Finale in Praha

This was our last full day in Prague.

We started out the day and walked towards Vichyhrad which is another castle with some great views of other parts of Prague and there is a cool cathedral there too.  There was a cemetery there that had beautiful headstones at each grave.  The oldest grave I noticed was from the early 1700's.  We walked around the whole castle and there were some awesome high walled sections that looked very ancient and so many different views of the city.

We had lunch at a charming little pizza place (and we were able to get free tap water there!)  The to go box had cute dinosaurs all over it.

We then walked to an island that was at the base of Most Legii (one of the bridges there).  People were feeding the swans, ducks, seagulls, and other water birds that happened along.

After that we walked around and under Charles Bridge and found this other park where peacocks and peahens were roaming free.  We sat and watched an old lady feeding the peacocks and she was speaking to them in Czech.  At one point, she started counting and said something to us we didn't understand and left.  We, however, took the bread that she had left and began trying to feed the peacocks.  We eventually were able to get them to come eat the bread from the palms of our hands.  Peacocks are some of the most beautiful animals with intricate patterns all over their whole bodies and their bright blue necks were stunning.  While we were feeding the peacocks though, a man came up and shouted to us and pointed at a key in his hand... We had been locked in (sheepish grin).  I guess that lady that said something to us said "The park is closing, you should leave" or something like that.  Oooops!  Well the man graciously let us out of the park and all is good.
We kept some of the bread the lady at the peacock garden left behind and we headed back to the island with the swans and fed them by hand too!

We went back to the hostel and grabbed a bite to eat there and afterwards went to the Ice Pub that is very close to one entrance of Charles Bridge.  That was hilarious.  The bar area was fun and the walls were ice and there were ice statues all over.  You are given a jacket and gloves and are allowed to stay in the bar for 30 minutes, all the drinks come in glasses made out of ice.  It was hilarious because of the group that went in with us.  There were about 6 or 7 Scottish guys there and they were just having a good ole time.  Some things they would yell would be in such a thick accent, i couldn't even understand what they were saying.

Tomorrow will be an early morning getting on a bus to head to Vienna!

Cathedral inside the castle Vishyhrad.

View of Prague Castle and St. Vitus from Vishyhrad.

Swan says "What are you looking at?!"

View back towards Prague 1 from the island with the swans.

Peacock... Cool guy.

Toreador, En Garde!

Today was a really cool day in Prague.

The day started out with some walking around and stopping in a few art galleries and souvenir shops (Ooooh shiny!) After that we met up with Lauren again!

We stopped by the big TV tower to wait for Lauren to get off of work.  We headed to a park that had a beautiful view of the city.  Then we headed to Czech Sochi.  That was really cool.  I now have ideas for hosting a small Olympic village in Virginia for the next Winter Olympics :)  They had a small ski slope with jumps, a large ice skating track, two ice hockey rinks, a cross country skiing trek, and a few other little event places.  I liked seeing the people excited about the games!

We then walked to a place to have dinner with Lauren and Ondrej.  That was fun and Lauren told a story about how she had accidentally showed up an hour late to a show so we checked our ticket and realized that we were going to do the same thing if we had kept on thinking the show was at the time we thought.  Thankfully we checked and we were able to make it to the show on time.

The show we went to see was Carmen by Georges Bizet.  That was AWESOME!!!  It was the first opera I had ever been to.  It was so good and there were a few songs I recognized (Thank you Looney Tunes!) The set was really cool with the entire stage rotating and they used that well to show movement through different scenes.  The music was outstanding.  The recognizable songs would be Habanera and the Toreador Song.  When they play the Toreador song in Act 4 as all the toreadors are coming into the main square and there is a big festival for them, I got chills seeing it all.
It made me really want to get back into doing things on stage :)  It also made me recognize that I was a fan of operas.  The State Opera was also very beautiful which only adds to the experience.

Here are a few pictures from the day.

Lauren, Ondrej, Me, and Rosalie (left to right)

Best view of the city.

Chandelier in the Stadni Opera (State Opera).  Beautiful ceiling too!

Prague today.

This city is amazing.  You can wander and wonder all over the city and see entirely new things that you didn't even know existed the day before.

Today we to some of Ondrej's advice on places to go see.  We went to this cool bar that had welded things all over it which was really cool... I got some ideas for things to do when I get home :)

Then we walked all over this old 1908 Expo fair ground.  That was cool because it was somewhat abandoned and I felt like a treasure hunter or a spy creeping around places where danger lurks around every corner.  After that we walked to a nearby park and saw some ducks playing on a 70% frozen pond.  It was funny watching them land on the ice and then break through and step along the ice very timidly to get across.

We the walked around more in the city and then headed up to a monastery on the top of the hill behind Prague castle.  We stopped on the way up at a small cafe that Ondrej suggested and it was great.  The monastery was cool and actually had a mini-brewery inside of it. As we walked down from the monastery, we stopped in a Thai massage place and had these little fish eat the dead skin (or something) off of our feet... That was an interesting experience, but it was very relaxing.

