Prague Pt. 2

We joined a free walking tour that started at 11am, which is way too late by the way. And I did get a fair amount of sun. But we learned a whole lot of history, and I can't wait to look up more about Prague when I get back. And since I don't have any particular stories to relate at the moment, here are some pictures.

(After the pictures there may be a story.)

First, this is one of the statues on Charles Bridge. I think the pinwheel hats are a little avant-garde but--wait, they're halos? Never mind.

The astronomical tower! Extremely pretty and so incredibly detailed, I loved just staring at it. But the on-the-hour "show" that's so famous? One of the most overrated touristy things ever. I did get video that I might share later.

View from the side of the square, to the left where you see the church, is where the main area opens up. But this corner looks huge with the panorama.

In the Jewish Ghetto. This clock runs backwards, as expected.

A statue of....anyone? Anyone? No not anyone. Specifically Franz Kafka. Author of The Metamorphosis and other stories. He's from here. Born lived and died here, actually.

A bad combination of a black building, and sunlight in the back. But it is really this dark in real life. Used to store gun powder for the city.

This artist (of a random door at a garbage facility) is actually the architect for some famous things, including something or other from the London Olympics last year. The heat was getting to me, I'll admit my mind wandered.

Tessa being a bad vegetarian.

This guy was one of our roomies (we had to switch rooms for the second night.) but I never saw him awake. When we got there he was asleep, and he slept all day, and then later when we came back to go to sleep, he was out with the other three dudes in the dorm, until 3 or 4am, when they all came back and fell asleep. And he was still asleep when we packed up and left in the morning. He had a sombrero. 

These random-words Coke bottles are everywhere in Europe, and we can't figure out why. For fun I guess. Tessa sure got excited upon spotting this one.

This is my horrible attempt at a Star Wars impression thing. What it turned out as: a too-skinny backpacker trying to swat a fly with a cape on.

Tessa's worked out better. She had been wearing the shirt all day anyway like that, to avoid sunburn. And in case you're wondering, this building behind is a very famous concert hall where Mozart conducted at, and parts of the movie Amadeus were shot. And the statue is in honor of the opera Don Giovanni.

