Na Shledanou Praha

I am officially back home in California after being awake for 48 hours and traveling for too much of that time.  It feels surreal that 4 months ago I was freaking out about leaving, wondering if it was too late just to go back to Cal Poly instead, I even was asking myself how studying abroad would even be fun. Basically I had no idea what to expect but forcing myself to get on the plane as a first time out-of-country traveler was the best decision I have ever made in my life.

The next four months I would visit six countries, make countless memories, and build friendships so strong it’s now hard for me to imagine my life without them. Our last weekend, my friends and I decided to attempt ice-skating. Well…it’s definitely not mine and Sunny’s thing as the wall became our best friend and we found a new way to entertain the rest of the fam, especially Ken. 

The next day we went to the Kozel brewery, which was probably what we drank the most of whilst being in Prague, including every family dinner. I’m pretty sure we were most excited for the gift shop, since all we could say was “beer socks”, and the Kozel mascot Olda – the most disgusting goat I have ever interacted with. 

Left: Erica doing her last touristy thing on her last day: the only cubist lampost in the world!
Right: At the beginning of the 2.5 hour long bus stop wait from the Kozel Brewery

After taking a tour of the brewery in Czech, since English was not an option, we got some lunch and thought our timing was perfect to make the earlier bus. Well, 2.5 hours later we thought wrong after finding out one bus was cancelled, taxis “were not possible” and our last resort was going to be Jan personally picking us up. We were too paranoid to go back to the restaurant in case the bus finally did show up so all we could do was huddle together for warmth and hope Rachel’s feet wouldn’t fall off. After being in the cold for 2.5 hours while Sunny, Jesse, and I were having flashbacks to the “World’s Loneliest Bus Stop” from the Hell Hike (May the odds be EVER in your favor.) the bus finally showed up.

Me, Erica, and Marisa with program directors Richard and Jan who make USAC the best program choice!

The next couple days would involve multiple farewell parties and too many goodbyes. On Sunday, after the Secret Santa Party, Marisa’s parents (two of the coolest people you will ever meet) generously treated us all to a couple beers at the Beer Museum on their last night visiting. Then, with a craving for a final fried cheese sandwich the family and I decided to detour to Winceslaus Square one last time.

Monday, being our last day, dragged on as it was filled with packing, last minute Christmas shopping, and getting it all done so we’d have enough time to have a last dinner at our pub that we went to at least once a week, and say our real final goodbyes at 3:30 am when group transportation was arriving to take a handful of us away. It’s amazing to think four months ago we all didn’t know each other and now saying goodbye felt like the hardest thing to do. I don’t really know what else to say, but thanks to everyone who followed my travels abroad and most of all the people that made Prague a home.

Things I’ll miss:

• Sitting around the kitchen table in apartment 5b
• Nights at our pub
• Impromptu snowball fights
• Jan’s adorable fatherly ways
• The beer opener hanging by a string on the door at the Potroviny down from R30
• Midnight adventures to random memorials or Charles Bridge
• Half a liter of beer for 10kc (50 cents)
• “Pristi Stanice I.P. Pavlova”
• Being 20 years old in Europe…6 more months
• Prague puns
• Family dinners
• The Family <3

Things I could live without:

• The anxiety I feel at the checkout counter of Billa
• Hang-drying clothes
• Never fully aware of what I’m buying at the grocery store
• Waking up to the sound of jackhammers every morning
• The freezing air from the metro escalators

 However, if I had to continue living with all those little annoyances and it meant I could be back in Prague with the same people that made this semester the best time of my life I would be there in a heartbeat…even if that means going through Frankfurt airport again.

I miss everyone already and I now get to look forward to reunions, facebook stalking to keep in touch, my friends back at Cal Poly, and this little cutie that surprised me when I got home! Meet Česnečka! 

English Translation: Garlic Soup

Wintery Fairyland

I went from having 4 months to 4 days left in this wondrous city of Prague and it pains me to think that this is probably my last blog post written from my home in K17 surrounded by some of the best people I could have hoped to meet. This isn’t my final post so I’m not going to get too sentimental yet so let’s change the subject and find out what I’ve been up to since Paris!

