucerne. We got here and walked around a little bit and found this fairly cheap boat tour of Lake Lucerne. It was great! Really relaxing and a bunch of amazing views... though some of them were blocked by Nathan's ridiculous Rapunzel hair!!!! He still hasn't cut it... Anyways after the boat ride we drove through Interlaken. I can honestly say it was one of the most beautiful places I've seen. Here's a look at our day in pictures! Enjoy :)

Famous bridge in Lucerne... it's actually pretty neat. Part of it burnt down in 1993.

Views from our amazing boat tour!! The whole place was just breathtaking... can't wait to go back. 

Just a random place we stopped to take pictures. Look at that water!!!!

We stopped here, too. It looks like a postcard. Really amazing.

This is near a tiny town we stopped at just to take pictures. The colors all around this place are just so bright and pretty!

Nathan and I took a lift up a mountain in Lauterbrunnen Valley. We went over half way up.
The ski run on this mountain is the one where they filmed the James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Servicse". Actually if you squint you can see our tiny yellow car which I drove through that very valley!!

View from the mountain! Much colder up here... It was a neat little town up there and we spent way too much money at this one gift shop we happened to find. 

The view from behind Thun Castle. Just another breathtaking view in Swizterland... ahhh

I did not include this part in the google map pictures, but when driving somewhere new there are always complications... We tried our best not to take the same roads to and from Lugano. This required a lot of 'tricking the GPS' which went our way- most of the time. On the second day when we left Thun, we tried a zillion roundabout ways to get a new route home. We ended up on some crazy mountain road with no lights and no cars for over an hour. The GPS kept telling us to turn around, but we thought knew our choice had to be right! Right? Not so much... we figured that if we kept driving the GPS would find a new route using our new direction. It never did and soon the gas tank was getting low. It was either take a road we used before or get stranded in Switzerland's version of Kentucky lol! We picked the safe bet and turned out!! Oh well, maybe next time the pass will be open.

As you can see, my Swissland Roadtrip was fabulous. It was a great way to get to see Switzerland, and I even got to practice my German when we stopped for dinner on the first night! :) :) I got up reallllly early the next morning and had yet another charming, delightful, super long journey back to Aix.

Thank you Swizterland and Nathan for a wonderful trip!

See you all soon

Love,

Liv

Paris et Madrid con mi Amour!

Steve came to visit me! It was the best 10 days I've ever had. The end.

Okay fine, I'll elaborate a bit more! 

Steve's flight was supposed to get in to Paris 11:30 or 12.. something like that... and I decided weeks before that I would skip class and surprise him in Paris at the airport! Brilliant plan... right? Yes and no. I woke up at 4:30am to shower and catch my train. I decided to check my email before I left and that, of course, led me to get on Facebook. It was a smart move- I had a message from Steve's sister, Jenny, telling me that he had missed his connecting flight and was now on a different one getting in later. Oh boy. So I scrambled to figure out which flight was his and to change my ticket to a later time so I wouldn't be stranded in the airport by myself for 3 hours! It ended up working out because I was on the same train as a girl in my program who, ironically, was on her way to pick up her boyfriend at the airport! Yay! When I exchanged my ticket I actually ended up getting bumped to first class so that was awesome too!

I was so impatient to see Steve. I sat at the airport trying to study for my exam, but I could not focus at all. I kept opening and closing the book, rereading the same pages! Then I noticed his plane was listed as landed. Yes Yes Yes!!! I went to the waiting area and pushed my way to the front and waited anxiously for him to come through the doors! ...20 minutes later- no Steve. I was getting really antsy and this point and then the door flew open and I saw him wondering around the baggage area! I waited and waited for him to actually come through the doors. ...30 minutes later he finally did! It was such a surreal moment and it was amazing to be back with him again :) :) 

We had a really nice dinner and a bottle of wine at a cute little restaurant in the St. Michel area. We strolled around a little bit, just enjoying the scenery. Then we walked along the Seine and ended our first night in Paris like anyone should- a bottle of wine under the Eiffel Tower :)
Anyways I'll do the vast majority of this trip with pictures! Hope you enjoy :)

We bought a bottle opener from a petit casino nearby and, well, it broke as we tried to open the bottle. Steve went up to some French people nearby and asked them if they could help. One French guy used his key ring to pull the cork and the remaining part of the corkscrew out of the bottle. Nice little life skill!! 

