Piece a Pisa

Prague Part 2: The Actual Trip

After class Thursday we got on the first of 3 trains, starting our 10 hour trip to the  Czech Republic. So glad we have German rail passes because we only had to pay for the train from the border of Germany to CR and it was 20 euros. Normally the entire trip costs around 300 euros.

Once we got to the train station in Prague it was around 10pm and the place was completely empty. We had a map but we had no idea how to find our hostel. We asked the taxi driver how much it would cost to get there and he had the nerve of telling us 700 korunas for 4 people. The map said it was 1km away. 28 euros. 1 kilometer. I felt like saying, “Bitch paaaleeaseee”. We debated over which exit out of the station we should take to start our journey when the driver came back and told us 400 korunas for 4 people (4 euros a person). Then I felt like saying, “You learn quick young grasshoppa”.

When we got to our hostel I was surprised to see how clean and modern it was. I’ve become accustomed to third-world-country-hospital-like hostels. Traveling on a budget. They placed us 6 females in a 12 person dorm (again, traveling on a budget) where people were already asleep. We all had our computers so we immediately thought this was a bad idea so we transferred into a 4 bed room and had 2 of us share each night. Good thing we are all tiny. It ended up saving us a good amount of money and we didn’t have to worry about anything being stolen (paranoid Sophie over here). The next day we woke up and paid 120 korunas (5 euros) for BREAKFAST BUFFET! HELLOOOOOO PERFECT START TO MY DAY! They had everything from toast and jelly to real, fresh fruit (insert excited profanity) to homemade granola (@$*&!) to cheesy, scrambled eggs (0_0 ßcrackhead seeing a mountain of crack). On this entire trip eggs have become such a rarity that my soul grows a little every time I have the opportunity to consume such a heavenly source of food. I ate half my body weight and then made a sandwich to-go for lunch (I know, I’m such a good financial planner- you’re welcome, Dad).

We started on our free walking tour when we graced by the presence of our raspy voiced tour guide. Yayyy I love having tour guides who’ve lost their voice give 30 person tours around heavily crowded, loud areas. After 2 hours of not hearing much, except for really important facts like his grandfather was an Olympic runner for Czechoslovakia, we ditched and went to do our own exploring.

Funny story- we were trying to find the famous Prague Palace, aimlessly wandering, when Charlotte asked a passerby where it was. He laughed in her face and responded, “You passed it”. We walked back the direction we came and Charlotte asked another. He laughed and answered, “You’re standing in it”. We are some damn touristy tourists! Apparently the whole gated area with all the buildings inside it is considered the Palace. Who’da thought.

That night we went to the 5 floor club!!!!!! Or as I like to call it, a dream come true. The first floor was radio hits, then came hip hop (or as the stairs labeled it, “black music”), then oldies (inhabited by, you guessed it, old people) and, finally, the chill room. My main headquarters was hip hop where we avoided creepers by standing on a ledge over the dance floor. This might be why people tried to take pictures with us after…I think they thought we worked there. Don’t worry I made some really unattractive faces for those pictures. Tag me!

Forgot to mention how before we got to the club we had THE BEST MEXICAN FOOD I’VE EVER TASTED and I’ve been to Mexico. Charlotte and I split a taco salad with really tasty, shredded chicken and spicy salsa inside a fried tortilla shell. Claire and Maria split nachos that were DAAANNKKKK and, like the vulture that I am, I swooped in and finished their leftovers. I missed you spicy food. I had to hold back from sneaking the hot sauce into my purse.

            Prague was fun and definitely a good sight to see but it was also sketchy and a slight let-down. I think because it was a holiday weekend a lot of people left the city to go travel elsewhere. It seemed eerily empty, especially around the non-tourist attractions.

prague palace

dad?

Lennon Wall

<3

weirdest thing i've ever seen- GIANT crawling babies on a tower

trideln'ks: cinnamon pastries that are crispy on the inside and doughy on the outside. HEAVEN.

Happy Birthday America!