So as everyone is very well aware, this is the most wonderful time of the year! And what better way to spend the Christmas season than in Prague who is the best at two things: beer and Christmas cheer. Besides watching Christmas movies since November, the real festivities began on Wednesday, December 5 also known as St. Nicholas Day. It marks the start of Christmas for Czechs and in Old Town people dress up as three figures: St. Nicholas, an Angel, and a Devil.  So when I was buying some decorations for the Holiday party Marisa, Erica, Kat, and I threw later that night it was amusing to see devil horns next to Santa hats. Our Holiday party was a great success since it was a combination of dessert night, sweaters, holiday cheer, singing, and everyone in our program!

The rest of the weekend was filled with more Christmas celebrations and markets. On Friday we took a day trip to Nuremberg, Germany for one of the oldest Christmas markets in Europe and later that weekend the family and I decided to venture to the Charles Bridge and see the Christmas markets set up in Old Town Square. Prague is already the set of a fairytale but during Christmas it is even more magical. When stepping out of our apartment Sunday for an outing to the beautiful National Theater to see the Nutcracker we were surprised with a downpour of snow, making this city feel even more like a wintery fairyland. Prague is the first city outside of Russia that was allowed to put on the Nutcracker ballet and I was really curious to see how they would tell the story since the Nutcracker was such a huge part of my childhood. It was very…interesting. Instead of the rat king it was a terrifying devil and instead of rats they were characters out of some scary Pirates of the Caribbean nightmare. Other than that, it was enjoyable but all the dancers were adults with the exception of 10 little girls who I guess were supposed to be the marshmallows. I still prefer the Drosselmeyer I grew up with and it made me miss ballet more than I thought I did.

After the show we all went to dinner at our pub for some fried cheese in between two snowball fights that took place. None of us even cared that we were in our dress clothes still, we still let out our inner Elf by throwing snowballs, making snow angels, and played with several puppies that wanted to be our friends, including the pup we named Marcus. Yet again, this will be one of my favorite days in Prague when looking back at these 4 months spent with my favorite people here. I don’t even want to think about not being surrounded by them in less than a week.

As family back home knows, my childhood friend Erin has also been studying here and even though we didn’t see nearly as much of each other as we thought we would, it’s comforting to know that we’ll have each other in Modesto when going through Prague withdrawals. It’s crazy that we’ve been friends since the age of 3 and studied in the same city this past semester 17 years later. We had a mini touristy day going to Old Town Square, across the river to see the swans, and ended the day getting lost while on the verge of frostbite trying to find a flea market. So glad I got to see her one last time in the city we both fell in love with!

This is study-abroad so I should probably mention the first time we have all had to study way more than we were used to this whole semester – finals week. It included hours of bottomless coffee, staring at computer screens, blank word documents, and multiple tabs open on the internet with far too many having little to do with the papers that needed to be written. I think it’s safe to say everyone here has attention spans even smaller than they were when we arrived as my newsfeed blew up with pictures of puppies, comments, and tumblr links so I think we all agree that next semester is going to be dreadful.

Awesome picture of Charles Bridge in the snow! Photo credit: David Stokes

What these next 4 days are going to entail:

• Dog-piling Erica after our Farewell party tonight
• Tears
• Beer
• Fried Cheese from our pub
• Kebabs off of I.P. Pavlova
• Christmas markets
• All my favorite places with all my favorite people

See you in San Francisco Mom and Dad! 

Bonjour Bonjour Bonjour OH MY GOD

This past weekend Marisa, Erica, Rachel and I headed to Paris for our last big trip of the semester! For all of us it was the first time having to go to the Prague airport for a trip. Which means I have finally found where all the happy Czechs are and I will now be rating airport experiences on a scale from Frankfurt to Prague. While Frankfurt was associated with stress, running, overwhelming confusion and security, Prague didn’t even make you take your shoes off and gave me back my passport with a smile and the man saying how he hopes to visit California one day.

While coming in on the metro in Paris we got a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower lit up as we headed to our apartment that went beyond our expectations. It was so…French and the perfect location between the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triumphe. Even though the hallway with the long red carpet and elevator shaft at the end was a bit “shiningesque” as Marisa so wonderfully put, it was still adorable. It was so nice we were coming back to this Parisian home every night to relax, watch movies, and be…well girls vacationing in Paris without having to deal with hostels! So naturally what is first on the list when you’re in a beautiful foreign city? Chipotle of course! We had no problem finishing our burritos and it was definitely the most expensive thing I bought on this trip.

