Category Archives: Student Travel

Trek to Zambia: Crocs,Emergency Exits and drug reactions

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Today we had to get up at 4 a.m.. When I woke up at 4 a.m. to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat, I was cheerful. When I woke up to beat the crowds to the Taj, I was ecstatic.  When I woke up this morning in cold South Africa for 13 hours of travel, I was not. But I knew at the end of the day I would be in ZAMBIA, so I drug my body out of bed for my morning workout, cursing the macchiato and starry night sky that kept me up far past midnight last night.

But I love macchiatos and starry night skies.

Our driver insisted on cranking up the AC because of the heavy morning fog on the Eastern Cape. I was already shivering, but the wall of white outside my window and occasional massive truck careening by on the “wrong” side of the road convinced me to keep my complaints to myself. I value my life more than a few fingers lost to frost bite.

We arrived at the airport after two hours and I stumbled into a breakfast place. I thought my eyes were messed up, but the menu really did say “macon and banana French toast.” At the moment, I felt equally up to eating a mid-sized city in Georgia as about anything else, so I ordered it. I later learned that macon is basically bacon made of mutton. This was a troubling revelation.

The next ten hours of travel were uneventful. Planes are much the same the world over. The only significant difference is the language they announce the rote seat belt and emergency exit script. One strange thing in South Africa is that they take the exit row seats VERY seriously. They had Dr. B. leave her exit row seat and go up to the main door to practice opening it and receive drilling on how to check for flames:

“Look outside. If you see smoke, do not open. Cross your arms on your chest and say ‘blocked exit.’”

Why is it that you feel much less safe after someone has taken obvious pains to make your safety a priority?

Arriving in Zambia was terribly exciting. For the first time, I really felt like I was back in Africa. I love it here. The airport was hot and crowded with people waiting to pay $50 for a visa. There was the distinct body odor of lots of heat and little deodorant. Everything was slightly dusty and slightly dated in the late afternoon light. There were long lines and a massive amount of people waiting in the diplomat line who were clearly not diplomats. I felt like I was coming home. My bags looked like they had been through it and were ready to go home.

We walked out into the hotter heat just in time to see our shuttle pulling away. I dropped everything and took out after it like I was a teenage girl who had just spotted Justin Bieber’s tour bus. No use. Feeling absurdly happy for someone who had just missed her ride, I got into a light blue taxi that agreed to take us the 30-some minutes to our hotel in the government district of Lusaka. We rolled down the windows for A.C., and I promptly got dust and at least one small insect blown forcefully into my eyes. Sunglasses. Oh! Here is Zambia!

Double bikers (Zambians are by far the best I’ve seen at this. Some can swing three to a bike. I want lessons), lavender jacaranda trees, street vendors–heaven. When we arrived at the hotel, we went to the bank to convert dollars to kwacha since very few ATMs take Mastercard here. The current exchange rate is roughly 5,000 kwacha to a dollar, meaning I left the bank feeling like an heiress.

After grappling with my air conditioner for about 30 minutes, it made a lovely purring noise and came to life. I got to Skype home, which was wonderful. I also got to go downstairs for some dinner. To Westerners, everything about this hotel would seem normal except for the fact that you eat around a pond with little baby crocodiles in it. I admit to checking around my ankles several times during my meal.

I was thrilled to find a workout room and beautiful pool, as well. Opting for a run, I felt like Supergirl for about five minutes until I remembered that everything was in kilometers. Oh well. Back at the hotel room, I began to break out in rashes on my arms and legs. This happened to me once before. I’ve learned that I sometimes react to my malaria meds with rash and nausea. Lovely, right?

All things considered, however, a day that I began shivering on the tip of the continent and ended roasting in the interior wasn’t half bad.

I love Africa.

 

Drinking cow blood, clicking tongues and jumping castles

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That lightheaded feeling you get when you are suddenly airborne in the morning? Few things make you feel so alive. I’ve begun the last few mornings flying along the Western Cape of South Africa in the back seat of a car. The car has “Jumping Castles” printed on the side for some unexplained reason. Girls get the back seat here. That means that Mulenga and Justina (two lovely young ladies from Zambia accompanying us in South Africa) and I got the rumble seats. We are all petite, but our heads still hit the car roof on several occasions.

Did I mention that Justina is 7 months pregnant with a very large baby boy?

