We could not have asked for a better first full day in Vienna. We got up at nine and consulted the front desk of our hostel for some good breakfast restaurants. The lady kindly gave us the name of a place on one of the main streets near the hostel. Unfortunately for us, when we arrived at the supposed address of the restaurant all we saw was a boarded up window, which indicated that the restaurant clearly did not exist. We didn't let this faze us and went directly to a nice looking bakery next door. We sat down at our table and were quickly rushed to order by our incredibly impatient waitress. When Cedric and Christian did not immediately know what they wanted, she stormed off in a hurry to her next table. She did not return for another ten minutes and then finally took their orders. Since Parker, Sam and I ordered earlier, we got our food first and had finished eating entirely by the time Cedric and Christian's food arrived. Frustrated by the impatience of our waitress, we decided not to tip her, which is not unusual in Austria. After we had all finished, Cedric and Christian were still hungry, so they went to another bakery. Cedric bought a Pain au Chocolat and Christian bought a giant loaf of bread that would later be named Carlos. Finally satisfied by our breakfast meals, we made our way to the metro station, only to find that we had left our tickets at the hostel. We ran back to the hostel, got the tickets, and headed straight back to the train station in order to catch our bus tour at noon.
Upon arrival at the bus stop from which our tour would be leaving, we realized that this bus tour was a little bit more upscale than our previous ones. All of the seats had nice leather and we each had our own individual headsets. As we waited for the bus to leave, we listened to Mozart and other pieces performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra over our headsets. There was not a cloud in the sky as our bus left the station, and it was clear that many of us had a new favorite city in Europe - Vienna. Our tour started in the area around the historic center of Vienna, allowing us to see landmarks such as the Albertina Museum, the Secession Building, and the Museum Quarter. After seeing much of historic Vienna, our bus took a twenty minute break at Hundertwasser Village. The village was an apartment complex oriented around souvenir shops and a bar with a stream flowing through it. After looking around for about fifteen minutes in this unique area, we headed back to the bus. Our tour then headed across the vast Danube River, which starts in Germany and ends in the Black Sea, and into the modern center of the city. One of the most dominating landmarks of the horizon is the TV Tower, similar to that of Berlin. However, the unique thing about this tower is the fact that it has a bungee jumping platform for the dare devils who visit the city. After crossing into the modern center, we quickly turned back around and headed back across the river and into the historic sector of town. Our tour bus took us up narrow streets, showing us various well hidden spots for lunch and dinner. After spending some time on this less travelled roads, we made our way back to where we started and completed the tour.
It was about 1:30 when the tour was over and we were all hungry for lunch. having just been informed of some secret restaurants, we decided to eat at a place known for its goulash. Goulash is a beef stew type meal that is recognized as an Austro-Hungarian specialty. Everyone was satisfied with their meals, especially the bread we got on the side. As usual, many of us were not completely full after lunch, so we decided to go to Stephansplatz for some ice cream. We immediately found what we were looking for, as we ate some of the best ice cream I have ever had in my life. The two most popular flavors were chocolate and nougat, both of which were AMAZING. After we finished our ice cream, we decided to head out to Schonbrunn Palace, the home of the Habsburg family. When we got there we went straight to the ticket counter to find out how much longer the museum would be open. Unfortunately, palace was going to close at six, which did not give us nearly enough time to see all that we wanted.
After our failed attempt at seeing the Schonbrunn Palace, we decided to head back to the Museum Quarter to see the Kunsthistorisches Museum. The Kunsthistorisches Museum houses many famous artists' paintings, including the works of Caravaggio, Durer, and Van Eyck to name a few. Luckily for us, admission to the museum was free for students, so we quickly made our way throughout the museum in the remaining hour we had before it closed. It was very exciting for me to see many of the works I had learned about in Art History. One of my favorite paintings that we saw was Breugel's Hunters in the Snow, a painting which records the immense perseverance of the working class during one of the coldest and snowiest winters in European history. Breugel was known for painting works that praised the quiet dignity of the working class, and it was really exciting to see one of his works in person. We continued through the museum, looking through sketches by Durer and paintings by Steen until we were basically asked to leave by the intercom.
We then made our way to the Austrian Parliament Building, a Neoclassical form of architecture constructed to recall the great powers of Democracy used by the Greeks. In front of the building is a large statue of the Greek Goddess Athena, symbolizing victory. As we were sitting in front of the building, Cedric and Christian quickly erupted into an argument over GDP as Sam, Parker, and I chuckled as we listened.
Having had a day full of touring, we decided to head to dinner at another place our hostel had recommended. When we arrived, we realized that the restaurant was far too fancy for our liking, so we decided to go to Galaxie, the same restaurant we had eaten at yesterday for lunch. Our meals were incredible, but as usual, we were still craving more after dinner, so we headed out to the local convenience store to look for some ice cream. After finishing our ice cream, we went back to our hostel to get our laundry that was in desperate need of being washed. We went to a traveller's bar that apparently had a washing machine, but they then redirected us to another hostel that had multiple washers that we could use. We arrived at the other hostel at ten and began our laundry, which would take about two hours. While we were waiting, we blogged and planned out our day for tomorrow. When our laundry was done, we went back to our hostel and slept well, knowing we had clean clothes awaiting us the next morning.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sam #5: May 28
This morning started with my horrendously obnoxious code-red sci-fi phone alarm going off at 6:30am after a late night at the club. It can wake me from the deepest of snoozes, and this morning was no exception. I snapped up and leapt across the bed, through the sheets, past the bridge, over the rainbow, down the yellow brick road, above the rim, and under the sea to reach my phone and turn off the alarm. I was quite alert at this point, but I could feel that I was going to be in that strange state of mind all day where you're tired but a squinty-eyed Clint Eastwood sense of badass keeps you awake. I woke my equally-weary roommate Parker and we got ready for a 7:15 departure to the train station. Parker was quite organized, but my things were spread all over the room as if Jackson Pollock himself had splatter-painted the room with my dirty clothes, my chapstick, and my krona coins. Finally zipping my bag shut was quite the pleasant surprise for the morning.
We metro-surfed our way to the train station, and since we were at least an hour early, we headed first for the bakery/Burger King combo shop and waited in line for croissants. While in line for this traveler's mecca, we spotted the departures board. At the time of manna purchase, our train had not yet been assigned a platform, and thus some of us waited in purgatory, some of us went to find cheap water and snack food, and some went to rid their souls of the ever-scarring Czech krona in exchange for the mighty euro, which breathed a fresh breath of Herman Van Rompuy into our wallets. By the time we had all reunited, the 8:39 to Wien had been assigned to platform 9 3/4, and there we marched with haste.
We found a lovely block of unreserved seats on the train, and we quickly claimed them. The seats were comfortable and elegant, and of course the seatmates were world-class. Once the train was in motion, we knew that we had to write some blogs, and Christian was first in line to write. I knew that he was not super stoked to blog when he went and found a new seat on the other side of the train, but I chased him down and gave him the encouragement that only the blogger-in-chief could give, and in the end he wrote a beautiful blog (as you all have already read). While he was diligently performing the duties of daily scribe, the other 4 of us discussed geography, history, and politics to everyone's delight. However, one of the highlights of the morning was when Bohemian drank lady rolled her snack-filled crunk cart through the aisle with the hippest selection of tea, coffee, and other groovy fare. Shawty copped me an earl grey and a hella dank chocolate croissant for a Flo-Rida low price of 2 euros. The four lazy bum non-scribes continued our small talk of rivers and trains for awhile, and we napped a little bit too. Later in the train ride, we continued historical discussion (largely grounded in Cedric's AP Euro textbook from 10th grade) when to my most delightful surprise, Snack Cart Sister returned for an encore performance, and out of appreciation, loyalty, and sheer awe, I paid up again for another hot tea. It was even more refreshing and pee-inducing than the one before it. Shortly after snacks round 2, the train made a stop at an intermediate station, and a 4-seat table opened up. My eyes like softballs, I levitated across the cabin and put down my jacket, my ipod, my headphones, and my backpack in the 4 different seats in order to ensure our claim over this newfound district. As it is, a table seat is hard to come by, so having all 4 people in the same gang claim all four seats is rarer than hen's teeth.
The rest of our train ride was fantastic, and we arrived in Wien around 1:15, which was about 20 minutes earlier than schedule. I like that. We arrived in a station called Meidling, which isn't that close to our hostel. Truth be told, there is a different station called Westbahnhof (West Train Station in English) that is two blocks from our hostel, but the Prague trains on our pass don't run there. Alas, we were forced to navigate another metro system in order to get to our hostel. I must say that each new one gets easier as we learn the different elements of European light rail. We arrived at the Westbahnhof station, and from there Henry had been given directions to the hostel. All we had to do was walk out of the train station, turn left, and walk two blocks. We walked three blocks, still didn't see the hostel, and decided to consult Sir Charles, my beloved CrackBerry, for wisdom, counsel, and geographic orientation. As it turned out, we had gone out the wrong side of the train station, and we needed to walk back up the hill to the train station, turn left, and then walk two blocks perpendicular to our route. With large suitcases. The prospect of walking uphill for nearly a kilometer vanished all traces of patience, and incidentally we hoofed it up that hill. I swear I was angry enough (not at Henry - we were all frustrated with the whole situation) to bite someone's ear off à la Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield.
We FINALLY arrived at the hostel and checked in with little hiccup. In fact they were quite nice, offering us free drinks and free wifi. I was in no mood to communicate with the outside world, and we took our bags and headed to the room, which turned out to be down the street another block. The hostel is in a separate building from the hotel, which made for a cozier setting for our room, but to use the internet or talk to the front desk, we had to walk back the block. We got into the room (which is phenomenal) and set up camp there. The sheets they provided were unbelievably comfortable, and by the time we were ready to head out for lunch, it was almost 4:00. We headed over to a hip little spot called Galaxie, which was just down the street with a variety of fare. The fact that they were serving food at 4pm is not common, and we pounced on the opportunity to eat something; anything. Other than a misinterpretation of "rice" and "fries" (they sound very similar), our meal was good. Recharged and reloaded, we headed into the heart of the city (via metro) and elected to wander through a section chock full of interesting-looking buildings.
Our adventures led us to three churches, only one of which was actually a church. We saw Parliament, the Volkspark, the Volksopera, City Hall, and other interesting things. Unfortunately, when I say we "saw" them, I literally mean that we only saw them. Nothing was really open. Evidently, things in Vienna do not stay open as late as things do in Atlanta. At the train station, some lady recommended that we try to take a bus tour of the city to see everything. Well as it turned out, the bus tours were also closed for the evening, so by that point (7:00ish), we elected to scrap all other plans of touring places, and instead our focus turned to dinner. We wandered around Stephensplatz (the city center and giant shopping/dining/clubbing destination) until settling on a Turkish restaurant that was the Turkish equivalent of Houston's. Our service was good and our food was better, so after a long afternoon of frustrating misses, the five of us were all greatly satisfied and relieved at having finally done something right in this new city of Wien.
Upon arrival at the hostel, our next priority was laundry. The clean side of my duffel bag was going the way of the Greek economy (a hot topic in over yonder), while the dirty clothes were growing like Maury Ballstein's prostate gland. Sir Charles helped me find a laundromat nearby, and so we gathered up all of our dirties and set out on the metro once again in search of cars, money, and Tide Color-Safe Bleach. Having been led true once more by Sir Charles, we happened upon a beautiful laundromat, only to find it closed for the weekend. The concept of the late-night laundromat party with the iPod speakers is obviously unheard of in this city. Dejected and odorous like no other, we wandered into a convenience store and bought The Notebook in Turkish and 5 quarts of Ben & Jerry's to nurse our battle scars with. We retreated to the basement lair and struggled to find another dimension in which to flip our underwear and socks, because inside out and inside in had already been used up.
We finished up the day with some blog-writing in the kitchen/lounge outside our room and Cuarenta lessons. For the uninitiated and un-Ecuafied, Cuarenta is a traditional Ecuadorian card game with 40 cards that scores points for various victories until one squad reaches the vaunted cuarenta mark. Christian and I were in the international brotherhood, and tonight we introduced Henry and Parker to the smash hit phenomenon that is single-handedly responsible for every one of Simon Bolivar's conquests of liberation in the 1820's. Most history books write that Bolivar used an army to conquer Spanish forces stationed in Gran Colombia. Not so. In truth, Bolivar and his lifelong Cuarenta partner Karl-os Malone challenged each general (and the partner of his choosing) to a Cuarenta showdown. Between Bolivar's uncanny ability to get rondas and Malone's fierce intimidation skills (later adapted by 21st century professor and expert Nelson Ruiz), they were simply unstoppable. The Spanish, embarrassed by their losses, claimed military losses to the court, and it was never questioned.
History lessons aside, we played a sleepy teaching round, and then Christian and Parker prevailed over me and Henry in a 40-12 blowout. Exhausted, we headed quickly to bed, ready for another day of surprises from the great city of Wien.
Yours Truly,
John Not-ckton
We metro-surfed our way to the train station, and since we were at least an hour early, we headed first for the bakery/Burger King combo shop and waited in line for croissants. While in line for this traveler's mecca, we spotted the departures board. At the time of manna purchase, our train had not yet been assigned a platform, and thus some of us waited in purgatory, some of us went to find cheap water and snack food, and some went to rid their souls of the ever-scarring Czech krona in exchange for the mighty euro, which breathed a fresh breath of Herman Van Rompuy into our wallets. By the time we had all reunited, the 8:39 to Wien had been assigned to platform 9 3/4, and there we marched with haste.
We found a lovely block of unreserved seats on the train, and we quickly claimed them. The seats were comfortable and elegant, and of course the seatmates were world-class. Once the train was in motion, we knew that we had to write some blogs, and Christian was first in line to write. I knew that he was not super stoked to blog when he went and found a new seat on the other side of the train, but I chased him down and gave him the encouragement that only the blogger-in-chief could give, and in the end he wrote a beautiful blog (as you all have already read). While he was diligently performing the duties of daily scribe, the other 4 of us discussed geography, history, and politics to everyone's delight. However, one of the highlights of the morning was when Bohemian drank lady rolled her snack-filled crunk cart through the aisle with the hippest selection of tea, coffee, and other groovy fare. Shawty copped me an earl grey and a hella dank chocolate croissant for a Flo-Rida low price of 2 euros. The four lazy bum non-scribes continued our small talk of rivers and trains for awhile, and we napped a little bit too. Later in the train ride, we continued historical discussion (largely grounded in Cedric's AP Euro textbook from 10th grade) when to my most delightful surprise, Snack Cart Sister returned for an encore performance, and out of appreciation, loyalty, and sheer awe, I paid up again for another hot tea. It was even more refreshing and pee-inducing than the one before it. Shortly after snacks round 2, the train made a stop at an intermediate station, and a 4-seat table opened up. My eyes like softballs, I levitated across the cabin and put down my jacket, my ipod, my headphones, and my backpack in the 4 different seats in order to ensure our claim over this newfound district. As it is, a table seat is hard to come by, so having all 4 people in the same gang claim all four seats is rarer than hen's teeth.