  

So awesome! Oh and the cathedral's not bad either <3

Notre Dame et nous :)

Arc de Triomphe! I had been here before, but had never gone up in it! We went through the museum and then
hiked up to the top! It wasn't a very pretty day, but the view was still neat. You can see the 'modern' Paris
from the top and it looks so different! 

Chateau de Vincennes! For those of you who have seen Versailles,
this place is an entirely different era of French castles! It was still
really neat to see though! We liked the Keep the best.

My first trip to the Louvre! I loved it so much. I saw all of the staples- Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, etc etc. I actually liked the Mesopotamian art and stuff like that. It was really great to get to go there with Steve. It made it that much
better!! Can't wait to get to go back with my parents!

Moulin Rouge! Very cool area... though I'm not sure I'd hang out there at night...
We both stood on the Marilyn Monroe thing which was fun! Steve had on jeans
so he just looked like he had really fat legs haha!

I had an amazing time in Paris. Sure it's cliche, but there really is nothing like being Paris with the person you love most! We saw a lot of the major sites and also had some great food. We went really fancy one evening and ate at this great little restaurant on Ile de St. Louis. There was paté, baked brie, beef bourguignon, lamb, bread, and good wine! The essence of Paris- great food, even better company!

We left bright and early on Monday morning to head to Aix! The train ride was super short- probably because we both slept through the entire thing! I mean it's easy to relax when you're riding in first class all the time like we were! Ha! Anyways we got to Aix and it was kind of sunny.. kind of? We went back to my apartment and then I went right to studying! I studied so hard that whole day... okay okay.. I did study though! I had a midterm the next day but I couldn't let something as trivial as an exam get in the way of showing Steve around!! We did a quick tour of Aix and ate at one of my favorite places here. I took my exam the next day and it sucked, of course, but I actually did well on it! That night Steve got to experience one of Aix's best qualities- Ladies Night! Every Tuesday in Aix is Ladies Night and there is free alcohol and cover at just about every bar and club in the city! So great- unless you're a boy!! Haha! We had a really great time and Steve got to meet a lot of my friends.

Getting ready to go out and rage with the ladies! Yay Aix!

The next day we got ready for our big adventure to Spain! We both had our first Ryanair experience- a super low-cost airline that everyone uses to travel around here. We got to Spain and boy was it an adventure! The hostel we booked had an excellent location- buuut it sucked so much. The beds were so unbelievably uncomfortable, and the place was next to a smelly fish shop! Yuck!

We got in fairly late and spent our first night eating Mexican food!!! Wooooo! and then we went to a pub to watch some of the champions league games! We turned in kind of early that night so that we could get up early and be ready for a great day. Neither of us slept well- I think my bed actually bruised me because it was so hard lol!

 Our first stop on the Spanish adventure was the Royal Palace. For those of you who don't know, Spain has a really interesting history with its monarchy. The Palace is very cool and it has some excellent view of Madrid. We bought and audio guide, and I think we both really enjoyed it. They had really cool armory too with tons of crazy weapons and stuff that the Spanish Armada used!

 This picture is at one of our favorite places in Madrid- Retiro Park! It's a huge park in Madrid with all kinds of neat sculptures, fountains, and gardens. It also has a really big lake type of thing in the middle where people hang out on the banks or rent paddle boats! I loved this place so much, it was great to just get to hang out together. Being in Spain was a plus...

Our next stop after this picture was El Prado Museum. It's second to the Louvre for best art museum. We went at night because it's free after 6pm! We saw a lot of neat art, some similar to the Louvre, but a lot of very different stuff. It was at the end of our trip through El Prado that we started getting itchy... really, really itchy. Steve lifted up his shirt a little and that's when we knew- bed bugs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!