We’ve agreed that our parents would be very proud of us because we were nonstop tourists waking up early, taking advantage of free tours and seeing as much as we could for the next 2.5 days.

Alex Jones was pretty much our own personal local for the whole day Friday. He was the tour guide for the first free tour we did where we saw a lot of the main sights like the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, St. Michel, Seine River, and the Louvre. We then walked down the Champs des Lysee towards our apartment so we could check out the Christmas markets, which are NOTHING compared to Prague’s, and see the Arc de Triumphe. We then did the night tour with him of Montmarte, which ended up being my favorite neighborhood we got to explore. We saw the Moulin Rouge, Van Gogh’s apartment (while Alex described the artist’s depressing life to us), street art, Sacré Cœur, Picasso’s apartment, and then finished the tour with a glass of wine at Café des Deux Moulins – the café that was used in the filming of Amelie! Even though the tour was over Alex took the four of us to his favorite place for crêpes where I had the best nutella crêpe of my life. We ended the night with a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower’s lightshow minutes away from our apartment.

Happy outside the Louvre

One thing that kept growing was the list of movies we wanted to watch because of our time in Paris: Moulin Rouge, Midnight in Paris, Amelie, Ratatouille (inspired by the mouse we saw on the metro), Passport to Paris (again) and Elf (just because we’re always in the mood for Elf).

Bored inside the Louvre

Our second full day we decided to grab baguettes and act French in front of the Eiffel Tower before our day of museums. We first went to the Musee d’Orsay the impressionist museum so we got to see Monet, Van Gogh, and Edgar Degas (so many flashbacks to 3^rd grade), and then headed to the Louvre just so we can now say we’ve seen the Mona Lisa. Overall though, the Louvre is chaotic, overwhelming and nearly impossible to find the way out once you want to leave. Alex had told us how the Louvre is where you will find some of the most bored looking people he has ever seen: we definitely fell under that category. Luckily with our student visas our entrances to these museums were free so we don’t feel guilty about not looking at all the paintings that start blending together after awhile. Our plan was to go to the Christmas market for some food but it was way too crazy for us to deal with. Unlike Prague where it truly feels like you’re in a fairytale, Paris Christmas markets just felt tacky. With my love for Christmas I was disappointed with the markets but everything else about Paris I adored. We did a boat tour on the river that evening, had one last crepe, one last look at the Eiffel Tower by night, put on Moulin Rouge and called it a night!

Our last day we saw Notre Dame, got our final crepe in the Latin quarter after getting a stamped postcard at Shakespeare & company and headed to the airport. Paris with my girls was definitely a great last trip. I did not have very high expectations because I feel like a lot of people I talk to have negative experiences so I was pleasantly surprised with just how much I loved this city. Three midnights in Paris was definitely not enough time to see all that this city has to offer, even though my wallet would say otherwise.

When in Paris:

NOTRE DOG

• A chipotle burrito and entrance to the Louvre are the same price: choose the burrito
• The hardest decision you have to make is which type of crepe you want next: Sweet or savory?
• Make sure you watch where you’re walking when looking up at the Eiffel Tower. I now have a huge bruise and skinned leg from running into a block of concrete.
• Don’t take Metro 13 during rush hour or you will be yelled at by an old, stuck-up French woman for being polite
• Just because the men selling cheesy souvenirs on the streets keep yelling “Shakira” and “Lady Gaga” at you does NOT mean you look like Shakira or Lady Gaga
• If looking for some free entertainment watch Marisa try to take pictures with the dog that hangs out at Shakespeare & co.

BRRRRRRRRRLIN!

