Prague, Czech Repulic

Czech Republic is marked as my first time traveling to Eastern Europe.  In Slavic, Prague means "threshold" and has always been a natural entry point to the East. The history behind the city of Prague is unlike that of the cities we have traveled to this semester.  Over numerous centuries Prague has seen its share of history rumble though its cobble stone streets.  People across Eastern Europe have looked toward Prague as the region's culture capital and standard bearer for shunning imposing ways and embracing their deep Slavic roots.  The 20th century was especially difficult for Prague, with over four decades of communist rule the city was able to escape many bombs from the world wars - making it uniquely preserved.  Prague's Old Town Square resembles something like Disneyland with colorful buildings and castle like churches.  

We arrived in Prague around 1am and had a shuttle service bring us to our hostel which was set up like an apartment, kitchen table and everything.  Since it was so late by the time we were checked in and settled down we crashed for the evening with alarms set for an early morning wake up.  8am came and our alarms were ringing - time to see Prague, we needed to capitalize on every second of the day since we only had one day to see everything Prague had to offer.  Our hostel gave us maps and directions to the nearest ATM and Old Town Square.  The currency in Prague is the Czech Koruna (Crown) and there are roughly 25 Czech Koruna to 1 Euro going to the ATM was an experience in itself, we had the options to withdraw 500, 1000, up to 10,000 Crown. With 2,000 crown in our pockets we were off for a day in Prague.

The Old Town Square is considered Prague's dramatic centerpiece, it originated as a market square n the 11th century and later the Town hall.   It is home to the Jan Hus Memorial, symbolizing the long struggle for czech freedom, the Church of St. Nicholas, the Jewish Quarter, the Old Town Hall, and the Astronomical Clock. Christine and I walked around the square, found a cafe to enjoy a Bohemia pie and cappuccinos. While strolling through the Old Town Square Christine and I came across a Free Tour signed and inquired with the tour guide what the catch was. He replied that there was no catch, his company gave tours in which they work for tips only. .

Old Town Square

Bohemian Pie

The walking tour began with the Astronomical Clock.  With revolving discs, celestial symbols and giant sweeping hands this clock keeps several versions of time.  There are two outer rings which show the Bohemian time and modern time. The times of sunrise and sunset are arching lines and moving spheres to show the orbits of the sun and the moon as they rise through the day and night. The circle below the clock shows the signs of the zodiac and a ring of saints names - one for each day of the year. There are four statues flanking the clock representing the 15th century outlook on time and prejudices - hedonism, greed, vanity all in the face of death. At the top of the hour Death tips his hourglass and pulls a cord, ringing the bell; windows open and 12 apostles parade by, finally a rooster crows and the hour is rung. Honestly the ringing of the hour is quite a let down, but the clock is incredible especially learning that it was built in the 15th century, the fact that people had such knowledge of the sun, moon and times ...

Our walking tour was around two hours and covered the majority of  the Old Town, branching out to the Jewish Quarter and Charles Bridge.  We walked up Parizka street a few blocks from the Old Town Square and came to  the Jewish Quarter.  A well preserved neighborhood the Jewish Quarter is home to Prague's Jews treasures. As the Nazis decimated Jewish communities, Prague allowed them to collect and archive many belongings. The Old Jewish cemetery with tightly packed and over 12,000 tombstones is a small piece of land in which the Jews were allow to bury their loved ones. Tombs were piled atop each other because of the limited space. After visiting the Jewish Quarter we walked to a cafe to warm up and grab a quick snack.