Then we headed to dinner at a different monastery with some friends; Ted, Carolyn, and Ruth Turnau.  That was delightful and I ate rabbit for the first time ever!  Poor Bugs Bunny.  Then we headed back to the Hostel after a full day.

Cool welded Cafe.

Back of the Expo showing a fountain that would have been grand at the time.

Front of the Expo hall.

Cathedral inside the walls of one of the Monasteries.

A couple night views of Charles bridge with the Castle in the background.

Wondering the city of a Hundred Spires.

Today in Prague was great!

We started out by wandering around the city and saw some more of the famous sights and viewpoints more.

Our hostel is not too far from the "Dancing Building" sometimes also referred to as the "Fred and Ginger" building, after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.  We started out there and walked along the Vltava River that runs through Prague.  We walked to the famous Charles Bridge and around the area at the base of the Castle in Prague.  We walked up a few side streets that took us by some cool souvenir shops. Each one is very shiny and catches the eye because of the glass things that they have in the windows and in the shops... I feel like a raccoon when walking around the streets here (Oooh Shiny!)

We got to the top of those streets and were greeted with the entrance to Prague Castle (Prazsky hrad).  This is touted as the largest ancient castle in the world.  Prague castle is where the president resides and has historically been a seat of power for Bohemian kings and Holy Roman Emperors too.

Inside the castle walls is St. Vitus Cathedral.  This thing is so massive that I couldn't fit it all into one photo.  This cathedral has a huge ceiling and wonderful stained glass windows.  After leaving the cathedral, we wandered more around the inside of the castle and as we left, there were a couple great vantage points of the city.  You could see so many spires popping out from the tops of all of the buildings.

At dinner time, Rosalie and I met up with Lauren and Ondrej Riegel.  If you don't know them, I grew up with Lauren and she met her husband Ondrej here in Prague.  They graciously invited us into their home for dinner and I had so much fun catching up with them.  They also gave us some good advice on what we should do the rest of our time in Prague.  They also told us that, because of the Olympics, they have set up a little Czech Sochi area here with ice skating, curling, and a few other things.  I am excited to see that.

Dancing Building by Frank Gehry.

Charles Bridge with Prague Castle and St. Vitus in the background

One of the stained glass windows in St. Vitus.

This side alley was in a part of the Mission Impossible movie with Tom Cruise. ("Abort Mission" "Why was there another team there?" "Red Light, Green Light... don't chew it")


ps... I forgot to mention this but while in Germany, I saw David Hasselhoff, a rottweiler, doberman pinscher, dachshund, and German Shepherd.  I consider that a success!

Welcome back to prague

This morning, we got on the bus from Berlin to Prague.  It's hard to believe that we are actually in our fourth city already.  The bus trip was pleasant.  We were going eurolinesCZ which are one of the Czech run bus lines and the seats were very nice and comfortable and they gave everyone a chocolate bar and bottle of water (This was not the case on the Eurolines Belgium or Netherlands).

The trip was nice.  We had a stop in Dresden, Germany and that is a town that looks like it would have been to spend a couple of days sometime.  Very neat looking architecture.

When we crossed into the Czech Republic we were on a road that took us by a river.  The sight was amazing.  On both sides of the river, the mountains rose up all around it and there were cool village houses all around.

It was cool to see Prague again.  I came here in 2008 with Zac (my brother).  I am surprised with how much I remember about the layout of the city.  It was fun to see these things that I have had pictures of on my computer for that long and they look the same as always.  I guess it wouldn't do well to change ancient architecture thought :)

When we got to Prague, we got to our hostel, the Mosaic House.  This hostel is great.  Very well run and well accommodating.  The rooms are nice and clean and there is a restaurant in the hostel lobby where they have music shows every night.

We got all settled in and then went out for lunch at around 3PM.  We ate at a nice little place close to the hostel.  We walked around the city, saw a bunch of art galleries and glass shops and found a small outdoor seating cafe in the Old Town square which was showing the Olympics so we stopped in there and I had "Hot Wine".  It is basically mulled wine that was really good and warmed me up a little because it was chilly.  We walked around the city for about 3 hours total then came back to the hostel to plan the next day.

I went downstairs into one of the lounge areas in the hostel and the Olympics were on there too!  I am impressed and excited with the amount the Olympics are on here... They were impossible to find in the Netherlands and Berlin.

I also met three of the other people in our room.  Two of them (Rodrigo and Bruno) are from Brazil so I said a few things in Portuguese to them.  The other's name is... Russian.  We met and he told me his name and I repeated it back to him and he corrected me so I said it again the exact same way and he nodded his head yes.  He was probably like "Why cant you get this?  It's not that hard"  But he was really nice and had wonderful things to say for the US.  He especially likes Miami.

I am curious to see what the next day will bring.

Example of the cool facades on some of the buildings in Prague.

Fire twirling in the Old Town Square with Chram Svateho Mikulase in the background.

Church of Our Lady before Tyn at night.

The Powder Tower.  One of the original city gates, dating back to the 11th century.

Final day in Berlin

Well today turned out like an easy day or rest day... sort of, although that kind of happened by accident.