And for all those Lemony Snicket fans (this includes me and Tessa) well take a look, they're everywhere....and this weather did take a very frightening direction from the norm, a few minutes after this was taken.

~~~

And you thought the post was over, no? No. See, as we did our last outing and looking around for postcards...well we had another close call with the apocalypse.

I almost bought a water color from an artist on the Charles Bridge, but I wasn't sure how I'd bring it back. But as we explored the old town that afternoon I thought and thought about it and decided I really wanted it, and would find a way to get home. 

So we're walking back, about a 20 minute walk to the bridge, and it starts to rain a little. This was in the forecast, so we expected it. But I had stupidly worn my sandals anyway, and of course a tank, because it was still insanely hot out. But within 10 minutes, gusts of wind were shooting through the small streets and into the shops, and the sky got dark, and rain started coming down sideways. I was reminded of the movie, The Day After Tomorrow. Since the shop windows and doors were open to all the tourists, things were flying around, and breaking, and we still slowly made progress, ducking in the eves, toward the Charles Bridge. People were rather freaking out, and we found ourselves against what seemed like every tourist in the city. Why was everyone going this way? It's hard to walk against a frightened crowd.

Tessa managed to get some video clips before it got too bad. 

We finally get to the bridge, and realize we can't see it at all, which is not a good sign, and so we hide with a bunch of other people in a tunnel nearby for about 15 minutes, waiting to see if it will let up. 

Well it didn't.

Since our hostel was about 100 meters after the bridge, once we crossed it, we would be good. So we take a deep breath and start sprinting in bursts again. We meet a lady on the edge of the bridge, in a covered area, and she says, "I got halfway across before I had to turn back!" Cue our horrified faces.

Apparently some sand is mixed up in the tornado-like weather, so as we finally brave our way across for the next 20 minutes, sand is stinging every part of our exposed skin, and we are soaked to the bone, and Tessa is trying not to have an asthma attack.

By the time we make it to the other side, the weather is okay enough to take out the camera, and look at the famous bridge...with no tourists on it! 

Happy ending.

And I'll leave you with a very nice view of our dorm window. The calm after the storm. 

Budapest exploring pics

The walking tour was good, but so hot because it starts at 10:30, and is about 3 hours long. I vote midnight tour for the next one. If only.

One of the coolest things I learned this time was Hungarians are technically from Asia before mixing with other cultures (after wars had to bring in new population) so that's one of the reasons their language is so different than the areas around it. George Lucas actually used Yoda's lines in Hungarian. He wrote them in English, translated them to Hungarian, and then back to English. That is why it sounds so weird. :) so Hungarian is the Jedi language.

Anyway here are some sightings from our explorations. We did look around after the tour as well.

Chain bridge from a hill on the Buda side.

Last time I was in Budapest this was our ride, Viking River Cruises...so not thinking about how awesome it was...and with no heavy backpack...during the cool Christmastime.....

As weird as this is to say...I'm pretty sure I've seen this before.

A far-away view of one of my favorite buildings I've ever seen. It's the third largest Parliament building in the world. I think it's London, Brazil, and then this one.

Tessa tends to find cool graffiti.

:)

Yellow watermelon. What.

This is possibly the best and cheapest ice cream I've ever had. Tessa got: dark chocolate, hazelnut and vanilla and I got: peach, pear, and hazelnut. We went twice within the day and a half we were there.

The view from my bed, looking up.

Famous hourglass that's turned around every new year.

Mushroom ceiling on the Metro.

Also. I tried to discreetly get pictures of this awesome phenomenon. This is the first city we've seen so far, that the advertisements are placed diagonal like the Metro escalators...you see where I'm going with this. Once you tip your head and look at it one way, you can't un-see it. We love this.

Prague Pt. 1

We made it to Prague, Czech Republic! Again without any mishaps! Wow I don't want to jinx anything here, but if this could continue for the rest of the trip? That'd be great. Of course, that means fewer crazy stories for you guys, but less freaking out on our part.

Our hostel is right next to Charles Bridge, so we can pretty much walk anywhere and there is no need for Metro navigating. (Though the Metro has A/C and the hostel doesn't, which is rather irritating.)

It's super super hot outside, so we will try to get a semi-early start in the morning. Old Town Square is only a 15 minute walk anyway. Free walking tours are in abundance here!

It's hard to see, but these funky looking leaves caught my eye.

Our hostel is in the building right in front here, with the red/brown roof. This is coming back from the supermarket at about 8pm.

Tessa has this thing for her spices. To the extent of hiding the rest of our precious basil, in plastic wrap, in the curry powder container, in order to keep it from getting lost in the food bag. Which of course is not what it looks like.

Budapest

Is it really arrogant to say I've been here before? Well I have. And it's a beautiful city so I'm glad to be back. In our original plans, (wow "original plans" we had no idea what we were getting into....) Budapest, Hungary was not on our list. But since it's halfway between where we were in Romania, and Prague, we figured it wouldn't hurt to look around for a day.

For the first time in weeks, we did not get lost at all on our way from the airport to the hostel. We even made a run, backpacks and all, to our favorite grocery store, Tesco. We missed you Tesco, and your Wally-World-type qualities. Mostly Tesco stores are in Western Europe, because we certainly didn't spot any in Romania.

The hostel we are staying at is called the Black Apple. There are stencils of black apples painted on the walls, but they really look like funky shaped cherries. It's a nice place, but the kitchen is smaller than one in a New York apartment; we're just glad it has one. Even if the stove is built into the top of the toaster oven.

We booked a dorm with five beds, since it was cheapest. And we had some nice roomies, a French girl who was going out for her birthday, and the Aussie dude. 

We talked a lot to Aussie dude when we arrived (but never got his name) since it was way too hot to actually leave the place. Oh, and this hostel doesn't have A/C. This hasn't really been a problem in the trip until now, but you just need more than a standing fan for 93 degree weather in a city. Also these ceilings are 14 feet high. Which is sort of eerie.

I got off topic. Aussie dude has a guitar with him, which gets him points on the backpacker scale of coolness, along with his green roll of duct tape, another point. But he also put on deodorant half a dozen times during our conversations that evening, so that may lose him points. (Note to self: I will write a post soon with our Backpacking Scale: Rules and Regulations. You guys will like it.) 

Despite the cool room and people...we changed rooms. The whole place had lots of windows, but it also faced the main street. And with ambulances screaming by every ten minutes sounding like an alien space ship, (I really worry for the health of this city's people) we knew there would be no sleeping that night. Our new room faces a slightly less busy street.

Well, we are off to take advantage of the free city walking tour like we did in Bucharest. We have our bottles of mineral water to fend off the heat, no worries.

