Naples = Evil Children

Location: Naples, Italy

I'll get to the evil children part... let's just start out positively :)

Yesterday started rather late, and after waking up, chatting with the boys and having some toast, I headed to Pompeii at about 2. My guidebook told me that the park closed at 6:30, so I knew I had a little time to spare. I grabbed some gelato and casually walked to the museum, getting there about 5 minutes after 5. I walked up to the ticket booth and the woman tells me that last admittance is a 5. She says I can't go in, sorry, you'll have to come back... No freaking way. So I get back on the train (it was about 2 hours ride back to Rome) and decided to stop in Naples on the way back (I couldn't completely ruin the day). The train rode along the coast and I got to watch the sun set across the Med. My first impression of Naples was great. There were lots of hills, the water, beautiful sunset, it was great. So I decide to get off at the central station and walk down this famous street past the duomo to this restaurant that has famous pizza (Naples is where pizza was invented after all).

I get off the train, walk about a km and then all of the sudden, out of no where, a pack of about 15 ten year old kids jump out at me and completely soak me with shaving cream, eggs and silly string. Then they throw confetti and flour all over me, screaming the entire time and then run away. I am literally covered, head to tow in nasty gross mess and I am just standing there in complete shock. THEN... they come back again!! I have absolutely no defense, I have no idea what to do and so I start running away and get away from them. At this point , I have had enough Naples. I almost get hit by about 10 cars on the way back to the train station, I smell like nasty eggs and my hair is soaked with shaving cream. I keep picking confetti out from behind my ears and hair and I am thoroughly grossed out. In the confusion, I get kind of lost and end up walking down some dodgy street that was so nasty and covered in trash. It was very gross. I find a pizza stand, pick up a piece (ham, corn, cheese and tomatoes) and then walk back to the train station, only to find out that I am late for the train and the next one doesn't leave for an hour.

Finally I get back to Rome at about 9:30. I get to the hostel and everyone has already left to go out. I get in the shower, and as I'm drying off, I see a brochure lying on the counter that says "Marti Gras pub crawl". I'm thinking, no way... That's where they are!! And it said that the crawl was leaving from the bottom of the Spanish steps at 10. It was like 5 til and so I start running. I ran all the way to the steps, and when I get there, there is no one there. There's a guy who tells me that the pub crawl has just left and that if I walk about a km down this street, I'll probably be able to see them. He says if not, just ask anyone where the pub crawl is going and they should be able to point me to the bar. Of course, when I get there, I ask around and no one has any idea what I am talking about. I keep asking people, bar owners, police officers, no one has any idea. So I walk around for about an hour, surrender to my lonely fate and decide to come back and get some sleep. Of course, when I walk back to the metro station, it's closed, so I find these two British girls who were also trying to get home and we catch a bus to the train station.

When I walk inside... guess who I find!! The Estonian girls. Apparently, they had not gone on the pub crawl, they had just walked to the Trevi fountain again at night and then the boys had continued on to the Parthenon and Spanish steps and the girls came back home. The boys got back about 30 minutes later and so I guess it was good that I didn't find the crawl because I would have been disappointed when none of them were on it. So, we all laugh about how messed up my day was, stay up in the dark talking from our bunks for an hour or so (just like Dwight) and then go to bed.

Everyone else left this morning. The boys all caught the train to Florence together and the girls flew back to Estonia. Adam went to Paris yesterday afternoon, so now its just me :) That's ok though because I have a big day planned. I'm not sure how long I'm going to have to wait for mass either, but they don't give out tickets on holidays, its just a first come first serve free-for-all. We'll see how that goes!!

XOXO

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La Via a Roma

Location: Rome, Italy

This one is quite a doozey, apologize for the lag... Since I got to Rome, things have been a little hectic.

Me and my new friend Adam went to the Vatican and to St. Peter's Basilica first thing Monday afternoon. The Vatican is unreal. I just saw St. Peter's square and it was already huge. Walking inside the church was completely unreal. The thing is absolutely gigantic and completely over the top. I mean, I guess I expected nothing less from the Catholic mothership, but it was a very amazing place to see. There were these Swiss guards who wore these ridiculous striped jester looking outfits that are the army of the Vatican. They stand everywhere to guard entrances and doorways. Apparently, they are actual soldiers that have gone through an extensive training program. There are all kinds of requirements. The boys have to be between 18 and 30, actual Swiss born Catholics and must go through a series of physical tests and training before being allowed to serve. There are only about 100.

