I'm a little behind, but here's some more stories from Europe...

I know I'm a little behind, since it's November already and I was in Europe back in August, but I've been really busy with school and work and I just haven't had a chance to upload my pictures or anything.  Besides, my life currently consists of nothing but work and school, so this gives me something cool to talk about besides that!  Anyway, below is another adventure of my time in Europe.  You can click on any of the pictures to see them bigger.

Salzburg, Austria Aug 2nd thru Aug 5th

Monday morning, Gary and I began our train trip through Austria and Germany for a few days. We took off from Prague’s Hlavni Nadrazi on a train headed for Salzburg. In Linz, Austria, we reached the end of the line for that train, so we switched trains to get to Salzburg. Once we were on the other train and headed out, Gary all of a sudden says, “I forgot my wallet”. I was like, “What do you mean you forgot it??”. Well, he had this man bag thing with a strap on it that he had taken off when we were on the other train. He hung it on a hook next to our seats on the train and had forgotten to pick it up when we switched trains. He was staying fairly calm, considering he now had no money nor did he have any of his credit cards or any way to even get money. At this point, we really could not do anything until we reached Salzburg. Once we got to the train station, we discovered that they have a ‘lost and found’ office at the station. We went to the station and talked to a girl there. She was extremely helpful, and took my name and number and said to come back the next day to see if anyone had turned it in. In the meantime, we hopped on the local bus and made our way to our hostel. The bus was packed, and I think I ran over 2 peoples feet trying to get my luggage off the bus. What a scene we made! We found our hostel, Jufa Salzburg, and settled in.

 It was really nice and the staff there was great too. Our first evening in Salzburg, we just walked around a little to get acclimated to the town and we found our pick-up point for our Sound of Music and Eagle’s Nest tours for the next 2 days. Most everything was closed tho, because it was a Monday. I remember from the last time I was in Europe, in Germany and Austria most places are not open on Monday for some reason. After we walked around a little, we just headed back to the hostel because we had to get up early the next morning for our first tour. The next morning, we got up before our tour so we could eat the free breakfast buffet in the hostel cafe. It consisted of scrambled eggs, meats, cheeses, semols (a German bread roll), cucumbers (cukes are huge in Europe for some reason), yogurt, cereal, boiled eggs, coffee, juices, nutella, jams and these little cups that people were putting the jam in (they were made out of ice cream cup material). After we ate, we walked thru town to our Sound of Music pick-up point.

 Our tour guide was named Trudy and she totally fit the part of an Austrian guide, complete with the traditional dress and apron. For our tour, we basically rode a large, tour bus and went around to all the different filming locations for the movie and Trudy explained the “secrets” about each filming location. One of our first stops was at the house where they filmed the back yard scenes (ie. Where Maria and the kids fell out of the canoe in the water, where they were playing ball with the new Duchess). This house is different from the house where they filmed the inside scenes.

Trudy also told us that Gretel could not swim, and in the scene where the canoe tips over, she is actually starting to drown in the scene because no one was helping her. After this location, we headed to the house where they filmed the inside scenes and where we see Maria arriving for the first time with her carpet bag and she dances down the driveway towards the house.

This house is now a music school. It’s also the location of the gazebo where they sing the “I am 16, going on 17” song. Apparently, they had to move the gazebo because so many people were going in it and dancing around on the seats and singing that it was disturbing the local residents. Then, they eventually had to lock the doors because some old bag fell in the gazebo when she was dancing around like a fool.

Of course, she sued because it was the owner of the gazebo’s fault that she was an idiot. (shockingly, she was an American). However, since this is Austria and not America, the lawsuit never went anywhere and they told her to take a hike. Trudy did tell us that when they filmed the “16, going on 17” scenes, the girl slipped and fell through one of the windows when she was dancing around on the seats. Apparently, you can see that her ankle is wrapped in the video, but they removed it in the DVD. Afterwards, we got on the bus to head to our next location. On the way, we passed by the headquarters for Red Bull. I was shocked, because I had no idea that Red Bull was born in Salzburg. We didn’t stop for pictures there, we just drove by and Trudy pointed it out. I think I was able to snap one photo of the place as we sped by! We did stop for a few photo-ops on our way to our next destination which was Mondsee, Austria.

