in prague! its great! took the night train from krakow which wasn't good but we've had aful day here which has been great! prague is amaaaaaaaaaaaaazing! sooooooooo gorgeous, incredible architecture, etc. very obvious that the city was very powerful and had lots of wealth. the architecture and decoration on buildings is quite remarkable -- very noticeably different from, say, grenoble which wasn't a wealthy city and doesn't have any special archiecture/buildings/cathedrals. so pretty. perfect weather today. not a cloud in the sky. hostel RIGHT in the middle of old city. it's great! saw the castle today, old city, did a free walking tour all around town this morning, going to kutna hora tomorrow, then jewish museum and churches friday! AND i had my first bagel since this summer this morning for breakfast and it was amaaaaaaaaazing!
kutna hora was very cool! easy and cheap 1 hr train ride from praha. 4 Swedes sat in our compartment with us. 2 couples traveling together for their wives 40th bdays. they were really funny and entertaining to travel with. talked the whole time about pretty much everything...our trips, politics, their lives in sweden, ours in the US/France, perceptions of each others' countries. swedes are awesome! we hung out with two young ones in the hostel in warsaw one morning and they wer esuper nice and fun, and now john and i both really wanna go to sweden! and bielorussie (belarus?) and ukraine too, but that's another story lol.
anyways, kutna hora...first saw some super old church (we do that about 5 times a day...), then another one except it's an ossuary, and thus is decorated with tooooons of bones. human bones. real ones! skulls too. so cool. even a bone chandelier in the middle. then walked around the main part of town, saw another big cathedral, chilled, got a local beer on the town square, and headed back. went to Wenceslas Square, walked around, got a pastry at the best pastry shop in the city according to our walking tour guide (banana chocolate pie thing...super good!), and then went back to the hostel. walked around some more just exploring, got stroopwafel which were kinda the most amazing thing in the world and thought of stephaaa/amsterdam.
we went to dinner at the best middle eastern restaurant (possibly the best food) in prague, according to katie, a friend from brandeis who studied abroad in prague last year. it was really crowded and had awesome decor, lights, etc. the food was amaaaaaaaazing! spinach pastry appetizers (think hamentaschen, but spinach), then i got a veggie mezze sampler plate, which had hummus, baba ghanoush, two cheese pastry things that were incredible, and stuffed grape leaves. it was all SO delicious and tasty! john got this iraki chicken special thing that is really popular there...shishkebabed chicken with a spicy red sauce and tomato, onion, pita served with it. both dishes were awesome! then bakalava and this indian sweet rice pudding for dessert with raisins, currants, cashews, cardamom and cinnamon. it sounds weird, but it was quite good. our server recommended it and the texture was really interesting, and great flavors. the bakalva came on a plate sprinkled with pistachios too. it was so pretty! to drink i got becherovka and tonic. becherovka's this super czech drink that katie said i had to get. it smells kinda like chartreuse, but taste isn't that similar. made with various herbs and plants and tastes herby and stuff i'd say. good and i def enjoyed it, but nothing to write home about (ironic...) then just walked around by the river for a while and in town!
today we did jewish stuff in the morning, many synagogues, museums, old relics and artifacts and info. pretty cool...saw the oldest synagogue in europe (the old new synagogue). it was suuuuuper crowded. tooooons of people. can only imagine what it'd be like in june, july or august... it's been raining today which is a bummer but whatever...first time the whole trip so can't complain!
17 April 2009
13 April 2009
Poland - Warsaw
hello from warsaw!
got here alright, had our first full day out on the town today! it's really awesome here! neat city, very interesting mix of newer and communist/soviet era architecture... basically the entire city (buildings, people) was destroyed in WWII by Hitler. its nuts. went to this amaaaazing museum today about the warsaw uprising (not to be confused with the warsaw ghetto uprising) which was huge, spent several hrs in it, and full of info.