Inside St. Peter's there is so much to see. There are quite a few tombs or memorials to various Popes and cardinals in the main area. The ceilings are all gold and there are tons of paintings by various famous artists including Bramante, Raphael and Michelangelo. We looked at Michelangelo's Pieta which is a really famous sculpture of Mary holding Jesus after his crucifixion. It's a great statue.

In the middle of the cross is the tomb to St. Peter. It is a huge throne made of wood, bronze and ivory that sits a couple feet above the ground and then a staircase leads down to the crypt from here. Down in the crypt, there are so many tombs (probably 100). Most of them are of past popes. Some of them are elaborate, some not so much. We walked past John Paul II's tomb which was very simple but still covered in flowers and rosaries and other little tokens people toss in when walking by. I mean, his body is literally an arms length from the main walk way. It's incredible. Then at the end of the hall is the actual tomb of St. Peter. It is completely locked down, bullet proof glass (not sure why it needs to be bullet proof, I mean... he is already dead), and apparently, his actual remains are in a box designed by NASA that is un-breakable. For those not in the know, St. Peter was Peter Jesus' apostle and was the first Pope of the Catholic church starting (I believe) around 30 AD. He was crucified upside down (he did not want to die the same way Christ did) by the Romans after bringing about quite a bit of controversy (considering the Romans still believed in their set of Gods). I think this happened around 60 something (so he would have been quite old...). Anyways, it's a huge deal that this is literally his tomb. I mean, this guy was one of Jesus' BFF's and there he is, just you know... Lying there... Right there... So close. Craziness.

After this we walked down the Borgo to the Tiber River to look at the Castel Sant' Angelo (an old castel by the river that used to be kind of an apartment for the swiss guards) and the Ponte Sant' Angelo (which is the bridge that goes across the Tiber near the Castel. There wasn't much to see so from here I headed up to try and get up to these gardens by the Vatican. I couldn't find an entrance, so I walked in this parking garage and thought maybe it would come out higher, which it did, but just inside a Vatican office building... not in a garden. I knew I probably wasn't supposed to be where I was, so I walked outside and down past the Basilica from the backside before heading back down the Borgo, across the River and back towards home.

On the way home, I decided to head to the Trevi fountain (because I was told to go see it after dark for the best view). I sort of got lost part of the way there and ended up at the Pantheon (oh, darn). The building is amazing. And there is yet another obelisk in the front. There are obelisks EVERYWHERE. Practically ever church or piazza, I feel like, has one in the yard. (Check out http://www.romeartlover.it/Obelisks.html - it's a good site about all of the obelisks). Anyways, so the Pantheon is very cool. It is also, supposedly, some sort of anomaly because the dome is not supposed to be standing. It is the largest unenforced concrete dome ever built. It is a perfect hemisphere and almost 45 meters high. There is a hole in the top that allows the building to contract a little and it lets rainwater in that then drains in little holes in the center of the floor. They say that if the dome were reconstructed today with modern concrete, the whole thing would collapse under it's own weight. They think that the materials they used to create it were changed at different heights to make the concrete lighter as it got to the top. It's crazy. Here is also where Raphael is buried as well as some other notable priests, cardinals and important Roman figures.

After this, I actually found the Trevi fountain which is beautiful. It's this huge fountain on the side of a building depicting Neptune and some horses. You can hear the thing roaring from quite a distance and it was a site to see. There were SOOO many people there. At one point, this guy starts speaking to me in Italian and, (drum roll please) I actually had a conversation with him... in Italian!! I was very proud. It was mostly him talking, but I did reply and actually understood what he was saying. He basically just asked me if it was my first time to Rome and if I was studying or vacationing and how long I was staying and if I liked the fountain and then he started making suggestions of places I should go (he was so cute... probably around 70 and sooo nice - he even said that I did a good job trying to speak Italian :). I talked to him for probably 5 minutes before going down, throwing my coins in (you're supposed to throw 3 coins over your shoulder, 1st says you will return to Rome soon, 2nd says you will meet a nice Italian boy, 3rd says you will fall in love with and marry said Italian boy... Ehh... Why not?) and heading on back towards the hostel.

