Sarah’s List

Favorites:

1. City: Warsaw

2. Country: Austria

3. Travel leg: US to London (movies on the plane!)

4. Person we talked to: New York Rangers fan

5. Purchase: CHOCOLATE!

6. View: Prague

7. European food: pineapple and cheese perogies

Bests and Worsts

8. Best meal: the dinner at Karen’s house

9. Worst meal: Ramen and Nutella in Prague

10. Best hostel: Nathan’s Villa

11. Worst hostel: BCD Hostel

When were you most…

12. Awed: going through the Austrian countryside on the train

13. Bored: Lake Balaton, while Corinne and Rosie were playing Purble Palace

14. Dirty/disgusting: after climbing the huge hill in Prague

15. Hungry: the first few days of the trip, before I got used to not snacking all the time

16. Scared: when we walked through the sketchy intersection after 8pm in Berlin

17. Stressed: never

18. Tired: every time we had to walk up a tower

What is something you…

19. Learned about Sarah/Rosie/Corinne:
Corinne is type A, likes to lead, freaks out when she doesn’t have a plan, likes helping people who don’t necessarily ask for it, is really good at making plans, is afraid of getting in trouble, & is super cool!
Rosie is addicted to means of communication (her phone, the internet)…I wonder why that could be…, never loses anything, but forgets stuff in the room, good at reading maps, indecisive, never ever complains, didn’t sleep as much as you would think during the trip, & is awesome!

20. Lost/left in Europe: left: empty shampoo bottles….lost: my pen and sharpie; my Prague souvenirs and water bottle (both of which were recovered)

21. Couldn’t have done without: tide to go pen

22. Found: Germany colored lei in the bathroom at the airport

23. Broke: my battery charger

24. Liked: the food

25. Were addicted to: chocolate; nutella, kinder eggs, sweet food

26. Spent most of the time on the train doing: sleeping

27. Didn’t really want to do at first, but are happy you did: climbed mountains and towers

28. Wish you had packed: a can opener

29. Wish you hadn’t packed: nothing

U.S. v. Europe

30. Most missed American thing: free water at restaurants and free public restrooms

31. Something the U.S. should do more like Europe: public transportation system

Weights and Measurements

32. What piece of clothing you wore the most without washing and how long it was: my pink sweater. I only washed it twice, once at the beginning of the trip and once at the end. I did get caught in the rain twice with it on though…that’s kinda of like washing it.

33. How many books you read (with titles): Dune and 40 pages of Les Miserables

34. When you started counting down the days: 11 days to go

35. Weight of your backpack at the beginning and end of of the trip: 13 kg to 15 kg

Leasts and Mosts

36. Most expensive purchase: chocolate; 20 Euros

37. Least favorite person we met: Canadian guy

38. Funniest moment for Corinne/Sarah/Rosie:
Corinne: when Corinne said “let me help you” to that old guy that couldn’t speak English
Rosie: when Rosie fell asleep mid-conversation

39. Place that was least like you expected: Budapest

40. Most difficult thing you did: climbed stuff

41. Least used item you packed: cell phone

Finally

42. Advice for future travelers: buy food at grocery stores, make sure cans have pull off lids

43. The trip in one word: amazing

Picture Synopsis

For those of you not on Facebook, here is a link to an album with the best pictures from the trip. Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=42419&l=8318c&id=731281502

Day 32 : Drinking Alone with People

Today was our only full day in Belgium, since, I’m not sure if you know this but, we missed our flight two days ago. It started off very strangely since Corinne, who is usually the one to wake us up, decided to ignore her phone and sleep in. Of course, I’m not complaining, but still…it was weird. Anyway, we went down stairs and had the best breakfast we’ve had in about 4 weeks. We had some pastries and these really delicious rolls with cheese. I’m not really sure how rolls can be so good, but they were.

Afterwards, we went to Lier (leer) and walked around for a bit. Lier was really peaceful and cute. It had cobble stone street in part of it and some really cool churches. One of them had four figures that moved and struck bells on the hour and then showed pictures of some of Belgium’s kings. We also saw a beautiful church in Antwerp which Karen’s mom described as small…it was not, but is was pretty.

Here is a quick list of the things we did in Antwerp (not in order): went shopping (Rosie bought a pretty dress), ate delicious waffles, went inside a pretty building, had hot chocolate/tea at a café where I sneakily stole some sugar with the help of Corinne’s bag and a very convincing stretch/yawn on my part, and bought tons of chocolate.

