Switzerland

On Thursday night John and I met his parents at their hotel and then headed to the Prague airport to get on our flight to Zurich. The flight was only an hour and when we then jumped on a train that was taking us to Lucerne, where we were spending the first night. We arrived in Lucerne and when we walked out of the train station we noticed the large Jean Nouvel building to our right, to KKL or the Culture and Convention Center. We walked over to check it out but it was dark so you couldn't really see much. We headed to our hotel with plans to see it the next morning. Our hotel was really nice and John and I were happy again to be staying in a nice place. John and I had a beer with his dad and then headed to bed looking forward to seeing the town in the light the next morning.

The next morning we got up and had breakfast at the hotel before walking around Lucerne for a little while. We walked back over to the KKL, the Culture and Congress Center that looked right over Lake Lucerne. We couldn't get inside because they were hosting a function and there was a big carnival going on in the front plaza which impeded our view a little but we were able to walk around the building and under the giant cantilever that hangs over the building and the plaza. We also walked over to the old wooden Chapel Bridge that goes over the Reuss River that runs into Lake Lucerne. In 1993 half of the bridge was burned down and that part has since been replaced with concrete columns below while the rest of the bridge is still wood. It was a little before lunch time so we went to get our bags at the hotel and grabbed some pretzels with butter and jumped on the train to Interlaken.

The train on the way to Interlaken was really pretty and we had a lot of views to the Alps, small towns, waterfalls, and lakes. We arrived in Interlaken a little later in the day and walked to our hotel which was a block from the train station. We checked in and had a good view out our window where we could see people parachuting into the town from the mountains. We didn't have any big plans for the rest of the day so John and I walked around the small town before meeting his parents for dinner that night. We went to a fondue place where we had meat and cheese fondue and also tried roschti, a Swiss meal made with potato pancakes and other ingredients, mine had vegetables. After dinner we went back to the hotel and had a few beers and then John and I beat his parents really badly in spades.

The next morning we had plans to take the train to the Junfraujoch, a viewing point between the Jungfrau and Monch peaks. We had to go through several small towns and train stops on the way and the last train that took us to the top went right through the Eiger and Monch. When we got to the top we had really great views of all the peaks around us and everything was covered in snow. There was even a guy running down one of the hills parachuting off the side of the mountain down to the town Grindewald below. We spent some time up there taking in the view before heading down and grabbing lunch. We stopped at the Sphinx viewing point which is an observation deck before we hopped on a train and went a few stops down the mountain. We got out and decided to hike a three mile trail that runs just under the Eiger north face. The sky was really clear and the trail was mostly all downhill so it was a nice walk and we got to see just how steep and big the Eiger really is. After hiking for a little over two hours we made it down to the train station and took the train back to Interlaken. We met later for dinner and went to an Italian place where I had shrimp pizza and we had all had tiramisu. We walked through Interlaken again on the way back to the hotel and I saw a mark on the street that was the starting point of the Jungfrau Marathon which starts in Interlaken and goes all the way up the mountain to end at the Jungfraujoch. We had some beers and played spades and hearts again before heading to bed.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then caught a train to the Swiss city Bern. We walked around for a while and the city was quiet because it was a Sunday morning. The weather was really nice so we had lunch outside before we had to get on the train for the last time to head back to the Zurich airport. John and I were flying back to Prague and his parents were heading to Frankfurt to get a flight directly back to California the next day. Our flight was at 5:40 so we played hearts again before we had to part ways. The trip was a lot of fun and Switzerland was beautiful. It was also really nice to see John's parents and spend some time with them.