it's been interesting how it's ended up being such a WWII-centric trip. (kelly, il faut que t'y viennes un de ces jours...c ton paradis! et berlin aussi. john m'a rejoint de Berlin et il m'a dit que tout ce qu'on peut faire la-bas au sujet de la 2e guerre mondiale est incroyable, y compris le bunker d'Hitler!) but anyways, warsaw and all about WWII---didn't realize it'd be that way, but like i said, the whole city practically was razed by the germans so nearly all of it is rebuilt, tons of memorials/monuments to those who died, etc. 3 million jews in 1938. 5000-10.000 today in warsaw. crazy. over 300.000 were deported from the warsaw ghetto alone, mostly in 1944 at the end of the war. and stalin/URSS was horrible to the city too, both during and after the war. been quite fascinating. john and i were saying today it's so neat being here as you hear about the warsaw ghetto, the ghetto uprising, Mordechaj Anielewicz (its leader), all the concentration camps in poland, how poland was totally screwed over in the war (in terms of destruction to buildings/infrastructure, death of its jews and gentiles alike, being invaded nearly simultaneously by germany and l'URSS from the west and east, etc) -- but it all seems so far away and distant. but to actually be here, see a remaining fragment of the ghetto wall, see the museum full of stories of people involved in the resistance, monuments/memorials galore is quite incredible and moving and remarkable. so awesome!
anyways, heading to krakow tomorrow midday! hope all's well in chattanoga and none of you have been arrested for underage drinking provoked by intimidating text messages....oh mccallie....some things about you i just don't miss at all!!
i had super awesome falafel last night and thought of stephanie and pete and the awesome falafel fiesta that's going down in chattown this summer.
and lufthansa's hyper nice btw. drinks/sandwiches/refills on both hour-long flights! and free coffee/tea in the munich airport! and, aliza, they came around with "coffee/tea!" you would've loved it!
next day...
ate a great dinner tonight at a place called greenway, an all-veggie restaurant that's apparently growing in popularity in poland. complete full meal for 9 dollars. including drinks. for the both of us! yay non-euro countries! at dinner we ran into this guy we met this morning! it was really funny and fun. we ate w/ him since he was by himself. we bonded over bank difficulties this morning (i can't use my visa credit card as an ATM card to withdraw cash...anywhere. france, poland, etc. weird...) but he's french, from chambery (right near grenoble!..in between it and geneve) and working in poland. he speaks super good english, has lived in the US some, china, poland, france obv. spoke english this morning but then french tonight once he realized we spoke french. it was funny...did he honestly think we'd be studying abroad in france if we didn't know french!?
here in krakow, i ate an incredible vegetarian pierogi sampler plate, including ones with spinach! for 5 bucks. for the entire meal! a platter/assortment of various kinds, including spinach-feta, cheese-onion and potato-mushroom. hyper delicieux! and super cheap too! they're like dumplings in a way, but more like ravioli in terms of the texture of the dough/bread that holds it together. and u just cook them in boiling water (i thoguht they were fried or baked or something for some reason) so its like pasta in that way. YUM!
Krakow
the royal castle was pretty cool. nothing spectacular i didn't think but neat to see. we went back in the afternoon when it got sunny and clearer and went up the bell tower which was neat, nice view over the city, seeing the maaaassive bells. otherwise just walked around town, saw churches nad monuments, ate BORSCHT for lunch! it was good! i officially like beets! you're missing out, mom...
its weird, everyone says krakow's amazing and you can (even should) spend a whole week there, but i haven't really gotten that impression. maybe it's because stuff's been closed, but i feel like you can only see so many churches, only so many 15th, 16th ,17th century old religious paintings that all look the same, etc. i feel like we've doen everything there is to do here, except museums which are closed yesterday and today (and we're doing auschwitz tomorrow so prob won't have time to do them), but again, that'd just be more similar painting/tapestry type stuff that we've seen already. whatevs. not to say that i've been underwhelmed by krakow, maybe more just plain whelmed haha. warsaw was really cool though i (and john) thought, and everyone says that it's lame and not cool and krakow's way better. so who knows!!!
excited about auschwitz tomorrow though (if you're allowed to say/think that...)!
got here alright, had our first full day out on the town today! it's really awesome here! neat city, very interesting mix of newer and communist/soviet era architecture... basically the entire city (buildings, people) was destroyed in WWII by Hitler. its nuts. went to this amaaaazing museum today about the warsaw uprising (not to be confused with the warsaw ghetto uprising) which was huge, spent several hrs in it, and full of info.
