I AMsterdam

Amsterdam. What a quaint, beautiful, weird city.

The trip started out a little stressful when last week I got an email from the airline saying that my flight was canceled because of a planned strike. Long story short I missed my Friday class and Sarah and I, along with our friend Kayla and her friend flew out Thursday night. Thursday we just oriented ourselves, found an empty pub, and made friends with the resident kitten. Our hostel ended up being about a 30 minutes bus ride from the city center, but that was fine with us. We just made use of being out in the city all day, even if it was FREEZING cold.

Friday morning we braved the Red Light District. So weird to be walking down a main thoroughfare with families with children and to see women of all shapes and sizes in lingerie standing in front of glass doors. We also came across two churches right in the Centrum (the main area)...surrounded by brothels and coffee houses. Once we got those images out of our mind we wandered around the outer canal rings and it felt like we were in a completely different place. The houses were all so beautiful and the city is just full of people riding bikes. We thought it was so funny because inside of driving cars most people have bikes. Which they strap multiple children/pets/groceries to. Before we met up with Kayla and Cody for lunch we shopped around the Nine Streets area which is literally just nine streets with really cool shops and restaurants. Apparently Holland is known for pancakes so what better place to experience it then at Pancakes!? My savory pancakes were delicious and gave me the energy to continue our adventures.

A bicycle built for 4?

Pancakes! (please note my 1995 style Italian cell phone)

We found Dam Square and also wandered around Vonderpark (the names of everything kills me!). The Van Gogh museum is open until 10 pm on Fridays so we visited that in the evening. What a cool museum! We also saw a really interesting temporary exhibit that showcased paintings from the 1900s that were based on photographs taken at the time. Amsterdam apparently also has a large Indonesian population so Sarah and I tried Indonesian food for dinner. The rice table buffet-esc meal was too expensive, but we both got chicken fried rice that came with a plethora of fun side dishes.
Dam Square

Saturday we had snow! I can't believe that just two weeks ago I was in Rome in a t-shirt! So long story short, it was cold, but oh so pretty. Especially with the all the Christmas decorations everywhere! First thing we did Saturday morning was visit the Anne Frank museum. It was so interesting to see something that I've read about countless times. The museum itself is actually built into the old annex and the stairway with the bookcase and all the bedrooms are just as they were when the families were caught. It wasn't as sad as I thought it would be, but rather just a really informative and interesting piece of history that I got to see first hand. Waiting in line for awhile for that along with a very long lunch to warm up took up most of the afternoon. After we had walked around for a little while I decided to go to the Rijksmuseum which houses many works by Rembrandt and Vermeer including Rembrandt's famous "Night Watch". No one else wanted to join me, but I was happy to see so many of the paintings that I've learned about in my art history classes.

Once I was museum-ed out, what do you know, we happened upon "Winter Park" ie. a Christmas market/fair! I was in heaven! We sampled some gluhwein (spiced wine) and Dutch donuts and wandered around before we stumbled upon the temporary bar that had been set up for the occasion. Christmas fun for everyone!
Christmas lights were everywhere!

Sarah at Winter Park

By Sunday we felt like we were pros in the city and had a leisurely morning before heading out in the cold for our last day of exploring. We decided to do as the Dutch do and rented some bikes for about two hours. It felt like we saw every last part of the city that we'd missed and we even did some laps around Vonderpark! I didn't even have any near death experiences! We rewarded ourselves with some hot soup and hot chocolate before our flight back to Florence.

All in all: yet another city that I've fallen in love with!

Roma Redo

4+ years ago I made my first journey to Italia with the Abad clan on a fabulous Mediterranean cruise. Everything about the trip was awesome, everything but Rome that is. We were in Rome in late June (high tourist season) and jammed it all into one very stress-filled day. So when Vanessa mentioned that she really wanted to go to Rome I was torn. I really wanted to go on another trip with my friend who I hadn't seen in awhile, but I really had not desire to go back to Rome. I succumbed to peer pressure and am SO GLAD that I had the chance to go back. I had a wonderful experience in Rome last weekend!

