Hola todos!
I am back from my trip! Safe to say it was pretty amazing! I saw SO much, learn a ton and had quite a few laughs along the way! Each of the cities were pretty different, everyone keeps asking me what my favorite was and that is difficult to pinpoint.
Berlin = a lot of history, much more modern, less European and covered in slush & snow.
Prague= beautiful, very interesting holocaust history, cheap and great castle.
Vienna = great things to see, very fun but not my favorite of cities.
Munich = concentration camp beautiful architecture, full of life, full of BEER and overall, much more relaxed.
Although what I didn't like in any of these cities was the language. German is not very pretty and Czech is just insane. Hearing Spanish was a relief, we met a lot of Spaniards and people from Argentina and Chile luckily or I might have gone crazy. Since sooo much happened and we saw some much I'm just going to talk about highlights of our trip!
First off must start with the Granada/Madrid airport luggage fiasco. When flying the budget airline you must put your luggage into this tiny box to make sure it fits, or they make you check it and charge you 37 euro. In the effort to spare some euro, we all shoved our tiny suitcases (I'm talking tiny, for 12 days) into these little things. It was hilarious, every time.. all 4 flights. But, I made it through without ever having to check my suitcase!
Berlin:
First off, our trip started off right. We got on the subway to our hostel and met a few crazies and guy from California. He was asking us where we were going and when we told him the plan he clapped and told us there isn't another way we could have planned a better trip.
We got some of the most amazing waffles I have ever had in my life and then went on one of the free tours they offered. These tours are in the majority of big European cities. The idea is that you tip for the tour and don't have to pay.. worked out really well for us and we did them in Berlin, Prague and Munich. Since we were just about the same age as all our guides it was pretty fun to talk with them. In Berlin we had Tom who we actually became friends with for the rest of our time in Berlin! We saw all the big sights of Berlin and learned about the cities slogan "poor but sexy". This would explain why the city doesn't have enough money to shovel any of the sidewalks… it was awful, there was slush everywhere. Felt a little bit too much like home haha! Katie ended up having to buy new boots because her were completely ruined!
We also went to the East Berlin Wall art gallery. It was completely amazing. In 1990 artists from all over the world painted over the wall. The paintings were so interesting and this was definitely one of my favorite parts of Berlin. Later we pretended to be 18 year olds and got into the Museum of German history for free! We went to the Reichstag, which is a parliament building with a giant dome on top. Little did we know, the dome was actually open to the air and it was beyond freezing but the views were still great! We went on a hunt to try some German food but after nearly an hour of looking we had no luck. Apparently Berlin is much more international and literally German food is nowhere to be found. Even better than German food, we ate ITALIAN!!!! I haven't seen Italian food anywhere since the states. (There really aren't many restaurants in Granada actually.) We got the most amazing veggie pizza and veggie pasta, Katie and I split it and literally ate EVERY ounce of it. We also got some great desserts! Then the owner let us use the house phone to call Tom since it is ridiculously expensive to use our cell phones out of Spain. I'm pretty sure the people in the restaurant thought we were crazy, but it only made calling on the restaurant's phone even funnier.
Well maybe I shouldn't have said that the East Berlin Wall was my favorite part because we also got BAGELS in Berlin. I haven't eaten a bagel since January… I ate like 4 in my short time in Berlin haha! That will have to hold me over until May I guess since Spain loves ever other kind of bread except bagels!
Prague:
After a 5 hour train ride we arrived into the shadiest train station possible. Since it was already about 1 or 2 in the morning, none of the currency exchanges were open and we ended up having to sneak on the subway. It was sooo pretty at night in Prague! Next day we went on the free tour and then did a tour of the castle with the sweetest British girl ever, we all kind of had a small crush on her by the end of it. The castle was pretty cool, it was huge and since it has been added onto so many times it had so many different types of architecture it was cool to see, especially after learning so much in my art class.
Later we ate some traditional Czech food after ordering off the menu that we literally could read about 3 words from. I had some goulash with bread dumplings. Obviously, it was extremely different from what I have ever eaten… but I liked it for the most part. That night we went to the pub crawl where Carolyn broke this beer faucet, which we declared as the gypsy flood of 2010. (We love gypsies… they are crazy!)
