czech me out, i'm in prague.

pilsner urquell brewery

2008-12-08T12:12:00.004+01:00

plzen, czech republic

catania, sicily

2008-12-08T11:59:00.004+01:00

thanksgiving break spent in sicily. it was amazing!

buda + pest

2008-11-25T14:49:00.005+01:00

ich bin ein berliner

2008-10-29T17:56:00.004+01:00

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

2008-10-28T13:06:00.003+01:00

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

2008-10-19T16:26:00.009+02:00

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

2008-10-19T16:22:00.005+02:00

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!

Vienna

2008-10-14T10:32:00.004+02:00

Last Thursday the majority of students in my program went on an excursion to Vienna, with my professor and his family. He set up the train tickets for us, but we were by no means obligated to do anything school related if we didn’t want to. However, he did organize sketching sessions for us around the city if we were so inclined. I was. And I really enjoyed improving my sketching skills… free hand pencil and pen drawings are something I’ve never been so great at, but I’m working on it!

Back on track….

So… Vienna! I fell in love with this city. It was so bright and open and green! So many parks and beautiful gathering spaces – quite a nice change from Prague!

We got into Vienna after a 4 hour train ride on Thursday afternoon. After checking into the hostel and a quick lunch we hurried to check out the city. We walked into downtown along Mariahilferstrasse – the main shopping drag—and did some really fun window shopping. Austria is on the Euro so everything is much more expensive! But we found our way into the main museum area and through the Habsburg palace and then into Stephansplatz – the center of the city. We found an amazing little café with crepes and really great coffee. Afterwards it had gotten pretty late so we stopped at a bar called Weiwurm and tried the Radler drink – which is the local draft beer with lemon juice… so good!

On Friday we started with a sketching session led by our professor at the Rathaus – the Viennese parliament building. After an hour of me struggling to draw something well, everyone split up into their separate groups to explore the city some more.

My group – myself, Meredith, Mary, and Julie – went to the architecture museum (Arkitekturzentrum Wien) and then the Museum of Modern Artery interesting and at some parts disturbing exhibit at the MuMoK, we headed to Karlsplatz for lunch and a look at the architect Otto Wagner’s pavilions.

The Karlskirche (Karls Church) was in the same garden area, so we went inside. Once in the nave you can see the amount of restoration they are doing on the dome of the church. There’s actually tourist access to the top of the dome to see the restoration work. We took the elevator up to the base of the scaffolding and then climbed about 10 flights of stairs to the very apex of the dome and into the lantern. I can’t even describe how amazing it is to be in the same field of vision as a dome – something that is so illusive and monumental and distant in ones usual interaction with it. The scaffolding was a little shaky and there was no one to regulate the amount of people going up and down, so we ascended and descended as quickly as possible!

After the Karlskirche we went to a student housing project done by a famous female architect Zaha Hadid and got a private tour by oneof the contractors.

Definitely not my favorite building… it’s actually pretty impractical for students, but I’m glad I saw it so I could make my own judgments on it.

From there we headed back into the center of town in search of another famous architect’s work – the American Bar by Adolf Loos. It’s a tiny little bar, but is really quite beautiful with its low lighting and tile work on the ceiling and walls. I had a delicious hot chocolate while I was there too J

That night we went met up with some of our other classmates at another hostel and went out to a popular bar/club district called the Bermuda Triangle. Not very exciting – but, we did happen to find some good music and a really creepy Austrian man. Luckily we got rid of him and danced a good part of the night away.

On Saturday we started off once again with some sketching but this time at the Loos House – a bank by Adolf Loos near the center of Vienna – and this time while I was sketching I was able to enjoy the music of an Austrian Senior Citizen Marching Band… not something you see every day!

After our hour of sketching (I did much better this day), Meredith, Mary, Julie, and I went on to the Votive Church, the Hundertwasserhaus, the Kunst Haus Wien, and then to our favorite little café for an afternoon coffee.