It is a very small town and it’s home to the church where the wedding scene from Sound of Music was filmed. In reality however, the real wedding between Maria and the Captain actually happened back in Salzburg at the Abby where Maria tried to become a nun. At this location, we had about an hour to wander around and see the church and look around town. We first headed into the church to take pictures. Again, it was a very heavily ornate and intimidating Catholic church.

According to my Czech professor, a lot of that heavy decoration was the result of the Catholics trying to “flex their muscles” back when Protestantism was starting to gain popularity and become another religion to follow. The Catholics freaked out, and began to decorate all the churches with sculptures and gold in order to show their power. But, I digress…. Anyway, the church was amazing and you could even buy holy water there as a souvenir…along with an endless amount of other crap which I bought! After our hour was up, we had to meet back at the bus to head back to Salzburg. On our drive back, Trudy put in “The Sound of Music” CD and she sang our entire trip back. Of course, ALL the girls on the bus chimed in during all the songs. It was hilarious. Trudy was actually a very good singer, even on the high notes! When we reached Salzburg, Trudy took us over to our last stop, The Mirabell Palace Gardens where they sung the “Do-Re-Mi” song in the Sound of Music. The gardens are unbelievable, and in the gardens you have the most amazing view of the Salzburg castle on the hill.

We got to see the Pegasus fountain that in the movie and just next to the main gardens is a smaller garden of gnomes. Here is where the kids walked by one of the gnomes and patted his head when they were singing.

Trudy told us which gnome it was, but it wasn’t hard to find since there’s a groove literally worn in the ground where people stand to touch the silly thing! After we finished at the gardens, we walked back to the Salzburg Hauptbahnhof to see if Gary’s wallet was there. Luckily, the same girl that I had spoken to the previous day was working and she remembered our situation. She said that they did find the wallet, but that it was still in Linz, where we had switched trains. She said that she could call Linz and have them ship the wallet to our hostel. We were so thankful for the fact that they found it. So, we gave her our hostel information and she said that it would be delivered tomorrow. We then just walked back to the old town area of Salzburg to walk around, buy stuff, and enjoy cappuccinos. The next day, we had to get up early again because we had a bus tour of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. Hitler had a residence on the top of a mountain just outside of Salzburg. A few workers supposedly died in the construction of the elevator which runs directly thru the mountain up to the top. Before the war, it was a whole complex which consisted of several different buildings, but the allies carpet bombed the crap out of the complex and this “Eagle’s Nest” is the only building which survived.

You would never know that other buildings even exsisted because they have completely disassembled everything, even the foundation. Apparently, the only reason that this one building even survived was because Hitler didn’t spend a lot of time there and he really wasn’t too associated with it. The curious thing is that I don’t think the word “Hitler” was even uttered once during the whole trip. They never talk about him or mention him and his name does not appear anywhere. The only place where I even saw his name was on a book I bought inside the Eagle’s Nest, which is now a restaurant. Once we got to the restaurant, we had 1 hour to walk around the property and take pictures.

Our tour guide, I forget his name, he took a break to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes like a chimney, and text in the restaurant. I don’t blame the guy, since he has to wear lederhosen everyday and look like a fool! After our hour was up, we met back at the elevator to head back to the bus. The bus drove us to this small town called Berchtesgaden, which is at the base of the mountain.

We only had an hour to explore, and most of that time was taken up with Gary and I having coffee at this outdoor café. When our time was up, we had to meet back at the bus to head back to Salzburg. Once we were back in Salzburg, we decided to take the venicular up to the Salzburg castle. One our way there, we walked through a square that had an out door famer’s market sort of thing going on. They had food, but also souvenirs to buy too. They were selling these hats, what Gary and I were calling the Austrian Fedora. I HAD to get one for him because they look so awesome. They come with a feather and you also have to buy these pins to put on the hat. The lady at the booth was really nice and she put the pins on the hat for us. So now we can say that they were placed on the hat by a real Austrian! I told Gary he had to be wearing that hat when we got off the plane back in Michigan. (Which he did!) Anyway, we got in line and rode the packed venicular up to the castle. It was a great view from up there.