The rest of our train ride was fantastic, and we arrived in Wien around 1:15, which was about 20 minutes earlier than schedule. I like that. We arrived in a station called Meidling, which isn't that close to our hostel. Truth be told, there is a different station called Westbahnhof (West Train Station in English) that is two blocks from our hostel, but the Prague trains on our pass don't run there. Alas, we were forced to navigate another metro system in order to get to our hostel. I must say that each new one gets easier as we learn the different elements of European light rail. We arrived at the Westbahnhof station, and from there Henry had been given directions to the hostel. All we had to do was walk out of the train station, turn left, and walk two blocks. We walked three blocks, still didn't see the hostel, and decided to consult Sir Charles, my beloved CrackBerry, for wisdom, counsel, and geographic orientation. As it turned out, we had gone out the wrong side of the train station, and we needed to walk back up the hill to the train station, turn left, and then walk two blocks perpendicular to our route. With large suitcases. The prospect of walking uphill for nearly a kilometer vanished all traces of patience, and incidentally we hoofed it up that hill. I swear I was angry enough (not at Henry - we were all frustrated with the whole situation) to bite someone's ear off à la Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield.
We FINALLY arrived at the hostel and checked in with little hiccup. In fact they were quite nice, offering us free drinks and free wifi. I was in no mood to communicate with the outside world, and we took our bags and headed to the room, which turned out to be down the street another block. The hostel is in a separate building from the hotel, which made for a cozier setting for our room, but to use the internet or talk to the front desk, we had to walk back the block. We got into the room (which is phenomenal) and set up camp there. The sheets they provided were unbelievably comfortable, and by the time we were ready to head out for lunch, it was almost 4:00. We headed over to a hip little spot called Galaxie, which was just down the street with a variety of fare. The fact that they were serving food at 4pm is not common, and we pounced on the opportunity to eat something; anything. Other than a misinterpretation of "rice" and "fries" (they sound very similar), our meal was good. Recharged and reloaded, we headed into the heart of the city (via metro) and elected to wander through a section chock full of interesting-looking buildings.
Our adventures led us to three churches, only one of which was actually a church. We saw Parliament, the Volkspark, the Volksopera, City Hall, and other interesting things. Unfortunately, when I say we "saw" them, I literally mean that we only saw them. Nothing was really open. Evidently, things in Vienna do not stay open as late as things do in Atlanta. At the train station, some lady recommended that we try to take a bus tour of the city to see everything. Well as it turned out, the bus tours were also closed for the evening, so by that point (7:00ish), we elected to scrap all other plans of touring places, and instead our focus turned to dinner. We wandered around Stephensplatz (the city center and giant shopping/dining/clubbing destination) until settling on a Turkish restaurant that was the Turkish equivalent of Houston's. Our service was good and our food was better, so after a long afternoon of frustrating misses, the five of us were all greatly satisfied and relieved at having finally done something right in this new city of Wien.
Upon arrival at the hostel, our next priority was laundry. The clean side of my duffel bag was going the way of the Greek economy (a hot topic in over yonder), while the dirty clothes were growing like Maury Ballstein's prostate gland. Sir Charles helped me find a laundromat nearby, and so we gathered up all of our dirties and set out on the metro once again in search of cars, money, and Tide Color-Safe Bleach. Having been led true once more by Sir Charles, we happened upon a beautiful laundromat, only to find it closed for the weekend. The concept of the late-night laundromat party with the iPod speakers is obviously unheard of in this city. Dejected and odorous like no other, we wandered into a convenience store and bought The Notebook in Turkish and 5 quarts of Ben & Jerry's to nurse our battle scars with. We retreated to the basement lair and struggled to find another dimension in which to flip our underwear and socks, because inside out and inside in had already been used up.
We finished up the day with some blog-writing in the kitchen/lounge outside our room and Cuarenta lessons. For the uninitiated and un-Ecuafied, Cuarenta is a traditional Ecuadorian card game with 40 cards that scores points for various victories until one squad reaches the vaunted cuarenta mark. Christian and I were in the international brotherhood, and tonight we introduced Henry and Parker to the smash hit phenomenon that is single-handedly responsible for every one of Simon Bolivar's conquests of liberation in the 1820's. Most history books write that Bolivar used an army to conquer Spanish forces stationed in Gran Colombia. Not so. In truth, Bolivar and his lifelong Cuarenta partner Karl-os Malone challenged each general (and the partner of his choosing) to a Cuarenta showdown. Between Bolivar's uncanny ability to get rondas and Malone's fierce intimidation skills (later adapted by 21st century professor and expert Nelson Ruiz), they were simply unstoppable. The Spanish, embarrassed by their losses, claimed military losses to the court, and it was never questioned.
History lessons aside, we played a sleepy teaching round, and then Christian and Parker prevailed over me and Henry in a 40-12 blowout. Exhausted, we headed quickly to bed, ready for another day of surprises from the great city of Wien.
Yours Truly,
John Not-ckton
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Parker #3: May 27
May 27th is a day that will go down in history. We were super busy all day and have soooo many great stories to share, so here is my advice: Don't be debbie downer, read this ENTIRE blog because it is way more than worth it. Promise, cross my heart, pinky swear etc. First though, I must share a true and terrifying story of Praha's history.
Although not common in North America, there is in fact a rare species of dragon that is native to the mountains in and around Praha. These dragons are almost entirely extinct (there is only one known right now) but trust me his presence in Praha does not go unnoticed. You see, the dragon is the reason that all ATMs in Praha insist on giving us our money in denominations of thousands (or stacks for those of you in the A). Let me explain. As I'm sure you already know from reading our blogs, kronas (1 USD= 20.9 kronas) are the Czech currency and the bane of my existence. They are a pain to deal with but honestly wouldn't be so bad if we had krona coins to use. Whether it is some sick ongoing joke, or the dragon just has an obsession with shiny things is irrelevant, but the truth of the matter is that he has taken 96.58% of Praha's coins to the hoard in his 3-million-dollar villa just outside the city. All of this lands me attempting to buy 20 krona sodas with 2000 krona bills. Really?!?! Not funny dragon. Not funny.
As usual, I was (to my grudging appreciation) awakened today by Cédric and pushed out the door so that our day would start at a reasonable hour. We hiked maybe a mile in a half from our hostel to breakfast near the Praha castle. It was AWESOME! Fantastic bagels and service and if you ever go to Praha, ask us because this place is totally great. But enough about food. (haha yeah right. Food is pretty much a 24 hour obsession for us but I'll try to spare too many details).
After breakfast we went the rest of the way up the massive hill (located across Charles Bridge and on the other side of the Vltava River) to Praha castle. Praha Castle was awesome and I have many more details following, though to preface these I have to say that it is not really a castle; at least not anymore. Praha castle was really a village with massive fortifications and the Palace and Cathedral inside. Anyway, in order to enter the Castle grounds we needed to buy tickets. Being cheap, we all got the lowest ticket and opted to skip on the audio-guides; all of us except Sam that is. Poor, poor Sam was suckered into buying the 500 krona guide and in addition (because he forgot his student ID) a 375 ticket. So pretty much 875 kronas compared to our 175. Sam was fine with this though because he was proud of his choice to get an audio-guide. They had told him that there were no English signs in the castle, it was a pass to the front of lines, and that he could keep it until six. Haha not really; basically this was one giant scam and Sam fell for it 100%! His speaker didn't really work, it did not get him to the front of a single line, almost every single sign in the castle was in English, and they automatically "upgraded" his rental from 2hrs to all day for a difference of only 300 kronas. What a deal! (yes, that is most definitely sarcasm).
The Castle was awesome however and made all the hassle worth it. We started with Powder tower, a museum of the Czech army's uniforms and weapons. Next was the Convent of St. George, an art museum, though in our opinions not as good as the many others we've seen so far. Then we toured the Basilica of St. George (a "small" church aside from the main cathedral) and a tiny part of the Palace. Neither of which, as Mr. Buczek might say, blew anyone's skirt up. I'm not saying it was bad, because it was really pretty cool, it's just…well….don't expect all churches in Europe to match up to Notre Dame. We next headed over to the Cathedral (probably my favorite part of the Castle) and enjoyed more beautiful stained glass and architecture. Finally, (ha not done with Praha castle yet this is just the last stop before a really, really late lunch) we went through a museum for the history of Praha Castle. I think we all loved this (especially Cédric) and our favorites were the many scale models of the castle and its surroundings.
For lunch we went back into town a little and had a decent low-key-kinda meal. I had some rock'n goulash which is a traditional Hungarian dish. (yes I am aware that Praha aka Prague is not in Hungary but it was tasty okay!)
After lunch we returned to finish the remaining parts of the Castle; there is a LOT to do at Praha Castle. We first went to the Crown Jewels of Bohemia exhibit, but the jewels were not at all the coolest part. Not even the AMAZING i mean truly SPECTACULAR view over Praha was the best part. By surprise we stumbled upon THE Window of the Defenestration of Prague!!!!!!!! For those of you who don't know here's a short history lesson… which Cédric enthusiastically shared…the Defenestration of Prague was the act of angry protestant rioters throwing catholic diplomats out the window of a castle tower sparking the Thirty Years War. Ouch! Since I've now seen the exact window myself I can honestly say it is quite a fall, though the men did survive because they apparently fell in some fortunately placed horse poop (or hay; historians aren't sure but I know which one I'd rather fall in). After spending the better part of our day at Praha Castle we finally enjoyed one last view over the city and took the old castle stairs down to the river.
Once at the bottom of the hill/mountain we took a metro over to the Jewish Quarter which honestly wasn't anything too special. Next we walked a couple of blocks over to old Praha square to see another cathedral and the famous astrological clock. The clock was just as beautiful as in pictures and really quite a marvel. It is basically an iClock several hundred years ahead of its time because it tells you the time (no way), date, month, saints day, moon and sun's positions, and which sign of the Zodiac we're in. We enjoyed a quick ice cream break from a convenience store and were serenaded by an amazing trumpet player in a medieval fashion from the top of the clock tower. We then went by the hostel to drop off our pillaged goods (not really but who doesn't love pirates) from the store. On the way we got to walk through the New Town square were we saw a few minutes of a really cool concert that was apparently set up and sponsored by the city. Upon our quick return from the hostel to the main part of downtown we found a pizza spot and had the best pizza in all of the Czech Republic!
After our fairly early dinner we went back to our hostel (or as we called it, the palace) to rest and prepare for our exciting plans for the night. (just wait and keep reading). We entertained ourselves by listening to music on my ipod speakers and writing the Bernelle's postcard. Sam also made a facebook video to cheer up his sis, Hannah, who had just gotten her wisdom teeth out. Told yeah, we just rested for maybe an hour but after that Sam, I, Henry and Cédric left for THE Club.
First, for all the concerned parents and/or friends/family at home, let me say that our "discotequing" (thats the cool european word for clubbing) was just an adventure in the GREAT sport of people watching. Remember parents that you trusted us to go to Europe for three weeks so believe me when I say that spectating was all the fun we needed in this amazing five-story, music-pounding, and laser-light-filled mega-club. (I believe the biggest in Central Europe). Our first experience in clubbing was of course being patted down and inspected by the club's two bouncers. We all made it in after a short fiasco in which we forced Henry to relinquish his Glock 18, hunting knife and Uzis, but thats another story. Next we crossed through the threshold and into the unknown…
On the first floor we passed an enormous but vacant bar (in was only 11:30 and the club is open until 5) and found a dance floor in the back. We observed from above several girls dancing and of course the proverbial sketchy old guy dancing by himself but clearly hoping to make his way into the young women's good graces. Nothing more was good there so we headed to the next floor which was even less busy although still really, really cool. The third floor was the more of same but the forth or black-light floor was where the party was at. After finding the perfect couches to people-watch from we settled in and began our studies. Basically there were lots of hilarious people dancing (or trying to dance which made me feel better about few dancing skills) so i'll give you some highlights from the night. 1.) Everyone was dressy-casual as in jeans and a nice shirt and maybe a few dresses except for one dude. This guy wore the head of a horse costume around the entire time and it was simply spectacularly funny to watch. 2.) UGA Housing called Sam and he didn't know who it was so he answered, freaked out and promptly hung-up. Don't worry, we figured out it was a recorded message. 3.) Next it must be noted that everyone was between the age of about 16 to 25, except for the super sketchy man and two others: The random 50 year old couple who decided to hang out at the discotheque…um okay… 4.) At about 12:10 a random girl rushed into the club and mad a beeline for our dear friend Cédric. I think we were all confused and secretly hoping she was gonna ask him to dance but instead she glared at him and said in (most likely) Italian "cigaretto?" With nothing to do but shrug and say no we sent her on her way to ask the next person. By the way that was one tremendous downside to the club: almost everyone was smoking and only the lively atmosphere pulled us through. My last highlight is the guy with the peacock hairdo. We tried to get a picture of it for you but it was basically a circular mohawk on the back of his head (which was died pink) and I'm sure he is somehow related to a peacock because it was that impressive. All in all the 5-story club was amazing and so much fun because it was soooooo funny to watch everyone interacting (or failing to). There were lots of crazy people and dancing and we made up all kinds of fun guessing games as to who was thinking what but simply observing was the best part. I think it's really an in person kind of experience but hopefully these stories can give you an idea of just how hilarious and fun our night at the club was. Thats it for Praha, tomorrow we're getting up early (sleeping/blogging lots on the 5hr train ride) and heading to Wien (Vienna)!
Although not common in North America, there is in fact a rare species of dragon that is native to the mountains in and around Praha. These dragons are almost entirely extinct (there is only one known right now) but trust me his presence in Praha does not go unnoticed. You see, the dragon is the reason that all ATMs in Praha insist on giving us our money in denominations of thousands (or stacks for those of you in the A). Let me explain. As I'm sure you already know from reading our blogs, kronas (1 USD= 20.9 kronas) are the Czech currency and the bane of my existence. They are a pain to deal with but honestly wouldn't be so bad if we had krona coins to use. Whether it is some sick ongoing joke, or the dragon just has an obsession with shiny things is irrelevant, but the truth of the matter is that he has taken 96.58% of Praha's coins to the hoard in his 3-million-dollar villa just outside the city. All of this lands me attempting to buy 20 krona sodas with 2000 krona bills. Really?!?! Not funny dragon. Not funny.
As usual, I was (to my grudging appreciation) awakened today by Cédric and pushed out the door so that our day would start at a reasonable hour. We hiked maybe a mile in a half from our hostel to breakfast near the Praha castle. It was AWESOME! Fantastic bagels and service and if you ever go to Praha, ask us because this place is totally great. But enough about food. (haha yeah right. Food is pretty much a 24 hour obsession for us but I'll try to spare too many details).
After breakfast we went the rest of the way up the massive hill (located across Charles Bridge and on the other side of the Vltava River) to Praha castle. Praha Castle was awesome and I have many more details following, though to preface these I have to say that it is not really a castle; at least not anymore. Praha castle was really a village with massive fortifications and the Palace and Cathedral inside. Anyway, in order to enter the Castle grounds we needed to buy tickets. Being cheap, we all got the lowest ticket and opted to skip on the audio-guides; all of us except Sam that is. Poor, poor Sam was suckered into buying the 500 krona guide and in addition (because he forgot his student ID) a 375 ticket. So pretty much 875 kronas compared to our 175. Sam was fine with this though because he was proud of his choice to get an audio-guide. They had told him that there were no English signs in the castle, it was a pass to the front of lines, and that he could keep it until six. Haha not really; basically this was one giant scam and Sam fell for it 100%! His speaker didn't really work, it did not get him to the front of a single line, almost every single sign in the castle was in English, and they automatically "upgraded" his rental from 2hrs to all day for a difference of only 300 kronas. What a deal! (yes, that is most definitely sarcasm).