Class after Fall Break

It was a bummer having to go back to school after going to Vienna for fall break and I was not really in the mode to start school work again but our first project is due in the next two weeks so I had to get back into things. I went to drawing class on Monday morning instead of Thursday afternoon like usual because I had plans to go out of town with John's family on Thursday afternoon during the normal class time. My teacher was fine with that and I was glad I went that day because it was sunny and we walked over the water to the Kampa Museum. This is a museum that houses a Czech woman's private collection and it had some very cool and interesting exhibits including a six foot tall red bulldog standing out on a glass balcony, a giant chair set out in the river, and a modern stairway addition to the old building made of glass and steel. I really liked the museum because of all the little balconies and open areas that it had and we were able to wander around for three hours and sketch anything we liked.

Unfortunately later that day when we got to studio we learned that our Czech professor Martin was sick and was going to be out all week and probably the next week. This left us with our professor Paul, who came over from NC State with us. We had desk crits all day and just worked on our projects.

That night I met my parents to eat dinner at an Italian place right down from studio that they had found the week before. This was their last night and they were flying back to North Carolina the next day. The food was good, I had gnocchi, and it was good to talk to them and see them before they left. After dinner, we walked over to Old Town Square to meet John and his parents, who had flown into Prague that day. We sat at one of the restaurants outside in the square and had a few beers. After dinner, Mom and Dad took the metro with me back to the pension and then we had to say goodbye as they headed back to their hotel. It was really great that they were able to come and visit Prague, Munich, and Vienna, and also see where I was living and going to school. I was glad that they came.

The next day, Tuesday, we had studio time again to work on our projects and then had Bees and Beekeeping class. We watched a movie about rearing and transporting queen bees and also learned about bee genetics. That night, we had plans to go to the opera at the National Theater with all the students at the Institute and our professor. The show we saw was called the Bartered Bride and sung all in Czech and. Fortunately for us there were English and German subtitles above the stage so we could tell what was going on. The three hour long show was interesting to say the least and they did sing one song about how beer is a gift from god. There was a lot of dancing and also a few instances where the lead actress hit extremely high notes that made your ears ring.

We had studio all day on Wednesday to work on final projects and Wednesday was also my roommate Danielle's 21st birthday so 16 of us went out to eat to a really good vegetarian place called Radost FX. The next day we had to register for classes and it was nice because I finally had enough hours to register on one of the first days of registration and was able to plan out and pick all my classes without having to worry if they were available. John and I went to his parent's hotel to use their fast internet and then had lunch with them. We had plans to then meet them at their hotel at 5:30 that night to leave for the airport and begin our trip to Switzerland.

Vienna

We boarded our train for Vienna from Prague and left at 8:30am on Thursday, October 9th. The ride was a little over four hours and when we arrived, John and I parted ways with the 31 other students, teachers, and members of our group and found our way to the hotel that we were staying in with my parents. We were excited because this was the first nice hotel (not a hostel!) we were staying in since we left for our trip at the end of August. We checked in and then went walking around to find lunch. After lunch John was sleepy so he decided to take a nap while I went shopping since our hotel was located on one of the best shopping streets in Vienna, Mariahilfer Strasse. My parents were not getting into Vienna until around 8pm and they were coming from Munich so after John napped we walked around a bit to see some of the buildings lit up, like the Hofburg Palace, and tried to find a place to eat dinner when they arrived. At about 8pm we were waiting in the lobby and my parents walked in. We showed them the room and then walked down to a local spot that John and I had found for dinner. They had typical Austrian food like Wienerschnitzel and Goulash. The food was very good and John and I heard all about my parent's trip to Munich over the previous two days.

The next day we woke up and went to the buffet downstairs in the hotel. After breakfast we all got ready and then headed to the Hofburg Palace. This palace is where the Hapsburg family lived during the winter and also where the President of Austria currently resides. We walked through a lot of the large complex and then went inside to see the collection inside the Treasury which consisted of crowns, jewels, cloaks, scepters, shrines, and other jewelry and clothes. It was really cool to see the real crowns and jewelry that were worn and how big the stones actually were. I had not been to a museum yet that had a collection like this.