We could see all over Salzburg and we had a nice to view of the Nomburg Abby where Maria wanted to become a nun (more Sound of Music references!) We spent a few hours in the castle, and when we were done there we wandered down to get an up-close view of the Abby. Most of the Abby is private and unavailable to walk around, but we were able to go inside the church and look around a little bit. After the Abby, we spent the rest of the day wandering around the old town area. It’s very beautiful there and the people are extremely friendly.

At the end of day, when stores were starting to close up, we headed back to our hostel. When we arrived, we stopped at the front desk to see if Gary’s wallet had been delivered yet. It had been…sort of. Apparently, the mail guy came to deliver it, but since we were not there he took it back to the post office! So, the next morning we had to get up earlier then planned and rush to the post office to pick up Gary’s wallet before our train left Salzburg. Once we got there, the guy was a little apprehensive to hand over the package because I only had my driver’s license with me and not my official passport. But, we didn’t have time to walk all the way back to the hostel and get it. So, after much hemming and hawing, he signed over the package. As we were walking out of the post office, we opened the package to see that the wallet was actually inside. Unfortunately, those bastards took everything except the wallet and his cards. The bag was gone, the little trinkets he bought were gone, his other personal items in the bag were gone and just his wallet remained…with no cash of course. So, now he was out a $50 bag and $300 in American money and about $50 in Czech crowns. What a disappointment! Anyway, we didn’t have time to dwell, because we rushed back to the hostel to gather our things to get to the train station. We got to the train station by the skin of our teeth, but luckily the train was 10 minutes late. That actually saved us because I’m not sure we would have made it because they are VERY punctual in leaving. And, the whole train thing can be a little confusing, especially if your train makes multiple stops and crosses boarders. But, somehow we made it onto the right train and we were headed to Stuttgart, Germany! I think that Gary was both impressed and stressed with my hap-hazard way of traveling in the unknown, but somehow everything manages to work out ok. Sometimes, even I’m not sure how it works out, but it does.

UNESCO Class Trips - More Europe Stories

Karlštejn Castle 7.21.2010

As part of my Prague program, I took a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) class thru AAU so that I could hopefully learn more about Prague, the Czech Republic, and basically understand what I was seeing while I was there. UNESCO is an organization which was formed after WWII to document and protect architecture, landscapes, etc.. which has been created by humans and deemed as important to save for the world to enjoy. The Czech Republic has around 12 UNESCO sites, and this class was designed to learn about the sites, what makes a place become a UNESCO site, and to tour some of these places to see what they are all about. The city of Prague itself has been declared a UNESCO site, but not far outside of the city limits (about 1 hour by train) is a place called Karlštejn Castle. This castle sits atop a hill above the small, quaint town of Karlšejn. It was Charles’ IV other residence outside of the main Prague Castle. Because we were part of a class, we got a tour of the castle that most of the public doesn’t get to see. The only downside was that we were not allowed to take pictures in most of the areas in the castle. I’m not sure why this is so, but I found out that many places throughout the CZ do not allow photos. We had a nice tour guide take us throughout the castle and talk about all the areas within the castle grounds. Like with other early 1900s renovation projects, we could see where they had attempted to ‘renovate’ the castle only to ruin murals or other important structures of the castle. Today, they are trying to figure out how to renovate the new problems and fix the old renovations without doing any more damage to the integrity of the castle. This castle was composed of 3 or 4 separate towers which were connected by wooden bridges.

The reason for this was that if an outside force were to penetrate one building of the castle, they could be stopped by burning down the bridge in between the two towers so that they couldn’t access the next building. The ‘main’ tower of the castle (during the reign of Charles IV) housed the crown jewels, a church used only by the royal family, and several Holy relics of Christ. Since they didn’t have banks or safe deposit boxes in the 1400’s, this main tower was looked at as being the king’s bank. The walls of the tower were 3 meters (10ft) thick with one wall being 7 meters (23ft) thick. It was funny, because from the outside the tower looked quite large, but since the walls were so thick, when we were on the inside it seemed very small. I had asked our tour lady about the relics of Christ. She said that many kings used these as a means of power or importance or to give as gifts to special people. Supposedly, Charles IV possessed a piece of wood from Jesus’ cross, 2 thorns from his crown, and a bit of sponge that was used to give Jesus water while he was on the cross. Of course, no one knows where these relics are now, but the story says that he did in fact have these at one time.