Once back at the hostel, I had some dinner (free pasta pomodoro), made some new friends and we decided to go out. We got the name of a bar from the woman at the front desk and she said there were sure to be quite a few people there. We got on a bus to head that way and a couple minutes on the bus it started torrential down pouring. We all jump off at our stop and run to a alcove shop thing with a canopy and stand there thinking maybe it will stop. After it doesn't for a couple of minutes, we buy some cheap umbrellas from a street seller and run down the street to the canopy of a closed tobacco shop. We stood there for a while, the rain is literally slamming down on the canopy. Then it starts thundering, lighting like crazy and then hail. So we see a Guinness sign on the side of a building about 100 yards away and we decide to just book it (our umbrellas had already broken from the wind). We got inside soaked and then just didn't leave this place. The bartenders were nice, there was no one else there, but we had a pretty substantial group (2 Estonian girls, 4 Aussie boys, 2 Argentinian boys and Adam my LA friend) so we made our own party.

After a decent night out (and I'm not sure how we all got separated) but me and one of the Aussies decided to walk back to the Trevi at about 4 AM. It was so gorgeous, and now, there was no one else there. It was so peaceful, just the sound of the water and nothing else. We made the long walk back home and met back up with everyone else who trickled in at various times in small groups and sat up for a little while talking before heading to bed.

XOXO

Roman holiday

Location: Rome, Italy

What a long day.

I started out by heading to the laundromat to do a load of laundry. I put the clothes in the washer, went to the train station to figure out which train I was going to take to Rome (there was a free 5:09 PM train that looked perfect), and then went back to put the clothes in the dryer. From here I walked the 20 minute walk down to the jewelry store where I had googled that said they had the Florentine Puzzle Rings. I get there, and of course, they are closed. Great idea to go shopping on a Sunday, Abs.

I walk back towards the laundromat and am stopped by a huge group of people. Low and behold, I had walked right into the path of the Carnival parade!! It was really fun (but I didn't have my camera, so I took some on my phone, but it may take me a while to upload those). It started with a really cool old band that was dressed as jesters and then there was a section for each culture represented in Florence. There was a Chinese dragon, some polish clogger people, some gypsies, an african drum band, a mariachi band, and some other stuff. Then at the very end there was this huge bus with people dancing and playing drums and all the kids were silly stringing each other and throwing confetti everywhere and they were all dressed up. It was so much fun!

After the parade, I got my clothes, checked out of the hostel (bye Leonardo and Ricardo!!) and walked to the train station. I got on my train and after about 40 minutes, it still hadn't left. I found some other Americans and we determined that the train was broken, delayed for at least another hour, so we decided to go run and try and catch the other train leaving just before 6. We literally ran up to it as it was pulling away. The conductor waved at us and everything. It was like a scene from a movie. So we went back in the station, found a train that left at 7 and got some pizza and waited. The train took forever to get here, we didn't get in until about 11.

From there, I checked into my hostel and then met back up with some people to go watch the Superbowl. We went to this really neat bar called Abbey Theater and it was standing room only. So, we stood, for the next 5 hours (at this point, I think it's fair to mention that my feet are still soaking wet from the rain in Florence, and they are REALLY starting to hurt). The game was great, although I really didn't have a preference as to who won. I picked the Giants b/c of RW McQuarters (good enough reason in my books) even though the Giants beat the packers and so I kind of hate them. Eli is pretty cute too. Anyways, it was fun, even though we were watching it on Sky so there were no commercials and no half time show :( I heard Tom Petty was great, but we did not get to see him.

Got home after the game close to 7, went straight to sleep (after letting my feet unwrinkle and thaw - they're still dead this morning - Had to ditch the cute boots and pull on the Meryl's for the first time on the trip) and now I'm not sure what I'm doing. I met a guy from LA this morning who wants to go to the Vatican so I think I'll head there. I need to try and get a ticket for Ash Wednesday Mass on Wednesday so I need to see if that's going to be a possibility.

Anyways. I think I am going to like Rome :)

XOXO

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Why would you ever want to go on a diet...

Location: Florence, Italy

Yesterday was an extremely productive day.

I woke up with a fever. I felt soo sick for about an hour and then I got some drugs and perked right up. Problem number 1: It was raining. This is the first day (saying this, I realize how lucky I have been) that I have had to use my umbrella since I've been here. It's really yucky and my feet are very sloshy from all the standing water.

