Monday
I got on a plane in the wee hours of the morning and arrived in Prague around 10! Maia was there to meet me and we went to her house to drop off my things. I met her dog and her mom and learned a few words of Czech and then we went on a whirlwind tour of the sites of Prague. We started at the top of a hill with Prague Castle and then worked out way down past cathedrals, fancy palaces (private residences of past dukes, etc), and all sorts of interesting little shops and buildings. We met up with Maia's sister at the bottom of the hill and she led us on a tour that included the Charles Bridge, John Lennon Wall, the old city square, and a bunch of cool plazas and things. We had eaten dumplings in a kind of gravy for a lunch, so the second leg of our tour was a bit sleepier than the first half had been. We went by a little shop to grab some random stuff that Maia's family needed and I saw some kolaches. Everyone was very surprised when I could identify them and knew what they were. Thanks, Czechs of Nebraska! I tried to convince them that we even have a Czech influenced food chain here but I don't think they believed me until they looked at my facebook friends' last names (Novak, Janek, etc). When we got back to their apartment in the evening their mom had gotten some soup and homemade bread ready for us! Maia's dad works very late so he didn't get back until 8:30 or so in the evening. Because I had only slept for a few hours the night before, I was falling asleep, but we played card games until he got back and then I went to bed.
Tuesday
Maia's sister had an early class, so she was already gone when I woke up. A few pancakes later, Maia and I walked her dog, Teddy, over to her grandmother's house. Her grandma only lives a few blocks away in a proper house and she is a very eccentric lady! She is very bubbly and excitable, and she peppered the conversation with a few funny english phrases that she knows. She understood English quite well, and made me look around her garden and take some grapes from her vines before she would let Maia and I continue to town. Maia's sister finished her class and met us downtown, so we took a tram out to the church where Dvorak is buried. It was fun to wander around in the yard and look at different graves, plus the area around the cathedral was very pretty.
In the afternoon we met one of Maia's friend for lunch and wandered around a few blocks with her for a while. Then we headed to the Dvorak museum and spent a few minutes looking at his old viola, writing desk, etc. We even took a walk past the street where he used to live! Maia's sister had to go to an evening class so she left for university and Maia and I went back to her apartment where her mom had pierogi waiting for us. After dinner, we took her dog, Teddy, for a walk in the fields behind the apartment complex where they live. From my limited grasp of the geography of the surrounding area, I am thinking that they live on the edge of Prague. Not only were they very close to the airport (ten minutes drive) but most of the land around is fields and there is only one bus stop nearby.
Wednesday
I said goodbye to Maia and her family, was given a lunch bag packed with kolaches, sandwiches, fresh bread, and hazelnuts, teased the dog one last time with the few words of Czech I picked up ('bischcotte' being the equivalent of 'yum yum' to our dogs), and then Maia took me to the train station! Four hours later I got off a bus in Nuremberg! I was running a few minutes early so I quickly booked it to the center of town, took a few pictures, and hustled back to the station to catch my first passenger train!!! I accidentally had a run in with first class / dining car confusion, but everything got sorted and I made it to Munich without too much incident. Serene and I were supposed to meet in the train station at 5:30 but by 6:30 she still wasn't there, so I checked into the hostel by myself and went back to look for her. I got super lost in the maze of tunnels underneath the train / s-bahn / u-bahn / tram / bus station, and by the time I finally got back to the hostel Serene had found her way there! We grabbed dinner and decided to go see what the hostel bar was like. I accidentally made a friend in an 82 year old man staying in the hostel (he said he graduated in '56, then rambled on about the terrible music they play in Starbucks nowadays) until Serene and I were rescued by some folks our age. Surprisingly, one of them was from Omaha, although he graduated a couple years ahead of me so we couldn't think of any people we both know. Still, small world! He claimed he knew a great local beerhall, so a batch of us that had been collected from stragglers at the bar set off down the road. He was right about it being a local, popular place! There were no tourists there, but the whole place was filled to the top with jovial, drunk Germans. We sat down at a table with some of them and made a few friends, which was fun until one of them made an off-color joke about the Maori guy in our group, so then it was time to go. I was impressed by how much English they knew. Not that any of them was fluent at all, but we were all able to communicate pretty well. It was a fun end to the first night in Germany!