So even though I'm supposed to be studying for my BIT final tomorrow, I figured I'd update my blog. As you all know, unless for some reason Germans are starting to read my blog, this past Monday was the 4th of July. Some of the German students here organized a little barbeque for us by the lake here in Munster and it was...very American. Our group wore ridiculous outfits to show their pride, drank a lot of beer, and instead of the usual hot dog eating, we had bratworst on a bun with ketchup and mustard. We were rowdy and annoying, and spoke loudly to each other unnecessarily. There was beer pong (obviously) on tree stumps, chugging from mini kegs, an excessive amount of food (duh) and festive paper plates. I felt home again. And, needless to say, by the end there were drunk people stumbling, excessive food amounts being thrown out, garbage everywhere and more beer pong. It was easy to notice everyone around us staring because they wanted so badly to be carefree and American. At one point, some guy stole a beer from the boys' case right in front of us, but we knew he was dying inside with jealousy, and we were in such high spirits, we just let him have it. Land of the free, home of the brave...does it the best.

american hotdogs german style

bunny invasions all over

Prague Part 1: The Explanation

            So this weekend I was really supposed to stay in Munster and try to save some money butttt I was too scared to stay by myself because of The Creeper. I don’t know if I ever wrote about The Creeper but here is the story (again maybe). When Jill and I went to London we inconveniently got ourselves a flight from Dusseldorf “Weeze”. You may already know that Dusseldorf is an airport in Germany. However, Dusseldorf “Weeze” is an airport NOT in Germany, but in Holland. Weeeee I love when airports name themselves the same thing in completely different countries! HURRAAYYY, so much fun! Basically you can imagine what happened here: we arrived in Dusseldorf, Germany 2 hours before our flight only to receive the best news from the information desk- we were in the wrong place. We could take a taxi and get there in an hour and a half for a mere 160 euros. Pocket change. When I handed the driver my 80 euros, I kissed my weekend to Prague goodbye. Or so I thought.

            On our way home from London we had the awesome opportunity of riding every type of public transport there is (other than a police car I suppose). We took a train to the airport, a flight to the other airport, a shuttle to the train station, a train to a train, and we were getting ready to get on our last train when we realized our current train was running 15 minutes behind. Sooooo lucky little devils that we are we miss our last train to Munster (by the way this is around 12am). As were slowing down to where we were supposed to make our connection, I watch a crazy man running up and down the aisles saying something in German but I catch one word: Munster. We are getting our bags down and walking towards the doors when we ask the conductor how we are now supposed to get to Munster. The crazy man comes back yelling out the same conductor in German. The conductor tells us we missed the train but the crazy man is going to Munster too so he will write us a voucher for a free taxi. I immediately have a bad feeling. CrazyMan has 3 camera tripods, and giant duffle bag and spastic, unnatural mannerisms. He starts talking to us in English and I immediately turn my British accent on. The usual conversation starts with him asking where we were from, what were our names, etc. I have goosebumps writing about this. “My names Sophie, that’s Michelle. We’re from London, England”.  Looking back this whole scene is probably God sending me a message that it’s time to start my acting career. But back to the story- CrazyMan starts telling us about how he was in Budapest taking pictures because he is a photographer which in Sophie’s paranoid mind (my alter ego) is heard as, “I was in Budapest stalking females around your age, taking pictures without them knowing and later murdering them and taking pictures of their dead bodies”. Fun fact- in my spare time I enjoy marathons of relaxing TV shows such as CSI, Law and Order and Criminal Minds. But you would never guess, right?

Anyway, we get into the cab and my next wave of panic floods in. The taxi driver doesn’t speak English, but CrazyMan does. He asks us where in Munster we are going. Jill tells him our address, our real address, and I almost peed myself. I wanted to lie and say something like the train station, where we could take another taxi back to our dorms. He instantly replies, “Oh, I know where that is! You live right next to me! That’s the student dorms, yes, I know exactly where that is.” So just a brief review of the situation: we are now in a cab, with a driver that doesn’t speak our language, in a country where we can’t speak their language, with a creepy guy who is probably some type of sexual predator, and who just so happens to live right next to us. Yayyy uncomfortable, life-threatening situations are THE best! If I wasn’t already in panic, clenched-teeth mode, I’m now on the verge of tears. He tries to make conversation in the cab and I honestly don’t remember what I was even saying because my words weren’t matching what I was thinking. I was thinking about the potential weapons I could use at any moment.

Stab in the neck with my key? Might not puncture quick enough. Should’ve bought that mase. Jill knows how to put a guy in the sleeper hold, though, that’s good. Maybe the cab driver has a gun. But he might be in on it. He’ll probably want our money so he’ll just let The Creeper kill us. Is the door unlocked? I’d have enough time to roll out of the car and run away before he could reach across to the back seat. Note to self- buy hand knife, mase or a taser when we get back. If we get back.

The funny thing is I can remember every thought running through my head at the time, but I can’t remember where I left my cell phone every other 5 minutes. CrazyMan asks about where we had been and starts going off about London. Where abouts did we live there? Why were we studying abroad in Germany if we didn’t speak German? Why was our study abroad so short? Were we undergraduate students or graduate? Converted into Sophie’s brain as: I know you’re not from London so now I want to know where you are really from. It’s funny how easy it’s going to be to kill you because you’re in unfamiliar territory. I need to act quickly because you’re going back to wherever you’re from soon. If you are undergrads, you must be young.