The Castle was awesome however and made all the hassle worth it. We started with Powder tower, a museum of the Czech army's uniforms and weapons. Next was the Convent of St. George, an art museum, though in our opinions not as good as the many others we've seen so far. Then we toured the Basilica of St. George (a "small" church aside from the main cathedral) and a tiny part of the Palace. Neither of which, as Mr. Buczek might say, blew anyone's skirt up. I'm not saying it was bad, because it was really pretty cool, it's just…well….don't expect all churches in Europe to match up to Notre Dame. We next headed over to the Cathedral (probably my favorite part of the Castle) and enjoyed more beautiful stained glass and architecture. Finally, (ha not done with Praha castle yet this is just the last stop before a really, really late lunch) we went through a museum for the history of Praha Castle. I think we all loved this (especially Cédric) and our favorites were the many scale models of the castle and its surroundings.
For lunch we went back into town a little and had a decent low-key-kinda meal. I had some rock'n goulash which is a traditional Hungarian dish. (yes I am aware that Praha aka Prague is not in Hungary but it was tasty okay!)
After lunch we returned to finish the remaining parts of the Castle; there is a LOT to do at Praha Castle. We first went to the Crown Jewels of Bohemia exhibit, but the jewels were not at all the coolest part. Not even the AMAZING i mean truly SPECTACULAR view over Praha was the best part. By surprise we stumbled upon THE Window of the Defenestration of Prague!!!!!!!! For those of you who don't know here's a short history lesson… which Cédric enthusiastically shared…the Defenestration of Prague was the act of angry protestant rioters throwing catholic diplomats out the window of a castle tower sparking the Thirty Years War. Ouch! Since I've now seen the exact window myself I can honestly say it is quite a fall, though the men did survive because they apparently fell in some fortunately placed horse poop (or hay; historians aren't sure but I know which one I'd rather fall in). After spending the better part of our day at Praha Castle we finally enjoyed one last view over the city and took the old castle stairs down to the river.
Once at the bottom of the hill/mountain we took a metro over to the Jewish Quarter which honestly wasn't anything too special. Next we walked a couple of blocks over to old Praha square to see another cathedral and the famous astrological clock. The clock was just as beautiful as in pictures and really quite a marvel. It is basically an iClock several hundred years ahead of its time because it tells you the time (no way), date, month, saints day, moon and sun's positions, and which sign of the Zodiac we're in. We enjoyed a quick ice cream break from a convenience store and were serenaded by an amazing trumpet player in a medieval fashion from the top of the clock tower. We then went by the hostel to drop off our pillaged goods (not really but who doesn't love pirates) from the store. On the way we got to walk through the New Town square were we saw a few minutes of a really cool concert that was apparently set up and sponsored by the city. Upon our quick return from the hostel to the main part of downtown we found a pizza spot and had the best pizza in all of the Czech Republic!
After our fairly early dinner we went back to our hostel (or as we called it, the palace) to rest and prepare for our exciting plans for the night. (just wait and keep reading). We entertained ourselves by listening to music on my ipod speakers and writing the Bernelle's postcard. Sam also made a facebook video to cheer up his sis, Hannah, who had just gotten her wisdom teeth out. Told yeah, we just rested for maybe an hour but after that Sam, I, Henry and Cédric left for THE Club.
First, for all the concerned parents and/or friends/family at home, let me say that our "discotequing" (thats the cool european word for clubbing) was just an adventure in the GREAT sport of people watching. Remember parents that you trusted us to go to Europe for three weeks so believe me when I say that spectating was all the fun we needed in this amazing five-story, music-pounding, and laser-light-filled mega-club. (I believe the biggest in Central Europe). Our first experience in clubbing was of course being patted down and inspected by the club's two bouncers. We all made it in after a short fiasco in which we forced Henry to relinquish his Glock 18, hunting knife and Uzis, but thats another story. Next we crossed through the threshold and into the unknown…
On the first floor we passed an enormous but vacant bar (in was only 11:30 and the club is open until 5) and found a dance floor in the back. We observed from above several girls dancing and of course the proverbial sketchy old guy dancing by himself but clearly hoping to make his way into the young women's good graces. Nothing more was good there so we headed to the next floor which was even less busy although still really, really cool. The third floor was the more of same but the forth or black-light floor was where the party was at. After finding the perfect couches to people-watch from we settled in and began our studies. Basically there were lots of hilarious people dancing (or trying to dance which made me feel better about few dancing skills) so i'll give you some highlights from the night. 1.) Everyone was dressy-casual as in jeans and a nice shirt and maybe a few dresses except for one dude. This guy wore the head of a horse costume around the entire time and it was simply spectacularly funny to watch. 2.) UGA Housing called Sam and he didn't know who it was so he answered, freaked out and promptly hung-up. Don't worry, we figured out it was a recorded message. 3.) Next it must be noted that everyone was between the age of about 16 to 25, except for the super sketchy man and two others: The random 50 year old couple who decided to hang out at the discotheque…um okay… 4.) At about 12:10 a random girl rushed into the club and mad a beeline for our dear friend Cédric. I think we were all confused and secretly hoping she was gonna ask him to dance but instead she glared at him and said in (most likely) Italian "cigaretto?" With nothing to do but shrug and say no we sent her on her way to ask the next person. By the way that was one tremendous downside to the club: almost everyone was smoking and only the lively atmosphere pulled us through. My last highlight is the guy with the peacock hairdo. We tried to get a picture of it for you but it was basically a circular mohawk on the back of his head (which was died pink) and I'm sure he is somehow related to a peacock because it was that impressive. All in all the 5-story club was amazing and so much fun because it was soooooo funny to watch everyone interacting (or failing to). There were lots of crazy people and dancing and we made up all kinds of fun guessing games as to who was thinking what but simply observing was the best part. I think it's really an in person kind of experience but hopefully these stories can give you an idea of just how hilarious and fun our night at the club was. Thats it for Praha, tomorrow we're getting up early (sleeping/blogging lots on the 5hr train ride) and heading to Wien (Vienna)!
Cedric #2: May 26
We needed to catch an early train (departure at 8:36) to make our way to our next destination of our journey: Prague. We decided that we wanted to get to the train station at least 30 min early in case of problems, and that worked perfectly. Everyone was up, showered, and ready to leave by 7:30 and we were out the door to a quick breakfast at a nearby bakery before taking the U and S bahn to the main train station of Berlin: Hbf. Luckily, after a small debate, we decided to buy the metro tickets for 2 euros. The debate sparked because in Berlin, you can just walk onto all public transportation without anyone or anything checking your ticket. Instead, the Germans will have random ticket checkers on the trains and ask for tickets. In our previous few days in Berlin we had not seen one ticket checker so some of us thought we should just wing it that morning because we were only on the metro for 3 stops. Nonetheless, the prevalent idea was to be safer than sorry so we bought the tickets. Right after leaving the metro station two men disguised in civilian clothes pulled out ID's and asked random people for their tickets. We were not asked for our tickets (because they started further down in the train and went in the opposite direction) but there was still that feeling of relief that we could have shown our tickets.
We arrived at the platform (it was deserted) by 8:00 so we sat and waited for the train. People slowly trickled in until by 8:36, when the train arrived, there was a whole crowd of eager passengers waiting to charge onto the train and claim seats (for it was a first on first serve basis). Luckily, a door on the train stopped precisely in front of us and we got good seats together. Ten minutes later the train started moving; good bye Berlin!
The train ride was 6 hours of Saxon and Bohemian scenery: very beautiful. For the first hour or so the land was mostly flat farm land which slowly gave way to Eastern European forests of lush green trees and pines. Then, after stopping in Dresden, Germany for five minutes, we followed the Elbe river and a tributary (the Vltava) all the way to Prague. The border of the Czech Republic was quite hilly, with small cliffs on either side. Henry said the scenery looked very similar to driving through New Hampshire.
On the train, we tried to catch up on blogging which had been building up over the last few days. The problem was we arrived at the hostel fairly late every night and after walking all day we were quite tired. Also, some of us (no names…) kept putting back their blogs which backlogged the others. Nonetheless, everything worked out and three blogs were typed that day (though not all were posted for we wanted to post them in order). I caught up on Czech history to prepare for our next day and a half of touring. Czech history is very fascinating. Here is a quick summary of its highlights. It was a very important city in the Holy Roman Empire; with influential Kings from around the 10th to 15th century (when it fell under rule of the Austrian Habsburgs). It was also where the 30 Years War broke out in 1618 with the Defenestration of Prague (when the Protestant Czechs threw some Catholic diplomats out of a 70 foot high window). The Czechs lost early in the war and remained under the Austrian rule until the end of World War I. Unluckily for them, they were once again taken by the Nazis before WWII officially started. Then they ended up behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. In 1968 Czech students revolted (but were crushed) in what became known as Prague Spring (that was where the yellow smiley faces comes from).
Around 13:30 we arrived in Prague, which is a fairly small city. We jumped off the train desperate for food. But first we had to get the metro tickets and get our first kronors, which would turned out to be such a pain!! 20 kronors (or krona in English, we think) equals about 1 dollar. The machine was awful, when we asked for 2000 kronas we got one 2000-krona bill! And for some reason the machine didn't like numbers that were not divisible by 1000, so no matter what we received large bills.
So after getting some dough, we walked out of the station and tried to find a restaurant. Finally, after walking for what felt like ages (but was probably only 5 minutes) we stopped at the first place we saw that served food: what a mistake. It was a Czech "café" that had three food items on its menu: a cheese sandwich, a ham and cheese sandwich, and a slice of what turned out to be terrible pizza. The only positive aspect of the place was that it was cheap.
So after suffering through an interesting meal (we vowed to be more careful next time, even if we were desperate) we left to find the hostel and drop our luggage. We took the metro (which only has three lines compared to like twenty or more for Paris and Berlin) which was at least 100 feet underground. There was a super long, steep, and very fast escalator down to the metro, which turned out to accelerate very suddenly, causing some of us to lose our balance (but no wipe outs!). After three stops we were off the metro into the side streets of Prague. We really liked everything that we had seen up to that point. The buildings were very pretty and colorful and there were plenty of Medieval towers around.
The hostel turned out to be AMAZING! Even better than the Paris one in my opinion. We had two rooms (one with four singles and one with a queen sized ben), a small kitchen with a fridge and microwave, and a private bathroom. The only minus was the the floors were a little dirty and dusty. We set our stuff down and, around four o'clock, took out a map to pick our first destination: Charles Bridge. The bridge turned out to be only a ten minute walk away. Before crossing the bridge, we peaked in the bridge's museum and decided it wasn't worth the kronas. After a twenty minute walk through the free part of the museum, we crossed the bridge. It was beautiful and looked very medieval, with statues of old Kings in armor with many coat of arms and other statues with religious themes. This was very different from Paris where most of the architecture was from after the Renaissance. Across the river was a huge hill with Prague Castle on top. Prague Castle doesn't really look much like a castle anymore. Instead its a complex of tall buildings and palaces with a huge cathedral inside. After crossing the bridge and going under an awesome gate, we started walking up the big hill towards the castle. Once on the top, we looked down upon the city. What a wonderful view.
After admiring the view for a few minutes, we walked back down and crossed the bridge to a local Czech restaurant we had passed by earlier. The restaurant was on a floating platform on a small side river/canal, and it was delicious. We each tried a different local plate and tasted each other's foods, including potato pancakes, bread dumplings, various meat dishes, and melted Bohemian cheese (as a shared appetizer) which did not last long in front of us five guys. After stuffing our faces with delicious Czech food, we once again faced the challenges of Czech money. Paying for the bill that night turned out to be quite a challenge since we each had large bills and very few coins. So we finally devised a system using Sam's blackberry to record each other's loans.
During dinner it started raining so once we had paid we returned to the hostel to catch up on rest after many days of intense touring. But before that, we had to stop by the supermarket to get water and ICE CREAM! However, the guy at the counter was a complete jerk. He demanded the exact price in coins, which we couldn't give him because we didn't have any. So after much muttering and angry waves he finally caved in and accepted our 50 and 100 krona bills (about $2.5 and $5)! Well, at least the ice cream was tasty. So we returned to the hostel, wrote postcards, took showers, watched a bit of Czech TV, blogged, and went to bed early to prepare to tomorrow's early awaking and late night…
Another long, eventful, and fun day over. Good night!
We arrived at the platform (it was deserted) by 8:00 so we sat and waited for the train. People slowly trickled in until by 8:36, when the train arrived, there was a whole crowd of eager passengers waiting to charge onto the train and claim seats (for it was a first on first serve basis). Luckily, a door on the train stopped precisely in front of us and we got good seats together. Ten minutes later the train started moving; good bye Berlin!
The train ride was 6 hours of Saxon and Bohemian scenery: very beautiful. For the first hour or so the land was mostly flat farm land which slowly gave way to Eastern European forests of lush green trees and pines. Then, after stopping in Dresden, Germany for five minutes, we followed the Elbe river and a tributary (the Vltava) all the way to Prague. The border of the Czech Republic was quite hilly, with small cliffs on either side. Henry said the scenery looked very similar to driving through New Hampshire.
On the train, we tried to catch up on blogging which had been building up over the last few days. The problem was we arrived at the hostel fairly late every night and after walking all day we were quite tired. Also, some of us (no names…) kept putting back their blogs which backlogged the others. Nonetheless, everything worked out and three blogs were typed that day (though not all were posted for we wanted to post them in order). I caught up on Czech history to prepare for our next day and a half of touring. Czech history is very fascinating. Here is a quick summary of its highlights. It was a very important city in the Holy Roman Empire; with influential Kings from around the 10th to 15th century (when it fell under rule of the Austrian Habsburgs). It was also where the 30 Years War broke out in 1618 with the Defenestration of Prague (when the Protestant Czechs threw some Catholic diplomats out of a 70 foot high window). The Czechs lost early in the war and remained under the Austrian rule until the end of World War I. Unluckily for them, they were once again taken by the Nazis before WWII officially started. Then they ended up behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. In 1968 Czech students revolted (but were crushed) in what became known as Prague Spring (that was where the yellow smiley faces comes from).
Around 13:30 we arrived in Prague, which is a fairly small city. We jumped off the train desperate for food. But first we had to get the metro tickets and get our first kronors, which would turned out to be such a pain!! 20 kronors (or krona in English, we think) equals about 1 dollar. The machine was awful, when we asked for 2000 kronas we got one 2000-krona bill! And for some reason the machine didn't like numbers that were not divisible by 1000, so no matter what we received large bills.
So after getting some dough, we walked out of the station and tried to find a restaurant. Finally, after walking for what felt like ages (but was probably only 5 minutes) we stopped at the first place we saw that served food: what a mistake. It was a Czech "café" that had three food items on its menu: a cheese sandwich, a ham and cheese sandwich, and a slice of what turned out to be terrible pizza. The only positive aspect of the place was that it was cheap.
So after suffering through an interesting meal (we vowed to be more careful next time, even if we were desperate) we left to find the hostel and drop our luggage. We took the metro (which only has three lines compared to like twenty or more for Paris and Berlin) which was at least 100 feet underground. There was a super long, steep, and very fast escalator down to the metro, which turned out to accelerate very suddenly, causing some of us to lose our balance (but no wipe outs!). After three stops we were off the metro into the side streets of Prague. We really liked everything that we had seen up to that point. The buildings were very pretty and colorful and there were plenty of Medieval towers around.
The hostel turned out to be AMAZING! Even better than the Paris one in my opinion. We had two rooms (one with four singles and one with a queen sized ben), a small kitchen with a fridge and microwave, and a private bathroom. The only minus was the the floors were a little dirty and dusty. We set our stuff down and, around four o'clock, took out a map to pick our first destination: Charles Bridge. The bridge turned out to be only a ten minute walk away. Before crossing the bridge, we peaked in the bridge's museum and decided it wasn't worth the kronas. After a twenty minute walk through the free part of the museum, we crossed the bridge. It was beautiful and looked very medieval, with statues of old Kings in armor with many coat of arms and other statues with religious themes. This was very different from Paris where most of the architecture was from after the Renaissance. Across the river was a huge hill with Prague Castle on top. Prague Castle doesn't really look much like a castle anymore. Instead its a complex of tall buildings and palaces with a huge cathedral inside. After crossing the bridge and going under an awesome gate, we started walking up the big hill towards the castle. Once on the top, we looked down upon the city. What a wonderful view.