After we came back to Karen’s house, we walked into town and got fries for dinner. Beforehand we were all thinking, “fries? for dinner?”. Then we learned how filling fries are, especially when they come with meat and sauce and are delicious. Also, there were these litle plastic forks to eat the fries with and they were adorable.

After dinner, we walked back, relaxed in our room for a little while, and then went down stairs to watch the EuroCup finals (Spain won! yay!). So yesterday, I found an abandoned German flag colored lei in the bathroom at the airport and I took it as a souvenir. Today, Corinne wore it for the second part of the game, but it did not help Germany win. Meanwhile, we all ate more chocolate and cookies and Corinne had some Belgian beer, because apparently it is better than American beer. Rosie and I had water, thus Corinne was drinking alone with people.

After the game, we were all tired so we went back upstairs and talked about our plans for London. Rosie had the best hot chocolate of her life in London so of course we are going to go there. We were all very disappointed in Corinne’s inability to navegate the Chocolate Bar’s web page. So far our plan for tomorrow includes getting hot chocolate, visiting platform nine and three quarters at King’s Cross, and seeing Buckingham Palace. Corinne wants to harass the guards, but I’ve always felt bad for them because people do that and because that job must be boring. I realy want to do something nice for them, so we might read them a story or something to keep them entertained. Rosie suggested we make one up about a young boy named Guard, but we haven’t decided whether that would end up being harassing behavior or not. We might also get tea and hang out in front of the palace. All I know is that if Corinne makes me learn anything, I’m going AWOL and taking Rosie with me.

K, so no pictures, obviously, and I’m not going to pretend that there will ever be any. Way to end it on a high note, I know. (Yay! Pictures now!)

Day 29 : Sarah, Put Down the Hedgehog

Sarah:

Wake up> Breakfast> Make lunch>
Corinne got really excited after we went shopping for groceries the other day since she has been wanting mayo on her sandwich since we started making them. A few seconds later she realized that we would be having tuna sandwiches for the next few days. Flash forward to today: Corinne puts mayo on top of her tuna.

Charlottenburg Palace. We went there, wandered the grounds, and hopped back on the bus within 2 hours. At first we were all a little underwhelmed, but the gardens turned out to be really beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that we took a picture in front of the palace, a picture in front of the fountain in front of the palace, and a picture on a bridge in front of the fountain in front of the palace.

We were going to get a picture in front of the bridge in front of the fountain in front of the palace, but the person we asked for help didn’t actually know how to use a camera and thus we lost the fourth layer of our photos. Oh well, at least we found an obelisk. Finally. We’ve been looking for that thing since Warsaw.

After the palace we wandered along Tiergarten, and checked out Potsdamer Platz. We played on some outdoor spinny chairs (I won the spinning contest) and then went into Matthaus Church and wandered around a bit, eventually finding our way to….a tower!!! So of course we climbed it. The view from the top was pretty good. We stayed up there for a while and decided to head down. I opened the door, and just before we all left, I pointed to a building and said something about how I liked it because it was special looking. Just then, the bell rang, catching us all of guard. I immediately shut the door, Corinne started to hyperventilate, and none of us could breathe because of the fits of laughter that completely consumed us. While Corinne and I were in shock, Rosie was apparently not afraid at all…sure.

Afterwards, we went into a few museums but didn’t see any exhibits since they were not free for a few more hours. To kill time until 6pm we went to look for a restaurant. This is usually the hardest thing to find, not matter where we are, and today proved no different. After settling on a place, we each got meals consisting of some combination of sausage, potatoes, and in my case, eggs. It was really good and both Rosie’s dinner and my dinner came in little frying pans on plates. So cute.

I also make friends with a bird.

By the time we finished, it was past 6pm so we headed over to museum island to check out the free exhibits. Our first stop was the museum that had an exhibit on the 7 wonders of the world. Unfortunately, this “special exhibit” was not free. Not wanting to miss the other museums, we moved on. We saw an exhibit in another Museum about Egypt. It was pretty cool. We saw the bust of Nefertiti and Rosie decided that is was nothing special. We browsed the gift shop afterwards and I found lots of items with a cute little hippo sculpture pictured on them. Then I saw a postcard with an adorable hedgehog sculpture on it, which Rosie told me to put down (yay, title explanation). Afterwards we moved on to a museum that had german art in it. It was nothing special, but it did have a few pieces by Cezanne, Monet, Manet, and some other famous artists. By the time we left that museum it was 9pm. Instead of visiting one more museum, we killed time on the grass doing bad cartwheels and awkward somersaults. We also split another cucumber and practiced our secret handshake/3 way high five.

