"I Love Paris in the Springtime": Spring Break Part 1

It's been a week since I got back from spring break, so I need to get in a blog post about it! It's weird because spring break always seemed so far away...when we got to Prague it was January, and we knew that when we got back from spring break we'd only have about 6 weeks left in Prague. Well, break has come and passed and its now April, which seems so strange to me.

I had a very excellent time! My friend Collin and I went to Paris, Nice and Milan together. We saw two of our other friends for a few days in Paris, and then our friend Mike joined us at the end of Paris and continued to the other destinations with us. Unfortunately, especially because you know how much I love photos, my camera broke in the Prague airport on the way to Paris. Fortunately, though, Collin happens to be an excellent photographer! All the following photos I show from Spring Break are his.

Paris was absolutely fantastic, and the second Collin and I stepped out of the Metro at Montmarte, the neighborhood in which we stayed, we both fell in love (neither of us had been there before). It had been raining when we landed, and my camera broke, but in a very cliche moment, none of that seemed to matter. Montmarte is such a beautiful neighborhood, despite its numerous hills, which we were required to climb every time we travelled in it (I got so much exercise on this trip!) Here's the view from the stairs above the Metro stop:



After checking into our hostel, we decided to try to walk to the Seine. Despite Collin's iphone skills and the map in my guidebook, we ended up walking in the wrong direction. Oh well, at least we got to see some French neighborhoods, and even a Gypsy market. We then took the Metro in the right direction and ended up near Notre Dame, falling in love with Paris even more. Its so beautiful and it has a certain charm about it that I'd never experienced before. Notre Dame was gorgeous, too:



We got to go inside, and it was huge, with a large open middle sanctuary, and then lots of little rooms all around the sides, with stained glass windows and artifacts and things. They even had confession rooms where you could go inside and talk with a priest. I thought it was funny because the rooms were sorted by the languages the priests inside them could speak.

We then got some lunch (baguette sandwiches and a glass of wine) at a cafe, and enjoyed that because it was so cheap, and so typically Paris! Our friends were at the Eiffel Tower, so we finished up and decided to walk to go meet them. All the way at the other end of the Seine. That hour and a half gave me blisters, but we got to see tons of things along the way! We finally got there, and of course had to take a picture of all of us in front of the Tower:



It was awesome to see it up close...it looks a little redder than I thought it would be, and I really liked the intricate designs on it. Then, we met up with our friends' friend who is working for a year as an au'pair. She took us to the Invalides, which is a beautiful garden in front of a museum dedicated to Napolean, including his tomb. Now, EU citizens between the ages of 18 and 26 can get into museums for free. We all happened to have Czech "ID's", aka our Metro passes. These are all in Czech, with our names, pictures and birthdays. Being the cheap students that we are, we decided to try to use our Metro passes to get into the Museum for free...and it worked!! That was awesome. After seeing the musem, we sat in the gardens for a bit and took in all the French people (including two boys and their dad playing rugby, who hit us with the ball), before going back to our hostels to get ready for dinner.

Dinner was an experience unto itself. We went to this amazing French restaurant, and the food was delicious. The boys had three course meals, but I stuck to one course, beef bourginon.



It was SO good. We then went out for a bit, but were really tired so soon called it a night. Collin and I had to make three transfers on the Metro to get home, thanks to Paris' odd hub and spokes system, which looks comprehensive since it has a lot of lines, but thats deceiving because none of them really connect in convenient places.

