A World of Summer and Sunny Skies

9 Reasons this summer was my best one yet: 

(Beginning with top left...)

1. Getting the keys to my first big girl apartment
2. An impromptu trip to Le Claire, Iowa for antiquing and a visit the American Pickers shop
3. A tribute to the early 2000's via Jojo's free concert at Chicago Pride 
4. Many nights on the town with my sister and mom
5. Pancakes on pancakes on pancakes; lazy weekend mornings with the best boyfriend and roommate in all the land
6. Metal detecting adventures on the beach with said boyfriend
7. Family reunion trip to Table Rock lake
8. Finding reasons to celebrate (and pop open St. Germain and champagne) with my sister
9. Annual Shakespeare Fest at Ewing Manor with my best friends

Last Month Abroad

Today while visiting my Grandparents and their adorable new puppy, they asked me why I never wrote a last post from my trip abroad. I've been meaning to and I've already been back in the states for over two weeks so I figure now is a good time.

Grandparent's new puppy, appropriately named Molly as she was born on St. Patrick's day

 In all honesty, I spent my last month in Europe quite anxious to come home. If Peter could have moved there and brought a soda fountain (its only requirements being diet coke and ice), I could have happily stayed a lot longer. But I was eager to see him and my friends and time started moving so slowly. I did go on a couple more awesome trips though. Our last group trip was to Kutna Hora, a medieval Czech town home to a chapel decorated completely with human bones that had been dug up from the graveyard in the middle ages. So that was eerie and cool.

Kutna Hora Bone Chapel

The next weekend I was so happy to see my mom, sister, and aunt in Roma! My mom took my sister, who just graduated college (speaking of, you should follow her style and interiors blog, Fashion House), on a trip of her choice and she chose Italy, so I was able to meet them in Rome for a few days! We wondered leisurely through the city, stopping often for wine and cappuccinos. It was a great break from my college budget. We stayed in a cute apartment hotel off of Piazza Navona, ate plenty of gelato, and people watched in our little alley every night. From the highest point in Rome during a talk with my aunt, I became aware that the thing I love most about this city is its colors. Every building is earth toned, and none are more prominent than the others. All blend in a brown, burnt orange, rust mix and it is simultaneously striking and calming. I was sad to leave Italy and my family but only had two more weeks to go!

Abby, Mom, and Me in Piazza Navona 

Overlooking Rome from the highest point

I returned to Prague for my last week of classes then ventured to Oslo for my last trip. Getting there was a nightmare. I went with one friend and our plans to stay with friends studying in Oslo fell through so we booked a hotel half an hour before our bus left that morning. We had to take a bus to Berlin to catch a cheap Ryan Air flight, so we sat at the crappy Berlin airport for cheap airlines for 5 hours without free wifi and unable to afford expensive airport food. Mostly we passed the time by playing chess on our laptops. Upon landing in Oslo at midnight we discovered that we had to pay $20 to take an hour long bus ride into the city, where the metro lines were closed and our only option was to take a cab to our hotel 3 miles away. And that cab ride is where we learned the true meaning of being one of the most expensive cities in the world. Finally, we got to the hospital complex our hotel is supposedly in and after searching for 15 minutes we were able to settle in. We were staying in a hospital room turned hotel room complete with a handicap shower and toilet and an emergency call button by the bed. Anyway, Oslo redeemed itself the next day, proven first by the extensive (and free) breakfast buffet at the hotel. We spent our three days there walking around and exploring the cities parks, gardens, coasts, and museums, and as a result I can tell you that Oslo is a strange and beautiful place.

Me and the most famous sculpture in Oslo

Whats with the baby statues in Europe? This famous baby is one of three in front of the
Prague Contemporary Art museum

On my last day in Prague, my friends and I went hiking outside of the city. It was steep climbing and a fitting goodbye. Hills seemed to reappear constantly throughout my trip and I've learned that it is always worth it to climb them.

Disco Roller Derby and Holocaust History

Anyone who claims to be my friend probably knows about my love of pancakes and my embarrassing fascination with roller derby (which admittedly began after seeing the movie "Whip It." Who wouldn't want to be as cool as Ellen Page in that film?) That being said, this Saturday was one of the best days I have had in Prague. I slept in until 12 then my friends and I hit up Globe for brunch. Although this place is attached to an English bookstore and is pretty Americanized, the atmosphere is perfect for a Saturday afternoon brunch with the girls. The music was the best mix of soul and motown- Aretha Franklin, Mary Wells, Otis Redding and the like- and they had free ice water (!), real filtered coffee (!), and chocolate chip pancakes (!). My weekend could have ended after that meal and I would have been more than content. But that night I put on a sparkly dress and we went to a roller-skating disco party at a big arts complex called the MeetFactory. Two girls known as Poxxoxo DJs provided music as we skated around the warehouse singing and trying not to fall, mostly successfully.