The next day we spent most of the day at this amazing Jewish museum. When you enter there are names every surrounding you. Over 80,000 names of just people from Prague that died in the Holocaust are written on the walls. Then there was also all these pictures that children from the concentration camps had drawn. A woman (WHO!?) who was sent by Hitler to work at a concentration camp (I cannot remember which one!) she went against Hilter's orders after seeing how depressed the children were. She started stealing paper and utensils to draw with and started an art therapy program for the kids. She was killed by Hitler later but was able to save 2 suitcases full of the children's drawings. These are on display; they were completely amazing but really hard to see. There was also the cemetery for all the Jewish people of Prague. They were not allowed to expand their cemetery, and had to bury bodies on top of one another. It was sad to see all the headstones toppling each other. Basically, the whole museum and cemetery were so depressing but I am so glad I was able to see it.
We tried to do some souvenir shopping and ended up at this shop with a bunch of crazy/hilarious guys running it. From a kiss on the cheek from Katie and a hug and picture from me we ended up saving 35 euros hahah! That is what we like to call a "swindle"… which shortly became the theme of our trip because we saved so much money that we really should have rightfully paid. I'm all about saving some dinero! Later we went to the John Lennon wall right off the Charles Bridge. It was soooo cool, I absolutely loved it. Basically, I am not sure when but years ago someone painted the face of John Lennon on the wall, the government painted over it, then they repainted John Lennon… and this kept happening. Today, people come to the wall and paint things on it. There was also a small bridge where there were a ton of locks. On the locks were names of couples, basically the idea is to 'lock up your love' and throw the key into the river below. I'm sure it sounds cheesy, but it was really cute.
After we asked some Spaniards to take a picture of us, we wanted to get a picture of us jumping. You would have thought we were some spectacle. People were staring and cheering for us to jump… soo funny! We ended the night with eating the most random foods from the kiosks they have in old town square!
Vienna
We left Prague after taking the scariest escalator of my life. I am not even afraid of that, this thing was on CRACK!!! We got to our hostel in Vienna and settled in for a bit. One of me and Katie's friends (Caitie), from our sorority is studying abroad in Vienna so we met up with her for some coffee. We made the worst 'pasta' I have ever had in my life at our hostel because the stupid stove wasn't working! Later, we went to her dorm and went to their school function event on this boat. It was really fun and Carolyn and I invented a really great new raptor dance hahaha. I'm pretty sure people thought we were insane but it was hilarious.
Next day we went to Stephansdom Cathedral. It was really beautiful, but I'm honestly getting sick of cathedrals after the one in Granada and Sevilla it's hard for others to compare. We walked around the palace area called Hofburg, which is essentially a city in itself. Unfortunately, everything we wanted to see was closed for renovations! We walked past the opera house and parliament buildings which we absolutely gorgeous. Then it of course needed to downpour. So we diverted to a cheap restaurant I read about that was in the University of Vienna district. The food was so good and very cheap. We also had the pleasure of watching some 40 year olds make out in the corner… I cannot figure out why these things are acceptable in Europe! We later at dinner at the restaurant known to have the best falafel in Europe apparently! It was SO good. Caitie later took us to this insane disco called Praterdom, it was fun but very different to what we're used to in Spain!
In the morning we went to this big market, since it was beautiful out it was so nice to walk around and soak it up! We got some delicious Austrian cheese at the market too! We went to Schönbrunn palace, once again another beautiful thing to see! Although I would love to go there in the spring, the gardens must be amazingly beautiful. Then we got to the train to head to Munich…. Here is where adventure begins.
Munich
After ordering our tickets in English, they came in German. So looking at the ticket you would think when it says "Wein – Munich" you would never assume you would have to transfer trains. FALSE! Turns out, we were supposed to somehow learn German and know that you have to transfer trains in some random station. Welllllll… after the conductor informed us that we missed our stop, told us "40 euro each, 2 hours, no return, no return", and a large panic attack… we took a 4 minute pit stop in Nuremberg then went back 2 hours to Munich. It was actually really hilarious because all the conductors on the next train knew we were the idiots who missed our connection, they stayed far away from us… as Leslie would say "they can't even come over here and say HALLO?!" We arrived at "Euro Youth Hostel" (we loved the name it was so hostelesque) and passed out sooo quickly.
We went to Dachau concentration camp on Monday. It was out of this world. Yet again, very depressing and was a hard thing to see. Dachau was the first concentration camp and was the model for every other camp. Before anything was used, it was tested here… there were some horrible things that happened at Dachau. The camp had more than 200,000 prisoners throughout 1933-1945 but they do not exactly know how many people died there.