Kutna Hora 7.23.2010

Another place our UNESCO class went to was a town called Kutna Hora. It’s about an hour train ride outside of Prague. Back in the day, large deposits of silver was discovered here and the population flourished because of the silver mining. There was also a time when they produced the regions currency here. However, over the years, the value and the amount of silver diminished and the town struggled to remain alive. Also, because power changed hands frequently and currency changed with power, the town eventually stopped producing money here, which added to their demise in industry. When we got off the train in Kutna Hora, it was painfully obvious that there hadn’t been much change since that time. It’s not a beautiful city like Prague. It is very run down and grey. There are many buildings that desperately need renovation and there didn’t seem to be very many people around town. Once off the train, we got on a bus that took us to the downtown area. The first building we toured was where they used to mint the currency for CZ and I think it used to have government offices there too. While we were waiting for our tour to start, we were all just wandering around the courtyard of this building. I took a picture of some statue and started to walk away, when I heard this guy say in Italian or Spanish “Un momento! Un momento!” I turned around and he motioned for me to take a picture of him standing next to the statue that I just took a picture of. I said ok, so he posed with the statue and I took his picture. I thought it was super funny and he thought he was being super funny too!

After touring this government building, we toured the main Catholic church, St. Barbara’s Cathedral. Like many churches during that time in Europe, it took maybe around 100 years to complete. I thought it was because of the lack in technology that it took so long to build these great structures. That was part of it; however, it was also to due things like war, change of power, countries breaking apart, countries coming together, architects dying, going years without working on the project , etc.. After the church, we had lunch at a pizza place in town. As a side note, I have to say, CZ has the best pizzas ever. I went to a lot of pizza places, (because pizza was one of two foods that my roommate would eat) and every pizza place cooked their pizza in a wood fire oven. I didn’t get pizza a lot, but I would get Jade’s leftovers sometimes and they were great. For about 5 American dollars you could get a “margarita” pizza (cheese pizza) made from home-made dough and cooked in those wood ovens. Anyway, at this place I just got an ‘anti-pasta’ plate with bread, cheese, and 3 different kinds of meat. It was really good, but the way that most places in Prague cook their meat is a little different then we do. It almost seems like the meat is raw compared to how much we cook it. It’s not really raw, but they must just smoke their meat more-so then cook it. So, even though it tasted good, it got in my head that it was raw meat and it was all I could do to keep from spewing at the table! After lunch, we went over to the Ossuary or “The Bone Church”.

Basically, this church is filled with human bones and they are placed in the Ossuary in an artistic, decorative, albeit creepy way. The story goes something like this: all these people were buried in this one cemetery just fine, but then many years later another power took over and people were fighting over the cemetery land. I think there was a conflict between the Catholics and Protestants again, and what ended up happening was that all these people were exhumed and they didn’t have any place to put all the bones. I don’t know where they put them for the time being, but eventually this crazy Monk took on the task of “organizing” the bones into decorative art and stacked piles and placed them in this church. I thought it would be a bigger deal then it actually was. The church is pretty small and we were done touring it in about 30 minutes. Afterwards, we all just walked back to the bus stop and took the city bus back to the train station to head back to Prague.

