Roommates in Paris!

The weekend of April 4th-8th I met up with my roommates in Paris. It was absolutely WONDERFUL. My roommate Laurel was studying in Rome and she flew up with three of her Rome roommates. My roommate Sarah is studying in Montpellier so she took the train up with one of her friends. We were just missing Bethany and Mari!

Thursday, April 4th
Signe and I flew on Finnair which was luxury compared to the cheap Ryan Air flights. We got coffee or tea, a cold beverage and a meal on the long flight. We did have a layover in Helsinki but it was so worth it for the nice flight. We got to our hostel rather late, like 10:30, and the hostel lied. It is not close to the heart of Paris. It was the most expensive hostel I've stayed in but it was also the most disgusting. I think it was partially under construction and the numbers on the doors weren't plaques but instead ripped pieces of computer paper with the room number written in pen. So not legit.

Friday, April 5th
Friday Signe and I met up with Laurel and her friends at the Palace at Versailles. I got in fo' free since I had my Swedish residency permit. Saved me 18 euros. The gardens in Versailles weren't in yet and a portion of the gardens was under construction so it did not exceed all my dreams but it was interesting to see. It's unreal that people actually lived there. Like what do you do with all that space? Absurd.

The front of the palace

Someone slept here.

Why does anyone need a room with so many foot rests?

Or so many paintings?

We also checked out Marie Antoinette's Estate. Basically, where she went to play peasant and enjoy country life. I can't imagine why she was disliked during her time as queen. She seemed just like a normal person just like you or me. Not. Even her supposedly simple estate was ridiculously decorated. The life of a monarch must've been so hard.

After Versailles we headed back into Paris and split up. Signe and I checked out the Notre Dame Cathedral for the first time. More on that later.

Notre Dame!

We met up with Laurel again for dinner. One of her friends knew of a fondue place that sounded interesting and boy it sure was! It was called Le Refuge des Fondues. It was tiny but super fun. Since it was fondue there was only two choices, meat or bread. Since there was six of us total, we got one of each. Oh man was it delicious. The best part about it was drinks. The served your drink in a baby bottle! I felt really weird drinking out of a bottle.

Our appetizer wine!

Laurel and me with our wine bottles.

Leaving my tiny mark in the back of the restaurant. 

From there, we were already in the Montmartre district so we walked up to Sacre Coeur. So beautiful. Getting to the to the top of the hill was a work out. It was something like 225 steps not including the few at the front of the church.

Sacré Cœur

Sarah's train got in that night so they dropped their bags off at the hostel and met us at the Obelisque which is our new favorite monument in Paris. I learned from my travel book that it is a 3,000 year old Egyptian obelisk and is part of Place de la Concorde which at the location of the execution of LouiXVI. It sits at one end of the Champs-Élysées, opposite L'Arc de Triomphe. 

Obélisque de Louxor

Finally, we walked down to the Eiffel Tower. Ahh it was AMAZING. All lit up and every hour or something like that it sparkles. And all three of us are in the same sorority, Sigma Sigma Sigma, so we of course had to take a Sigma picture!

Sigmas at la Tour Eiffel! Me, Sarah, and Laurel

Saturday, April 6th

It was mostly a food day. We had free breakfast at the hostel; the only redeeming feature of that hostel.  We wandered the L'Arc de Triomphe and ran into our fellow Gustie, Jenni and her mom! I knew she was in Paris but I was not expecting to see bump into her. We did some light shopping along the Champs-Élysées. It was unreal. I was shopping on the most well known street in the world with my roommates. So cool. In classic Gustie fashion, we made our way to Chipotle. YUM. Oh how I love Chipotle. So American. 

And again the next day!

Crazy awesome chalk art.

L'Arc de Triomphe

 Laurel had few goals for her weekend, but one was to get Ladurée Macarons. Delicious mission accomplished. We ended up back at the Notre Dame, hanging out on the steps eating our macarons. After that we said bye to Laurel since she had an early flight back the next day :(

Marie Antoinette flavored macaron

Just chilling in Paris. Casual.

We (Sarah, her friend Liz, Signe, and myself) continued to hang out in the touristy area around the Notre Dame. Bought some awesome paintings and some postcards. We ate at a nice little restaurant near the river. I had Boeuf Bourguignon. So French and so good.