After the Hofburg we all walked to St. Stephan's cathedral, the main church in the center of downtown Vienna. On the way we were able to go into St. Peter's church as well. When we arrived at St. Stephan's the top of the main steeple was unfortunately covered in scaffolding. The roof was very colorful and had patterns and symbols tiled into it, very different from any of the other churches that I had seen before. The inside was huge and I really liked a small staircase that went halfway up one of the interior columns. After walking through the church, we made our way to the water and then walked around the ring to the Rathaus, which houses the mayor and the city council of Vienna. This building was really big and ornate and unfortunately a huge stage and was being set up right in front of it. Regardless, we took some pictures and continued to walk along the ring, back towards Mariahilfer Strasse and our hotel. On the way we also came upon the Austrian Parliament building and the huge Athena statue outside.

After walking around all day we headed back to the hotel and to take some short naps before dinner. A little later we jumped on a tram that went around the ring downtown to the part we had not walked through earlier that day. We took it all the way back to the Rathaus and got off to go see it under lights. From here we walked to an Italian restaurant where we had dinner. We had bruschetta and I had tortellini and then tiramisu for desert. The whole meal was really good and afterwards we walked back through the Hofburg complex and my parents were able to see it lit up as well. It was getting late and we were all tired so we headed back to the hotel for bed.

The next morning Dad knocked on our door to tell us they were going to breakfast around 9:30am and I said we would be down in five minutes. John and I got ready and when we went to leave the hotel room, the door was locked. Dad had locked the door from the outside when they left, not realizing that he had the only key and it locked us in from the inside. Realizing we were stuck in the room and couldn't really do much, we took showers and waited for them to get back from breakfast so we could be freed. When they came in we told them what happened. They had thought we were just sleeping in really late. We all got ready and left the room for the day. The only place we had plans to see was a series of four buildings called the Gasometers. The Gasometers are four huge cylindrical towers clad in brick that were used to store gas for the city of Vienna for about 80 years. Presently the only part left of the original structure is the brick exteriors. The interiors are now occupied by shopping on the lower levels and apartments on the upper levels. We were only able to go into the lower public shopping portion which wasn't very interesting but when you looked up you could see the apartments above. Each Gasometer interior was designed by a different architect. The most interesting part about them was probably the extension of offices built off of Gasometer B, designed by Coop Himmeblau (who also did the movie theater in Dresden).

After we left the Gasometer complex, Dad really wanted to do something related to music so we looked through some of our options in some brochures and decided to go to the Mozart museum, located in his actual house in downtown. When we got there we were given audio devices that went with the exhibits and took the elevator to the top floor. The audio told us the story of Mozart's life and how he was a child prodigy that came to Vienna and was accepted into the music elite. We learned about his family life and also how he died at the age of 36, possibly from being poisoned by one of his musical rivals. We were able to walk through the space that he and his family actually lived in and also hear several of the pieces of music that he wrote.

After the Mozart museum, we decided to eat lunch at a Chinese restaurant that we spotted. The meal was very good, I had sweet and sour chicken, and at the end the Chinese women brought out four small shot glasses with a red liquid each of them. We asked her was it was but were not able to understand what she said. I thought it tasted like cherry juice, but it defiantly had some alcohol in it. After lunch we headed over to the Hundertwasserhaus. This is an extremely colorful apartment building with a little park area with a fountain and the Hundertwasser Village (home to several souvenir shops and a bathroom that costs .60 Euro to use) right in front of it. This area reminded me a little bit of Park Guell in Barcelona because of all the colorful tile and undulating surfaces everywhere. From here, we took the tram back around the ring and then to the hotel to rest up before dinner.

For dinner we went back to the local Austrian restaurant that we went to on the first night. We sat down at the same table that were we sat on Thursday and when the waiter came over, the same one from Thursday also, he immediately remembered us and was happy that we were back. We all got Ottakringer beer, which I had at the Chinese restaurant and liked a lot. I decided to be brave and order the wienerschinitzel even though it was veal because John had it the last time and said it was really good, plus I had also already had the only non-meat meal on the menu. The meal was good and we had crepes for desert. The waiter shook Dad and John's hands on the way out and kissed Mom and I on the cheeks.