I wore a different jacket today and accidentally left my camera at the hostel.  So I don't have pictures from today for the blog (sorry).

We started out having breakfast at the hostel which was good and then went out to see Checkpoint Charlie. It was very interesting strolling down a street where people were not even allowed to approach less than 40 years ago.

We had a plan to go to see the Charlottenburg Palace but... we did laundry at our Hostel and for some reason the dryer took over an hour and a half to finish up.  That was frustrating because it ate up our day, but it did give us time to rest which was good too.

We went to dinner at a place called Huhnerhaus (Chicken house) which was recommended by the hostel as the best chicken in Berlin.  It did not disappoint.  It was delicious.  Best meal we had in Berlin and it was not expensive either!

We came back to the hostel to see if the Charlottenburg Palace was still open, but found out that they don't open all of it on Monday anyway and we might not have been able to see most of it if we had went.  Blessing in disguise?

So we stayed at the hostel and watched some of the Olympics on the TV in the common room.  It was cool to see the Olympics from another country's perspective.  There are a lot less USA athletes shown than they are in the US (surprise, surprise).

Throughout the time in the city I have liked learning the culture and attitudes of the Berliners in the short time I have been here.  It is definitely a place where I could have spent more time.

Sorry I don't have any camera pictures today.  I did take some with my phone so they should be on Facebook if you can find me.

This is the last night in Berlin and we have to get up and be out of the Hostel at 6:15 AM in order to catch the bus to Prague so it will probably be an earlier night tonight.  So for now I will say Gute Nacht!

Ich bin ein Berliner

Day one in Berlin was nice.  Rosalie and I got to walk around a bunch and see a few parts of the city.  

A few things I first noticed... Berlin is considerably less touristy than Amsterdam or Brussels, there is a lot of graffiti around the city, and the city is HUGE.

As I went around the city on the way to our hostel, I was excited to get to use some of the German I have been learning.  And then some one spoke to me in German (queue blank face).  I was like, whaaaat?  Sprechen Sie Englisch?  I don't know near enough to actually carry on a conversation with anyone.  But it still was helpful and I do recognize way more words than I would have had I not started learning it.

While we were walking around the city the first day, we went to Potsdam Platz we walked down to where the Berlin Philharmonie was and wanted to see if there were any tickets for shows there.  The box office didn't open until 6PM so we didn't get tickets to see anything, but we met a Colombian man at the information desk who loved us.  He mentioned that Hilary Swank was right down the street and we should go talk to her and would probably be able to because we are Americans (Ha!).  Then as we left he told us "God Bless America!" 

We then walked to where he said Hilary Swank was and couldn't find her...  But we did see the actors from the new movie Monument's Men doing a press conference (If you don't know who is in that, we saw George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, and John Goodman) we didn't talk to them though.

After that we walked to the Brandenburg Gate.  That gate is a previous city gate commissioned by king Frederick William II as a sign of peace.

We then walked around the city some more grabbed some dinner and ate at the hostel.  I watched some Bundesliga highlights and then went up to go to bed... remember the night bus?  That took a lot out of us so we were pooped.

Today was filled with much more.  It is sunday, so there are Flohmarkte (flea markets) all over town.  We woke up and decided to venture out to a Flohmarkt in town.  When we got out of the U-Bahn tunnel, we came up to a street where the Berlin Wall Memorial was (happy accident, we planned on going eventually, but didn't realize it was that close to where we were headed).  It was interesting to see where the wall was and what the place looks like now.  It was really cool to look at all the stuff that people make and sell at the market.  While at the market one of the stands was playing an american musician called Adam Green who reminded me of a mix between Cake and Avett Brothers.  If you like both of those bands, check him out.

After that we went to another market on Museum Island called the Kunstmarkt (Art market).  There was some really cool artwork there.  Also on  (Museum Island are a bunch of... wait for it... Museums.  The National Art Museum is there and the Pergamon, which is an ancient Greek and Roman museum, and the Neues Museum (new museum) and the Altes Museum (old museum).  

The Berlin Cathedral is also on that island.  That is a protestant cathedral that is massive.  They still have services there and at 6:00 we went to the service.  It was all in German but it was still cool to be there.  We actually did the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's Prayer.  They have a huge organ and the inside is beautiful.

We also saw the East Side Gallery.  This is a section of the Berlin Wall, about a mile long, which has 105 paintings on it from artists all over the world.  It is an awesome display of unity among people all over the world who value peace.

For dinner we went to a place called Brauhaus Lemke.  That was a cool place that was underneath the strassenbahn (like an Elevated train, sort of).

It has been fun discovering the character of the city, the more you see, the more you understand about it.

Berlin Wall Memorial.  This is taken from the East side of Berlin.

 Berlin Cathedral.

 National Art Museum.

 German words on part of the East Side Gallery

Extravagant art on the East Side Gallery.

 

Faces on the East Side Gallery.

This one I like from the East Side Gallery.

 This is the front of the Sanctuary in the Berlin Cathedral.

Organ in the Berlin Cathedral.