After admiring the view for a few minutes, we walked back down and crossed the bridge to a local Czech restaurant we had passed by earlier. The restaurant was on a floating platform on a small side river/canal, and it was delicious. We each tried a different local plate and tasted each other's foods, including potato pancakes, bread dumplings, various meat dishes, and melted Bohemian cheese (as a shared appetizer) which did not last long in front of us five guys. After stuffing our faces with delicious Czech food, we once again faced the challenges of Czech money. Paying for the bill that night turned out to be quite a challenge since we each had large bills and very few coins. So we finally devised a system using Sam's blackberry to record each other's loans.
During dinner it started raining so once we had paid we returned to the hostel to catch up on rest after many days of intense touring. But before that, we had to stop by the supermarket to get water and ICE CREAM! However, the guy at the counter was a complete jerk. He demanded the exact price in coins, which we couldn't give him because we didn't have any. So after much muttering and angry waves he finally caved in and accepted our 50 and 100 krona bills (about $2.5 and $5)! Well, at least the ice cream was tasty. So we returned to the hostel, wrote postcards, took showers, watched a bit of Czech TV, blogged, and went to bed early to prepare to tomorrow's early awaking and late night…
Another long, eventful, and fun day over. Good night!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Henry #2: May 25
Sadly, today was our last day in Berlin. We got up at 9:30 and went to a bakery across the street from our hostel for breakfast. After filling up on delicious pastries, we decided we wanted to go to Potsdam, or as we like to call it, the "Buckhead" of Berlin. We headed to the metro station and bought our new train tickets that would enable us to take the 45 minute ride to Potsdam. Once we arrived, we headed immediately to the tourist office for some guidance on what we should see. The tourist associate told us that the best way to become acquainted with Potsdam was to take a bus tour. The bus touring business is clearly an area of intense competition in Potsdam; the minute we stepped out of the train station we were bombarded by representatives from each of the respective bus touring representatives. Cedric was holding the brochures of each of the companies, and when he pulled out the one we had decided on, a huge smile came across the representative's face while her competitors grumbled in frustration.
While we were waiting for our bus to arrive, we took a quick walk up to the river to pass the time. Unfortunately, we didn't stay at the river for long because it was freezing and windy. Apparently Atlanta's winter weather is equivalent to that of Berlin's late spring. We returned to the bus station and saw our ride pulling up. We got on and went right up to the second floor (it was a double decker). From here, we began our tour of Potsdam. Our tour guide spoke in both German and English, which was particularly helpful. Our first stop was historic Potsdam, and while we did not get off, we flagged it on our mental maps as a great spot to stop for lunch. Our next stop was Potsdam's Brandenburg Gate, which actually predates Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. The bus continued down the streets of Potsdam until we arrived at the historic bridge that had served as the border between Potsdam (East Germany) and West Berlin. The bridge even changed colors discretely to mark the divide. While we were on the bridge, a vast lake stretched out beneath us. There were a few boats out on the lake, but the most noticeable elements were the few grand houses and palaces situated along the shore. After visiting the bridge, we turned around and headed back towards Potsdam. The bus took us down treelined cobblestone streets graced by quaint cottages that house many notable people, including the ambassador of Venezuela. Our tour guide told us that space in a certain apartment building in the area was worth 2,000 euros per square meter, hence the tagging of Potsdam as the "Buckhead" of Berlin. The next stop was Sanssouci, and we decided to get off our tour bus and take a look around. Sanssouci was the summer palace in which Frederick the Great resided during his rule of Prussia. The yellow palace was situated up on a hill, overlooking vast geometrically crafted gardens. Everything about the palace was symmetrical, including the layers of earth that came together to form the hill up to the palace. After we felt satisfied that we had seen all of the palace that we needed to see, we headed back to the bus stop, only to find that we had missed our tour bus. We decided that since it was well past our usual lunch time, we ought to get on a city bus and head back into historic Potsdam.
We got off the bus and headed down the quaint streets of central Potsdam. It did not take us long to find a place to eat as we quickly settled down at a small restaurant that specialized in delicious bagels. Most of us got bagel sandwiches, either salami or ham. While our meals were delicious, they were not particularly filling. Luckily, as we made our way towards the train station, we came across a farmers market where we found a bratwurst stand. All of us got a brat except Sam, and it was not until we finished them that we were completely satisfied and full. We continued towards the train station, eager to return to Berlin to get some last minute photos and gifts.
When we got back to central Berlin, we went straight to the TV tower the see if we could confirm my birthday dinner reservations. However, for some reason the reservation did not go through when we made it online, so we decided we would come back later to go up to the top and get one last look at Berlin before dark. We then headed straight for the Brandenburg Gate to get a picture, having previously forgotten to take one. After we had taken enough pictures, we went to Checkpoint Charlie for a quick re-visit to look for postcards and souvenirs. We then remembered that we had still not seen the Jewish Memorial park that we had driven by on our first day in Berlin. We tried to find by reading street signs and trying to guess which of the phrases meant "Jewish Memorial." Luckily, a very nice Berliner saw that we were lost and came to our aid, guiding us to the metro station that would lead us to the Memorial. The memorial is extremely pleasing to the eye; it is a sloping plaza with giant blocks of cement that all come together to form some sort of optical illusion. After we had had enough time at the Jewish Memorial, we decided to head back to our hostel to freshen up before dinner.
We stayed a the hostel for about an hour and met our new roommate who had just arrived. He and Parker immediately struck up conversation because he was an engineering student at Virginia Tech. Since our original dinner plans failed, we decided to eat at Oranium, a restaurant just around the corner from our hostel. Much to our dismay, Sam, Christian, and I accidentally ordered sparkling water instead of flat water. This error was quickly made up for by the delicious food we got. Sam and I both got Pizzas with toppings ranging from lettuce to salmon. Christian and Parker both got some sort of meat combo-platter that had liver, sausage, and blood sausage. After Cedric had finished his sausage plate, he gladly ate Christian and Parker's blood sausage, to everyone else's disgust.
After dinner, we headed back to the TV Tower, hoping to make it up to the top to see Berlin from above. Finally, this being our third try, we got tickets to ride the elevator to the top! The elevator was extremely fast, moving people up and down the tower at a rate of six meters per second. When we got to the top, we saw Berlin sprawling out in every direction beneath us. We were really glad that we got to do this after touring Berlin because we were able to track everywhere we had been from above. We were lucky enough to see the sun set, and after we felt we had gotten our money's worth of views, we headed back down to tower to make our daily trip to the grocery store for dessert.
When we got to the grocery store, we went directly to the ice cream section to decide which Magnum bars we should get. Cedric, Parker, and I decided on a six pack of bars so that we could each have two. This proved to be a great decision because the bars were amazing. After we were full from all the chocolate and caramel, we returned to our hostel and settled in the lobby area to do some long overdue blogging. After Sam was satisfied with the day's blogging, we went to sleep, excited leave for Prague in the morning.
While we were waiting for our bus to arrive, we took a quick walk up to the river to pass the time. Unfortunately, we didn't stay at the river for long because it was freezing and windy. Apparently Atlanta's winter weather is equivalent to that of Berlin's late spring. We returned to the bus station and saw our ride pulling up. We got on and went right up to the second floor (it was a double decker). From here, we began our tour of Potsdam. Our tour guide spoke in both German and English, which was particularly helpful. Our first stop was historic Potsdam, and while we did not get off, we flagged it on our mental maps as a great spot to stop for lunch. Our next stop was Potsdam's Brandenburg Gate, which actually predates Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. The bus continued down the streets of Potsdam until we arrived at the historic bridge that had served as the border between Potsdam (East Germany) and West Berlin. The bridge even changed colors discretely to mark the divide. While we were on the bridge, a vast lake stretched out beneath us. There were a few boats out on the lake, but the most noticeable elements were the few grand houses and palaces situated along the shore. After visiting the bridge, we turned around and headed back towards Potsdam. The bus took us down treelined cobblestone streets graced by quaint cottages that house many notable people, including the ambassador of Venezuela. Our tour guide told us that space in a certain apartment building in the area was worth 2,000 euros per square meter, hence the tagging of Potsdam as the "Buckhead" of Berlin. The next stop was Sanssouci, and we decided to get off our tour bus and take a look around. Sanssouci was the summer palace in which Frederick the Great resided during his rule of Prussia. The yellow palace was situated up on a hill, overlooking vast geometrically crafted gardens. Everything about the palace was symmetrical, including the layers of earth that came together to form the hill up to the palace. After we felt satisfied that we had seen all of the palace that we needed to see, we headed back to the bus stop, only to find that we had missed our tour bus. We decided that since it was well past our usual lunch time, we ought to get on a city bus and head back into historic Potsdam.
We got off the bus and headed down the quaint streets of central Potsdam. It did not take us long to find a place to eat as we quickly settled down at a small restaurant that specialized in delicious bagels. Most of us got bagel sandwiches, either salami or ham. While our meals were delicious, they were not particularly filling. Luckily, as we made our way towards the train station, we came across a farmers market where we found a bratwurst stand. All of us got a brat except Sam, and it was not until we finished them that we were completely satisfied and full. We continued towards the train station, eager to return to Berlin to get some last minute photos and gifts.
When we got back to central Berlin, we went straight to the TV tower the see if we could confirm my birthday dinner reservations. However, for some reason the reservation did not go through when we made it online, so we decided we would come back later to go up to the top and get one last look at Berlin before dark. We then headed straight for the Brandenburg Gate to get a picture, having previously forgotten to take one. After we had taken enough pictures, we went to Checkpoint Charlie for a quick re-visit to look for postcards and souvenirs. We then remembered that we had still not seen the Jewish Memorial park that we had driven by on our first day in Berlin. We tried to find by reading street signs and trying to guess which of the phrases meant "Jewish Memorial." Luckily, a very nice Berliner saw that we were lost and came to our aid, guiding us to the metro station that would lead us to the Memorial. The memorial is extremely pleasing to the eye; it is a sloping plaza with giant blocks of cement that all come together to form some sort of optical illusion. After we had had enough time at the Jewish Memorial, we decided to head back to our hostel to freshen up before dinner.
We stayed a the hostel for about an hour and met our new roommate who had just arrived. He and Parker immediately struck up conversation because he was an engineering student at Virginia Tech. Since our original dinner plans failed, we decided to eat at Oranium, a restaurant just around the corner from our hostel. Much to our dismay, Sam, Christian, and I accidentally ordered sparkling water instead of flat water. This error was quickly made up for by the delicious food we got. Sam and I both got Pizzas with toppings ranging from lettuce to salmon. Christian and Parker both got some sort of meat combo-platter that had liver, sausage, and blood sausage. After Cedric had finished his sausage plate, he gladly ate Christian and Parker's blood sausage, to everyone else's disgust.
After dinner, we headed back to the TV Tower, hoping to make it up to the top to see Berlin from above. Finally, this being our third try, we got tickets to ride the elevator to the top! The elevator was extremely fast, moving people up and down the tower at a rate of six meters per second. When we got to the top, we saw Berlin sprawling out in every direction beneath us. We were really glad that we got to do this after touring Berlin because we were able to track everywhere we had been from above. We were lucky enough to see the sun set, and after we felt we had gotten our money's worth of views, we headed back down to tower to make our daily trip to the grocery store for dessert.
When we got to the grocery store, we went directly to the ice cream section to decide which Magnum bars we should get. Cedric, Parker, and I decided on a six pack of bars so that we could each have two. This proved to be a great decision because the bars were amazing. After we were full from all the chocolate and caramel, we returned to our hostel and settled in the lobby area to do some long overdue blogging. After Sam was satisfied with the day's blogging, we went to sleep, excited leave for Prague in the morning.
Christian #4: May 24
Today we went saw a few of the World War II and Cold War historical sights in Berlin, of which there are many. We started off at Checkpoint Charlie, the American checkpoint at the Berlin Wall and access point between East and West Berlin. During the Cold War, Soviet and American tanks were lined up on both sides aiming at each other, ready for a Cold War to go hot. This was one of the real front lines in the Cold War and remains an iconic symbol of that conflict, showing up in many documentaries and spy movies. It was an incredible place to visit.
After Checkpoint Charlie, we headed to another symbol of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. Constructed by the Soviets in 1961 to supposedly "protect East German citizens from radical fascism", it kept East Berliners from emigrating and divided the city. Again, a powerful symbol of a Cold War and literal "Iron Curtain" that permeated and defined so much of American and Soviet culture for so many years. Right next door was a terrific museum that we went to called Topography of Terror. It was located on the old site of the SS, Nazis secret police, headquarters during their reign in Germany. Called the "Darkest Time" in German history, the museum walks you through the steps and different stages that Hitler and the Nazis used to gain control of the government and create the Third Reich dictatorship that was so powerful and dangerous. I would highly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in Berlin.
We had lunch near the Sony Center, which is one of the largest buildings in Berlin and has an interesting architecture. It is a large circular building with the center taken and replaced with a plaza. But what makes the Sony Center so unique is that its roof is made out of sections of a cloth like material stretched between wires spaced out with gaps in between so that it looks like a turbo jet fan of gigantic proportions. Its a neat building and we spent some time relaxing in the central plaza area.
Next stop was a trip to Museum Island near the Reichstag to visit the Pergamon Museum. In the 19/20th century, the city of Pergamon was discovered in modern day Turkey by a German archeologist. It was a large city part of the Greek Empire, but allied with Rome. They established a dig and helped to preserve many of the artifacts. The Pergamon Museum displays many of their finds and replicas with some of the actual structures integrated in. One of the most significant finds was of the alter at Pergamon. The replica takes up a large room roughly the size of half a football field and looks very much like the temples of Rome built to honor the gods with its many columns and angular construction. It would be an imposing structure anywhere, but especially in the ancient world and was interesting monument to visit. The Pergamon also house a replica of the grates of Babylon and many of surrounding pieces of art. These gates led to the great city of Babylon, that once was the seat of power in the Middle East, but then rapidly declined. A magnificent accomplishment anywhere, again especially impressive for the ancient world. The gates were lined with lions they said to honor their god of Earth, but I think they were preemptively praising the great work and pride that Lovett Lions represent and had been foretold would come.
For dinner, Sam had been and is still obsessed with going to places that have live jazz music. He found a spot that looked good and we decided we would try it. It was pretty far out of the center of town and turned out to be in a rather interesting part of town. Thanks to Sam's Blackberry, we have been able to have a constant English-speaking safety net to help us out. But this time Google Maps had this place in the wrong place and so we wondered around in this area trying to find this fabled spot. After a while, we finally stubbled upon the spot. So glad we did; the food was excellent! We tried some local beverages, had great sausage, and a wonderfully helpful and funny waitress.
We headed back to the hostel for a little to get ready to head out and go to a club, for Berlin is the nightlife capital of Europe. Whether it was because it was Pentacost (although no flames of fire came down and let us understand German, but maybe next year), it was a Monday night, the city has been incorrectly crowned, or we simply missed where the party was, Berlin was dead that night. We spent more time walking around sketchy neighborhoods trying to find where we were going and eventually found the intended "club". This place had all of ten people in it. After an excellent fake emergency exit strategy, which fooled the rest of us, failed, we left the "club" and went to the train station. There some of us got McFlurries and were walking along, when trouble made a beeline for us. Two teenagers, probably drunk, came up and starting harassing us. We ignored them and they eventually left, but not before coming up behind Sam and batting his McFlurry away. After that we all went home, not defeated but to regroup for our next day's assault on Berlin.