We met up with most everyone else at the Praterstern – the amusement park/fair of Vienna. We rode some AWESOME rides… the last one definitely shook up my stomach and messed up my balance and orientation! Since we’re missing the State Fair in Raleigh this year, it was a nice little state fair of our own in Austria.

Sunday was our day to head back to Prague, so we made the most of our morning before we had to get back on a train at 3:30. The four of us went out to a place called Gasometer, which is actually 4 gasometers (they’re essentially 4 humongous round brick silos that have been converted into apartments and retail spaces). We hung out there for a little while doing our architecture thing and then headed back into town for a little souvenir shopping and then back to our hostel to check out.

Another four hour train ride took us back to Prague exhausted and sad that fall break was already over! It’s hard to believe how fast this semester is already going…

More to come this week…lot’s of things going on. So, I’ll try to be more frequent with my posts in the coming days!

bone church

2008-10-14T10:23:00.001+02:00

It’s been a while since my last post… the internet has been iffy at best and there has been a lot going on around here to keep me away from my computer. Nonetheless, I’m going to try now to get everyone up to speed on everything here in Prague.

Two Fridays ago, my program had an excursion to a small town about an hour outside of Prague called Kutna Hora. Our professors went with us in order to make the trip as educational as possible. On the way we stopped at an open air museum of vernacular architecture from central Bohemia, a region in the Czech Republic. The museum was pretty similar to every other outdoor museum I’ve been to so it wasn’t too exciting for me, or for the rest of my class mates, for that matter (we ended up playing hackey sack with some apples from an apple tree towards the end of the visit).

From the vernacular museum we headed into Kutna Hora and stopped at the world famous ossuary they have there. It’s a chapel that has been ornamented by thousands of bones from victims of a plague that came through southern Bohemia centuries ago. It’s pretty impressive, yet quite unsettling, to see so many human bones decorating the interior of a chapel. Also quite impressive was the fact that the entire collection was started by a blind monk in the early 1300s. (I might have that date wrong, but go with it for now…)

Anyway, after the “bone church” we went into the center of the town of Kutna Hora, stopped for a quick lunch and went down into a silver mine. The mine had been in use for centuries but now it’s only for tourist visits. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures inside the mine -- it was really tight and wet… not a good environment for my camera! We went about 4,000 meters underground through very narrow passageways wearing white cloaks and hard hats and carrying flashlights to find our way. Definitely don’t do this if you’re claustrophobic!

After the mine tour we got back on our bus and headed back to Prague for a fun evening at the local billiards hall.

More stories to come about my fall break trip to Vienna this past weekend…

oh and more pictures to come as soon as i get better internet :)

Gone German

2008-10-01T12:22:00.009+02:00

So, the whole "no plans for the weekend" wasn't entirely true. About 3 hours after my last post I decided to go to Dresden for the weekend with 9 other people from my program.

6 of us took the train from Prague at 10:30 in the morning to Dresden, arriving at about 12:45. The train was incredibly packed and we were kicked out of the cabin we had sat in originally, forcing us to sit/stand in the hall way for a while. Eventually we all split up and got seats in cabins with empty seats. The ride was really short, about 2 hours or so, and beautiful along the Elbe river. Crossing into Germany we had a passports checked twice and then we weren't far from the small city of Dresden.
After arriving, we walked down Prague Street and crossed the bridge from Old Town to New Town to find our hostel, called Hostel Louisa. We dropped off our things and searched for a place to have lunch. Not too far from the hostel we found a Mexican restaurant, and, yes, we stopped there -- hard to believe our first meal in Germany was Mexican food.

At the restaurant we met up with Anna and Julie and then the 8 of us headed into Old Town. Along the way we stopped to see the Coop Himmeb(l)au UAF Cinema (image on the left) and then we walked to the Volkwagon Glaswerk building. We stopped for a beer at a small market/ festival in the traditional market area that holds the oldest Weihnachtmarkt in Germany during Christmas time.
It was about twilight around this time and everyone was pretty hungry, so we walked through the Old Town Square -- which has Frauenkirche, a church that was nearly completely destroyed in the 1945 bombings of Dresden. The city burned for five days and the city was practically leveled by American forces. Because of this, the majority of the city has been rebuilt and looks much more contemporary that it would have if the original buildings had withstood the destruction.

