Czech us out in Prague, Vienna, and Buda

Ok, time to catch up.  I am sure everyone is dying to know how my trips to Prague, Vienna, and Budapest went, as well as my recent trip to Paris and Versailles.  I have been so busy between classes, volunteering, and traveling, I feel like I haven’t had a minute to sit down and write what has been going on.

First off, I’ll fill everyone in on my wonderful Spanish family.  While I was gone on my 10 day adventure to Prague/Vienna/Buda, my senora broke her hip.  She was at her daughter’s house and she slipped and fell, and even though she is only 63 she suffered some serious damage.  When I came home from my trip, I was greeted by her son and his wife and they told me she was in the hospital awaiting surgery.  I went to visit her as soon as I could, and I’m happy to report her surgery went well and she is currently living at home again with me.  Not gonna lie though, the Spanish hospital was a dump.  Even her kids said it is the most “feo” (ugly) hospital they have ever seen.  Literally we could walk in wherever we wanted, no security or anything, and doctors were wheeling patients past us basically mid-surgery.  She had 7 of us as visitors and 4 other patients in the same compact room. 

At least she’s home now, but she won’t be able to walk for at least 2 months, which is basically all the time that I have left in Spain now- time has flown by!  Her kids are taking turns living with her, so I’ve had a lot of company over the past 2 weeks.  I also just found out that over the next 2 months, she’s going to have 2 French students stay with us for a couple of days on at least 7 different occasions.  I am actually excited about this, because no one will be invading my personal space too much but it will be fun to switch things up a bit and make some international friends.

I think that’s it though as far as my home life…

Now time to talk about my 10 day backpacking adventure!  I traveled with 7 girls, including 2 of my sorority sisters Alexandra and Emily.  Our first stop was Prague, Czech Republic from 2/11-2/14.  One of the first days we went on a New Europe free walking tour, and we were so excited to see the city- however we were unprepared for the cold front from Russia that made our visit the coldest weekend in Prague since 1929.  I’m not sure the exact temperature, because I don’t understand this whole converting Celsius to Fahrenheit business- but it was freezing.  I am surprised my toes didn’t get frostbite through my horrible cheap Target boots that barely protected them from the snow and ice.  Despite the weather, we braved the cold and actually learned some pretty interesting facts about Prague.  For example- Prague has one of the most beautiful and well preserved Jewish districts in all of Europe, because Hitler didn’t destroy any of it in WWII.  His reasoning for this was because he one day wished to make Prague his permanent residence and he wanted to keep all of the Jewish quarters intact as a living museum of the “extinct” race of people he destroyed.  Some other interesting facts included that Hugo Boss was the man who made the Nazi uniforms, some information about kings and queens and the infamous astronomical clock tower, and some really interesting history about Wenceslas Square and revolutions against communism. 

We saw beautiful views from the Charles Bridge, and the hipster graffiti on the John Lennon wall. Every other store in Prague either sold Garnet jewelry or crystal- I really wanted to get a Garnet ring or bracelet because it is my birth stone, but everything was ridiculously overpriced or of poor quality.  But they are famous for these Bohemian mines where they harvest garnet, and Bohemian crystal is apparently famous as well. 

The first day, we went out to a traditional Czech restaurant recommended to us by our hostel.  Oh by the way our hostel was the best, Charles Bridge Economic Hostel- the people who worked at the desk were the sweetest and when we first arrived gave us hot spiced wine and always were friendly and helpful, even if they were a bit hipster with dreadlocks and piercings everywhere.  But back to the restaurant- I decided to order goose leg so I could say I tried real Czech food.  It was served with some type of cabbage and some weird potato bread thing.  And it was actually okay.  I don’t think I will ever eat that again, it was very fatty, but I’ll probably never be in Czech again so what the hell.

On the last day of our trip, we visited the Prague Castle as well, which is the largest Medieval Castle in Europe (pretty sure that’s the statistic...).  The castle was less of a castle and more like a small town.  It had a beautiful cathedral in the center, and it was surrounded by small homes, shops, army towers, and art galleries exhibiting famous art of that time.

Throughout the trip, we went out almost every night.  Our first night in Prague we went out to Karlazy Lazne which is the biggest nightclub in Eastern Europe, with 5 different levels.  Each level had a different theme, such as one only played oldies music, one was “hip hop”, and one I’m not sure what it was but all the shady Eastern European couples were making out in it.  Another night we went out to Café Pub Atmosphere, where we tried potato “rum” shots and some very sweet dark beer along with hand shaved potato fries.  After that we went to a pub called U Sudu, which was underground and had several different hidden rooms- some with foozball tables and one with a piano man and another that looked like it was in a cave.  Here I had the best drink- rum with brown sugar and lime. 