Outside Musée d'Orsay acting like statues

Sunday, April 7th
My goal for the day was to use more French. Early, early day for everyone. Sarah and her friend went to stand in line at the Eiffel Tower. Signe and I headed to the Louvre. Luckily on Saturday we stopped by and asked about tickets and such and were given a tip: to go in through the Lion Entrance. We didn't wait in line at all to get in. While trying to figure out how to get to the Mona Lisa, I got the chance to use my French! She knew no English so I had to ask in French where it was and how to get there. She gave us directions in French. Totally followed the directions and found the Mona Lisa! GREAT SUCCESS. Luckily, I did not have high hopes for the portrait because I had been told by many people about how much of a let down it is. Low expectations so I was not disappointed but I was thoroughly entertained by the high number of people taking pictures of paintings with iPads. Lolz.

Tiny tiny portrait. 

Classic.

Outside the Louvre!

 While going to meet Sarah and Liz after the Louvre, we stopped and cheered for the Paris marathon! It was good motivation for when I got back to Sweden and had to get back on track with my running for Grandma's half marathon this summer.

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Allez! Allez!

We met up with Sarah, Liz, and Liz's friend studying in Paris. Liz's friend brought us to her favorite crêpes stand. Delicious and giant cheese and ham crêpe. Sadly, after hanging out with them in a park soaking up the sun (I got sunburned), it was time to say goodbye again :( But we snapped some awesome pics in the archway!

Roommates!

 Signe and I headed back to the Eiffel Tower to go to the top! If you go to Paris, book your ticket online before hand. We went through the VIP line and got the jump to the very front of the queue. Obviously, we had to have a snack at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

So many pastries. 

At the very top!

View from the top!

Riding the elevator to the very top was actually one of the most terrifying things I have experienced. But once we made it to the top, I relaxed and was able to enjoy the view! It was a beautiful day so the view was fantastic. Obviously, we went back to the Champs-Élysées to do some serious shopping and we both ended up buying at least one new article of clothing from a store on the Champs-Élysées. We made our way toward our hostel and found a little French restaurant for dinner that was so charming. We ended up at a table next to two women from Eau Claire, Wisconsin which is where Signe is from originally. What a small world! We had to have French onion soup and French fries since after all, we were in France. Unfortunately, I lost the slip of paper with the name of the restaurant and searching for "restaurant in Paris with good French onion soup" on Google does not yield any results. I will let you know if I find it.

Monday, April 8th
Short and sweet. Got up, caught like 12 different trains to the airport, flight to Helsinki. 6 hours in Helsinki. Haha we decided to go eat at a mall near the airport. We unintentionally picked an American restaurant. Oops. We had wings! And then spent some time shopping. We went out to catch the bus and two buses that stopped at the airport drove straight past us so we had the genius idea to walk to the airport. Dumb idea. We walked for an hour and gave up. Found a hotel that had a free shuttle to the airport. But we made it and didn't miss our flight! We even had time to buy some lingonberry liqueur. Made it home to Uppsala very late but it was worth it and I slept so well that night.


We basically ate our way around Paris. But we also walked a ton. It was such a lovely trip and I am so so so glad that I got to enjoy the city of love with 2 of my roommates!

Au revoir!

København!

Easter weekend I was in Copenhagen! It was so so so much fun. We left Thursday, March 28th while my mom and Aunt were still in Sweden. Here's my day by day breakdown of Copenhagen!

Thursday 3/28
We boarded the train in Uppsala just past 11am. I should tell you who we is! It was me, my two Dutch friends Silke and Dieuwertje, and my two Aussie friends Ben and Lana. We got in just past 5pm and met our Dutch friend Esther at the train station. It was so great to see her again! She was studying at Uppsala but some of her classes overlapped so she went back to Holland in February. We enjoyed dinner at an awesome British pub. Steaks and Bearnaise sauce. YUM. Our hostel was FANTASTIC. Really close to the train station and right next to the water but also within walking distance of the main shopping strip.

So delicious.

The view from our hostel!

Friday 3/29 (Good Friday)

We took ages to get ready in the morning but we finally made our way out just before noon after a breakfast with lots of Nutella and boiled eggs.