So, what better to cheer myself up than to go shopping :)

I decided to seek out a new outfit. I was also looking for this Florentine Puzzle Ring and a new book in English. I found my shoes first. They're black mid-calf boots with tassel ties and some pretty decent sized heels. Next I bought a pair of dark skinny jeans and a gray low back top. Finally, to complete my new outfit, I bought a black puffy jacket with a fur collar (the Italians are OBSESSED with their fur lines puffy jackets) and a gray wool hat. I couldn't find a bookstore with English books or my ring so I am off to try and do that today.

After shopping, I went to get some glue to fix my Carnival mask and some other necessities. I did some more transferring of pictures to a DVD (and flirted with my now pretty steady friend that works at the music store and chats with me while I'm sitting there for an hour waiting for the pictures to transfer). From there, I walked down to the gallery Ufizzi which is a rather large museum near the river by Piazza della Signoria.

The story of the museum is that it was an old office building (Uffizi in Italian means Office) that was built in the late 1500's. It was owned by the Medici's and they used it to display a lot of their artwork that they had collected over the years (as a sign of power and wealth to those who visited the government buildings). After the last Medici (Anna Maria) died, the collection was turned over to the City and from there, it was turned into a museum because of the importance of so many of the works inside of it. I got pretty lucky, as I only had to wait about 20 minutes to get inside, but often in the summer, the wait can be up to 5 hours.

The paintings inside were great. I didn't get an audio guide so I was at the mercy of the small plaques at each painting but I did gain a lot from it. Including a new favorite artist (or artists)! Their names are Filippo Lippi and Filippino Lippi (father/son - that's why I can't remember who did what). The dad was Boticelli's master and their work is wonderful. They depict emotion better than I have ever seen in a painting. Their characters all have their own personalities and they do amazing things with their eyes. They all look at each other and usually only one of them looks out of the painting to the viewer. It's really interesting to follow their gazes from one ot another and to study their emotion. A lot of this also shows up in Boticelli's work, especially in "Spring." Boticelli's "Birth of Venus" was also beautiful. My other favorites were the special collection of Napoleonic large scale French murals that were on the 1st floor. There were these two with harbor scenes (supposed to be of Livorno I think) and they were so huge and so gorgeous.

So after the Uffizi, I came back and was chatting with Leonardo (one of the brothers who owns the hostel) and we decided that I needed to go get a real authentic Florentine meal before I left. He made me a reservation for this place called 13 Gobbi down by the river and I took a shower, put on my new outfit and headed out. He warned me that people don't really eat alone in Florence, so there may be a decent amount of staring, but after a pep talk from Karen in Prague, I realized that I can't pass up this opportunity for amazing food.

So I get to the restaurant and tell them that I am the reservation for 1 to which the host replies "Oh perfect, well it's your lucky day, I am getting off work now and I'll sit with you!! Date with me?" Ha, well he was kidding, but he did come talk to me quite often while I was eating so it was nice. Now, you get the details of my amazing 3.5 hour meal.

I started out with some white house wine. It was very good, probably a chardonnay, pretty woodsy, but nice. I had some crunchy bread with oil and vinegar and then came my salad. I had a Pecorino and pear salad with a balsamic reduction. It was served on a bed of lettuce and cabbage and was absolutely fantastic. The Pecorino was SOOO fresh and the pears were a little under-ripe and a little crunchy as well. It was perfect. They had sat me at this perfect little table by a garden and it had a great view of the kitchen so I got to watch them cooking everything. They had literal, whole pigs hanging from the ceiling as well as peppers and heads of garlic. On my other side was a huge crate of wine in the garden. The table next to me was a circle table of about 8 men who were all dressed in suits and they talked like straight up godfather. They were so funny, using their hands and kissing every person who walked in the door.

My first course was Spaghetti with grape tomatoes and tuna eggs in some sort of Parmesan sauce. The sauce was an Alfredo, but it wasn't as thick or overpowering as American Alfredo... it was almost buttery, but not too creamy and it just barely coated the noodles. Basically, you didn't just taste sauce when you ate them. It literally was the best pasta I have ever had in my entire life. In the mean time, I see them pull my cow off the meat rack. It was a whole cow back which they then cut the bones off and then filleted. The cut my veggies off of the vines they are growing on in the garden. Everything was so fresh.

At this point, they gave me 15 minutes to settle. We switched to red wine as well. The red was delicious. It was a little sweet and not too dry. My friend Donaldo brought me a huge knife at this point and said "This is to kill your boyfriend." I laughed and thought, do you really think I would be here alone if I had a boyfriend? So my steak comes out next. It was just a normal filet cooked perfectly and seasoned just enough with some oregano and pepper. The best part of this dish were the potatoes. They were grilled garlic potatoes which tasted like old fashioned McDonald's french fries but they had absolutely no breading or fried anything. They were just so buttery and delicious.