Walk to find a subway station> Stop to watch the Euro cup (Spain beats Russia 3-0)> get back to the hostel > hang out > the end 🙂

Nope, just kidding. After I finished this, a bunch of people came out into the lounge. One guy from Britain said “hola” to me. Not the first person I’ve met who assumed I could speak Spanish. I feel stereotyped and all that. The next person we met was some guy from Canada who, according to Rosie, was “on something.” Here are the awesome conversation starters he had in his small talk arsenal:

1) Do you like George Bush?
2) Are you religious? (Follow up to Corinne’s yes: Do you think people were around at the same time as dinosaurs?)
3) Do you think the US is the greatest country in the world?
4) Can I use you computer for 30 minutes for a Euro?

Needless to say, least favorite person of the trip. Luckily, he went to go bother the people from New Jersy.

Finally, we met someone from….CMU!! How cool, right? She graduated from the drama program and we’re convinced that she is Mimi in the future. Her are the facts:

1. She went to CMU
2. She speaks exactly like Mimi
3. She looks kind of like her
4. She is from LA

the real end.

Day 26 : The Shortest Post of This Blog

…with the exception of the first one…

Beach day! Finally.

Before the beach we rode the bus illegally into the city for a little to buy stuff and climb another church tower.

Then we ate and left for the beach. The weather was great. We worked on getting rid of our terrible tan lines and swam in the lake. Over all it was really relaxing and awesome.

At 6:30pm Maria showed up and we rented a paddle boat. That’s when it got exciting.

 

So paddle boats are a four person water vessel powered by two people which means that Rosie and I chilled in the back while Corinne and Maria paddled us around the lake. After a while we realized that their view was better than ours so they turned the boat around and went backwards for a while.

[the following events may have been dramatized]

All of a sudden, the sky became cloudy and a big flash of lighting struck the mountain in front of us. Rosie and I alerted Corinne and Maria and then turned around the bring us back to the dock. In an instant, it

started to pour and the waves grew to 3 times their original height. Rosie and I took cover under our towels and the rain beat down on

us. Water flooded our boat and almost capsized it.

Then we all fell out of the paddle boat and had to swim 3 miles to the dock.

Luckily, we are okay.

[replace the italicized words with these for the real story: regular sized flash, rain, rained, got on, did not almost, got back to the dock, 0 miles]

In other new, we made dinner tonight and Rosie found a mysterious bump on her leg. We could be wrong, but we think it’s gangrene.

Also, our access to internet for the next few days is kind of unknown right now…

Day 23 : Corn Pizza and Pistachio Ice Cream

Sarah:

Today we went to Ljubljana (Loo – blee – ana) in Slovenia for a day trip. Guess what? Ljubljana is totally adorable and awesome. We started the day off with an illegal bus ride to the train station, followed by a train ride (go figure). I just have to say that I totally love Austria. Besides being gorgeous, all the train stations we have been to have had escalators to every platform or any time there are stairs. It could be my escalator powers kicking in, or maybe the Austrians just know how to do things.

Ed. Note: To see Maria’s version of the events, go here: http://maria.thefortytwo.net/?p=61.

Anyway, we got off the train in Slovenia and walked across the city to go to the university that Pamela, Maria’s roommate, goes to since she is an exchange student this year. From the one bathroom we went to in Slovenia, I’ve come the the conclusion that their toilet paper is pink. After we left the university, Pamela showed us a library, some statues, a monument that was like an obelisk without the little pyramidal part on top, and some other sights. When we arrived back at the city center everyone except Rosie got ice cream. It was totally delicious. We wandered around the main square and walked up and down the little river a few times. Ideas to see a castle at the top of a hill kept flying around. Corinne said, “I’m fine taking the funicular.” I said, “I’m not fine not taking the funicular.” Guess what? We did not take the funicular. We walked up the hill. I should be used to it by now I guess. The walk wasn’t bad at all, but I was totally pissed. Rosie offered me her banana as a consolation (and then offered it up 5 more times before the end of the day).