I met Vanessa in Perugia and stayed with her Friday night. We got up first thing Saturday morning and took a train to Rome. (First amazing thing- it was about 75 degrees all weekend! What a nice change from the 50 degrees and raining weather we've been having in Florence for about a month now.) We were lucky enough that our hostel was right near the train station so we were able to ditch our bags at our hostel before taking the metro across the river to the Vatican for our 12 o'clock entry appointment. Instead of the two hour long line that we waited in four years ago, we were able to walk right into the Vatican museum. Don't get me wrong, there was definitely a lot of people there, but nothing like the craziness that we experienced. And while we did not have the most educational tour of the museum, we had a lot of laughs entertaining ourselves joking about all the statues. For example, an ancient tickle session?

We also had laughs that the Sistine Chapel doesn't actually exist because we had to walk through the whole museum to get there and all the signs that said "Sistine Chapel This Way" had a picture of a cappuccino underneath it. A last we finally did make it to the Sistine Chapel (it does exist, but no, there wasn't any cappuccino reward for us). This was also a much better experience than last time. There were still the guards yelling "no foto", but I was able to tune them out and spend a lot of time straining my neck to look at the beautiful ceiling. Once we managed our escape of the Vatican museum we spent some time wandering around Vatican city looking at all the fun pope-themed souvenirs. We were going to go inside St. Peter's Basilica but the line was extremely long. Instead we took in the bright sun and comfortable temperature.
Vatican city and St. Peter's Basilica

We then literally spent the next 6 hours just walking seeing everything! My feet killed by the end of the day. I was able to see two new things that I hadn't gotten to see my first time in Rome- the Pantheon & the Trevi Fountain. The Pantheon is a marvel in and of itself. Not only is it free to get into (yay!) but the building itself is really cool to see. The Trevi Fountain was also beautiful! You wander through all these small windy streets and then enter a large square with the huge fountain. We obliged with local tradition and each threw a coin over our shoulder to ensure a return visit to Rome.
We went to a place close to the train station for dinner where we split a carafe of wine and some bruschetta, and I had lasagna for dinner. We spent the evening wandering around some of the main squares and enjoying all the people watching. We spent a while scouring for a pastry for dessert and passed out soon after at our hostel.

Sunday we got up and headed to a flea market that was recommended to us by our hostel. It reminded me a lot of the flea market at Giants Stadium, but it was fun just be in that crazy environment. From there we walked to the Colosseum and also saw the Arch of Constantine. We had to wait in awhile to get our tickets to get inside the Colosseum, but the wait wasn't actually that bad. The weather was gorgeous and we wandered around the interior of the Colosseum for a very long time.

On our way to the train station we stumbled upon a quaint little place where we tried fried zucchini flowers and I had a local specialty- penne arrabiata (penne with a chili sauce). Vanessa and I split ways there and I headed back to Florence on one of the high speed trains using up the rest of my Eurorail pass.

and we finish in Prague

Phew we have done a lot this week! Needless to say, I was tired after my 7 hour train ride from Budapest to Prague but was really excited to be reunited with my roommates and explore the beautiful city of Prague (Praha will you).

Our first stop before even reaching our hostel was to go to the Old Town Square to see the astronomical/astrological (the name seems to be up for debate among us). I have been told that is the number 2 overrated attraction in Europe (second only to the Mona Lisa I believe) but I actually found it quite cute. Every hour a skeleton statue rings a gong and figures of saints come prancing out. Afterward a real buglarer sounds off his horn. So what, it's a little anti-climatic and probably a big draw for pickpockets while all the tourists are looking up, but I say it was well worth those five minutes of my time!

After that big excitment we headed out for some drinks, as Prague is the drinking capital of the world. We ended up at a bar called "Propaganda" (we really can't escape the communism). The bar itself was really well decorated with really cool kitschy things and the company didn't suck either!

Since Friday was our only full day all together in Prague we took advantage of it (and the beautiful weather) and packed a lot in. I'm ashamed to admit it, but our day started with a visit to one of my many Starbucks. To be honest, I was dragging by feet there since I felt that Starbucks was something that I could do without for four months but it was really nice to have the comforting feeling of home. The caramel hot chocolate I had didn't hurt either. Warmed up on Starbucks goodness we headed to the Charles Bridge. The area itself is pretty toursity but still is nothing compared to Florence. The views from the bridge were breathtaking and we spent a lot of time cheesing it up for the camera and enjoying the view.
The Charles Bridge

View of the castle from the bridge

We crossed over the bridge and headed to Prague Castle which is the largest coherent castle complex in the world. Once we entered the castle gates it felt like we were in a new city and of itself. We bought a "short visit" ticket which granted us access to the St. Vitus church, the Old Royal Palace, the Basilica of St. George, the Powder tower and Rosenberg Palace. My favorite part was St. Vitus church. The church itself was massively and beautifully decorated but what did it for me was the truly gorgeous stained glass. The light that day was perfect too and the church was filled with so many brilliant colors.

