Turkey: Where East Meets West

So, I'm heading home tomorrow and I have yet to tell about my past week spent in Turkey. When we arrived in Prague Sunday morning, Ana and I literally had 24 hours before we needed to leave for Istanbul. We went to the apartment and slept, and all of us kind of just relaxed. This was the last time I'd see Ekta and Tete, so we were planning to go out on Sunday night, for one last hoorah, but we didn't even make it for a drink! Ana and I had some rearranging to do luggage wise, whereas Tete and Ekta had a few days to pack. We ended up going to sleep relatively early and on Monday morning, Ana and I woke up around 8 AM to head to the airport. Now, remember how I always have the most outrageous things happen to me when I'm travelling? This is certainly a first.

Ana and I woke up at 8 AM, showered, packed, and were ready to go by 8:30 AM. Our flight left at 11:35 AM, so we were giving ourselves plenty of time to reach the airport. We were saying our finals goodbyes to Tete and Ekta, wishing them the best and telling them that we'd see them soon. As we were saying our goodbyes, Ana begins to leave the apartment and opens the door. Well, the only problem was that the door was locked. Yes, that's right, the door was locked. Now, I'm saying goodbye to Tete, and I hear Ana say from the other room, "Oh My God! The door is locked!" This moment seems to last forever in my head, because I knew right away, we were really screwed.

I 100% knew that there was no way to unlock the door without the key. Now, here's why we didn't have a key. Somewhere in Krakow and Berlin, Ana, and her hoards of clothes, souvenirs, and personal items, seems to have misplaced the key to the apartment. Well how did we get in the apartment you ask? Simply by calling the two people that lived there, Chuey and Elvira (an Argentinian and a Russian). The only problem was, even though Tete, Ekta and Ana have cell phones, only Tete and Ana had credit. After calling the people to let us into the apartment, Tete ran out of credit and only had her Portuguese phone to use. So, anyway, we're locked in the apartment.

I totally blame Ekta for this situation because not only was this her THIRD time being locked in somewhere (AIESEC office, Jenny's house in Roztoky, and now this apartment), her bad luck seemed to have come back to haunt us at the worst of possible times. Ana and I had a flight to catch! In three hours! So we thought, what could we do? Chuey and Elvira were at work, because it was a Monday morning. Someone says that they told one of them not to lock the door on their way out, but I'm not sure they got the message. Either way, I could see how they would naturally lock it because most houses, when you lock the front door, don't lock the people inside. I had a few thoughts jump through my mind, like throwing my suitcase out the window and scuffling down the side of the building like Spiderman, but I knew that Ana wouldn't be able to do follow. Tete's phone was with no credit, Ekta's phone was with no credit, but Ana! Ana had one last phone call to make. So she called Chuey.

It was a desperate attempt to cry for help, but he picked up and we tried our best to explain the situation. Poor Chuey, he was always letting us in when we didn't have a key, but this time he couldn't help. He said he was going to call a few people, because someone was supposed to be dropping off an extra key sometime during the day. Luckily, Ana can receive calls without using credit, so when he called back, he just said that he couldn't get a hold of anyone and we would just have to wait. Great…

By this time, I was just completely frustrated and angry. I was doing nothing to help the situation, because I had no phone and no internet and nothing else, so I laid down in bed and just fell back asleep. I took about an hour nap and woke up to Ana telling everyone that she got a hold of one of the other Brazilian interns and he was doing his best to call everyone and try and get us out of the apartment. Eventually at 10:30 AM (2 hours later) we received word that Lessya was coming to drop the keys off. At this point, we were really confused because Lessya was supposed to be back in Kazakhstan, but we figured it was a different Lessya.

Turns out, around 11:00 AM, Lessya shows up at the front door, and in comes our favorite group leader from Kazakhstan! In all the excitement, Ana and I barely had any time to say hello to Lessya or goodbye to Ekta and Tete and we were out the door within 2 minutes. The fresh air couldn't have seemed more refreshing. I knew we were definitely going to miss our flight, and we arrived at the airport around 11:45 AM. Knowing that we are broke college students (I guess college grad for me), the airlines charged us a €50 rebooking fee and our flight left at 18:30. Great. Not only did we have to wait 6 hours at the airport, but we had to pay $60 to change our flight, just because someone locked us in, we had no keys out, and Ekta was with us.

We eventually caught our next flight, arrived in Turkey around 10 PM and began our next journey in a whole other world.

Berlin: The Last Day

Going on the pub crawl the previous night was a great idea. It was one of our first nights to have a lot of fun in a while and it was a great way to meet some new people (and not bug each other all night!). When we woke up the next morning, we had only a few things planned for our last day. The first was to head to the Berlin television tower, which is one of the most iconic and monumental structures of Berlin. It is the tallest structure in Germany at 365 m (1198 feet) and is beautiful to look at. You can see it many of my pictures, peeking out into the sky in the distance. We made our way over to Alexanderplatz, where the TV tower is located and when we arrive we noticed a lot of people and a lot of green. Green balloons, green banners, green trucks, and other green things. It only took us a few minutes to realize we walked into the 2010 Hanfparade—a.k.a. the Berlin Marijuana Parade for the legalization of the marijuana. We took a few pictures and went ahead and bought our tickets for the TV tower, but unfortunately the tickets were timestamped, so we had to wait an hour until we were able to ascend the tower. So we hung out in the middle of the demonstration. We got ourselves some balloons, received a plethora of pamphlets for a variety of topics. There were some about bongs and vaporizers and other smoking instruments, there were some about the medical benefits of marijuana, there were some about economic benefits, and so on and so on. We were given posters and everything, but most of all we just enjoyed the music and people watching. +Reason I like Berlin: Excellent people watching!+

We even ran into one of our buddies from the pub crawl the night before, but no more than 10 minutes after running into him, we had to go inside the tower and go to the observation deck. When we got to the top, I can't help but say we were all utterly disappointed. Berlin doesn't have anything to see from above! We were looking at crowded streets and low buildings, sprawled out but ending before the horizon. We forced ourselves to look around and take pictures, but the only good thing we saw was the Berlin Dome and the river that runs through the city center. We spent about 15 minutes at the deck and then headed down.

When we arrived at the bottom, the Hanfparade was getting bigger and better. By this time there were many more people, all different sorts of people, and they were getting everyone ready for the parade. Naturally, what are four 20-somethings to do when offered the chance to parade down the streets of Berlin with hippies? Of course, we are going to go with them! I mean, we already had our balloons, we were practically a part of the movement, right? We were all laughing at the irony of the situation. Four non-Germans, who don't really care about what happens with the legalization of marijuana, who don't really have anything better to do on a Saturday then walk through the streets and who really have no serious business being in the parade. But, enjoy it we did. We marched with them all, walking down the streets of Berlin. We passed by crowds of bewildered tourists (just like us, but on the other side of the parade!) and observant Germans. The reggae van was in front, and we were behind it, jammin' to the music. Behind us was a more crazy van, with a giant joint on top and this one played booming dance music. For us, it was just an excuse to have some fun.

We eventually got tired of the parade, because every so often they would stop and speak in German and the crowd would cheer and we'd be confused and cheer too, but our legs can only do so much walking, especially the day after a pub crawl. We broke off from the parade, and headed toward the center to find something new to do. We made our way to Potsdamer Platz. This is more the "new" Berlin, with tall skyscrapers and sleek office buildings. We ate dinner at a great restaurant, that was self-service but half-restaurant at the same time. The menu had a variety of items, mostly pasta, pizza, and other delicious items, but the innovative idea was you went up to a chef, told them what you wanted, and they cooked it in front of you! They put your order on a card, and you pay after you eat on your way out! Genious! The food was decently priced and delicious too. Remember, we still have our balloons with us, so along the way, people are looking at us a little funny, but for me, I had the best reaction. When I went up to order, I told my chef what I wanted and she started cooking. The chef next to her however, saw my balloon, and started talking excitedly and loudly to me in German. He got so excited he told a passing busboy something and pointed at my balloon and they both smiled and asked me something in German. Of course, I had no idea what's going on, so I just smiled stupidly until my chef told him to stop because I'm sure he was saying things he wasn't supposed to be saying while at work. Oh boy.

When we were done eating lunch, we stopped at Hӓagen Dazs and did a little shopping. Once again, the lady in the store asked to see my balloon, and after reading it, she just smiled and laughed. I smiled because she spoke a little English and I was able to explain what happened. By this time, we were kaputz. We did what we always do, and found a park to sleep in. Luckily, we were right by the Holocaust Memorial and across the street was a park. The park itself was terrible. The grass was dead and there was rabbit poop everywhere, but luckily we found four benches and each one of us took a nice little nap in the middle of the park.

When we woke up, it was starting to sprinkle. We had a lot of time to kill before our bus left for Prague, so we decided to go to Starbucks and just hang out. Sometimes, you just can't find something to do, even when you're in a great city like Berlin. We were tired and mentally exhausted from all the travelling, so hanging out was just what we wanted to do. We went to Pariser Platz and enjoyed ourselves at Starbucks, where we watched the people in the square and the many bachelor and bachelorette parties that passed through. (It must be a popular place to have them) When it was time to go, we headed to the hostel, where we hung out some more on the couches, and then made our way to the bus station across town. We got to the bus station just in time for our bus to arrive and for us to settle in. Finally going back to Prague!