The next morning, we checked out of our hotel at 11:00am and left our bags so we could walk around without them since our train wasn't leaving until 3:30pm. I really wanted to go to a museum so we walked over to the Museum Quartier, right near our hotel, and looked at our choices. There was a modern art museum, the MOMUK, and also the Architekturzentrum Wien, an architecture museum. The architecture museum looked good but they were between exhibits so we decided to go to the MOMUK. This building was covered on the exterior and interior with gray slate and had a small atrium going through all of the levels. I liked the galleries on the top couple of levels; they had a Picasso sculpture and a Mondrian painting. They also had an interesting show about bad paintings that were painted badly on purpose to make good art. After walking through the museum and the outside courtyard we had to head back to the hotel to get our bags and then take the metro to the train station. We arrived and were waiting around when all of the other students from my program showed up to catch the train. It was good to hear what everyone had done all weekend and as always it was good to make our way back to Prague. It was also good to spend time with Mom and Dad and they also came back to Prague to spend two more nights before heading back to North Carolina.

Parents in Prague

On Friday morning my parents arrived in Prague after flying over night from Raleigh. They checked into their hotel and walked around during the day while I was on my school trip to Kutna Hora. When I got back, John and I met them for dinner. We met them at their hotel and it was good to see them when we walked in. We were all pretty tired after being busy all day, them from traveling and John and I from our bus trip, so we decided to eat at a local place within walking distance. At dinner they caught me up on things happening at home and I had to teach them how to order beer and say thank you in Czech. It was fun and I planned on meeting them the next day to do some sight seeing.

The next morning I met them at their hotel again and we took the tram all the way up to the castle. Unfortunately it was Saturday morning so the castle was packed with people but it was still nice to walk around. St. Vitus is the cathedral inside of the castle complex and it is free to go in but the line was very long so we decided to buy tickets and go see some of the other buildings in the complex. We went inside of a part of the palace, St. George's Basilica and the torture tower where they kept and tortured prisoners. After walking around the castle grounds and looking down at the really great view of Prague, we walked down from the castle and through the streets of Lesser Town, which sits below the castle. This led us to the Charles Bridge where we looked through all of the vendors selling jewelry and paintings on the bridge. We had lunch at a Czech restaurant and then walked over to Old Town Square where they saw the Old Town Tower with the large astrological clock. I showed them where my studio is and we also walked through the large market that is right next to studio that sells everything like fruit, books, games, and other souvenirs. I was able to pick out a pashmina for my birthday and Mom got one also. It started to get a little cloudy so we decided to part ways and meet up for dinner later that night. John and I met them again for dinner that night and we went to Klub Architektu. The food was really good as always and afterwards we walked around old town. The castle was lit up on the other side of the water and we also walked around Old Town Square again.

The next morning, Sunday, I had some homework to do but I wanted to hang out with my parents for a little while in the morning. We took the tram downtown again and walked down along the water to see the Frank Gehry building Fred and Ginger, also called the Dancing House. I had seen it several times from far away and it was cool to finally see it up close. We started to walk back into town and came across the New Town Tower. We decided to make the climb up the stairs to the top (mostly because Mom really had to use the bathroom that was in the middle of the tower and up about five flights of stairs) and when we got up there we had a really great view of the city. We then made our way over to St. Wenceslas Square and had a good lunch at a place that I like, Café Louvre. I had to go do some homework and get ready for the week so I left them downtown to explore the city on their own with plans to meet the next night for dinner.

On Monday night John and I came back from studio and found Mom and Dad sitting outside of the pension waiting for us. We got ready and went to dinner at a local place about a block away that I had been to a few times before. They told John and I what they had done and seen while they were on their own over the past two days. They really got to see and do a lot while they were here. After dinner we said goodbye as they were leaving the next morning to take a train to Munich. We have plans to meet them again though on Thursday in Vienna, which I am excited about.