Ew. Nasty. Gross. Sick. Disgusting. etc. etc. 

Needless to say the first thing we did when we got back to the hostel was pack up our things and find a new one! Immediately. We ended up finding a pretty nice one in a great location and they had a washer- thank God. That day was St. Patrick's Day so we decided to leave our bug woes behind and have a nice drink. We found this cool little tapas bar and got great deals on drinks. I had the best mojito there! So good!!  We spent the rest of that night and much of the next morning washing everything that we brought with us, including my stuffed bear, Pete!

Moving locations away from bug-place! Hm.. I think Steve just miiiight be a little taller than your average Spaniard?

The next night we went out and did a Pub Crawl!! It was such a great experience! This is the group that we hung out
with for the vast majority of the time. Most of them are German except for the short guy in the black shirt. Steve
had a wonderful, life-altering experience with the tall German in the back- they had a chugging contest and Steve lost! Just barely though! It was really fun and it was cool to meet new people. We actually met a few people from Quebec who accused me of having a French accent (in French).. he was wrong. He has an accent- a Quebecois accent!!! 

Group Jager bombs! This was actually really neat. After she set up all of the shots, she knocked one in and it created
a domino effect and then almost everyone went forward and got their bombs!

Post- power-hour and jager bombs, we headed out to the next bar. In every bar/club (except the last one) we got free shots included in our price. After the second bar we went to a club and everyone was ready to dance. We met a lot of people there from the Chicago area. Actually one girl had been to Bloomington before, and one German girl actually studied abroad in Indiana! Crazy!
The next stop was actually my favorite- a salsa dancing club! Naturally, at this point, Steve and I thought we were amazing dancers. We totally were though! Tearing up the dance floor with our salsa moves! It was so much fun, I'll never forget it :) :) 

We didn't stay at the last club very long (the one after the salsa) because it was getting quite late and the metro had already closed! Oops! The next day we woke up and headed to Plaza del Sol for some food and then gelato! Yummy!! After eating we decided to do a New Madrid Free Tour (just like the ones I took in all those other places!) and it was great. We learned so much stuff and saw so many things that we would never have had the opportunity to see otherwise. We ate lunch at this place called Museo del Jamon and they just had ham hanging all over the place. The Madrilenos love their ham. The guide on the tour was really helpful and he actually directed us to our next stop-- the Real Madrid-Atletico Madrid game!!! 

This picture doesn't do it justice but there were people EVERYWHERE. The atmosphere
was really great and I was so excited to see some of the best soccer players in the world! This
taken right outside the Atletico Stadium. 

Real Madrid warming up! This picture is unique because Ronaldo is NOT on the ground!
Weird... :) 

Look how awesome our seats were!! We even got to hold up signs stuff like you always
see on t.v.!

 Going to the game was surreal but amazing. Real Madrid won 2-1... boo..! Atletico gave up and then randomly scored but it was too little too late. The next day we stayed in the soccer theme and went to tour the Real Madrid stadium. On our way we actually found a little outdoor festival thing with amazing food everywhere. Naturally, we stopped and ate!!

Zizou!!! Best player ever. 

Steve on the field. We got to sit on the players benches, see the visitor's locker room
and go through the museum and very large trophy room. Amazing!

 After our stadium tour we actually went back to the outdoor thing and ate gelato! It was really good (pictured below). We headed to the other side of Madrid in order to take a cable car ride. The area was really nice and the views from the car were beautiful. When we got to the other side there was a big park and we strolled around and then sat on a bench and took in the view. That night we headed back to del Sol and had some Madrid specialties- churros con chocolate! Basically you take deep fried dough and dunk it in a kind of chocolate soup. I don't think I even need to tell you how good it was! We had a nice dinner later that night of a few tapas, and then we ended our night at the bar where I had my mojito! It was a great end to one of the most amazing trips I've ever been on!


