Dubrovnik and my farewell tour of Vienna

I met up with my dad and grandparents in Dubrovnik, Croatia on the Friday after school got out. I spent that first afternoon touring the Old Town area which is still surrounded by massive city walls from nearly 1000 years ago. The city feels surprisingly “beachy” since it sits right on the Adriatic Sea. Grandma and I took an hour-long tour that my grandpa and dad had already done that day. After the tour we had some drinks at a restaurant that boasted, “Drinks with the most beautiful view.” It did not disappoint.  

         

  

On Saturday we had a guide drive us south through a few places and ending in Montenegro before heading back. The first place we stopped was a very small town called Perast and it sat on a beautiful inlet of the Adriatic. 

      

We also stopped in a town called Kotor, which is another city surrounded by ancient walls. The old town was in great shape and had lots of churches. 

     

We ended in a town in Montenegro. This city was a little bigger and seemed like more of a beach vacation spot than our other visits.  

      

We had one of the best sunsets of the semester when we made it back to Dubrovnik in the evening.  

 We took another tour on Sunday, but this time we went north and stayed in Croatia.  We had an amazing drive up the coast to Korcula.   

       

On the way back down to Dubrovnik we stopped at an oyster restaurant and I was brave enough to try my first one…not my favorite food of the trip, but worth a lot of laughs. We made up for it by stopping at a vineyard for a wine tasting.  

    

We spent Monday walking along the city walls of Dubrovnik. We had lots of great views along the way.  

  

  

  

We went for an early swim in the Adriatic on Tuesday morning before heading to Vienna. The water was much colder than it looks.  

   

I had an amazing time getting to show my grandparents around the city of Vienna one more time before I left. We got to hit all of the major sights and more, plus we went to Salzburg and Hallstatt again on Thursday. On Wednesday evening we even got to see an opera at the Staatsoper, the main opera house of Vienna. We had great food again at Figlmüller and the wurstel stands. We got a true Austrian dinner in Salzburg at the Augustiner Brauhaus, which was really fun. They brew one type of beer and you have to go up to a guy who serves it to you on tap in mugs that you wash out yourself. Needless to say, the beer was very good.  

                        

On Friday morning we visited the Nashmarkt one more time. We also ran into a market in the Staatpark that featured food from all the regions of Austria. We enjoyed some cheese and wine at the festival before dinner at Augustinerkeller, a great restaurant with traditional Viennese cuisine. Of course, we had to finish the trip with a visit to our favorite dessert place, Tirolerhof. 

It was hard saying goodbye to one if my new favorite cities in the world on Saturday morning. Luckily, I had a trip to North Carolina planned to see Taylor afterwards so that made things much easier. Thanks to everyone who has been keeping up with the blog all semester. I hope it was as much fun for you as it was for me. Also, thanks to my awesome parents who made this trip possible and were supportive of it from Day 1! Until next time Vienna, Auf Weidersehen. 

  

Final weeks;(

I have a lot to catch up on (again), but they’re all great things (again)! A couple weeks ago I had some visitors in town. Ethan, Nick and Jack all came for a few days and they got really lucky with weather. We had the nicest weather of the whole trip, which was great because we could spend a lot of time outside. We got to do a lot of touring the city and more great food in the area. On Saturday we visited the Schönbrunn, Hofburg, and Belvedeere Palaces. We also saw most of the major sights within the city, even for a brief amount of time.  

 Lunch was at my favorite wurstel stand by the opera and it did not disappoint. After more sightseeing in the afternoon, we took a break to hang out in their hostel and headed back for dinner a little later. We got lucky and got a table at Figlmüller’s, one of the best places for Weiner schnitzel in the town. We spent the night at a couple bars and had a really great time catching up on each other’s semesters abroad. 

On Sunday we hit a few more spots in Vienna, but it was a bit difficult to navigate the city due to the Vienna Marathon. More than 40,000 runners participated in the event, which made for an exciting atmosphere but some troubles getting around! Ethan and I visited the Natural History Museum, and we all visited the Science Museum later in the afternoon.  

