So Many Things, So Little Time

It's been a while, and a lot has happened so I'll talk about the little tidbits that stuck out in my mind. Picture uploading has been a slow process, so maybe more will get uploaded later? I dunno.

Hanging out with Veronika has been a rewarding experience. She's still a little shy but I think (hope) she's waring up to us, and can tell us things no guide book can. When we went to Troja chateau, she told us about how most bourgeois buildings survived the Communist era, but fell into severe disrepair as no one took care of them. When we were in the zoo, she translated signs and bits of random conversation around the zoo for us. We saw a group of ducklings walking across one of the paths between ponds, and a young Czech boy pointed at the ducks and loudly accused them of being spies. I wonder if all the dialogue we're missing is that awesome.

The day after that, we went to Kutna Hora. It's a small mining town outside of Prague, and it was full of interesting buildings. Our first stop was the Sedlec Ossuary, which was a building just outside of town decorated with the remains of 40,000 plague victims. It was kind of unsettling in there, but still a very cool experience. We walked through town a bit, and emerged by the Saint Barbara cathedral. This church has the same style roof as Denver International Airport, but it was designed and built in the early 17th century. It was amazing in there. But what was nicest about Kutna Hora, in my mind at least, was being in a smaller town and just soaking in the surrounding countryside. There were gorgeous views in every direction, the air was fresh, and we only ever ran into one large group of tourists.

Yesterday we woke up bright and early to head to Budapest by train. There is a lot to be said for train travel. It takes longer that flying, but it is really laid back, and wonderful to be able to stretch out and walk around the train cars. We passed through Slovakia, which was gorgeous, and we both agreed that visiting Bratislava might be a very worthy expenditure of time. Another nice feature of trains is you get to see wonderful things out the window. We saw this gigantic, incredible-looking basilica named Esztergom that we would have never discovered had we not looked out the window, and there's a pretty good chance we're going to spend Saturday there.

So here we are in Budapest, and I've finally alost caught up with the blog. This city is so awesome, and I feel like I've used that word a million times so far but I'm running out of words to describe this trip as the experience it is. The roofs on some of the older buildings here have multi-colored shingles on the to create patterns, and the effect is really nice. It makes otherwise grand buildings look just superb. We spent most of today in the castle district, looking at pretty buildings and walking up truly epic numbers of stairs. We walked around for close to seven hours, and we've still only scratched the surface of this city. We're going to do a whole lot more exploring tomorrow.

Oh man the food here is so good! We went to a Turkish place for lunch, and got gigantic volumes of high-quality food for really cheap. I got this spicy chicken that had what looked like half a cauliflower plant on top of it, covered in sauce and it came with a full plate of turkish rice, which is delicious enough on its own. Then, for dinner we went to a place down the street from our hotel and got arguably the best meal I've had in a long time. I got some homemade matzo ball soup, had an elderflower soda, with apple rhubarb pie topped with ginger and elderberry for dessert. Yesterday, we got ice cream, and the server shaped the scoops into the shape of roses (hard to explain - pictures to come). My expectations have been completely shattered.

So sorry for rambling, but there's been a lot to blog about and I've been too busy to write anything before now. There is still so much to talk about, but I didn't want to overwhelm you with a gigantic wall of text, or a more gigantic wall of text anyway. Suffice to say, this trip has been one of, if not the most rewarding experiences of my life.

First Impressions, Part II

I'm not sure how many hours it's been since we arrived in Prague, but I can say with certainty that each one has been filled with excitement, adventure, and various levels of exhaustion. Everywhere we've gone thus far has been absolutely amazing - I can't wait to explore more!

We started today with a trip to a nearby hypermarket, which is essentially like an American supermarket but smaller and more Czech. It took a while to find it in the winding streets of Holesovice, but the walk was quite nice. A good deal of people have dogs here, and we got to see a lot of them on the walk, as well as admire the multitude of old buildings. At the hypermarket, we picked up a few items, but had to squeeze everything in a tiny basket since carts cost Kč5. Aside from that, the biggest difference I noticed between Czech and American markets is the bread section. KC bought a baguette for breakfast, and it was just sitting on a shelf with oter baguettes, we did not have to put it in a bag, and the clerk just put it on the conveyor with everything else. The lack of germ-based paranoia was pretty refreshing, actually.

After breakfast and grocery shopping, we headed to KC's school in Vinohrady for his registration and such. It looks pretty far away on the map, but when we took the metro the commute wasn't bad at all. The neighborhood was pretty neat, and rather different from Holesovice and Old Town - there was a lot more Soviet-style architecture, and a few of the older buildings were being renovated. From the people on the streets and the storefronts, you could tell pretty easily that it was a student area. While KC was doing school things, I met up with Veronika for coffee in the school's cafe (turns out Sodexho does their food, too! Urgh...) It was really great to just sit and chat with her for a while; I learned a lot more about Czech culture and got to know her a bit better. She is an International Relations major and lives in a small town about an hour outside of Prague, which sounds like a pretty intense commute. I'm really impressed by her language s kills, too - in addition to very good English, she also speaks Czech (of course), Italian, German, and a bit of Russian. Veronika still seems a bit shy, but I really like her and hope we can be friends! The three of us went to lunch at a pizza place after, and according to KC Czech pizza is surprisingly delicious (I had to opt out and go for a quiche in order to avoid the glutenzz).

After lunch, KC and I explored Vinohrady a bit more, and found a really incredible train station from 1918 called Praha hlavní nádraží. It is an absolutely incredible place - the train depot is a sweeping building made of metal, glass, and exposed old-style industrial beams, and the inside of the station is very grandiose and majestic. It's currently undergoing renovation and was in quite the state of disrepair, but that made it more interesting. I would love to post some photos of this place (and everywhere else), but my computer decided to break and KC's can't connect to my camera, so no pictures for now. You'll just have to use your imagination, I guess.

We then went to buy metro passes, which was difficult because not a lot of the ticket people spoke English (and I still don't have one because I couldn't convince them to give me a student discount). This afternoon, however, I was able to complete a full transaction without using any English - I was quite proud. We're slowly picking up bits pof Czech, but it seems to be a rather difficult language. I'm hoping that by the end of the trip we'll at least have some "survival Czech" down, or perhaps even a basic understanding of the language (my hopes aren't high for that, though).

So far, this trip has been quite the adventure. We've had a few difficulties, like the lack of hot water on Sunday and perpetually sore feet, but I'm having a fantastic time. I can't wait to learn more about the culture and history of this place - it is so fascinating! We're also thinking of making some trips to the countryside (I hear the Moravian Karst is spectacular), as well as the surrounding countries. I've never been to a place where so few people speak a language I can understand, and it's both terrifying and fun. This is my first trip outside of the U.S., and thus far it seems like Prague was a great (albeit somewhat difficult) place to start. It is so gorgeous and amazing here, with something new around every corner, and I can't wait to explore it more.