The castle was pretty. We paid 2 Euros to get in and climbed some really cool stairs to get to the top of the tower. There weren’t as many steps to the top of this tower as the others and the best part was that once we made it to the top we were actually outside! It was pretty windy so Rosie had to hold her skirt down. We took tons of pictures and sat up there for a while until one of the people who worked there told us we had to leave since it wasn’t safe anymore. I don’t know about you, but a giant flag pole on the top of the highest point in the city in a storm sounds okay to me.

Once we got to the bottom of the tower, we waited for a few minutes for a 3D movie about Ljubljana to start. We got cool 3D glasses and personal audio things to translate the movie for us. Towards the end, the movie started showing present day pictures of the city and we all felt pretty cool since we had seen most of the sights they showed just walking around.

Since the picture thing is acting up, here’s a slideshow 🙂

After the castle we went to a pizza place that Rick Steves recommended. Apparently all the Slovenian restaurants are touristy and over priced, but the pizza place is a local favorite. The menu had classic pizzas with mushrooms or tomatoes, but it also had a bunch of other more interesting pizzas. We figured we’d probably never have pizza like this again so we decided to be adventurous. Rosie got a salad with a bunch of different vegetables on it. Corinne and Maria split two pizzas with some sort of meat on them. I’m not sure exactly what was on theirs, but I don know that one had meat, an egg, and tatar sauce on it. My pizza had tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, artichokes, corn, and sour cream on it (in addition to the sauce and cheese). I expected it to be all mixed up on the pizza, but each topping had its own section while the sour cream was in the middle. Based on the tuna sandwich we bought in Poland on day 2 and my pizza tonight, I’ve come to the conclusion that corn belongs in and on more things. Who knew corn on pizza was good? I think they’re on to something over here. So after finishing our pizzas, we got a desert pizza with whipped cream and bananas and nuts and ice cream on it. Needless to say, it was delicious.

We walked back to the main square. I forgot to mention that Maria had control of Rick for today, so when we arrived back at the square for the 3rd time that day, we did something we hadn’t done yet: we learned about all the stuff there. I think the most interesting thing was the statue of a Slovenian poet with his muse above him. Apparently, the fact that she was naked wasn’t met with great enthusiasm when the statue first went up and it had to be covered up every night with a tarp to prevent vandalism. What I found the most interesting (and disturbing) was the fact that he met his muse when he was in his thirties and she was four. Not surprisingly, his love for her in later years was unrequited.

After the sightseeing, we caught a train back to Klagenfurt. We actually had to take two trains and had a period of about one hour between them. During this time, Corinne and I rode the escalators multiple times, we had a brief discussion about legumes (how peanuts are actually legumes, what make a legume a legume, etc), and Rosie discovered that her book was actually three-in-one. We also discovered some cool stuff about train stations in Austria. For instance, the escalators have sensors by them, so if no one is riding them they slow down and eventually stop until someone shows up. We also found some really cool vending machines which made me want sour candy. Unfortunately, the machine only took 50 cent coins which none of us had. This started a scavenger hunt for change. We found a photo booth that also printed business cards which we almost purchased so we could put the blog website on them and hand them to people when they asked us how Europe was. Then we saw slot machines and I was tempted to gamble away 50 cents from a 1 Euro coin. Then we rode an escalator. Then we found a normal vending machine and I bought some candy and finally got a 50 cent coin. Then we went back to the original vending machine and I got sour candy. It was all very satisfying and time killing. Afterwards, we rode the escalator again, this time to our platform. To pass the time we played a game involving snapping in order which turned out to be far more amusing than I ever could have guessed. Finally our train came and we folded all the seats flat to make a giant bed in our compartment. It was basically the best compartment ever. Also, on the first train I was way confused about the seat order, and I still don’t understand it. This is how the seats are ordered:

36 34 | aisle | 38 32
35 37 | aisle | 33 31

If anyone can figure this out/ come up with a half way decent reason for the order, I will be super impressed. The farthest I got was that one row is evens and one is odds. Also, the two rows behind us were numbered exactly the same, only all the threes were twos.

I’m not really sure how to finish this one off, so I’ll just let you know that I’m a slacker and pictures will go up tomorrow.

