A Tour of Prague (January 2nd-6th)

January 2nd

       We had to get up super-early in order to catch our flight from Düsseldorf to Prague. I'm talking, leave the house at 2 am. I decided to not sleep at all and stayed up packing and watching movies. I was super excited about this trip. It would be me, Chris, Mike, and Mike's doubles, Robin and Laura touring around Prague for four days. First we had to get to the airport and wait in line for an hour. The counter wasn't even open and when a representative finally came out, we had to re-queue for no reason. We got through and found our plane, something my parents call a "puddle-jumper." It's a tiny plane with propellers. Like this:

We made it there fine, despite a lot of rattling. After a quick cab ride through the city, we found our way to the hotel. We dropped off of our bags since our room wasn't ready yet and went exploring. We went to the Charles Bridge, one of the most famous sites in Prague. It's a foot bridge over the Vltava River. Usually it's really crowded, but since we were there early in the morning, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Plus the sun was rising and it was really beautiful.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the city. We went by one of Prague's major churches with a really cool clock on the side that's been in use since the 17th century:

Laura and I also went shopping in one of the swankier parts of the city. It was more like window-shopping, as some of the stuff was really pricey. We still had a great time. That night we went down to our hotel's bar/restaurant. It was decorated kind of oddly. It reminded me a lot of TGI Friday's at home. Just random stuff nailed up on the wall. We sat next to a suit of armor and on the other side of the table, there was a portrait of Bill Gates. Go figure. The food was good, a even better, the beer was cheap, so we spent most of the night there.

January 3rd

     We got up early to to go the castle in Prague. It's one of the largest castles in the world and we spent most of the day going through it. There were a lot of stairs to actually get to the castle, I felt like Rocky once we got to the top. It provided a really nice view of the city too.

They also had guards at this castle, and we caught the changing of the guard and snapped some photos with them as well.

He looks happy

Afterward, we ate at a little cafe. I tried the goulash, as apparently that's the thing to eat while in Prague. No offense to Praguians (Pragonians? Praguvillians?) but it was not my favorite. Maybe it was just a mixture of the spices, but I couldn't finish the dish. Oh well, at least I tried it. We also went to the spa in our hotel. We had it all to ourselves and tried out the sauna. I'd never been in one, but it was a lot of fun and refreshing. We also had a hot tub to marinate in. All in all, a relaxing end to a busy day.

January 4th

     Today we made our way down to the Frank Gehry building in Prague. I've posted earlier about his building in Düsseldorf and how he's kind of like the Dr. Seuss of architecture. This building was no different. They call it the "Fred and Ginger" because it looks like the two buildings are dancing together. Unfortunately it wasn't open for touring, because they actually use if for offices, but it was still fun to see.

We also went to the National Gallery. Unfortunately it was under a major restoration, so only part of it was open, but the part that we did see was impressive. After we were through with that, we went to the Alfons Mucha museum. He was from the Czech Republic and produced a lot of really beautiful advertisements for plays as well as illustrations. His stuff is really recognizable and popular. While there, we learned that when his posters would be put up around town to advertise something, within the next day, they would all be taken down by people who wanted to display them in their own houses. Here is one of his more famous pieces:

The prettiest cigarette ad I've seen

Later that night, we went to the largest club in central Europe. I know this because they had it in neon lights on the side of the building. I don't know if it was true or not, but the club was pretty big. It had five floors of different music. It was really interesting because if you got bored with the music on one floor, you could just move somewhere else. We tried out all of them, including the 70s/oldies floor that had a light-up checkerboard floor. There weren't a whole lot of people our age there, so we went to the pop/club songs floor and stayed there. I really enjoyed it there, because there was a glass ceiling so you could look up and see people dancing above you. It was an awesome night, and I really wish there were more clubs like this where I live. Oh well. The beer there was also interesting, my favorite had a goat on the front of it:

January 5th 

     Today we went to a performance of The Nutcracker and the National Operahouse. It was a lot of fun and the building was very pretty as well. 

The performers were very impressive, but it was a different version of The Nutcracker than I've seen before. It was like they combined it with A Christmas Story because there was definitely and Ebeneezer Scrooge character who was transported to the land of the sugar plum fairies. There were very few nutcrackers to be seen, but the music was recognizable, so I guess it wasn't a total loss. 

Afterward, we went back to the bar in the hotel. We had to leave early the next morning, so we didn't stay up too late. It was a really fun trip, and I would love to go back sometime. That's all for now. Schüss!!

German Word of the Week: Die Brücke- "bridge" Die Brücke across the Vlata River has a lot of statues on it. 

Week of Thanksgiving!

Nov. 18th-24th

On Monday, I went to Chris's house to watch a movie. He rented City of God from the library and said it was one of his favorites. It's based on a true story about kids in the slums of  Rio de Janero. It was interesting, and had a sort of happy ending as well. (As happy as you can get with these types of things). 

On Wednesday, I made cookies for the Thanksgiving Dinner. The International Office puts together a dinner every year and everyone brings a dish and a present. I spent all last week trying to get ingredients together for my chocolate chip cookies. They turned out to be chocolate chunk cookies, because I couldn't find chips anywhere. I also had to make my own brown sugar (1 cup of regular sugar + half a cup of molasses for those that are interested), since that is also a rare commodity over here. The cookies actually turned out okay. Ann-Kathrin told me they tasted like the ones you can get from Subway, and those are freaking delicious, so I took that as a huge compliment.

The dinner was a lot of fun. Instead of the typical giant 25 lb bird, we had four smaller turkeys. It was just as good as anything I've had before. There was also pumpkin soup, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes. Everything was delicious and I'm grateful I had a successful Thanksgiving in Germany. After everyone was done eating, we exchanged gifts. It was like Secret Santa, where you just pick out a random present. I got a bottle of wine, which I'm always happy to get. Ann-Kathrin got a  Rubik's cube and we spent the rest of the night trying to solve it. We ended up stopping once we got one side done.

Close Enough! 

On Friday, Mike, Laura, Robin, Chris, and I went out to Sausalito's. It was a nice way to unwind at the end of the week. I spent most of the night learning how to do the last half of the Rubik's cube. I don't think I'll ever be able to string it all together. Mike had to write down the instructions on a napkin, so now I have a sort of cheat sheet. 

Saturday, I went to the K20 Museum in Düsseldorf. For my art history course, we have three museum excursions throughout the semester. We actually get to see firsthand some of the art we discuss in class, which I think is always a nice thing. I managed to find the museum by myself. I looked it up on Googlemaps the night before, but was still kind of worried. I knew to keep the Rhine on my left and managed to stumble upon the place. We focused on the American section of the museum and learned about Warhol, Pollack, and Rauschenberg.

Name that artist! 

 It was a fun way to spend a Saturday, and I'm looking forward to our other excursions. Okay, I'm done for now, Schüss!

German Word of the Day: der Würfel- "cube" The Rubix Würfel is both frustrating and fun.