Well, I'm home. I've been home for several weeks now, just been too unmotivated to post anything. So I guess I'll sum up after travels as best as I can. Wow, I just checked my last post, and there is a lot to talk about...
Prague during the day was great, we toured all over the city - Dan wore us out with all the sight-seeing. My favorite part was climbing to the top of a hill (which was a struggle, Kelsey and I took our time and lost the group a few times) to see the Czech version of the Eiffel Tower. They say the hill counts as the bottom, and it is at the same elevation as the tower in Paris. It was great to run into a beer garden for a quick sausage and PEPSI before going to the top of the tower to get a bird's eye view of Prague. Other things we saw included a palace, a really Gothic church, a baroque church, and lots of little tourist shops featuring Russian dolls, glass sculptures and other trinkets.
We were exhausted by dinner time so we grabbed a bite at a pub (which, I'm sorry to tell you, had an English menu) and went to bed. Kelsey and I lucked out and had our 4-bed room to ourselves the whole time we were in Prague, so we slept wonderfully and had lots of space to spread our luggage out...all over the room. On our last day in Prague we did a little souvenir shopping and then Thomas and Beth met up with Kelsey and I down by the river to go paddle-boating! We got a four person boat, which only two people have to paddle, and Kelsey and I lounged in the back while Beth and Thomas escorted us around the river. It was a very relaxing ride until we ran into some ducks committing homicide on a fellow duck. No joke, there were about six ducks beaking and drowning another duck! I don't know what that duck did, but they chased him out of the water and continued to peck at his head on the shore! I have video, but it's pretty graphic. We completed our wind down by listening to some live music at a outdoor pub on the river's shore we had seen on our paddle boat ride.
Our Prague trip ended that Tuesday morning and Kelsey and I left our travel grouped and ventured to Munich on our own. As we arrived at our hostel and checked in, however, Marissa and Anna Bliss walked through the lobby. They happened to be staying at our same hostel on our same floor for the first two nights we were there! We got moved into our room and cleaned up, and headed to the famous Englischer Garten, which is two times the size of Central Park in New York and jam-packed with beer gardens and active, happy people (probably drunk). We wandered around until we found the most popular beer garden, the Chinese...something. There is a large pagoda surrounded with picnic tables and happy Germans with huge beer mugs. Kelsey and I jumped right into the culture, and got "what she's having." So, we ended up with a huge pint of I-don't-know-what, but it was tasty! Anna and Marissa met us there and helped us finish our drinks so we could get some dinner. We went to Hofbrauhaus for dinner, and I ordered sausage which came in a white ceramic pot soaking in hot water and a side of sweet mustard. It looked disgusting, but was quite tasty! I had a pretzel too, and Kels and I split a beer. The inside of Hofbrauhaus smells like feet and frat house, so if I ever go back to Munich I'm going to stick to the outdoor beer gardens that have wonderful ventilation.
The next day we had a day trip to Fussen, Germany, where the famous "Disney castle" Neuschwanstein is, and another smaller castle, unimportant because it's not a Disney castle. Anna and Marissa had a tour guide, but Kelsey and I took our time wandering through the hillside up to the castle, and avoided all the horse-drawn buggies as best we could because of our Florentine trauma. We made it to the top and took way too many pictures with the beautiful castle. We went inside the gateway and saw the castle up close, and then followed signs that led to a bridge. The bridge was terrifying to walk on, but very worth the effort because of the amazing view of the castle. From the bridge we saw a ski lift to the top of another hill, which I am definitely going to look into the next time I'm in Germany...in my next life.
That evening we found a carnival - Munich's Spring Festival, basically just a reason to have a mini Oktober-fest. There were carnival rides and food stands, but everything seemed oddly quiet. Nobody was on the rides, or walking around, so we kept wandering farther into the carnival until we came to a large tent that had drunk people spilling out and German girls and boys dressed in their traditional outfits rushing in. This was where the party was! We ordered a beer and some food and watched the chaos of people dancing on tables and singing cheers and drinking beerstein after beerstein. It was at this point I wished I was German, real bad. After we had been sitting there a while wishing we knew what was going on, some German boys came up to our table and asked to sit with us, I think. It was so loud in there I thought I just couldn't hear what this boy was saying, but after a good five minutes of saying "What?" and just smiling and laughing, we both realized he was speaking German and I was speaking English. Then we just sat there for a bit and he laughed and said, "Am I really talking English? You understand me?" Ha! I told him he was doing very well, and asked what time the carnival ended. He answered with, "Eleven-and-a-half, twelve."