“Family Dinner” takes on “Family Vacation”! … but not before the weekly food gathering of course. Instead of dinner this past week we decided to go big and do a full on dessert night – everyone welcome! And considering only one apartment has an oven the desserts were quite impressive and Pinteresters everywhere would be in awe of our success. Tuesday Erica, Kat and I prepped for dessert night as I made my Nutella cookies with my “advanced easy bake oven” (it only has an on/off switch) and we got in the Christmas mood blasting our holiday tunes and watching Elf. We’re in Europe so all my Americans back home you STILL have to wait till after Thanksgiving to start Christmas festivities because you get turkey this Thursday and we don’t. So what did dessert night entail? Snickers salad dip, apple crisp crumble, worms n’ dirt, truffles, cake, chocolate banana truffles, cookies, gourmet popcorn, brie, bread, raspberries, dark chocolate almond bark, whipped cream and bottles and bottles of wine. This was a night you did not want to miss out on and we are planning on doing it again considering we only have…uhhh let’s not talk about it…days left.

So Thursday the family headed to Berlin! That is all of us minus Nathan since he had to go sing for the Czech President in honor of the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution…I guess that's more important than family vaca. It was about a 4.5 hour bus ride and they showed The Terminal AGAIN. This is the 3^rd time I’ve been shown this movie on the bus and a movie I never thought I would be able to quote. Luckily the second movie was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (notice Philosopher not Sorcerer in Europe hehe). But when we arrived it was the beginning of a very, very, very cold weekend and once we eventually found our hostel we ate the first of many kebabs.

Ken, Anna, Matt, Me, Sunny, Rachel, Vanessa

Friday we went on a nearly 4 hour walking tour and by the end I did not have feeling in my toes. Our tour guide was an awesome Brit who definitely knew his history. We saw the Holocaust memorial, the Berlin Wall, the window that Michael Jackson horrifically dangled his baby from, Checkpoint Charlie, the ground above Hitler’s suicide, the Nazi book burning memorial, and a suicidal horse statue on top of a building that nobody knows why it’s there. 

As evident by everything I just listed, Germany has a very dark past and as the tour guide mentioned it’s easy to naturally think of all these things when you think of Germany but we have to remember there is so much to appreciate in this part of the world. For example, we got to see Humboldt University where 29 Nobel Peace Prize winners have studied and where the original stories of the Grimm brothers are kept. After the tour we ran to find warmth and eat some good food…neither of those things happened. After finally gaining the feeling back in our bodies we realized the restaurant was just not AS cold as the outside and the soup we had was gross. But things got better once we took a visit to Ritter Sport to stuff our faces with the best chocolate we have ever had!

After stopping back at the hostel to figure out our next plans, preferably sooner rather than later since our hostel was one of the least welcoming environments we’ve been in and if we stayed too long you would start freaking yourself out by the people that were staying there. We decided to go the famous Hofbräuhaus for a liter of beer, a pretzel, and a great German atmosphere complete with a dance floor! We then attempted to venture into a different neighborhood and stumbled upon a cool candle-lit bar and on the walk back ended the night in the strangest disco kebab place for kebab #2 and ran into some rabbits on our walk home.

Saturday we hit up the East Side Gallery, which is the longest permanent open air gallery in the world! We then went to Alexanderplatz to walk around and enjoy some street food.  After getting lost, but luckily had a metro pass for the day so we didn’t have to freeze quite as much, we stumbled upon Potsdamer Platz where Christmas festivities were going on including a giant snow hill for people to tube down – we seriously were watching families and little kids going down this for 30 minutes - it was the perfect combination of hilarity and cuteness. Then on our way back to the hostel we ate kebab #3 for dinner.

Our last day we visited the Topography of Terror Museum since it was free and near our hostel and went back to the chocolate store Ritter Sport to make our own chocolate and enjoy some peppermint hot chocolate aka Christmas in a cup. My last meal being Curryworst we said goodbye to Berlin and could not wait to get back to Prague! It was a great family vacation but once again another trip done and we all could not help but talk about how much we belong in Prague. Most topics of conversation revolved around our love for kepabs, Prague, trying to understand the dislike of traveling but wanting to go everywhere, Prague, and complaining about how cold, tired, and in desperate need of a shower we were – but what’s a family vacation without complaints and whining? 

ONE MONTH LEFT. 
How do we measure...measure a month?

Kebabs. Photo credit to Sunny Wilson.

In fried cheese? In goulash? In dumplings? In mugs of beer? In movie nights? In pub crawls? In family dinners? In metro stops? In Kebabs? In Marcel's smirks at our pub? In the amount of times I say nemluvím český? In "Oh maños? In pitchers of sangria? In Sunny's pictures of trash? 