Kutna Hora

On Friday all of the students in my program and our professors went on an all day field trip to a few different places in the Czech Republic. A bus came to pick us up at the pension at 9:00am and our first stop was an open air museum. This was a preserved historic village that gave us an idea of what it was like to live in the Czech Republic hundreds of years ago. They had a typical historic house, a school, a bee keeping shed, and several other farm buildings with a lot of old equipment. A lot of the rooms were also set up in scenes with mannequins doing things like eating dinner or listening in class. This was interesting but the best part about it was that they had several apple trees and we picked apples and they were pretty good.

After the open air museum we headed to Kutna Hora, a small town east of Prague. On the way we stopped in a small town called Sedlec to visit the Sedlec Ossuary, which is a bone church. There is a catholic church and a cemetery above ground and then the lower part of the church is decorated with 40,000-70,000 human skeletons from people who had died during the plague. We walked into the ossuary down a large staircase and into the large room were there was a chandelier, a coat of arms, and several challises all made out of bones as well as bones hanging everywhere to decorate the place. There were also four very large piles of bones with crowns hanging on top of them. I thought this place was really cool although every 10 minutes a new group of about 50 or more tourists would filter in and fill up the whole space. During the plague when people died the bones would just pile up outside of the church because they ran out of room to bury people. In the late 1800's an artist was asked to organize all of the piles of bones so he arranged them in this way and decorated the church.

After the bone church we had about two hours to get some lunch before we had to meet in front of a different church in the center of town. We ended up eating at the only restaurant in town that we could find and it was inside of a pension. After lunch we met our group at the church and then made our way to the old silver mines to take a tour. Our tour guide was an older man with a fake eye who had worked in the mines almost all of his life before retiring and now giving the tours. The mine is now closed due to flooding of most of the lower section. He told us about working in the mines and explained that is was pretty easy to get down into the mine by sliding down a ladder at the beginning of the day but usually it would take at least two hours at the end of day to climb back out. We went into a big room and put on white jackets and hard hats and we each got a flashlight. We were told not to go on the tour if you were claustrophobic because it is very narrow and low in many places. We then walked down a metal staircase that went very deep into the earth. When we came out we were inside of the mine and it was very damp and dark. Our guide led us through several very small mine shafts, most of the time you could only see the person in front of you and you had to walk sideways because it was so narrow. At one point we could look down and see one of the lower shafts that was filled with about 3 meters of water. After being in the mine for about 15 minutes we finally came out at the bottom of the hill. From here we walked around the town for a bit before getting back on the bus and heading back to Prague.

AC Sparta Praha Fotbol

On Thursday night we went to see the fotbol team AC Sparta Praha play at the AXA Arena. We took the metro to the next to the last stop and while we were on the up escalator coming out of the metro a group of men behind us and in front of us started singing along with each other. When the women in front of me started to look really angry and proceeded to flick off everyone singing we realized that the people singing were fans of the Croatian team that AC Sparta was playing that night as part of the UEFA Cup. When we arrived at the stadium there were armored police everywhere with helmets and shields and a lot of them were surrounding fans of the other team and escorting them into the stadium so they could not come in contact with anyone else going in.

We found our seats and another group of our friends were also at the game so we decided to try to walk over to their section of the stadium. When we tried to get over we went only a little bit farther than our section and were met with a cage because the arena is sectioned off for crowd control. On the way back to our seats I went to go buy a beer and found that they only sold non alcoholic beer. I guess this was also to keep the fans from getting crazier than they already are.

We got to our seats and were looking around the stadium and spotted the AC Sparta fan section. They had a million banners everywhere and I also noticed that their section was fenced off on both sides so that they couldn't go anywhere. The Croatian team also had a fan section on the other side of the arena that was about twice the size of the AC Sparta's section where they were also fenced in. They had someone beating a drum the entire game and both team's fan sections also sang chants for almost the whole game.