Trip to Karlovy Vary 7/17 - 7/18 2010

My flat mate Jade and her mom invited me to go along with them for a weekend to this quaint little town about 2 hours outside of Prague called Karlovy Vary.  It's known for it's spas, so we figured that it would be a nice relaxing weekend away from the stress of school.  The trip started out just dandy, and by dandy I mean a huge cluster.  We got up early to have a nice breakfast at this restaurant called The Louve down by the Mustik metro stop.  However, when we got there we found that the restaurant didn't open until 9am.  So, we found another random place to eat for the time being.  Then we headed over to the Florenc bus stop where our bus would be leaving at 10am.  As we were waiting there with the other people travelling to Karlovy Vary, I noticed what appeared to be a grandma with her daughter and young son waiting for the bus as well.  I wish I had had the guts to take a picture of this crew, but I will have to do my best to describe her.  The mom and son seemed to be fairly normal, but the grandma was another story indeed.  She was a heavy set woman wearing high heels and a very thin, blue halter top dress which her massive boobs were about to fall out of at any minute.  And she was really loud and making a scene by talking on her moblie and yelling at her grandson all while we were waiting for the bus to arrive.  I'm pretty sure I jinxed myself when I thought, "I really hope that I don't end up sitting right next to this crew". Of course, when the bus arrived and we got to our assigned seats, grandma sat right next to me. I thought I wasn't going to survive the 2 hour bus ride. For two hours, I leaned my head against the window to try and get some sleep and block out this crazy family. Over the long bus ride, Grandma and mom took junior to the bathroom about 100 times. Grandma was constantly on her mobile shouting in Czech. Then things really got interesting when she took out some sausages and passed them to her daughter and grandson. Besides filling the entire bus with the smell of spicy sausage, grandma and mom talked loudly with their mouths full. Then, junior started getting anxious sitting in his seat. So, he started rocking violently back and forth by kicking and pushing on the seat in front of him. Lucky for me, his seat was right in front of me, so the rocking of his seat hit my head a few times. I think it was about that time that I heard Jade try a muffle a burst of laughter. Finally, by the grace of God, we made it to our destination. I just prayed that this group of misfits were not riding the same bus home. When I stepped off the bus, there was Jade and her mom laughing at my situation. They did tell me that I could have the bigger room in the hotel since I had to suffer on the bus.

When we got off the bus, we didn’t know exactly where our hotel was, so we hired a cab to take us to the Embassy Hotel. The thing I don’t like about cabs in the Czech Republic is that they don’t have meters like in America. You just have to bargain with the cab driver for a price. The cabbie said that he would take us to the hotel for $10, so we thought that was a good deal and took it. If course, after 2 days of being in Karlovy Vary, we learned the bus system and we were able to take the city bus for $2. Oh well, live and learn! Once we made it to our hotel, we dropped off our stuff and decided walk around and explore the town. Jade pointed out that the hotel from 007’s Casino Royal, Hotel Pupp, was located here.

We wandered down to the hotel to try and see if we could get an appointment in their spa for massages and pedicures. However, all their appointments for the weekend were full because the salon was busy with a huge wedding party. When we left the hotel, we saw how fancy this wedding was. All the men were arriving in tuxes and the women were wearing long, formal gowns. On a balcony above the casino portion of the hotel, a small orchestra was playing music for the arriving guests. It was quite a scene! Anyway, continued to walk around and we stopped at this pizza place for lunch. They guy serving us new immediately that we were Americans and he asked us where we were from. I said Michigan, but when Jade and her mom said Texas, the guy instantly lit up. “Oh, the cowboy state!”. We all laughed. It really seems that everyone outside of the US always associates us with cowboys. So, we had a nice lunch and continued our way through town. We then headed into this one building so that we could use the restroom. As I waited for Jade and her mom to return, I people watched for a bit. As I’m sitting there, I watched people come into the building, pull out of their bags these funny-looking mugs and then fill them up at these water spouts that were located throughout the building. I then noticed a small vender selling these odd mugs. So, when Jade and her mom returned, I told them that we HAD to drink this water like everyone else was doing….even though we had no idea what the big deal was with the water, we just thought it would be fun to follow along! So, we ran over to the vendor and we each bought our own mug. These mugs are odd because they are more oval in shape and you actually drink from the handle of it. So, we took our mugs and filled them up at one of the several water spouts located in the building. There were around 5 different spouts and each one was a different temperature ranging from 30 degree Celsius to 70 degrees Celsius! We learned that this water is hot-spring water which is pumped to the surface and made available for drinking through these continuous running spouts. People come here from all over to drink the water, which they all believe to be healthy and have special healing powers. Jade’s mom tried talking to these two nice Czech women about the water. They really didn’t speak English, but through hand gestures and made-up sign language, they conveyed to us that the water helps your digestive system and they drink it 3 times a day. In another area of this building, there is what looks to be a sort-of geyser which spurts water high into the air. They showed us that you stand by the geyser and breath in the vapor of the hot spring too. After breathing in the ‘healing’ vapor, we continued with our exploration of the town.  Also, as I learned from my UNESCO professor, there's a special Czech drink called Becherovka which you are supposed to drink after drinking the spring water.  Supposedly, it was developed to cleanse your pallet after drinking the sulfury, salty, hot-water.  I told Jade about it, and at dinner that night she ordered it.  We didn't realize it was served as just a shot, and not a full glass, like a beer.  She took one sip and could not finish it.  She wanted me to try it, so I did.  It smells like Christmas cookies because of all the spices they use in it.  But, it's a very strong liquor and pretty much burned my throat like gasoline.