Berlin: Day 2

The second day in Berlin, we woke up early and once again had breakfast at our bagel spot. I had the exact same pesto bagel with tomato and mozzarella and a cup of coffee. It was like being in civilization again! We went directly to the East Side Gallery after breakfast and spent a long time there. The ESG is one remaining section of the Berlin Wall and it is dedicated to arts, graffiti, and murals from artists all over the world. I was able to scribble "Freedom for All" somewhere along the bottom of one section, as well as sign my name and leave my mark from the USA. I'm forever a part of Berlin history now!

From the ESG, we went further into the center and went to Museum Island to go to one of the internationally renowned museums. When we arrived, we were really hungry and ready to eat, but we decided to buy our tickets first before going to eat. Well, we arrived at the museum,
just to see a wonderful line coming from the entrance, out the gate and down the street. We got our spots in line and I went immediately to the front to ask the people how long they've been waiting. +Reason I like Berlin: Everyone speakens ze Englisch!+ A one and a half hour wait? Really? This better be the best damn museum I've ever been too! After getting our tickets, we were dying of starvation, so we left and went to find something to eat. Nearby, along one of the main squares, was a bratwurst and currywurst stand. I had one of the "must try" Berlin currywurst and it was quite delicious. We finished our delicious meal with an even more delicious Nutella crepe, fresh and hot from the stove! The chocolate crepe was so great and since I'm only in Europe every so often, it was one of those treats I'll have to remember until the next time I return.

When we go to the museum, it was in fact amazing, but not so incredibly great I have to rant and rave about it. Inside were ruins taken from none-other-than Turkey! Huge colossal column structures and pavilions of altars and statues and columns dedicated to the Greek gods. It was incredible. Also, they had stolen treasures from around the world, mostly Turkey, but towards the end it was just a lot of plates and cups and pots and boring things that weren't so interesting. One thing I did like was their current work on restoring the original colors of the ancient Byzantine statues. They were quite interesting in color, something I'd never seen before. Lions were painted blue and green and all the statues had brown hair, blue, red and yellow clothing, accents of green and black touched and highlighted significant spots. The statues were always carved naked and had their clothing painted on, in a seemingly skin-tight depiction.

When we were finished with the museum, we were tired (as always) but still trucked on. We went to the Berlin Dome, where we were able to go inside and see photographs of the construction, the war damage and reconstruction and we were able to ascend to the top of the dome to see the great views of Berlin. By this time, it had started to sprinkle, and the city was grey and cloudy. We left the dome and headed to the French and German domes. The French dome was not open to the public and the German dome was some outrageous price to climb to the top of the dome, which we had just done at a bigger and better dome, so we decided to skip that and go to another church. The church of St. Hedwig is a church in Berlin that looks very similar to the Parthenon, a simple round building. We entered to see that a small mass was being held, so we only got to take a few pictures (the inside was very modern anyway—not too much to see there) and leave.

By now, we needed to make our way to the hostel, because we needed to catch some bites to eat before going on the infamous Berlin Pub Crawl. We picked up some—you guessed it!—McDonalds on the way to the hostel, changed quickly once we got there and then headed out for the evening. It was a great night. We went to several places, met a lot of people. Americans, Spanish, Germans, Scottish, Irish and even a couple that had just moved to beautiful Denver, Colorado! I tell you, the world is too small and Denver is still one of the best cities ever! We partied the night away and returned at the wee hours of the morning to catch some sleep before our last day in the German capital.

Berlin: Day 1

Here's the picture that didn't show up last blog on our Journey to Berlin:

Arriving in Berlin, we headed to the hostel and arrived there shortly after 9. It wasn't hard to find (thanks to my excellent navigation skills of course!) and we were able to drop our bags off but unable to check in until 3 PM. This meant we had the whole day to entertain ourselves before we would be able to come back and get our things together. We decided to grab a bite to eat and then head to the center of Berlin to go on the "Berlin Free Tour."

Breakfast was amazing at this small cafe across the street from our hostel. +Reason I like Berlin: Small cafes with pesto bagels that remind me of New York+ We had an amazing breakfast, for only €5 it seems like a good deal, but with the currency rates, it was actually an $8 breakfast. Just to preface the following blog posts, my complaints about budget will begin to rise due to Berlin. We made our way to the center and again, €2 for the subway is more like $2.75 to ride one way, one time, maybe for 15 minutes. Ouch. The tour started in Pariser Platz. Since Berlin was nearly completely destroyed during WWII, many of the historic landmarks have been erased, however that doesn't mean Berlin is full of a rich and colorful history. Pariser Platz has a funny history because the French and US embassies are located here. The US embassy was a source of controversy when they rebuilt it in 2006, facing criticism from nearly every international architect in the European Union, however after 2008 and the election of Mr. Obama, it's funny how many architects changed their opinions and do not think it's so bad after all. It is here in Pariser Platz that one thing hasn't changed in nearly 200 years, and that is Brandenburg Gate. It was here that Napoleon Bonaparte marched through after his conquests and it is here that the quadriga (horse-drawn chariot with the goddess of peace) looks down upon Berlin. Well, after Napoleon's defeat, the quadriga was changed, and the goddess of peace was changed to the goddess of victory and now the goddess of victory stares down at the French embassy in Pariser Platz, as a special message from Germany to France.  +Reason I like Berlin: They make fun of French people.+


The free tour then continued through the Brandenberg Gate to go past the Reichstag Building, the seat of Germany's government, and the same place where Hitler and the Nazi party rose to power during the 1930s and 40s. We continued down the road to a spectacular Holocaust Memorial, which is officially called, "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe." It is nearly 5 acres and has 2,711 concrete blocks, of various heights, in rows and rows. Some say it looks like a cemetery, some say it looks like a city skyline, and others think it looks like something totally different. It is a very interactive memorial, that gets people to think--which any memorial should do. The pillars are deceiving, because the elevation of the ground is not completely flat, so although the pillars seem to be nearly the same height when looking across the memorial, in fact the ground undulates beneath like waves. At the memorial, you can find groups enjoying lunch sitting atop some of the smaller pillars. You can hear the screams of children, running and playing hide-and-seek through the maze of columns. You can see tour groups taking photographs and capturing memories of Berlin. And you can also see somber faces, there to reflect and think about what the memorial means and remember those who have died.

The memorial was great. I loved it. Modern and refreshing and totally unlike anything I've ever seen before. +Reason I like Berlin: modern and interesting urban spaces.+ We followed the brick path that lies where the Berlin Wall used to stand, and we moved along to see the spot where Hitler died. The bunker still lies beneath the ground in East Berlin, the same bunker where Hitler and his wife committed suicide together, as our tour guide puts it, "a romantic Hitler Honeymoon." Berlin is actually trying to figure out what to do with the bunker, whether to fill it in, or to just let it be as it is. The walls are nearly 3m thick and it is a massive structure, but I think most of it has already been destroyed. I don't know what I think about the bunker, but it is very interesting.

Also, the buildings that are around Hitler's bunker, are in fact from the 1970s and 80s when Berlin was separated by the Berlin Wall. After WWII, Germany was divided into two parts, East and West. East was given to the Soviets, and West Berlin was divided between the US and England. Since Germany was divided in two, the capital, which was in East Germany completely, needed to be divided as well. East Berlin, was essentially unrestricted, but West Berlin, the democratic part of the city, was like an island of freedom in a sea of communism. The Berlin Wall was erected to keep the communist citizens from fleeing to West Berlin, and West Berlin was given one railway and one airport to connect themselves with the rest of West Germany. The buildings around Hitler's bunker were particularly nice for communist buildings, because they could be seen from West Berlin and East Berlin wanted to make a point saying that "life over here in communism isn't so bad, it's great, just look at our houses!" In fact, one person describes East and West Berlin like that of going from a black and white TV (East Berlin) to a color TV (West Berlin). I couldn't imagine living in a city, which was in fact two cities. +Reason I like Berlin: Interesting history that is so recent that my grandparents and parents can remember. It is living history.+

When we moved from Hitler's bunker, we followed the Berlin Wall more to one of the points of entry commonly known as “Checkpoint Charlie.” It was here that Soviet and US military would nearly begin another war. The US, sick and tired of communist rule in Germany, would constantly test the German government by sending people through the gate to East Berlin with improper documents and missing papers. They would also arm the citizens with treaties and international agreements that would force the soviets to oblige and let them into East Berlin. Once they had wasted the soviet’s time and were allowed entry into East Berlin, they would take one step in, turn around and say, “Thank you!” This would irritate the Soviet’s so much, that they would line their military tanks up to Check-Point Charlie to try and intimidate the West Berliners. However, the US was not so easily intimidated and they too, lined up their tankers. Had one shot been fired by either side, WWIII would have surely commenced. +Reason I like Berlin: US history is involved! Go USA!+ Check-Point Charlie was our break point too, so we all had time to rest. We were all exhausted by now. Two hours of walking with nearly no sleep the night before, what were we thinking!?