Overall Prague was very cool, and we had a blast exploring the city in spite of the below zero temperatures.  It just gave us more of an excuse to drink that hot wine anyways.  And although we would have loved to stay longer, our corny “Czech this out…” jokes were starting to get a little old, and it was time to move onto our next city. 

So after our 3 days in Prague, we hopped on a bus to go to Vienna, Austria.  Vienna has the best quality of living in the world (check it out- I don’t think the US is super high on the list), and you could definitely tell by the way the city operated and what the people were like.  The city had the best public transport out of any that I have yet seen, and it was just a classy place to be.  Our first day we went to St. Stephen’s Plaza, and climbed 343 stairs up to the top tower of the cathedral to get the best view of the city.  You can all safely assume that I was the straggler on the stairs, struggling to breathe as I reached the top, but it was worth seeing the city from the very center.  The first night we went out with a group of our guy friends who are studying abroad in Vienna for the semester.  We went to U-4, which is kind of a rocker pub but was very fun to dance in- especially when our favorite Spanish song would come on the speakers and we were the only people in the pub who knew all the words.

The next day we decided to walk around the city, where we explored the Hapsburg palace grounds, a plaza with beautiful outdoor ice-skating, the famous Vienna Opera House, and the pastry shop Demmel.  During our stay, one of the most famous Opera Balls was going on, so although we were not able to go into the Opera House we saw them setting up a red carpet for the high society men and women that would be attending the ball that evening- my invitation was obviously lost in the mail.  Demmel was probably my favorite part of Vienna, because I had a chocolate cake that was the best I have ever tasted (sorry Portillo's, this one even beats yours…).  It had orange liquor, hazelnut, dark chocolate, milk chocolate cream, and was so beautiful- I am getting hungry just thinking about it right now! 

Another place we went in Vienna was the Belvidere museum, which is the most interesting museum I have seen yet, even better than the Louvre.  It was a little smaller, and used to be a palace so each room was architecturally stimulating even without the amazing artwork everywhere.  It had a mix of more modern works as well as medieval works, and it specifically highlighted the work of the famous Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, who is known for his painting “The Kiss”. 

In addition to all of this, we saw the area where Mozart once lived, Sigmund Freud’s house, 2 delicious Viennese restaurants, and some more clubs.  Overall this was our party city, because we have several friends who are studying abroad there and it was fun to go out with a group of girls and guys.   The best club by far was Praterdome, just because we were all together and just ready to dance the night away-all 7 of us American girls may have hopped onto the stage that night….oh well, “you only live once” became our new saying this trip!

The morning after Praterdome, we took a train to Budapest that had compartments resembling those in Harry Potter- which was fine by me because we definitely need some space to spread out and sleep after a long night at the discotecas.  When we arrived in Budapest, Alexandra, Emily and I met up with our friend Libby who is studying there for the semester.  Libby was the best hostess, she let us sleep in her dorm and helped us figure out the public transport in the city- don’t know what we would have done without her!

The first night we went to the outdoor baths, which were basically like hot tub swimming pools.  They are naturally heated through hot springs in the earth, and after a day of travel they were heavenly.  We went at dusk, and you could see the steam swirling in the cold winter air.  Although the run from pool to pool was freezing and we had to avoid piles of snow, the minute you stepped into the water we were instantly relaxed.  After the baths, everyone had a craving for some Mexican food, so we went to some random restaurant we found that had burritos and fajitas and everything else that was probably less Mexican and more American.  I should probably also mention here that we visited good old McDonald’s several times throughout our entire 10 trip, and I have come to call this fast food place one of my new best friends.  McDonald’s may be horrible, but no matter what country you go to, you can count on this place to always have 1 euro ice cream and free WiFi. 

Anyways, the next day in Budapest we went to the marketplace which had literally everything you can imagine from fresh meat to touristy postcards.  Here we ate langos, which were fried dough with anything on top- I chose chocolate, almonds and powdered sugar, so good!  I am definitely going to become “large and in charge” aka obese from all this travel food.  After this we went on a really insightful communist walking tour of the city.  Budapest was just recently liberated from communism about 20 years ago, and the effects of this government are still very clearly visible in not only the architecture of the city but also their style of living.  Our tour guide lived through communism as a child, and she had some very sad anecdotes about how hard life was then.  Now in a post-communism democracy, Hungary has many problems including unemployment and homelessness, because during communism everyone had a job and a home. 