it's been interesting how it's ended up being such a WWII-centric trip. (kelly, il faut que t'y viennes un de ces jours...c ton paradis! et berlin aussi. john m'a rejoint de Berlin et il m'a dit que tout ce qu'on peut faire la-bas au sujet de la 2e guerre mondiale est incroyable, y compris le bunker d'Hitler!) but anyways, warsaw and all about WWII---didn't realize it'd be that way, but like i said, the whole city practically was razed by the germans so nearly all of it is rebuilt, tons of memorials/monuments to those who died, etc. 3 million jews in 1938. 5000-10.000 today in warsaw. crazy. over 300.000 were deported from the warsaw ghetto alone, mostly in 1944 at the end of the war. and stalin/URSS was horrible to the city too, both during and after the war. been quite fascinating. john and i were saying today it's so neat being here as you hear about the warsaw ghetto, the ghetto uprising, Mordechaj Anielewicz (its leader), all the concentration camps in poland, how poland was totally screwed over in the war (in terms of destruction to buildings/infrastructure, death of its jews and gentiles alike, being invaded nearly simultaneously by germany and l'URSS from the west and east, etc) -- but it all seems so far away and distant. but to actually be here, see a remaining fragment of the ghetto wall, see the museum full of stories of people involved in the resistance, monuments/memorials galore is quite incredible and moving and remarkable. so awesome!
anyways, heading to krakow tomorrow midday! hope all's well in chattanoga and none of you have been arrested for underage drinking provoked by intimidating text messages....oh mccallie....some things about you i just don't miss at all!!
i had super awesome falafel last night and thought of stephanie and pete and the awesome falafel fiesta that's going down in chattown this summer.
and lufthansa's hyper nice btw. drinks/sandwiches/refills on both hour-long flights! and free coffee/tea in the munich airport! and, aliza, they came around with "coffee/tea!" you would've loved it!
next day...
ate a great dinner tonight at a place called greenway, an all-veggie restaurant that's apparently growing in popularity in poland. complete full meal for 9 dollars. including drinks. for the both of us! yay non-euro countries! at dinner we ran into this guy we met this morning! it was really funny and fun. we ate w/ him since he was by himself. we bonded over bank difficulties this morning (i can't use my visa credit card as an ATM card to withdraw cash...anywhere. france, poland, etc. weird...) but he's french, from chambery (right near grenoble!..in between it and geneve) and working in poland. he speaks super good english, has lived in the US some, china, poland, france obv. spoke english this morning but then french tonight once he realized we spoke french. it was funny...did he honestly think we'd be studying abroad in france if we didn't know french!?
here in krakow, i ate an incredible vegetarian pierogi sampler plate, including ones with spinach! for 5 bucks. for the entire meal! a platter/assortment of various kinds, including spinach-feta, cheese-onion and potato-mushroom. hyper delicieux! and super cheap too! they're like dumplings in a way, but more like ravioli in terms of the texture of the dough/bread that holds it together. and u just cook them in boiling water (i thoguht they were fried or baked or something for some reason) so its like pasta in that way. YUM!
Krakow
the royal castle was pretty cool. nothing spectacular i didn't think but neat to see. we went back in the afternoon when it got sunny and clearer and went up the bell tower which was neat, nice view over the city, seeing the maaaassive bells. otherwise just walked around town, saw churches nad monuments, ate BORSCHT for lunch! it was good! i officially like beets! you're missing out, mom...
its weird, everyone says krakow's amazing and you can (even should) spend a whole week there, but i haven't really gotten that impression. maybe it's because stuff's been closed, but i feel like you can only see so many churches, only so many 15th, 16th ,17th century old religious paintings that all look the same, etc. i feel like we've doen everything there is to do here, except museums which are closed yesterday and today (and we're doing auschwitz tomorrow so prob won't have time to do them), but again, that'd just be more similar painting/tapestry type stuff that we've seen already. whatevs. not to say that i've been underwhelmed by krakow, maybe more just plain whelmed haha. warsaw was really cool though i (and john) thought, and everyone says that it's lame and not cool and krakow's way better. so who knows!!!
excited about auschwitz tomorrow though (if you're allowed to say/think that...)!
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