We attempted to go visit the Moser glass factory, but when we got there it was closed, so we would have to visit that again the next day. But, we did go to the Moser glass shop and bought a few glass pieces. Since all their glass is hand-blown and hand-cut, it’s insanely expensive. I could only afford to buy these tiny little votives, and they still cost a fortune! After spending all my money on glass, we caught the bus again to head back to the main town. The bus driver did not understand English, because when I tried to purchase a 24-hour bus pass, he gave me 3-day passes instead. I tried to convey that I wanted a 24-hour pass, but he just got mad and waved me off and started driving. I was pissed, so I took the other 2 day-passes back to him and asked for my money back. That must have pissed him off, because he grumbled at me in Czech and waved his hands at me and threw my money back at me. I’m not really sure what the problem was, since there is a sign right by the bus driver that says that you can buy a day pass or a 24-hour pass. Anyways, when we finally got back to town, we were walking around we found another massage place, so we inquired to see if they had appointments available at that time for all of us to get massages. They were free, so the 3 of us made appointments. I was just getting a basic massage, but Jade’s mom got a foot-specific massage and Jade got a massage and a milk bath! When it was my turn to take a massage, everything looked normal except for the tables were really low to the ground. I think it was to mimic a Thai massage place. I had this teeny, petite Asian girl giving me the massage. OMG, she was the strongest little thing ever! She really worked me over. At the end of my massage, she even got me in these positions and cracked my back! It felt really good though and I felt like Jell-O afterwards. I felt a little awkward though, because when I have had a massage in America, they usually keep the towel over you to keep you modest. But, she just pulled down the towel like it was no big deal and I was laying there half the time topless! But, when I conferred with Jade, it seemed like she was butt-naked most of the time, so I didn’t feel so weird after knowing that!

After our massages, it was getting late, so we ended up having dinner at the restaurant next to our hotel and then we crashed for the night. The next day, we got up early for the free breakfast at our hotel. The free breakfast was amazing! There was cereal, yogurt, bread, meats and cheeses, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, sausages etc.. It seemed to be a fusion of a traditional German/Austrian breakfast and American breakfast components. It seemed like a lot of the people from the wedding at the Hotel Pupp were there at hotel too. We could over here them talking about the wedding and such. It also seemed like it was a whole weekend affair, because everyone that was at the wedding had a whole schedule to follow for the day. After breakfast, we got on the bus to go back to the Moser plant. When we got there, we did the museum portion first. It was interesting, but admittedly, a little boring too.

Once we were done with the museum, we had a tour guide for the factory portion. She led us to where they were blowing glass. This girl gave the tour in 3 languages: English, Czech and German! She took us into the plant and explained how they get the molten glass onto the pole, then they blow into the end to form a specific design. When they are done with the main piece, it gets broken off of the pole and put into cooling racks. Each team makes a different main product: big vases, small glasses, etc.. It was really neat to see, but probably the most amazing part was the fact that these guys had no safety gear!