Per usual, Katie and I got stuck with some weird old men sitting next to us on the train. There was some huge soccer game the night before and everyone was STILL drinking after it (it was 3 in the afternoon and they drank all night). Needless to say people were very rowdy. These old men were SO drunk, they both had backpacks full of beer. They were sitting there laughing, drinking and talking about which one of us the one guy wanted. Katie and I had nooo idea what was going on since this was all German but the guys were too drunk to realize we didn't speak German. There was a couple sitting by us and the guy was from DC and so he was translating and we all were cracking up. I was literally crying it was so funny/ridiculous.
Later we went to Haufbrauhaus to get dinner and a beer at this famous beer hall everyone raves about. The experience wouldn't be complete without us meeting weirdos. So of course some crazy Irish men decided to join our table. There were insane, my god… but it made for good laughs. We also had a table of Chinese people across from us. We noticed that they were sitting there taking pictures of me while I was eating. Then I went to the bathroom and had the pleasure of taking a picture with every single one of the guys… it must be the tall blonde thing. We went back to the hostel to watch the US vs Canada hockey game. Ended up meeting lots of cool people from all over the place!
The next day we went on the free tour. Since Munich has less to see touristy wise we decided to just enjoy the city for the day. We climbed up all 380 stairs at St. Peters church to see the view from the top.. it was the most beautiful day so it was perfect! We got the most amazing lunch and went to this cool café that looked like it was in a room from 'That 70s Show'. The place had 37 varieties of hot chocolate; I got mine with caramel and chocolate rice krispies! DELICIOUS! Later that night we got a traditional Bavarian dinner at a pub and then went to this bar/disco our hostel recommended. It was called "milch bar" and it was packed like sardines. I have never seen anything as crazy as that, talk about fire hazard. Dancing literally consisted of just bumping into each other, completely insane. Although I can't complain because I would say about 80% of the guys were 6'2 or taller! Maybe Germany is where I belong?
The next morning it was time to head home. After a bit of confusion between all of us we realized the train we had planned to take was going to the wrong airport. Leslie and I freaked out and ran to find out about how to get to the right airport. The lady was very reassuring that we could take the train in 10 minutes… then informed us it would take about 2 hours…. We had an hour and a half til our flight left. We turned to each other and screamed "2 HOURS?!??!" Panicked again, ran to a cab and we all piled in. We had exactly an hour and 10 minutes until we had to board and the cab ride was a little over an hour, he said he thought. Safe to say we were FREAKING OUT. The cab driver drove like a bat out of hell, with the gas light on for about 30 miles, through construction and rain…. We got to the airport literally like 5 minutes before we were supposed to board. Talk about a miracle!!! We got to sit next to 6 Spanish guys who played a world of war craft card game and smelled like they hadn't showered in approximately 3 months. It was great hahaha.
Granadaaaaa
Overall, the trip was amazing but it is so nice to be back in Granada! I love this city and still prefer Spain to everywhere we were, but I'm also a bit biased. Getting back into school and Spanish is a bit hard though! I don't know how I will be able to go back to U of I after essentially taking an 8 month break from real schoolwork!
This weekend we decided to stay here. Friday we went to the Albayzin which is up in the mountains of Granada. We heard about this brunch so we went to that. The brunch was ALL American food because the guy running it is from North Carolina! It was soooo delicious and we even got mimosas in the spirit of Unofficial! We then wandered around the area and went to the San Nicolas viewpoint… we sat there for a while because it is absolutely beautiful and the weather was great! I can't wait to take my family up there! We went to Mae West last night which was completely insane and packed, I can't even explain it you have to be there to understand how great it is I guess.
Next weekend we have a school trip to Cordoba, Madrid the next weekend and then my parents, brother and grandpa are coming for Semana Santa, hiking in the Alpujarras, Dublin and probably a trip to Portugal (I don't know if I'll be able to squeeze in Barcelona, ahhh!!!)! TIME IS FLYING!!!! I hate it. I wish I could be here for forever. On that note I'm thinking about keeping a couple weekends open to stay here in April. The weather will be beautiful here then and I just love this city. Staying here is so much fun and I really haven't gotten to spend as much time in Granada as I have hoped.
Anyway it's time for almuerzo (lunch) & some Sex and the city with my senora! Miss you all!
Un beso,
Michelle
Michelle I know exactly how you feel about coming back home to Granada! I have loved everywhere that I have been, but there is just something about Verona that I absolutely love and I always feel so great just to come back here.
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