~~~~~~

I forgot, a few pics from our last day in Targu Mures, Romania:

We got pizza!!!!! It helped with the homesick a little. But it also had corn on it, which was new.

Tessa broke the room.

One of the foods we will both miss are "cocoa shells" which are about ten times more awesome than cocoa puffs. And on this particular bag had the ingredients listed in no fewer than 20 languages. That is a record for this trip.

The Spoon Man

I promise I didn't forget about blogging. (Or globbing as Tessa calls it.)

Workawayers usually get a day a week off, so we took our first free day to go touring around the area. Cathryn has her car that she shipped overseas (after literally filling it all the way up with Trader Joe's groceries) so she took us to a few villages nearby.

Viscri

The name may sound familiar. There's one UNESCO site, an old church. It was one of the coolest churches I've ever been to. There's a tower in the middle and then a wall full of rooms surrounding the area, with a courtyard too. It's all very quiet and accessible. 

(I forgot to take a picture on my phone.)

Prince Charles owns a few houses in Viscri but apparently his wife doesn't let him stay there because it's not super fancy and she's kinda spoiled like that. At least that's my interpretation. 

We bought some local honey:

Sighisoara 

The Spoon Man.

At the top of a hill where a famous church stands, we hung around for a little while to take pictures. Soon we spotted a crafter's booth with a bunch of spoons on display. They were very beautifully crafted and the guy sitting there started telling us about these spoons. Only two countries are known for their spoons, Romania and Wales. And this is when I notice he is actually carving one at the moment. His explaining wasn't at all trying to sell to us, spoon wittling is just a family tradition of his. His whole air was just so genuine and he got really enthusiastic in telling us what all the designs mean...

I couldn't help but buy one. It's about 10inches long.

Let us hope it makes it home all right...!

(Made of linden wood and glazed in beeswax.)

His website is thespoonman.ro and it's all in Romanian. So if you want to learn about any of the stories or meaning behind his spoon designs you can just use google translate or something, maybe recall your Latin studies.

We got ice cream at the bottom of the hill. All natural yummy. Tessa got black vanilla (we still aren't sure exactly how/what that is) and coconut. I got strawberry and kiwi. The day was a hot one, so this refreshed us!

Back at the farm, look at this awkward adorableness! (Baby buffalo: "what the hell are you doing at my fence?")

And this evening a new volunteer is coming to the farm, a guy from Puerto Rico who is cycling around Europe. Yeah. On a bicycle. 

Now there will be five of us! Cathryn, Philippe, me and Tessa, and soon Puerto Rico.

Krishan's still in Bucharest, we aren't sure if he is coming back today.

Exploring the City of Joy

According to our tour guide, that is.

Tour guide? Yep! Searching for things to do in Bucharest yielded this result. Free city walking tours. It was about 2 hours long and we learned a whole lot about the city. In English. This is much more preferable than tagging along awkwardly and listening in on tours of other cities in a variety of languages...not that we have done that, of course.

I am grateful the weather actually held up today; I actually had to wear my sunglasses.

Here are some sights of Bucharest:

Vlad Tepis. Aka Vlad the Impaler. Aka Dracula....or whom he was based on, at least. You can't really tell in the pic, but even this statue was terrifying. Along with the story our guide was explaining to us, how exactly people were impaled by him? I can't ever forget it. Ew. Ewewew.

Ah it's a little clearer here.

Our guide kept saying, all these monuments (maybe he meant statues) keep appearing in Bucharest. Pretty much every week a new one is discovered. The people don't even know where they're coming from, or what they stand for anymore. Here is one that appeared today:

It's all wrapped up nicely.

And this statue is pretty famous. The Internets have meme-d it a lot. We call it the awkward statue. It is the Roman Emperor Trajan; and the dog represents the one from Rome, Capitoline Wolf, who nurses Remus and Romulus. The funky thing sticking out of the dog's head is a snake with the head of a dog. The statue symbolizes the merging of Roman and Dacian people. Dacia was the region Romania was once called, if I'm remembering this all correctly. It's a very fascinating history, and Trajan was especially known to be one of the best Emperors ever. Maybe look him up. 

And here is me. With the awkward statue.