We did dinner at an Italian restaurant in the first district and then had to say our goodbyes after the short weekend. It was great to see some familiar faces again and show them around my favorite place!

During the week, my class took a tour of St. Stephen’s Cathedral with one of the art professors from an institute around here. She was very knowledgeable and engaging throughout the tour and it was interesting to hear about the changes in lifestyle and artwork between when it was originally built and today.  

 

I also went on a bike trip with Samir and Juan during the week to the Schönbrunn. It was more difficult riding the roads than we had anticipated, but still very fun and we survived.

On Friday morning we left for our last trip of the semester: Budapest. We grabbed lunch right away at a pizza place that overlooked Heroe’s Square.  

  We had a tour of the Pest side of Budapest in the afternoon and stopped in the middle at Cafe Gerbeaud for a treat. We continued the tour and saw some most of the highlights of the city like the opera house, St. Stephen’s Basilica, and more.  

            We had the evening to roam around in two different markets. One was indoors and had a lot of spicy Hungarian sausages and another “Sprinf Festival” held outdoors with plenty of food and crafts. I got goulash soup in a bread bowl and split a langos, which is basically fried flatbread with dill, cheese and sour cream.  In the evening we went to a Ruin Pub, which was an old apartment building that they converted into a bar/club. It made for a really unique atmosphere with several different historic rooms. 

We had Saturday to ourselves and made the most of it. In the morning we visited St. Stephan’s Basilica again so that we could climb to the top of its dome. From there we had a great view of the city!   

      

We had lunch at the outdoor market again! After that we went to the famous baths of Budapest. They are well known for their spas and baths, which were both outdoors and indoors. The one we visited was an old, yellow palace with a heated outdoor bath (pool) and a ton of indoor saunas, steam showers and hot tubs (also baths). Some of them had special minerals infused in the water which were supposed to affect your health in different ways.  

  (Photocred to Juan’s selfie)  

After the baths we cleaned up for dinner out on the town. Since Budapest is a pretty cheap place, we were able to find a nice restaurant for even our college kid budget. We visited a different ruin pub that night again!

On Sunday we toured the upper part of Budapest, the Buda side. There was a cool church up there and a much older village. We had great views of the Pest side, the river, and Parliament.  

                
In the afternoon we took a tour of the Hungarian Parliament building, the third largest in the world.  

    
Last weekend, we took a break from studying for finals to go for a hike in the Vienna Woods. We saw some beautiful vineyards and had some great overlooks of the city again! 

  

 

Our last big event of the week was a trip to Konzerthaus to see the Vienna Symphoniker play a Moazart piano concerto and a Bruckner symphony. I loved the symphony, but the pianist in the first piece was amazing.  

 

After all of my finals I had the unfortunate task of packing up to leave Vienna:/ But it’s not over yet as I’m in Croatia for a few days with my grandparents and dad before we head to Vienna next week! More to come from this trip:)

Ballet, International Soccer, and National Parks

Last Monday I was talked into waiting for standing room tickets to see the Swan Lake ballet at Staatsoper. We got there almost three hours before the show, waited in line, purchased our five euro ticket and claimed a spot in the opera house. There is an honor system among the standing room seats that if you tie a scarf around the pole in front of you, nobody will take your spot if you decide to walk out before the show or during intermissions. So we claimed our seats and went for a wurst run before the show began. The spots were actually really great, but a little crowded: 

   

I actually ended up enjoying the show more than I anticipated! The three hour performance was a long time to stand, but with two intermissions and the amazing talent on stage it was definitely worth it. And what better ballet and venue to experience my first ballet than Swan Lake?

On Tuesday of that week I continued the cultural events with a national soccer game. We saw a friendly between Austria and Bosnia-Herzegovina, but the atmosphere was still very intense. The Bosnians brought fireworks for their parade before the game started and they held flares and loud fireworks throughout the game at bad calls and goals. But the atmosphere was very fun in Austria’s big stadium! The match ended in a 1-1 draw, which made it exciting up until the last moments.  