From Check-Point Charlie, we moved along to more historical and boring sites of Berlin. There were the French and German Domes, built by the French themselves and we then made our way to Museum Island, where Berlin has five internationally recognized musuems on the northern part of the island in the middle of the Spree River. We ended the tour with Lust Garden and the Berlin Dome, which was built in the late 19th century as a symbol that Berlin, can have some illustrious architecture like it's older counterparts. Built in neo-classical style, the Berlin Dome is a beautiful church with magnificent views of Berlin. It looks really old, but is in fact no more than 100 years old, especially after the major reconstruction done after WWII bombings caved in parts of the dome and destroyed some of the outside.

The tour ended just near the Berlin Dome and our guide told the passionate and awe inspiring story of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. To put it shortly, the wall only fell because Germany was unprepared for an international press conference, they gave the speaker an old draft of the speech, and left him high and dry to deal with questions. When he announced the opening of travel between East and West Berlin, he was questioned: when, how long, and why? He had no other thing to say, immediately, indefinitely, and for the sake of Germany. It was that night that the Wall Fell and 30,000 East Berliners flooded the streets of West Berlin for a three-day celebration. And on Monday morning, they went back to work, for a new day and a new country.

When the tour ended, we made our way back to the hostel, checked into our room, where we had some Serbian people with us, and we got ready for dinner. We ate at a Mexican restaurant, which wasn't too bad, and then headed to bed for the night. We were exhausted. Berlin was a great city, and after the tour, we had our plans set for the next day--full of sight-seeing. +Reason I like Berlin: International food, international people, big city to give us things to do for three days, and good beer!+

Berlin: The Journey to Germany

Well, after getting on the train in Krakow, we were really happy to have seen Jolin one last time. We had a nice trip to Warsaw, and slept conveniently for two hours, but we were all ready to get on the 6 hour train to Szczecin, where we would transfer to our final train to take us to Berlin. When we got off at Warsaw, we were all extremely tired. Not only because it was 11:00 PM, but also because we hadn't eaten dinner, it was quite cold outside, and we had spent all day waiting around walking around the castle and going to the salt mine (and everything in between). Luckily, it was only a 15 minute layover in Warsaw, but the station we were at was really barren. There wasn't even a stand open to buy water. We didn't want to wander too far from the station either, because with only 10 minutes to catch our next train, we wouldn't want to do any running this night either. So we sat on the platform and waited. When the train finally came, we saw that the inside was very crowded. We had noticed our tickets didn't say anything about assigned seating so I knew it was going to be a free-for-all when we boarded. We were about to get on the train, with our luggage and everything, when I noticed that the train was a little early. That meant it couldn't possibly be our trains, because trains never run early. We asked the conductor, and sure enough, it wasn't our train.

So we waited for five more minutes and our next train came. This was also crowded, with people standing in the isles outside their cabins. Great. We boarded the train and it began to move before we could even move halfway down the aisle. If you know anything about European trains, the cars have one aisle, that is very narrow so only two people can stand at a time. This means with luggage and people, it becomes a one way traffic jam trying to get from one end to another. We began looking in the cabins and noticed that almost every cabin is full, except maybe one or two seats. We managed our way all the way down the aisle and couldn't find anything. Then I realized, it's either smush in or stand—and I was not standing. I explained to the girls that it was unfortunate, but we're going to have to go back down the same aisle and find places to sleep. They're going to need to watch their stuff, and be aware of wierdos, but it's the only way to be as comfortable as possible so we weren't completely exhausted the next day.

We made our way down the aisle, and Ekta was the first to go into a cabin. There was no room in the cabin because the people in the cabin had way too much luggage and were using the leg space for baggage as well. We dropped her off and headed down some more. Many of the cabins had their curtains closed, so we were unable to see inside, and by this point, my frustration told me it doesn't matter if they don't want to be disturbed or not, we need a place to sit! The next one we got to had closed curtains, and I told Tete (who was in front) to open the door and look inside (it was the only way to see if there was room). She opened the door and of course everyone was sleeping, and by everyone I meant all four people. It was unfortunate of us to choose this cabin and wake up four very comfortably sleeping strangers, but when there are four empty spaces available to sit in, we didn't really care too much.

We woke them up and told them that four people needed to sleep in their cabin. They weren't too happy, but we were. Ekta found us and moved her stuff in with ours and then we began to sleep. Well, we tried to sleep, because the train was so uncomfortable. Ana had a window seat, me and Tete sat between Ana and a lady by the aisle. Across from us, a couple sat near the window, Ekta sat in between them and the woman next to me's husband. Basically, we tried to get as comfortable as possible, so Tete leaned on me, and I didn't lean on anyone but put my feet in between Ekta's feet. Ana was leaning on the window and poor Ekta was in the middle of two strangers, with no one to lean on. This was going to be a long night.

We were all dozing off sporadically, being woken up by the conductor three times to check tickets. The couple left sometime around 3 AM, which opened up some space, but Ekta, somehow in the middle of the night decided to take up the entire seat when the man next to her went to the bathroom. I woke up sometime around 4 AM, freezing cold because our aisle door was open, and the woman next to me was trying to convince her husband to come back in the cabin. I yelled at Ekta to wake up and stop taking up the whole seat, in which she moved, but the man, angry and tired, refused to come in. At this point, it wasn't my problem, and the train was beginning to empty, so the remaining couple found a new cabin, and we were able to be semi-comfortable for the last two hours of the ride. When we arrived in Szczecin, we got off and were greeted by the cold morning air of northern Poland. We switched tracks, found our train, and got on.

The last train was a dream. It was kind of like the Metro North of Berlin, because it was empty when we got on, but soon filled with businessmen and women heading into the city. All of us were able to completely pass out for two hours before we arrived in Berlin.

Now, it wasn't until after this journey that we realized how completely out of the way we really went to go from Krakow to Berlin. From Krakow, in Poland's southwest, to Warsaw, in Poland's northeast, to Szczecin in Poland's northwest down Berlin, in Germany's central east. In all, we made a giant circle around Poland, overshot Berlin to the north, and came back down again. What a wonderful way to go.

Krakow: Day 3

The last and final day in Krakow was spent seeing a few of the major tourist things we didn't catch on our first day in Krakow. We began the day a little slow, because after Auschwitz we wanted to have a lot of fun to get our moods up. We ended up meeting one of Tete's friends from AIESEC the previous night. I have Polish friends from Fordham, and one of them recommended to me a few places to go at night, so we met there and ended up going to a few places afterwards. It was a long night, but a lot of fun. We headed first to the Wawel Castle. When we arrived, we were met with a large line and a blinking red sign that said the tickets to the Royal State Rooms were sold out. We decided to wait in line for the Dragon's Den and other castle tickets. The tickets were time stamped and so we were forced to wait until 1 PM to begin our tour of the inside rooms. This was a terrible time because it was already 11:30 AM, which meant we didn't have enough time to eat, but couldn't really leave the castle grounds either. We walked around and found that the Wawel Cathedral tickets were not included in our tickets we bought for the castle, so we bought tickets and walked around the cathedral.

I hate doing things without a tour guide anymore because it's extremely hard to figure out the significance of everything I'm seeing when all the signs are in another language or even if they are translated, it just says what it is and not why it's important. The inside of the cathedral was beautiful though and there were many things to see inside. It was founded in 1650 and holds the tombs to many important people, including Frederick Chopin. Sigismund's Chapel was amazing, and according to Wikipedia, "is one of the most notable pieces of architecture in Krakow and perhaps, 'the purist example of Renaissance architecture outside Italy.'" Also, Pope John Paul II offered his first mass as a priest in this cathedral in 1946. Wawel Cathedral also has two bell towers, with eight smaller bells and five larger bells. The most famous of these bells is Sigismund Bell. This bell, created in 1520, has the following inscription on it, "FOR GOD, THE BEST, THE GREATEST, FOR THE VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD AND FOR HIS PATRON SAINTS, THE ILLUSTRIOUS KING ZYGMUNT OF POLAND HAD THIS BELL MADE TO BE WORTHY OF THE GREATNESS OF HIS MIND AND DEEDS IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1520." The total weight of the bell is 12,600 kg and it is 242 cm wide and 241 cm tall! It's a huge bell.

After ascending and descending the bell towers, we continued to the crypts to see the burial sites of many royal Polish people and of course Frederick Chopin and moved along to the rest of the castle grounds. The Wawel Castle served as the royal residence for 500 years and is small, but beautiful. The inside wasn't as immaculate as other places, but we still enjoyed our tour around. When we were finished, we were tired, hungry and in need of some new energy. We still had to see the final thing, the Dragon's Den of Wawel Castle. The Wawel Dragon is a famous dragon of Polish folklore. He was said to live in the cave underneath the Wawel Castle. The dragon would pillage and destroy the village every day and would only be appeased if he was given a young maiden once a month as sacrifice outside his cave. All the kings and all the king's men couldn't stop this perilous dragon, and so out of desperation, the king offered his daughter's hand in marriage to anyone who could defeat the dragon. The only one to outsmart the dragon was a young cobbler's son, who placed a sheep, stuffed with sulfur, outside the dragon's lair. The dragon ate the poison, and couldn't quench his thirst. The dragon was said to explode after drinking half the Vistula River and the cobbler's son married the king. The Dragon's Den was a totally pointless and stupid thing, but for $1, we didn't feel cheated.