Tomorrow morning we head off to Curtea de Arges, to see Dracula's Castle! :) 

Last day in Paris

Didn't rain...but it was cloudy. We had reserved this day to see the Catacombs before we left in the evening, but of course as soon as we walk up..."Catacombs closed 17 June - 19 June." Of course they open the day after we leave! Not cool. So that was sad. We sat there for a while trying to figure out what to do for three hours. I finally remembered the Military museum near a station, that had Napoleon's tomb.  (We usually had to plan things out before leaving our room, and wifi, since we didn't have a city map to look up places/attractions in particular.)

Took the Metro over there and walked a ways, and this place is huge! Cannons line the entrance and there is a great view  in all directions.

After wandering around for about an hour, we headed back to pack up for our train. But I did take a couple pictures on my iPhone, so here they are:

Hehe. In the Metro. Minions!!

Ha. Crooked and dark. Sorry. Impressive courtyard of the museum.

His tomb is on the other side, behind the glass.

No hats.

This seat in the Metro was missing, but I only noticed it when a guy came to sat down, then promptly yelled as he fell right through. 

I love how these just go on and on and on....

Jumper

Sunny day! Through pure willpower.

We made it all the way to the lifts after waiting in line to get tickets for an hour, when they shut the Eiffel Tower down. Literally the doors closed in front of us as we were waiting on the little platform to go up. An announcement was made, and they said something was wrong on the second floor (main viewing deck) and everybody had to leave.

I'm standing there, already writing a much nastier post than this one, in my head....

There's a bunch of commotion, as expected, so everyone kind of shuffles down and out, because they said we can get a refund or come back again in the afternoon when they could open again. But since Tessa and I pretty much dedicated this whole day to see the Eiffel Tower, we just sat down and started to read. They'd open eventually.

For an hour and a half we read and ate rations from our backpacks, sitting on the platform for the lift. During the first twenty minutes or so, everyone but two people eventually left the building. The two who stayed with us the whole time were an American couple, so I talked with them a bit, and we tried to figure out what was going on. The lift kept coming, but only bringing people down.

So after this hour and a half, they make the four of us go downstairs to the porch of the building, still shady, but no more A/C. See, it was sunny and hot out all day. Not that I was complaining about the heat of 85 degrees and no clouds...

And, well, we finally find out what happened. Some guy on the second floor was trying to jump. My animosity toward the whole situation immediately evaporated. 

The staff of the tower really were kind in the whole situation, and about 90% of the people did end up refunding. I don't know why the poor guy picked the one sunny day of the month to jump off the Eiffel Tower, but it wasn't really considerate of him. Anyway, as they were roping off sections of the square under the tower, we started wondering where you actually can jump off of...I mean, we did have a long time to contemplate all this. And I think they got him down because no police came or anything, it all ended quietly.

Eventually...we made it up to the top! And let me tell you, I was SO freaking out on the way up. Every 30 seconds or so i heard Tessa say, "Leah, unlock your knees."

The nice thing about having the Eiffel Tower emptied right before you go up...you're the first ones back and there's like no one up there! Which really reduces the chance of pickpockets and for sure makes it less crowded. We walked straight to the lift that goes to the very top, since the initial one only goes to the Jumping Guy floor.

Besides the complete terror and hyperventilating thing, it's really quite nice up there!! The day's heat turned to a nice breeze that high up, and I took lots of pictures once my sweaty hands managed to get the camera out of my bag. 

After about 15 minutes up there we descended back to Jumping Guy floor, which has shops, a restaurant, bathrooms, touristy things. More pictures, and I started to get a little used to the height. Fewer freaking out moments.

From this floor you can take the stairs down, so we did just that. It's 42 stories so it took a long time, but after all that waiting and standing and sitting, we figured we needed the exercise.

Today turned out a lot more interesting than we expected, so I'm sort of glad this post isn't just "Yay we went to the Eiffel Tower!" ;)

Tomorrow we are going on a tour of the Catacombs in the morning, and our flight leaves in the evening, to Estonia.

I remembered to take a lot of phone pictures this time:

"I'm going up that thing?"

I think this is from the top...?

From Jumping Guy floor:

Selfie with Tessa's fingers photo-bombing, which made me laugh:

This ice cream is three times more expensive as Cold Stone; the flavor was "biscuit" and it literally tasted like a tasty biscuit.