They were all wearing shorts, t-shirts and sandals because it was really hot in the plant. They also did not have any safety glasses or gloves. A couple of the guys had shades that pulled over their regular glasses to protect their eyes from the extremely bright molten glass. They also had this wooden frame with a darker piece of glass in it that they used as a make-shift eye protection that they just held up in front of their face, but not everyone was using it. And the most unbelievable part was that they were drinking beer and smoking on the job! It was quite shocking how little safety was a concern to them.  We asked our tour guide about the safetey thing, and just laughed and said, "Oh you Americans, not many people get hurt, it's not a big deal".  We also noticed that the women working there had very old-fashion type of jobs.  None of the women worked the glass ovens.  The women would carry the glass over to the cooling ovens and they would keep the guys beer glasses full and that was it.  Once we were done with the tour, we walked back to the bus stop to head back to town. We didn’t have a lot of time left before we would have to head back to the main train station to catch our bus back to Prague, so Jade and her mom went to go eat at a restaurant and I decided to wander around a little. There was this building that I had seen from riding the bus, and I wanted to find it and check it out. I walked to where I thought the building was, and it turned out to be a Russian Orthodox Church. It was really amazing because the outside of the church was really reminiscent of something you would see in Russia.

   

 I went inside, but I wasn’t allowed to take pictures. It was really ornate and powerful, pretty much like every other church in Europe. Afterwards, I just headed back to the main town center to meet up with Jade and her mom. By then, it was time to catch the bus back to Prague!

Trip to Ireland

A few weeks ago, my flat mate, Jade, and I decided to venture to Dublin, Ireland during our long holiday weekend over July 5th and 6th.  Ironically, Jan Hus day, which is a Czech Holiday, just so happens to coincide with our 4th of July.  So, what better way to celebrate Jan Hus and America then by chilling with the Irish in Dublin.  I think the most exciting thing for us, was that we would finally be able to communicate in English instead of one-word sentences and semi made-up sign language.  However, we soon found out that the Irish have such strong accents, even though they were speaking English it was quite a challenge sometimes to understand what they were saying!  Anyway, once we landed in Ireland we got on a city bus and made our way to our hostel.  For a hostel, I thought it was actually pretty decent.  We requested a private room, so it was just Jade and I sharing a room and a bathroom.  You can pay less by sharing a room and bathroom with multiple people, but we didn't feel comfortable with that.  And, they had a common room with a TV, a full kitchen to prepare meals, laundry services and computers.  All the same stuff as a hotel, but just not as fancy and cheaper.

Once we got settled in, we headed to the Dublin Zoo, but we got there just in time for it to close.  So, as we were walking back we decided to stop and watch a game of cricket.  I couple of the players noticed us watching and came over to talk cricket with us.  They tried to explain the game to us, but we concluded that it looks cool for a moment, but it's actually a pretty boring game to watch. lol

     

After that, we found our way to a street called Temple Bar.  Supposedly, it has the most bars on one street then in any other place in the world.  But, this is Ireland so that may not come to a surprise to most people.  Anyway, we ate that this cool Irish pub and we drank Bulmer's....which is an awesome Irish hard cider.

  

Besides a ton of bars, Temple Bar street has a lot of street performers and just a lot of strange things to see in general.

    

For our 2nd day in Ireland, Jade and I took a bus tour out into the country to the Wicklow Mountains.  It honestly looked just like in the movies.  Lots of green, moss and flocks of sheep off in the distance on a hill.  We had to leave early in the morning, so please excuse the way I look.

 

 

Two French boys were on our trip. They were sitting at the edge of this cliff and I snapped a pic.

Our main stop was at the ruins of this 13th century monastery at the foot of the Wicklow mountains.  Some of the buildings were still intact, others just the foundation remained.  There was also a graveyard here with beautiful Celtic crosses as the headstones.

   

Once our bus stopped here, our driver told us we had about 2 hours to wander around before we had to leave.  So, I took the opportunity to walk the trails up the mountain in order to get a few great shots.

This photo was quite a feat for me, since I was by myself, the wind was blowing 100 miles per hour, I was learning on the spot how to use the timer on my new camera and it was so bright I really could not see what I was taking a picture of.  Somehow, I managed this shot.

Last pic before I had to head back to the bus.