These are all sad, unfortunate questions to ponder. I think it's safe to say none of us are ready to leave this place. 





*ps I accidentally forget to hit publish on my last blog post until today so go read "keeping it glassy" if you want to read some outdated material to go with Facebook pictures of a week ago.

Keeping it Glassy

This past week has been very…Czech. Last weekend Marisa’s mom and grandma were visiting and treated us to an Organ Performance at the St. Martin in the Wall in Old Town followed by a delicious dinner at the famous Lokal for a typical Czech meal consisting of goulash, fried cheese, and pickled camembert. 

A meal I'm going to miss: goulash.

This week it was finally my turn to prepare Family Dinner and after going to 3 different grocery stores I was successful in finding all the ingredients for some enchiladas, which were a great success. The night would have been even better if my best friends back home were there and Molly could have played the song she so beautifully composed last year on the guitar about me entitled “EnchiLara”. After dinner, most of us then squeezed in the smallest apartment in R30 for a post-Halloween party since we couldn’t all be together during fall break.

Friday we went on our last program-lead field trip to the Glassworks! All the men were wearing slippers, opened button shirts, no gloves, and even when dealing with hot metal rods and fire they don’t find any harm drinking a beer. Actually, they are only allowed 4 beers a day but being in the Czech Republic for this long surrounded by construction workers in sandals and no hard hats we really were not surprised. We each got a chance to blow our own glass to make a vase and beer mug. None of us are exactly sure how we are going to get these things back home considering most of us packed our suitcases full coming here but we'll figure it out.  After we all attempted blowing glass we got to enjoy some yummy cesnecka and goulash and board the bus to go to yet another castle where most of us preferred to play with the leaves or create new fall fashions with twigs and buttons during the tour rather than listen.

Marisa blowing glass!

This coming week I unfortunately have been hit hard with the “study” part of “study abroad”  having all my midterms this week so wish me luck! Below I have compiled a list of things to do while in class...not that you should actually listen to me because I am feeling incredibly unprepared for these midterms of mine. 

Ways to keep busy in class:

• Make lists comparing your current teacher to a Hogwarts professor
• Write down observations.For example: a surprising amount of students were wearing flannel one day (myself included) 
• Make lists: Groceries, places you want to go, things you still need to do, things you want for Christmas, food you want your mom to send you, etc.
• Write postcards: Yes all postcards have been written during Global Economy and my midterm grade better not reflect it.
• Go old school and pass notes with a friend.
• Give dirty looks to the French boys behind you who won't shut up while the professor is talking

Buda Belly

The remainder of Fall Break Rachel, Sunny, Anna, and I decided to go back to Budapest since we agreed that the 24 hours we spent during our 5-day trip just wouldn’t cut it. Our first stop? The Szechenyi Baths for a girls' day!

Over the course of the trip I came to the realization that I will always choose food over museums. Not to say I don’t enjoy seeing original works of art, or old bones, rocks, books, clothes, and rooms where old important people who are now dead once sat. Honestly, history is one of my favorite subjects, but when you’re short on time and money I’m going to choose the option that will allow me to experience the culture in the most satisfying way possible: FOOD. I hope the following pictures won’t make you too…Hungary (had to). 

For our Halloween meal we went to Marxim: a pizza place with a communist theme. All the pizzas had very entertaining names like “Snow White and the Seven Small Proletariats” or the one I got: “Pussy Pussy Bill & Monica” which was covered in hot peppers, salami, paprika, mushrooms, cheese, onions, and for the sauce they bring you a little gravy boat to put it on yourself. Sunny and I decided to go halfsies so we could indulge in two different pizzas.

Thursday we only left the hostel once. This was due to the rainy weather and the fact that everything was closed for All Saints' Day. Since we didn't have any graves to visit we decided to venture to the fanciest cafe in Budapest, which was luckily open: Café Gerbeaud for some pricy but delicious chocolate and caramel ice cream. The café had a very Titanic vibe due to the 19th century decor, gorgeous fireplaces, and chandeliers. It is also home to a piano that was supposed to board the ship with Jack and Rose but it failed to make it on...that piano will never know it was a blessing in disguise.