We all had really worked up an appetite at that point and before continuing on with our discovery of the city we went to a really nice sports bar for some pilsner and goulash (I finally got my goulash!) We wandered around the beautiful area around the castle and along the river for awhile afterward seeing the famous John Lennon wall and not-so famous but eerie baby statues.... We also happened upon Frank Gehry's "Dancing House". A really contemporary piece of architecture which is fascinating to look at but really does not feel like it belongs in this city of quaint old buildings.
John Lennon wall

The Dancing House

We made a quick trip back to the Charles bridge for sunset (with mulled wine in hand) before going to Kozicka (means Little Goat) Bar for dinner. The place itself was kind of dive-y but had all these goat statues all over the place. Sticking with the theme of the place and to supplement all the heavy heavy food I have been eating this week I got a platter of goat cheese, toast and vegetables. Delish! The day ended with another local delicacy-apple strudel!

On our last full day in Prague, Sarah and I did yet another walking tour. It was great. I really recommend them; they have been so awesome everywhere we've gone. Our tour guide, Colin, took us to a lot of the places that we'd already been but we got to hear the fun history of everything as well as to discover the Jewish quarter which we had not yet ventured too. After the tour we found another festival going on (shocking) and had some delicious street car kielbasa for lunch before escaping the sudden downpour in the Mucha museum. Alphonse Mucha was a Czech artisit who did beautiful prints of figures of women. The museum itself was sort of small, but the works were beautiful and there was a really interesting video. Saturday ended with a visit to a brew pub for dinner.

On Sunday, technically the last day of our trip, we did our best to escape the rain in some of the local shops before our flight to Milan where we stayed overnight and took a 6 am train back to Florence to make it back just in time for class! What an amazing week of culture and food that was!

Buda

What better way to get to know the in and outs of a new city? Why a free walking tour of course! We were so impressed by the knowledge of our tour guide from Krakow that we decided to give it a whirl in Budapest. Our tour guide, who had an uncanny resemblance to our Italian Art History professor, did not disappoint. On our tour we saw many of the sites that we had come across the day before, but we actually got an entertaining historical explanation of everything. Much of the tour was focused on the divide between things produced during the years of communism and then of-course post-communism. An example is a rather simple statue of a princess right by the river. It doesn't stand out as much but it is very important to the city because it is the first piece of post-communist artwork. There is also a legend to rub the knees of the statue in a clockwise pattern to grant your wish. We obviously participated.

After we saw the major things on the Pest side, we passed the famous chain bridge and climbed up to the Buda Castle. The castle area itself was gorgeous, but we also got some gorgeous views from being so high up. Apart of the castle complex is the President's house. It is really interesting to note that I was able to walk right up to the front door of the "white house". I guess they are not too concerned about security... We were led around to several other major to-sees including Matthias Church (famous for its colorful roof) and Fisherman's Bastion (a fun sand castle looking look-out).
View from the castle

Matthias Church

Our guide took those of us who were interested to a local cafeteria for some Hungarian food after the tour. The place itself was not much to look at but the food was delicious and authentic. I had paprika meatballs with boiled potatoes. Speaking of paprika, boy are they big on it there! Paprika is everywhere! In fact, most of the food, though delicious, has a terrible brown color from the paprika use!

It had become a little dreary while we were inside eating, but we decided to move forward with our next conquest, a climb to the citadel. This large sculpture of a woman with a feather in her hand is actually the only remaining Communist art, but they decided to keep it because it had become such a part of the city. The walk up was something to be desired in my very tired feet but once again we were rewarded with breath-taking views. Budapest is such a pretty city!
View from the citadel

Before heading back to our hostel to change we stopped into Central Market. This huge building reminded me of the Central Market in Florence on steroids! We took our time looking at all the goods (spices, fruit, baked goods, meat, souvenirs), I purchased some paprika, and we partook in our next delicacy- apple strudel! I'm really loving getting a "taste" for the culture :).