The next day we went to the Louvre, where again used our Metro passes to get in for free! They were a little more suspicious of us there, but gave us the tickets anyway. The Louvre itself is a beautiful building, not to mention all the artwork. Here's me with a woman who's pretty famous:



Here is the museum from the outside (the clouds look really ominous, but luckily it only rained on us once during our time in Paris, so we got pretty lucky):



After the Louvre, we went to the Arc D'Triomphe, and the Champs Elysees. There's the Champs with the arc in the background:



We decided to buy bagettes from a boulangerie (bakery) for dinner, and then had some wine on the Seine. It was a pretty beautiful experience, very quiet out and all of us just sitting and looking out on the water. However, we didn't realize that the Metro closed at midnight, not 2am, so we had to walk back to Montmarte. It was pretty far and pretty interesting, but we made it! And also ended up finding the Moulin Rouge on the way, so that was cool. Collin and I took a picture in front of it:



The next day, we wanted to go to Versailles, but it was closed. Instead, we went back to the Notre Dame area, walked around a bit, and had an amazing lunch of paninis and crepes on the Seine. We saw the Bastille, and then went to Sacre Couer, a church on a hill in Montmarte that has an absolutely exquisite view of Paris:



That night, we went to a place in Montmarte that serves fondue for dinner, and also wine in baby bottles. It was a tiny, crowded place, where some of us had to climb on top of chairs to get to the benches on the other side of the table. So fun!

The next day, after another failed attempt at Versailles, we had a lovely picnic of baguettes, brie, and strawberries in Luxemborg Gardens. They were so beautiful, and it was very nice to have sunny, warm weather. Mike's cousin, who runs a study abroad program in France, provided us with one of their dorm rooms for our last night, which was so generous of her, and very fortunate for us as it was practically across the street from the station where we had to catch our 7:45am train to Nice the next morning! We had a lovely French dinner courtesy of her (I had duck and creme broulee!)

Overall, Paris was absolutely fabulous, and there is no doubt in my mind that I want to go back there and spend lots of quality time wandering around the city and seeing the many things it has to offer. It even made me want to learn French! It was a terrific start to our break.

Also, my friend Roni Beth, who lived there for years, gave me lots of advice and tips about Paris, and they were really very helpful. Thanks so much Roni Beth!

"Ease on down the road"

After this entry, I will be all caught up and ready to write about Spring Break when I return on the 28th.

A week ago, I went on another NYU-sponsored day trip to Pilsen, Czech Republic. My friends wanted to go to this town because it is home of the Pilsner-Urquell (best and most famous beer in the Czech Republic) beer factory. I wanted to go to this town because it houses the second biggest synagogue in Europe, which is the third biggest in the world! Here I am outside of it:



It was interesting to tour the beer factory, which has been around for a while, and the underground cellars of which were windy underground tunnels we got to tour that actually connected into the basements of peoples houses. My favorite part of the underground tour was that the ceilings were so low that they handed out hard hats, but I rarely had to duck (unlike my tall friends!) Being short does have its benefits...

On our assorted town and beer factory tours, we learned about how beer is made, partook in free samples, and watched three documentaries about barrel-making (fascinating, to a point). Despite the fact that it was March 12th, it was snowing throughout our outdoor tour:



It finally got warm (meaning high 40s-low 50s) here in Prague at the end of this week, just in time for Spring Break. Hopefully I've worn my winter coat for the last time this semester? Anyways, it was cool to go to Pilsen, because of the varied history of the tiny town, and to keep exploring different parts of my host country. Another fun fact that is Pilsen was liberated by American troops at the end of WW-2 in May, 1945, and they have a monument to commemorate that, which says "Thank you America" in English, and "Diko, Ameriko" in Czech...Diko is a very informal version of thank you, so its basically like saying, "thanks buddies!"

Last Saturday-Monday, a friend and I journeyed to Budapest, Hungary. My cousin is there for work, so we had a very nice weekend courtesy of him. The first night we walked around a lot, seeing a courtyard with a castle constructed around it that was all different architectural styles, the Budapest equivalent of 5th Avenue which has lots of foreign embassies, and a cafe that used to be secret SS headquarters (where we also shared some yummy desserts!) We also saw Hero's Square, which was really gorgeous lit up at night:



The next day, we saw the biggest synagogue in Europe! It was a coincidence that I saw the first and second biggest in the same weekend, but it was really cool that it worked out that way. Here it is:



I hadn't known that Hungary had such a big Jewish population pre-WW2, but apparently there used to be 1.5 million there. Now there are only about 1.6 million Jews in all of Europe. We got to go inside the synagogue, and had a wacky tour guide who told some very... creative... stories about Judaism. Because of the liberties she took with Jewish history (probably no one else noticed, since many of them had never even been inside a synagogue before!), we left the tour early, but stopped to take some pictures of the gorgeous interior:



After a fabulous all you can eat sushi lunch (so good!!) we ventured across the chain bridge from Pest to Buda, and up a large hill to the Buda castle. The view on the way up was beautiful!