After eating, we decided that almost our entire day was wasted at the castle and we still wanted to go to the famous salt mine about 30-40 minutes outside of Krakow. We decided to take our chances and try and see the mine before our train to Berlin left at 8 PM. We arrived at the salt mine to find out that the tour lasted 2 hours and was about $25—it was a no go. But that didn't stop us from wasting a bus ride outside the city. We walked around the salt mine grounds and took a few pictures and bought a few things. When we went back to Krakow, it was time to grab a bite to eat and head to the train station. When we were near our hostel, quite close to the Wawel Castle, Ana shouts out, "Jolin! Jolin!" I looked out of the window and who do I see? Jolin! In her bright pink pants and her boyfriend Chen Zhen! And we were trapped on the bus! Great! We waited as the bus drove away from where we saw Jolin and we could do nothing. As soon as the bus stopped, we ran out in the direction of Jolin. I knew that she couldn't be too far because she was walking slowly and Krakow really isn't too big of a city. We walked down the main street I thought she was on and arrived at the castle…too far. We headed back, thinking she might be shopping in a store or inside a church. Still nothing. And then we found her, sitting on a bench with Chen Zhen and we all ran up and gave her a big hug. Who would have thought we'd meet up in Poland, after a month in the Czech Republic.

We spent our last few hours in Poland with Jolin shopping around the main square. She walked with us to get our luggage from the hostel and took us to the train station. Poor Jolin! Apparently on her way to the train station in Prague, her backpack was opened and missing from inside was her wallet, money, external hard drive, and some miscellaneous items. Our train ride to Berlin is certainly one for the books, so stay tuned for more stories.

Krakow: A Day at Auschwitz

The second day in Krakow we woke up early and had a nice breakfast that we had bought the day before at the grocery store. Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal for me was a perfect way to start the day off. We then waited for our bus to Auschwitz, which picked us up at 11:30 AM in front of our hostel. The trip to Auschwitz takes about an hour and 15 minutes, depending on traffic. The town is actually called Oswiecim and has been an industrial town in Poland for many decades. This is one of the reasons that the Nazi's chose this place as a concentration camp, because of the industrial productivity and the great railway connections to the rest of Europe. Auschwitz was in fact the largest Nazi German concentration camp and death camp during WWII. During the five year period of 1940-45 the Nazis deported at least 1.3 million people to Auschwitz. Auschwitz was originally a camp for intellectuals and political dissidents. This meant that the first visitors of Auschwitz were professors, lawyers, doctors, politicians, and any other person who could potentially go against the Nazi regime. In 1942, the Nazis shifted their position and began the mass extermination of European Jews, and there were Jewish people brought from all over Europe to die at Auschwitz. Of the 1.3 million confirmed victims, 1.1 million of them were Jewish, with the next largest population being Polish citizens (150,000) and gypsies (23,000).

Arriving to the actual site we were greeted by the main facilities building, which had bathrooms, cafeterias, and the such. We waited for our tour to begin and looked around. Auschwitz used to be a Polish army base, which was why there were already brick barracks. The Nazis installed two fences, the first being a barbed wire fence and the second being an electric fence and they eerily stood on the perimeter as a reminder of what was inside. I was actually surprised how beautiful the actual camp was. There were large trees, weeping willows and the sunshine and cool breeze made a nice scenery. It just goes to prove that I don't think any human mind can fathom the horrors that happened here. When the tour started we first began at Auschwitz I, where the bus dropped us off. The second part of the tour was going to be in Auschwitz II-Birkenau the much larger part of Auschwitz which held over 100,000 people at one time. Auschwitz I wasn't so large, but still housed 7,000 prisoners and a majority of the Nazi buildings.

Our tour through Auschwitz took us through the gate that greeted all prisoners of Auschwitz. The gate mocks the prisoners entering by saying, "Work Brings Freedom" in German (Arbeit Macht Frei), when in fact many of those entering the camp were never meant to leave alive. The brick barracks formed lines and aisles around a gridline pattern of dirt roads. We entered the first barrack to learn about the lives of prisoners. The overwork, exhaustion and starvation that each person endured was so extreme that many people only lived weeks or months at Auschwitz. Working 11 hours a day with a slice of bread and bowl of soup for dinner was enough to lose half their body weight. Walking down the halls of the first barrack were hundreds of photos taken by the Nazis of the incoming prisoners. Each photo had two dates, the day they entered Auschwitz and the day they died. Most lasted only a couple months, some not even a week and others a year and months. The other barrack we went through talked about arriving at Auschwitz and the Nazi plans. Selection of prisoners was done immediately upon arrival. Since many of the people arriving had been Jews, they were bringing with them many of their possessions for their "relocation." The selection process first began with men and women and they were then selected on their ability to work. Those unfit for work were sent immediately to the gas chambers, where they were asked to strip naked for a sanitation bath. In Auschwitz II-Birkenau, nearly 2,000 people were forced into a chamber at one time, with five gas chambers in the camp. Auschwitz I had two chambers, each fitting up to 700 prisoners. Children were almost immediately sent to the gas chamber or kept for medical experiments. The gas chambers were built partially underground to prevent air from entering. The Nazis would stand on the roof of the building, with grass and dirt, and would drop the Cyclone B into the chamber from above. Attached to the chambers would be the crematorium, where the dead bodies were immediately burned. The Nazis killed many many people here and the saddest part is that they would have killed more but were unable to dispose of the dead bodies quickly enough. After 1942, people living near Auschwitz could distinctly remember the horrible smell that would blow through due to the burning of dead bodies in the open forest.

Our tour then continued on to show us the possessions of the prisoners, taken at the beginning. Thousands of combs, eyeglasses, pots & pans, toothbrushes, toys, dolls, watches, suitcases and shoes piled six feet high and 20 feet wide. Not to mention the tons of hair that was shaved off of each prisoner. The tour then continued on to the one building called the Death Block. It was essentially a prison within the walls of Auschwitz. Prisoners accused of dissent, planning escapes, creating disturbances or other "crimes" were sent here to be tortured or murdered. The Nazis didn't want other prisoners to know what was going on here, and so the Death Block was heavily guarded and walled off. The first thing when entering the courtyard of the Death Block was a concrete wall where prisoners were openly shot. That was a very moving thing to see, because it was upon seeing this wall that I began to get a sense of things that had gone on. It was really terrible. When we entered the building, we went through the halls, kept in their original condition from the 1940s. We passed the rooms where the first experimentation of poison gas was conducted, where the prisoners were held, and went down to the basement where the cells and prison chambers were. There were 20 cells, four of them being standing cells no more than 1m x 1m. The prisoners were still forced to work and then forced to return to these cells at night. In the standing cells, many died from suffocation and exhaustion.

The next part of the tour, and last part in Auschwitz I, was entering the only remaining gas chamber. When the Germans found out that the Russians were approaching, they blew up the five gas chambers in Birkenau but kept the two in Auschwitz I since they had been decommissioned for two years before the end of the war. Entering the chamber was really crazy. There are no amount of words to describe how much those walls talked. Upon leaving, I think every single one of us were with nothing to say.

The second part of the tour took us to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, located 3 km away from Auschwitz I. Birkenau has the train station where the prisoners were dropped off, the platform where they were sorted and the barracks where over 100,000 prisoners lived. In 1942, when the Nazis began to focus on exterminating European Jews, they decided they needed a larger campus. The began by first creating the barracks for women, using brick and mortar, but they found this to be inefficient due to the influx of prisoners. They then switched to creating wooden barracks, many of them have been destroyed. Birkenau is a field of graves, with the chimneys that were used to warm each barrack being the only remaining gravestones to mark the now decayed wooden barracks. The chimneys are one after another for many acres, row after row after row. We were allowed to enter two reconstructed barracks, the first representing the living quarters. Each barrack housed hundreds of prisoners, with only two fires to warm the barrack during the bitterly cold Polish winters. The guide reminded us that these conditions were not meant to keep them alive, but merely to allow them to live enough to work until death. The second barrack was the toilet barrack. The prisoners were allowed to use the bathroom twice a day, and privacy was non-existent. 2,000 prisoners would enter the bathrooms, which was a concrete trench, with no water or drainage. They would be forced to sit on holes, one right next to another for maybe 60 seconds at a time, before they were forced away. The lack of food and poor living conditions ultimately meant that the prisoners were bound to be sick, and the toilets were certainly an epicenter for disease.

After the barracks, we walked down the train tracks and the platform to the very end of the camp, where the blown-up remains of the gas chambers stood in a pile of concrete and grass. This concluded our trip with a moment of silence. It had been raining for the middle of our tour, and now the rain begin to sprinkle down, almost in a symbolic representation of our somber moods. I certainly will never forget this trip and I'm glad we made the journey here. Auschwitz will forever be a testament to the extent of human cruelty towards one another and should be a monument to prevent any future genocide of mankind. I ask everyone to remember those victims of the Holocaust, Jewish and others, children and elderly, and all of the innocent lives that were taken away so painfully during the years of German Nazi rule. They will never be forgotten.