This weekend was characterized by opposites. The Friday before this wonderful Saturday, the USAC group took a trip to Lidice and Terezin. Lidice is, or was, a town systematically destroyed by the Nazis in retaliation to the Czechs' assassination of the Nazi leader ordered to preside over Czechoslovakia. Now all that remains is a park with some memorial statues strewn throughout. Terezin was one of the "nicer" concentration camps, where Jews weren't treated quite as badly. I don't want to spend much time describing either of these places, not because they shouldn't be talked about but because I know I could never describe the things I saw or learned accurately. As much as language is the only medium we have to describe a thing or act as a representation, it does not have the capacity to in some situations. There is no way to explain the sadness and heavy energies in those places, so I will not try. Instead I will leave those moments to my memory in order to commemorate the world's enormous loss, and encourage anyone who has the chance to visit the places of the Holocaust and feel the haunting past.

Field Study Tour: Austro-Hungarian Empire in 5 Days

There is so much to tell but I'll try to keep it fairly short so as not to bore you. On March 30th most of the USAC group in Prague took off on our field study tour of Český Krumlov, Vienna, Budapest, and Bratislava. Our first stop was a few hours outside of Prague at Maiden's Castle. We had to hike through some woods and over some streams before we stumbled upon the ruins of the castle. It was a cloudy and chilly day, making the area even more intriguing. We continued to the medieval Czech town of Český Krumlov. The castle there is from the 13th century and has since been home to aristocracy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Rosenbergs lived there the longest but perhaps the most famous inhabitants were the Hapsburgs. The interior decor as well as the frescoes on the exterior are extremely well preserved, almost all the furnishings were originals. And bears have lived beneath the drawbridge for around 400 years. That night we ate at the Eggenberg brewery with the group then went on a night walk around the town. 

The next day we left for Vienna, our first stop was Schönbrunn Palace, the summer palace of the emperor. We strolled through the gardens for a while then had lunch and a historical walking tour of downtown Vienna. We were kind of rushed through the history and sites, I'd like to go back on my own sometime. After the tour, it was evening so most everything was starting to close, but we spent some time at the Easter markets. It started raining freezing rain and we were all pretty tired so we hung out in the hostel and ordered pizza that night. On Sunday, we walked around Vienna a bit more, through snow this time. Then we went to the Leopold Museum of art. Viennese museums are some of the best in the world and I really enjoyed this one. The main exhibit was Egon Schiele, on Melancholy and Provocation. There was also an exhibit on Gustav Klimt's life, but sadly, his painting The Kiss was not displayed there. After the museum, we got back not he bus and headed to Budapest. 

We stopped at a monastery in the Hungarian countryside and were given a tour by one of the Benedictine monks. The order has been around on the same hill for something like 1,000 years, and it was a very peaceful place. Next we arrived at our hotel in Budapest and I was immediately enamored with the city. The castle and Parliament building were lit up along the Danube, making this place look so majestic. Richard, one of our directors, is Hungarian and we very excited to be showing us is home. It was so cute- he was so proud of this city. We had a great dinner with really great Hungarian wine that night then took another night walk along the castle walls, looking out past the Danube and over all of Budapest. 

In the morning, we went to a bath at the natural hot springs. It was like a public swimming pool but mostly for old people in speedos. There were a few main pools in a the courtyard of a beautiful yellow building and more smaller pools inside. I had fun, but wasn't interested in staying there too long. My friends and I left the group and headed to the Easter Market. Seriously, these markets are so great all over Europe. There are tons of homemade crafts and antiques and delicious food and hot wine. Budapest's market was by far the best I've been to. After looking around for a bit, we met the group again for another walking tour. This time we climbed a huge hill with a giant statue on top representing the liberation of Budapest by Soviets from the Nazis. They kept the statue after the fall of communism but removed the Russian inscriptions. It really was a beautiful statue- it was of a woman holding a palm frond over her head, her dress waving in the wind behind her. That night I sat on some steps by the Danube with friends and shared a few bottles of wine. 

Tuesday morning, we drove to Bratislava and toured the city for a few hours. It looked a lot like Prague, but smaller. We stopped again on the way back to Prague at a castle ruin in Slovakia.

Spring Break: Istanbul, Athens, Holland, & Belgium

Apologies, this is going to be a long one.