* * * * * * *

For those of you who know Steve, this may no be too shocking, but we did our fair share of eating. In Paris, Aix, and Madrid, it seemed like we were constantly buying and eating food. It was well worth it though. I tried to take as many pictures of Steve eating as possible! We had crepes, gelato, churros, escargot, French cuisine, Spanish cuisine, Colombian food, Mexican food, beer, sangria, etc etc! Ahh what a trip!! I think our favorites were probably crepes and gelato, of course!

Sandwiches from one of my favorite places that I used to have all of the time in St. Brieuc! I'm pretty
sure that we had jambon, beurre, fromage. Oh don't forget the pain au chocolate et pistole sucre with that! 

Les escargots! Yummy!! These things were
really tough to get out of the shells. Steve totally did NOT
have to ask the waiter for help... haha in his defense
the one he was struggling with was actually empty! 

There's the Steve I know and love- thoroughly attacking and enjoying
his crepe! I believe this was jambon, oeuf, fromage? Probably. I, of course
stuck with the Nutella crepe :) This was right before we went to Montmarte.
I think we got food in every single neighborhood we ended up in! Yay!

* * * * * * * *

Well after all the fun Steve had to go home. It sucked, a lot. I sobbed in the airport like an idiot for quite some time before I got on my train and cried there too. Eventually I fell asleep and headed back to Aix. I hated it when he left, but it was worth it to get to spend time with him and travel to amazing places!

Thank you so much, Stephen! Je t'aime :)


See you all in about a month!!

-Liv

Berlin, at last!

Our final leg on the great Germanic/Bohemian adventure was Berlin!

 Luckily, while in Prague, I managed to convince Chen to join us in Berlin- didn't really take much convincing though :) :) I was very excited to get to see her again before she left for home, and Meredith and I boarded the train in the morning back to Germany. Wellll that train ride was interesting. We actually napped really, really well on that train because we chose a random compartment and no one else ever came in so we each stretched out across the 3 seats and dozed off. When I did wake up, however, I noticed that it was time to be in Berlin... but we weren't!! Gasp! Turns out the train was delayed. Problem? Yes. Chen was supposed to be getting into Berlin much earlier than us, so I needed to warn her about our delay. Well I didn't have her French number! Dang it. Turns out it wouldn't have been helpful because my lovely friend lost her phone during a Paris Pub Crawl! Ha.

We got to Berlin 1.5 hours late but our hostel was actually right outside the main train station!! Woo! We met Chen right inside, checked in, and headed out to explore!

I had a few immediate reactions to Berlin. Number one: Berlin looks nothing at all like Munich! Totally different. Number two: Berlin is HUGE. Wow. The population is somewhere around 3.4 million which is about 3 times as big as Munich and about 2.7 million more than Aix!

The train systems were kind of a labyrinth at first, but we figured it out soon. Our first stop was the museum area where we went to the gigantic German History Museum. I kind of wish that we would have started in the more contemporary history area, but it was really neat. I feel like it would take me a good day or two to actually see everything in there. There was this extremely German security guy that yelled at me for having my fanta bottle in my hand ( it was empty!! ). Apparently it's contents- despite the fact that it was empty- were posing a threat to the artifacts inside the glass cases...

Beautiful :)

Wait? Where are we? What river?

We left the museum after they shuffled us out when it closed and we made our way to the Brandenburg Gate! We actually got there right at sunset, so it looked so beautiful. We snapped some pictures and then walked around the street it was on. It is a really long street with tons of cool stores and expensive restaurants. Very neat to see the gate, though.