The game started and after about 10 minutes or so the Croatian team scored the first goal. Their fan section went insane and started lighting flares and even threw one of the flares out onto the field. A little later AC Sparta scored and their section reacted the same way with signing and chants and flares. We had seats very close to the field so we could see a lot that was going on but the more expensive seats are the ones in the upper sections so that you can look out onto the whole field. The game was pretty exciting and it made me want to play soccer again. It ended in a 3-3 tie which was enough for the Croatian team to move on in the tournament but unfortunately AC Sparta had to win to advance. Overall the game was a lot of fun and unlike any sporting event I have been to in America. We are already talking about going to another game soon.

Dresden

On Thursday I decided to go to Dresden with several other students that were planning on going. We bought our train tickets and left Friday at 10:30am. The train was packed and we didn't have reservations so we had to just walk around until we found open seats. The ride was only two hours so we arrived around 12:45 and started to walk to our hostel and found some food. We came upon the UFA Palace, which is a movie theater designed by Coop Himmeblau. I think it looks like a giant glass rock that fell from the sky. The inside was filled with concrete columns and crazy metal staircases. We also came upon a fountain made of broken up chunks of glass. After walking around the city a little bit we headed to the VW factory where we were told that they were closed but we were to come back the next day for an English tour at 3pm. We also found a small market that was going on in a parking lot that reminded us a lot of the state fair. There were several booths set up selling jewelry, t-shirts, candy, etc. and also a lot of food vendors that sold all typical German food like bratwurst and schnitzel. They also had beer and really good pastries and crepes. We ended up eating here for lunch the next two days.

It started to get dark and we walked through the more historical part of Dresden where we saw a lot of the old churches lit up that were destroyed in the bombing in World War II, like most of the city, and then later rebuilt. The city looked really pretty lit up over the water as we looked at it from one of the bridges. We decided to eat dinner at a German restaurant where most of us got one liter beers. John's meal was even served on a sword in place of a skewer. I had barbeque chicken, which was actually just ketchup with curry, and potato wedges. That night we went to bed a little bit early so we could get up early the next day to explore.

The next day we woke up and walked back down to the water and to the area with the churches and the opera house. We walked into one of the churches which was the most recent Baroque church to be completed in Dresden and there was a Catholic mass going on inside. I actually recognized the part of mass that they were on even though it was in German because the priest was singing the same song. We also walked through the gardens inside the large courtyard of the Zwinger, which is a large complex with a lot of pavilions and galleries. After eating lunch at the market again we headed towards the VW Factory for our tour. Our guide took us through the factory which is actually extremely clean and without the car bodies on the conveyor belts, it would not really look like a factory at all. This factory is the only place in the world where VW makes the Phaeton which I guess could be considered their luxury car. The cheapest one sells for 65,000 Euro, which is about $100,000. Customers come to the factory to custom design their Phaetons and then the car is made here. The customer can then either pick it up at the factory or have it delivered to them. The large glass cylinder in the front of the building is the parking garage where the Phaetons are stored until they are picked up.

After the tour, we walked around some more and then headed back to the hostel to get ready before dinner. We were referred to a neighborhood German restaurant that was a 15 minute walk from the hostel. When we walked in it seemed that everyone stared at us and it was kind of uncomfortable but then our waiter was very nice. The whole menu was in German and almost everything had pork in it so it was hard to pick something to eat. I ended up getting a Greek salad that was very good. The beer here was also extremely cheap compared to being in Paris or Barcelona. We stayed for a while hanging out and drinking and our waiter even gave us a free desert.

The next morning we woke up and checked out of the hostel and then headed downtown again before we had to get on our 1:10 train. We stopped by the market for the last time to have some crepes and bratwurst and walked through the city a little bit more before heading back to Prague. This time the train was not so packed and we could all sit together. The train ran along a river and we had really good views of several small towns with castles and some cool little bridges. It was actually nice to hear the voice on the train speak Czech again when we knew we were almost back to Prague.