I was so worried that the taxi I ordered online to take me to the airport the first morning of spring break wouldn't show up- I had to use google translate to order on a Czech website for 4:00 AM and they didn't send me any kind of confirmation. But because things usually work out, it did, and I arrived at the airport in time for my flight to Istanbul (by way of Brussels and Zurich)! Turkey is a place I've vaguely considered visiting since my World History class sophomore year of high school. I couldn't believe I was actually getting to go. All the flights went well, I met the rest of my group in Zurich (for the record, Swiss Airlines gives out some really great Swiss chocolate on board), and we landed in Istanbul at about 4:00 PM. We ate some kebab on the way to our hostel and since it took a while to find and we were all tired from traveling, settled in for the night.

Istanbul really is as beautiful as everyone's always said. The mosques are so ornate and unlike any architecture I've ever seen. Saturday we walked from our hostel down a main shopping street to Galata tower, a lookout tower built on the highest point of the city walls. From there we walked down across the bridge where fishermen were lined up shoulder to shoulder. Later on the way home, they were grilling and selling the freshly caught fish right behind them on the sidewalk. We kept walking, through the famous spice market, lined with barrels of spices and loose leaf tea, through winding streets of shops to the Grand Bazaar. Parts of Istanbul were like a giant garage sale- men selling drills and toilet seats and anything they could get their hands on. But the Grand Bazaar was filled with stalls of hand-painted pottery and dishes, silk scarves, handmade tapestries, rugs, bags, and my favorite, mosaic lamps. The lamp shops were mesmerizing. Luckily, my friend Rachel already brought me one back from her trip to Turkey last fall!

We walked to the Hagia Sophia from there. It was once a church and then became a mosque and is now a museum, open for people to walk through and gawk at the magnificent architecture, artwork, and hundreds of candles hanging from the ceiling. Because it has been both a church and a mosque, there was Islamic artwork and Ottoman style decor amidst Christian paintings of Mary and Jesus. It was an odd and peaceful conglomeration of religions and one of the most gorgeous interiors I have ever stepped foot in. The Blue Mosque was quite an experience too. We took off our shoes upon entering the giant room where all the walls were decorated with hand-painted tiles in different shades of blue and green. From there we went to Topkapi Palace and learned about the past Sultans and Harems. I didn't know about the Queen Mother or the concubines who were brought in from neighboring villages for the Sultan. It is such a foreign culture and history to me, I really enjoyed learning about it. The walls of the Palace were similar to the Blue Mosque, tiled and ornate.

Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia Interior

Blue Mosque

Blue Mosque Interior

On Sunday, we woke up around 9 with no plans because we had accomplished what we wanted to do the day before. We decided to go to the Asian side of Istanbul so we headed to the boat dock. We took a half an hour boat ride to Asia, stopped there for an hour, and then came back. Feels good to be able to say I've been to three continents! We had fresh mussels on the dock for lunch. Then we went to a mosque to see a Whirling Dervish ceremony. The Whirling Dervishes are an Islam group of monk-like men who recognize the rotational nature of life- the planets around the sun, electrons around an atom, and humans around a divine creator. They spin for an hour straight honoring submission to God and destruction of their own ego. The tall hats they wear represent a tombstone for the ego and their gowns, a shroud. It was such a different type of meditation. It was beautiful.

We flew from Istanbul to Athens on Monday. Once we got settled in at the hostel, we decided to climb Lykavittos Hill, the highest point in Athens. It was about a 20 minute walk (but after paying 8 euro to ride the metro earlier, we vowed to walk for the rest of the trip). We started climbing through lush trees and yellow flowers. Halfway up, we came out of a clearing and saw the acropolis across the city! We climbed the rest of the way and saw the cute white church and olive tree at the top. It was such a beautiful welcome to Greece.

View of Acropolis from Lykavittos Hill

Tuesday began with a trip to the archeological museum, where the statues and art from the acropolis and other locations around Greece has been moved. Then we walked to the center of it all, stopping first in the Roman Agora, the city center built during the Roman Empire. The Parthenon itself was exactly as I've imagined it. There is the theater of Dionysus on the South slope of the hill, I didn't know about that. It was really cool to see the spot where Sophocles' and Aristophanes' plays were first performed! We wandered around the acropolis ruins for the next few hours then found yet another hill to climb (we're really good at that). It turned out to be Filopappos Hill, where democracy was founded and first practiced. There was a podium build into the rocks where speakers like Pericles would have stood. We took a nap in the grass overlooking the Parthenon. Then we went to the first Olympic Stadium. At this point, we were all exhausted. We had a glass of wine near the acropolis so we could see it all lit up at night then headed for bed.