After the gate we were starving so we decided to find ourselves a nice German restaurant. We each had something different, but I went with the Berlin classic- curry wurst. Curry wurst is a sort of sausage (go figure) with a curry/ketchup kind of sauce. It was quite delicious and went well with my tasty German beer! What? It was my last few days in the land of wonderful, inexpensive beer :) Our waitress wasn't our biggest fan though because I had the audacity to drop my fork! I think Chen might have too...geez we suck! haha

We rushed out of the restaurant and headed to a bar to meet up with a pub crawl! Haha yes, it's a trend. This particular one was packed- there were well over a hundred people in the group and it was jam packed. We were a little late to the hour of free beers so we missed out on that. The bar itself was this grimy, strange, kind of cool place with a huge fire torch in it. It seemed kind of unsafe, but really cool. Anyways it was around this point that my curry wurst was coming back to bite me. I was feeling rather nauseated but wanted to proceed with the pub crawl nevertheless!

The power-hour was over and we headed outside to get quite the fantastic introduction from the Australian tour guide.

***the following contains content unsuitable for minors. Viewer discretion is advised*** 


The guide gathered us all around and told us about the pub crawl and where we would be going. First he said that we should know that, legally, for the tour we needed to have metro tickets. But, then he proceeded to say that actually we didn't need them. He didn't have one. He never has one. End of story. Ha. Then he called our attention to the surrounding areas. He said that we may have noticed the large amount of prostitutes in the area- of course we had, they were the ones wearing giant boots, generally of the white patent-leather and/or fake fur variety! Anyways then he said something I will never forget:

"If your plans do not including fucking them, do not fuck with them. Do not take pictures of them, they will smash your cameras."

... good advice? Well we headed out to the next bar which was entirely too small for our huge group. We were under the impression that we got 'free shots' at the bar. Fine print... free shots with the purchase of another alcoholic beverage. Boo. Well at this point I had a horrific stomach ache, the smoke was getting to me, and it was really crowded and expensive. It took us a good ten minutes to even push our way to the bar. Ick. After that bar we decided to head back to the hostel and just have a nice relaxing night at the huge hostel lounge. Good choice!

We woke up the next day and headed out to Charlottenburg Palace. It is a massive palace!! It took a while to get there but luckily we had delicious COOKIES (my first cookies since America..aahhhh!) to last us on our walk/ride there. Once we got to the palace we headed inside for the audio guide and tour. The thing that sucks about palaces besides Versailles is that pictures are usually forbidden. Luckily Chen is a rulebreaker so you can all get a glimpse :)

Looks super awkward because Chen was covertly taking a picture!
but this was the most beautiful room in the palace.
Chen and I waltzed in it!!!

Porcelain room! So pretty!

           The Charlottenburg Palace was really cool, but the audioguide was the most longwinded thing I have ever heard... it was like my methodology teacher wrote it. Yikes. We left the Palace after a few hours there and headed to the Berlin Wall. I was really excited to get to see it! I did a presentation in a class about the wall and my history seminar research paper was about post WWII Germany and clandestine relations with the Soviets, so I was anxious to see something I'd spent so much time researching. 

Checkpoint Charlie

What's left of the Wall

We walked up to Checkpoint Charlie- there is a guy there dressed as an American soldier who will let you take a picture with him for a few euros lol- and then the original sign and stuff. There is the Checkpoint Charlie museum, and a big wall display explaining the different eras and information surrounding the history of the wall. Oh and there is a McDonald's right there too... I'm sure Stalin would really have appreciate that one!

The actual remnants of the wall are not by checkpoint Charlie, you just have to walk down a few blocks and there it is. It's so weird to think that when I walked to go see it, I was in "East Germany" and on the way back, "West Germany". It's difficult to imagine the wall actually being there. It seems like such a random place to just build a wall, but, hey, it happened. We took our time checking out the wall, the part that remains has some cool writing on it. Farther down from the picture I posted above is a huge painting or whatever that says "Save Our Planet". 

After the wall visit we headed to somewhere oh so amazing- the Ritter Sport Chocolate World. Ahhhhhhh!! Sadly we were too late to make our own chocolate, but we certainly bought enough of it to make up for that. I think I bought 7 different kinds. Don't worry, I only kept 2 for myself. Actually no I didn't keep any of it- but I did get to taste 3 of them! Yummy. It is soooo good. I highly recommend that if you ever see Ritter Sport chocolate, buy it. Just buy it and eat it immediately!! Or share with me... :) 

Stack of chocolates!! 