So what else did we do in Budapest outside the world of food? We walked. A lot. Rachel and I visited the House of Terror, which is a museum now, but the building was the actual headquarters of the Hungarian Nazis where they would torture their victims. It was very eery walking into the actual cells people were tortured in, but it was the one museum Jan suggested we go to and I understand why. 

Margaret Island

Afterwards, we walked over to the beautiful park of Margaret Island but since it was getting cold and we still had a couple more hours until we had to meet up with Sunny and Anna to go to Granny's Pancake house, we decided to detour at Szeraj - Rachel's sister's recommendation for the best gyro. Even though the menu was all in Hungarian so I'm not sure what I even ate it was delicious and that's all that matters. 

Next stop: Nagyi Palacsintazoja! (Granny's Pancake House): Best Pancakes in Hungary!

Crépe #1: Ham, mushroom, cheese

Crépe #2: Nutella and cream

Crépe #3: Cinnamon

Sunny decided to go for the "salty layered" (meaning savory) and pictured in the bottom right. We don't even know what it consisted of or how many crépes made up that slice of happiness but we've all agreed everything should be served in crépe form from now on. Afterwards we once again admired the beauty of Budapest by night. 

Our last day we went to the Central Market where I know Dad would easily spend hours in and if my suitcase and airport security allowed it I would definitely bring back the salami that was as tall as me. Floors of Hungarian meats, cheeses, breads, whosits and whatsits galore! I decided to go for the chocolate croissant the size of my head. 

Photo credit: Sunny Wilson

Overall, I’ve come to the conclusion that I will always choose food over museums because you can see pictures of exhibits but you can’t taste my cinnamon crepe through the computer screen OR the 3 gyros I would consume within 24 hours. Hmm...maybe it was a bad idea blogging about all the food I ate. Oh well, NO REGRETS.  And after indulging in that much culture you have to work it off somehow. My suggestion is dancing: that is if you got the moves like MacDaddy:

A thing or 2 about hostels:

• “Free Breakfast”: This not only means free breakfast, it also means making a sandwich for lunch. That’s a 2-in-1 deal!
• Games: From personal experience I can proudly say I won Halloween Trivia, the winning question being name 2 actresses from Hocus Pocus and the prize being a free beer.
• Skyping: I prefer people to Skype in anything but English or else my eavesdropping gets in the way of my Facebooking.
• I now have more motivation to get a job so one day I can stay in hotels instead. I honestly don't know how you did this, Lyndsey.

Budapest round 2 was awesome: Buda is budaful and Pest is the best, but it is such a comfort to know Prague really has turned into my home away from home. I never appreciated my bed in apartment K17 more than when I got back after that 7 hour bus ride on Saturday. Prague really is something special and even though I haven’t traveled to too many other European cities I can’t imagine any of them topping Prague. 

SnowFall Break

It’s fall break, which means I thought I would spend the first few days in Prague admiring the leaves that have been changing color. Instead, Prague seems to have wanted to give the handful of us who hadn’t left town for various fall break excursions an early Christmas present on Saturday with the first snowfall! As we all know, smiling is not a thing here but I don't care if you're Czech something is seriously wrong with you if you don't smile when waking up to snow in Prague.  

Charles Bridge in the snow.

Even though I couldn’t feel my fingers fumbling with my camera, all the pictures on the Charles Bridge were definitely worth dealing with the freezing weather. I live in a fairytale and when Prague is covered in snow it is even more magical. After “frolicking” on the bridge (our main goal for the day), Rachel and I hurried across the bridge for some of the best hot chocolate in the city. We may have looked like wet puppy dogs but the hot chocolate, meaning chocolate soup since I’m pretty sure they just melt a dark chocolate bar, hit the spot! The rest of the day consisted of movies, fried cheese and a porter at our pub with the girls before our trip back to Budapest on Tuesday! It may have been a very simple day here in Prague, but it will definitely be one I cherish when looking back.

Currently:

It’s past midnight and I can’t sleep

I have a bus to Budapest to catch in 6.5 hours

The time changed and I probably wouldn’t have noticed if Rachel didn’t tell me

I just spent another 5 minutes trying to think of a Budapest pun bud I was unsuccessful…I pest be off. Goodnight.