     

We took a weekend trip to Zagreb, Croatia during that week as well. We arrived in Zagreb late Thursday night after a long train ride and made our way to the hostel, which was surprisingly nice. On Friday we went to the Plitvice Lakes, a large national park with great hiking, a lot of small lakes, and beautiful waterfalls between it all. We hiked for most of the day after our 2 hour bus ride there. The weather was the nicest we’d experienced in Europe this semester and full of sunshine.  The water was pretty high at one spot and I was a bit overambitious, so a couple of us had wet shoes for the second half of the day. 

             

We made it back to Zagreb in time to find dinner at a restaurant and we could sit outdoors. Zagreb is famous for a dish that’s similar to chicken cordon blue, so I had that and it lived up to expectations!

We spent Saturday exploring Zagreb, which is a very lively capital city. They have an old town with a cool open air market on Saturdays and we went to a great breakfast place in the market. From there we spent most of the day exploring the city and trying to stay out of the rain in the afternoon.  

               

Interestingly, we had a hard time finding a place for dinner that night! There was an abundance of cafes and bars around, however we couldn’t find a place with an open kitchen. We thought maybe this was due to it being the Saturday before Easter, but we were still surprised that we had to spend nearly 45 minutes looking for a restaurant downtown!

On Sunday (Easter) morning we took the train back to Vienna. After the 6.5 hour train ride, Samir and I found an English church that had a nice Easter service! I’m glad we went to that before spending much of the night catching up on work. More to come about my friends’ visit to Vienna this past weekend!

Vienna with the Fam!

After saying an early goodbye to Taylor on Tuesday morning, I had a pretty easy going day of class. We took a field trip to both the Zoo and the Technical Museum, Vienna’s science museum. We were able to walk from the Zoo to the science museum and saw the Schonbrunn Palace along the way! I really enjoyed both places, especially the Technical Museum because of its very interactive setup. 

   

       

My family and grandparents made it back from Prague to Vienna on Thursday evening, so I met up with them for dinner at the same local Viennese cuisine restaurant from Monday. The restaurant is situated in the basement of a building near the city center. Then we headed to Musikverein to see the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, which was an amazing performance. After starting the show with a very contemporary piece, they continued to an older work that featured seven wind players almost like a sonata. After intermission, they played my personal favorite piece that I’ve heard in Vienna so far. It was a Schubert work and it was so exciting and powerful through the majority, but contrasted with some very soft moments as well. Wow.  

 

After the show, we all went to one of my favorite cafes for desserts: Cafe Sacher. I think it lived up to the high expectations I set for them! 

   

On Friday morning we had a tour of Vienna, which was great because I got to learn even more about my favorite city in Europe! Our tour guide was also a history professor, so it was interesting to hear his perspective and comments on the city as well. We went to a great Weiner schnitzel reataurant for lunch, called Figlmüller. 

  

We spent some time exploring the downtown area and its shops for a while in the afternoon. Then my family went to a very authentic Austrian restaurant that we stumbled upon and enjoyed a long dinner.  We also took a trip to another of my favorite cafes, Tirolerhof. I think these were all of our favorite desserts of the trip! 

 

We had an early Saturday as we took a day trip to Salzburg! Our tour guide picked us up from the train station and brought us to a park in the city. Of course we caught a bit of the Sound of Music tour from the guide as well, so these may look familiar.  

    

This is the house they used for the outside shots of the Sound of Music. 

After we spent some time in the city, we went to the mountainous regions outside Salzburg for a long drive. We saw beautiful lakes and a lot of countryside.  

     

When we made it back to the city of Salzburg, we visited the main cathedrals and went up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress on the hill. We got some great views from up there and learned a little about how it’s been used for hundreds of years now! 

              

We walked around the city for a while before grabbing dinner at a small beer hall, which had good food too:) 

 

Then we loaded up the train and had a late ride back to Vienna. 

On Sunday we visited the imperial suites of the Hofburg Palace, home of the Hapsburgs. It was a pretty cool exhibit with some insight to the luxurious lifestyle of the dynasty. I brought my parents and family to the Flow House for a short tour! Luckily, they got to meet some of the friends I’ve made here too. We also went to the closest and my most frequent cafe here, Cafe Lintner. After our time in the 19th district we headed back to the city center for a bit more walking around to the Rathaus and Parliament areas. For dinner, we went to an English pub/restaurant called 1516, which is another one of my favorite spots for a change of pace. And to finish off our long day, we made it to Cafe Mozart for one more round of dessert before they had to head out Monday morning. 