The most important meal of the day! Lana (left), me, and Esther (right)

Copenhagen has a different feel to it than Sweden so it was interesting to see the buildings and such. The first thing we say was the Royal Library. Weird and modern. But Dieuwertje played tour guide for us with her tour book and told us the fun fact that there are over 21 million books in that library. HOLY COW. The Political Science major in me thought it was so awesome to see Folktinget, Danish Parliament.

Royal Library

Folktinget

 The Danish Royal Palace in Copenhagen is called Amalienborg and is the winter home of the royal family. It was very strange. Four separate buildings with a courtyard containing the classic majestic monument of a man riding a horse in the middle. The most bizarre thing was that cars are allowed to drive through the courtyard. There's a roundabout around the monument.

One of the buildings of the palace

Fantastic hot chocolate from the nicest Danish man

We finally made it to our primary goal for the day: Nyhavn! IT WAS SO COOL. Whoever decided that buildings should be bright colors and lining a canal was a genius. Nyhavn is definitely one of my favorite places that I've seen here in Europe. It's unlike anything at home. Just off Nyhavn, we found this cute little American bar that had hot chocolate and would let us sit without buying a meal. At most restaurants and places along the canal, at least half of the party has to order food in order for you to be in the establishment. They require that because everywhere is tiny and they don't want to lose money to people just sitting down for drinks. 

Nyhavn!

We found the Danish Museum of Art and Design. It's definitely not my type of museum but we enjoyed it. After the museum we split into two groups. Didg, Ben, and I wanted to find the Little Mermaid statue while the other three went back to the hostel to rest. It was snowing!

Dieuwertje and me 

We found the Little Mermaid statue! And it was everything I expected it to be. There were heaps of tourists there and it was rather cold walking there along the water. It's really nothing special. But the reason there's a statue of a mermaid in the middle of Copenhagen is because the story of the Little Mermaid was written by a Dane, Hans Christian Andersen. He wrote tons of other children's stories such as the Princess and the Pea, the Ugly Duckling, and Thumbelina.

The Little Mermaid

One our journey to the mermaid we walked through some army barracks that would've been more interesting had it been less snowy. 

The windmill

For dinner we made a classic poor college kid dinner of pasta bolognese. Good stuff. We then got ready to hit the Copenhagen club scene! Now one ongoing joke of the weekend and has since continued in Uppsala was "Escalation Bird." It's a Dutch thing, I guess. The Escalation Bird calls and you have to decide whether you want to "answer" or "decline." What is escalating? Generally, escalating means having a good time. So declining the Escalation Bird means you want to take it easy and relax. Escalation Bird called on Friday night and all six of us answered yes. It was a very late night ending with Dieuwertje, Esther, and myself returning to the hostel at 6am. That was another difference from Sweden. The club was open until 5 so that's normal. Here, the nations typically close at 1am, 2am if it's a special event. The sun was rising. We discovered some very fun Somersby bottles. If you don't know what Somersby is, I am so sorry. It is a hard, Danish cider that actually tastes like juice. It is so good. 

Answer the call! 

Fun Somersby bottles!

Saturday 3/30

Since we had a crazy late night on Friday, Saturday was a very low key day. It was also the only day that shops were open. Since it was Easter weekend, nearly all the stores were closed Friday and Sunday so we embraced the chance to get some shopping in on Saturday. Lana, Didg, and I called it quits a little early and went back to the British pub for a late lunch of steaks and burgers. The three of us then decided that it would be best to go back to the hostel and nap. It was a gloomy day so I'm not sad that we weren't outside all day. We had a relaxing night at the hostel with tacos for dinner and just lounging. Ben, Silke, and Didg answered the Escalation Bird call but Esther, Lana, and I were too happy to stay in that night. 

Sunday 3/31 (Easter!)

Simply the best. 

Sunday was absolutely gorgeous. The weather was fantastic. Esther and I got up and did the grocery shopping for the day. The sun was shining! We walked to Rundetårn, the Round Tower, and went to the top! On our walk there we walked past people doing marketing for Magnum ice cream and they were handing out FREE ICE CREAM TREATS. I HAD A PINK ICE CREAM. The outer shell was chocolate but it was sparkly pink and the ice cream was vanilla but it was pink! 

View from the tower!