So after the walking tour, we went over the Buda side of the city (Buda and Pest are separated by the Danube River) and we went to Castle Hill, which had beautiful views of the grand Parliament building in Pest as well as cute little restaurants and a beautiful church.

Overall though traveling was catching up to us.  Between the few hours of sleep we were getting each night and our diet of Micky D’s and alcohol, we were starting to fall apart.  Especially because living out of a backpack for 10 days was no easy task- I think I want to burn all of my clothes from this trip because they are so disgusting now.  So unfortunately, we didn’t make it out to any crazy bars or nightclubs in Budapest.  Libby, Alexandra, Emily, and I went out together for an hour or 2 to catch up and have a glass of wine, which was exactly all we needed for the last night of our trip. 

The next morning we got up at 5 AM and started our second 17 hour trek back home.  It takes so long simply because we need to take a 5 hour bus from Madrid Airport into Granada almost every time we travel.  This trip we even had a transfer in Zurich, Switzerland, so I guess you can say I’ve been there as well!  I had a blast though and I am so fortunate that I was able to see these amazing cities.  I know I am probably leaving out a lot of random anecdotes from the trip, but all in all this was our experience.  If I had to pick a favorite city, I would say Vienna.  And my only regret of the trip is that we never made it out to Salzburg, Vienna, which is where the “Sound of Music” was filmed and is apparently very beautiful- but 4 cities would have been pushing it.  Other than that I seriously think we did everything perfectly- we saw everything we wanted to see, learned some really interesting history, and partied in some of the most beautiful cities in the world…life couldn’t be better.  And, believe it or not, we didn’t get lost once, and we were able to figure out every Metro system in every country- even though I don’t think I’ll ever get the hang of the Metra in Chicago.

But right now my hands are cramping up, and I think my host family thinks I am insane for sitting on my computer writing for so long.  So, I will write about Paris and Versailles another day.  This weekend I am traveling again (ahh why did I schedule all these trips in a row!?) and I am going to Dublin, Ireland.  A huge group of University of Illinois students are all going to Dublin together this weekend, so I cannot wait to pub crawl and see the Cliffs of Moher with all of my friends.  

1 month down, 3 more to go

I cannot believe I have been living in Spain for a month.  The time has just flown by, and I know that it is going to start going by even more quickly because of all the trips we have planned for the next upcoming weeks and weekends.  I am finally starting to feel comfortable here in Granada.  The first couple of weeks were a bit more difficult than I’ve been sharing in these posts.  The culture shock that they warned us about in orientation sort of hit me, and I was unprepared for it. 

For example, at school back home I am very involved in activities such as sexual assault prevention courses, my sorority alumnae relations position, sorority social events, keeping track of my internship, my job at the cookie jar and my job at home,a more strenuous schedule of classes, and then Ryan and I would try to find a little time to hang out.  My schedule is pretty booked with things to do.  Here, I am taking 12 credit hours (the minimum you can take to be considered a student!) and that was about it until this last week.  People here take life so slow and easy, and just veg by the couch all day and eat and take 3 hour siesta naps in the middle of the workday and close their stores whenever they feel like it- seriously what do these people do here?!?  I have a new respect for people in the US who work 12 hour workdays with barely a 30 minute lunch break, which reminds me I may have to go back and work at Express this summer, ugh.  So at first, I felt restless yet lethargic in Granada- I wanted to get something done everyday during our 3 hour siesta, or go shopping or go to a café- but everything is closed.  Or I wanted to hang out with my friends at night and watch a movie instead of going to bars, but unfortunately we cannot have guests over at any host families house.  I am starting to get adjusted to vegging out, reading a book, watching reruns of Friends in Spanish, and getting to know Mari Lou.  Sometimes, I am greatful that my internet connection is horrible at my house because I get the opportunity to get to know Mari Lou and practice my Spanish more, instead of sitting on facebook and skyping all night.

Last week, I started getting involved in a program where I teach English to Spaniards once a week for the whole semester.  My friend and I walked into the class armed with lists of basic vocabulary, including colors and body parts, to practice with our students.  As we started the class introductions, we realized that everyone already spoke English, much better than we know Spanish, and they wanted to practice intense grammar and pronounciation.  They started asking us what meaning is behind the irregular English verbs “bring brang brung” and “sing sang sung”.  I think my jaw dropped open- like when the hell do people use the word “sung”? --“I sung last night?  We sang last night?” Huh?  I don’t know.  Is that a real word?  Looks like I’m going to need to brush up on my own English grammar as well.