-Christian
After Checkpoint Charlie, we headed to another symbol of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. Constructed by the Soviets in 1961 to supposedly "protect East German citizens from radical fascism", it kept East Berliners from emigrating and divided the city. Again, a powerful symbol of a Cold War and literal "Iron Curtain" that permeated and defined so much of American and Soviet culture for so many years. Right next door was a terrific museum that we went to called Topography of Terror. It was located on the old site of the SS, Nazis secret police, headquarters during their reign in Germany. Called the "Darkest Time" in German history, the museum walks you through the steps and different stages that Hitler and the Nazis used to gain control of the government and create the Third Reich dictatorship that was so powerful and dangerous. I would highly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in Berlin.
We had lunch near the Sony Center, which is one of the largest buildings in Berlin and has an interesting architecture. It is a large circular building with the center taken and replaced with a plaza. But what makes the Sony Center so unique is that its roof is made out of sections of a cloth like material stretched between wires spaced out with gaps in between so that it looks like a turbo jet fan of gigantic proportions. Its a neat building and we spent some time relaxing in the central plaza area.
Next stop was a trip to Museum Island near the Reichstag to visit the Pergamon Museum. In the 19/20th century, the city of Pergamon was discovered in modern day Turkey by a German archeologist. It was a large city part of the Greek Empire, but allied with Rome. They established a dig and helped to preserve many of the artifacts. The Pergamon Museum displays many of their finds and replicas with some of the actual structures integrated in. One of the most significant finds was of the alter at Pergamon. The replica takes up a large room roughly the size of half a football field and looks very much like the temples of Rome built to honor the gods with its many columns and angular construction. It would be an imposing structure anywhere, but especially in the ancient world and was interesting monument to visit. The Pergamon also house a replica of the grates of Babylon and many of surrounding pieces of art. These gates led to the great city of Babylon, that once was the seat of power in the Middle East, but then rapidly declined. A magnificent accomplishment anywhere, again especially impressive for the ancient world. The gates were lined with lions they said to honor their god of Earth, but I think they were preemptively praising the great work and pride that Lovett Lions represent and had been foretold would come.
For dinner, Sam had been and is still obsessed with going to places that have live jazz music. He found a spot that looked good and we decided we would try it. It was pretty far out of the center of town and turned out to be in a rather interesting part of town. Thanks to Sam's Blackberry, we have been able to have a constant English-speaking safety net to help us out. But this time Google Maps had this place in the wrong place and so we wondered around in this area trying to find this fabled spot. After a while, we finally stubbled upon the spot. So glad we did; the food was excellent! We tried some local beverages, had great sausage, and a wonderfully helpful and funny waitress.
We headed back to the hostel for a little to get ready to head out and go to a club, for Berlin is the nightlife capital of Europe. Whether it was because it was Pentacost (although no flames of fire came down and let us understand German, but maybe next year), it was a Monday night, the city has been incorrectly crowned, or we simply missed where the party was, Berlin was dead that night. We spent more time walking around sketchy neighborhoods trying to find where we were going and eventually found the intended "club". This place had all of ten people in it. After an excellent fake emergency exit strategy, which fooled the rest of us, failed, we left the "club" and went to the train station. There some of us got McFlurries and were walking along, when trouble made a beeline for us. Two teenagers, probably drunk, came up and starting harassing us. We ignored them and they eventually left, but not before coming up behind Sam and batting his McFlurry away. After that we all went home, not defeated but to regroup for our next day's assault on Berlin.
-Christian
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Sam #4: May 23
This morning was unlike any other thus far on the trip. I woke up, looked out the window, and discovered that the world I had so lovingly known in Paris had passed me by and was many hours long gone. Instead of seeing the adorable little house cats of our proprietor Fred patrol the 100 square foot kitschy garden, I saw the lush German countryside flying by the window at 80-something miles per hour. My bunk on the night train had served surprisingly well as a facilitator of rest, and the soft lulling of the engine several cars up was very relaxing as well. The soothing side-to-side swaying of the traincar seemed to defy the laws of physics, combining the sheer unbridled horsepower of a monster train engine with the delicate, sensual grooves of a sultry jazz club singer. The beautiful clash of two forces so inherently opposite was breath-taking, romantic, and elegant. Time stopped around me, and the train seemed to move in a most perfect cadenza, cutting iron brushstrokes across the delicate rolling hills and dabbing a touch of civilization on uninhabited grasslands; the sun's warm embrace deftly moved through the veneer curtains that stood in my window. Quite frankly, the curtains were a nuisance, but my other bunkmates were still under the spell of the train's mechanical Ambien, so instead I moved to the hallway and watched life out the great glass window. The occasional cow slapped the silliest grin across my face while I stood there, enjoying the simplistic peace that the cow enjoys on a regular basis. Our trip to this point had been extremely fast-paced and it was a breath of new life to slow down and enjoy the mesmerizing aura of the night train. I realized that I had 2 more hours of sleeping time left so I took advantage of that and lulled peacefully back to sleep.
My morning of wisdom and meditation came to an abrupt halt when my 8:30 alarm went off and all 5 of us had to pack our bags and be ready for an 8:49 departure from the train. We hustled to clean up food crumbs, repack overnight accessories, and mentally accept the fact that sleep was over. This last item was quite difficult as it seems my fellow bunkmates had shared common sentiments about the traincar sleep. We got our bags to the door of the train as the train pulled into one Berlin station; however, we were unsure of what exactly was going on. Just as we were opening the door to get out of the train, I saw the tracks beginning to move underneath me, and I quickly shut the door and we immediately accepted the fact that wherever we stopped next would be our exit no matter what. As it turns out, this was a lucky break, and we ended up just a few U-Bahn stops away from our hostel.
We got off the U-Bahn near our hostel, only to discover that we still had to walk across a bridge with our bags and down some street. The first thing that is immediately obvious about German is that there are very very few cognates, and the rules of grammar are indiscernible to an American. We lugged our baggage to the hostel, got them stored behind the desk until the rooms were open, and headed to a cafe one block from our hostel that we had seen on the way in. We all ordered fantastic breakfasts, none of which were immediately derived from American culture, so we were able to defend our totally-not-tourists-at-all status, despite the disproportionate ratio of cameras present in the group.
From breakfast, we decided to start our stay in Berlin with a guided bus tour in English, which turned out to be a brilliant strategy (that will be repeated in future cities) for two reasons. 1) We saw a large number of city landmarks, and we were able to decide which ones were high priority and which ones were sauerkraut. The bus tour drove us by many international embassies, but as any other member of the group can tell you, I am obsessed with the American embassy everywhere we go. The one in Berlin is a brand-spanking new symbol of American pride, complete with the highest security measures in all of Berlin, as well as a gorgeous 50-starred flag waving in the wind with bold colors and shiny new stars. This gave me new motivation to see the Brandenburg Gates - they were right next to the US Embassy. This brings me to my second point. 2) The bus tour is a great way to get a sense of absolute and relative orientation in the city. When we were given a map of the city by a touristy office, the unfamiliar layout confused me to no end. However, with the bus tour, Cedric was able to orient himself to the map, and the other 4 of us simply tagged along to Cedric's boy scout instincts.
Once the lively prerecorded tour was complete, we decided to browse the mostly-destroyed cathedral a stone's throw from the bus stop. This cathedral, which was built in honor of Kaiser Wilhelm I, had been reduced to a single tower, and was clearly war-torn (as is a lot of Berlin). The facade was a blackened, charred dark grey color, which I found much less appealing that the faint heavenly grey of the Notre Dame in Paris. However, the inside was quite pretty, and it rendered a sense of imagined regret in me because I wished that I had been able to see the original cathedral in its entire grandeur. Here I must also interject my suspicion of a cathedral built in honor of the kaiser. As I see it, any church is built in honor of God, so why it should be dedicated to the kaiser instead is not immediately certain to me. Perhaps a years-long publicity stunt by his PR people? Most likely the doing of Gloria Allred.
After an interesting buffet lunch near the cathedral, we returned to the hostel to stow our bags in the proper room and get our things situated. We were placed in a room of eight bunks, only 3 of which had fresh clean sheets for us. Cedric and Henry took it upon themselves to ask the front desk for more sheets, which turned out to be a frustrating exercise in customer noservice. I never understood the issue completely, but apparently the hostel said that there already were clean sheets when there clearly wasn't, and some people had left stuff in the room and we had no idea who they belonged to. The desk guy told us they belonged to some Australian women, but they weren't there at the moment, so we decided to keep touring and deal with the issue later.
We took the U-Bahn to the Brandenburg Gates, which is the famous passageway that used to be one of many gates into the city of Berlin in the 18th and 19th centuries. Between the sheer size of the columns and the intimidating bronze statue on top, it's clear why this is such a hot attraction. The area in front of the gate is filled with American military actors, street musicians, international super-strict embassy police, and gypsy women who always ask "Speak English?" in the exact same tone of voice. We're currently debating what would be a funny but not rude response to these women, who according to travel sources are actually sneaky pickpockets who distract you with an index card. From the gates we walked over to the Reichstag, which is the present-day national parliament of Germany. On top of the building there is a glass copula, which is accessible to the public most of the day. The copula offers a great view for a small price, so we figured it was worth checking out. Unfortunately it did not seem worth the 75-minute wait to get inside, and thus upon seeing the line run down the Reichstag steps and through the courtyard we bolted for different entertainment.
As usual with this motley crew, we tackled dinner with a stumble-upon approach, and thus we started walking towards a district with lots of people and lots of lights. On the way there, we made a most beautiful discovery: a Bugatti Veyron dealership on the street. For the uninitiated, the Bugatti Veyron is the world's baddest production car. And when I say bad I mean baaaaaaaaaaad. All of us could instantly rattle off a few key numbers. 1,001 horsepower. 253 mph (407 km/h) top speed. W16 engine. Burns an entire tank of gas in 12 minutes at top speed. $1.2 million purchase price (not sure what the European chiffre is these days). Simply seeing it through the window on the street was most certainly an out-of-body experience. I'm 95% sure there were fireworks and backup dancers for Shakira that appeared from heaven. Our hunger was immediately forgotten about and we went inside to watch it turn behind a glass railing on a beautiful turn table. Barack Obama was sitting in the driver's seat and Megan Fox was sitting in the passenger seat. Michelle and the girls were off serving the poor in Africa for the evening, but Booman assured us that they would return for breakfast with us.
Our bodies came back down to Earth from the Plane of Enlightenment and we walked on solid ground over to some really traditional German restaurant. It was near Checkpoint Charlie, and it was the first place that we were able to order legit German sausage in Germany. Once we got there, it was pretty good fare, but the whole stumbling upon process is not nearly as laissez-faire as you might think. We're a very democratic and politically-oriented group; thus, making a decision as important as a dinner restaurant is never a simple "Let's eat here!" We walked around the square and saw 4 different restaurants. For each one, we stopped to read the menu, analyze prices, judge the legitimacy of the German cuisine and environment, and determine a cost-benefit analysis of each locale. I won't be surprised if big scary words like "standard deviation", "chi-square test", and "Scoville rating" enter the conversation later in the trip.
From dinner we rode the U-Bahn home to find yet more "interestingness" going on at the hostel. Of the 3 mystery roommates (who unfortunately were not single Australian women), only one was at the hostel when we returned around 8pm. He was a dapper young chap from Sheffield, England, with a prep/grunge/disheveled dress style that came off as the classier side of Brad Pitt post-Fight Club. He was quiet and reserved, and we never actually caught his name. Thus I shall heretofore refer to him as He-Who-Might-Not-Be-Named (or HWMNBN, as his mates call him). HWMNBN is an avid reader, and spent much time in his bunk reading. He enjoys short walks on the beach, Nic Cage movies, and light green ballpoint pens from Morocco. He claims to have slayed four dragons last week, though I think he's blowing smoke - he only had three crystal dragon teeth on his necklace. HWMNBN had a celebrity crush on Janet Reno in the 7th grade, and swears his life on PG Tips. He is currently dating six women, two of which have business connections to Atlanta, and another one whose previous romantic entanglement is the subject of a yet-unpublished Nicholas Sparks manuscript called Christian the Lion plays a Harpsichord.
Later in the evening, a young Italian couple stopped by our room to get their stuff. Apparently, they stayed in room 213 (our room) last night, but the hostlier decided to move them to another room tonight, so they came and grabbed two bags, a white sweater, and a red unidentified garment. I kid you not about the red thing - it was far too big to be an intimate item, and it did not resemble a top or a bottom. Perhaps it was an avant-garde shawl. They took their things and went elsewhere; in the meantime Henry and Cedric had received two pairs of clean sheets in addition to the dirty sheets that still remained. We started to make up our beds, and not five minutes later the Italians returned, looking equally flustered as before. The hostlier had re-re-assigned them back to our room, and they set up their beds again. We were finally able to get cleaned up and ready for bed, and then around 11:58pm, Parker and I decided that we wanted to watch a movie, so he and I watched Crash on my bunk with a headphone splitter. I've always heard great things about it, but until then had never seen it. It was even better than my expectations, and I highly recommend it to anybody seeking an emotionally mature, intense movie that will restore your faith in humanity and your faith in God. Be sure to pay attention though, because if not you'll miss a lot of connections in the movie. As soon as the movie was over, he and I immediately went to bed.
That's all for now. Blogger-in-Chief will be cracking down on late blogging with threats of baguette deprivation. You readers are my reason for writing and I deeply wish you continued enjoyment of the blog.
Yours Truly,
Samuel Johnstone
My morning of wisdom and meditation came to an abrupt halt when my 8:30 alarm went off and all 5 of us had to pack our bags and be ready for an 8:49 departure from the train. We hustled to clean up food crumbs, repack overnight accessories, and mentally accept the fact that sleep was over. This last item was quite difficult as it seems my fellow bunkmates had shared common sentiments about the traincar sleep. We got our bags to the door of the train as the train pulled into one Berlin station; however, we were unsure of what exactly was going on. Just as we were opening the door to get out of the train, I saw the tracks beginning to move underneath me, and I quickly shut the door and we immediately accepted the fact that wherever we stopped next would be our exit no matter what. As it turns out, this was a lucky break, and we ended up just a few U-Bahn stops away from our hostel.
We got off the U-Bahn near our hostel, only to discover that we still had to walk across a bridge with our bags and down some street. The first thing that is immediately obvious about German is that there are very very few cognates, and the rules of grammar are indiscernible to an American. We lugged our baggage to the hostel, got them stored behind the desk until the rooms were open, and headed to a cafe one block from our hostel that we had seen on the way in. We all ordered fantastic breakfasts, none of which were immediately derived from American culture, so we were able to defend our totally-not-tourists-at-all status, despite the disproportionate ratio of cameras present in the group.
From breakfast, we decided to start our stay in Berlin with a guided bus tour in English, which turned out to be a brilliant strategy (that will be repeated in future cities) for two reasons. 1) We saw a large number of city landmarks, and we were able to decide which ones were high priority and which ones were sauerkraut. The bus tour drove us by many international embassies, but as any other member of the group can tell you, I am obsessed with the American embassy everywhere we go. The one in Berlin is a brand-spanking new symbol of American pride, complete with the highest security measures in all of Berlin, as well as a gorgeous 50-starred flag waving in the wind with bold colors and shiny new stars. This gave me new motivation to see the Brandenburg Gates - they were right next to the US Embassy. This brings me to my second point. 2) The bus tour is a great way to get a sense of absolute and relative orientation in the city. When we were given a map of the city by a touristy office, the unfamiliar layout confused me to no end. However, with the bus tour, Cedric was able to orient himself to the map, and the other 4 of us simply tagged along to Cedric's boy scout instincts.
