Backtrack to Thursday. Surprise surprise, class was fine. My presentation was definitely the best of the day and I followed all the rules of the presentation so I should be okay. Literature class was cool - we went on a walking tour of the old part of Florence where Dante would have lived and it's literally right next to my apartment. Like we were standing in my piazza at one point talking about a church and a tower. It was awesome. So even though our location is out of the way, I can officially say I'm living in the oldest part of Florence. HAH.
After class, I had lunch, got packed, bought some snacks for the ride and prepared to board the bus for a 14 hr ride to Prague. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. We stopped for dinner at a rest stop (where I got Burger King and secretly loved it) and I eventually just passed out on the bus and probably got at least 7 hours of sleep.
We pulled into Prague around 9 Friday morning. We immediately stopped at the hotel, where we got to drop off our luggage, change and eat some breakfast before heading off for our walking tour. The walking tour was good. The guide wasn't all that great but I was more interested in seeing the city - so it worked out well. Prague is beautiful - definitely reminiscent of Paris. We even got to see the famous astronomical clock do it's little show. Honestly, it was a bit of letdown. No real fanfare about it. But the clock itself was really cool and it's still definitely something to see.
Breakfast - bacon and eggs. What is the world coming to??
Astronomical clock - top circle tells current time, Old Czech time and lots of other things that I'm too lazy to list. The bottom circle is a calendar with 365 different stops, so it shows the days of the year.
The show - every hour, the two windows open and a parade of 12 statues of apostles go by. Also, the figures on the outside of the clock dance a bit, with the skeleton ringing a bell, etc.
Old Cathedral - the bigger tower is called Adam and the thinner tower is called Eve
Random street - it really does look like Paris
Old Jewish cemetery - Jews weren't allowed to buried anywhere else except here. The top is about 20 feet above street level. They think about 150,000 people are buried in there, in various layers and there's more than 1000 headstones.
Part of the main square
Me!
Weirdly enough, Prague has a TGI Fridays. Who would have guessed?
Me with a view of the river and castle in the background
View of Prague Castle and surrounding buildings
After our walking tour, we had a bit of break for lunch and then we met up again to go to the John Lennon tribute wall and Prague Castle. For lunch, Liz and I found a small restaurant where I had goulash (essentially just beef stew) and a coke from a glass bottle. High cotton stuff here. Also delicious. Soup was really nice after it was sooooooooo cold. We also got to take some photos as we traversed back and forth across the Charles Bridge.
Coke in a glass bottle
Goulash in a bread bowl - yum
Me
View from Charles Bridge - now really, who transported me to Paris?
After lunch, we met up and headed off on another adventure. First, we came upon the John Lennon tribute wall. From what I know, it all started after he was killed with someone writing, "You have our Lenin, leave us our Lennon" or something like that. And over the years, people have just kept adding on until it's become this huge thing full of tons of graffiti. It's actually really cool and kind of beautiful. Interesting how people can affect their surroundings so much.
More lover's locks - they're everywhere
Part of the wall
I signed the wall!! It says, "SSA 03-01-2013 We will never forget."
Me with the wall
Two things I particularly liked - "Dreamer" and "The sun will always shine for you"
Classic
After the wall, we started making our way up to Prague Castle (passing one of five Starbucks along the way. Yes, they have Starbucks in Prague). After finally making it all the way up there, I realized it was worth it. The views of the city were incredible. We were then set free to do what we wanted and me and Liz ended up climbing the South Tower of the Cathedral for the best views of the city. 287 steps to the top and don't you dare think I didn't complain the whole way up. Coming down was actually worse though - too windy and it makes my knees hurt. The views at the top were incredible though. Prague really does look like Paris - it's uncanny. It would definitely be beautiful in the springtime too, so I suppose it's still on the "Places to Travel to" list. We didn't really get a chance to explore the Castle much - we were pretty much dead on our feet so I suppose it's something for another day. After the castle, we headed back to our hotel to take a 2 hour nap before dinner, which was heavenly.
Starbucks
Two front towers of Cathedral
Tower
View - I swear the river winding looks like the Seine
For real though
I made it!!
After our nap, we met up with the group to go to dinner. We went to this almost beer garden-esque place with a name I don't remember. I got a Pilsner (it was made in Prague, you know) and schnitzel with potato salad. I don't know why I had forgotten that potato salad was a Bavarian and Eastern European thing but I assure you, I will never forget again. I was over the moon about the potato salad. And the schnitzel. They were both incredible. Man, now I want it again. Stupid Italians and their non-appreciation for potatoes. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and crashed. I did manage to update the fam and take a shower before I went to bed, so I was pretty pleased with myself. I was exhausted - and we still had two more days.
Pilsner
Schnitzel and potato salad
Finished it!