Day 20 : Fine China, Some Cake, and a lot of Stairs

Sarah:
Today started off bright and early since we had to buy food at the grocery store and be back before 10am. I have a great lunch today because instead of my usual cheese and bread sandwich I had a cheese, bread, and tomato sandwich. Who knew a little tomato could make so much difference?

After we left the hostel we wanted to take the tram around the city center and get off at the places Rick Steves said were worth seeing. Unfortunately, the tram we wanted to take wasn’t running since its path went right through the FanZone for the EuroCup. Corinne’s hopes and dreams for the day fading quickly. In a striking turn of events, Rosie and I made the decisions and led the way for the day. I confiscated Rick and we formed a new plan (based off of Corinne’s original plan).

The sights we saw today include:

• The Parliament
  • After starting to walk around the fan zone, a sign on the fence caught Corinne’s eye. We learned that Parliament offers free tours every hour at the bottom of the hour in English. Sadly we had just missed it, so we decided to wander around and come back for the next tour. This was a good idea, except we arrived back at the fence at exactly 11:30am at which point the tour had already started. We went to the visitors’ center and watched a video about Austria’s history. It was pretty cool since to make the video start you had to turn a big steering wheel to the year you wanted and press the start button. After we finished watching the video we went on the computers where we did a quiz that they only had in German (Corinne actually got ranked though) and Rosie and I played a matching game together. We have terrible memories and the game shut off before we could finish. Afterwards, we went on the tour. We saw a bunch of rooms including one that I’m pretty sure was made entirely out of marble. At the end of each of the little informative speeches, the tour guide attempted to tie the lesson back into soccer since clearly the only reason people would be visiting Vienna was for the EuroCup. On the whole, these were either far stretches or too obvious to be really interesting. For instance, did you know that there are rules for playing soccer AND rules for the way you are supposed to do things in Parliament? Crazy stuff.

• The Royal Apartments
  • After the Parlaiment tour, we headed over to the Royal Apartments. It was pretty cool since for this museum children are age 6 – 18 and admission for children costs half as much as students. Corinne paid for student admission. Then Rosie attempted to get a child’s ticket by claiming that she was 18. Unfortunately, she joined the 19 year old’s club a couple of days before we left so when the woman asked for a form of identification proving her age, she had to pretend she didn’t have one. So while Rosie’s attempt was not successful, mine was since I actually am 18.
  • Before the actaul apartments, there are multiple rooms full of fancy plates, silverware, centerpieces, glasses, and other serving dishes. All of this was very fancy. There were solid silver plates and oranately painted plates and bowls. We also had a nice audio guide to accomapny the whole tour so we learned a few things like the fact that services used to be made out of silver, but later china became the more popular choice. We also learned (about 8 times to Rosie’s frustration) that all the silver was melted down during the Napoleonic Wars to make coins.
  • The apartments themselves were very fancy as well and the best part was that we didn’t have to read because we had the little audio guides.

• St. Stephen’s Cathedral
  • Yet another Cathedral…Europe seems to be full of them. It wasn’t the nicest we’ve seen, but it had some weird white triangles set up inside and we couldn’t quite figure out why. It also had a tower attached so we paid more money to climb stairs and I of course almost died again. I didn’t feel so bad about it though since the people behind me we going at about the same pace. We spent a few minutes at the top and I sat down for most of it since I was convinced that my legs were going to give out. The trip down the stairs seemed never ending and for a long time all you could see both above and below were stairs. Those spiral staircases are killer.

• The Opera House
  • Today I learned that standing room tickets actually mean that you are standing during the show. I did not learn this from experience. We arrived 10 minutes late and couldn’t get in.

Plan B did not exist so we wandered around the pedestrian streets where all the shops had already closed. Then we decided to find a place to watch the EuroCup and had dessert at a small café and watched the game, during which time it started to rain. It didn’t stop so we ended up walking back to our hostel in the rain, where we stayed for the rest of the night.

Another thing we did today was eat at Demel, where they have delicious cakes.

Also, for dinner we had salad with chicken. Rosie and I are pretty proud of ourselves since we actually cooked raw chicken and made it edible and stuff. That is basically my biggest cooking accomplishment for the trip, and that is saying something considering how challenging cheese sandwiches and cereal are.

