I think my title to this blog says it all. Europe is awesome. There is so much to do, so much to eat, so much to buy. It’s my mecca. It seems like you can put me in any European city and I will be fine. Even when it’s snowing and I have a cold, with just a rain jacket and a track jacket for warmth, I will still have a good time. Let me re-cap the wonderful 2 weeks I just had. This blog will be a tad bit more upbeat then my last one. Sorry if I sounded too pessimistic, especially when it came to people who live in the highlands. There’s just no getting around it. They are not friendly and the coastal people kick their ass in every way. Sorry bout it.
I want to start off by saying thank you to my godfather Joe, since he is the one who made the trip possible for my brother and me. For those who don’t know, my godfather, my brother and I started taking spring break trips when I was in the 7th grade and they continued until my freshman year of college. We thought at that point they would end, but then this year, my Easter break and my brother’s spring break magically aligned, so we were able to do one last trip. It also helped that Madagascar is so far away. My god father didn’t want to travel all the way here (which I completely understand. It’s a 20+ hour plane trip from Seattle and that’s just hours spent in the air) and Europe is the halfway point. Yay!!!! I like the way things work out sometimes.
The first stop in my tour of Europe (and there were only two stops) was in Prague. I have wanted to go to Eastern European for a long time so I was really excited to be able to go. Anyway, back to Prague. We went all over: Prague Castle, Old Town and the astronomical clock, Wenceslas Square, the Jewish Quarter, St Nicks Cathedral, the Dancing House, and many delicious restaurants. Plus I did some damage to my bank account at several stores. Oops. I had lots of beer and good Czech wine. I also went to a Thai beauty salon (they are all over) and had little fish eat the skin off my feet. It was really cool and felt really weird, but not ticklish. Prague was a very walkable city so I we only took a taxi to get to the hotel from the airport and to go to the train station to leave. Everywhere else we walked, which is a good thing, since I ate so much food. One day, without realizing it until after I finished, I ate meat for lunch, with beer as my beverage. Just meat. They gave me a whole ribcage from a pig as my meal. It was insane. I should have taken a picture of it. I think they best things I ate in Prague were salmon teriyaki (not traditional Czech food but oh well I have been craving fish, since I don’t eat it in MADA), roasted quail (OMG so amazing. It think it was my favorite dish overall and it was just my appetizer one night), and a trdnl, a traditional dessert, which is just fried dough, covered in sugar, cinnamon and walnuts. The spelling was different from place to place, but the little hut I bought mine from had the dessert spelled like how I have it. In terms of souvenirs I bought Easter eggs (they are painted and are only sold in Prague 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after Easter), shot glasses (one of them says Czech me out. I know. Loves it. And Brian, I bought us 2, so we can take shots from Prague together) and Czech-made soap. Plus I bought a bunch of new clothes that will sit in a nice little pile in MADA, never to be worn until I return to America.
We took a train from Prague to Berlin, and while the food on the train left something to be desired, the train ride itself was nice. I really like trains. You can get up and walk around (I know you can do this on planes, but there is so much more space to actually walk around, plus you can walk for longer), you can use your electronics the whole way, and you have so much more leg room. At least in first class we did. Economy class didn’t look that bad though. You also get to look out the window at the scenery, instead of just clouds. The downside is you need to have lots of time, since trains are slower, but if you aren’t going too far, trains win, since by the time you get to the airport 2 hours early, check your bag, pick it up and actually take the flight it’s probably just as long of a trip. The train was a very nice way to see Europe and pass 5 hours. I wrote up to this point on the train! Figured I would get ahead in my blog post, since I had the time.
Berlin was heaven. It is one of the coolest cities I have been too. It has so much history, both recent and past. It was amazing to walk around and see the sites, since, just like Prague, Berlin is very much a walkable city. I wish more American cities were walkable. Sometimes I feel like America wants you drive everywhere. Back to Berlin. We stayed in East Berlin, close to Museum Island. It is a very swanky place. It is run/owned by the same person whose hotel we stayed at in Prague, Rocco Forte. Our first day we just walked down the Unter den Linden, the main street in East Berlin that goes straight back from the Brandenburg gate. We made it all the way to the gate (to be far, it was like a kilometer away) and then had dinner at our hotel. Our hotel had really good food and the breakfast was heavy on cheese, which made me so happy. The only bad thing was their service in the morning wasn’t all that great. They needed more servers. Oh well. The next day we went to Museum Island, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It consists of 5 museums on an island, hence the name. We went to one of them that morning (we got late-ish starts every day, especially once my brother left. This was not Van Aelstyn style travelling [Van Aelstyn style travelling means you are up with the sun every day, spend the whole day driving to your next destination or seeing the sites, and go to sleep well after the sun has. Its intense and not for the weak of heart. It’s very GO GO GO]), had lunch, and walked through the Tiergarten and Potsdam Platz (sorry for any misspelling. I don’t know German). On the way back my brother and Joe went to the Topography of Terror and I went shopping (I did see the TOT later in the week so I didn’t miss out). A quick note on museums in Berlin. They include in their admission fee an audio guide, which is the greatest thing ever. I wouldn’t have paid for one, but they are were amazing to have.