Sadly, after our amazing chocolate experience we needed to head back to the hostel so Chen could catch her train. It was really sad to see her leave, but I was glad we had some time together! Chen was actually quite interested in the German language. She learned an important lesson while she was in Berlin- be careful how you pronounce the word for street. If you're not, you'll end up calling everything an Ostrich!! 

After over a week on the road, Meredith and I were burnt out so we decided on a quiet night at the hostel lounge/bar area. We took advantage of happy hour while we sat down, relaxed, and chatted. We had about 20 hours or more of travel ahead of us the next day, so we went up to our room to watch tv, shower, and sleep. That was where the relaxing ended...

During our first night our roommates at the hostel were Chen and a really nice, extremely hip asian guy! Other than Chen, our roommates were great! Haha jk Chen :) -- Actually Chen switched in to our room because there was a vomiting girl and creepy guys in here room. But back to the second night: Two rather malodorous Indian guys were put in our room. They didn't say much and some scented lotion fixed up some of the smell. When we went to bed, the first guy came back and didn't say much except for informing us that his friend would be returning late. Other than a habit of breathing extremely loudly, snoring, and making odd noises, there wasn't much wrong with the first guy.

3:30am: Pounding knocks on the door to the room. Scared me to death! I had been sleeping so well until then... the first guy lets the second guy- who is hammered- into the room. That guy proceeds to turn on the lights in the room! They talk really loudly and then the second guy gets in bed and passes out. 

7:30am: Knocking on the door. Who is it? Apparently another guy looking for our dear roommates. They didn't hear him so he decided to just knock for a bit every 15 minutes until about 8am when one of them noticed and answered. Swell. 

Once those two had showered and left, Meredith and I had the place to ourselves and took our time getting ready. We got some 'dunk'n coffee' donuts and fruit smoothies at the station before getting on the super long train ride to Karlsruhe. We switched there and took a train to Strasbourg and we were finally back in France. We took the night train from there to Marseille and, other than some super inconsiderate people around 3am, had a pretty pleasant journey back to Aix! 

8 days, 6 cities, and 3 countries! It was the trip of a lifetime and I'll never forget it :) 

Love you and miss you,

Olivia!

Praha!!!

The Charles Bridge!

Praha!

We left Vienna- a few hours later than planned due to an unfortunate encounter with mean Turkish food- and hopped on the train to Prague. The ride was pretty uneventful, except it did mark the very first time that I got in an argument in German!!!! I was sitting in my seat, minding my own business, and I had my foot touching the seat in front of me. That is when Helga arrived. She started making noises at me because she probably thought I couldn't speak German. Then, in German, I said something like, "Oh sorry, it's no problem. I'll put my feet down"... to which she responded that it was a big problem and started talking about scuffing the seats and paying a 6 euro fine. I told her that there was definitely NOT a scuff mark and that there was absolutely no way I was giving her 6 euros. She left, making noises yet again. Ha!

At the train station we needed to get out some Czech Crowns. I put my card in and the smallest amount it was going to give me was 1000. Wowza... should've looked up the conversion rate BEFORE going, but I did the best I could and just assumed that 1000 wasn't that much. (Thankfully I was right!) Europe tends to be super convenient, so the machine followed suit and actually gave me a 1000 crown bill. Super. Meredith got a 2000 crown bill so I guess it was worse for her! 

Anyways we made it out of the station and into Prague and it was actually a really nice and sunny day. A wonderful day for us to spend 1.5 hours wandering around Prague trying to find our hostel! Yes. The streets were basically all cobblestone and the signs, of course, were in Czech. It was really hard to read the map and though we navigated the metro perfectly fine, the roads were a different story. When we finally did make it to the hostel, it ended up being one of the best we stayed in! (Little Town Budget Hotel for those of you planning on making a May trip there!!) We were in an 8 person dorm but it was actually 2 rooms with a kitchen, a table, and very large and clean bathroom. We met some really awesome people at that hostel as well, which is always the best! After we got settled in we decided to go out and explore a little.. oh and EAT. 