Every time our Xhosa driver, laughing and clicking in his AMAZING language, hit a pothole, Justina clutched her swollen belly, laughing. I felt obliged to remind Juan (the baby already has a name) that it was not the time or place for an early arrival.There was no room for him in the back seat.

We discussed the Botswana president and his recent crack down on media while we drove from Port Alfred, where we are staying, to Grahamstown, the primary city of British settlement in the area. In Grahamstown, we are American International Health delegates to the Highway Africa Media Conference at Rhodes University. Our friend from Botswana rode shotgun.

Back to the Botswana president.

“He wants to eradicate poverty,” our Botswana friend said. “Not reduce it, but eradicate it.” Chuckles filled the bouncing castle car.Then he delivered the punchline: “He wants to do this through backyard gardens.”

All of the Africans in the van burst into laughter.

Many Xhosa live on the Eastern Cape, including our driver. When the British arrived in the Grahamstown area in the 1820s, the Xhosa were already here. The British seemed to have a special interest in the warlike Zulu more than the Xhosa. A  prophecy from a young Xhosa girl convinced many of the Xhosa to slaughter their own cattle, and the resulting food shortage reduced their numbers terribly. According to one book I’ve been reading, Making Empire by Richard Price, this contributed to the British ceasing to pay attention to the Xhosa chiefs as a serious threat. With typical British irony, Hall writes that “this  was to prove something of an error” since Mandela is Xhosa.  I love hearing the Xhosa people speak. I do not love trying to pronounce their names. This usually involves someone bursting into riotous laughter, me getting flustered and trying harder, me spitting on myself and anyone near me in the process, and at least one Xhosa clicking gratuitously to rub it in.

Our hotel in Port Alfred sits in the midst of a set of canals and residences that looks exactly like a resort community in Florida. I have a beautiful, large room that opens on the canals. The locks on my patio are somewhat shady, so I’ve had trouble falling asleep in the big room all to myself. But, in the morning, I get to wake up to weaver birds chirp outside of my door. Weaver birds make nests that look a bit like gourds. The males are responsible for weaving. During the spring (which is right now here), the females inspect their work. If they don’t like it, the males must destroy their work and start again. There are lots of busy males and choosey females outside of my door.

The water is undrinkable, not because it is contaminated, but because it is brackish. The gorgeous Cape Coast is tantalizingly close. Today I went for a wonderful stroll along the beach and got to dip my feet in the Indian Ocean. It’s hard to convince me to dip much more than my feet right now, partially because it is cold outside and partially because world-class Great White Shark diving is a big South African attraction.The Eastern Cape almost feels like rural England. The familiar townships on the outside of town would seem out of place in pastoral England, however. They form a stark contrast to the wealthy, British-styled main towns of Port Alfred and Grahamstown.

At the conference, I’ve gotten to hear from media communicators from India, China, Ukraine, Brazil, Russia, Britain, the U.S.A, and dozens of African countries. Hearing from female journalists from Sudan was a highlight for me.

So little of the world has a free press. It’s an awesome opportunity to hear from people who come from countries with restricted speech. In much of the world, regular censorship and oppression are commonplace, even in countries with healthy economies and stable governments.

It is ironic for me, the student delegate who has been drilled in the American journalistic principles of the sacred deadline, to find sessions regularly run over a half-hour to one hour behind, tea breaks interrupt the day until people mosey back together, and there is too often no working internet.

The most interesting discussion of the conference so far was an intense conversation on the role of media in development. It turned into a fascinating argument between an Indian media activist, BBC aid official, Afghanistan aid worker, World Bank representative, award-winning Ghanaian broadcaster, and a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation worker. The fundamental disagreement was that aid organizations and donors wanted to work on finding unobtrusive ways to evaluate aid effectiveness while others thought that this evaluation was a form of Western control.

Today I got to drive to East London to meet up with a community health-based NGO and talk about how media projects might help their work. They have streamlined a traditional Xhosa notion of communities talking together and working out their problems. By having specially organized community brainstorming sessions, they are trying to shift civic responsibility back to the people and to challenge the people to not rely on the government to fix their problems. The NGO theme is “Subject to Citizen.” It seems to be working.