At the top! Ben, Dieuwertje, me, Lana, Esther, and Silke

We then went back to Nyhavn! It was busy and bustling but we found a good spot to sit along the canal to enjoy some coffees. We also played I spy! It was so relaxing to soak up the sun!

Hanging out on the edge of the canal!

Sunday night was once again uneventful. Our Easter dinner was nothing special. Just potatoes and chicken with some mushrooms and a salad. Definitely not Mom's ham with mashed potatoes but not bad. I was definitely a little sad that I was missing Easter at home and I think the hardest part was knowing what I was missing. The egg hunt. Mom's delicious meal. Easter baskets. Church with the fam. But I'm so glad I got to spend it with my new good friends in a new place! It was an adventure. We had plans that night to hit up happy hour at our favorite British pub but we somehow decided to watch a movie so the six of us cuddled up on two twin beds pushed together and watched Crazy, Stupid Love on my iPad. It was a little lame but Esther had an early flight and the rest of us didn't feel like going all the way to the bar. It was nice and low key.

Sunday 4/1 (Easter Monday and April Fool's Day!)
We caught our train back to Sweden! Uneventful until we got to Stockholm. Our train was slow so we had to run to catch our connection train to Uppsala. Didg and Silke thought it would be fun to pull a joke on Ben, Lana, and me and tell us that they missed the train since we were separated at the Stockholm train station. Then they just strolled up to us on the platform in Uppsala yelling "April Fools!" Silly silly silly!

So that was Copenhagen. Keep an eye out for Paris, Scotland, and Birthday Celebrations!

Cheers!

Julie and Jann journey to Sweden!

For all my avid followers, my apologies for taking so long to update. The past month has been crazy! But I will do my best to do each adventure justice in my posts starting with the visit from my mom and Aunt Julie from 3/21-3/29. Now I will warn you that I did a terrible job taking pictures during that week but hopefully my mom can get some pictures to me and I can add them! (Hint hint, Mom)

Thursday 3/21
Jann and Julie arrived at Stockholm Arlanda and I went to collect them! We dropped off their luggage and I brought them to my place so they could see where I live and so we could enjoy an awkward late lunch/early dinner. they were obviously exhausted from travelling and jet lagged but I did my very best to keep them up.

Friday 3/22
Friday was a fairly uneventful day. We picked up the car from the rental place, visited IKEA (Aunt Julie had NEVER been to one before!), I had class, did some light grocery shopping, and hit the road for Mariestad. We made one stop so I could show them the glorious magic that is Max. It was a hugely successful day.

Saturday 3/23
Saturday got really exciting! We met up with my super distant relatives Karl-Erik and Johan Brink. They showed us my family tree and where my Great Great Grandma Alma was born and baptized before she immigrated to the US. They live just outside Göteborg, or Gothenburg, which is Sweden's second largest city behind Stockholm. I think my mom took the copy of my family tree that Karl-Erik made for me but it was really interesting. It went back about 200-ish years. Karl-Erik worked a lot with his Uncle Nils, who was Alma's nephew, on genealogy and family history. Wow, that would be a lot easier if I to understand if I had that family tree. Nils passed away in 2010 but Karl-Erik has been continuing work on family history. He literally had binders on binders on binders full of tables of family genealogy things. It was so interesting! You could tell that a lot of time and effort was put into compiling each of the binders. 

Karl-Erik and his wife Ann-Marie invited us to dinner at their house that night for a feast with their two children and their families. The dinner was simply fantastic. There was salmon and shrimp for a starter. Chicken, pork, and potatoes for the main course. And a raspberry dessert. Oh my goodness. It was heavenly. It was so great to have a home cooked meal that I didn't have to prepare! I also got the chance to use my limited Swedish skills. Karl-Erik and Ann-Marie have three grandkids, oldest age 8. Theodor was 8 and just started learning English in school. I seized the opportunity to speak two languages with him. In English, I asked him his name and how old he was. Then in Swedish I told him that my name is Siana and I come from the US. For some reason that I have since forgotten we were looking at an atlas so I pointed out the great state of Minnesota to him, ALL IN SWEDISH. It was slightly nerve-racking but super awesome. I was scared to talk to an 8 year old. My life. I didn't even try and communicate with the smaller two kids. Talking with Theodor was hard enough. All in all, a good dinner party. We stayed in a Scandic hotel in Mondal that is accommodating when you leave forget things in your room. But more on that later. 