Krakow: Day 1

Immediately upon arriving in Krakow, our first order of business was to buy tickets to Berlin, since we couldn't buy Polish train tickets in Czech Republic without paying a steep price. We went to the ticket office to find that the only train leaving Wedbesday was from 7 AM and arrives at 7 PM. Besides wasting a whole day, we would also have to pay $100, which is not my idea of a budget travel. We decided to wait for a while and check other options like a bus or something before committing ourselves to such terrible travel arrangements. Luckily, there were a lot of bus ticket offices around the train station, and we were able to price out the busses and they were almost as expensive as trains but better times. In the end we just decided to go to the hostel rather than make any decisions.

The hostel was only a 15 minute walk from the train station. Our walk there made me realize that Krakow is going to be a lot smaller than it looks. This is good for many reasons. First, we have 3 days here, second there is a lot to see but it's all close together. This means we can see a lot of things without having to rush around from place to place since we have more time to sightsee. Perfect. Check-in at the hostel was smooth. We paid, bought our tickets to Auschwitz, showered, and headed out to see Krakow and eat lunch.

Krakow's main square is beautiful. Krakow has many churches and is very Catholic. We began our sightseeing with a quick stop to the train station to buy our tickets (which our hostel clerk found for cheaper, but not as cheap as we hoped) and then headed to the Church of St. Barbara. This church is a small one, but beautifully adorned with great decorations and I noticed right away the familiar IHS of Jesuit institutions. We walked around inside and I noticed a young man walk to the side of the church and through a door. I followed him through after I had looked around the church, and I saw him sitting at a desk. For some reason, I decided to ask if he spoke English, which he did, and thus began our private tour of the Church of St. Barbara.

It turns out the guy was a Jesuit priest, from Poland. He told us about the many unique things about the church and how the painting behind the altar was actually covering another painting, and behind that a crucifix of Jesus. He pushed a few buttons and raised the first painting—that of St. Barbara with a sword. The next was a picture of Mary and Infant Jesus and behind that the crucifix, dating back to the 15^th century. Amazing. The priest said that for hundreds of years, the mechanism that raised the paintings was broken so no one knew that there was a crucifix hidden behind the paintings behind the altar. Now, every day at 15:00, the panel is raised for the adornment of Mary and rarely is the panel raised to expose the crucifix behind. Additionally, the priest showed us the tomb that was laid in the center aisle. This was the tomb of the Jesuit priest who first translated the bible into Polish. After showing us around the church, we followed the priest back to the room for him to show us something. It was here that we got to talk a little more about the history of the church. He gave Ana and I cards that have a very famous painting of Jesus, the Divine Mercy of Jesus (I think), which is very famous in Poland and I think the original was in the Basilica of St. Mary (which was right next door—I'll talk about it soon). Here's a picture:

I also explained to the priest that I went to a Jesuit university in New York, Fordham, and he said that there were seven Jesuits from the United States living in Krakow at the church. I was really excited to hear this and he said that there were some from Cleveland (John Carroll University probably) and one from Denver! Of course, I explained that Regis University in Denver is a Jesuit University and also Denver Seminary is a very large school. It was really cool and I felt the smallness of the world again. Dad, you would have loved Krakow!

After talking with the priest, we decided to move on to the Basilica, which is the large church in the main square. The Basilica has two large towers and was built in the 14^th century in the Gothic style. The inside is magnificent. From the Basilica we went down the main square towards some other churches, but by this time I was hungry and needed to eat. I love how I'm travelling with three girls that never want to eat lunch, so I basically have to force them sometimes to sit with me before I starve to death. I asked a local bartender where there was a good place to eat and she recommended a place not too far away. We gave it a try, even though no one spoke English and we didn't speak Polish. I had some traditional perogies, which are potato dumplings, with mushroom sauce. They were really good and really filling. After eating, we went to two more churches. The first was a Dominican Basilica of the Holy Trinity. Built in the late 14th century, the basilica is a Gothic church with many ornate details and beautifully carved wooden altars in the side chapels. It is a cloistered convent and I was confused by the inscription IHS on the front of the church, which made me think of Jesuits again. From here we went to a Franciscan church, the Basilica of St. Francis, which was an amazing church. Built in the 13th century, the basilica holds one of the most amazing stained glass windows done by Stanislaw Wyspianski. It depicts the Creation. Inside the church was dark and shadowy, but one of the side chapels had an exact replica of the Shroud of Turin. It was really awesome. I don't know how this church obtained a copy of the Shroud, but it was amazing none-the-less.

After the churches, we decided to head to the Jewish quarter since we had heard from some friends that the castle was not selling tickets this day. The Jewish quarter was nice. All of the synagogues charged money, so we only went to the main one, which was Remuh Synagogue. It is in this area that many Polish Jews can congregate together and share their culture. The Remuh Synagogue is surrounded by a very old cemetery, where every gravestone has smaller rocks placed on top to symbolize that the grave is attended to by family and friends and is not forgotten. This is a very Jewish custom (but not only Jewish), but also placing stones on a grave contributes to the construction of the grave and constitutes a Mitzva. After the cemetery, we went to an Indian restaurant to relax. Ekta and Tete has some lassies and I shared some samosas. We hung out until we were ready to go back to the hostel to prepare for the evening.

I took a quick nap before heading out for dinner, which was spent at a very very very delicious place near the train station. It was so good, we decided we had to eat there again the next night. I was in love with Poland-cheap delicious food and great beer too! That night, we spent looking around different clubs and bars. Krakow is well known for it's nightlife due to the large amount of university students in the city. We had an enjoyable night, but didn't stay out too late because the next day we were heading to Auschwitz to remember the victims of the Holocaust.

Krakow: The Journey to Poland

Well, getting back from camp, we spent the first night at a group feedback session. We were literally so exhausted we were falling asleep at the dinner table Saturday night after arriving in Prague. The next day, we woke up in our apartment, having to pack again and be at the AIESEC offices in time to say goodbye to Jolin, who was leaving for other European cities Sunday afternoon. The first goodbye…it was crazy. After the whirlwind experience, it was all coming to an end but this time with the people I've gotten to know so well. I'm going to miss cute Jolin. Always so sweet and nice and always able to give the best advice and the greatest words of wisdom, she could always bring a smile to your face, even when you were feeling really bad. She couldn't pronounce my name, so she called me "Reg-errrr" and everyone laughed when she called me that, just like she called Oskar, "Oskale." Jolin's dancing and funny sounds she made when she got scared or happy, mad or sad. She always had little squeaks of excitement whenever she was happy.

After saying goodbye to Jolin, I began to write my final goodbyes to the other facis. I was only halfway through when it was time to go to the Reunion Party at a tearoom in Prague. It was here that we all got to meet some students from the first and second camp and say our last goodbye. It was really good to catch up with everyone, see the familiar faces, and laugh about all the times we had in crazy MBM camp. It was going really well, until it was time for me, Tete, Ana and Ekta to go to Poland. We had to leave the reunion party a little early, but we were able to say goodbye to the students for (hopefully not) the last time. We made our way to the train station, accompanied by Lessya and Martin, and when we arrived, it was already time for us to board the train and head out. It was very sad saying goodbye to Lessya, after all she was the first faci who I skyped with when I was in New York.

On the train, we found our 6 person sleeper to be even closer than the cabins in camp. But, the funniest things happen to us. First, it was Ekta and I in one sleeper and Ana and Tete in another. Ana found Brazilians in her sleeper and Tete found a classmate from her university in the sleeper next door. Small world right? I was so surprised to see Tete talking with someone she had had classes with and studied with, especially since they had just graduated in June and are now all going their own ways. The even funnier part were the Americans that were in my cabin. The Americans from Denver, Colorado! Who could imagine that there would be a couple from the best city in the United States on my train to Poland, but not only that, in my exact sleeper. Yea, small world. It was a terrible night's sleep overall because I was too big for the bed and there was a metal bar right at my shoulder that I had to sleep on, the pillow wouldn't cover it.

I woke up the next morning at 6:15 AM just to find that our train was delayed 45 minutes in the middle of the night so we would be arriving late. As I was hanging out on the top bunk, my nose started to bleed, but this wasn't an ordinary nosebleed, it was one of those gushers with blood flowing everywhere. Luckily, one of the Germans in our sleeper had a little package of tissues to give to me, and I eventually made my way down to the bathroom, where it continued to bleed even to the point where I was getting nervous and light headed. Everything worked itself out and I stopped the nosebleed, just in time to arrive in Krakow Glowny.

Budapest: The Second Day (cont.)