For desert I had a Crem Caramel which was very good (not as good as the rest of the meal). I think maybe I just don't like Crem Caramel that much so maybe that's why I didn't particularly care for it. The restaurant was very busy but they never rushed me out. I could see parties of two waiting at the door (even at 10:30) but they never once asked me to leave or anything. I had a cafe to end the night with a little milk in it and it was amazing. It was so rich without being too strong or overpowering. Excellent!!

When I was leaving, Donaldo asked me to go have drinks with him (and I actually wanted to because he was quite cute) but he said he probably wouldn't get off work for another hour and I didn't want to just hang around and wait for him. So I headed back up to the Fish pub (my now regular hang out spot) and started talking to the first people I saw inside. They were two guys from Ohio studying in Rome who were on vacation in Florence for the weekend. We ended up sitting and drinking there for a while before heading to a VERY American disco down by the Duomo. It was fun, but nothing special, so I headed back home around 2:30.

This morning I got up (feeling much better than yesterday, thank goodness) and decided to go to mass at the Duomo. I did not understand one word of the entire service, but it was a total experience. It is amazing to me that I don't speak that language at all but I still can follow mass. I basically said the mass in English in my head and prayed out loud in English when I was supposed to. They had a pamphlet with the readings and the gospel in English so that helped me follow along as well. I didn't need to understand the priest for the homily because I was just so entertained watching him. I have no idea what he was talking about but I could tell I liked this guy. He talked so much with his hands and was so over-dramatic. It was great!! At one point he did say something in English, but I think he may have been making fun of some people not paying attention. Taking communion was much needed and it was great to just sit there and stare at the huge dome and the amazing fresco on the ceiling. The echo inside the building was also unreal and I felt like I was in a movie it was so huge.

Today I head to Rome. My friends from last night have a nice sports bar that they're going to be watching the Superbowl in so I will probably hook up with them. It doesn't start until 12:30 AM so it's going to be a late night for sure.

XOXO

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Homecoming!

Location: Florence, Italy

Ok, well, as much as I love not being a vegetarian... I am CRAVING some veggies right now. Last night started with another bowl of goulash and ended with yet another fried cheese sandwich. I mean, give me some green. I would probably eat an entire head of lettuce if I was given it. We didn't even want to go get food. Toma was a little hungry and wanted some garlic soup (which we still have not gotten, three days in prague and no garlic soup) but then as soon as we found a place for her to eat, we all decided to get food.

After this, the plan was to go back to the beer factory (the place with the taps at each seat) and then to the discotech, but... we never made it to the discotech. We got in a race with these 4 Irish guys at the beer factory and didn't leave until almost closing time. We actually beat the four Irish guys AND a group of 4 English men as well. The English guys actually came up to us when we were leaving to congratulate us on a late start but a "noble comeback." We drank 16 liters of beer. 16 Liters. Not sure how we had room in the tummys for fried cheese sandwiches, but we made it.

Today started early. We chatted in bed while Toma and Ange got up and got ready to leave (their train left at like 11) and me and Karen laid in bed until we absolutely couldn't anymore. Got up, packed and started the journey for the airport. After saying goodbyes, I got on the plane, flew to Milan and then took the bus to the central station to catch my train back to Florence.

So, I go up to make a reservation and the guy says that all of the trains are booked until 6 (it was about 2:30). So I have to just suck it up and sit around until that train leaves. I find a nice little panino and park it on a bench on the far side of the station and start reading (by the way, I finished the book A Thousand Splendid Suns today and it was WONDERFUL - definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a read. It's an easy read, but extremely sad and extremely moving). I had been sitting there for about 20 minutes when this guy comes up and starts talking to me. At first, I think he's a bum and I'm not being rude but I'm watching my pockets and holding my purse in my lap. Turns out though, he was just this normal 20 year old kid who had been robbed like 3 weeks ago as soon as he got to Milan from Holland (he wanted to come work here) and he had no money, no phone, no passport, nothing and he had to get a job to make enough money to buy a train ticket back to Holland so he can regroup. He even got like beaten up when they robbed him and they took his shoes and his jacket as well. Craziness. I think he may have been on something, or maybe he was just messed up from the crazy emotional roller coaster he's been on, but he said he just wanted someone to talk to to keep him awake until his train leaves.