Our evening ended with a visit to the Opera House. We had been told during our tour that the building was gorgeous and that we should make every effort to get inside. We also had been given some insider information that a tour costs about 15 dollars while you can get cheap seats to a show for 3 dollars! So, we went for a show! Unfortunately the opera was not playing, instead there was a ballet of "Gone with the Wind". Kind of funny that we fly across the world to see "Gone with the Wind". Although the ballet itself did not thrill me, the theater was gorgeous and just being there was a fun experience.

On our last day in Budapest, before our train to Prague, we headed to Budapest Great Synagogue which is the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world (second only to one in NYC). We didn't go in the synagogue itself but we were able to see the cemetery that housed the massed graves as well as the gorgeous Tree of Life statue.
Tree of Life statue

Before heading out we used the last of our fornits on snacks for our 7 hour train ride as well as some souvenirs. I really thought Budapest was a great city and I'd love to get back there again!

Pest

Our overnight train from Krakow to Budapest was quite a success. We were accompanied in our couchette car by some geeky English boys who eased my fears over traveling overnight in Eastern Europe.

If you didn't know the city is divided into two parts with Buda on one side of the Danube River and Pest (pronounced Pesht) on the other side. Our hostel, as well as most of the metropolition makeup of the city is on the Pest side and we were fortunate enough to have a day to devote to each side as well as another half-day to spend all our remaining fornits before we took a 7 hour train to Prague. But you wanted to hear about Budapest...

My first impression of the city was not really one of awe, but then again we wandered in from the area around the train station. The more and more that we got to explore I was able to really appreciate the true beauty of this city, which is still trying to accept its post-Communist ways.

After we checked into our hostel (the Budapest Bubble, a cute hangout type place) we spent most of Tuesday exploring the Pest side. The staff at the hostel was really helpful and pointed out everything on the map that we should see. We first headed to the main shopping street, Vaci, where we were finally able to find some mulled wine to enjoy. Yay! From there we walked to our next destination by way of following the Danube and seeing gorgeous views of the much more hilly Buda area.

Next up was a walk down Andrassy Avenue, which had been described to me as just like one of the main boulevards in Paris. The streets were nice and wide with many gorgeous buildings but I couldn't help noticing how many of the buildings seemed to be recently abandoned. We asked around why that was so and were told that there is a lot of confusion/discrepancy over who owns which building and whatnot...

We stopped at a cute cafe off of Andrassy Avenue for lunch. I had homemade iced tea and to-die-for carrot ginger soup! From there we headed to the House of Terror. No, its not an overpriced haunted house. The House of Terror is a museum dedicated to the decades of Nazi and Communist repression, and is housed in the former headquarters of the secret police of both the Nazi and Communist governments. The museum is fairly new and modern in the sense that there were lots of videos and well-designed interactive rooms. There were, however, some really disturbing videos. We also went into the actual prison cells from when the building was the headquarter. That was a really eerie experience.

We continued down Andrassy Avenue to what may have been one of the weirdest/most fun things that I've ever done-swimming in a thermal bath. I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but so many people told us that we had to experience a thermal bath in Budapest. Basically, the inside part was many different rooms with various baths of different temperatures, along with steam rooms and saunas. Not having my bathing suit with me I really stood out as the weird American girl when I partook in the baths in a t-shirt and my underwear. Oh well, I'll never see those people again. That part was really nice and relaxing but the real awe for me came when we ventured outside. Huge hot tub pools with fountains, whirpools, jets, and lots of statues covered several football field-sized areas. We spent a long time just pinching ourselves because the experience was so surreal.
The front of the baths.


We decided to continue our Hungarian day but going to dinner to a place that my guidebook suggested. Geiro ended up being a small room in some gypsy family's house. It was quite the experience. A few men were sitting around playing music. One older man was extremely intoxicated and when Sarah went to take a movie of the ridicioulous scene he slapped her camera out of her hand! I was frightened from there on, but we stayed and actually really enjoyed our stuffed cabbage dinner. However, things got weird again when we noticed that the violion player seemed to have taken a liking to me and was basically solely playing music for me. He then asked if we'd buy him a drink (could we really say no at this point?) only to see that our bill later on was about double what we'd expect...

So that was Pest for the most part! Really interesting and a lot of fun! More on Buda later.