That’s about it. Also, Corinne’s USB drive is broken so no pictures until we get wireless internet.

Day 17 : Look, Cherries! (now with picture and added story)

Sarah:

This morning we got to sleep in. It was amazing even though we only slept in until 10:30am. We went to the grocery store to buy food for the next few days since Corinne is sick of langos and Rosie is sick of sausages. On the way back, we noticed an elderly man picking white berries off of a tree across the street. We came back to the hostel and packed a picnic since it was pretty warm and wanted to go to the beach. I made yet another cheese sandwich (this is at least the 5th one). Then I got hungry so I ate it while Rosie and Corinne made thiers.

We headed off to the beach, at which point we passed the tree off of which the man had earlier eaten berries. Although Corinne and Rosie told me not to, I picked a berry off the tree and ate it. It was okay, but not delicious. Rosie basically called me a hypocrite for eating a random, potentially poisonous, berry but not drinking the tap water. I said that it was completely different, although it probably isn’t, and Rosie and Corinne told me that they would not get help if the berry turned out to be poisonous since they had clearly warned me. Since it’s my blog day, I get to emphasize the fact that the people that I am traveling europe with would let me die here. They better be lying.

Anyway, when we got to the beach we discovered that you have to pay to get in. We thought this was rediculous and Rosie was completely outraged so we settled for a nearby grassy area by the water. We whipped out our food, ate it all, and then fell asleep/read/listened to music. It was really relaxing until the wind picked up and it got really cold…so much for getting rid of our tan lines. By this time, Corinne was craving food and I was bored. I decided to take a walk and lured Corinne into coming with me with the mention of waffles. Rosie packed up her stuff to come too. Instead of going to get waffles, however, we remembered the cocoa krispies that we had just purchased and made a plan to go back to the hostel, change our shoes, eat cereal, let them know we were going to have dinner there, and go see the tower at the top of the mountain. We did just that, except make it to the top of the mountain.

The tower is visible from our hostel so we decided to wander to it. We had a rocky start full of dead ends and random stairs, but eventually we figured out that the brown signs were not street signs, but instead showing the direction we were supposed to go. After that, the only hard part was walking up hill. About half way up we stopped to admire the view. Afterwards, we noticed a sign indicating that admission to the tower was 200 florints, a little over $1, but still not free. Content with our view, we decided to sit in the grass for a while. This is when I learned that wearing yellow is not a smart idea in Lake Balaton. I was covered in little black bugs within minutes which I continually had to flick off while Rosie and Corinne watched, unaffected.

On our way back down the mountain, we discovered a miniature shopping cart on the side of the road. It was cute and had wheels so I rode it a few feet down the road. After assuring Corinne that it wasn’t scary to ride, she pushed it a little bit up the hill and hopped on. Rosie was too scared to ride it and said that Frank “told her to be safe.” Excuses, excuses.

After we made it back to the hostel, Corinne started to sort through the massive amount of music Rosie and I had given her. We did this until dinner time, at which point we went down stairs. I made pasta in the “kitchen” since the goulash had pork in it. It was kind of hard to explain why I wouldn’t be eating the goulash… here is how the conversation went:

Me: What does the goulash have in it?

Hostel Guy: it has (lists ingredients) and pork.

Me: Oh, ok. I’m not going to have any.

HG: Why? It’s very good pork.

Me: I don’t eat pork.

HG: But it’s good meat. It is from here. (slaps his thigh)

Me: Yeah, but I don’t eat pork.

It kind of reminded me of this scene in Everything Is Illuminated.

The kitchen was actually a little wooden structure attatched to the side of the main building consisting of a sink, a few wooden shelves, some pots and pans, and a hot plate. Dinner was good. We each ate our meals and I stole some bread from the plate that was supposed to be for Rosie and Corinne only. Tomorrow we are having pasta, so more repetative meals for me!

One more thing… there are a bunch of what I assume are cherry trees around. This is a pretty reasonable assumption since they sell tons of cherries here and the berries look exactly like cherries. They also look delicious, so my random food for tomorrow is going to be cherries.

Day 14 : Same Difference

Sarah:

So the photos are taking forever to load and I want to go to sleep….so I’ll add them tomorrow.