I’m really lucky I got to see my family here and to have such a great time showing them around my favorite places from the last three months! Thanks guys for coming and I can’t wait to see you all again soon!

Paris treated us well.. And Vienna too!

On Saturday morning, I was so excited to see everyone that I got up way too early and had to wait in the hotel cafe for a couple hours. The anticipation only kept building! Finally they arrived and, after we exchanged big hugs, we enjoyed a nice brunch at a local cafe. Our tour on Saturday started at the St. Pierre Cathedral which overlooks a lot of the city. We had some beautiful spots for pictures:

   

   

We drove around the city for a while and finally made it to the Eiffel Tower. We were lucky and got to enjoy both the afternoon and dinner on the tower, thanks to the grandparents! I tried ox cheek and some caviar and really enjoyed both, of course!

              

Ben, Taylor and I (aka the Taylor gang) stayed out for a while and enjoyed the city at night. We also stopped at the lock bridge:) thanks for the photos, Ben. When we got back to the hotel, we all hung out for a while in their bar before calling it a night!

   

We visited the Palace of Versailles on Sunday. I really enjoyed hearing our tour guide talk about the lavish lifestyle of the kings and queens of the time. They lived in such excess, yet the people still loved them for a long time while they lived in terrible conditions. It was also cool to hear how the French history coincides and contrasts with the Hapsburg empire we have talked about all semester in my classes.  

         

Then we headed back down to Paris proper to do a boat tour of the city down the river.  

   

After lunch we went to the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Élysées Avenue. We saw some fun shops along the way, but had to get ready to head out much too soon:( 

   

After an action-packed weekend with so many people I care about, Taylor and I left for Vienna while my parents and grandparents visited Prague. 

We had a busy day trying to sight-see Vienna in one day, but we were up for the challenge. We started off at the Nashmarkt, one of my favorite local markets in the area. Then we went to the Albertina museum. It was my first time there as well, so it was fun to see that together!  

 Of course we stopped for a Weiner at lunch and one of my favorite cafes for an afternoon snack! My history class took a tour of the Vienna artillery that featured the car where Franz Ferdinand was shot and many more WWI and WWII momentos.  We got lucky with really nice weather and a beautiful sunset at Belvedeere Palace!

   

 

After some shopping for Taylor in the first district, we did dinner at a very Viennese restaurant with some great Weiner schnitzel! Dessert was gelato from a shop down by the Danube and then we met up with some of my Flow House friends at the Kangaroo Bar for drinks!

I had such an amazing time and feel pretty lucky that she made it! What an experience!

London (with friends)

Nick and Ethan were very hospitable hosts for a few days while we were in London! Nick picked us up from the train station and we walked around to see the beautiful Tower Bridge at night. I also got my first touristy phone booth picture. Admittedly it was really nice to use English everywhere again. I didn’t have to struggle whenever I tried to communicate!

     

I was able to stay in Nick’s dorm.. On the floor but free! Haha.

On Wednesday morning, Ethan took us to Borough Market, a local market with some delicious fresh foods! I had a great breakfast sandwhich that included a fried egg, a thick slice of smoked cheese, and sliced sausages–it was messy but good. We walked to the Tower Bridge during the day again and took a tour of the Tower of London.  

  

 A view of the Shard from the Tower Bridge.  

     

 After lunch (chicken pot pie), we met up with Nick at St. Paul’s Cathedral. The place was massive! No pictures inside though.

  

 We walked across the river and saw the very historic Globe Theater.  

 

Then we walked back across the river to see Trafalger Square! We had some cool views along the way:  

   

The journey continued (with sore feet) to the Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben! 

         

The London Eye was amazing. We got lucky with a pretty clear day and short waiting times when we went!  