The square was kind of nice but, it wasn't too much to see. We then made our way to the park to find the Hungarian castle, which was supposed to be spectacular. We walked through the park, and finally arrived at the castle. When we entered, we soon realized it had been changed into a Museum of Hungarian Agriculture. Booorrrriinnngggg. Strike three. Game over. We were done. We went to the park and laid down to figure out what to do next. We were all sick of everything, so we decided to hang out for an hour. When we finally realized there was nothing we wanted to do, we decided to go back to the hostel and find internet. I finally finished posting my blogs for the second camp but since there were no outlets in the Burger King we used for internet, I only had 30 minutes to do everything. Afterwards, I just used my phone to browse facebook and talk on Skype. When it was finally time to go to dinner, we went back and showered to get ready for the evening.

My friend Alexandra, who I had met for lunch one day in Prague, was in Budapest only one month previously and I she recommended on facebook that I visit a restaurant in Budapest for dinner. The group and I headed down to the city center, which was only a 15 minute walk away, and found the restaurant. The girls weren't hungry, so it ended up being me and Harrison enjoying the Hungarian meal together at the restaurant that looked over the Danube River. While we were eating, we joked that we were on the perfect "date." The sun was setting, they brought a candle to light our table, and a little band came and played live music, a mix of classical music and traditional Hungarian music. It was great. Harrison got the Calf Foot specialty, which weirded me out but made me laugh. The waiter asked twice if Harrison was sure he wanted to buy it, and just like in Mexico, they brought out the foot, battered and fried but hoof still attached. Harrison made me try it, and I shouldn't have looked at my food before I put it in my mouth because although it tasted good, I couldn't help but notice the few pieces of hair still in the fatty skin that once surrounded the bone. Delicious…

After dinner, we went down to the dock to meet the girls for the river cruise. The one hour cruise was great. It included a free beverage as well as an audio tour guide cassette to tell us what sights we were seeing as we cruised the Danube. The sun continued to set and the lights of Budapest began to light up the river. It was great for pictures and relaxing as the temperature finally cooled off and allowed us to breathe some fresh air. When the cruise was over, we decided to go to Gördör Club and Terrace, located in the heart of Budapest. This is the spot where locals and tourists alike can go for a great evening. Young people stand, sit and lay down along the benches, on the grass, and around the fountains in Erzsébet Square. There are so many people, you have to be careful how you navigate around the groups of people and on this particular summer Saturday night, Gördör was packed to maximum capacity. The eight of us had a great night, meeting some new people and just enjoying our last night off before heading back to Velké Meziřiči for the second camp. We had a blast.

Budapest: The Second Day

The second day in Budapest was just as exciting as the first. We decided to stay on the Pest side of Budapest. Once again, on the way to the metro, we passed by the central market and looked at all the goods, just for fun. We then headed to Hungarian Parliament, where we took pictures. Remember how I was talking about the bridges of Budapest and how many of them were rebuilt after WWII? Well, many things in Budapest were subject to international architecture competitions, including the Parliament. The Parliament building was built after the 100^th anniversary of the uniting of Buda and Pest as the Hungarian capital. There were hundreds of designs submitted from all over Europe, by some of the most famous architects of the time. The winning design was by an English architect who built the Hungarian parliament based off the British parliament, except the one in Budapest has one dome more and one clock tower less than the counterpart in London. Having been to London, the similarities between the Hungarian and British parliament are striking, both are located on the river, both have spires and windows and are massive buildings. The Hungarian parliament is particularly beautiful, mostly because of its beautiful maroon dome soaring hundreds of feet into the air. It's quite magnificent. Surrounding the parliament are other beautiful buildings, those of the 2^nd and 3^rd place winners in the competition for parliament. These are now government buildings that house offices and such.

After parliament, we went to St. Stephens Basilica, the largest church in Budapest. This is a beautiful church with a 96 m dome. It is even more majestic because it is quite new, built in the late 19^th century and finished in 1905. Inside is beautiful marble and gold leafed ceilings and lights. There are turquoise inlaid panels and of course statues and frescos decorating the walls. It was beautiful. We made our way to the Hungarian Opera House afterwards, only to find out if we could buy cheap tickets to see a show. It turns out that it was closed since it was not opera season and it was only for tours and having already toured the opera house in Vienna, we decided not to tour the one in Budapest.

After this, it was already too hot to be walking around and we were already tired. The salesman at the horse show recommended we go on a 1 hour boat tour on the Danube to see many of the main attractions of Budapest. I led the group down to the docks to purchase tickets for this cruise and we then made our way to Pest center. We first stopped at a Hungarian Orthodox Church to look inside, but it was only open 4 PM until 8 PM. We then decided to kill time until lunch and went to find the Jewish museum attached to the beautiful Dohány Street Synagogue. Of course, we forgot it was Saturday and the Jewish museum is always closed on Saturday. Wonderful. After striking out twice with sight-seeing, we took it as a sign that we need to get out of the heat and eat lunch. Lunch was spent at various places to accommodate the different palates and budgets of our group. I was hungry and wanted to get some Hungarian food. The heat was so unbearable and of course all the restaurants had only outdoor seating. We decided to eat a special lunch menu from a restaurant, that had three courses for a fixed price of €12 or something. It was delicious food, with a soup, goulash, and chocolate dessert. After the great lunch, we moved on to go see Heroes' Square, which is the best square in Budapest. It is at the entrance to City Park, and it has a huge column in the center dedicated to the Millennium anniversary of Budapest. On top of the column is a statue of the Angel Gabriel (that's you Dad!) holding the Hungarian Holy Crown.

Budapest: Day 1 (cont.)

Also in the castle grounds are beautiful views of the Danube River and Pest. We walked along the fisherman's bastion, which was where the medieval fish market was held, and looked over the city of Budapest. It was beautiful. The bridges across the Danube were amazing. Budapest has a lot of monuments built in the 19^th century in celebration of the millennial anniversary of the founding of the Hungarian capital (founded sometime in 9^th century). There is the Chain Bridge, which is an icon of Budapest and the first bridge connecting Buda and Pest. It was built in 1840s when there was a death of some important guy. The funeral of this man was in Buda and the Danube had not frozen over completely, and the guy's son couldn't go to the funeral because he couldn't get across the river. Although the original bridge was destroyed in WWII, it was rebuilt in 1949. There is also Elizabeth Bridge, named after the Austrian empress of the Hapsburg family who came from Hungary, which is a beautiful green suspension bridge. There is also Liberty Bridge, originally named Franz Joseph bridge, which is a spectacular modern bridge with a thin white square supporting the cables. The two bridges were named in honor of the Austrian rulers as a monument to their eternal love for each other. After WWII, both bridges were essentially destroyed, and Liberty Bridge was given its name. There is also a spectacular view of Hungarian Parliament and the churches of Pest.

After enjoying the view, we decided not to waste our only evening in Pest. We knew we had the horse show to go to in the evening, but we didn't know what to do to keep ourselves occupied beforehand. When we first arrived at the castle, some other tourists asked us if we knew where the labyrinth was, and we didn't know. Tete's brother had been to Budapest not too long ago, and she remembered him saying something about a labyrinth and saying he enjoyed it a lot. We decided to find the labyrinth and when we got there we descended underground to begin. The labyrinth is underground and I don't really know why it was built, but there was always a "fountain of endless wine" in the center. Whoever was in the labyrinth had more to worry about than finding the wine. They were haunted by several things: the deepest darkness imaginable and the random statues and wall paintings. The statues were placed in dead ends, around corners, and in other clever places. For us tourists, the labyrinth was blocked to only a small section. For every two people, there was one lantern and we began the labyrinth journey together. It was really a lot of fun. We eventually found the "fountain of wine" with a mysterious red liquid flowing from the spout and we were also surprised by the cold air, the dripping water and the statues placed in the corners. I was leading the group through the maze. We would come to dead ends, weird statues, weird rooms, gates, chains, giant heads, and other intriguing objects. The best part was when I found a particular dead end, and I decided to just wait behind the corner until the girls came poking their heads around and BAHH! I scared them so bad! It was wonderful. They were not pleased to say the least. It was really eerie and weird until the very end, when we were exiting the labyrinth and they turned it into a tourist trap. I didn't quite understand what was going on because the introduction video was in German, but the rooms began to have old computers, dead televisions, and other ancient technologies like radios and old equipment. Then they had some weird stuff like "frozen" walkie-talkies and other things. It was really stupid and I hated that they changed the mood from spooky and mysterious to weird.

When we finished the labyrinth we had only an hour or so to kill before the horse show at nine. We walked around the castle some more and found a restaurant to ask where the horse show was going to be. The waitress was very helpful and offered us a 20% coupon voucher if we ate at the restaurant beforehand. We went to go find the horse show and more information. We arrived at the show and the ticket salesman told us our voucher wouldn't work with the student tickets so we bought our ticket at a special discount he gave us. We went back to the restaurant to have a drink before the show. The waitress noticed we had already bought our ticket and told us we should have waited because our voucher would've given us 20% off the student price! So after we had our drink, we went back to the ticket office and of course couldn't find the guy we were talking to, so we had to argue with the lady to get some of our money back. We were just about to give up, when the guy came around, and he completely agreed with us, and gave us our money back. Thank God!