He was a very strange human, but the conversation was easy, so we talked for about 2 hours until I had to get up and go. I grabbed some salami, cheese, bread and chocolate and headed for my train. I snoozed a little, finished my book and ate my dinner and arrived in Florence at a little before 10. I'm back at Sampaoli and loving the familiarity of the place. Ricardo greeted me and we chatted about my travels since last week and I feel like he is a good friend now. Not sure what the plan is for tomorrow, but it will definitely be low key.

Maybe Ufizzi Gallery?

Maybe the laundromat?

Who knows.

XOXO

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Do NOT try the green fairy

Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Well... the pub crawl was... great. Really great.

We started the night by going to this neat little Czech restaurant near the central square and got some beer and goulash. It was SOOO good. They had these potato cake things in the goulash that were like fried garlic mashed potatoes. They were delicious. Afterward we went to this great little restaurant to get desert and then headed towards the beginning of the pub crawl. We met up with a guy from LA (who owns the pub crawl deal) and chatted for a while until a group of 5 Brazilian boys came to come on the crawl with us.

We started at a little bar where we had a power hour of free beer, absinthe, and wine for an hour. It was a nice atmosphere, but rather boring because we were pretty much the only people there (it was 9 o'clock so I guess we started a little early). After this we headed to an Aussie bar down the road which was great. There was a hippie guy playing guitar (think classic rock acoustic, it was great) and we danced and sang and chilled out for a while watching Soccer and talking English to people. After this we headed to this great nightclub. It's the largest night club in Europe and has 5 floors, each with a different theme. We spent most of our time at the American discotech themed one where there were quite a few people dancing to some good old fashioned American rap.

From here we went to a really cool rock bar. I had never seen anything like it and to be perfectly honest (although most of the other girls weren't too happy about the choice),. I really enjoyed it. They only played pretty hardcore rock music, mostly 90's early 2000's stuff. Think Rob Zombie, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Bush, etc. The guy to girl ratio was probably 9:1 which was awesome and we stayed there for quite a while before heading to our last destination which was another dance club right across the street. When we decided to leave that bar at about 4:30, we (of course) thought it would be a great idea to walk back to our hostel past the McDonald's and get some late night. I officially ate my first Big Mac ever and we sat there for probably a half an hour (a couple of the girls got 3 and 4 sandwiches) and then we got a cab back to the hostel (which, was probably a mistake considering our cab driver was LITERALLY insane, almost killed us twice and did not speak ONE word of English). We got back around 6:30.

Woke up at like noon and took showers, ate breakfast buffet and slowly dragged ourselves out of the hostel. We didn't have much time for sight seeing so we decided to go to the Jewish Museum and then shopping. The museum was absolutely amazing. There were like 5 different buildings that we went to. The first was a Holocaust memorial where they had the names of the 80,000 Praguean Jews that died in a concentration camp near here. They're listed by surname and by family. There would be a group of like 8, a grandma and grandpa, mom and dad and then four kids. The youngest one I found was 3 but I'm sure there were more younger that I didn't find. It was sooo sad and extremely moving. It brings up all kinds of extremely difficult emotions to deal with. The persecution of these people throughout history has been horrible and it doesn't make any sense. It makes me really sad to think that Christians could treat a group of people so horribly, especially since SO much of our beliefs are EXACTLY the same. I mean, don't get me wrong, I understand that not believing Jesus as the savior is a pretty large difference, but I mean when you get down to the basic principles and morality of our religions, they are almost identical. I mean, Jewish people are God's chosen people and whether you agree with their beliefs or not, it's appalling that we, as Christians, could treat such a sacred group so horribly. *sigh*

I'm off my soapbox. The synagogue was gorgeous though and everything is very still intact. The guys have to wear the little kippahs (the little skull caps that basically cover their bald spot :) ha, jk... but you know). They were very plain and we were eavesdropping on a tour guide telling the group all about the front of the main room where there is a spot to kneel and how you're supposed to be lower than the ground or something. Obviously I wasn't paying THAT good of attention. After this memorial, we went to the old Jewish cemetery which is where ALL of the people that died from 1400-1700 were buried (since the people weren't allowed to leave the little quarter). There are 12,000 tombstones, many right on top of another and apparently they think that a lot of the bodies are just buried like 10 or 12 deep so they estimate their are more like 40,000 bodies buried there. Eventually, they built another cemetery across the street (where Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis - is built) but the generation it was built for, was all killed in concentration camps, so it's almost completely empty.