Once the lively prerecorded tour was complete, we decided to browse the mostly-destroyed cathedral a stone's throw from the bus stop. This cathedral, which was built in honor of Kaiser Wilhelm I, had been reduced to a single tower, and was clearly war-torn (as is a lot of Berlin). The facade was a blackened, charred dark grey color, which I found much less appealing that the faint heavenly grey of the Notre Dame in Paris. However, the inside was quite pretty, and it rendered a sense of imagined regret in me because I wished that I had been able to see the original cathedral in its entire grandeur. Here I must also interject my suspicion of a cathedral built in honor of the kaiser. As I see it, any church is built in honor of God, so why it should be dedicated to the kaiser instead is not immediately certain to me. Perhaps a years-long publicity stunt by his PR people? Most likely the doing of Gloria Allred.
After an interesting buffet lunch near the cathedral, we returned to the hostel to stow our bags in the proper room and get our things situated. We were placed in a room of eight bunks, only 3 of which had fresh clean sheets for us. Cedric and Henry took it upon themselves to ask the front desk for more sheets, which turned out to be a frustrating exercise in customer noservice. I never understood the issue completely, but apparently the hostel said that there already were clean sheets when there clearly wasn't, and some people had left stuff in the room and we had no idea who they belonged to. The desk guy told us they belonged to some Australian women, but they weren't there at the moment, so we decided to keep touring and deal with the issue later.
We took the U-Bahn to the Brandenburg Gates, which is the famous passageway that used to be one of many gates into the city of Berlin in the 18th and 19th centuries. Between the sheer size of the columns and the intimidating bronze statue on top, it's clear why this is such a hot attraction. The area in front of the gate is filled with American military actors, street musicians, international super-strict embassy police, and gypsy women who always ask "Speak English?" in the exact same tone of voice. We're currently debating what would be a funny but not rude response to these women, who according to travel sources are actually sneaky pickpockets who distract you with an index card. From the gates we walked over to the Reichstag, which is the present-day national parliament of Germany. On top of the building there is a glass copula, which is accessible to the public most of the day. The copula offers a great view for a small price, so we figured it was worth checking out. Unfortunately it did not seem worth the 75-minute wait to get inside, and thus upon seeing the line run down the Reichstag steps and through the courtyard we bolted for different entertainment.
As usual with this motley crew, we tackled dinner with a stumble-upon approach, and thus we started walking towards a district with lots of people and lots of lights. On the way there, we made a most beautiful discovery: a Bugatti Veyron dealership on the street. For the uninitiated, the Bugatti Veyron is the world's baddest production car. And when I say bad I mean baaaaaaaaaaad. All of us could instantly rattle off a few key numbers. 1,001 horsepower. 253 mph (407 km/h) top speed. W16 engine. Burns an entire tank of gas in 12 minutes at top speed. $1.2 million purchase price (not sure what the European chiffre is these days). Simply seeing it through the window on the street was most certainly an out-of-body experience. I'm 95% sure there were fireworks and backup dancers for Shakira that appeared from heaven. Our hunger was immediately forgotten about and we went inside to watch it turn behind a glass railing on a beautiful turn table. Barack Obama was sitting in the driver's seat and Megan Fox was sitting in the passenger seat. Michelle and the girls were off serving the poor in Africa for the evening, but Booman assured us that they would return for breakfast with us.
Our bodies came back down to Earth from the Plane of Enlightenment and we walked on solid ground over to some really traditional German restaurant. It was near Checkpoint Charlie, and it was the first place that we were able to order legit German sausage in Germany. Once we got there, it was pretty good fare, but the whole stumbling upon process is not nearly as laissez-faire as you might think. We're a very democratic and politically-oriented group; thus, making a decision as important as a dinner restaurant is never a simple "Let's eat here!" We walked around the square and saw 4 different restaurants. For each one, we stopped to read the menu, analyze prices, judge the legitimacy of the German cuisine and environment, and determine a cost-benefit analysis of each locale. I won't be surprised if big scary words like "standard deviation", "chi-square test", and "Scoville rating" enter the conversation later in the trip.
From dinner we rode the U-Bahn home to find yet more "interestingness" going on at the hostel. Of the 3 mystery roommates (who unfortunately were not single Australian women), only one was at the hostel when we returned around 8pm. He was a dapper young chap from Sheffield, England, with a prep/grunge/disheveled dress style that came off as the classier side of Brad Pitt post-Fight Club. He was quiet and reserved, and we never actually caught his name. Thus I shall heretofore refer to him as He-Who-Might-Not-Be-Named (or HWMNBN, as his mates call him). HWMNBN is an avid reader, and spent much time in his bunk reading. He enjoys short walks on the beach, Nic Cage movies, and light green ballpoint pens from Morocco. He claims to have slayed four dragons last week, though I think he's blowing smoke - he only had three crystal dragon teeth on his necklace. HWMNBN had a celebrity crush on Janet Reno in the 7th grade, and swears his life on PG Tips. He is currently dating six women, two of which have business connections to Atlanta, and another one whose previous romantic entanglement is the subject of a yet-unpublished Nicholas Sparks manuscript called Christian the Lion plays a Harpsichord.
Later in the evening, a young Italian couple stopped by our room to get their stuff. Apparently, they stayed in room 213 (our room) last night, but the hostlier decided to move them to another room tonight, so they came and grabbed two bags, a white sweater, and a red unidentified garment. I kid you not about the red thing - it was far too big to be an intimate item, and it did not resemble a top or a bottom. Perhaps it was an avant-garde shawl. They took their things and went elsewhere; in the meantime Henry and Cedric had received two pairs of clean sheets in addition to the dirty sheets that still remained. We started to make up our beds, and not five minutes later the Italians returned, looking equally flustered as before. The hostlier had re-re-assigned them back to our room, and they set up their beds again. We were finally able to get cleaned up and ready for bed, and then around 11:58pm, Parker and I decided that we wanted to watch a movie, so he and I watched Crash on my bunk with a headphone splitter. I've always heard great things about it, but until then had never seen it. It was even better than my expectations, and I highly recommend it to anybody seeking an emotionally mature, intense movie that will restore your faith in humanity and your faith in God. Be sure to pay attention though, because if not you'll miss a lot of connections in the movie. As soon as the movie was over, he and I immediately went to bed.
That's all for now. Blogger-in-Chief will be cracking down on late blogging with threats of baguette deprivation. You readers are my reason for writing and I deeply wish you continued enjoyment of the blog.
Yours Truly,
Samuel Johnstone
Christian #3: May 22
Due to our late night last night, Henry's Birthday celebration has already begun and is off to a good start. We started the day by sleeping in till 9:00 am!!! What a treat (although still exhausted from our escapades the night before)! Then after having Cedric corral us all out of bed, we had our usual breakfast and then stowed our luggage to pick up later for our night train to Berlin. We headed out to the Catacombs of Paris, but due to previous flooding in the spring, they were still closed. So we all headed up to the Pantheon where a lot of famous French men and women who have made significant contributions to France and the world are buried. People like Pierre and Marie Curie, Hugo, Dumas, Rousseau, Voltaire, and many others, all who have had large impacts on this place we inhabit called Earth. It was especially powerful to see Rousseau's tomb; to imagine on the other side of the stone is a man so influential in helping to create and promote the ideals that our Founding Fathers would use to create our great nation weighed particularly heavily on me.
After our grave-robbing expedition, we continued on to a French tradition of which we would not forgo for any reason: crepes! For those who don't know, crepes are, for lack of a better description, very thin pancakes (although don't tell Cedric; he would not agree). While often eaten as dessert item, they are also eaten as a main course and one that we eagerly dived into. I had a particularly delicious one that had goat cheese, honey, creme, and walnuts. Oh, did that hit the spot! And then the dessert crepes, which were fantastic and quickly devoured.
After our delicious lunch, the Luxembourg Gardens was next on the list to visit. We saw the place we had had dinner at the night before with the excellent escargot and then entered the gardens. Once again, it was a beautiful and pristinely maintained garden that was wonderful to stroll through. In the central part of the gardens, there was a large pond with several boats and fish that held our attention for a while. These great little sailboats would dart from side to side of the pond and little kids would fight over sending off the ships on their next voyages. These images and environment brought me back to an earlier age of great ships sailing the oceans and wanting to know everything about them.
After a short train hop on the wonderful Paris metro, we arrived at the Opera of Paris. Once again, beautiful architecture with busts in tribute to many famous composers and their works on the facade. We briskly walked on to the next stop: Galeries Lafayette, shopping capital of the world. Contained in three buildings that would all qualify as large department stores back in the U.S., it was a sight to behold. As soon as you entered, big name designers instantly started closing in on you from all sides: Dior, Chanel, Gucci, and many others started bombarding you with advertisements and magnificent displays in a bid for you to drop 300 Euro on a bracelet. And the constant stream of people flowing in all directions from all sides seemed liked a coordinated strike technique used to confuse, intimidate, and subdue all potential buyers. I was under attack from all sides! This was a war zone unlike any other Walter Kronkite has ever reported on before. After a fleeting look at the inside of the building, we managed to stay together and after several long minutes reached free air!
After our battle with fashion, tired and adrenaline pumping, we decided the safest thing to do was to go to Sacre Coeur, a church in the Montmartre district of Paris. Yet another large cathedral, it looked like it was greatly influenced by Islamic architecture. We wandered through it and then went and wandered the streets of Montmatre. We found a little bakery that looked excellent and had fantastic pastries, even though the proprietor was very rude as we were scrupulously considering what to buy. After ambling back to the metro station, we headed back to the Bed and Breakfast to collect our stuff for our night train to Berlin. With goodbyes complete, we went to the Vitry train station and finally learned the correct way to enter the train station. I was taking off my backpack while we were waiting for the train, when to my disgust, I discovered that gum had somehow gotten on the inside of my pack strap and was now attached to my shirt as well. Not fun! After catching the metro to the train station, we activated our Eurail pass and jumped on our night train to Berlin. I have never seen so many people fit in such a small compartment as we did in our cabin! We eventually learned how to stow the extra bunk and move some of them around to give ourselves some more room. Once we got settled and started moving, we got the music going and had a right good time into the wee hours of the night.
So goodbye Paris. You were wonderful, fun, large, packed with things to do, had great food and EXCELLENT weather. Berlin, here come Five Rings of Gold!
After our grave-robbing expedition, we continued on to a French tradition of which we would not forgo for any reason: crepes! For those who don't know, crepes are, for lack of a better description, very thin pancakes (although don't tell Cedric; he would not agree). While often eaten as dessert item, they are also eaten as a main course and one that we eagerly dived into. I had a particularly delicious one that had goat cheese, honey, creme, and walnuts. Oh, did that hit the spot! And then the dessert crepes, which were fantastic and quickly devoured.
After our delicious lunch, the Luxembourg Gardens was next on the list to visit. We saw the place we had had dinner at the night before with the excellent escargot and then entered the gardens. Once again, it was a beautiful and pristinely maintained garden that was wonderful to stroll through. In the central part of the gardens, there was a large pond with several boats and fish that held our attention for a while. These great little sailboats would dart from side to side of the pond and little kids would fight over sending off the ships on their next voyages. These images and environment brought me back to an earlier age of great ships sailing the oceans and wanting to know everything about them.
After a short train hop on the wonderful Paris metro, we arrived at the Opera of Paris. Once again, beautiful architecture with busts in tribute to many famous composers and their works on the facade. We briskly walked on to the next stop: Galeries Lafayette, shopping capital of the world. Contained in three buildings that would all qualify as large department stores back in the U.S., it was a sight to behold. As soon as you entered, big name designers instantly started closing in on you from all sides: Dior, Chanel, Gucci, and many others started bombarding you with advertisements and magnificent displays in a bid for you to drop 300 Euro on a bracelet. And the constant stream of people flowing in all directions from all sides seemed liked a coordinated strike technique used to confuse, intimidate, and subdue all potential buyers. I was under attack from all sides! This was a war zone unlike any other Walter Kronkite has ever reported on before. After a fleeting look at the inside of the building, we managed to stay together and after several long minutes reached free air!
After our battle with fashion, tired and adrenaline pumping, we decided the safest thing to do was to go to Sacre Coeur, a church in the Montmartre district of Paris. Yet another large cathedral, it looked like it was greatly influenced by Islamic architecture. We wandered through it and then went and wandered the streets of Montmatre. We found a little bakery that looked excellent and had fantastic pastries, even though the proprietor was very rude as we were scrupulously considering what to buy. After ambling back to the metro station, we headed back to the Bed and Breakfast to collect our stuff for our night train to Berlin. With goodbyes complete, we went to the Vitry train station and finally learned the correct way to enter the train station. I was taking off my backpack while we were waiting for the train, when to my disgust, I discovered that gum had somehow gotten on the inside of my pack strap and was now attached to my shirt as well. Not fun! After catching the metro to the train station, we activated our Eurail pass and jumped on our night train to Berlin. I have never seen so many people fit in such a small compartment as we did in our cabin! We eventually learned how to stow the extra bunk and move some of them around to give ourselves some more room. Once we got settled and started moving, we got the music going and had a right good time into the wee hours of the night.
So goodbye Paris. You were wonderful, fun, large, packed with things to do, had great food and EXCELLENT weather. Berlin, here come Five Rings of Gold!
Monday, May 24, 2010
Christian #2: End of Paris Photo Blog
Hi All. Sorry about the late nature of this blog, but better late than never (although not necessarily if you ask Cedric). We've had a busy few nights. Enough with the small talk: here are the pictures.
Five Rings of Gold in front of the palace at Versailles. Built by Louis XIV, its gigantic (Parker estimates you could fit 100 Wal-mart superstores in the palace comfortably) and full of gold. We were right at home and Parker was already drawing up plans in his head to build a bigger one in the U.S.
This is one of the ceiling murals of in the palace at Versailles. I think I remember that it's Mars in one of his victories. It helped to emphasize the extremely ornate decorations and buildings of Versailles. Quite a piece to look up at while your eating dinner. I think I could get used to it.
The famed Hall of Mirrors that Dr. Chase taught us all about in AP Euro. For the 17th century, it's pretty flippin' ridiculous. One thing that was cool is that on one end of the hall is the War room and on the other side is the Peace room. Neat way to connect the two opposites. And not a bad view of the gardens either.
The famed Gardens at Versailles. Walking from one end to the other took us a good 30 min walk at a good pace, which means a fast trot/jog for those of us under 6 foot. They are beautiful and meticulously kept; impressive to say the least.
From the Gardens looking towards the palace. It helps to illustrate just how ridiculously big this place was. We weren't even halfway to the other side yet.
Parker being the smug, little munchkin that he is. Parker wants me to add that he's sorry if you think this picture is too sexy. You make up your own mind.
Five Rings of Gold outside the ostentatious gold gates of Versailles. Excellent.
Three of Five Rings of Gold being goof-balls in front of the Invalides.
The Invalides houses the tomb of Napoleon, as seen above in this massive stone/wood structure. Once again, very ornate and grand.
Appropriate for Parker's Napoleon complex to kick in at his tomb. He was naturally drawn to the tank as a sign that he is a big man and not someone to mess with.
Here we have an exhibition of Sams. They are rare, contemplative, hyper, chill creatures that are not opposed to having their picture taken. They also have a innate ability to lead people onto the correct metro train anytime of the day or night. But beware if you try to slow it down; it will leave you in the dust!