       Then we had dinner with the whole group near the hostel where the rest were staying. My mac and cheese with BBQ pork was great! Who said London has bad food?? We called it an earlier night and I hung out with Ethan and Nick for a while back at their school. 

On Thursday morning, we started the day at the same market as Wednesday! I tried some very interesting Turkish delights for breakfast that day. Nick also had to show us his favorite gelato place; it was worth the hype.

We all spent most of the day walking around the Oxford Circus area, the main shopping area of London. I made a couple exciting purchases: socks and a sweatshirt! We ended up going to the Imperial War Museum, which was much more entertaining than I’d imagined.  

   

We met back up with Nick and Ethan for dinner at a pub we found by the Tower Bridge. Later that night, Ethan and I and a couple friends ventured to a club for a while. Good times were had by all!

Guess where we had breakfast Friday morning? The Borough Market again! It was definitely too good to pass up. In the morning, we wanted to get some closer pictures and go inside Westminster Abbey, but decided it wasn’t worth the wait or high prices once we made it. We still got some better pictures though.  

  

 

We also went back to Trafalger Square and spent some time in the National Gallery. 

Then it was time to pack up and head out from London! I had such a great time with Nick and Ethan as our guides. Luckily they’re coming to Vienna next weekend so I get to show them around my city too. 

I took a train through the Chunnel from London to Paris. Once I arrived at the hotel, I found a spot for dinner next door and enjoyed watching some French soccer in the restaurant. Then I tried getting some sleep as I anxiously awaited my family and Taylor’s arrival!! More on Paris soon:)

Madrid

We left Barcelona Sunday afternoon and travelled to Madrid by train. When we arrived, we walked to our cozy apartment in the attic of a five story building. It was functional, but pretty tight living! We decided to explore the city and check out some dinner options for the evening. That was harder than we had anticipated, though, because they don’t beginning opening restaurants until about 9 PM. So we went for a quick snack at a cafe and decided to explore the city for a while! We saw some fun sites already on our first night:

   Mercado San Miguel is a fun local market with a wide variety of cultural foods. It had such a fun atmosphere that we decided to go back for lunch the next two days!

 The Royal Cathedral was beautiful at night. 

The Palacio Real. 

After some more walking around we found a great restaurant for tapas. Over the week we had plenty of papas bravas, or potatoes with a spicy mayo-like sauce. We also had some great cured meats and Spanish syle omelettes. After our late dinner we headed back to the room to plan for our next big day. 

We began Monday at the Prado, the biggest art museum in Spain. It was great to make connections between the art we saw in Barcelona and the Picasso museum with the works from the Prado. There was one exhibit in the Picasso Museum that featured his interpretation of Las Meninas by Velázquez. In the Prado we got to see the original painting and really were able to appreciate both of their works seperately.  

 A statue of Velázquez outside the Prado Museum. 

From there we walked to the Buen Retiro Park and saw some beautiful gardens. We were able to enjoy spring much more there than our slow start in Vienna.  

    

We went back to the Palacio Real to try to find a tour, however the line was much too long on Monday afternoon. So we decided to leave that for the next morning and went to the Almudena Cathedral next door.      

Then we decided to go for our real adventure. There is a huge park in Madrid that we were able to walk to (after 40 min.), but it clearly wasn’t in its prime when we went. It was still too early in the Spring for there to be much activity or open features. At least we saw a cool lake and some more of the great outdoors,  haha.  

   

At night we walked up to the Plaza Mayor and found a fun place for dinner! We really started getting used to their eating schedule and were there until about 11:30. 

On Tuesay morning we were finally able to take a tour of the Palacio Real. We couldn’t take many pictures inside, but I was amazed at the grand lifestyle of these Kings and Queens. It was fun to hear how the history of Spain coincided with the Hapsburg empire we are learning about in class!  

    

After lunch again at Mercado de San Miguel, we had to catch our flight to London! It was a great time in Madrid:) more to come on London soon! 

Spring break.. Wow!

I got back Sunday evening from an unforgettable Spring Break. Between Barcelona, Madrid, London, and Paris I was pretty spoiled with some amazing destinations and lucky weather! Sorry for how crazy long this will probably be, but that’s the only way to do it justice. I decided to break the trip up into parts so that it’s a bit more manageable. Here is Barcelona!