Funny how you’re mind can play such tricks on you.

               To sum up the story, CrazyPsychoScaringTheCrapOutOfMeMan keeps talking even after I pretend to sleep, going off about how he used to work in a circus in Paris- WTF!???? Fortunately, he gets dropped off first and then proceeds to come over to my window, KNOCK ON IT TO GET MY ATTENTION, and wave goodbye. We drive 5 seconds and get dropped off at our dorm where I had an entire plan to walk to a different building, wait, and later go into our dorm and not turn any lights on (because clearly he was going to linger and see which halls I went down so that he can find me later). But, once we got out of the cab all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball in my bed so Jill and I went straight to our rooms. There I proceeded to barricade my door with my desk chair, look for possible weapons around my room and place them next to my bed. I had a plastic knife, my computer, and mug that I could smash him over the head with. I knew I was doomed. I stayed up talking to my dad on Skype- thank God he was on because I was having more than a panic attack at this point. I tried to go to sleep with classical music on but every time I closed my eyes I pictured him standing over my bed with a knife (I know I’m crazy but I’ve never been so scared in my life). I had to turn the music off at one point because I felt like it was droning out important background noises such as his footsteps coming towards my door, or the car engine he would shut off before he got there. World’s most paranoid female right here.

                 Basically the point of this story is that I am still scared he is going to find me. So much so that I’ve saved a document on my computer titled “Creeper” with descriptions of what he looked like. In case I ever go missing the police will find it and easily identify him. I know I’ve watched way too many murder mysteries but I can just picture him waiting in his car every time we come home at night, following me to my room and since we are all in completely different rooms/floors/buildings WITHOUT PHONES it makes it that much easier to panic/get abducted.

I could not stay there by myself for the entire weekend.

Thus, I went to Prague.

Italia: The Motherland

           As we walked down the RyanAir stairs and onto the runway, we were hit by a gust of hot, sticky, humid air…and I’ve never felt better. It suddenly occurred to me that it was summer and I was so used to being in muggy, rainy weather in France, England or Germany that I forgot what real, sunny summers are like. I was more than thankful to be in my homeland, Italia. We got on the train and headed towards what I knew would be one of the most gorgeous sights yet, Cinque Terre.

            We arrived in the first of the five cities, Riomaggiore, where we had booked our hostel. Little did we know our room would be on top of 240 steep stairs up a 90-degree angled cliff. We carried (lazily dragged) our suitcases up and discussed the plan for the rest of the day. We had wanted to do the Cinque Terre hike the next day, but we found out we had to check out at 10am and we’d have no where to store our luggage. We changed into “athletic gear” which accidently turned out to be matching twin outfits for the 4 of us girls and got on our way. I haven’t mentioned the fiasco that happened the night before but basically we had to take a train at 11pm in order to get to our 9am flight…but we arrived a tad early at 1am and found we had to take a taxi to the airport at 6am only to find that it was not even open. All in all we were exhausted by the time we got to our real hostel, but we knew the hike would be worth it.

            We made our way through the narrow paths along the cliffs from Riomaggiore, to BLANK, to Corniglia where we had to take the train because a landslide caused the path to be blocked off the hikers. From Vernazza we went through the toughest and longest hike to Monterosso. A total of 4 hours got us to our destination, where I was so sweaty all I wanted to do was skinny dip into the water…but there were people eating at beachside restaurants and I knew that wouldn’t fly. The people eating in front of us also reminded us how we were close to starving, so we made our way off the beach and into town to look for a cheap restaurant. We found an outdoor Italian patio that had a tourist discount of 2 plates, salad, water, a glass of wine and coffee for 18 euro. When most of the pasta dishes were already 16 euros we decided to go for it. I ordered gnocchi with pesto (because I read earlier that pesto originated in Cinque Terre) and what I thought was scallops with lemon juice (lemons are also grown in the hills of CT) scallopini. Little did we Americans know, scallopini in Italy (also translated onto the English menu as SCALLOPS) was NOT in fact scallops like the ones from the sea. Instead, I was served a big road-kill looking meat slab covered in a pasty yellow sauce. Mmmm, all dreams of fresh seafood killed in a 3 second glance at my plate. All complaints aside, however, my gnocchi was DA BOMB- freshly made little pasta dumplings in a deliciously light, green pesto.