We finally found a suit of armor to fit Parker. It took several hours to find and years for Polish elfs to make. Cedric, the Gaul, makes fun of the puny suit of armor for the German.
A shot of Notre Dame from the back on the river.
Five Rings of Gold on the river boat on the Seine touring Paris.
On the Champs-Elysees of the Arc de Triomphe. Another attempt at an artistic photo.
Escargo! Man is that stuff good. Sounds potentially gross, but these little cephalopods are quite tasty and the olive oil and pesto sauce that covered it was exquisite. Cheers!
Another artistic picture. We were meeting Cedric at Notre Dame and the lighting and night provided for a beautiful view.
Dessert (noun)- 1. An after dinner course at which usually sweet foods are eaten. 2. A time when French waiters are astounded at how fast American teenagers can eat three plates of creme puffs, apple tart, and chocolate mousse respectively. Pretty wicked awesome.
After running to be able to see the Eiffel Tower light up at 12:00 am, we brought Henry into style on his birthday with a rousing version of Happy Birthday in both French and English.
A beautiful night over the Seine river watching the moon and the Eiffel Tower. Doesn't get much better than this.
Five Rings of Gold in the Luxembourg Gardens. There were tons of little sailboats sailing across the pond. Made me remember my fascination with ships when I was younger.
This is for the ladies reading the blog. Galeries Lafayettes, so called shopping capital of the world, is so large it doesn't just fit in the 9-story, dome-capped building seen here, but extends to to other near by buildings that would qualify as large stores in the U.S. Truly a sight to behold, not just for its grand building, but also for that fact that within a stone's throw are at least 15 of the most high-end designers I've ever heard of and plenty that I haven't.
Sacre-Coeur, one of our last stops in Paris located in the district named Montmartre. Like all the other cathedrals: big, ornate, and beautiful.
So after many days and hundreds of pictures later, we had a great time in Paris. Thanks again for looking at pictures and following us on the blog. Hope you enjoyed them. More to come from Berlin.
~Christian
Five Rings of Gold in front of the palace at Versailles. Built by Louis XIV, its gigantic (Parker estimates you could fit 100 Wal-mart superstores in the palace comfortably) and full of gold. We were right at home and Parker was already drawing up plans in his head to build a bigger one in the U.S.
This is one of the ceiling murals of in the palace at Versailles. I think I remember that it's Mars in one of his victories. It helped to emphasize the extremely ornate decorations and buildings of Versailles. Quite a piece to look up at while your eating dinner. I think I could get used to it.
The famed Hall of Mirrors that Dr. Chase taught us all about in AP Euro. For the 17th century, it's pretty flippin' ridiculous. One thing that was cool is that on one end of the hall is the War room and on the other side is the Peace room. Neat way to connect the two opposites. And not a bad view of the gardens either. 
The famed Gardens at Versailles. Walking from one end to the other took us a good 30 min walk at a good pace, which means a fast trot/jog for those of us under 6 foot. They are beautiful and meticulously kept; impressive to say the least.
From the Gardens looking towards the palace. It helps to illustrate just how ridiculously big this place was. We weren't even halfway to the other side yet.
Parker being the smug, little munchkin that he is. Parker wants me to add that he's sorry if you think this picture is too sexy. You make up your own mind.
Five Rings of Gold outside the ostentatious gold gates of Versailles. Excellent.
Three of Five Rings of Gold being goof-balls in front of the Invalides.
The Invalides houses the tomb of Napoleon, as seen above in this massive stone/wood structure. Once again, very ornate and grand.
Appropriate for Parker's Napoleon complex to kick in at his tomb. He was naturally drawn to the tank as a sign that he is a big man and not someone to mess with.
Here we have an exhibition of Sams. They are rare, contemplative, hyper, chill creatures that are not opposed to having their picture taken. They also have a innate ability to lead people onto the correct metro train anytime of the day or night. But beware if you try to slow it down; it will leave you in the dust!
We finally found a suit of armor to fit Parker. It took several hours to find and years for Polish elfs to make. Cedric, the Gaul, makes fun of the puny suit of armor for the German.
A shot of Notre Dame from the back on the river.
Five Rings of Gold on the river boat on the Seine touring Paris.
On the Champs-Elysees of the Arc de Triomphe. Another attempt at an artistic photo.
Escargo! Man is that stuff good. Sounds potentially gross, but these little cephalopods are quite tasty and the olive oil and pesto sauce that covered it was exquisite. Cheers!
Another artistic picture. We were meeting Cedric at Notre Dame and the lighting and night provided for a beautiful view.
Dessert (noun)- 1. An after dinner course at which usually sweet foods are eaten. 2. A time when French waiters are astounded at how fast American teenagers can eat three plates of creme puffs, apple tart, and chocolate mousse respectively. Pretty wicked awesome.
After running to be able to see the Eiffel Tower light up at 12:00 am, we brought Henry into style on his birthday with a rousing version of Happy Birthday in both French and English.
A beautiful night over the Seine river watching the moon and the Eiffel Tower. Doesn't get much better than this.
Five Rings of Gold in the Luxembourg Gardens. There were tons of little sailboats sailing across the pond. Made me remember my fascination with ships when I was younger.
This is for the ladies reading the blog. Galeries Lafayettes, so called shopping capital of the world, is so large it doesn't just fit in the 9-story, dome-capped building seen here, but extends to to other near by buildings that would qualify as large stores in the U.S. Truly a sight to behold, not just for its grand building, but also for that fact that within a stone's throw are at least 15 of the most high-end designers I've ever heard of and plenty that I haven't.
Sacre-Coeur, one of our last stops in Paris located in the district named Montmartre. Like all the other cathedrals: big, ornate, and beautiful.So after many days and hundreds of pictures later, we had a great time in Paris. Thanks again for looking at pictures and following us on the blog. Hope you enjoyed them. More to come from Berlin.
~Christian
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Parker #2: The Evening of May 21
Our hours apart from the guiding light of our great ambassador, Cédric: This is the story of what could have been a disaster: It may have become a tragedy worthy of comparison to those of the Greeks or Shakespeare; Imagine the grief that would crush the hearts of thousands if our journey had fallen into darkness, but today was not that day.
Cédric's few hours of reunion with his family meant that the four of us remaining no longer had a fluent translator to guide us. Train maps, restaurant menus and street names? No problem. What was a problem though was our encounter with an unforeseen nemesis: one who was lurking in our very midst undetected. We came upon this creature shortly after dropping Cédric off at his uncle's house. Naturally upon being left to fend for ourselves the groups first thought was FOOD. Sam found an interesting place that was supposed to be near Le Arc de Triumph and we soon found it with little problem. While I knew we were in a nice (as in crazy expensive) part of town I did not know just where we had landed ourselves. Sam's research lead us to a Hotel not too dissimilar from La Plaza but as teenage tourists we figured we had nothing to lose in peeking in to see the restaurant. All appeared to go well as the bellhops welcomed us in and we found our way upstairs to what must be the fanciest rooftop dinner-place in Paris. Upon exiting the elevator we where greeted agin by friendly staff who asked if we would like to be seated. At this point I would just like to point out that we where all feeling quite underdressed although by incredible luck I did chose to wear my only collared shirt today. Anyway we politely told the hosts that we wanted a minuet to look over a menu before committing (without any trouble in translating, who needs a French-men anyway, just kidding Cedge). Then it happened. As a glanced down my friendly smile simultaneously twisted into an expression of shock and disgust as I gazed upon the hated enemy of our European adventure: high prices! This however was not just any expensive French dish it was a common and lowly item I once thought I knew all about, being from ATL and all. A 12 Euro coke…REALLY!!! Do you realize that in the States one could buy half a dozen 40oz-infinite-refill-sodas for that price? Needless to say our dining plans quickly and unanimously were changed, though sadly I must admit the view from that rooftop ALMOST would have made that soda worth 12 Euros. There was however another benefit that must be noted on our short-lived journey into this hotel. Both Sam and I used it as a prime opportunity to visit the nicest "toilette" I have laid eyes on in a long time.
After our ordeal with shockingly overpriced soda we decided to take the metro a few stops over to a district that is friendlier to ones' wallet. We found the perfect place on the perimeter of Luxembourg gardens, a balance between price and quality. I don't know if you guys are getting tired of hearing about all of our food yet but believe me I have good reason to mention this meal as well. For an appetizer we shared a dozen Escargot and they where, i must admit, amazing! Cedge and Sam were proud of the rest of us for branching out into the more unusual aspects of French heritage and I'm glad we did because although snails themselves are not in my opinion all that great the sauce was soooo worth it!
After dinner we went to our favorite metro station, St. Michelle-Notre Dame to meet up with Cédric (don't know why we just always seem to end up there but hey there are worse places to hang out than PARIS so works for me). Christian got some fantastic pictures of the cathedral lit up at night and we were all soon reunited to enjoy our last night in Paris. Because Henry's Birthday was in only a few short hours (at least in French time) away we decided that it would be rather memorable to see the EiffelTower when it sparkles at midnight. To bide our time, we walked about a billion miles towards the distant tower and along the way we stopped for dessert aka second dinner. As Cédric already described the three different French desserts we tried were amazing and after leaving a "generous" (there is some debate on if its too generous) tip of three Euros we walked the remaining couple of lightyears across the Seine to watch the tower. With a gloriously out of tune melody we brought Henry into his 18th year in style! All that was left was our 0:11 RER train home…or so we thought…
Due to a slight error in timing we arrived for our 0:11 train at 0:12 which of course was frustrating in the extreme, not because we have little patience to wait ten minuets for another but because that was in fact the last train until the next morning. With some quick thinking we formed plan B and took a metro (different train lines from RER) to a station somewhat near our hostel and would have to walk the rest of the way. The reason this fact is interesting is not because Sam thought it was fun, (he was the only one with this opinion) but really because it was now 1:00 and we had at least a mile-and-a-half walk to our Hostel in Vitry Sur Siene. If you are not familiar with this region of Paris I personally did find it too bad but it is probably not the fanciest region of the city to say the least. I cannot describe our long dark walk home in too much of an interesting way for you but I do have to share a relating fact. If you had seen the Bernelles' expression of shock when we told them where we're staying you might have thought aliens had just kidnapped Cisco (their dog) because each of the jaws instantly hit the floor upon hearing the words Vitry Sur Siene. As a side note, Sonia, don't worry about your hubcap; we saw it laying on the side of the road along the way and it should reach your house along with about 10,000 packing peanuts any day now. Peace from Paris.
Cédric's few hours of reunion with his family meant that the four of us remaining no longer had a fluent translator to guide us. Train maps, restaurant menus and street names? No problem. What was a problem though was our encounter with an unforeseen nemesis: one who was lurking in our very midst undetected. We came upon this creature shortly after dropping Cédric off at his uncle's house. Naturally upon being left to fend for ourselves the groups first thought was FOOD. Sam found an interesting place that was supposed to be near Le Arc de Triumph and we soon found it with little problem. While I knew we were in a nice (as in crazy expensive) part of town I did not know just where we had landed ourselves. Sam's research lead us to a Hotel not too dissimilar from La Plaza but as teenage tourists we figured we had nothing to lose in peeking in to see the restaurant. All appeared to go well as the bellhops welcomed us in and we found our way upstairs to what must be the fanciest rooftop dinner-place in Paris. Upon exiting the elevator we where greeted agin by friendly staff who asked if we would like to be seated. At this point I would just like to point out that we where all feeling quite underdressed although by incredible luck I did chose to wear my only collared shirt today. Anyway we politely told the hosts that we wanted a minuet to look over a menu before committing (without any trouble in translating, who needs a French-men anyway, just kidding Cedge). Then it happened. As a glanced down my friendly smile simultaneously twisted into an expression of shock and disgust as I gazed upon the hated enemy of our European adventure: high prices! This however was not just any expensive French dish it was a common and lowly item I once thought I knew all about, being from ATL and all. A 12 Euro coke…REALLY!!! Do you realize that in the States one could buy half a dozen 40oz-infinite-refill-sodas for that price? Needless to say our dining plans quickly and unanimously were changed, though sadly I must admit the view from that rooftop ALMOST would have made that soda worth 12 Euros. There was however another benefit that must be noted on our short-lived journey into this hotel. Both Sam and I used it as a prime opportunity to visit the nicest "toilette" I have laid eyes on in a long time.
After our ordeal with shockingly overpriced soda we decided to take the metro a few stops over to a district that is friendlier to ones' wallet. We found the perfect place on the perimeter of Luxembourg gardens, a balance between price and quality. I don't know if you guys are getting tired of hearing about all of our food yet but believe me I have good reason to mention this meal as well. For an appetizer we shared a dozen Escargot and they where, i must admit, amazing! Cedge and Sam were proud of the rest of us for branching out into the more unusual aspects of French heritage and I'm glad we did because although snails themselves are not in my opinion all that great the sauce was soooo worth it!
After dinner we went to our favorite metro station, St. Michelle-Notre Dame to meet up with Cédric (don't know why we just always seem to end up there but hey there are worse places to hang out than PARIS so works for me). Christian got some fantastic pictures of the cathedral lit up at night and we were all soon reunited to enjoy our last night in Paris. Because Henry's Birthday was in only a few short hours (at least in French time) away we decided that it would be rather memorable to see the EiffelTower when it sparkles at midnight. To bide our time, we walked about a billion miles towards the distant tower and along the way we stopped for dessert aka second dinner. As Cédric already described the three different French desserts we tried were amazing and after leaving a "generous" (there is some debate on if its too generous) tip of three Euros we walked the remaining couple of lightyears across the Seine to watch the tower. With a gloriously out of tune melody we brought Henry into his 18th year in style! All that was left was our 0:11 RER train home…or so we thought…
Due to a slight error in timing we arrived for our 0:11 train at 0:12 which of course was frustrating in the extreme, not because we have little patience to wait ten minuets for another but because that was in fact the last train until the next morning. With some quick thinking we formed plan B and took a metro (different train lines from RER) to a station somewhat near our hostel and would have to walk the rest of the way. The reason this fact is interesting is not because Sam thought it was fun, (he was the only one with this opinion) but really because it was now 1:00 and we had at least a mile-and-a-half walk to our Hostel in Vitry Sur Siene. If you are not familiar with this region of Paris I personally did find it too bad but it is probably not the fanciest region of the city to say the least. I cannot describe our long dark walk home in too much of an interesting way for you but I do have to share a relating fact. If you had seen the Bernelles' expression of shock when we told them where we're staying you might have thought aliens had just kidnapped Cisco (their dog) because each of the jaws instantly hit the floor upon hearing the words Vitry Sur Siene. As a side note, Sonia, don't worry about your hubcap; we saw it laying on the side of the road along the way and it should reach your house along with about 10,000 packing peanuts any day now. Peace from Paris.
Henry #1: Parisian Art History Weekly Review
Having just finished a year long Art History class, this first week in Paris has been particularly exciting for me. Our first day began with a visit to the EIffel Tower, and I was immediately struck by the immense size of the elegant building. I always knew it was a hallmark of the Paris skyline, but I never knew its height was comparable to the tallest Atlanta skyscrapers. When the tower was originally built, Eiffel's use of steel as the sole means of building material was not taken well. However, the Eiffel Tower is by far one of the prettiest buildings I have ever seen. We climbed the stairs through the first two levels and then took the elevator to the top. Viewing Paris from the sky was a great way to start our visit as we were able to see some of our future touring destinations and get ourselves oriented.