Parthenon

New day, new country! Wednesday I flew to Amsterdam to meet my parents and grandparents!! I was so excited to see them. We spent the first night in Amsterdam then rented a car and drove to Keukenhof, a beautiful park full of tulips and flowers in The Netherlands. It was such a nice day outside and the park was absolutely gorgeous to stroll around in. Afterwards, we drove through the town my stepdad used to live in, Wassenaar, when he worked overseas for CAT, to The Hague, where we spent the night. I've read/seen somewhere once that The Hague has one of the highest rates of overall happiness in the world. Maybe it's because everyone rides bikes, or because everything is legal in The Netherlands. We were really only there long enough to have a beer and people watch in a busy square then have some wine and cheese for dinner back at the hotel. We woke up early the next day and drove to Bruges, which turned out to be one of my favorite cities I've ever visited. It was such a quaint canal city with green spaces and adorably buildings and swans everywhere. I could've spent a week there just wandering around.

Bruges

The next day, Saturday, we drove to Brussels. Matt also lived near Brussels for a while so it was nice to have a tour guide. First we walked through the Grand Place, the central square with the old town hall and medieval houses. The architecture reminded me of Prague. We saw the Mannequin Pis statue after that, the famous small statue of a boy peeing into a fountain. He was wearing doctor scrubs that day. We strolled through more cathedrals and parks and saw the king's palace. I was becoming exhausted, ten days of traveling was starting to ware me down. I really enjoyed the city but didn't feel all there. On the way out of town the next day, we saw the Atomium, the sculpture built for the Belgian world fair. My friend Erin, who is an incredibly talented artist and lived in Brussels for a while, painted a picture of it once and I've always wanted to see the real thing.

Atomium

After spending a bit more time touring Amsterdam that day, I realized it really didn't do much for me. The buildings and canals are really pretty but it's not a place I need to go back to. We did visit the Anne Frank House and that was really sad and unreal, to be able to match the real place to the book everyone always reads. We had an amazing Thai dinner that night to celebrate my birthday and the next morning, I headed back home to Prague.

Berlin, Dresden, and a visit from Peter!

I have not been great at the upkeep of this blog, which I guess is a good thing if you consider it an indicator that I've been keeping myself busy. I'll try to stick with the interesting stuff and jump straight into my first trip to Germany! On March 2nd, we left on a bus to Berlin. Upon arrival, we stopped at a burger place on the way to our hostel called Burgermeister that I had read about. I had been craving a good burger and this place is supposed to have some really great, cheap ones. It is in a tiny little stall under some metro tracks with barely enough room to stand and eat. But it was the perfect welcome to Germany. We stayed at Plus Hostel and I wouldn't call it my favorite. It was huge and loud most of the night. The first day in Berlin, we went to all the main sightseeing stuff- Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial, Tiergarten, Checkpoint Charlie. That night we met one of my friend's friends who are studying in Berlin. They took us around the city a bit and had a drink with us.

Brandenburg Gate

We started the next morning by walking along the East Side Gallery which happened to be a short walk from our hostel. The Gallery is a remainder of the Berlin wall painted by artists from all over the world. Speaking of, Berlin has the best street art I've ever seen. We saw a lot of it when we took an alternative tour later that day. Our tour guide showed us great graffiti, artist hangouts, and we learned a lot about the underground culture of Berlin as well as the history of the city. It was a really good tour and I'm glad we did it. That afternoon we strolled through a street market and then met the group for some good German food. I had the best sausage and sauerkraut.

East Side Gallery

East Side Gallery

We woke up early the next morning and headed to Dresden. I've never heard much about Dresden besides that it was destroyed by the allies in WWII. I was not prepared for how beautiful this city was. We were able to walk everywhere efficiently with the short day we had. The city center is home to gorgeous churches, an opera house, and many old palaces turned museums. I could have wandered there for days. Our hostel was in a really cool neighborhood with lots of young people and hip shops (also the highest birth rate in all of Europe according to the internet!). We left Dresden the next morning and headed back to Prague.

Dresden

Dresden

From the bus station in Prague I went straight to the airport to pick up Peter who flew over to spend his spring break with me!! I can't describe how torturous it was watching every person come out of that terminal and waiting for one of them to be him or how wonderful it was to finally hug him. Throughout the week we visited all the must see sights of Prague- Old Town, Charles Bridge, The Castle, Vysehrad, The Dancing House, Petrin Hill, Wenceslas Square, etc. We went to a different bar every night. We saw a documentary about Chernobyl at the Jeden Svet (One World) Film Festival. We went to a club. We ate a lot of pastries. He ate a lot of fried cheese. It was one of the best weeks of my life and I feel so lucky to have been able to see him in the middle of these four months (and to have the most wonderful boyfriend to exist).