The horse show was great! Located in the Lion's Court of the royal castle, it showcased the Spanish Equestrian School, founded in 1933 by the Hungarian Royal Guard. There are only four academies in existence in the world, Vienna, Lisbon, Jerez de la Frontera, and the Cadre Noir from Saumur. The Spanish Equestrian School has been performing in the Buda castle for many years and the riders represent the best in the ancient Xenophon and Guereniere principles of horse riding. The show was only an hour long, but it was totally worth it. After, we made our way back home, and called it a day.

Budapest: Day 1

The first day in Budapest we woke up a little later because we were so tired. Today was our day to relax. We woke up around 9 AM and got ready for a day at the Hungarian bath. Hungarian baths originated from the Turkish, when they occupied Hungary during the largest expansion of the Ottoman Empire. Ana double-checked the quality of this bath with the Brazilian woman on the bus and she confirmed it would be fun and fun it was. It was near the end of the second subway line, but it was worth all $15 we paid. On our way to the subway, we passed by a large building that we had passed by the night before. We decided to walk through and found out it was a giant market. It was only after getting our guidebooks that we discovered we lived 5 minutes walking to the central market of Budapest. Here they sold Hungarian sausages, cheeses, meats, delicacies and liquor. It was a great building, with the air of old Hungary and with paprika drying from the ceiling (Hungarian paprika is famous!). It was really cool.

When we arrived at the bath and walked inside I was so happy to see it was a wonderland of water. First and foremost was the building itself. It was beautiful and looked like a palace. It was yellow, with white columns, statues, intricate carvings and the such. We just hung out all morning and afternoon in the sun. The pools were amazing. Inside, are about 25-30 pools. Mineral waters, different temperatures, saunas and everything we could ever dream of. The best part was, it was mostly adults, and not too many little children running around splashing. In fact, we were the little kids compared to all the older people there. There were three outdoor pools, one warm pool, the other cold and a perfect temperature one. The perfect one was obviously the most crowded, first because it was a great temperature, and second because it had bubbles coming from the floor in random places, and an "inner pool" with benches and real Jacuzzi jets. The best part was around this inner pool. The "inner pool" or Jacuzzi was a circle, but around the circle was another circle. So think of it as a bullseye, with the center being a Jacuzzi and the first ring and then the rest of the pool around it. The first ring was actually a stream pool that turned on every 5 minutes or so, when the Jacuzzi turned off. The stream pool created a clockwise current to flow through the first ring and it pushed everyone along the first ring. We had the most fun in this stream pool because we would all hold on to each other, pick our feet off the ground, and "ride the waves" around and around the Jacuzzi. We were clearly a source of entertainment being young, internationals and loud. We weren't the only young people there, and sometimes some other groups of kids would join us. At one point, I had a little boy clinging onto my arm riding with us until his older brother took him away. It reminded me of Finding Nemo, when Squirt was riding the EAC.

We spent the entire afternoon at the bath, taking a nap, getting tan (except for Jolin and Ekta who don't like to be tan), cooling off in the pool, relaxing and everything. Totally perfect. But all good things come to an end, and we decided not to waste our entire day at the pool, so we packed up and decided to head to Buda to go to the castle on top of the hill overlooking the Danube River and Pest. When we got off the subway, we found a McDonalds (our favorite place) and KFC (our second favorite) ate and made our way to the castle. Arriving at the castle was a nice little walk, but it ended with a bunch of stairs. After ascending the stairs and entering the castle walls, we found ourselves in almost a little city. There were streets, buildings, hotels, restaurants, and other things. Unfortunately, St. Matthias Church, Budapest's most beautiful and famous Catholic church, had closed an hour before we arrived. It was built in the 14^th century, in a neo-Gothic style and is probably remarkable inside. Bummer. Maybe next time.

Budapest: Night 1

Getting on the bus to Budapest was a great reward after such long tiring days in Vienna. It turns out that the woman sitting behind us was speaking Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese none-the-less, so Ana made friends with the woman and began to talk with her. She was indeed Brazilian, and had lived in Budapest for three years prior. She spoke very good English too and gave Ana a bunch of tips about where to go and what to see. She told us where to go to enjoy a great Hungarian bath, she told us about a special horse show going on at the castle during the weekend and she even drew us a map and told us where to buy Hungarian pastries, where to go at night, where to eat, and a short walking tour to see some of the famous sights of Budapest. She even helped us out by saying that Budapest is very different than Austria (Vienna) where you can ride the subway without buying a ticket (we never got checked), so she told us to always buy a ticket!

When we arrived in Budapest, I woke up from a pleasant and much needed nap on the bus. We got to the bus station and unfortunately our friend couldn't stay and help us find our hostel, but good thing I'm good with a map. I had printed out directions before we left camp so I knew we had to take the subway. Of course, after getting to the subway station, we didn't have Hungarian Forents, so we had to find an ATM to pull out money. Travelling with the 6 wonderful blessings, they all crowded around the map and began asking 100 questions before I could even look at the subway. Ekta, always has to know where we are and where we're going and she's the worst back-seat driver of them all, but I do have to admit she sometimes reminds me that we're about to go the wrong direction on the subway, so she helps sometimes. We finally got to the subway station and after getting out, we had a choice to catch a tram or walk. I wasn't sure how far to walk, but I had a very small map, so we decided to walk. About halfway through the walk, the girls began to become uneasy. It was 10 PM on a Thursday, no one was on the streets, and it was dark (good thing it was still 25°C out still…aka too hot for 10 PM). They were complaining and nervous and even though I insisted we were going the right way, they had to ask for directions. As they were asking for directions, I read the street sign to see we had arrived at our hostel, and I had to pull them away from some strangers to let them know we weren't lost and were in fact at the hostel.

The hostel was about as nice as a Ritz Carlton for homeless people. For $10 a night, I wasn't expecting much. We checked in, which was relatively easy, and we made our way to the rooms. It was nice to see that we had private double rooms for each of us (4 rooms total), the shared bathroom was horrendous, and the three showers had no curtains and one door to lock. This meant that if one person was showering, they locked the door and the other two showers were useless until the person came out. Of course, I didn't bring shower shoes on our trip because I packed all my clothes in my backpack and they just wouldn't fit, but I survived and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The joys of a hostel!

The hostel didn't have internet or air conditioning but when we checked in we got tickets for a free beer at some pub in central Pest. (Budapest was historically two cities, Buda and Pest, which were on opposite sides of the Danube River. The officially conjoined in the 1800s to become the capital of Hungary. We are staying on the Pest side, the more modern and less hilly side of the capital.) Rather than try and sleep in the unbearably hot rooms, we decided to venture out and find this free beer. It was like a quest for the Holy Grail. I used a better map given by the hostel and led the walk to the bar/restaurant. We arrived after a 30 minute walk, had a beer or two and decided to walk back, passing along the sites of Budapest and enjoying our first evening in Hungary.

Vienna: The Second Day

After the first full day in Vienna, we soon realized that Vienna has a lot of museums and a lot of history—almost too much to handle. We woke up early once again, and since we were leaving that night to go to Budapest, we had to make our way to a train/bus station to drop our luggage off in lockers. I asked that morning where we could do so, and they directed us to the proper station. The only problem was, and we had figured this out the night before, was that our subway line was under construction between two stations. Living in New York, this kind of thing happens every so often in Queens or Brooklyn, and it is a huge pain. This is what happens: the stations are closed for the stations under construction, everyone is forced out of the subway, and herded like cattle across the street to a bus station, where busses are lined up waiting to pick up the people and take them along the subway line. Now, here we are, eight international people, with luggage, at 8:30 AM. We get to the bus station, just to find that there is only one bus to take over 200 people along the under construction subway line. So instead of cramming us (and our 100 kgs of luggage) onto the first bus, we waited for the next. And wait, and wait and wait. About 40 minutes later the second bus arrived, after another subway had come and dropped even more people off at the station. By now we were waiting in line, behind a nun and next to a special type of person. I have a weird thing about these "special" people because it seems to happen to me often. I have two memorable experiences with them and here's what happens. These people are total strangers that I encounter in my life randomly giving me a special memory. They either do something weird, act strangely, or somehow attract my attention enough to make me notice them. Then, I forget all about them and continue on with my life, just to randomly run into them again in the street! Well, the previous day on the subway, we noticed this strange lady with brightly colored, half-sleeve/half-glove on her arms. I think she wore a hat, she had some weird bright sweater on, a colorful print skirt, and some weird spandex leggings on. She looked like Mrs. Peacock from Clue or something. Anyway, we smiled at her strangeness and moved on with our lives. Then at the bus stop, who do we stand in front of? Mrs. Peacock! Crazy!

Anyway, when the bus arrived, we took it one stop, had to transfer back onto the subway (a different line) and we finally made it to the train station to lock our luggage. Then the day began. We arrived at Upper Belvedere, an old palace that had been turned into a museum. After Albertina the day before, the museum was not so interesting for us. Although there was a Monet and Van Gough, we were not so interested in the other paintings throughout the museum. There was a lot of art about battles and wars by the Austrians, and the palace itself was very beautiful. Again, it was 11 AM and scorching hot and we were already tired, but we knew we had a lot to see before we left for Budapest, so we continued to go on. We returned from Belvedere to the city center where we split again to eat lunch. After lunch, we found our way to Mozarthaus, the apartment building where Mozart lived. Mozart lived in Vienna along with many other famous artists and musicians. It was here in Vienna that Mozart played as a child to the royal Hapsburg family in Schöbrunn Palace and here, in the Vienna Opera House, that his famous opera Don Giovanni played for the very first time, performed by Mozart himself. The house had been turned into a museum, probably a tourist trap, so we decided not to spend the €9 to enter and just move along with our sightseeing. This time, me, Ekta, Harrison, and Tete went to the Opera house for a tour. It was a beautiful building, grand and ornate. The back half of the building had been destroyed in the second World War, and was rebuilt in 1950 or so, and the opera house reopened in 1954. The opera house itself is still an active building. They have no acoustic equipment, like speakers or microphones, so every artist must sing loud enough for all 2200 audience members to hear. For this reason, they change operas every day and show about 5-6 different operas a week. Furthermore, they keep their sets in a separate location and the sets are transported every day to the opera house. This is only for performances and doesn't include the work necessary to do rehearsals and such. The backstage for the opera is over 25m deep and 25m high (that's like 75 feet high) and it's huge. The opera house employs over 5,000 people, including stage crew, actors/actresses, and office workers, so you can imagine every day, the hundreds of people who come to the opera to make it perfect. The opera is open every single day of the year, except for Christmas Day and Good Friday. It was beautiful and awesome, and I loved the way they rebuilt it to imitate the original style of the opera house. The front part, and the oldest part of the opera house held the Imperial Box, where the royal family (and now honorary guests) can sit to enjoy the show as well as the original entrance and foyer. The newer part has the actual box seats and a huge iron curtain to hide the stage, decorated in golden yellow that is 9 tons heavily. It was completely worth the €3 for the guided tour and one of the best parts of the day.

From the Vienna Opera House, we decided to go check out the Vienna Parliament building. But before we made our way over to the building, we decided to stop at one of Vienna's most famous churches. Karls Church (Karlskirche) is a magnificent church that has beautiful columns outside and I wish we could have gone in, but it was something like €6 just to go inside. Sorry, I don't have a job yet and churches should always be free, so we didn't go in. When we arrived to Parliament, we didn't want to go inside, so instead we just looked at the building. Vienna must have been preparing for an AIDS benefit concert or something, because the park in front of the building was full of stage preparation equipment and large banners and red ribbons. The Viennese Parliament also had a large red ribbon across the front pillars of the building, so we took our pictures and headed to the park to relax for a little break. We've gotten quite good at sleeping in public parks lately, so this was no different. We watched the pigeons and tried not to think about the heat. After Parliament, the girls were tired and we only had a couple hours until we had to head to the train station to pick up our luggage and make our way to the bus station.

The girls decided to just find a McDonalds (clearly our favorite restaurant) and Harrison and I made our way to the Museum Quarter. The Museum Quarter in Vienna is kind of like the 798 District in Beijing. It's an area in Vienna dedicated to artists of all types. Although there was a lot of fashion oriented exhibitions, there were also some contemporary art installations and really cool pink benches that everyone was on lounging around. Harrison and I walked around a little bit, found nothing too interesting except preparation for a concert or something in the main square of the MQ. We looked at the schedule, and although they have a lot of events, they were all planned for the evenings or other days. We made our way back to the subway and found a McDonald's on the way. We made it to the train station to pick up our luggage a few minutes until 6 PM and found the other girls waiting for us…except for Jolin and Ekta.

This situation is always happening to us. Waiting for Ekta, Ekta getting lost, Ekta getting locked somewhere, Ekta is always missing! So we waited…and we waited…and with each minute, we began to wonder if they were lost, and if we were going to make it to the bus station in time for our 7 PM bus to Budapest. Finally, at 6:15, they came to the train station. By now, Aysegul had gone to the bathroom and Ana was buying some snacks at the store, so we had to wait again. And finally when everyone was back, we began to make our way to the bus station. Luckily, we made it to our bus station in 30 minutes and had about 10 minutes to spare. No running to the bus today = today was a good day.

Vienna: The First Day

Well, the last time I had internet, I only had it for about an hour, then my computer died and no one wanted to share their plugs with me, so the only updates I got to make were the ones for the entire second camp, which I had pre-written and just copied and pasted onto my blog. I hope you've enjoyed all of them so far, but by now, I'm already beginning new journeys in Poland and Germany, and my internet will probably be just as limited as it was during my trip that I'm about to tell you about.

The first day in Vienna we woke up early. It was nice to be showering in a common bathroom again and sleeping with two random strangers in our room. The joys of a hostel were in the air. But really, besides the free breakfast, the hostel was half decent. Right near the Hütteldorf subway station, the rooms were clean, although unbearably hot. They held our luggage in a locked room in the basement, and the wi-fi in the lobby was decently quick. Since we had some problems when we checked in, the first order of business was getting out the door before 9 AM after finding the rest of our group a new place to live. We eventually asked the hostel if they had available rooms for the night, and since they had room, we were able to stay in the same hostel the second night in Vienna. Of course, after checking in for the second night, we were ready to go, but travelling with eight people isn't so easy. It's become the popular thing for us to be missing one, two, or three people. This time, I don't know who it was we were missing but someone was gone, and we found her with a full plate of breakfast in the hostel restaurant. It doesn't matter who it was, but when we found her (guess who it was!), I was laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. We can't go anywhere without losing someone!!

We made it out the door at 8:45 AM and made our way to Schöbrunn Palace. Even at 9 AM, it was sweltering heat. The high was supposed to be 35°C. On our way out of the subway, we were walking down the palace, on the wrong side of the road, with morning traffic blocking our only way to cross the street. Of course, being my luck and a perfect way to start the morning, a Viennese bee stung me through our journey in the bushes along the side of the road. It was definitely Ekta's fault because she was pissing all the bees off by thrashing around in the bushes, but it stung me on the inside of my arm and it hurt. It actually was very itchy until at least a week after (I'm writing this 10 days after the sting and can still see the red area where my allergic reaction is still irritated!). We got to the palace and bought tickets. I was so glad to be there early because there were virtually no crowds.

The palace was amazing! There were so many rooms with different styles. A reading room, an office, a luxurious dining room, and beautiful bedrooms. Maria Teresa, Elizabeth (Sisi) and Franz Josef, and the other royal Hapsburgs lived in this fine palace. With many children, they decorated it together over many generations. Maria Teresa had a fascination with Chinese art and so some of the rooms were dedicated to East Asian art and decorations. The floor was beautifully inlaid with dark and light wood patterns, intricate and glossy. There was even a blue and white reading room that was painted to imitate Chinese porcelain and held hundreds of porcelain plates and trinkets. Maria Teresa had 11 children, and only her favorite, Christine, was allowed to marry for love to Albert, the one who founded Albertina (which I'll talk about later). Franz Josef married Elizabeth, who was one of the most beautiful women of her time. She was said to have had hair to her ankles and dedicated hours a day to maintaining her appearance. She would often skip meals to keep her figure, and she was definitely the modern definition of a "princess".

After the palace, we stayed on the royal grounds and continued to tour the private gardens and the panoramic terrace, located on the hill above Schöbrunn. By this time, the heat was so unbearable, it had taken all of our energy. After looking over the city of Vienna, we decided to head to the city center and eat before we began our next sight. We arrived in the center and ate McDonalds (again!), and afterwards headed to St. Stephens Cathedral. It was absolutely beautiful. From there, we went to St. Peter's Church. It was also beautiful. Gold, marble, frescos and statues, you know, the usual stuff found in magnificent churches. After the churches, we decided to walk to Hofburg, which holds libraries, museums, and beautiful buildings used by royalty. We walked through some of the buildings, and eventually ended up at a park with a statue of Mozart (a native to Vienna), which was where we spent a few hours resting from the morning heat and early afternoon sightseeing.

After our break, we made our way to Albertina, a wonderful museum with a collection of Monet, Renior, Picasso, and other styles. It was awesome to see some of the classics, as well as some of the more modern works. There was a special collection toward the end that was by Walton Ford. It displayed works portraying colonialism in the world by using animals and words as an allegory of the destruction, havoc, and abuse caused by colonialism.

After Albertina, we went out for dinner and then headed to Praterstern, a small amusement park on an island in the Danube. There we rode a few rides, which per pay as you ride. We rode a spinning one that was fun, a flying coaster (like the one at Elitch Gardens), and a really fun one that reminded me of the old ride called the "Zipper". Although it was a little expensive, I had a ton of fun and so did everyone else! The best was seeing the city lights while flying upside down, hundreds of feet in the air! At the end of the night, we headed back to the hostel to get a good night's sleep before another busy day in Vienna.

Back in Prague...Leaving Tonight

I just arrived in Prague last night. We spent the whole entire afternoon giving feedback about the MBM project and giving advice for next year's program--which will certainly be bigger and better than this year. We ate a nice dinner, as a family together and now tonight I'm leaving for Poland. I have scheduled posts from my trip to Budapest and Vienna to keep you entertained while I'm away. I return to Prague on August 8th and then I leave August 9th to go to Turkey!

Ciao.