I began my trip traveling to Barcelona with Jin and Sterling. We made it an early morning but luckily we could see a ton of the city on Friday. It was sunny and around 60 for most of the day, which was a nice change from Vienna. Somehow we made it to all of these cool destinations in the form of a giant circle, spending a lot of the day walking the city and being outdoors. We stayed in a small but comfortable apartment about five minutes walk from the coast and near the city center. Here is a picture of the view from our balcony:

We headed towards the Christopher Colombus statue and got our first glimpse of the port.     

As we walked through the city to our first couple destinations, we actually ran in to a few cool places already.

The Palau de la Generalitat houses the president’s offices of Catalunya.    A look at the Cathedral of Barcelona. 

 Inside the Cathedral–this isn’t even the coolest one yet.

We had to stop for a picture of the Barcelona sign:

We headed over to the Sagrada Familia. Even though I’ve been to this beautiful cathedral before, it was still breathtaking and so overwhelming to take in. I am so glad we went back! It was great to learn about Antoni Gaudi again, who’s very distinct architecture is seen all over Barcelona.

                

Then we walked up the city a while to see another Gaudi work, Parc Guell.

We stopped at a market on Las Ramblas for some lunch! I got an empanada and some chocolate strawberries.

Later that night we saw the Font Magica and walked around the city a bit more.

  

On Saturday we took it a bit easier but still saw some really cool things. We started the morning at the Picasso Museum and learned a lot of interesting things about his young life and the progression of his works.

After the museum we needed some churros and chocolate as a pick-me-up. The chocolate in Spain is served as really thick hot chocolate.. Yum!

Then we went to Parc de la Ciutadella and had some fun with the bubble makers, fountain and mammoths.

      

After visiting the park, we decided to take a trip to the beach. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as warm as we had expected and so you can see we needed a jacket and jeans the entire time. But that didn’t stop us from dipping our feet in the sea!

  

The beach must not have wanted us because it started pouring! Luckily this was the only real weather issue we had over the break. We worked our way to new shopping mall that was converted from an old bull fighting ring. We also did dinner on the roof of the ring, which offered some really cool views. My dessert was amazing, but I actually forgot its name so here is a picture.

On Sunday morning we went to one of the best brunches in Barcelona. We were fortunate enough to enjoy this meal outdoors and it was fantastic!

Afterwards we went to another Gaudi house, Casa Batllo. We also made it to the FC Barcelona stadium, Camp Nou, for a few pictures before we left for the train station.

Zurich and midterms

Last weekend, I made the trip to beautiful Zurich, Switzerland! We took a night train both ways and had much better success than our train to Munich. When arrived to a snowing, grey day and grabbed breakfast from a great little cafe. I enjoyed a fresh croissant and hot chocolate!



We then explored the old town area for a while as we waited for the shops to open up. There was a local farmer’s market going on and we stopped there to taste the fresh cheeses and chocolates. 







Unfortunately, I was feeling very under the weather on Friday after we arrived. So I took a siesta in the hotel for the afternoon and tried to rally for the night. It wasn’t too hard considering the dinner we had planned. There was a local fondue restaurant a few blocks from our hotel and we decided to try some authentic fondue for dinner. The cheese fondue is made with garlic and  wine, and is served with bread. We were shocked when they brought out 1 kilo of cheese for the five of us!! But we were up for the challenge:





We walked around the city for a while after dinner and I called it an early night in attempt to gain back some health. 



Saturday was a much better experience for me in Zurich! We started the morning with a walk toa great overlook of the city. You can tell that it was much better weather than the day before. 





Then we walked over to the famous Fraumünster church that is known for its stained glass windows. 







We passed through another market and I thought this truck was cool!



We also walked over to the church with the biggest clock face in the world! St. Peter’s Church:





We had a picnic for lunch by the lake and enjoyed a beautiful sunset later on. 

We met up with another girl from Wake and her friend for dinner at this very modern restaurant. It had a very cozy feel on the inside and had some great pizza! Then it was time to pack up and head back on the night train to Vienna. 