But I am glad I am getting involved (even if it might be a requirement for my conversation class, I still would have done it anyway).  Also, last night I attended a Spanish Amnesty International meeting with 2 of my friends.  It sounded like something really cool to get involved in, although unfortunately many of the activities are on weekends so we will be traveling a lot then.  But I am going to a woman’s rights event on Friday afternoon in one of the plazas in Granada.  It is an event to support women, and we are supposed to wear black clothing and a purple scarf, which is a color that represents a womens cause here (just like how pink is a color for breast cancer awareness back home). 

Mari Lou has been great, and is still teaching me how to cook a little.  Yesterday she showed me how to make a salad I like called “La Ensalada Rusia” (Russia).  It’s sort of like a potatoe salad with tuna and crab and egg and lot’s of mayonnaise- when I asked her why it’s called a Russian Salad she said she had no clue.  Also, she has been singing a lot around the house and teaching me some songs, because she is in a group for seniors that performs some type of song for the Carnival celebration.  The other day, she started to get all serious and asking if I liked living with her and when I said yes, she just grabbed my hands and said “Verdad?” (which means like “Really, truthfully?”) and of course I said yes.  I just thought it was so precious that she really does care, and she’s not one of the host families who are only in it for the money or barely pay attention to their student.

Next week I am leaving for Prague, Vienna and Budapest.  I don’t know why we scheduled this trip now, it is going to be like negative 100 degrees or something.  But a lot of people are going, and for us this is the best time because it is our longest break.  I will be layering up all my socks, shirts, and coats for this trip, but I cannot wait!  We have friends staying in both Vienna and Budapest as well so they can show us around the city.  Hopefully I come back with some good stories!

Churros con Chocolate

It was almost 7 AM in Madrid, and we were starving.  We hadn’t gone to sleep yet, and had just spent the night at a local discoteca with some of Marlee’s local friends.  As we were wandering around the city, we stumble upon the ONLY place open in Madrid, a café specializing in churros with chocolate.  This store is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and is famous in Madrid for this reason.  The place was packed with young people who had just gotten back from the discos, older people who probably had just woken up, and a mixture of tourists and locals.  We immediately devoured our churros, and were so slap happy we ended up stealing a few from the people next to us and running out of the restaurant (whoops), while people were yelling about the “Barrachas Americanas” (Drunk Americans).  Sorry not sorry, it was so worth it.

Although the chocolate churros only made up a small part of our Saturday night/Sunday morning, the entire weekend was a whirlwind.  I traveled with 5 other girls who I had never met before coming to Granada: Jessica, Jessie, Marlee, Taylor, and Emily.  Needless to say we got made fun of a lot for having 3 Jessica’s in a group, two of which were blondes.  We took a bus at 1:30 AM on Friday out of Granada, to arrive in Madrid around 7.  Of course this wasn’t the brightest idea, because nothing opens in Spain before 10 or 11, so we people watched in the train station for several hours before taking a taxi to our hostel, “Fabrizzio’s Guesthouse”.  This Guesthouse was not what we expected out of a hostel- we basically lived in someone’s apartment for the weekend, right in the center of the city.  Outside in the Plaza right below our hostel, there were people dressed up as Micky Mouse, Spongebob, the Smurfs, Puss in Boots, etc.  We later figured out that many of these people are street gypsies, who try to make a living having tourists take pictures with them- and if they catch you taking a picture of them without paying, they follow you around til you do (that’s why all of mine are far away and kinda sneaky, haha). 

When we walked in to the hostel, a Spaniard introduced himself and showed us to our room, and we asked “Oh so you’re Fabrizzio?”.  He surprised us by saying no, and pointing to a stuffed animal/puppet crocodile and saying “That’s Fabrizzio”.  As we explored the apartment, there were pictures EVERYWHERE of this crocodile all around the world.  It was very similar to that travelocity commercial where that traveling gnome is seen all over the world.  And of course, everyone who has ever stayed at the hostel takes pictures with the crocodile, or takes him out on a night on the town.  We later found out Ernesto and Esteban were the owners of the very small hostel, which probably could host aroun 20-25 people at a time.  They provided us with towels, hair products, breakfast every morning- we got very spoiled with our first hostel experience (I’m scared how bad the rest will seem in comparison!). 

Before going out Friday night, we visited El Museo del Prado, as well as the museum Reino Sofia.  Both were amazing and contained famous works by Velazquez, Picasso (Guernica), and Dali.  We met some girls from the walking tour earlier that day who were from Puerto Rico, and told them to meet up with us there- and for the rest of the weekend we continued to go out with them or get lunch or whatever.  After the museums, we saw a McDonalds and we just couldn’t resist- I don’t think a McChicken will ever taste better than it did after a long day in Madrid! 