Next stop was the New Town or more importantly Wenceslas Square. The square is actually a broad boulevard that was named for king Wenceslas and functioned as a stage for modern Czech history.  The creation of the Czechoslovak state was celebrated here after more than 300,000 Czechs and Slovaks converged at the square to claim their freedom against the Soviets in 1989. Our tour then looped back around  the Old Town to see a few more famous sights in Prague. We walked by the Power Tower which was originally the gate of the town - this tower portrays Czech kinds and is considered one of the best sculptures in town. Our tour ended back in the Old Town Square where our tour guide Jeff told us one last story about the Old Town Hall, which was partially destroyed in World War II and how they left the building exactly the way it was following bomb damage  symbolizing the national pride Prague had and ability of a bunch of civilians to fight a division of the trained German Army.  The tour came to an end and Jeff mentioned that he would be running a tour of Prague's castle in the afternoon....

deux jours à Paris

bonjour!

now for deux jours a Paris (day two in Paris - hope you're impressed with the French I picked up while in Paris, because that's about the extent of it) We spent the majority of our second day in Paris at the Musse de Louvre.  The Louvre is Europe's oldest, biggest, greatest and second most crowed museum, after the Vatican. Housed in a U-shaped 16th century palace, accented by 20rh century glass pyramids, the Louvre is Paris' top museum and key landmark to the city.

Before embarking on an extensive art collection mobbed by other tourist and intellectuals we needed some breakfast. Friends of ours said we could not leave France without trying a Madame Croque - simply put, it is a hot ham and cheese sandwich (similiar to a grilled ham and cheese) served with a fried egg on top! Who would've thought such a simple dish could have such a fancy, border line pretentious name?  We enjoyed our madame croquet at a cafe right outside the Louvre.

madame croque

Ironically the Louvre is home to one of the largest collections of Italian art.  The Italian collection includes the one of the most famous paintings in the world, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. The Mona Lisa may be a disappointment to many for it is smaller than expected, dark and engulfed in a large room behind glass. We conquered the Napoleon Apartments, filled with incredible lavish furniture and jewels. 

Christine & Mona Lisa

After a few hours in the Louvre we started getting tired and hungry - the result?  Taking some goofy pictures with all the statues!

my favorite of the day

After the Louvre we walked through the Royal Courtyard and across the river leaving  the Eiffel Tower in the distance and and a great opportunity for some illusion pictures..

The day ended with some packing and Rachel wishing us goodbye as we boarded the metro for a ride to the airport before heading to Prague!

Paris!

Paris was destination number one on our very own Eurotrip! Our goal was to see as much of Europe as possible - five cities, in five different countries in ten days.. lofty, but successfully accomplished without any major setbacks! 

Why Paris you ask, what girl doesn't want to visit one of the fashion capitals of the world?  We arrived in Paris around 6pm and hopped on the metro to meet Christine's friend from home (who is studying in Paris, allowed us to stay with her AND was a personal tour guide for the 2 days we were there- THANK YOU Rachel!) She greeted us at our stop and fortunately we only had to lug our backpacks across the street to Cite Universitaire - which was a beautiful compound of buildings, housing the majority of international students studying in France. We dropped our bags then hopped back on the metro (there's a lot of metro riding in Paris, if you want to get anywhere at a reasonable price) and did some grocery shopping to cook some dinner. Fast forward to 10pm and it was time to start getting ready - yes that's not a typo, people in France go out late and stay out even later! We had plans to go with a few of Rachel's friends to a club on Champs Elysees called Queen which was hosting LMFAO's after party

Rachel & Christine on the Metro

Champs Elysees - Queen club, Paris

LMFAO arriving at Queen

INSIDE - after literally hours of waiting

party rock anthem - all night long

 Night one in Paris was a success- danced to party rock anthem all night long. Saturday, morning we grabbed my Rick Steves - Best of Europe book and were off to explore the historic core of Paris where we wandered through the Latin Quarter and got crepes for breakfast then saw the 700 year-old Notre-Dame Cathedral. 

We then walked to the Deportation Memorial to the 200,000 French victims of the Nazi concentration camps - the memorial draws you into their experience.  As you walk down the steps the sights and sounds of Paris disappear, surrounded by walls you can only see the sky and a glimpse of the river.  Inside there is  a hallway lined with 200,000 lighted crystals, one for each French citizen who died.

entering the memorial

hall of lighted crystals

"forgive, but never forget"

We continued our walk through the streets of Paris, passing by the Sainte-Chapelle a Gothic chapel that they were able to build in only five years, whereas it took 200 to build Notre-Dame. Next door to this famous chapel is the Palais de Justice that houses the French Supreme Court. We continued our walk through the historic center stopping at Cite Metropolitain stop - one of the original subway entrances and now home to a flower market. 