Our destination: The Hard Rock Cafe. Haha, yes, how American of us. But, due to the unfortunate incident with Turkish-food-gone-wrong, we decided that food that we were quite familiar with might be better. I had some glorious fajitas and then a giant brownie sundae... oh and some wonderful Czech beer! After dinner we walked around the city for a while and checked out some of the sights and stopped in at a ton of souvenir stores- I was on the hunt for a giant, furry Russian looking hat. (No such luck, sadly). 

The next day we woke up and had some very cheap, very good Starbucks before heading out to see the famous clock tower. When I went to throw away my coffee cup, I noticed a tour group from the New Europe Tours (the same company we used in Munich) standing by, ready to leave after the clock struck. We decided to join the free tour and try and make the most of our time in Prague. It was definitely a good idea. I really love those tours because you learn so much stuff that you would otherwise have no way to know! 

Fun facts and pictures, Praha style:

1 US Dollar = 17.25008 Czech Koruna  

Tour guides use giant, colorful umbrellas to help the tourists find them!
It's actually really helpful.

The famed Astronomical Clock. It's pretty neat when the hour turns.
At the end a guy with a trumpet comes out at the very top and plays to each of the four corners. 

Synagogue that the Jewish people in Prague built to commemorate the help
and tolerance that the Muslim people in Spain gave them. That is
why it looks so much more like a mosque than synagogue.

The oldest synagogue in all of Europe. Hitler did not want it torn down because
he wanted it to be a part of his "museum" of sorts to an "extinct race".

The Eiffel Tower of Praha! It's just as tall as the one in Paris...
if you count the hill that it is sitting on :)

Yes, it was quite cold. Especially after 6 hours outside...

The view from our hostel bedroom window. The Prague Castle at night!

Factoids:

1. The lighting you see above that makes the Prague Castle look so amazing was actually provided by the Rolling Stones. Apparently Mick Jagger thought they should light up the castle at night, but since the country had just come out from under communist control they couldn't afford it. Mick Jagger donated the lights from his world tour to the city of Prague!

2. The Czechs drink more beer per capita than any other country! Heard of Pilsner? Yeah, it's a Czech invention!

3. The Charles Bridge (my very first picture) was built in 1357 by Charles IV

4. St. Vitus Cathedral (one of my favorites that I have seen in Europe) has crazy towers. Two of them are gothic, the third one is gothic style until the very top. Apparently by the time this tower was being built, gothic style wasn't as in vogue so some silly architect convinced the king to put a renaissance style top on it. It looks so odd!!

gothic... gothic... Renaissance!! Looks like they chopped the top
off of the 3rd one lol!

5. There used to be a huge, massive statue of Stalin on this one hill in Prague. After they tore it down, Michael Jackson actually did a concert in the city. Apparently his concert organizers decided that it would be awesome to put a giant statute of MJ where good ol' Stalin used to be!

6. Hitler wanted to make Prague his retirement home, so his did his best to make sure that the city was unharmed.

We learned most of these fun facts on our free tour and some of them we learned when we took the castle tour. After 6 hours of being outside in the 22 degree weather, complete with wind, we were both ready to be inside! We had dinner at this Czech place near the restaurant. The portions were huge, the beer was tasty, and the price was ridiculously cheap! We were finally profiting from a favorable exchange rate :) :) We walked around the souvenirs shops again trying to find a hat for me, but I finally gave up. The souvenir shops there remind me a lot of Florida in that there are tons of them and they all have the exact same crap! lol. Oh well!

Prague was a great surprise for me. Like I said, I had no idea what the expect but it was so beautiful and full of interesting stories, myths, and people. We said goodbye to Prague (and one of my favorite sweaters!!!!!!!) the next morning and headed off to a city unlike anything we had seen thus far- Berlin.

I hope you're all doing well.

Love you and miss you,

Liv