Sunday 3/24
We drove to Småland which a region in southern Sweden known for blown glass. We visited the oldest blown glass museum in the province. It was only mediocre. It was less enjoyable because all the signs were in Swedish therefore mostly pointless to me and completely meaningless to my mom and aunt. We worked our way through the museum quickly. Then the two middle aged women went a little crazy with the glass shops. My goodness, they purchased so many fragile things. If you would like to have fancy water from a Swedish glass carafe, stop by the Adrian household anytime. Heaven knows it won't get use more than Christmas and Thanksgiving. So feel free to stop by for a refreshing beverage so my mom can justify her purchase to my ridiculously judgmental brother who does not believe in buying more things for our house. 

After closing down the stores, we returned to the car to make our way back toward Uppsala buuuuuut I realized that I forgot my computer at the hotel in Mölndal. Luckily we could cancel our reservations at the prison hostel and return to our hotel to get my computer. Looking back, maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Maybe the description as a "ex-prison hostel" should've been warning to not stay there. We did A LOT of driving that day. Like I said, the hotel was great about it and had kept my computer for me. I was extremely careful with it for the rest of the trip.

Monday 3/25
Wake up at the crack of dawn. Check. Drive five hours back to Uppsala. Check. Go to class. Check. Not the most awesome Monday morning I've ever had but I got to spend good QT (quality time) with Aunt Julie and Mom so it's all good. That night we did stop at the most awesome roadside diner. It was a little sketchy when you walk in but the cashier was extremely helpful since I struggled to read the menu and it had a lot of variety. I did not have high expectations but my kebab was fantastic. And it was SO MUCH FOOD. I loved it. Aunt Julie got schnitzel which was tempting but I just couldn't resist the kebab. We drove to Mora to get us closer to our destinations for Tuesday. The guy who owned the house/apartment thing we stayed at that was the chattiest Cathy. He could not take a hint that we were exhausted and wanted to go to bed. But I had a double bed all to myself! It was magical.

Tuesday 3/26
Now Mora is super close to Nusnäs which is where the Dala horse shop is! This is a Dala horse:

Still don't know what a Dala horse is? Educate yourself: Wikipedia: Dalecarlian Horse

Now this place is cool. We visited Nils Olsson Hemslöjd AB. We saw where they cut the horses. Then they're sent out to people who whittle the horse. It comes back to the shop, is cleaned up, and is dipped to coat the horse in the base color. They're then sanded and sent over to the painting room. Finally they're dipped in a coating to make it shiny and are ready to be sold. SO MUCH WORK. And they literally have rows of rows on shelves and shelves of horses. They've even expanded to making Dala roosters and pigs. 

We then traveled to Falun which is apparently super well known for copper mines, or something. We did go on a tour of the copper mine. However, it was completely in Swedish. I picked up a few things here and there on the tour such as dates and random words but my poor mom and Aunt. Just tagging along. We did get a paper of the tour in English but reading a tour just isn't the same especially when you're in a poorly lit mine. I did learn that the copper byproducts from Falun are used to produce Falu Red. Don't know the color? It's really Swedish. Basically every wooden house here is this particular red. 

The tour would've been cool but the whole language thing made it hard to enjoy it. Next time we'll get it right and go on a day that they'll have the tour in English. Finally after a long day of two really Swedish things, home to Uppsala!

Wednesday 3/27
Now we did something in the morning but I can't seem to remember what. Maybe it will come to me. But I did have class; I started my third subject! Swedish Art and Music. Not really my thing but it fills my Art general education credit so I'm taking it. After class, I met up with my mom and Aunt again and brought them to William's Pub which is a fantastic little British pub in town that does burger nights every Wednesday with beer and cider specials. It's a little more than the nations but worth it because it's a buffet! I also showed them our University building which is somewhat old and cool. It was built in the 1800's and as with most projects, took much longer to complete than planned. The interior is really similar to the MN Capitol, so naturally, I love it. After the sunset, Aunt Julie relaxed at the hotel while my mom and I went down to the river to see the lights on the trees and I gave her a little mini tour of the student life i.e. the nations around town. 