With some major touristy sight seeing completed it was time for some shopping, more realistically- window shopping. We ventured over to Champs-Elysees, a famous boulevard as Paris' backbone with the greatest concentration of traffic - it is also home to some of the most elite stores, cafes, restaurants bars and clubs in Paris. We emerged from the metro and started our walk down Champs-Elysees toward the Arc de Tropmphe. 
The must see store for three, I'd like to say fashion forward girls (Rachel is a fashion major at Cornell - making up for my lack of it) the flagship store of leather-bag maker Louis Vuiton.  It is considered one of the largest single-brand luxury stores in the world, with a line out the door and down the street to enter!

Champs-Elysees

Louis Vuiton

The line at LV was ridiculous... as seen above, so we did not get an opportunity to go in - which was probably the safest thing, window shopping doesn't do any damage to a bank account!  We walked up Champ-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, which Napoleon had commissioned to commemorate his victory at the battle of Austerlitz.  There is no triumphal arch bigger, and is surrounded by a rotary that has 12 converging boulevards.  The Arc de Tiomphe is supposed to have some of the best views of Paris, unfortunately we did not get an opportunity to climb the 284 steps to the top - but we did get some sweet pictures from below.

Arc de Triomphe

tomb of the unknown soldier

Our second night in Paris wasn't spend dancing to party rock anthem and hanging out with LMFAO but started with a picnic of wine, cheese and a baguette at the Eiffel Tower.  We admired the beauty of the Eiffel Tower illuminated at night and were able to witness the sparkling light show that occurs every hour. From there we hopped on the metro (which Christine and I were getting pretty good at by now) and went over to a part of town that was full of bars - a few of them being rugby bars! We went to the Frog & the Princess which is a French bar and brewery.  

in awe at how massive the Eiffel Tower is

Christine on the metro

.... and that was only day 1 I'll be back as soon as I finish my Mafia paper to fill everyone in on Paris day 2, so much more to come from Paris, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Rome, Florence and Venice! hope all is well in the states! te amo di Firenze, kels

its been a while!

Ciao Tutti! 

 (Hello Everyone!)  it has been a VERY long time almost 3 weeks since I last posted. I am sorry to anyone that has been looking for an update on my whereabouts and adventures, it's just difficult to sit and write when you are having SO much fun! Being in five different countries over the past two weeks doesn't allow for much blogging time either. This weekend I will be staying in Florence (shocking I know) and will be catching up on some much needed rest and will have the opportunity post all about my time in Paris, Prague, Vienna, Rome, and Venice and cannot forget the visit from mom and dad :)  Check back in a few days there will be a lot to read!


p.s.  - I also included a new page to my blog, above this post there is a tab titled Pictures. If you click on that page it will bring you to my shutterfly account. Where I have been posting pictures of my trips ( for those who don't use facebook and want to see more than the few i include in the blog posts) 


Ciao!
Kelsey

Barcelona

Barcelona topped the must see list for both Christine and I.. our original plan was to see the city during our fall break... last minute decision with lots of peer pressure from our friends and on Wednesday October 5th we booked a trip to Barcelona, leaving the next evening! With a little more than 24 hours until departure we had to attend our Thursday classes, fill out paperwork and pack for a what was sure to be a wild weekend in Barcelona!

Our bus departed Firenze at 7pm Thursday night and was to arrive in Barcelona at 8am Friday morning... which means a LOVELY 12 hour bus ride. The ride there was not as horrible as I thought, it was full of movies and sleeping. We arrived in Barcelona, the capital of the Cataluya region of Spain and the second largest city with 1.6 million people.