This past weekend, I was in Vienna studying for midterms and taking it easy before our big spring break trip. We were able to have a steak cookout on Saturday night with the group and I’ve spent a number of hours in the cafes studying. I’m so excited for the upcoming spring break I have planned to Spain, London, and Paris! It will be great to see my family and Taylor when we all meet up in Paris:) 

Catching up- Prague!

It’s been a long time since my last post and we’ve been so busy since then.. So this may be a long make-up. Last Thursday was my favorite musical experience since I’ve been in Vienna. Four friends and I got tickets in the balcony to see the Barber of Seville opera in the Staatsoper, the main opera house of Vienna. Not only was the building a world-class venue, the performance was amazingly entertaining. Going into opera, I knew I would appreciate the talent of the performers (accompanied by the Vienna Phil), but I had no idea how engaging and funny the show would be. We had great cheap seats on the first row of the balcony and each seat comes with a small screen that displays the translations of the opera in English. It was great to follow along and enjoy the show. I’m hoping to make it to another opera before we leave–I was very impressed. 



Friday morning, our whole Flow House group plus professors left for Prague on the train. We were pleasantly surprised by some warm weather while we were there! The first item on our agenda was (of course) food! I am pretty sure I ate my body weight in dumplings that weekend, but it was well worth it. Czech food is very heavy with potatoes, dark meats, dumplings and beer (which is actually cheaper than water). 



We took a tour of the city in the afternoon with Günter, who know a lot about Prague! 

Inside the “half-built” church.



The “half-built” church- They had to stop building at this point because of insufficient funds. 



A view of the defense structure that was partially burnt down by a powder keg accidentally igniting. The outside of the cubist museum. Another example of the different style of Prague architecture. This building has a unicorn on it haha!

We saw some of the festivities from the local Chinese New Year celebration.

The Astronomical ClockInside the church with the astronomical clock. 



Got some great views from the Charles Bridge. 



After the tour we stumbled upon a great Prague pastry called a Trdlenik. It’s a rolled dough that is slowly roasted over coals and has this carmalized sugar taste. Some of them had almonds sprinkled on top and others were cinnamon sugar. 



We explored the city at night and had another great, heavy Czech dinner. I had goulash soup with bacon dumplings and it was great!



On Saturday morning, we took a tour of the magnificent Prague Castle. It’s hard to grasp how big it is from the picture because it really is more like a village. 





The inside of the cathedral was very gothic and filled with bright stained-glass windows. 





The organ of this cathedral has an entertaining reason for why it’s now situated on the side of the hall. One of the rulers wanted the original cathedral to be much bigger. So, they essentially “pushed” the organ out to the side and extended the church past that. 

We were able to climb up to the top of the towers and caught some great views back on the city. 



We also visited the John Lennon wall, featuring a lot of really fun murals and bright colors. 





We spent the afternoon in their old town area shopping around some of their antique shops. I was surprised at the amount of tourists while we were there; for some reason, I expected Prague to feel less touristy. I really enjoyed the newer and younger vibe of Prague as compared to Vienna. It was great to experience another very distinct culture, especially after Munich was so similar to Vienna. On Saturday night we ate a “Budweiser” restaurant. No, not the cheap Budweiser you’re thinking of from America. But the thousand year old company from Prague that brews out of Budweis, Czech Republic. 

Sunday morning was a tour of the Jewish museums and synagogues around the city. There was a lot of beautiful Spanish-style architecture, but we weren’t allowed to photograph the area. We then grabbed a lighter lunch after our weekend of indulging and got back on the train to Vienna. 

On Monday, as if we were in need of more beer, our professors took us on a tour of the Ottakringer Brauerei where they make all of their own lagers. It was really fun to see the process and, of course, there was a generous tasting at the end with our professors and tour guide. What a nice way to start off our week! 

The rest of the week included a lot of studying (yes, we do actually take class here) for our history midterm last Wednesday. Then it was time to prep for our big trip to Zurich! I’ll put that up in a couple days when I have some more time. Until then, happy spring!