Thursday 3/28 
Literally the fastest week of my life. I collected them in the morning and gave them a hand with luggage to catch the bus down to their airport hotel. Even though their flight wasn't until the next day, it was a very early flight so we said goodbye. 

They scooted down to Stockholm for the day while I frantically ran around trying to pay rent and prepare for my trip to Copenhagen. Note to self: never leave rent until the last day, especially if you have other plans and such. Too stressful.

Anyway, there is a brief-ish, mostly pictureless run down of my week during the visit of my mom and aunt. If you don't want to read all that, here's a quick summary. Lots of driving. Lots of Swedish things. Brink family visit. Delicious food. Lots of shopping. I paid for nothing. It was marvelous!

Love you Mamma and Aunt Julie! Thank you so much for visiting; I had a really great time! See you stateside soon.

Coming soon: Copenhagen and Paris blogposts!
I'm off to Scotland tomorrow and my birthday is on Monday. WHY IS THIS SEMESTER GOING SO FAST? 

I'm almost 21! Later, gators!

Praha!

Finally here is my post about Prague! Sorry about the delay. I had a big math test this weekend so I was basically a hermit last week and I wasn't allowed to do anything that wasn't eating, running, or studying. But I went to Prague just over a week ago now and met my friend from high school, Amy, there!

Friday (March 8th)
I left my apartment at like 7:30 which was the earliest I've been up in a long time. It was early. But I had to catch a bus to the airport. Everything went so smoothly and the flight was ultra empty. I had no one in my row or immediately in front of or behind me. It was simply marvelous. Now getting to the hostel was a bit of an adventure. The hostel we were staying at was recommended by Charlotte (see London post) and everything looked great online. It also said online it's easy to get to from the airport. Apparently to Czech people easy is a twenty minute bus ride, two different subways, a tram ride, and a ten minute walk. There were just so many directions! But it was really inexpensive which was a nice change of pace. After a slight detour taking the tram in the wrong direction, I made it safely to the hostel which was as great as the website described. It was definitely geared toward a young crowd and was very welcoming. I got there about 6 hours before Amy did so I had plenty of free time to go exploring and check out the city. I found some cool things. Firstly, Prague is much more dirty than any city in Sweden. There was a lot of trash on the streets and graffiti. Everywhere. I first ventured to the top of a hill where I found a fantastic lookout and the National Monument.

Graffiti! And my lookout tower.

View from the lookout. If you look really closely you can see an Allianz building. I thought that was cool. It also reminded me that Allianz is a German based company so European branches make sense.

Part of the National Monument on Vitkov Hill.

Then I wandered the other direction toward what I thought was the city center. Turns out, I was wrong but I did find some cool things. One of which being the Žižkov Television Tower. From far away it looks a little Brave New World-esque with the silver and general weird shape. Looking a bit closer, there appeared to be giant ants or something attached to the building. With even closer examination, I discovered that they were actually babies. That's right. Prague has a weird TV tower with babies crawling up the side. 

TV Tower

In Prague, the city planners like to put things on top of hills so walking was exhausting. Up and down, up and down. Finally after a few hours of walking up and down and all around Prague, I headed back to the hostel. I met a few German girls that were so great and had just spent the whole week in Prague.
The hostel had a free dinner of pasta so obviously, I took advantage of that. Finally, Amy arrived! Since she spent the whole day travelling, we just hung out in the hostel. There was a bar in the basement so we went down there for a beer and met others staying in the hostel! It was super fun. We called it an early night because we had a HUGE day ahead of us. Since we were only in Prague from Friday to Sunday, we tried to see everything on Saturday.

Saturday (March 9th)
We got up and walked to the Old Town Square. On our walk there we stopped, as was suggested, at Bohemia Bagel. It was a fantastically filling breakfast. And so cheap! Only like $5 for a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel and hot chocolate with whipped cream.

Here are our bagels with hot chocolate. Possibly the best hot chocolate I've ever had. 

We finally made it to the Old Town Square to catch a free walking tour of the city. Free tour? Yes. The guides only make money from tips. Our tour guide was the best. She was an American that has been living in Prague for the past 4 years. Her name was Andrea. The tour began at the Astronomical Clock Tower.

Clock Tower

The clock tower has lots going on. The top face has an astronomical dial which shows the place of the sun and moon in the sky. For all you horoscope fans out there, it also includes a zodiac ring. Behind that there is an actual clock face with Roman numerals. 