Because we stayed at such a small hostel, we got to know the people who were staying there really well- we met people from Australia, England, Germany, Texas, and Ohio.  After a day tour of the city Friday, Ernesto and Esteban took us and the guys from Texas out to a local bar their cousin owned.  They had the BEST tapas and some really good drinks, and the ambiance was so great- we played drinking games all night and became besties with the guys from Texas, who were there for a food convention that was going on in Madrid (they were in grad school and one was a nutritionist or something like that).

The next day, Saturday, our plan was to travel to Toledo for a couple of hours and then come back for the night in Madrid.  However, we really didn’t research or think through how we were supposed to travel to Toledo.  A bunch of girls from the suburbs don’t really know how to work the Metro system, let alone read the signs in Spanish when we struggle to speak it already.  We slept in, and then got lost in the underground subways for a good 10 minutes until someone spoke to us in English saying “You have to get to the other side of the tunnel”, and we look at the clock and we had 1 minute for the train to arrive, which we needed to take to make another train at a different station.  We started sprinting towards the stairs, and we were running at full speed toward the train and we all jumped on, and literally after the last girl pushed her way on- the door closes on us.  Well, that part of the traveling was done, but we still had to make our next train at another unknown train station, and buy our tickets.  Once we arrived at the next station, we figured out where to buy our tickets and the woman behind the counter just says “Corriendo”.  We started sprinting again, this time with a larger crowd who were screaming in Spanish at us “Run Run! Chicas!”.  We didn’t care, we were so determined to make this damn train to Toledo.  The guards barely checked our tickets and bags and we hopped on the train with less than 30 seconds to spare before we are rushed off to Toledo.  I have never been so pumped with adrenaline and so excited that we actually figured out what to do in 2 Spanish train stations.  I think we learned our lesson though that we should probably google how to do something a little bit ahead of time. 

So we finally arrived in Toledo, breathless and exhausted from mutliple sprints, but nonetheless we were there!  The city was very small, but the architecture was extremely different than what we had seen already in Granada and Madrid.  It was like walking into Medieval Times.  Toledo is known for this type of Medieval architecture, as well as it’s swords (many of the swords from Lord of the Rings were created in Toledo).  It was a beautiful sunny day, and we spent it mainly exploring the city, walking around, viewing a lot of the architecture, and going into a torture museum that contained all of the gruesome ways they would torture people back in the day for public entertainment. 

By 8 that night we were back in Madrid, where we explored a street with bars and tapas, and then met up with some locals from Madrid and went to a discoteca called “Green”.  We were the only Americans there, and you could tell it was a place for the local Madrid students and young people to go on the weekends.  We had a blast dancing the whole night, and I thought it was really entertaining that when they did play American music, it was Madonna or like that song “I’m blue da bu di da bu di” (Sound familiar?  Not sure what it was called haha).  Most of the songs were Spanish, and the Spaniards dance so much more chill compared to us.  You could tell that we were Americans simply because if a techo song came on, we would fist pump in the air.  This same night was when we went to the churros place, so all in all it was very successful.

On Sunday, we explored the street markets in the morning, where hundreds of people come to sell either their own belongings (like a garage sale) or specialty items. We also went inside the Palacio de Madrid, and walked around some of the beautiful parks that Madrid has (similar to Millenium Park in Chicago).  Actually, in general Madrid reminded me a lot of Chicago.  A lot of it’s architecture, the clean streets, some of the shopping districts, and the beautiful parks all made me feel like I was spending a day in Chicago with the girls.  After a long weekend, we decided to go back to the hostel and say goodbye to all of our new friends- and take some corny pictures all together with “Fabrizzio”.

Now I am back safe and sound in Granada!  Not too much new going on here, although my senora Mari Lou is determined that I learn how to cook, so during lunches she pulls me aside and shows me a couple of things.  Also, I am getting really into the soap opera (that she is convinced is not a soap opera) that she watches.  Every night at 10 it comes on, and Mari Lou makes sure she gets me in the living room in time to watch it.  Right now, one woman is pregnant with her possible brother, because her mother never disclosed to her that it was her son, or something like that.  One girl is in prison and has a lover on the outside, and one couple just got married at a bar.  And some bad lady likes some guy who likes some girl.  I don’t know.  The music and the overexaggerated expressions help a lot with my understanding.

This weekend I am staying in Granada, but the next is our trip to Prague, Vienna, and Budapest, and I can’t wait!