There was a little town on the top, so we wandered around for a while, browsing at the craft shops and admiring the cute architecture and the fantastic views. My cousin insisted that we hang around until nighttime to see the city all lit up, and we were not disappointed:



It was a very busy weekend, but very worth it!

"This very minute has history in it"

Ok, so I'm still a week behind in entries, so pretend this is from March 8th, the day after I got back from my March 5-7 trip to Berlin.

I loved Berlin. Its such a fascinating city, because not only is it a cultural and economical center, everywhere you go is linked to something historically significant. Each place has its own ghosts left over from the totalitarian regimes that ravished Germany. Whereas to me, Prague seems to be rebuilding itself so that the dark parts of its history are hidden behind the beautiful facades and angry-looking natives, Germany's history felt more on display, ready to be accessed by anyone who only takes a second to look.

My friends and I took a 7am bus to Berlin Friday morning, so we arrived in the middle of the afternoon. We were immediately greeted by Dunkin Donuts and Burger King (and ended up consuming both during the course of the trip, unfortunately). We managed to find our hostel, despite the fact that the map key was covering the exact spot on the map we needed to find. A five minute walk from our hostel was the Reichstag, the German Parliament building. Hitler used a fire there as an excuse to come to power, as supposedly a communist had set that fire, which gave Hitler fodder to argue against the Communists in general, convincing the German people that he was better.



Today, you can go inside the Reichstag, which happens to be entirely solar-powered, walk inside it, and see a beautiful view of Berlin. My friends and I did just that, and were especially happy because it happened to be sunny. Here's the view from one of the spots inside the top dome of the Reichstag:



From the Reichstag, we headed over to the Brandenburg Tor (Brandenburg Gate), the site of Reagan's famous speech to Gorbachav, and one of the sites that used to be very near the wall. The Tor is located in Pariser Platz, one of the numerous spaces on a tour we went on the next day where, only about 20 years ago, it would have been very dangerous, even fatal, for us to stand. That's my lifetime! I still can't get over the fact that such a short time ago, communism still reined over places that I've actually been.



The first night, since we were tired, cheap students, we decided to cook dinner in the hostel's communal kitchen, which was lots of fun. We then wandered around Berlin a bit, not doing anything too strenuous, as to be prepared for our 3.5 hour free walking tour of the city the next day! We started the tour, which happened to be lead by an American from Georgia, in Pariser Platz. He pointed the Hotel Ardon out to us...not only does it have 12,000 Euro a night rooms with bullet-proof glass windows, it also was the site of the famous Michael Jackson baby-dangling incident!



One of the next things we saw on the tour was the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. Our guide pointed out that the Memorial is located on prime real estate, right in the middle of Berlin, and how admirable it is that Germans dedicated this spot to the most atrocious event in their history. Would the US do that?



As you can see, it just looks like a bunch of grey block things. However, when one actually walks through it, its a very interesting experience. The blocks start of small and get taller and taller as you walk through, and then get smaller and smaller again as you emerge from the other side. Architect Peter Eisenman stated that the Memorial was "whatever you wanted it to be". To me, it felt like it was alluding to how Jews must have felt as the Holocaust started: little prejudices and restrictions towards the Jews kept occuring, and then all of a sudden those things were built up into the atrocities of the concentration camps. Some Jews emerged from the other side, but the horror of the experience must have stayed with them. That's just my interpretation.