After this, we went to two more synagogues and a museum with old burial artifacts (it was really neat to read about the whole traditional burial process of Judaism - and sad to think that the Germans ripped them of all of this tradition when they would just slaughter them). There were also a couple examples of old traditional dress and some paintings from really long ago showing different ceremonies. We also looked at this book of children's paintings and poems from when they were in the nearby ghetto and it was so sad. These little 7 year old kids are writing these poems about the most deep things. There was this one called the last butterfly talking about how she's seen her last butterfly because there are no butterflies in the ghetto and how she wants to go home but she is afraid that she has seen her last butterfly. So sad.

After we went here (these girls are a REALLY bad influence on me not eating American food in Europe), we went to KFC and got those awesome bowls with the mashed potatoes, corn and chicken all in them. It was amazing. We were instantly tired so we trekked home to nap and while they're chilling in the room, I'm updating you :)

I shouldn't need a nap though, I had like 8 hours of sleep last night and I don't think we're going to go as hard tonight because we have to all be on planes/trains around 10.

Oh, Prague has been wonderful!!

XOXO

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Tap your own beer

Location: Prague, Czech Republic

We found THE coolest place last night. It's a sports bar where you sit at a table for four and you each have your own individual tap. And there is a little revolving LCD screen on top of it that tells you how many liters of beer your table has drank. AND THEN... on a big screen TV on the wall, it shows how much your table has drank in relation to the other tables and has it in a sports book kind of layout so it's like a game to race eachother. We drank 3.2 liters of beer and it was only 240Kc which is like 12 bucks. it's like $1.20 a pint. Incredible.

Today, we took a walking tour with this guy named Paul and it was great. We left at noon (which made for a very casual lazy morning - oh and our hostel actually had REAL breakfast. It was an all you can eat buffet of cereal, eggs, toast, rolls, cheese, nutella, yogurt, juice and tea and it was wonderful). We started by walking down to Vaclavske nam which is Winceslas Square and is where the national museum was (the main street I was walking down yesterday). We got an intro to Prague and heard a little about the history. We saw an old memorial to Jan Palach and Klan Zajic who were these two 19 year old kids who burned themselves alive in 1969 to protest the Soviet invasion. People still leave flowers there daily.

From here (Nove Mesto or new town / 1400's new) we walked down the street past a couple cafes and then stopped at the bottom to go into the Mustek train station which is where the old bridge went from old town to new town and because the city has risen so much over the past 100 years, the bridge is in the metro station. It was really neat. The city has risen up because they are afraid of floods here (there have been quite a few REALLY bad ones) and they just keep gradually building the roads higher and higher. Most of the buildings "ground floor" is in the basement and makes for a ton of underground clubs and restaurants. After we left the Mustek we walked down to the Stare Mesto which is old town.

Old town is amazing. The buildings are so beautiful and there is a huge square in the middle with this famous clock. The clock has the hours of the day, the minutes of hte day, the days of the year (which all have a different name related to saints that did things on each day) and the astronomical signs. On the hour, the little skeleton rings a bell and shakes his head up and down saying that he is going to kill the other people on the clock and the little saint guys shake their heads no to say that he can't get them. Somewhat uneventful, but the thing is OLD (1410) and the guy who built it got his eyes burned out because the towns people didn't want him to reproduce it anywhere else.

Next we walked to Josefov which is the old Jewish Quarter. it was literally a walled in ghetto where Jewish people were "kept" and weren't allowed to leave. For 400 years before WWII all of the Jewish people in Prague were kept in this area and lived there. Absolutely insane that it was going on for that long. It's very cool though. Everything in the quarter is in hebrew and there are tons of synagogues, cemeteries and shops. After WWII, all the Jews were shipped to Auschwitz and the Prague Jewish population went from 120,000 pre-WWII to about 1100 now. Most of the city is a museum now.

From here we walked across the Charles Bridge which is this really old bridge that crosses the Vltava (the river that runs through Prague). The bridge has 30 statues on it and has all kinds of stalls with little knickknacks and a guy playing this circus music machine. One of the statues is a crucifix with Hebrew writing on it and the story behind it is that the Jews did something (like revolted or something) and the city of Prague erected this huge crucifix with the words, "Holy, holy, holy is the lord" in Hebrew in gold letters underneath it to basically mock them and put them back in their place. YIKES!! There's another statue of this guy who was a martyr for the city (St. John). His story is that the king came to him and wanted to know what his wife had said in confession because he suspected that she had a lover and the priest wouldn't tell him so the king cut off his tongue and then threw him off the bridge into the river. The statue is of him and underneath it, there is a little plaque with a carving of him falling over the side of the bridge and it's good luck to rub him as he's falling off. So, of course, I did.

On the other side of the river we walked up this HUGE hill (Prague is EXTREMELY hilly and it's very steep to walk around) and up to this cute little restaurant where we had a little mid afternoon snack of potato soup in a bread bowl with a liter of Pilsner. Oh this is the life. (Oh and Karen just brought me a beer because she felt bad that they're all talking in the room and I "have to update the fam" - Ha!! - Velkopopvicky Kozel Svelty is the name of the beer, how's that for Czech!! - On a side note, this language is SOO difficult, There are accents on every letter and it is impossible to try and sound it out). After our snack we walked up to the Prague Castle.

The Prague Castle is the biggest castle in the world. It is this HUGE complex of buildings, churches, villages and shops where the President of the Czech Republic still lives (we saw his car, so we know he was in there). St Vitus Cathedral, which is the Cathedral in the castle, was beautiful and the inside was full of interesting little secrets. There was a tomb to the saint that was pushed off the bridge (the one with the lucky statue) and it has tons (literally, like 3000 lbs) of Silver above his tomb. There is also a secret room where there is a door with 7 locks on it, and each important person in Prague has the 7 keys and it leads to a staircase that takes you up to the room where the crown jewels are kept. They have guards here like they do at Buckingham palace or Windsor Castle and we saw the keys on one of the guards, they are HUGE old skeleton keys - very cool.

After wandering around the castle, we walked back down the hill and caught the metro up to the top of the hill where our hostel is on. I ate a banana and some nutella and now we're preparing for our authentic Czech meal (goulash) we're about to have and our pub crawl.

Hopefully I'll survive. Just need to pace myself.

XOXO

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Now playing: Mike & The Mechanics - The Living Years
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Hey... I'm Czech

Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Oh man, have I been taking the warm weather for granted. After my nice city bus, airport shuttle, plane, city bus, metro connection that I took this morning to get here, I finally arrived in Prague at about 12:30... and it's COLD!!!

The travel was decent. Not too many problems on the way. The plane ride was beautiful. We flew right over Switzerland and the alps which were so pretty. They seemed to go on forever. Everything was white. And so many of the mountains were so covered in snow that you couldn't see the rocks at the top. I mean, plateaus of snow so big and so untouched. I also saw a few places where there were avalanches and you could see the lines where the snow had fallen down the mountain. It was great. And then, just as quickly as they had started, they were gone. And we were flying over very flat, very green land. The flight was quick as well and the directions to the hostel were very easy to follow so I was here in no time.

On the flight, I had this great idea that I was going to extend my trip by a day and just do now, what I had originally planned to do from Prague before I changed my trip to go to Florence first. Even if I didn't extend by a week, I could spend the next 7 days doing eastern Europe and then head to Rome. I would still have plenty of time. But then as soon as I got on the ground... and realized how cold it was (which it's really not even that cold) I decided to screw that idea.

After dropping off my bag, I walked up the hill behind the hostel to this cute little park where there was a dog park and tons of people. From there I walked down to the center of old town down a really neat shopping street. I walked past the National History Museum as well a really old theater. At this point, I was frozen and hungry so, feeling a little home-sick I popped into a Subway to get a sandwich (hey if I'm going to eat American fast food at least I could be healthy about it). So I eat my turkey and ranch sandwich (the ranch was NOT ranch and I only got like 1.5 slices of turkey) and walked back out to realize that I was still frozen and needed to (at the very least) go home and put my long underwear on.

So I caught the metro back to my hostel and stopped on the way at a supermarket to grab a fresh jar of nutella and some other necessities (including peanut butter, apples, bananas, lemon wafers, bread, salami and cheese) and headed back to make myself a little feast. The salami turned out to be a kind of bologna tasting mess of meat but the cheese turned out to be Gouda so it was all good.

I'm back pretty early so there's not much going on yet, but this place is supposed to be one of the rowdiest places in Prague, so hopefully it will pick up here soon. For now, I'm off to have a nutella and banana sandwich :) Yummm!!!

XOXO

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Now playing: Midwest Kings - Godspeed
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