The next morning, I went down to breakfast around 8:45 to leave the hotel by 9. It was a 4 hour bus ride to Dachau, where we going first before going into Munich for the night. We stopped for lunch along the way - I had beef stew and some salad things - pretty good for a rest stop.
Then we got to Dachau. I only took two photos - one of the sign out front and one of the gate into the camp that says, "Arbeit macht frei," a common Nazi propaganda phrase meaning "Work makes you free." I didn't feel right taking photos of the rest of the camp; plus, there really is nothing there other than a couple of buildings and lots of empty space. It's one thing to read about these places and think about them and it's another thing entirely to walk the path the prisoners walked, see what they saw and imagine what it might have been like. Humans can do terrible things to one another and what happened at Dachau and all during the Holocaust was unforgivable. But I think the important thing is not to dwell on it. Of course, we should remember and teach our future children about what happened but I don't think the point is to spend all your time gnashing and wailing over what happened. I think the point is to tell the story - to remind people what happened and to never let something like this happen again. I don't think we as a human race will ever really get over the Holocaust, I think the scar is a permanent one. But just like all scars, it's a reminder of what happened and a reminder to be smarter in the future. So yes, it was definitely worth the visit and I really wish we could have spent more time there.
Sign
Gate
We finally got into Munich around 6. We checked into our hotel and then met around 6:30 to go to Starkbierfest (Strong Beer Fest for those of us who don't speak German) at the Lowenbrau. Basically, this was kick-ass. It was a huge hall filled with tons of tables and a band up front. We drank beer out of Steins (glasses that hold one liter - it took me two hands to hold it up to my mouth and our waiter carried 10 at once. What do they feed these German kids??) and had delicious food. I had "baked" chicken medallions (essentially just chicken fish sticks) with delicious salad, potato salad and herb mayonnaise (kind of like tartar sauce). Oooh an a soft pretzel - I had forgotten how good they were. We stood up on chairs and danced along to music, we watched the Strongman contest and the Most Beautiful Frau contest (a girl from Mexico won - boo). Essentially, we just sat around, danced on chairs, drank and had an awesome time. Then we quickly went back to the hotel and passed out around 1 because we had another early day the next day. We had to be in the lobby ready to go at 9:30, so we left the room around 9 for breakfast.
Lowenbrau
Beer garden
Beer
Me!
Pretzel
Foooooooooood
The next morning, we were supposed to go on a bike tour of Munich. Unfortunately, it was so cold that the roads froze over so we did a walking tour instead. Our tour guide was hilarious - his name was Frankie. He's from Hawaii but he's been doing tours about 14 years now and he was so funny. And I learned stuff too so ha ha di ha ha to all those teachers who frowned upon laughing in class. So we took our walking tour, saw some cool stuff (pics below) and then we had lunch at the most famous beer garden in the world, the Hofbrauhaus. I had some beer and got some sausages and potato salad. Potato salad was awesome, sausages just kind of tasted like a hot dog. But not bad. Ooh and I got another pretzel and me and Liz split the apple strudel - yum. That was delicious. But overall, I think I prefer the Lowenbrau.
Town Hall
Church
Part of Dodger's Lane - during the Nazi Regime, there was a swastika set up on the end of a monument which people frequently passed by and it was law that you had to give a heil Hitler. However, there weren't a lot of Nazi supports in Munich so they would cut through on this alleyway and follow this golden path.
Me rubbing one of the four lion statues in front of the old palace - legend has it that if you rub three (not four) you'll have good luck, so I guess we'll see.
Park in the middle of Munich - the biggest metropolitan park in the world
Surfers! I guess Germans can't really surf so they set up this wave thing on the river that runs through the park and they surf there
Hofbrauhaus - the most famous beer garden in the world
Beer
I signed the table too
Food - beer, pretzel, sausage and potato salad
Apple strudel
After lunch, we got back on the bus and began the long journey of getting back to Florence. 9 hours to be precise. We got stuck in some traffic, stopped for dinner at a rest stop (had an icky wrap thing but bought M&Ms so it evened out) and got back in around midnight. Finally got to bed around 1:30 after showering, unpacking etc.
Today was pretty normal. Holocaust class was fine - we finished Life is Beautiful (it was sad). Italian was fine, nothing new.
In cooking class, we had probably my favorite meal so far, except for the dessert. I think it was supposed to be a custard thing but it failed. We had tagliatelle al ragu (both the sauce and the pasta were freshly made - it really does make all the difference), sauteed beef fillet with balsamic vinegar and sweet and sour onions (sauteed onions with sugar and balsamic vinegar). They were all really good. Definitely going to be making the onions.
Meat and onions
Pasta
Dessert
Also, got all the stuff with the bank worked out - I hope. I think this ordeal might just be over. Also did more planning for spring break - all the flights are officially booked. Also, booked a trip to Sicily in April - kind of spur-of-the-moment but should be a lot of fun. And yeah, that's about it for today. I think this post is long enough.
Ciao!!
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