            The next day we decided we’d spend our time at our little rocky beach at Riomaggiore. We got a pizza at the corner pizzeria with fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and arugula, and I’m pretty sure they drizzled fresh olive oil on top. NEVER BEEN BETTER. I think I had a total of 3 slices in 3 minutes. Then, as the beached whale that I now looked like, I hobbled my way over to my homeland on the beach. There Italians turned and pointed “Looka Mama, itsa biga beluga!” Just kidding. But if it were true I’d simply respond that the pizza was still completely worth looking this way. One thing my parents will never have to worry about- anorexia J.

            After our short time at the beach we had to take the train back to Pisa and then over to Florence, where we were vacationing another 2 nights. Unfortunately for me, as soon as we got there we discovered that the cast of Jersey Shore had left just 6 days earlier. My dreams of fame were shattered on the spot. I picked up my bags and headed to the train station; I was going back to home to Germany. SIKE- I’m not that obsessed. But the thought of telling my dad that did cross my mind, just to see his Italian, jersey-shore-despising, easily-over reactive response. Now THAT would’ve been a blog post in itself.

            Anyway, we found our hostel and lucky for us fit 6 people in a 5 bed hostel room, lowering our extremely expensive costs from 35 euros for 2 nights down to a whopping 30 euros including towels! Bongiorno, bargains. The place was actually really clean too and in a perfect location near the Duomo. Once we put our luggage down (including the 70 pound suitcase and 30 pound backpack Will brought) we went off to explore Firenze! We immediately found a big market that had everything from hand-painted pottery to hand-sewn leather. Next we made our way over to the Duomo. On our way home we found a cute little restaurant with decent prices listed on the door so we decided to mangia! The boys got bruschetta with a really tasty homemade spicy sausage and mozzarella on top, while Char and I split a smoked duck salad with our favorite, a glass of Montepulciano! This one was a bit more tannic than the last we had in France, but it satisfied our craving fine.

            The next day we slept in a bit (long night) and when we finally did wake up, we walked around the corner from our hostel and to our surprise found an American diner! Now usually I’m the one saying we need to eat the original food from the country we are in, but I haven’t had eggs in months and the first thing I saw was Bacon, Egg and Cheese on a Bagel of your choice for 2 euros. The heavens opened up and shined a light onto the everything bagel in the deli case, and I seized with excitement. Finally, I would have a real breakfast. I didn’t take a picture or anything because it really wasn’t that special but at this point you could’ve given me roadkill, egg and cheese on a bagel and I would’ve inhaled it. It’s the little things in life.

            We made our way over to the Ponte Vecchio where the spending began. One little painting of the city turned into 2, to 3, to “oh I need this one, it has flowers on it” to “shoot I should’ve bought this one instead of the other one” to “I need to have that painting and I won’t leave until I get it”. The last one took about 20 minutes but I haggled the guy from 50 euros to a “student discount” of 25. TAKE THAT. It’s probably my favorite painting I’ve ever bought…but then again I don’t think I’ve bought many real paintings. Anyway, we ended up talking to this artist for so long that we got to know him. Alfredo studied art in Prague and Milan, dated a girl from Virginia (that’s how he knew where we were from), and told us a restaurant where we could be treated VIP style like the locals. He said to go in, tell them Alfredo sent us, and that we wanted to be seated in the “2^nd sala”. When we got there, we did just that. I felt like I was in the part of Goodfellas where Henry takes his girlfriend through the back of the kitchen to get to the restaurant (looove that movie). Once we got seated, we were literally treated like VIP. Instead of normally waiting 10 minutes just to be asked what we want to drink (because we look and act like stupid Americans) we were immediately greeted by an Italian woman: “OK so what do you want!?” We looked at her blankly and asked, “What can we have?” Looking back on it, it was actually really awkward and funny. She listed the pasta plates we could have and I ordered the vegetable sauce with spaghetti. When it came out, I asked for red pepper flakes, was given some type of pepperoncini sauce, and blindly dumped it onto the pasta. I made it so hot I was blowing my nose at dinner. The vegetable sauce ended up being a mixture of cooked cauliflower, tomato sauce, garlic and peppers and although I’m used to eating cauliflower and garlic just in olive oil, the tomato sauce was heavenly. The best part was that the meal had just begun. The waitress came back to take our plates and replaced them with plates of soppresata, parmigiano and bruschetta that was so good I had to ignore the fact that I was too full to breathe already. Walking around the Duomo the next day we ran into Alfredo and we praised him for sending us there. The entire dinner came to 10 euros each and was one of my most memorable meals on this trip.

            In the words of Alfredo, “Have a Good Life! Chao!”