The next day we went back to MI and went to 2 more museums, had lunch, then Eric and I rented bikes and biked through the Tiergarten. That was really fun, though I did have a sore bum for the next few days. It had been awhile since I had rode a bike. It took a while to find the bike place but we did. That night we went to the bar my friend from home Selena worked at and then out to a club. It was my only night clubbing, but it was fun. We meet a pair of friends outside the club and we all hung out that night. People in Berlin like to stay up late. We got to the club at like 1am and it didn’t get packed until like 230am. It was insane. We left at 330ish, got on the wrong subway, and then just surrendered and took a taxi back. The next day (which I believe is Saturday the 7th), we got up and went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum and OMG was it horrible. The WORST museum I have ever been to. It beat out the American Indian museum in DC in my book of horrible museums. Here is why: 1) It was way too packed. You could barely move around. They needed to have timed entry tickets or something. 2) All the writing was in small type. You couldn’t read it unless you were right in front of it. 3) The English was not proofread by a native English speaker. The errors were funny, but so unprofessional for a museum. 4) It had no flow. You didn’t really know where you were supposed to go. There were all these side rooms and turn-offs. The museum actually split in 2 at one point, which you didn’t even really notice. Not good. 5) Not only was there no flow, building-wise, there was no flow content-wise. You would think the museum would be focused on the history of East Berlin, in particular the history of the wall and that checkpoint and how people got out etc. Nope. You would be wrong. They had stuff about Raoul Wallenberg, the NATO charter, the Prague Upraising, spaceflight and all sorts of other weird things. It was awful. Eric walked out after 10 minutes and Joe and I followed 10 minutes later, 5 of which were spent looking for him (my brother has a tendency to wonder off and not tell anyone where he’s going. To be fair, he eventually will wonder back, but who knows when that will be. Drove my parents nuts when we were younger). It was hugely disappointing. Good thing the Jewish museum, which we went to next, was very well done. It followed the history of the Jews in Germany.
The next day, Easter, Eric had to leave us. From here on out, it was just Joe and I, prowling the streets of Berlin. On Easter we went to another museum on MI (our last of the trip, MI-wise) and then I went to the movies. I know, you are probably thinking, but Megan, you are on vacation. Why would you go to the movies? The answer? Because there are no movie theaters in MADA and I wanted to see Hunger Games and Titanic in 3D. Mission accomplished. Joe came with me to see Titanic and that day I ate kangaroo (it was gamey. Wouldn’t eat it again). Those two things have nothing to do with each other, but I wanted to acknowledge that I ate kangaroo. On Monday we went to the Berlin Zoo. It was really fun, though I was a little disappointed in some of the enclosures. In Seattle, at the Woodland Park Zoo, there is a re-created savanna for the giraffes, zebras etc. Here they were just hanging out on a patch of dirt. Not as nice and it made me sad for those animals. It was nice that there were no bars, or barely any bars, at the Berlin Zoo. We then walked back to our hotel (a 4km walk. Take that!), passing along the embassy’s, which Joe has really wanted to see. This was when I saw the TOT that I had missed earlier. I also had dinner that night with friend and her mom, who was also in Berlin visiting. I had an epic journey to meet them, since the subway I was supposed to take was closed for renovations. After like 3 train changes and like 45minutes spent trying to get there on the subway, I finally just got in a cab, which I probably should have done in the first place. Oh well. On Tuesday we headed to Charlottenburg Palace, where we saw just the old wing (the new was closed that day) and then shopped a little and rested in the hotel, since we had had a late night the night before (we didn’t get back to our hotel until close to 1am after Titanic). We went to dinner and went to bed.
Wednesday was my major shopping day (BTW the stores had all been closed on Friday, Sunday and Monday for Easter/Good Friday). Selena met up with me after she dropped her mom off at the airport and we hit the Ku’Damm, one of the major shopping streets. It was fun. We went to the German version of Harrods and I got to eat a burrito. Plus I bought a bunch of stuff. Then we came back to my hotel, where Selena joined Joe and I for a drink before she headed off to work. After dinner, I went to Selenas work to hang out, until it closed for the night. The next day was my last day in Berlin and Europe (though it was Joes last day in Berlin, he was heading to London on Friday, while I was heading back here. Lucky). I went and got last minute souvenirs and headed to Selena’s apartment to hang out. Joe had a few other places he wanted to see so we split off of the day. We had a final dinner together at the hotel and then the next morning I had to wake up at 430am to catch my flight. I oculd have slept another hour probably, since Tegel (the airport) was super quiet and I had like 2 hours to kill by the time I checked in but better safe than sorry. My plane ride to Paris was fine, but from Paris to MADA was a nightmare. We got on the plane and left on time, made it to the south of France before they announced that something was wrong with the plane and we were going back to Paris. We had to circle for about 45min before we could actually land. Then we waited around Charles de Gulle for 5-5 ½ hours before getting back on the plane. Basically I was supposed to get to MADA at 1030pm on Friday and I arrived at 630am on Saturday. Joy.
I have been back at site almost a week and now all my thoughts are turned towards these last 4 months (yep its almost exactly 4 months before I can leave). I have 7 weeks of school left (I am ending about a month before the actually end date, due to conferences and such, but last year I ended about 3weeks early so really it’s about the same) and this week I only had to teach 2 days. Not that I knew that before. I found out I didn’t have to teach Thursday on Tuesday and I went out to the HS on Wednesday only to find out there was no school cause of this sports competition. At least I got the exercise. I may go on strike soon too. Schools around the country are striking to win an increase in their pay. Apparently they are the only civil servant section that has not gotten a pay raise and they want one. The Chef Cisco (the head of the education ministry in my area) is the one who decides if we strike or not. So far, no strike. It doesn’t seem to be a united movement, so I may never go on strike, where other schools have been on strike for a month already. Who knows what will happen. Well that pretty much sums up my life for the last 3 weeks. Below is my book list. There aren’t many but remember, I was on vacation for 2 weeks and didn’t read much! Enjoy!
Books
The Alchemist
Crazy for the Storm
The Great Gatsby
The Paris Wife
The Handmaid’s Tale