Thursday
Serene and I woke up early because we wanted to see as much as possible before the hostel-led tour of Dachau started at 10. We headed to the center of town and wandered around looking at buildings, the clock tour, the Residenz palace, and a few other things before going back to the hostel. We waited in the right place but the tour supposedly left without us even though we were early! We even had the reception desk call them and everything! Abandoned and disheartened, we went back to the center of town to watch the Glockenspiel, a huge bell tower that has moving parts! It acted out a jousting match and a dance for around fifteen minutes, Pirates of the Caribbean ride style. Then we decided to man up and figure out how to get to Dachau by ourselves. We got to the town without any trouble, bought some currywurst from a local shop (the transaction was completely in German, despite the need to request condiments, etc. I'm so proud of myself. Numbers and polite phrases can go a long way, I guess). We accidentally took the wrong bus, but some fancy work and haphazard bus switching got us to the concentration camp by 1 pm or so! It was very foggy, cold, and dreary, which gave the camp a very eerie mood. We spent around four hours there, and it was one of the highlights of the whole trip.
By the time we got back into town we were kind of tired, but we had to drag ourselves out to find food. We rode a tram all over town hoping to see something good out the window, but eventually, we just settled for a Chinese buffet. It wasn't particularly German but it did taste pretty good!
Friday
Our hostelmates woke up at o'dark hundred and insisted on slamming the toilet seat, crinkling plastic bags, dropping heavy bottles, and pushing backpacks back and forth into tiny lockers for around an hour. The hazards of $12 a night living, I guess. We got up pretty early too, because we wanted to see a bunch of palaces / castles / etc and they were all only open from 10 - 4! We went to the English Garden around 8 am and walked around for a while. It was really beautiful, but incredibly cold for people with only autumn jackets, haha. Serene is from Singapore, and even though she was wearing five layers and a winteresque jacket, she was pretty miserable. I only had two layers and a coat, so I was uncomfortable but it wasn't too bad. The only sad part was trying to read the map with cold fingers!
We went in the Bavarian National Museum after the English Gardens, but were disappointed to find out that their displays were only in German. We asked for a guide book in English but they didn't have one. So as cool as the stuff looked, we couldn't really tell what anything was. So we only spent about an hour there, which is too bad because it seemed really interesting. We went to the Schloss Nymphenberg palace next and played with swans for a while before heading inside. We were a bit confused about the layout of the place, because they had no maps or guiding signs, so we accidentally went into a couple unrelated museums, porcelain manufacturer shops, etc that were housed in the palace but not actually a part of the palace exhibition. SIGH. We were kind of hungry, cold, and cranky by the time we got through the palace, and the palaces we really wanted to see were too far away, so we gave up and went to find the famous Market in the downtown area. There was a lot of cool stuff there! It didn't have the "authentic" feel of the huge London Borough market with sheep heads, fish, etc, but there were some pretty fun items there. Roasted chestnuts and handmade Christmas decorations and things of that nature. I picked up a cool preserved food item that I will give to someone for Christmas, I just haven't decided who yet, haha. By the time the market was closing it was quite dark outside, so we went into a few of the large clothing shops that lined the main street, but meh, overpriced things aren't that much fun to look at. Then it was bed time again!
Saturday
Woke up early, took the train for about an hour, got on a plane for two hours, then took a bus to London for another two hours, and now I'm back!
Tomorrow, crazy amounts of homework and some grocery shopping. Thennnnn we'll start talking about pictures. I only took 323 photos over the course of five days, haha. I was surprised my camera's memory could hold so many!
PS: I must come clean, I swiped the photos for the last entry from Serene's facebook and didn't think to give her the credit. She has a pretty sweet camera, so that is why the fireworks look so awesome. Alas, my little camera does not have mad skillz like hers, but it gets the job done.
In the afternoon we met one of Maia's friend for lunch and wandered around a few blocks with her for a while. Then we headed to the Dvorak museum and spent a few minutes looking at his old viola, writing desk, etc. We even took a walk past the street where he used to live! Maia's sister had to go to an evening class so she left for university and Maia and I went back to her apartment where her mom had pierogi waiting for us. After dinner, we took her dog, Teddy, for a walk in the fields behind the apartment complex where they live. From my limited grasp of the geography of the surrounding area, I am thinking that they live on the edge of Prague. Not only were they very close to the airport (ten minutes drive) but most of the land around is fields and there is only one bus stop nearby.