From the Memorial, we ventured to a parking lot. Well, at least it looks like a parking lot, but its actually the site under which Hitler's bunker was built, the place in which he got married and committed suicide. They've collapsed the bunker, but the floor and walls are apparently still underneath. They didn't want to put any sort of marker at the site, in case it attracted the wrong kind of attention.



We then saw the Luftwaffe, a building that hasn't been able to catch a break, as it was the German Air Force Headquarters (architecturally designed to make anyone standing near or entering the building feel small), the Ministry of Ministries during Communist Times, and is now the Tax Center. Aka, no one has, or will ever, like this building!

Right next to it was the second largest stretch of the Berlin Wall that's still standing. Again, I experienced another crazy moment in which, if I had been standing in that exact place 20 years ago, I would have been shot by snipers or blown up by land-mines, since I was in a forbidden zone.



After that we saw Checkpoint Charlie, the passage from East to West Berlin. Apparently its gotten really commercialized now, but it was cool to be there. After a short coffee break (since it had started snowing!) we saw the square where the Nazi book burnings were held, Humboldt University where Lenin and Marx studied and Einstein taught, the Opera House, the Neue Watch which contains a Nazi solider and a concentration camp victim buried together, the Berlin TV tower (apparently in the sunlight, a cross shows up on the tower, which the communists couldn't get rid of, so people called it the "Pope's Revenge"), the Berliner Dom (Berlin cathedral), and Museum Island. It was a really fabulous and very thorough tour!

That night, we went to get authentic German food. Unfortunately, most of that happens to be pork. At least my Jewish friend and I enjoyed our broccoli soup and baked potatoes!

The next day, we returned to Museum Island, to visit the Pergamon Museum, which houses a lot of ancient Greek and Roman architecture and statues, and pieces of the Ishtar Gates. A little bit of classical history in Berlin! At my request, we also found the Neue Synagogue, which was somewhat damaged during Kristallnacht (but saved due to the efforts of the local police chief), and then also damaged during bombings in the Second World War. It was built to hold over 3000 congregants, so is too big for the current Jewish population to use, but hopefully someday in the future it will become a functioning synagogue again.



I really loved Berlin, and greatly enjoyed visiting a place with so much rich history. I'd love to go back and see even more, because as exhaustive as that tour was, there is tons left to explore!

"Oh, if Life were Made of Moments"

Yesterday, I finally got affirmation that I'm not just a girl wandering around a foreign city with a big flashing arrow and a sign that says "American" floating over my head. I was walking into my favorite little grocery stop on the corner near the Metro station, and a Policie (police officer) was walking out. Of course, I stopped to let him out, but he gestured with his hand and said "Prosim" (please). I smiled and said "Dekuji" (thank you), and went in, and as he was leaving he said something in Czech. Someone thought I was Czech (or at least speak it)!!! What a milestone.

Yesterday was also my half birthday. 6 months until 21...I feel old.
Berlin entry to come!

"The Choice May Have Been Mistaken, the Choosing was Not"

I haven't updated in a couple weeks now, which is unfortunate both because as time goes on, I remember less and less details about my adventures, and also because then everyone else misses out on hearing about them! I mean to update every week, but between trips and a bad internet connection in my dorm, I didn't make enough time for it two weeks ago.

Just pretend this entry is from March 1st :)

That week, I hosted my friends and my weekly potluck in my room. It was a particularly good spread:



The next night, we went to the ballet. We saw Romeo and Juliet at Narodni Divadlo, the National Theater. The tickets were only 30 crowns...less than two dollars! They were high up, which I didn't mind, but oddly enough the theater has really terrible sightlines, so our view was blocked by poles. The theater is gorgeous though:



That weekend, some friends and I went on an NYU-sponsored overnight trip to Cesky Krumlov, a small but beautiful town 3 hours away from Prague in the Czech countryside. Now, when I say NYU-sponsored, I mean that NYU put us on a bus there for free, paid for our one night in a hotel, gave us a tour of the castle, and paid for the one dinner we had there. We were still responsible for the two lunches we had there and any other sightseeing. Luckily, since Cesky Krumlov is so small, there was very little other sightseeing to do. The main town square is a lot smaller than Prague's:



The scenery was very beautiful, and to me that's what really made the town worth it:



On the second day, the sun even came out, which was fabulous! The castle was really funny, because it is presumably the main event of Cesky Krumlov, yet the exterior is completely painted on:



On our tour, we got to see a room on the inside of the castle, as well as the Baroque theater and 18th century costume repository. Overall, it was fun to go somewhere in the Czech Republic that wasn't Prague, just to see what it was like. However, the town was small so it was good we were only there a night, and the views/scenery were its main redeeming quality to me. That and the restaurant we ate in for lunch the first day, where the room was like a dungeon (complete with bear skin on the wall!), there were mounted weapons behind our heads, and the food was amazing.

"Up a steep and very narrow stairway"

There are a lot of stairs in Prague. I guess Czech people don't believe in elevators? Because neither of our two academic buildings has elevators that anyone uses, and my dorm has one, but its small and slow and no one really uses it. Plus, there are gigantic escalators leading to the Metro (the station near me that I use practically every day has the longest ones: it takes a good two minutes to ride up or down) so if you're going somewhere in a hurry you have to walk those, too. I feel like I am constantly climbing!

I can't believe that this past Saturday marked the five week anniversary of my arrival in Prague! It feels like I've been here forever, but at the same time I can't quite register that I've been living in a foreign country for over a month. In other important news, the temperature has finally been over freezing! (Thats 0 degrees Celsius, 32 degrees Fahrenheit). It's been in the mid-30's, and we are all very excited about that.

This was a pretty quiet but very good week. For starters, on Tuesday I found out that I got the part I wanted in the NYU in Prague play! Its a very cool opportunity- we will be performing Vaclav Havel's "The Memorandum" in April in Havel's old theater in Prague, which is apparently very prestigious. The cast is composed of NYU students, and students at the American School in Prague, who all speak English, and many are kids of dignitaries and other important people, who will all be attending the show, along with possibly Vaclav Havel himself! I was cast as Maria, a supporting but pivotal character in the play. Production has been slow to start because the director has been sick, but I am excited to meet the non-NYU part of the cast and start rehearsals!

Wednesday we went on a field trip with my Religion, Culture and Politics class. We went to a functioning monastery, the sanctuary of which is the most beautiful room I've ever been in. High ceilings, everything decorated, etc. It was just gorgeous. It is the second oldest monastery in Prague, and we got to walk around and see some different rooms and meet a Monk. Thursday my theater professor (who is also in charge of the production) took us to have class in a cafe, which was really cool. There are only 5 people in the class, and it is my favorite one. We discussed Samuel Beckett and Waiting for Godot over tea...I felt so European! Next time, we'll be going to a cafe that Kafka and his peers had intellectual discussions in. I love Prague.

Friday was an NYU day trip to Terezin. It was a very contemplative experience. Terezin was not an actual concentration camp- it actually started as a fortress built by the Austrians in the 1700's, then its status as fortress was removed when it wasn't really utilized in war. The Nazis first used it as a prison for war criminals and high-ranking enemy officials, but it might as well have been a concentration camp because of how poorly they treated its inmates. They started bringing Jews from surrounding areas there later, especially senior citizens. It was used as a labor camp, but most people either died there or were transported to Auschwitz. Someone who experienced the latter was brought in to talk to us about his experience. He was only 15 or so when he was brought there, and the only one from his immediate family to survive the Holocaust. His story was interesting and even miraculous: it was decreed that all children under 16 would be put to death, but a brave young boy approached Nazi doctor Josef Mengele and asked him to make a special selection of children, as many of them were strong and willing to work. The doctor actually agreed, and selected the man who talked to us to survive, saving his life, and making him one of very few children to make it through Terezin. The man then listed some other boys from the camp, telling us where they live and how many grandchildren they have, emphasizing that because they are all still alive, Hitler did not win. It was really powerful.

At Terezin, we saw a bunch of museum exhibits, and also walked around the courtyards, interrogation cells, housing areas, hospital, etc. My friends and I couldn't get over the fact that people could do such horrible things to one another.



Where prisoners were first brought when they arrived at the camp, and their clothes, belongings, etc were taken away



Even though it wasn't defined as a concentration camp, the slogan was still present.




100 people lived here. This is pretty much the size of the entire room, and there was one little "bathroom" near the door, which was just a hole. No wonder there was so much disease and infection in this place.



One of the 20 interrogation cells. The man who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinard (which effectively started World War One) was actually put in one of these, and died in Terezin.



The place where the only escape (2 men and 1 woman) from Terezin happened. A ladder was stolen from one of the rooms, and the three of them climbed out and ran away. Since snow was falling, the guards didn't notice any footprints.

Another interesting thing about Terezin was because there were so many intellectuals there, lots of art was created. We saw lots of paintings that were made, read about musicians who composed music there, and even saw advertisements for plays that were put on there. It was fascinating.

Yesterday I had the unique opportunity to sample Mexican food, or as I call it, "Czechican". According to multiple people, the place my friends and I tried has the best Mexican food in Prague. That might not be saying a whole lot, but it was pretty good!

This weekend my friends and I are going on an NYU-sponsored overnight trip to Cesky Krumlov, in the Czech Republic. Its supposed to be really beautiful- I'll let you know about that next week!

"There's no place like London"

Yes, the title is kind of a cop-out, but I had to.

Getting to and from London was probably the most stressful travel experience I've ever had, but the middle part was worth it! It took me 50 minutes door-to-door to get from my dorm to the airport, which was great. Everything went smoothly at the airport, until I got to security, which was closed. It kind of freaked me out a little, because in New York security would never be closed at 8am on a Friday morning! In general, the airport was really quiet. Then, when I went through security (less than an hour before we were supposed to board, even though I had gotten to the airport really early!), there was no staff at any of the desks at the gates, which was also weird. We did not board at the scheduled time, but there was no angry mob demanding to know what was going on, and still no flight attendants or anything around. Finally, AFTER my flight was supposed to take off, there was an announcement that there was a technical malfunction with the plane, and so there was going to be a delay of a little more than an hour. All in all to get to my three friends studying in London for the semester, I took the Metro, a bus to the airport, a shuttle to the plane itself, the plane, a shuttle to the train station, and then a train to St. Pancras station, a five minute walk from the NYU in London housing:



Since I was only in London for less than 48 hours, we did a lot of sight-seeing. One of the first things I saw was one of the famed telephone booths:



The first day, I also saw Leichester Square, Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, the National Gallery, the West End, Platform 9 and 3/4, the British Library (which has lots of really cool original manuscripts) and Covent Gardens. Then, I had British pub food for dinner (Shepherd's Pie!) and my friends and I went out dancing, just like the old days in New York:



The second day was also crammed with a lot of sight-seeing. First, my friend and I stopped at Borough Market for lunch (fresh food market, with lots of free samples!) and I actually saw the sun! Here's proof:



Then, we headed to the Thames, and walked along the Queen's Walk. I saw the Globe, the National Theater, the Tate, Big Ben:



Some beautiful cathedrals surrounding it and Westminster Abbey:



and then, after managing to navigate London streets, Buckingham Palace:



That night, because of all the walking and because my friends and I were all feeling slightly under the weather, we had a night in, but I was really happy just to be there and spend time with my friends. On the way home, my train back to the airport was delayed, and I got to the gate just as my flight started boarding! That also turned out to be delayed because of a software malfunction...oh well.

I'm really glad I got to go to London and see many famous sights, especially accompanied by my lovely former roommates. It proved to me that Prague is the right place for me to be, though, as I wouldn't really want to spend four months there. I can't believe its already been over a month since I landed in Prague, although it also feels like I've been here forever. Next up for me is a day trip to the Labor Camp Terezin on Friday, and most likely Budapest from Saturday to Monday! Don't worry, I'm getting all my homework done...