pilsner urquell brewery

plzen, czech republic

catania, sicily

thanksgiving break spent in sicily. it was amazing!

buda + pest

ich bin ein berliner

Starting this past Friday, we embarked on our last mandatory school excursion to Berlin, Germany. I love Germany and I have never been to Berlin, so I was particularly excited about this trip.

It’s a five hour train ride from Prague to Berlin, which we started at about 8:30 in the morning and got to the Hauptbahnhof in central Berlin around 1:30. As a big group, of about 25-30 people, we had to navigate our way through crowds of people and on the U-Bahn and S-Bahn to our hostel. The Pegasus Hostel was probably the worst place I’ve ever stayed, but was also the only place that would hold a group as big as ours at one time. The bathrooms were disgusting and the beds felt like they were going to fall apart, as did the floors, which honestly sounded like someone was going to fall through them. Knowing that we would only be in the hostel to sleep, was comforting so we headed out explore Berlin.

Mary, Meredith, Kelly, Jeanne, Hannah, and I took the U-Bahn (the underground metro) to Alexanderplatz to see the tv tower, which has become a symbol of Berlin, and to stop and get a crepe from a nearby market.

From there we took the U-Bahn once more, further into town this time, to Friedrichstrasse which is the main thoroughfare with shopping and historical landmarks. We stopped to look into a designer department store and realized it was a building done by Jean Nouvel, called the Galleries Lafayette, that has an inverted cone in the center of the building which has actually become a garbage shoot for people in the store – I’m sure this is not what Nouvel had intended for his building’s interior.

Not far from the shopping area, you can take a left onto Unter Den Linden Strasse and follow it straight to the Brandenburg Gate where Napoleon and Hitler both marched through with their forces.

After exploring a little bit more of Berlin, we stopped for a traditional German meal near the European embassies. I had a currywurst – my favorite from my time in Germany as a kid. From dinner we headed back to the hostel to meet up with everyone else and to go out to a bar called the Red Rooster near where we were staying. We didn’t stay out too late, as everyone was pretty tired from traveling all day.

On Saturday we had to meet our professor at the Pergamon Museum around 10 in the morning. This museum has a variety of ancient architecture on display including recreations of a temple and altar, as well as columns and friezes from ancient Roman and Greek architecture. One of the exhibits that I had learned about in my architectural history class was the Ishtar gates, which was unfortunately closed. We stayed in the museum for about 2 hours exploring and sketching, and then we went outside to find a market only 2 blocks away from the museum entry. There, we bought lunch and looked through the various stands of antique goods. A lot of stands were selling old Nazi and Soviet memorabilia, which was pretty interesting.

After spending some time at the market, we met back up with the rest of the group at the foot of the stairs to the Pergamon Museum. From there we began our “architecture walk” led by our Paul, our professor. He took us to the Neuwache, which is a building that has had several different uses; at one time it was the tomb of the unknown soldier. Now, however, I can’t recall what it officially is, but it has a memorial on the inside with a hole cut into the ceiling, similar to the Pantheon in Rome, that lets natural light shine on the statue. We did some sketching here for a while, and then proceeded on our walk.

We passed the Brandenburg Gate again and the bank done by Frank Gehry next to the American Embassy. Around the corner was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe by Peter Eisenman. The memorial consists of an entire block filled with rectangular prisms that change in height according to the undulating floor plane. The grid of prisms can be walked through to reach the memorial building that houses an interesting yet entirely sobering exhibit on what Jewish people went through during the Holocaust, not only in Berlin but through out the entire continent of Europe. The whole monument was quite powerful in its ability to display and articulate the unimaginable in a simple and unrestrained way. I think this was one of the best memorials I have ever been to.

From the memorial, Mary, Meredith, Hannah, Jeanne and I went to find a place for dinner. We made our way to a café near one of the opera houses and had a really great, small meal. From there we headed back to the hostel to meet up with everyone else again.

15 of us headed out to a wine place and found it to be too packed, and then to a ping pong bar that turned out to be too packed for all of us too. So we split up into two groups to make things easier. The group I was with headed to a restaurant for dessert and coffee. After a while, we headed back to the hostel and went to bed exhausted, again.

On Sunday we had to meet up with our professor once again, but this time not until 11. So before meeting him at the Jewish Museum, a few of us went to Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall, and the Topography of Terror.

Checkpoint Charlie was the last gate between the American and Soviet Sectors when Berlin was divided by the allies after WWII. It’s an interesting “landmark” with a billboard of an American soldier on one side and a Soviet soldier on the other. In front of the checkpoint were paid actors pretending to be American soldiers in old uniforms – I actually thought this was kind of disrespectful, as the “soldier” was playing around with the American flag and not taking his “role” seriously.

Anyway… after Checkpoint Charlie, it was only a 5 minute walk to the longest portion of the Berlin Wall that is still standing. The Wall is falling apart, but you can still see the graffiti on the western side of it, as well as the rebar coming through the crumbling concrete. This portion of the wall backs up to an exhibition called the Topography of Terror, which talks about that particular location and how it was completely bombed to bits by the Allies. It’s pretty interesting the amount of history in just that one block of land in the middle of Berlin.

Around 11 we met up with Paul at the Jewish Museum for a 3 hour period of touring the museum. The building was designed by Daniel Liebskind, an architect whose work at the Denver Art Museum I really liked. I thought the composition of the Jewish Museum was pretty successful from the exterior but I have mixed feelings about the interior. The exhibition starts in the basement with inclining hallways that cross each other on axes that align themselves with residents of Jewish people in Berlin that were killed in the Holocaust. At the end of one hallway is the Holocaust Tower – a triangular shaped tower in plan that is not heated and has no light except for a small sliver in the ceiling that lets natural light into the 50 foot high space.

At the end of the crossing hallway there is an outdoor garden, called the Garden of Exile. Here is a garden commemorating Jewish suffrage, similarly to the way that Eisenman did in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. In contrast, was Liebskind’s ability to make one feel disoriented and borderline nauseated because of the incline of the ground plan and the towering columns with olive willows. I stopped here to sketch a while and after getting up from sitting, it was amazing how fast the disorientation comes back to you – it was definitely reminiscent of what Jews felt like escaping persecution in other countries, or escaping concentration camps, or even after surviving what it felt like to assimilate back into society. This was my favorite part of the museum. The rest of the exhibits were pretty overwhelming without much direction through the building. Honestly, I spent most of my time weaving through people and around exhibits than I actually spent reading or learning in each space… that’s what was unfortunate about the entire building to me.

So… after the Jewish Museum we got lunch. My first cheeseburger in 2 months - it was awesome! And then we went on another “architecture walk” with my professor.

We stopped at 3 city blocks that were assigned to 3 distinct architects to develop in a way that they saw fit and that worked well with Berlin. The three architects were Aldo Rossi, Peter Eisenmen, and Philip Johnson. I didn’t take any pictures here, mostly because I was sketching and listening to Paul talk, so I won’t try to explain how the three blocks differ and why each of them are successful.

Moving on…

After the “architecture walk” we were free for the rest of the afternoon. So, several of us decided to go to the New National Gallery, which was closed, to take pictures. From there we took the bus to the Bauhaus Archive. This was especially important to all of us as architecture students because the Bauhaus curriculum is what our architecture program at NC State is based upon. The Bauhaus was started in the 1930s by Walter Gropius originally in Weimar. It moved later to Dessau and finally to Berlin before it was closed by Nazi forces before WWII. During its run, the Bauhaus produced some of the world’s best known designers and designs. The curriculum of the Bauhaus starts with every student in a common class known as fundamentals, which is what I took my freshman year at NCSU, where the student learns the basics in color, composition, etc. The Bauhaus Archive was essentially a museum to showcase the various works done by students and by the instructors. It was particularly interesting to see projects on display by students from more than 70 years ago, that are the same as the projects I have done in the last 3 and half years.

From the Bauhaus Archive we went past the Brandenburg Gate again and to the Reichstag, the Berlin Parliament building. Unfortunately the dome of the building was closed so we decided not to spend the money on going in, but we hung out outside and took some pictures of it at night. From there we went to a restaurant and ate a dinner outside… it was cold, but the heat lamps made it completely tolerable.

On Monday we checked out of our horrible hostel and went to the Hauptbahnhof to drop off our bags. From there Mary, Meredith, and I went to the Olympic Stadium that held the 1936 Olympics. It was a pretty huge and incredible space where you could absolutely sense how terrifying it would have been to see Adolf Hitler and his Gestapo marching up the promenade to the stadium.

After the Olympic Stadium we took the U-Bahn back to Potsdamer Platz and then to the Sony Center designed by Helmut Jahn. From there we checked out the Nordic Embassies by Snohetta and the Berlin Philharmonic.

After finishing up our architecture thing, Mary, Meredith and I found a great Italian restaurant called Pasta + Passion for lunch. From there we headed back to the Hauptbahnhof for another 5 hour journey back to Prague.

Now that I’m back in Prague and I’m realizing that my weekends are slowly dwindling, I’ve been trying to plan for the rest of my stay here. This weekend is Halloween and I’m planning on just staying here in Prague and doing some touristy things in town.

The next few weeks are as follows:

Budapest, Hungary

Krakow/Auschwitz, Poland

Florence, Italy

Sicily, Italy

Flying Back to the US

Ps. Pictures coming soon, along with good internet…

spa trip to karlovy vary

Last Saturday, Mary, Meredith, Julie and I took a 2 hour bus ride to the historic spa town called Karlovy Vary. I had visited this town once before with my parents and I remembered that the town was known for its spas and healing baths as well as mineral springs.

We arrived in Karlovy Vary at about 9 in the morning when the air was still very crisp and the town was covered with a thick fog. Not expecting the cold weather, we rushed to find the first bath so that we could schedule a treatment. We walked into the historic Victorian Bath Number Five to find that they had no openings for 4 people, and so we settled for a coffee in their café instead.

Realizing that we were not going to get into any bath if we stayed inside, away from the cold, we decided to walk the cold streets to find another bath. We found two others, but they were both closed on weekends to “healthy people” – meaning, they were only open to people needed serious treatments. This isn’t surprising, since Karlovy Vary is a healing town that is designed to help people with all types of ailments, serious or temporary.

Along the river in the center of town, we walked and found a small massage parlor on a hill. They had openings for all four of us that afternoon and we booked it. In the meantime, we decided to check out the rest of the town and get some lunch. We went through the mineral springs and tried some of the water – it’s very warm and you can definitely taste the sulfur. Not my favorite water, but supposedly it’s healing? Either way, every single person in Karlovy Vary had a porcelain cup and was sipping the water through a built in straw on the side of the cup. Not to mention, Mary, Meredith, Julie and I were the youngest people that we saw all day – it was kind of funny!

After a great and really inexpensive Czech lunch, we headed back to the spa for an hour aroma therapy massage. Afterwards they treated us to some warm coffee and invited us to hang out in their lounge for as long as we wanted. Not wanting to go back in the cold, we stayed for a little while and then paid for our remarkably cheap massages.

By the time we went back outside, the fog had lifted and the sun was shining, making the cold much more bearable. We had about 2 hours to kill before we had to catch our bus back to Prague, so we went back to the Historic Victorian Bath Number Five and bought 90 minutes in the swimming pool. The pool was heated with only a few people in it and there was a sauna and hot tub as well. It reminded me a little bit of the schwimbads we used to go to when I lived in Germany, but it wasn’t nearly as fun or as big as they were. But still, we had a good time and once again it was nice to get out from the cold.

After the pool it was time to head to the bus station and catch a ride back to Prague. We waited and waited at the station we were dropped off at until our bus showed up 5 minutes late. We tried to board the bus but the driver told us that that bus only dropped people off and we would have to walk 5 minutes down the road to another bus station. We ran to the other stop to find our bus had already left and the bus that refused to let us board wasn’t leaving for another two hours. AND we had to buy new bus tickets to get back to Prague. It was a huge ordeal and the bus agency’s fault because they never said there were two stops especially there was only one stop printed on both arrival and departure tickets. I got into a heated discussion with the agency’s representative, but with no resolution since she could barely even understand what I was saying in the first place.

In the end we sucked it up and got on another bus an hour later than intended, causing us to miss the concert we were trying to go to once we got back into Prague. Unfortunately it was a pretty stressful and frustrating end to an otherwise relaxing and very enjoyable day in Karlovy Vary.

tour guide

This Friday, Meredith and I decided we needed to get to know Prague a lot more. Unfortunately doing laundry in the morning took far too long, so we only got to know Prague a little bit better!

But we went to the Jewish Cemetery as a start. The Jewish ghetto, Josefov, of Prague is comprised of the Klaus Synagogue and Ceremonial Hall, the Pinkas Synagogue, the Maisel Synagogue, the Old-New Synagogue and the Old Jewish Cemetery. With one ticket we were able to visit all of those sites except the Old-New Synagogue… we did happen to sneak into this one though!

Anyway, the Jewish Ghetto is pretty interesting and has a lot of history in Prague. Particularly intriguing is the Old Jewish Cemetery - it dates back to the 15^th century and is one of the oldest Jewish burial grounds in the world. The cemetery has 12,000 headstones but actually holds 100,000 bodies. This means that bodies were stacked on top of one another for two centuries, in graves that are layered 12 deep. Because of all stacked bodies, the headstones are crumbling and leaning on top of one another, being pushed up and out of the ground; even the center of the cemetery is a hill because of the number of people buried there.

Next to the cemetery is a Holocaust Memorial at the Pinkas Synagogue, where on the walls are engravings of the names of 80,000 murdered Bohemian Jews. It was quite a sobering sight.

After exploring Josefov for most the afternoon, Meredith and I headed back into the heart of Old Town and took pictures of Old Town Square, which is literally a 3 minute walk from my school. In the center of the square is a statue/monument of Jan Hus – a 15^th century reformer that lead the Hussite movement, which challenged the Catholic church and its corruption – who was burned at the stake in 1415 for his reformist ‘heresy’. Opposite Jan Hus is the Astronomical Clock –not even worth watching – and the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn.

Just a short walk from Old Town Square through thousands of tourists and by 100s of souvenir shops selling crystal, amber, scarves, puppets, etc, and finally down a small street called Michalska is my school. It’s in a small little courtyard that closes it’s doors at 9:30 every night. We occupy the top floors of the 14^th century building and we share the courtyard with a gallery, several apartments, and a tea shop.

Inside we have a pretty great space – we have a lecture room, a kitchen, a small computer lab, and 3 studio rooms. My desk is in the furthest corner, next to a small kitchenette.

Although the space is small and the internet is pretty slow most of the time, I’ve really enjoyed studio here. My second project is due next week, as soon as I get back from Berlin, so I’ll be able
to share what I’ve been working on lately then.

birthday number twenty-one

This past week was my twenty first birthday and I was lucky enough to have several ways to celebrate it.

On Tuesday our program had tickets to the National Opera. We saw a Czech opera called “The Bartered Bride.” As my first opera, it was an okay show. The story was pretty predictable even without the English translation, but it was really nice to sit in the National Theater – it’s quite a beautiful space.

On Wednesday, my actual birthday (Oct. 15), I had school like every other day, but I did get to talk to Mom and Dad on the phone, which was great – it really made the day feel like my birthday. After studio some of the girls took me to the Bake Shop, which is a really great bakery near Old Town Square. Julie bought be a quiche and we all sat there for a while enjoying our pastries.

Afterwards we headed back to the pension for a while, and Kelly bought me a Gambrinus beer, my first “legal” drink – legal is a relative term in Europe, seeing as how I’ve been legal here since I was 18!

Around 9:00, about 15 of us went to a restaurant a couple of tram stops away called Radost FX. It’s a really fun and chic space with a vegetarian menu. Several of my friends thought it was their duty to make sure my 21^st lived up to all the hype in America, and decided to buy me shots. Over the 3 hours or so we were there I had a kamikaze from Jeanne, Absinthe from Kevin, Tequila from Ryan, Jim Beam from Miller, and Baileys with cream from Kyle.

(Mom and Dad if you’re reading this – don’t worry, I paced myself very well and stayed within reason!).

Anyway, after an amazing cheese quesadilla – something I’ve been craving for a while here – we headed downtown to a club/bar called Chateau Rouge. I had been there before and found it to be a pretty fun place with two stories underground of different DJs and dance floors. We didn’t stay there for too long as it was already near 2am and we all had school early in the morning.

Overall it was a really fun birthday – and it’s really hard to believe I’m 21 already!