This week I'll be busy studying for midterms but I leave for Istanbul Friday! From there I'll be in Athens for a couple days then I'll fly to Amsterdam to tour Belgium and the Netherlands with my mom, stepdad, and grandparents! How lucky can a girl get?

Warsaw

There is so much to say, and I don't think I'll be able to accurately convey how great the past couple of weeks have been.

Swan Lake was such a gorgeous ballet and the opera house was just as beautiful. We ended up buying tickets for the opera, La Boheme, the next week. The glassblowing trip was also fun- we were able to make our own vases and watch the artists at work for a while.

Glassblowing

Classes flew by last week because I was so excited for our trip to Poland. Six of us left Thursday on a night bus from Prague and 12 hours later arrived in Warsaw. It was only 9 AM and we couldn't check into our hostel until 3 so we spent the first day wandering. We got doughnuts at a cafe on Nowy Swiat street, which, as multiple people told us while we were there, is the "most representative street of Warsaw." From there, we walked until we reached Old Town and then explored that area. Snow was coming down lightly all day and made Warsaw look even more beautiful. We couldn't go the whole first day in Poland without pierogi so we stopped in a restaurant to have some for lunch. By 5 or so we were exhausted- none of us had gotten much sleep on the bus ride there- so we headed to our hostel. I had made plans earlier to meet Peter's (my boyfriend's) cousins who live in Warsaw that night. Dominika, Zuza, and Filip, who are all around my age, picked us up from the hostel at 9 and took us to a cute bar/cafe on Nowy Swiat. We had a really great time with them, and they invited us to a party at their friend's house the next night. So after a few beers and a lot of good conversation, we headed back to Hostel Krokodyl for a short night's sleep.

Old Town

Our first stop the next day was Palace on the Water which is a wonderful park/palace complex with the friendliest wildlife you will ever meet. At one point, a squirrel was sitting so close to us and staring at us so we started to inch closer to take pictures. Then, the prettiest bird perched on a branch right next to us at eye level. We were distracted for a brief second by the bird when the squirrel took a flying leap on to my friend's thigh. We were not prepared for that, nor for the multiplicity of peacocks strolling around so closely to people. It was really quite strange. The palace itself was a romanesque building situated on a lake with bridges and outbuildings all around. I'd love to go back in the summer. After the park, we had lunch at another small cafe (more pierogi), and then went to the Warsaw Uprising Museum. The museum was extremely well put together, and just as depressing as you can imagine. There was a short 3D film that showed an aerial view of Warsaw after it was demolished in World War II. Over half of the population was wiped out, and the entire city center was destroyed. The amount of work put into rebuilding Warsaw is absolutely incredible.

Palace on the Water

Later that night, Peter's cousins picked us up again from the hostel and drove us to their friends house. The party was in the basement, which was actually a Lamaze studio that his parents owned. It was pretty strange to see pictures of babies everywhere and dance on a cushion floor surrounded by beanbag chairs and bouncy balls and shelves lined with baby dolls, but hilariously fitting in comparison to all the other odd things that happened during this trip (i.e. Snow White-esque wildlife experience). All of our new friends at the party welcomed us with Polish vodka shots and the rest of the night was filled with dancing and lively conversation. And not American club style dancing, but Samba ballroom style. Everyone knew how to dance and everyone was amazing at it. It was one of the best nights I have had in the past month abroad.

We were so sad to leave Warsaw the next day. Everyone we had met in the city had been so kind to us- the waiters, strangers on the street, everyone at the party. It was a huge contrast to the way people seem in Prague. We visited the Wilanow Palace on Sunday, which is known as the Polish Versailles. Then we headed to catch the Polskibus back to Prague.

One last story to complete the trip:
The bus had no bathroom, so it would stop every 3 or 4 hours for a break. The first stop on the way home however, 4 hours in, had no bathroom. So everyone is filing off the bus, scattering to corners of this truck stop parking lot at midnight, and everyone knows what everyone else is doing. (Why would a bus with no bathroom stop at a rest stop with no bathroom??!) I find a dark place behind a semi with 2 of my friends, and a Polish woman comes around the truck, looks at us, we look back awkwardly, and she says, "Ok, I will join." And that was that, she squatted down right next to me and we all finished and never saw each other again.

Until next time, Poland.