We left the carnival, not sure why because I was having fun people-watching, but just outside the tent a very confused drunk girl ran away and left her keys on the ground. Understanding how frustrating it is to lose keys, I picked them up and ran after her. I handed them to her and she said, "where did you get these?" She was obviously beyond drunk and I think she thought I stole them. I told her she dropped them and she stood there, very confused, and I told her I was going to walk away now... So I turned around and heard footsteps after me. As I walked back towards the girls they let me know she was following me. When she caught up to me, she said, "what are you doing?" I said I don't know, and she said, "I don't know what I'm doing either." I said, "okay, we're going to leave now....bye..." And she stood there, stared at her keys, looked at me, thanked me, stood there, looked at her keys, and finally walked off again. I hope she made it home, but for some reason I have my doubts.
As we were leaving the carnival a member of our group needed to use the restroom, very badly. She ran ahead of us and went down the excessively long escalator to the subway. She was so far ahead of us that as we stepped onto the escalator to go down, she was approaching the top again because there was no restroom. I evaluated the situation, and decided it would be best to turn around and run up the down escalator. Kelsey looked at me like I was crazy as I told her to turn around and run. She complied, and as I reached the flat part of the escalator and thought it was okay to stop running, I somehow I tripped over Kelsey's feet, landed half on the escalator and half on the ground. I realized that it was pulling half my body down so I scrambled into an army crawl to get off the escalator, and stood up to find Kelsey laughing hysterically at me. Now we were all of a sudden the ones that needed to use the restroom because we were laughing so hard. What an interesting night.
We made it to our hostel safely, and Marissa and Anna left early the next morning. Kelsey and I spent our last day in Germany visiting the Dachau concentration camp, which was an unforgettable experience. Our tour group didn't have time to visit the bookstore which I was bummed about, but I did steal a pebble from the role-call square. That afternoon we visited some shops and did some souvenir searching, finished with a delicious meal and some "apfelstrudle."
Our next destination was Salzburg, Austria, home of Mozart, the Sound of Music, and lots of culture. Salzburg was also the location where I would be meeting my mom! We arrived at the train station and found it to be under construction and VERY confusing. We finally made it to the street side and started walking towards our hotel. We missed it the first time but a man standing outside his Italian restaurant (as they often do) simply pointed to an unmarked door with a smile. We went inside and found my mom! Yay! We left our luggage and went exploring in the old town of Salzburg. It was a very enchanting little town, similar to Germany in culture but much more adorable in every aspect. We went to a castle and ate dessert on a terrace and wandered into shops and a church and a market.
Our second day in Austria was rainy, but we were on a bus for the most part anyways - on the Sound of Music official tour bus! We got to see a lot of the sights from the film, found out that Harvard owns what was the von Trapp house, walked through the church where they were wed, and took pictures in the gardens they ran around in. We found out that all the interior shots were filmed in LA, and also that the front of the von Trapp house and the back are different locations. It was nice to see some of the countryside since we drove to another town to visit the church. We also happened to run into a traditional Austrian wedding in the church, which was very cool! When we got back to Salzburg, the rain had stopped and it turned out to be a beautiful day. We spent the rest of our time soaking up the culture, and we sat on a bench and watched a kid's marathon, a bachelorette party, horse-drawn carriages, and little Austrian children playing in a fountain. That evening we searched out the Augustiner brewery, famous 'round the world! It took us a while, but we hiked up some streets and found the little door, that lead us through a monastery (where there were statues of St. Augustine), down several hallways and finally into a bustling brewery and beer garden. We figured out how it all worked (there were lots of lines and mugs and a water fountain where you clean your mug out for a refill) and we dove right in to the culture. Kelsey and I ended up splitting a roasted chicken, and the man that sold it to us apologized for not speaking good English - he knows Italian best! We were so excited we could finally speak to someone in Italian again, and he was just the cute old Italian man we've been missing!
The next morning we sent Kelsey on her way back to Italy to meet up with her family, and my mom and I headed to France. It was a long train ride, but after 9 hours we arrived in Paris. We made it to mass at Notre Dame, which was really cool, but got kicked out before we could really sight-see much inside. Our time in France was spent on a lot of transportation, which I'm kind of sad about. I was used to walking all over Italy, most of the places we visited were all within walking distance - I had no idea the Eiffel tower was five miles from our Notre Dame, but we walked all five miles along the Seine River until we made it. Found out that Paris is HUGE, and I think I wore my mom out. We were so tired when we got to the tower that we snapped some pics and then searched out any restaurant that was open. We ended up at a Chinese restaurant our first night in Paris. My mom will never admit we ate there, but I stole some chop sticks to prove it.
The next day in Paris I was determined to get to Versailles - didn't realize it was another town. In my own defense, by the time I got to Paris I was so worn out I didn't really care what I did or how much I saw, so my travel skills were a little weak at this point. It took a good couple hours to get there, and when we finally made it to the palace and through the ticket line we spent a ridiculous one to two hours in line waiting to go in. You'd think they were giving away free ice cream or something! It was out of control. Then, when we were about to go in, some AMERICANS were trying to cut in line. Come ON, 'merica! Get it together! That was embarrassing - be polite when you're in another country, that's why the world hates us!
Versailles was probably the biggest let down. I know my mom enjoyed it, but the crowds were unbelievable, you couldn't even breath in some of the rooms, and the gardens were mostly gravel and the fountains weren't even on. In my opinion, it was a real bust. Because we went to Versailles we missed a lot of stuff actually in Paris, like shopping at my new favorite store, Promod, which was in Italy and Spain but is actually a French store. We also missed out on the Luxembourg gardens, which my mom wanted to see real bad. I guess the next time I go to Paris I'll know how to plan better.
I did enjoy shopping in Il St. Louis, an island near Notre Dame. That area had a lot of character and we found a candy shop that we spent a lot of time in. We got "gelato" (hardly as good as Italy's) at a famous place, and then realized the real famous place was a block down the street and considered getting it again, but I told my mom it was way over priced so we walked away, reluctantly.
Our last night in Paris we went to the Eiffel tower at dusk, watched the sun set over the city, and then witnessed the sparkle show from the top level of the tower. We also witnessed a proposal, and the guy must be loaded because he took her to the restaurant in the tower, where meals start at around $100. And that's the lower level restaurant, I don't want to know what the upper level restaurant's prices are! We got shoved around a lot at the top of that windy tower, and when we got to the bottom again we saw the sparkle show from the lawn in front of the tower - we got the best of the tower at all times! We ate "dinner" at 10pm, at a crepe stand across the street from the tower. I wish i would have gone with a chocolate covered fruit crepe, but I stuck with ham and cheese instead and it was decent.
As for our taxi ride home, I don't even want to discuss it the guy was so rude, but the basics include him ripping us off, refusing to speak English, and I got to use my basic French from 7th grade to translate how much of a jerk he was being. We got out of the vehicle and walked the rest of the way home, because, frankly, we were completely out of money and would have had to call for someone to put more money in my account - don't tell my dad.
The next morning we made our way to the airport, got terribly lost and accidentally went through security twice. We finally made it to our terminal and observed a very strange woman (I think mentally challenged but quite the character) decide to change her name on her ticket. They let me on the plane, and my mom was lucky enough to get randomly checked, but they let her on too. I watched the same movie three times because I couldn't sleep with this French woman yelling at her deaf husband behind me. She kept picking on me, poking me when I wasn't wearing my seatbelt, telling me my seat needed to be in the upright position. She did give me my pillow back at one point, waking me up to do it. So, basically, the flight home was a blast. We made it to Chicago, then to Kansas City, was reunited with my #1 man, my dad, and began our trip home to the wonderful Wichita, Kansas.
Wow, I didn't think I'd ever make it to this point in my blog. And if you made it this far too, congrats!! I don't really know what to say now...maybe some inspiring words of growth and newfound wisdom?
Anyways, glad to be back with my friends and family, but still wish I could pick up everyone I love and Manhattan and plop it all in the middle of Tuscany. That'd be the life.
Cara Marie