Seeing Notre Dame was another highlight of the week for me. After sitting through endless lectures about Gothic and Romanesque Cathedrals, there was something so rewarding about seeing Notre Dame right in front of me and not in my 1000 page Art History book. Notre Dame is located on a small island in central Paris called Ile de France. Once again, I was immediately struck by the Cathedral's size. When we walked into the church, we were immediately dwarfed by the immensely tall nave arcade. We walked around the Cathedral, looking at the relics and the relief narratives that told the story of Christ.
Our third stop of interest was Sainte-Chapelle, a cathedral that is known for its plethora of stained glass windows. Unfortunately for us, a large section of the windows were covered for restoration. Regardless, the visit was well worth it because there was plenty of stain glass to please our eyes.
The Louvre. Need I say more? This was by far the highlight of my trip so far, but I wish the museum was not so large because it was impossible to visit every exhibit we wished to see. We had to make a strategic strike of the museum because we arrived two and a half hours before close. Our first stop was the Egyptian exhibit. Unfortunately for me, I did not recognize any of the works in the exhibit. We then ventured to the Greek and Roman exhibit, the highlight of which was Lady of Auxerre, an early Greek statue oriented in a rigidly frontal position. One thing that surprised me about the statue was how small it was. In our Art History book, all of the sculptures are depicted as the same size and it is easy to be deceived unless you pay close attention to the scale next to the picture. Our final exhibit at the Louvre was the European Artist exhibit. As we walked up the stairs, the first painting we were confronted with was Cimabue's extremely large Madonna Enthroned with Angels. My heartbeat immediately picked up because I could not believe I was seeing a painting we had spent endless class periods dissecting and comparing to other similar paintings but Giotto and Duccio. Everything in the painting was just as I had expected it. Mary was sitting on the same unmountable throne we had seen in our textbook. Her knees were in line, but one leg was longer than the other, hanging over her throne. Cimabue's Madonna is much more hesitant than other similar depictions as she is holding Jesus back, reluctant to give him up to his certain destiny of sacrificing himself for the forgiveness of our sins. Just as we had seen in Art History, the surrounding angels were sacked up around the throne, all part of an early attempt at depth. After staring at the painting for several minutes, we moved on because our time at the Louvre was quickly winding down. As we continued down the hall, we saw works by Da Vinci, including the famous Mona Lisa and Madonna on the Rocks. We also saw The Raft of Medusa and Napoleon in the Pesthouse of Jaffa. This whole exhibit was so rewarding for me after having slaved incessantly through months of Art History.
Musee D'Orsay is one of the best museums I have ever been to. It is organized so that you can walk through the entire museum and literally see every work of art on display. Our first stop was Van Gogh and Gaugin exhibit. Both Van Gogh and Gaugin were late 18th century Impressionist artists. While I think their works were beautiful, I am more of a fan of some to the more realistic works of Courbet. On of the paintings was saw was Burial at Count Orgaz, a massive painting of a country funeral. This painting was not received well at all, mostly because of its size. Large paintings typically depicted great military victories and coronations, not peasant funerals. However, Courbet was a Realist who had great respect for the struggles of the working class and he depicted their lives as a means of glorifying their perseverance. When asked why he did not paint more "glorious" scenes, Courbet famously replied that he would paint angels and other biblical figures only if he saw them, solidifying his staunch Realist stance.
We have seen many other extremely important works of art, but if I wrote about everything I wanted to I would fill this entire blog. I am interested to see what Berlin and Prague will bring in terms of Art History, and I will definitely keep you all updated on what we see. I would love to keep writing, but I am currently on the night train and in desperate need of sleep, so good night and stay tuned.
Seeing Notre Dame was another highlight of the week for me. After sitting through endless lectures about Gothic and Romanesque Cathedrals, there was something so rewarding about seeing Notre Dame right in front of me and not in my 1000 page Art History book. Notre Dame is located on a small island in central Paris called Ile de France. Once again, I was immediately struck by the Cathedral's size. When we walked into the church, we were immediately dwarfed by the immensely tall nave arcade. We walked around the Cathedral, looking at the relics and the relief narratives that told the story of Christ.
Our third stop of interest was Sainte-Chapelle, a cathedral that is known for its plethora of stained glass windows. Unfortunately for us, a large section of the windows were covered for restoration. Regardless, the visit was well worth it because there was plenty of stain glass to please our eyes.
The Louvre. Need I say more? This was by far the highlight of my trip so far, but I wish the museum was not so large because it was impossible to visit every exhibit we wished to see. We had to make a strategic strike of the museum because we arrived two and a half hours before close. Our first stop was the Egyptian exhibit. Unfortunately for me, I did not recognize any of the works in the exhibit. We then ventured to the Greek and Roman exhibit, the highlight of which was Lady of Auxerre, an early Greek statue oriented in a rigidly frontal position. One thing that surprised me about the statue was how small it was. In our Art History book, all of the sculptures are depicted as the same size and it is easy to be deceived unless you pay close attention to the scale next to the picture. Our final exhibit at the Louvre was the European Artist exhibit. As we walked up the stairs, the first painting we were confronted with was Cimabue's extremely large Madonna Enthroned with Angels. My heartbeat immediately picked up because I could not believe I was seeing a painting we had spent endless class periods dissecting and comparing to other similar paintings but Giotto and Duccio. Everything in the painting was just as I had expected it. Mary was sitting on the same unmountable throne we had seen in our textbook. Her knees were in line, but one leg was longer than the other, hanging over her throne. Cimabue's Madonna is much more hesitant than other similar depictions as she is holding Jesus back, reluctant to give him up to his certain destiny of sacrificing himself for the forgiveness of our sins. Just as we had seen in Art History, the surrounding angels were sacked up around the throne, all part of an early attempt at depth. After staring at the painting for several minutes, we moved on because our time at the Louvre was quickly winding down. As we continued down the hall, we saw works by Da Vinci, including the famous Mona Lisa and Madonna on the Rocks. We also saw The Raft of Medusa and Napoleon in the Pesthouse of Jaffa. This whole exhibit was so rewarding for me after having slaved incessantly through months of Art History.
Musee D'Orsay is one of the best museums I have ever been to. It is organized so that you can walk through the entire museum and literally see every work of art on display. Our first stop was Van Gogh and Gaugin exhibit. Both Van Gogh and Gaugin were late 18th century Impressionist artists. While I think their works were beautiful, I am more of a fan of some to the more realistic works of Courbet. On of the paintings was saw was Burial at Count Orgaz, a massive painting of a country funeral. This painting was not received well at all, mostly because of its size. Large paintings typically depicted great military victories and coronations, not peasant funerals. However, Courbet was a Realist who had great respect for the struggles of the working class and he depicted their lives as a means of glorifying their perseverance. When asked why he did not paint more "glorious" scenes, Courbet famously replied that he would paint angels and other biblical figures only if he saw them, solidifying his staunch Realist stance.
We have seen many other extremely important works of art, but if I wrote about everything I wanted to I would fill this entire blog. I am interested to see what Berlin and Prague will bring in terms of Art History, and I will definitely keep you all updated on what we see. I would love to keep writing, but I am currently on the night train and in desperate need of sleep, so good night and stay tuned.
Cedric #1: May 21
I woke up and looked at my watch and it was 9:17! Oh my!! (we were supposed to be down at breakfast by 9). I jumped up in shock and exclaimed my surprise… And Parker just rolled over in his bed.
After coaxing everyone out of bed, and the morning showerers cleaned up (we have the system down, Parker and Christian take their showers in the morning and Henry and me in the evening, while Sam takes it whenever he wants to) we headed to our amazing breakfast which the proprietor makes for us every morning: AMAZING French croissants, yummy vanilla yogurts, toast with "freaking good butter" (Sam) and jam, hot chocolate, and orange juice. After breakfast, departure to the RER.
We went straight to Les Invalides, which I was very excited to see because I had never been there before. At Les Invalides, there is a huge military museum and Napoleon's tomb. It was Henry's last day to get free tickets, for it was the last day he was 17! Parker and Henry have been lucky, at most museums people under 18 get free tickets. I'm lucky because French citizens between the age of 18-26 are also usually free. Poor Sam and Christian have had to pay every time.
We went to Napoleon's tomb; very impressive! It's quite plain, but humongous and in a ridiculously huge and decorated domed room. Its also surprising how much gold leaf there is in Paris on many of the monuments.
After that we went to two exhibits in the military museum. First, the armour and arms exhibit was amazing! There were hundreds of swords, halberds, guns, spears, gloves, and full body armour. Then we went to the World War I and II exhibit because Parker and Christian thought it would be interesting to see the wars from the French point of view.
After spending most of the morning walking and admiring weapons our legs were getting tired and our stomachs empty so we stopped for lunch at a nearby "sandwicherie". So good! The bread is so so yummy! Perfectly crusty: the sound of it crackling almost rivals the majestic heavenly call of the French Horn. And the jambon blanc and emmantal cheese inside, mmmmm! Delicious.
After enjoying a relaxing lunch, we stolled slowly to the Musée d'Orsay on the Seine River. Profesor Henry once again took over (after some of us paid for and others didn't for our tickets) and provided unrivaled descriptions to the many painting and artists he had studied over the year. My favorite artist artist was Courbet, who was a realist artist. His paintings and landscapes were extremely intricate. After spending a few hours admiring and hundreds of paintings (especially a shocking one of a detailed fruit) and sculptures we left the museum to take the RER to the Hôtel de Ville (or City Hall) of Paris, which is also very large and impressive.
We then walked a few blocks to a HUGE building which looks completely out of place (though still impressive): the Centre Pompidou. Sadly, we were unable to visit the gigantic modern art museum because we had so much other stuff to do, but at least we got to see it. Right next door we bought an enjoyed Magnum and regular ice cream
as an afternoon snack. Then, trying to squeeze in as much as possible, we rushed to the edge of the Jewish Quarter for ten to fifteen minutes before taking the metro.
It was now time to cross the city to the Pont d'Alma to catch a "Bateau Mouche" or a tourist boat. Departure at 19:00, we tried to admire all the buildings on the Seine behind the dozens of tourists who must have had ants in their pants because they refused to sit (they stood and took picture after picture of random scenery, including the undersides of bridges). However, we did get to admire the very interesting attire of a lady sitting in front of us; she had "sweatpant overalls with a built in hoody" (Sam).
After turning the boat 30 meters before the mini Statue of Liberty, because for some reason we were not allowed to float past it, we went back to dock. Then we used Sam's life-saving blackberry to find my uncle, Bertrand, and family's apartment near l'Étoile. I left my companions for the evening to eat with my family whom I hadn't seen in around ten years. We had a fabulous appetizer then steak and potatoes for dinner, which were once again delicious. Desert was a small strawberry tart which melted in the mouth. After two hours of socializing, I left to once again cross Paris and rejoin my fellows at Notre Dame where we decided to meet around 22:50.
Parker is supposed to take over from here to fill in when I was absent from the other Rings, but I just wanted to comment about a second desert (I swear we must all have hobbit relatives, especially Samwise) we had half an hour later. Strolling along in the Latin Quarter nightlife, we decided to stop for a desert in a quaint little bistro and share three deserts. We got a plate of cream filled pastries which I don't remember the name of, apple tart, and mousse au chocolate. All sense of humanity disappeared as we attacked and fought tooth and nail for the last scraps of the deserts. I think the waiter was surprised and confused when he came back from the kitchen with the mousse and saw two empty plates of the deserts he had brought a few moments before.
Thank you for reading my first blog! I hope you enjoyed it and have a great summer!
After coaxing everyone out of bed, and the morning showerers cleaned up (we have the system down, Parker and Christian take their showers in the morning and Henry and me in the evening, while Sam takes it whenever he wants to) we headed to our amazing breakfast which the proprietor makes for us every morning: AMAZING French croissants, yummy vanilla yogurts, toast with "freaking good butter" (Sam) and jam, hot chocolate, and orange juice. After breakfast, departure to the RER.
We went straight to Les Invalides, which I was very excited to see because I had never been there before. At Les Invalides, there is a huge military museum and Napoleon's tomb. It was Henry's last day to get free tickets, for it was the last day he was 17! Parker and Henry have been lucky, at most museums people under 18 get free tickets. I'm lucky because French citizens between the age of 18-26 are also usually free. Poor Sam and Christian have had to pay every time.
We went to Napoleon's tomb; very impressive! It's quite plain, but humongous and in a ridiculously huge and decorated domed room. Its also surprising how much gold leaf there is in Paris on many of the monuments.
After that we went to two exhibits in the military museum. First, the armour and arms exhibit was amazing! There were hundreds of swords, halberds, guns, spears, gloves, and full body armour. Then we went to the World War I and II exhibit because Parker and Christian thought it would be interesting to see the wars from the French point of view.
After spending most of the morning walking and admiring weapons our legs were getting tired and our stomachs empty so we stopped for lunch at a nearby "sandwicherie". So good! The bread is so so yummy! Perfectly crusty: the sound of it crackling almost rivals the majestic heavenly call of the French Horn. And the jambon blanc and emmantal cheese inside, mmmmm! Delicious.
After enjoying a relaxing lunch, we stolled slowly to the Musée d'Orsay on the Seine River. Profesor Henry once again took over (after some of us paid for and others didn't for our tickets) and provided unrivaled descriptions to the many painting and artists he had studied over the year. My favorite artist artist was Courbet, who was a realist artist. His paintings and landscapes were extremely intricate. After spending a few hours admiring and hundreds of paintings (especially a shocking one of a detailed fruit) and sculptures we left the museum to take the RER to the Hôtel de Ville (or City Hall) of Paris, which is also very large and impressive.
We then walked a few blocks to a HUGE building which looks completely out of place (though still impressive): the Centre Pompidou. Sadly, we were unable to visit the gigantic modern art museum because we had so much other stuff to do, but at least we got to see it. Right next door we bought an enjoyed Magnum and regular ice cream
as an afternoon snack. Then, trying to squeeze in as much as possible, we rushed to the edge of the Jewish Quarter for ten to fifteen minutes before taking the metro.
It was now time to cross the city to the Pont d'Alma to catch a "Bateau Mouche" or a tourist boat. Departure at 19:00, we tried to admire all the buildings on the Seine behind the dozens of tourists who must have had ants in their pants because they refused to sit (they stood and took picture after picture of random scenery, including the undersides of bridges). However, we did get to admire the very interesting attire of a lady sitting in front of us; she had "sweatpant overalls with a built in hoody" (Sam).
After turning the boat 30 meters before the mini Statue of Liberty, because for some reason we were not allowed to float past it, we went back to dock. Then we used Sam's life-saving blackberry to find my uncle, Bertrand, and family's apartment near l'Étoile. I left my companions for the evening to eat with my family whom I hadn't seen in around ten years. We had a fabulous appetizer then steak and potatoes for dinner, which were once again delicious. Desert was a small strawberry tart which melted in the mouth. After two hours of socializing, I left to once again cross Paris and rejoin my fellows at Notre Dame where we decided to meet around 22:50.
Parker is supposed to take over from here to fill in when I was absent from the other Rings, but I just wanted to comment about a second desert (I swear we must all have hobbit relatives, especially Samwise) we had half an hour later. Strolling along in the Latin Quarter nightlife, we decided to stop for a desert in a quaint little bistro and share three deserts. We got a plate of cream filled pastries which I don't remember the name of, apple tart, and mousse au chocolate. All sense of humanity disappeared as we attacked and fought tooth and nail for the last scraps of the deserts. I think the waiter was surprised and confused when he came back from the kitchen with the mousse and saw two empty plates of the deserts he had brought a few moments before.
Thank you for reading my first blog! I hope you enjoyed it and have a great summer!
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