Now, if you notice, in the center of the photo is the monastery and tower that I had pictures of earlier.  Well, at the time of this picture, I had exactly 30 minutes to get from where I was taking the picture on the mountain, back to that monastery.  In my head, I was sure that I could make it back in time.  However, as I literally began to sprint back down the trails, I knew I was in danger of being late for the bus.  To make matters worse, I was running in flip-flops.  Just as I was almost back to where I had to be, with about 5 minutes to spare, my flip-flop slipped on the wet mud and I went down hard on my left knee.  I got up, checked myself out, and kept running like an idiot.  My leg and flip-flops were dirty from slipping in the mud, so I quickly ran over to this spring that was there to rinse off.  That's when I noticed that my pants were oddly way wetter when I had originally thought when I first fell.  I started to rinse off my feet, shoes and legs when I noticed that my shorts weren't wet from mud or water, but from blood.  I pulled up my shorts to look at my knee and I had really cut open my knee and there was blood on me, my shorts, and my coat.  I rinsed off the best I could and kept running to get back to the bus.  Just as I was reaching the restrooms, I ran into Jade and she says, "Hurry up!  You're late and the bus is getting ready to leave!".  I quickly ran to the bathroom, grab some tissues and try to rinse off my leg some more and then run back to the bus.  Of course, I was the last one on.  I sat next to Jade and turned my body towards her to try and hide my bloody mess from the other people on the bus.  The first thing out of my mouth was, "Don't freak out".  Luckily, I had some wetnaps in my day bag, so I grabbed those and used them to clean up as much of the mess as possible.  When we got back to Dublin, we went back to our hostel so I could fix my knee.  Jade noticed that the front desk had a first aid kit, so we asked for some bandaides from that.  When we got up to our room, I literally went right into the tub to strip off my clothes and rinse them out the best that I could.  The cut on my knee wasn't big, but it was kind of deep and I suppose I should have gotten a stitch, but I didn't.  After making myself decent, Jade and I ran to a pharmacy and got some more bandaids and disinfectant.  It's been almost a month now, and I still have a scab on my knee and it still hurts. But, it was worth it to get those great pictures! :)

Once we got cleaned up from our day in Wicklow, we went out for the evening to celebrate the 4th of July in Dublin.  Funny things was, the bars there were celebrating the 4th too.....but since this is Ireland, I suppose they will make up any excuse to drink.  Anyway, this bar we ended up at was giving out cowboy hats in honor of the American holiday.  It seems that everywhere we go in Europe, the people here associate cowboy hats with America.  It's super funny.

The next day, Jade and I ran around the city of Dublin hitting all the big tourist destinations.  They have this bus called the Hop on Hop off.  Actually, a lot of cities over here have a similar bus system.  You can buy a ticket for the day and you just ride the bus around town.  At each stop you can get off, tour the area, go back to the same stop, get back on the bus and ride to the next tourist stop.  It's a great way to get around town fast and it's cheap too.  

Using the Hop on Hop Off, we travelled to the Dublin Zoo, Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Guinness, and the Jameson Distillery. 

  

  

 

  

The next morning, we had to be at the airport bright and early.  To save on luggage costs, Jade and I shared one big suitcase and we each had a carry-on.  Because we bought so much stuff in Ireland, our bags were jammed packed.  When we got to the airport to check-in, we found out that our bag was over 25 kilos (55 lbs).  The lady checking us in was being really nice, but she said that we had to take some weight out in order to check our bag.  We took out some clothes and other random things to stuff into our carry-on, but we just couldn't make the weight.  We had packed a 6-pack of the Irish hard cider, Bulmers, into our luggage and we knew that we were just going to have to sacrifice the beer to get our luggage on board.  So, we ripped open our suitcase and pulled out the 6 bottles of Bulmers.  Even with that taken out, we were just a little over, but close enough to get our luggage on board.  The girl checking us in looked at us and asked if there was any way that we could take more items out of our bag so we could put the Bulmers back in.  It was like a huge crime against humanity that this beer was going to go to waste.  Even people in line behind us were sad that we couldn't take it with us.  We told her that it was ok and she could just have the bottles of beer.  Otherwise, if we didn't make the weight, it was going to cost us an extra 100 Euros for the suitcase.  She then said to us, "I can't let you go home without this beer, just grab 2 bottles and put them back in your suitcase and I'll let the bag go through".  I couldn't believe how nice she was!  So, we shoved 2 bottles back into our suitcase and made our way to the plane for our flight home to Prague.