Barcelona is said to be one of Europe's cultural epicenters and most progressive cities with lively streets, tapas, beaches, and absurd nightlife.  Barcelona is known for the wild nightlife as well as sights such as the Sagrada Familia cathedral, Parc Guell, La Pedrera - all landmarks of famed architect Antoni Gaudi.  We dropped our luggage off at our hostel and then spent our first three hours in Barcelona touring the city. 

post 12 hour bus ride - some happy, some not so much

our hostel 

We embarked on a walking tour of the city to see some of the incredible sights. Our first was Las Ramblas- one of the most famous pedestrian boulevards in the world! Its crowed with tourist, people dressed up as statues, food stands, and even has stands where you can buy animals! Off of Las Ramblas was St Joseph's Market, known as la boqueria- people come from all over Europe to go to this food market and I understand why! There was fresh fruits and food EVERYWHERE - some of the most delicious fresh fruit juice too!  

Las Ramblas

person/ statue

market!

my pictures from inside the market are some of my favorite from the entire weekend! here's a few, I'm sure you'll understand why people travel from all over to go there...

freshly squeezed juice

so much candy!

From Las Ramblas we walked through Barcelona's Gothic Quarters is the center of the old city. Many of the building are from Medieval times and has a labyrinthine street plan where many small streets open into pedestrian friendly squares. We walked from the Gothic Quarters to the Mediterranean Sea, well the main port and marina of Barcelona for some lunch. Where I was able to have my two favorite Spanish foods gazpacho and sangria <3 Finally it was late enough for us to check into our hostel and take a much needed nap before venturing out into Barcelona's wild night life.. which started at IceBar Barcelona.

girls all dressed up & yes that's the beach!

  

Ice Bar 

thank goodness for the coats & gloves

Barcelona was also a mini Bentley reunion with about 25 of us spending the weekend together.  We started our Friday night at IceBar Barcelona where everything was ICE. no joke even our glasses were made out of ice. After the ice bar we had about an hour to kill before dancing at the club.  So me and three other girls decided to get some Sangria at a local restaurant, little did we know it was served in a tower! 

After we finished out sangria we went to Shoko ( http://www.shoko.biz/ )a giant crazy club on the beach.. where we stayed until the wee hours of the morning! Barcelona is known for many things one of them unfortunately is pick-pocketing.. that night alone two of the girls and one of the guys I was with got pick pocketed in the club... put a little damper on the night - even with that, everyone had so much fun.  Saturday we decided to see more of the sights Barcelona had to offer - right down the street from our hostel was some of Gaudi's most famous works, we ventured back to the market for some more juice..then we trekked it up to Parc Guell, created by Gaudi its an area that has some incredible views of the city

Gaudi house

the girls admiring the architecture

escalator up to Parc Guell

view of Barcelona

band playing in the park 

Saturday night half the group bought tickets to Sensation White - is an absurd "house" music dance party. All attendees are requited to wear white and the arena in which it is held is decorated to match.  It started at 10pm and did not end until 6am... no one I knew stayed at entire time, but they said it was one interesting crazy experience. Since I did not go, and haven't done it justice in explaining what its all about, here's the website if you're curious as to what its all about http://www.sensation.com/spain/en

For those who did not partake in sensation white we decided to take another shot at Barcelona's night life, this time staying away from the club.. since people had little luck there. We knew there was a bar called Dow Jones  in which the prices of drinks at the bar act like stocks! (where else would a bunch of Bentley Students end up?) The prices rise and fall depending on whats being purchased and every once in a while the market crashes, and all the drinks go to a minimum price - people literally run to the bar to take advantage of the crash! We stayed there most of the night, thoroughly entertained watching the "stocks" go up and down. After Dow Jones we walked over to a place called Chupitos - which translates to Shots.  They have over 300 different kinds of shots many there was lots that were set on fire.. It got pretty packed in there so we left, walked back to our hostel and waited for our friends attending Sensation White to get back. Thinking were were going to be up for a while and they walked in ten minutes after us- said it was a little too wild!

outside Dow Jones

Bentley Ladies

shots on fire

Our time in Barcelona ended with breakfast at the hostel, a short walk to kill time and then  a miserable 12 hour bus ride back to Florence.  Out bus drives did not understand the art of driving smoothly, I felt as though I was on a roller coaster the entire ride! Finally we reached Florence, walked home and got some much needed sleep. Barcelona was a world wind of fun and I would highly recommend visiting the city.