After the usual morning routine (Corinne tells me to get up, I acknowledge her request, I go back to sleep, repeat 1- 3 at least 2 times, I get up), we went to the market again. We decided to be a little healthier for breakfast today, so naturally I got a giant chocolate croissant…and fruit of course. Corinne got a banana and a chocolate croissant that was about half the size of mine, and Rosie bought two plums and some brie (and totally judged my breakfast, although she claims she didn’t).

After breakfast, we headed over to see a church that was built into a cave and the Liberation Monument (a statue of a woman with a palm leaf in her hand), which just happened to be on top of a mountain…not surprising. Although it wasn’t as high up as the tower in Prague, it was super hot and humid today and I basically died again. The monument is actually pretty cool and completely worth it, mostly because it is breezier and not as hot up there. On the way there we found a bunch or children playing on really big slides so naturally we went over to join in the fun. Unfortunately, I was wearing a dress so no slide for me. Corinne got in line with the rest of the kids and slid down though.

Afterward seeing the monument, we started towards the castle grounds which are on a neighboring hill. Luckily, the castle is on a lower hill, so there was no more walking up stairs or anything. After going through a park and crossing a highway, we finally got a clear view of the castle. We also got a clear view of a swing set, which prompted Rosie to ask if we could stop there, which of course we agreed to. I decided to ride the pony on the spring and eat the croissant I had saved from this morning. After eating half of it I felt content, but I ate the rest 5 minutes later. Rosie said she was proud of me for having that little bit of self control which meant a lot considering the fact that she had judged me earlier.

After the playground, we walked down the hill some more. When we were level with the castle I decided that a bridge over all the roads below us would be really nice, especially if making bridges out of thin air was a super power. After throwing out the idea of a super civil engineer I quickly realized that we might still have to take stairs which led me to discover the greatest super power ever: escalator powers. You can disagree, but to me, turning stairs into escalators or making escalators and moving walkways appear out of no where sounds awesome (and also way less selfish that flying, according to Rosie). After trying it a few times I discovered that I do not have super escalator powers. Oh well, maybe I’ll get them when I join the 19 year olds club.

When we finally go to the castle, we walked in and paid for an elevator ride to the top. There was no way we were going to do 5 flights of stairs. At the top we found another really nice breeze and another pretty view. After walking around for a few minutes while Corinne gave us some knowledge about the castle, it started to rain. Once again, my book had truth in it’s pages because it says something like: always bring a poncho since 5-10 minute showers occur frequently in the summer months. We did not have ponchos and found shelter on a nearby windowsill. After the rain let up, a guard came over and told us to get off the building. It was only “Seattle-ing,” as Corinne put it, so we kept walking. We kept walking and saw some other stuff on the castle grounds, learned some more stuff, and took some more pictures. We felt a little ripped off when we went to one of the churches since we were also supposed to be able to see the Museum of Ecclesiastic Art with admission, but no, it was closed. The second church we went to was the remains of St. Mary Magdalene Church. We decided is was group picture time again and that the best way to do it would be to stand on top of some of the ruins. To pull off the picture, Corinne had to leap across an enormous gap and compose herself in time for the picture. She did this twice, making the total number of leaps four. After we were done, I wanted to jump across the gap, which I did. Rosie was a little scared, but she also managed to do it. We all felt pretty proud of ourselves.

After all of that excitement, we decided to take public transportation to the opera house since we had decided this morning that we wanted to see an opera. We bought tickets for under $4 and then went shopping for food for tomorrow. We walked at least 5 blocks back to our hostel, during which time it started to rain and subsequently pour. At first we endured it, then we found shelter in a door way. Finally we gave up and booked it back to the hostel since we were only 2 blocks away at this point. We were soaking wet and the bottom of my dress became transparent. Luckily, I was wearing a long-ish sweater so it wasn’t too bad. That’s what I get for wearing a white dress I guess.

When we got back to the hostel, we put the food away, Rosie and Corinne changed for the opera, and I made a poncho out of a plastic garbage bag. Then I looked outside and I wasn’t raining anymore (it also hasn’t rained since). Both Rosie and Corinne decided to wear flip flops. Rosie informed us that hers would probably be slippery and if she died I was to deliver the following messages:

Rosie’s parents, Herbie, and Frank: Rosie loves you.
Herbie: Congrats on getting your license.

Luckily Rosie didn’t die, although she did slip before we even made it down the block.