Wednesday
I said goodbye to Maia and her family, was given a lunch bag packed with kolaches, sandwiches, fresh bread, and hazelnuts, teased the dog one last time with the few words of Czech I picked up ('bischcotte' being the equivalent of 'yum yum' to our dogs), and then Maia took me to the train station! Four hours later I got off a bus in Nuremberg! I was running a few minutes early so I quickly booked it to the center of town, took a few pictures, and hustled back to the station to catch my first passenger train!!! I accidentally had a run in with first class / dining car confusion, but everything got sorted and I made it to Munich without too much incident. Serene and I were supposed to meet in the train station at 5:30 but by 6:30 she still wasn't there, so I checked into the hostel by myself and went back to look for her. I got super lost in the maze of tunnels underneath the train / s-bahn / u-bahn / tram / bus station, and by the time I finally got back to the hostel Serene had found her way there! We grabbed dinner and decided to go see what the hostel bar was like. I accidentally made a friend in an 82 year old man staying in the hostel (he said he graduated in '56, then rambled on about the terrible music they play in Starbucks nowadays) until Serene and I were rescued by some folks our age. Surprisingly, one of them was from Omaha, although he graduated a couple years ahead of me so we couldn't think of any people we both know. Still, small world! He claimed he knew a great local beerhall, so a batch of us that had been collected from stragglers at the bar set off down the road. He was right about it being a local, popular place! There were no tourists there, but the whole place was filled to the top with jovial, drunk Germans. We sat down at a table with some of them and made a few friends, which was fun until one of them made an off-color joke about the Maori guy in our group, so then it was time to go. I was impressed by how much English they knew. Not that any of them was fluent at all, but we were all able to communicate pretty well. It was a fun end to the first night in Germany!
Thursday
Serene and I woke up early because we wanted to see as much as possible before the hostel-led tour of Dachau started at 10. We headed to the center of town and wandered around looking at buildings, the clock tour, the Residenz palace, and a few other things before going back to the hostel. We waited in the right place but the tour supposedly left without us even though we were early! We even had the reception desk call them and everything! Abandoned and disheartened, we went back to the center of town to watch the Glockenspiel, a huge bell tower that has moving parts! It acted out a jousting match and a dance for around fifteen minutes, Pirates of the Caribbean ride style. Then we decided to man up and figure out how to get to Dachau by ourselves. We got to the town without any trouble, bought some currywurst from a local shop (the transaction was completely in German, despite the need to request condiments, etc. I'm so proud of myself. Numbers and polite phrases can go a long way, I guess). We accidentally took the wrong bus, but some fancy work and haphazard bus switching got us to the concentration camp by 1 pm or so! It was very foggy, cold, and dreary, which gave the camp a very eerie mood. We spent around four hours there, and it was one of the highlights of the whole trip.
By the time we got back into town we were kind of tired, but we had to drag ourselves out to find food. We rode a tram all over town hoping to see something good out the window, but eventually, we just settled for a Chinese buffet. It wasn't particularly German but it did taste pretty good!
Friday
Our hostelmates woke up at o'dark hundred and insisted on slamming the toilet seat, crinkling plastic bags, dropping heavy bottles, and pushing backpacks back and forth into tiny lockers for around an hour. The hazards of $12 a night living, I guess. We got up pretty early too, because we wanted to see a bunch of palaces / castles / etc and they were all only open from 10 - 4! We went to the English Garden around 8 am and walked around for a while. It was really beautiful, but incredibly cold for people with only autumn jackets, haha. Serene is from Singapore, and even though she was wearing five layers and a winteresque jacket, she was pretty miserable. I only had two layers and a coat, so I was uncomfortable but it wasn't too bad. The only sad part was trying to read the map with cold fingers!
We went in the Bavarian National Museum after the English Gardens, but were disappointed to find out that their displays were only in German. We asked for a guide book in English but they didn't have one. So as cool as the stuff looked, we couldn't really tell what anything was. So we only spent about an hour there, which is too bad because it seemed really interesting. We went to the Schloss Nymphenberg palace next and played with swans for a while before heading inside. We were a bit confused about the layout of the place, because they had no maps or guiding signs, so we accidentally went into a couple unrelated museums, porcelain manufacturer shops, etc that were housed in the palace but not actually a part of the palace exhibition. SIGH. We were kind of hungry, cold, and cranky by the time we got through the palace, and the palaces we really wanted to see were too far away, so we gave up and went to find the famous Market in the downtown area. There was a lot of cool stuff there! It didn't have the "authentic" feel of the huge London Borough market with sheep heads, fish, etc, but there were some pretty fun items there. Roasted chestnuts and handmade Christmas decorations and things of that nature. I picked up a cool preserved food item that I will give to someone for Christmas, I just haven't decided who yet, haha. By the time the market was closing it was quite dark outside, so we went into a few of the large clothing shops that lined the main street, but meh, overpriced things aren't that much fun to look at. Then it was bed time again!
Saturday
Woke up early, took the train for about an hour, got on a plane for two hours, then took a bus to London for another two hours, and now I'm back!
Tomorrow, crazy amounts of homework and some grocery shopping. Thennnnn we'll start talking about pictures. I only took 323 photos over the course of five days, haha. I was surprised my camera's memory could hold so many!
PS: I must come clean, I swiped the photos for the last entry from Serene's facebook and didn't think to give her the credit. She has a pretty sweet camera, so that is why the fireworks look so awesome. Alas, my little camera does not have mad skillz like hers, but it gets the job done.
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