Cemeteries: All Saints Day Style

Major holidays in Europe: New Years, Christmas & All Saints Day

Even though we were in Krakow for October 31st, the American "holiday" went unnoticed for us. What took over instead was the European celebration of All Saints Day. Everything besides tourist restaurants were closed and we noticed more than half of everyone we passed was carrying flowers and lanterns. We spent the day wandering around the city enjoying the unseasonably warm weather, but the real celebrate took place after sunset.

We headed to the biggest cemetery in Krakow on what seemed like a pilgrimage with the rest of the city. There were no lampposts but instead the entire cemetery was illuminated by millions of lanterns and lots of flowers. It was such a gorgeous and moving sight. We found out that nuns come with plenty of lanterns to make sure that not a single grave went without some sort of recognition.

It was also so interesting to see a cemetery bustling with people at 8 o'clock at night. No one was somber, everyone was just respecting their ancestors. What a change from the either terribly sad personal experiences I have had or the "spooky" connotations that we perceive of when we think of cemeteries at night.

We spent a long time wandering around the cemetery admiring all the lanterns and watching everyone else partake in the holiday celebration. I wish we had this sort of reverence for the dead and celebrated our ancestors like they do in Europe.

New & amazing food and drink in Krakow!

Yay! We had a successful trip! To not bore you to death, I'll try to explain this whirlwind week in installments, so bear with me...

Krakow! I have to admit that I didn't know much about the city before this trip but I had heard wonderful things from other people, so I was excited to give it a go! Plus we were going to visit Sarah's friend Alexis and were going to have an insider's perspective of the city.

We arrived in the city on Saturday evening and had a shuttle from our hostel pick us up. Our hostel, The Elephant on the Moon, was one of the quaintest places I've ever stayed with the nicest woman running the place. We had our own room, but the place was empty and we were served a free and pretty extravagant breakfast both mornings. Big win!

Alexis met us at the hostel on Saturday and took us for our first Polish food experience-perogis! We obviously were very glutenous and got five different types of perogis to split between us. I think my only perogi experience before was Mrs. T's frozen perogis, so obviously these were wonderful in comparison. Another new treat that we got to try was the local beer (Zywiec) with ginger or raspberry syrup that you drink with a straw! I would probably start to have a problem if I lived there....

After dinner Alexis took us to one of the traditional bars in the Jewish quarter. The place we went to was called Alchemia. It was the first post-Communist bar in the area. It was a dark cave-like bar with several small rooms and was only lit by candles. I obviously had more of that beer and we chatted with some other travelers before ending the evening. The thing that wowed me most about the place was how warm it was! Florence (especially my apartment) is still freezing and it was so nice to be all warm and toasty for once!

After our hostel breakfast on Sunday, Alexis made us try obwarzaneks (also known as non-bagels). We had come to Krakow thinking that they were big on bagels, which Alexis told us was not truth. The non-bagels were a happy compromise though.

Aja at the hostel had told us about free walking tours in the city and that is what we did the rest of the day. The "royal" tour in the morning followed by an hour break (complete with beet soup) and the Jewish ghetto tour in the afternoon. What a great and informative experience! And for only the cost of the tip! We were shown all around the Market Square (the largest Medieval square in Europe) and explored Wawel castle-my first European castle! Apparently one of the seven chakra points in the world is behind one of the castle walls, something that the Catholic city isn't too fond of. We had some fun "getting our chakra on". It was also interesting to note the extreme awe that the Poles and people of Krakow specifically have for Pope John Paul II. There are 14 statues of him around the city and they even refer to him as Jesus 2.0.

Wawel Castle


The Jewish ghetto tour was obviously a lot more of a sobering experience. Krakow used to be full of Jews and now there are less than 200 practicing Jews in the city. We were able to see the oldest synagogue in the city as well as the only one that is still functioning. The tour guide also took us within the walls of the old Jewish ghetto where we saw many memorials as well as Schindler's factory. As sad as all of that information we got was, I was glad to be able to experience all of that.

Schindler's factory

To change subjects completely, Alexis took us to another awesome bar for drinks Saturday night. The place was called Singer, and you bet it, all of the tables in the bar were old Singer sewing machines. I obviously played with the antique sewing machine the whole time we sat in the bar...



Sunday was All Saints Day and pretty much everything in the city was closed. That was such an awesome experience though that it needs its own blog post.