We reached the opera house and climbed a few flights of stairs to get to our seats. We had a whole box to ourselves. It was nice. The opera started with a big dance number which was really impressive, but strange. I was starting to get suspicious. About 20 minutes into the performance Corinne leans over and says, “I think we got tickets to the ballet.” Two minutes later when the audience was applauding, Rosie announced that she had reached the same conclusion. Opera. Ballet. Same difference.

All through the ballet we were excited to eat a Jewish restaurant my book had in it. Let’s just say we did, we were not impressed: the food took forever to get to us and was way over priced.

To sum it all up,
Number of times it rained: 2
Number of times my book has been right: 2
Number of times we felt ripped off today: 2

Day 11: Untitled

Sarah:

After the chopstick incident, we decided it would be a good idea to have to plastic cutlery, so I not so sneakily stole some from the noodle bar yesterday. Yay cereal with spoons!
I just have to say that we are really resourceful, or unprepared. For the past few days we have been buying food at the grocery store. Yesterday we decided that more tuna was the way to go. One problem: no can opener. The tuna we got before had pull off tops, but not these cans. In case you were wondering, here is how you use a nail file and nail clippers to open tuna cans:
1. Pierce holes in the lid with a nail file.
2. Stick the nail file into the holes and make the bigger.
3. Open the cans just wide enough to scoops out all of the tuna.
The process is simple, but it took us over half an hour to open the cans and I broke my nail clippers. We had to catch a train to Kutna Hora at 11:47. To get to the train station we have to take a bus and two metro lines, the second for only one stop. After we got off the first line we shoved our way through the crowd and ran up the super fast escalators. We must have looked like crazy people since we got to the platform before everyone, but the train came 5 minutes later. The train to Kutna Hora left the station just before we got on the second metro line. Tragic. So we took the next train two hours later. To pass the time, we played cards outside the train station where I learned that Rosie is too good at cards for me.

On the train we rocked out to music and made anagrams with our names:
Rosie: I sore
Sarah: a rash
Corinne: nor nice

Kutna Hora is known for its church with “artistic and religious creation made entirely from parts of human skeletons.” Basically, they took a bunch of bones and made stuff like a giant chandelier.

David’s Competition Count: 3 (at least)

We at our tuna sandwiches (Rosie was not a fan) and finally ate the cucumber. They’re going to catch on as a hand food.
The words Kutna Hora makes me picture a town built into the side of a mountain by the ocean with a bunch of trees everywhere, but then I remembered, the Czech Republic is land locked. Never the less, the church was pretty cool, but it took us under an hour to look at so we decided to wander into town. On the way we ran into Albert, our favorite grocery store. Corinne and I both felt like ice cream, but once again we found ourselves without utensils. For some reason, grocery stores in Eastern Europe don’t sell plastic cutlery. This is how you eat ice cream without spoons:

By the time we finished the ice cream we decided to head back to the train station since it was either that or wait around for 2 more hours. We discovered that we haven’t had any Czech food since we got here so we looked though my book and found a place called Bar Bar. We got pancakes filled with things. Rosie’s had spinach and cheese with an egg on top. Corinne’s had chicken noodles and English bacon. Mine was full of cheese. Lots of cheese. But it had apples on top of it, so it was healthy.

Rosie had been having really bad luck whenever she decides to wear skirts. The last time she wore a skirt the wind picked up and she inappropriately exposed herself to a passing tourist. Today it was also windier than usual. Not only that, but there was this mysteriously strong wind in the subway before we even got near the platforms. Rosie had to hold her skirt down all the way down the escalator. We were underground and there was wind! I don’t understand. I think it was magic wind.
We went to the grocery store again today and bought some more kinder eggs, among other things. Rosie got the orange capsule again, which is really strange since Corinne and I both got yellow ones. We all got really stupid toys, and I got the dumb dragon thing that you put a human head on again. Corinne got the stupidest toy by far: a clear ghost figurine with a miniature die inside. I don’t understand.
Cashing out at Entropy really paid off today. After buying all of our groceries, Rosie and Corinne each had .50 koruna left, which is the equivalent of 6 cents. I still can’t believe it. Carnegie Mellon actually does prepare you for life outside of college. Also, the .5 koruna coin is the lights piece of metal currency I have ever held. We think it’s made out of tin… or magic.

Corinne’s dream of riding in a paddle boat died today.

Our group picture for the day: