Prahahahaha

So once again its been a while since I've updated and since I've actually been to where I'm writing about...so mainly this is going to be Prague in pictures....

Ever since I knew I was going to Europe, people have told me to go to Prague. The other weekend we packed up and headed north (maybe north east?) for a QUICK trip. Our flight was very early in the morning...so early that we could not get to the airport in time in the morning so we had to go Thursday night and sleep in the airport. This airport is no Hartsfield-Jackson...we were on the cement floor near the doors so that if the you actually managed to sleep on the hard surface, the cold blasts from the doors ensured it was a short-lived slumber. We were all so excited when we finally got to board the plane.

Regardless of our little sleep (which is becoming a continuing trend), we arrived in Prague ready to see the city. We went to the old town square and opted to eat lunch there. Well turns out its a huge tourist trap and we ended up paying close to 40 euro for stuff like turkey sandwiches (and it didn't help one girl scooted out on the bill). The waitress started adding extra costs in, like 20 euro for bread. And mind you, they don't use euros, they use crowns(?)...so 100 crowns is close to 4 euros. From the ATMs you get 1000 crown notes. I literally had no concept on how much anything was. For a town that we had been told was cheap, cheap, cheap, our first experience made us highly doubt that.

View from the castle.

One afternoon we did a walking tour. It was terrible and I left 1.5 hours into it for Subway. The woman knew nothing about making it interesting or the English language. But she did take us up to the castle where there was an amazing view of Prague, which is a really beautiful city.


Singing nuns

While at the castle a pack of nuns walked by singing. I couldn't help but try to change there song to "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria", my favorite song sung by a pack of nuns.


Statue

This was a weird statue we passed.

Vikings/Models

These cute little guys were modeling clothes in a store. What a choice idea for a manikin...when I see an outfit on a viking all I can do is go buy it and hope I look half as good.


Gypsy doll.

There was a window full of these in Amsterdam and I loved it. Then in Prague I passed a whole stand selling these little witches/gypsys. One stand even had motion censored gypsys so when you walked by they cackled. I have no idea why I didn't buy one.

This is the famous clock in Prague. It goes off every hour and people stand there going nuts.
I've heard from several people that its the most disappointing things to watch. Our leader told us that a man built this clock and it was the only one of its kind in Europe. Prague was proud to have it and to ensure that no one else could, people burnt out the guy who made it's eyes. Then in his blind fury he made it to the top and threw a metal rod down it it....and it took years and years to fix it. That's revenge if I've ever heard it.

Prague was such an awesome city. I'd highly recommend it to anyone traveling in Europe.

fun fact: I am currently on a bus from Valencia to Barcelona...it has wifi! how cool!

Next up: Lake Garda, Tuscany, Florence, Rome, Valencia, Barcelona...

Ciao for now :)

Amsterdamned

After Munich and Salzburg, part of the group headed north to Amsterdam. I had no idea what to expect, but from what I had heard about this town I expected hippies everywhere.

When we got there the girls headed to the hotel we booked (no way I was doing 3 Ducks again with people on drugs) and the boys headed to their place.

We had no idea what was in store for us.

The "I Amsterdam" thing thats supposedly famous.
We saw this sign after going to the Van Gough museum. I loved seeing all these works of art under one roof. He was so talented.


View from a bridge of the Red Light District.

One afternoon we went to the Red Light District. I was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. The women stand in the windows, probably drugged out, hoping to appeal to some sick person. The way the women are displayed is not as though they are people, but an item that you can buy (like a pair of shoes). We were there for maybe 15 minutes though 5 would have been enough for me.


Kari, Cameron, and me at the Heineken Brewery/museum. Note our cool hats. All of the girls got them except for Kari/lameo.
The outside of the Heineken Brewery/museum.


One of Amsterdam's infamous "coffee" shops.
Madame Tussaud's wax museum. (we didn't go in though)


We went to Anne Frank's house one morning. The line was really long but totally worth the wait. I read The Diary of Anne Frank in elementary school, so it had been a while. In my memory the area where they lived seemed reasonable, but standing in the room that Anne shared with another person was pretty surprising. The rooms were tiny. I cannot imagine living there for as long as they did. We got to walk through the door that led to the Annex (the one that was blocked by the bookcase) and head up the stairs. Seeing where this young girl hid for her life was very touching. Throughout the house there were excerpts from her diary. It was hard to believe that someone so young was so insightful.

A-MAZ-ING Pancake (Bacon and Cheese)

After Anne Frank's house, we went down the street to The Pancake Bakery. They had soooo many pancake choices. I opted for a savory pancake with bacon and cheese...it was wonderful. Other people got sweet pancakes like nutella. Just thinking about it is making my stomach growl.

All of these experiences (Van Gough, Heineken, Anne Frank's house, etc) make Amsterdam seem like a charming town, but the in between times left me with a different mind set. As previously mentioned, I expected a hippie town. Instead of hippies there seemed to be people who lived there and rode around on bikes or drug addicts. The presence of crazy drug addicts kept me feeling uneasy for a lot of the trip.

On our last night in Amsterdam, one of the girls got pickpocketed (her wallet and passport). We got to spend some quality time at the Amsterdam Police Dept. While waiting for her paperwork to process, a man came in with no shirt on holding a plastic bag. I was terrified. He went up to the police at the desk and explained that he had too many mushrooms and mixed them with alcohol. He woke up like this (shirtless) and figured he'd been robbed (really? you have no shirt or wallet...how'd you come to that conclusion?). He went on to say that he was seeing things, his brain was not working right, and he needed a doctor. In America he would have been rushed to the ER. In Amsterdam, the police laughed and told him to wait in line.

After waiting for a while, the police said that the whole system was down in all of Amsterdam and we'd have to come back in the morning. On another note, in the police station one of the police women looked at our group and asked if we'd all been helped. We all nodded "Yes" and probably looked confused since we were all together and she pointed at me and said, "Oh I though you were Dutch." I was ecstatic that I didn't look like an American tourist like the rest of the group, but they attributed it to the fact that I am the only blonde of the group.

Though I left Amsterdam ready to get out of that town, looking back I would like to try it again. If the weather had been nicer, it would have been neat to do a bike tour through the country or see the Rembrandt museum.

Next stop: Prague!

Ciao for now!

the hills are alive...

After Munich we continued our journey to Salzburg. The town was beautiful! Its been a long time so I'm just going to tell about it through photos...


We went on the Sound of Music tour (it was filmed in Salzburg) one afternoon. In preparation for the tour, we watched the movie the night before in our hotel room. While we rode on our Sound of Music themed tour bus, we listen to the soundtrack and sang along. I loved every minute of it.

This is the church where Maria and Captain Von Trapp got married. Its not even in Salzburg.


The view of a beautiful lake on the tour. Reminds me of Jackson, my love :)


View of the city of Salzburg from a fort. It was freeeeeezing when I took this pic.



This is one of the houses that posed as the Von Trapp family house. This one was the back, but there was another one that was the front.


Tricked out Sound of Music tour bus.

"16 Going on 17" gazebo. Tragically it was not open for the public so I couldn't prance around.


On the was to Salzburg we stopped at the salt mines a did a tour. We got to go on a really neat slide and I screamed the entire time. Surprise, surprise.

This is the photo of the whole crew in our chic salt mine jumpsuits.

Salzburg was so nice and pretty. I would love to be here in the spring/summer, namely so I could run though the green hills singing.