The lower face on the clock is a calendar. It includes pictures for each month which represent a different task in the harvest season. Outside of the circles, every day of the year is listed along with a name. This creates Czech Name Days. It's basically another reason to celebrate a person. Traditionally, people give you flowers, buy you drinks, and wish you a happy name day when your day comes around each year! Here is a Wikipedia page that has the Name Days listed. Find you name, celebrate your name day! 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_days_in_the_Czech_Republic

Also in the Old Town Square we saw Church of Mother of God before Týn which dates back to the 14th century. If you look closely at the two towers at the top of the church you will see that they are not identical. Andrea told us this was intentional. The towers are supposed to be different. One represents Adam and the other Eve. Adam is on the right and is a little bigger and masculine. While Eve is on the right, skinnier and more feminine. 

The church poking out in the background is the Church of Mother of God before Tyn.

We got to see the Art Nouveau Municipal House. On the bottom floor of the Municipal House, there is a restaurant. This is the restaurant in the movie Triple X with Vin Diesel. Connected to that is the Powder Tower which is of Gothic style. It doesn't exactly fit with the Municipal House but Prague has strange architecture (see television tower). It was used to store gunpowder in the 17th century which is how it got its name. We saw the Jewish Quarter and the Old New Synagogue. Since we were touring on a Saturday, the Jewish quarter was rather quiet. We saw the Estates Theater which is where Mozart conducted the world premiere of his opera Don Giovanni. We also saw Wenceslas Square! The Czech Republic is a funny place because even though there are ancient buildings dating back hundreds of years, the country is only 20 years old. Also because of the many different influences that have been in power of the area, Prague has very unique and somewhat mismatched architecture. You can tell that looking through the pictures.

Powder Tower

Municipal House

Wenceslas Square

 After our tour, we wandered the streets on our own to find the Charles' Bridge, the Prague Castle, and the Lennon Wall. Of course, since it was a Saturday, it was PACKED with tourists but still fantastic. As you can tell from my pictures, the weather wasn't that great but we wanted to see as much as we could! Construction of the bridge was started under the rule of King Charles VI, the namesake of the bridge. 

The entrance to the Charles' Bridge

From the bridge, we could see the Prague Castle waaaaaay up on a hill.

We then made our way to the Lennon Wall. Since the murder of John Lennon in 1980, the wall has been a political focus for Czech youth with messages of peace and love. There are a fair number of lyrics from Beatles' songs on the wall. The communist Czech secret police would whitewash the wall after messages and graffiti was painted on the wall but it was always repainted.

We found a love lock bridge! There were some on the Charles' Bridge but it was too crowded to get a decent picture of it but we found this little guy with tons of locks on it.

Our Czech Dinner!

 For an early dinner we went to a restaurant suggested by Andrea. I had dumplings, Czech beer, cabbage and sauerkraut (I guess I like sauerkraut now!) and pork with bacon bits. It as all delicious and extremely filling.

We went back to the hostel to clean up and prepare for our big night! We had heard about the Prague Pub Crawl. At the first pub we met some other Americans that were studying in France. At the first pub there was an open bar so we had lots of free drinks! At each of the following pubs, we got to skip the lines and we got a free welcome drink. Our final destination on the pub crawl was 

Karlovy Lázně which is central Europe's largest night club. We got to skip the line! 

Karlovy Lázně

Inside was crazy! There were five floors of different types of music. It was huge!

We obviously had to check out the Ice Pub. 

They provided jackets and gloves!

The Ice Pub was definitely a highlight but not as cool as the Ice Bar at the Ice Hotel. So much ice. Somewhere in the giant mega club, I lost my phone. But some nice Dutch boy found it and is mailing it to me here in Uppsala. 

Sunday (March 10)

Sunday was a travel day. I had a flight a little after noon and since it took about an hour to get to the airport, that killed the morning and didn't allow us to see anything other than the public transport back to the airport. 

Prague was fantastic! I had high expectations because everyone has talked it up so much but even though I lost my egg chap stick and my phone, I still had a great time! I'm so glad I got to meet up with Amy and hang out in central Europe. 

Jann and Julie arrive in less than 3 days and then we head west to Gothenburg! 

TTFN (Ta ta for now!)