Anyway, the eight of us found a German restaurant near our hostel called Watzke Brauhaus. They had their own brew of beer and really amazing food. I had a bratwurst with a curry sauce. No lie, the bratwurst was as big as my plate and after not eating bratwurst for eight years, I think I've had more than my share now! After dinner, we all called it a night and headed to bed.
Saturday morning, Leah and Katarina met us at the hostel and the ten of us reached a consensus to split up into smaller groups so we could do what we all wanted. So, Anna, Julie, Katarina, Leah and I went on our way. We stopped for a great breakfast at a local bakery and then crossed the bridge into Old Town. We decided we wanted to get some history and see more of the city than just the main part, so we bought a tour bus ticket that took us around the city all day long with the ability to jump on or off at any time we wanted. We rode the bus all the way to the Elbe Meadows along the Elbe river and got off to take some photos of the the three castles on the opposite side of the river. From there we walked past the Jewish Synagogue and into the Botanical Gardens. We got to the Volkswagon Glaswerk and met up with everyone else, as we had made a reservation the day before for a tour of the factory.

The Volkswagon Glaswerk Manufaktur assembles and produces the Volkswagon Phaeton - this is the only location in the world where it is produced. The Phaeton is Volkswagon's luxury car with amenities putting it on the same level as Mercedes, BMW, and Volvo. Each Phaeton is custom ordered, so there is no mass production. If someone wants one, they come into the factory to pick out everything they want and then come back up to 6 months later and drive away with the Phaeton they designed -- in the end, the median cost of a Phaeton will be about $120,000.
We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the factory, but we were able to tour the facility's assembly area- it was impeccably clean- and then we were able to try a simulator in which we actually were sitting in and driving a Phaeton against a computer generated test track. The tour was a lot of fun and I think I could definitely move back to Germany, buy a Phaeton, and drive all day on the autobahn --- someday when I have a real job??

Anyway, after the tour the ten of us split up again and my group of girls headed back to the tour bus and we rode around until we got to one of the castles on the opposite side of the Elbe River.

We toured around the grounds and then sprinted back to our bus -- we realized almost too late that our this bus was going to be the last one for the day.

We made it on the bus and then back to the hostel to meet up with everyone else. We went out to a traditional German restaurant -I had schnitzel with pommes frites (breaded pork with french fries). Afterwards, we all went out to another bar and then called it a night around 4 am or so... we actually were at the restaurant until after midnight, so it was a long night!

Waking up by 11:30 to check out of the hostel was difficult for everyone, but we managed to do so just in time and then headed to the market place again for lunch. Then we walked to the train station and hopped on a 2 and a half hour train back to Prague.

It was a great spur of the moment trip and I really enjoyed attempting to speak German again -- I couldn't believe how much I remembered!

killer bees

2008-09-25T14:08:00.005+02:00

so, this is the second week of classes... things are going pretty well so far. one of my most unique classes is my bees and beekeeping class on tuesdays, that lasts 3 hours. this week we took a field trip to our professor's bee lab.
when Dalibor, my professor, told us that we would be going to his lab, i expected a white building with microscopes and scientists wearing lab coats and performing experiments with bees. this was not at all the case.
first of all, to get to the "lab" we had to take a train 20-30 minutes outside of prague and take a small ferry, i use "ferry" loosely as it was barely more than a row boat with a motor, to the other side of a small river. after a 10 minute walk we made it to the "lab compound" which was actually a small conglomeration of houses, one of which our professor lives in, and a single row of man-made beehives.
behind his house he has a shed which is his lab, and he did have a lot of professional equipment like microscopes and other tools for extracting honey and artificially inseminating the queen bees. needless to say, this was not at all what i was expecting, but it was quite interesting nonetheless.
after a short discussion on what is done at this particular bee farm, we went outside to see the bees. Dalibor took a tray of bees out of the hive, and we actually saw one of the worker bees being born. that was actually pretty amazing.
after admiring the bees for a while, we went back inside to see more of the equipment and then to another room where they extract the honey from the combs.
before we left to return to prague, we went into their family store, as the primary product from their bee farm is mead, which is wine made from honey. anna bought some and i tried it later on that evening -- it was actually quite good. much better than the mead we tried in cesky krumlov!

anyway... so that was definitely the most interesting point in my week so far. but, i did go see the annie leibovitz documentary last night - i would recommend this to anyone interested in photography or annie leibovitz in general. i really enjoyed it, and so did everyone else that i went with.

no plans for this weekend yet... i had intended on going to Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany, but that unfortunately fell through. so, we'll see what i can get into around prague.

future trips ahead though:
9-12 september: Vienna
24-27 october: Berlin
14-17 november: Florence

and thrown in there somewhere i'd like to take short weekend trips to hungary and poland - of course, depending on money and time. this semester is already flying by!

risk of deportation

2008-09-21T14:16:00.006+02:00

This weekend eight of us left Prague and went to a small town about 3 hours away called Cesky Krumlov. We intended to leave Friday morning and arrive before noon so that we could have a day and a half of exploring. But, it didn't quite work out as planned.
We left the pension at 7:45 for an 8:30 am bus. We made it to the Florenc station at 8:05 with plenty of time to wait. After sitting there for 10 minutes, Miller and I were looking at our tickets and realized that the station printed on them was not the same one we were currently sitting at. We took off running. We had to jump back on the metro and get off 3 stops later, then we sprinted up the escalator, and ran to the bus stop just to find out we were 4 minutes late and the bus had already come and gone.
We found out that the next bus wouldn't be there until 1:30, so we had to buy another ticket and then find some way to kill 5 hours.
We went to Cafe Louvre, which is closer to old town, and posted up there for a looooong time. It was actually really enjoyable -- we had breakfast and then everyone had their own activities. Ryan and John played chess, Mary knitted, Meredith and I read books, Kelly drew, Miller read the paper, and Paul surfed the net.
So, after a very nice and pretty extended stay at the Cafe Louvre, we made our way back to the Andel station (the correct bus station this time) and got on our bus at 1:30.
The ride was about 3 hours long through the Czech countryside. I slept the majority of the trip, but towards the end we were on so many winding roads that I was rocking side to side pretty hard. We made it into Cesky Krumlov around 4:30 and took a short walk into the old town.
We finally found our hostel, Hostel 99, and attempted to check into our room. The manager, from Brazil, showed us to our room, it was called "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," with 8 beds lined up in two rows. He came back to check us in and asked us for our passports. Shoot. We didn't bring our passports. The Director of our program has all of our passports with the foreign police so we could register our visas. The hostel manager then told us that there was no way he could check us in and there wouldn't be anywhere else in the town that would check us in either. He also said that if we got caught without our passports we would be fined 20,000 Czech Koruna and then thrown in jail. He was not kidding.
We negotiated with him to let us check in as long as we could get all of our numbers from school. He agreed and then let us alone so we could figure it all out. No one had a copy or a recollection of their passport number, so Mary called Dana, the director of our program, for help. She was absolutely NO help at all and told us to find somewhere else to stay. Not possible. So we then called the pension we're staying at in Prague and they came through for us and had all of our numbers on file. Luckily, we were able to check in finally and then went to walk around Cesky Krumlov.
The town is really small and easily walked in a half an hour. So, after walking the main street we set out to find some dinner. We happened upon the Traveller's Hostel which had a really great place to eat with a fire beside the table. None of us had eaten since breakfast so we ordered 3 appetizers a main course each and of course some of the local beer.
After dinner, we walked around town and stopped at a few more bars-- each of them were very different with completely different clientèle. The last place we ended up at was a very bohemian pub-like atmosphere with live music and ladies dancing to the traditional music. Afterwards, the girls called it a night and the guys stayed out until 3 or so in the morning.
On Saturday, we all woke up in time to check out of the hostel at 10 am and then we went for breakfast and some more exploring. We went up to the castle, which had a great view of the town and the neighboring landscape. The eight of us walked around the castle grounds taking silly pictures and having a great time.
We went to lunch nearby and had a traditional Bohemian feast with traditional Mead (hot honey wine) outside with blankets. It was really nice, and the food was amazing. I'm not a fan of the Mead, it's really strong and looks like hot cider, so you're immediately disappointed when you drink it! Nonetheless, we all gave it a try. After the feast we headed back to the hostel to grab our things and on the way we stopped and got a cinnamon roll, but not the kind we have in the US. It's actually pretzel dough rolled into a cylinder, so it's hollow, and then it's rolled on sugar or cinnamon or almonds, whatever you like, and then served hot. It's really delicious and incredibly filling despite being hollow!
After our afternoon treats, we headed to the bus stop and got ready for another 3 hour journey, but this time back to Prague. We made it back to the hostel around 8pm, exhausted from a 36 hour trip to Cesky Krumlov.

first impressions

2008-09-21T13:31:00.004+02:00

My first studio project was due Thursday morning and we had a mini review of everyone's work. I think I went about 6th or 7th out of 26 people? Either way... it was a good critique of everyone's projects as each person simply explained their ideas to the rest of the class.
Our instruction for the project was to create/ draw/ write/ photograph/ anything our first impressions of Prague.
Thinking back to my first few days here, I remembered that I had been particularly taken back by the underground metro system. This will be the first city where I will have spent a significant time that has a metro system that I can and will use regularly -- I already use it at least twice a day.

But, what was really remarkable to me, and I've noticed this in other cities as well, is the contrast in a centuries-old city and a fairly modern means of transportation. I think it's a great feat the Czech were able to accomplish by digging underground through ancient buildings and artifacts and install a streamlined means of travel around the city.

Above is the image of my final product.
There are three panels laminated together to form a long sheet about a meter long. The progression from dark to light (left to right) signifies my arrival in Prague where I'm unsure of my location and I am unfamiliar with my surroundings and then my departure where I have learned the city, I have explored the unfamiliarities and can make sense out of the urban landscape.
In order to portray this progression I copied various parts of a map and distorted the images with the blacked out parts, then to add to the aged quality of Prague, I dyed the paper with a dark tea, giving the paper an older appearance which was the sense of Prague I was trying to emulate. Interwoven with the strips of torn paper is the simple metro diagram that can be found on every metro car in the city. As simple as it is, it can guide someone around the entire city, and I found that to be very powerful. From cut strips of colored paper I recreated the diagram and I wrote on the strips my first impressions of Prague that I had originally noted in my journal.
I really enjoyed this open ended project. It was difficult to figure out at first what I really had gotten as a first impression. But with some reflection and journaling, I was able to articulate my ideas in a fashion that I hadn't ever tried before. All in all, I think it was a pretty successful end result.

first day of classes

2008-09-15T18:21:00.005+02:00

My dad's probably thinking "Finally!"
But it's true... it really has been a while since everyone else started up school.
The only class I had today was a seminar on urbanism that is taught in conjunction with studio. For class, we met up at the astronomical clock in old town square. We went inside the building adjacent to the clock and sat in a room with the biggest site model I've ever seen. It was a 1:1000 scale model of the entire city of Prague. Martin gave us a brief history of Prague and the surrounding area of Bohemia. It was a pretty interesting discussion and afterwards we went up the clock tower to overlook the city. It was quite a view, but unfortunately it has been overcast and rainy all day today so the view wasn't as clear as it could have been.
So, that's pretty much all I've done today. A Monday with only one class that doesn't start until 2pm is a pretty sweet start to a week.
School in Europe is rad.

just another tourist

2008-09-13T17:20:00.007+02:00

back in prague for just about a week now, and it's been great getting settled in and getting used to the city i'm calling home for the next 3 months. monday and tuesday of this week mostly consisted of unpacking, shopping for groceries, eating cheap but delicious food, and searching for good deals in the shopping district near our school.

wednesday we had our first day of orientation. it was probably one of the most pointless afternoons i've ever had, but, what could i do? our second day of orientation was on thursday and we got our desks and found out our first project for studio - it's called "first impressions" and it's entirely open-ended, so we'll see what i come up with by next thursday.

thursday afternoon we were actually able to move into our permanent rooms. kelly and i have a small but really cozy room on the first floor with a great view out over the city. we have plenty of storage, a fridge, and a tv (but we can't get it to work). the pension is a pretty interesting place to say the least... we have very interesting characters that work there including an angry czech woman that serves us breakfast - she's definitely my favorite. the pension's pretty historical too -- during world war II it was actually used as a birthing hospital/facility for jewish women who had gotten pregnant by nazi soldiers. the soldiers would give the babies german surnames and send them to families in germany, meanwhile sending the mothers to concentration camps. it's definitely surreal to think about what these rooms were once used for...

anyway, thursday night a bunch of us went out for pizza and hung out at a pool hall near the pension. no school on fridays! so, yesterday kelly, meredith, mary, julie and i went to do the usual touristy things like charles bridge and prague castle. last night, kelly had made reservations to eat at a restaurant supposedly run by architecture students called Klub Architecktu. it was underground in a cellar and they served really great and reasonably priced food. 14 of us went, so it was a really great time. today i did some more toursity things with miller, john, paul, and ryan. we tried to go the jewish cemetary but it was closed today. so, we crossed to charles bridge and walked along the river looking for the kafka museum. we decided to skip that for today and then headed north looking for a pedestrian tunnel ryan had heard about. before we got there, we all split up. ryan and miller went one direction and john, paul and i went up a hill to take a look at some ruins and a palace for queen anne of belvedere. afterwards, we found the pedestrian tunnel and took some pictures of that for a while. it was a pretty awesome space that pretty much comes out of nowhere. we found the castle uphill some more, and then of course in the most tourist-packed location in prague, we found ryan and miller. we toured the outside of the palace and the church (again, for me) and then headed back to the metro and onward to the pension.

tonight i think we're planning on going out for ryan's birthday celebration -- it's his 21st tomorrow... so hopefully i'll have some pictures to show for that!

back in praha

2008-09-09T14:57:00.004+02:00

i wrapped up copenhagen 2-ish days ago...

copenhagen was a great city- very relaxed and easygoing. we rented bikes on saturday and rode around and saw all the touristy places. it's amazing how much ground you can cover on 2 wheels!

what we saw on bikes:
the fortress/castle
the little mermaid (she's actually pretty little):

the opera house
the black diamond (a library)
nyhavn (picturesque canal):

the stock exchange with a spire made up of 4 twisting dragon tails
a wind farm on the water with HUGE windmills:

christianshavn
year round christmas store
stroget (longest pedestrian walkway in the world -- it was a mad house)

i'm not really used to riding a bike in a city so it was a good experience for me... more than half the population rides bikes instead of driving. it's pretty amazing to see rush hour when all the traffic consists of bikes and not cars! i was pretty sore after riding and still pretty sick, but it was still really enjoyable.

overall, the trip to scandinavia was amazing. not at all what i expected. yes, it was incredibly expensive, but we made do. the people were beautiful, but also really diverse - not just blonde hair and blue eyes. logan's friend roger really made oslo for us... we were able to see so much off the beaten path that if we hadn't, we might not have liked the city as much. also, visiting the architecture firm snohetta and visiting their opera house was a major highlight as well.

oslo as a city was not my favorite, but the experiences we had there made it an amazing time. copenhagen as a city was absolutely my favorite of the two... it's what i had expected scandinavia to be. my parents were absolutely on point about it, and i'm glad i was able to experience it for myself. and traveling with meredith and ryan was really fun as well... we had similar interests and that made it easy to hit all the right places. the whole trip was well worth the planning and the money saved over the summer.

so, on sunday meredith, ryan, and i got on a flight back to prague. we made it to the pension just in time to catch up with kyle, kevin, and eric for dinner. it's kind of nice to be back in prague and already be familiar with a lot of the area where we're staying... it's our little home away from home now.

the last 2 days i've spent catching up on sleep and relaxing before the semester starts. yesterday we went to the grocery store and hung out in a park. today we've just been wandering in and out of stores looking for good deals.

tomorrow, we have our first day of orientation followed by an introduction to studio on thursday. then, classes officially start next monday the 15th. it's pretty strange not being in class in the middle of september. but i could definitely get used to this.

as for all those pictures i need to upload... they're coming. i promise.

copenhagen beginning

2008-09-05T19:21:00.003+02:00

so oslo was pretty much an amazing city... and i will absolutely have to go into more depth soon, but once again my time is limited on the computer at the hostel.

right now, i'm in copenhagen, denmark. we took the overnight ferry from oslo two nights ago. it was pretty cool being on a ship... but we had a pretty sucky room. allllll the way on the bottom, below the cars! overall it wasn't too bad since it took care of our transportation and a place to stay all at the same time... but meredith and i did get a cold. so i've been trying to tough it out walking through copenhagen with my tissues and my fleece trying to avoid the chills!

but so far, copenhagen is SO much different from oslo... when i actually get to write about oslo you'll understand what i mean!

but copenhagen is separated into districts that are each equally diverse with museums, shopping, restaurants, parks, and bars. yesterday after we checked into our hostel, which is called "sleep in heaven" by the way, we walked around a district called nørreport and we visited the botanical gardens, the national art museum (statisk museet for kunst), and the kings gardens. we went to dinner at a place called klubben.... SO much authentic danish food and really cheap too. then we walked to a 70s-ish bar called mckluud... we tried some cheap local beer and then called it a night. sleeping in a 14 bed hostel room is definitely an experience.... the bunk beds are stacked 3 high! (i'm in the middle, between meredith and ryan).

today meredith and i decided to take it easy since we're sick, and just went to do a little looking through shops while ryan went and did his own thing. we stopped by a cemetary with hans christian andersen's grave as well. then we went to the carlsberg brewery this afternoon and had dinner at the same place as yesterday... it was still awesome.

tonight we're going to pussy galore's flying circus... not sure what to expect there, but i'm sure it'll be interesting!

so that's all for now... stay tuned.

so much to write!

2008-09-02T21:24:00.001+02:00

okay, so i've been in oslo for 3 or 4 days now... i have so much to tell! but there's a line for the computer in the hostel, so i'll update soon enough, with pictures too :)

until then...

arrival

2008-08-29T12:05:00.002+02:00

i've been in prague for just about 24 hours now. it's hard to believe i'm here... 3 years of anticipation and i've finally arrived.
meredith and i left charlotte on wednesday and arrived in frankfurt thursday (yesterday) morning with a 2 hour layover before heading to prague. we made it to prague before lunchtime, but with a little snag. the airline forgot to place meredith's bag on the plane so we had to wait for the next flight that, thankfully, had her suitcase on board.
we took a shuttle to the pension, domov mladeze, which is not as far from downtown prague as i had originally thought it would be. the pension is great, very clean and the people that work there seem to be very nice so far. and the neighborhood surrounding seems to be pretty nice as well.
we walked around some last night, trying to fight off the sleepyness. we found a little italian place, and we shared a margherita pizza for $6. not bad. it's kinda pathetic that we didn't eat czech food our first night in prague, but to be honest, we had no idea how to order or what we would be ordering, so we gave ourselves a free pass and had pizza. it was delicious.
today is friday. we woke up at a decent hour had a really great free breakfast at the pension and we headed out to drop our extra baggage at the institute so that we won't have too much to carry when we leave for Oslo tomorrow afternoon.
speaking of which... we're heading to scandinavia tomorrow: first stop oslo then copenhagen. logan's friend roger is going to show us around oslo tomorrow night and then do some toursity things with us on sunday. should be a good time.
that's all for now... more to come soon.