Meals have been delicious. Sunday night Dr. Barnes and I ate at an African chain called Spur. Interestingly enough, it is Native American themed. We talked for a long time about sailing in the Bay of Naples and watching plays in London while eating southwestern food in South Africa. I found this hilarious. Last night we had a meal put on by the Highway Africa Conference–including live music and dinner running over an hour behind. On the way back, I fell asleep looking at the southern hemisphere stars in the rumble seat of the jumping castles car. I woke up to Mulenga and Justina debating over whether or not the Zambian chief in their home area really drinks the cow’s blood when he performs a religious ceremony.

My word.

Tonight we have an early bed, because we are leaving at 4:30 a.m. for ZAMBIA!!!!

I’m going back to Africa!

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UPDATE: I’ve safely arrived in Johannesburg! The flight went surprisingly fast for me, but not for the four babies strategically placed in front, behind and beside me. I’ve been up for well over 20 hours at this point, but feel pretty good all things considering. I do think I need some sleep though: I started tearing up while watching Tarzan on the plane. I don’t know. Momma gorilla just got me. It was embarrassing in front of the stewardess. Sad movies we should never show our children  aside (no wonder the babies kept crying) I feel very blessed and incredibly happy to be back in South Africa almost exactly one year after my first visit. Unbelievable. 

In a few hours, I fly to Africa. I’ve gotten several confused questions about where on earth I’m going for 18 days, probably because I’ve been in a study coma trying to get everything done in order to leave. The few times I have emerged from my bedroom to reload on tea and chocolate, I have been unrecognizable to the outside world in an oversized hoodie, knee socks, and a wide-eyed, haunted expression. It hasn’t been pretty.  But I really am done and going to Africa now.

This all came about rather suddenly a few weeks ago.  Let me recreate the scene for you….

A child tugs on my sleeve as I stand on the pool deck. “Miss Martha, why is he changing on the pool deck during practice? I saw PARTS.”

I absent-mindedly look up to confirm that, yes, there is, in fact, a young buck changing on the deck in the middle of practice, and my mouth formulates the response, “I don’t know, dear. I’m sorry you had to see that.” My mind drifts away to distant lands and the travels I was planning at this point last year. Shortly afterward, an unexpected call from a favorite professor interrupts my day-dreaming to ask me if I am interested in accompanying her on a trip to Africa. Even favorite professors sometimes ask silly questions.

I will be attending a journalism conference in South Africa (Highway Africa 2012), teaching a journalism course while in Zambia, and maybe even spending a few days on a game drive in Mfuwe. To say I am excited is a severe understatement–sort of like when I said, “this is scaring me” while I was watching Psycho.

After receiving final confirmation that I’d really be going, I was doing the travel dance (a happy combination of making airplane wings, stamping imaginary passport books, snapping fake pictures and rolling luggage), when I jolted to a stop. AFRICA. SHOTS. Then I smugly remembered that I got that hellish business done last summer. Ha! Take that Yellow Fever! In case you want to read about the traumatic experience of getting vaccinations for my trips to Ghana and South Africa last year, click here.

Now that we have gotten rid of all of the people who secretly wanted to see me suffer through five massive needles loaded with small doses of diseases that could kill me thrust into my arm, we can continue.

My next  travel dance interrupter was the realization that I will be teaching classes on newspaper design taught on some new Mac computers that will arrive at my destination before I do. For 5 hours a day. If you know me at all, you can see why this is a roadblock. My battle with technology is rivaled only by the personal vendetta Macs seem to have against me. My first experience with a Mac occurred in college when I sat down on my first day as an editor at the school paper and asked my boss why the mouse had no buttons. I should have called the mouse a rat right then and there. It was a long haul.

Macs don’t have shortcuts. But we all pretend like they do. “Oh, you want to do that? Don’t click it. Just hit Apple+backslash+Z+shift.” The resulting finger aerobics are just a way Apple figured out to make your fingers burn calories. This is one of the many reasons I feel entitled to have chocolate after using a Mac. 

I totally understand not quickly grasping things like clicking and dragging. Why? Because someone had to be really patient with me (Ok, so it took more like an entire newspaper staff).

I really hit it off with girls I have met from Zambia. We talked journalism,travel, school, babies, clothes, food and men. I think we covered the basics. They tried their first American pizza, and I tried my first Nyanja word. They were more successful than I was.

The last interrupter to my travel dance was the idea of being in the air for 18 hours to get to my destination, then over 19 to get home. I’m not super good on planes. That’s part of the reason I did all of the traveling last year by ship. There is just this idea that I can’t get out of my head that I have a better shot at swimming away from a sinking ship than crashing from 20,000 feet into the water, then swimming away. Add this to the fact that Delta recently made headlines when flights to Amsterdam reported needles (!) in several passengers’ sandwiches  (as if airline food couldn’t get any worse), and that our flights were originally scheduled on Delta through Amsterdam. I think we already covered the fact that I am afraid of needles. Needles, flying over the Atlantic, AND airline food? Sign me up for another 19 hours, please! 

I know very little about Zambia except that I think its shape looks like a lion typing on a typewriter and it boasts Victoria Falls and a history with David Livingstone. Oh, and that it entered the 1964 Olympics as Northern Rhodesia and exited as Zambia. I have never been to the regions of South Africa we will be seeing…so you can expect lots of random information as I learn. Get ready…

I’ve got 12 hours of classes to keep up with at U.K. while I’m gone, or I won’t graduate in December; I don’t know how many students I will have in Zambia, what they will be expecting, or how their English will be; one of my classes at home has 15 required books to read, and I’m going to dislocate an elbow if I do any more writing tonight, but I don’t care. Tomorrow I’ll be back in Africa!

When in Rome: Gladiators, Bones, and Sleeping in a Toga

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My prediction was correct: I slept like a Roman soldier after a full day of battle. That’s good, because my rations were something like a soldier’s this morning– bread and butter—and we headed first to the Colosseum.

We went to the Termani station via metro then got a 25 Euro pass that would give us unlimited transport for the three days and entrance into 2 sites. We got it from some young guys at a make-shift table, so we momentarily feared it wasn’t legit. We plotted and schemed to work out the best way to do this and decided to use the Colosseum/Forum combo ticket as our fist “site.”

At the Colosseum, the young ticket guy gave me a “Ciao Bella.” If every day started that way, I don’t think I’d ever have a bad one. But now, about the Colosseum. What did I think of it?

Something any reader of the blog should know (and probably already picked up on about me) is that I have, at times, a painfully vivid imagination. Historical sites provide a mind used to operating on so much less too much fodder. I think that’s why I love history so much—I can imagine the things that happened back into reality. Well you don’t want to do that at the Colosseum. It’s a really horrible place.

Popular knowledge already knows a lot about the Colosseum. I think it hold some form of personal connection to us despite its grotesqueness. We can all (and especially those of us born in the Big Blue Nation) understand the thrill of gathering communally for sporting events. And in a time and place in which most males now type or click with their hands rather than till or ax, there is an appeal capitalized upon by movies like “Gladiator” and “Spartacus” to the opportunities for heroism in times gone by. My understanding of the Colosseum ends there.

I grappled how many people could derive pleasure from watching othesr being torn apart as I walked the colossal tiers. Do we still like gore that much? Is that why we watch violence in movies? I really don’t know. I just think it’s interesting that other places where thousand of people died are walked by somber people remembering, and the Colosseum is pack with posing couples, clamoring kids, and Romans dressed up as centurions–you can pay for a picture with them. It’s impossible for me to go to a place like the Colosseum without thinking about the people who died there and the way  people cheered and watched—and finding a little of myself in them.

Ok. Enough seriousness. Upstairs there was an exhibit on Nero. It’s tagline was part of a current Rome-citywide special with a message that meant something like, “Hey! Meet Nero! He may have killed his mom, built a massive palace for himself, killed thousands of people and maybe torched Rome, but he’s a complex, misunderstood, and otherwise great guy.”

Post trip update: Those Romans who were posing in front of the Colosseum? Well they got busted for being in a GANG the day I left Rome. Check it out: http://news.yahoo.com/rome-police-arrest-colosseum-gladiator-gang-000250682.html

The Colosseum itself it huge, but not overwhelmingly so to people used to going to events in modern stadiums. The second floor is of course gone now, revealing chambers below from animals. Part of the floor is reconstructed so you can see what the surface people fought upon (and from which blood was collected and sold—turns out “bloodthirsty” Romans literally drank blood. Sick.) looked like.

You can also see an epic entrance to the arena—it must have been utterly overwhelming to walk into that space.

After the Colosseum, we went to the Forum. Let’s be real: the Forum is a lot of rubble. It is  lot of very important rubble though. We spent forever there and saw a lot, so I’ll give you the abbreviated, most important piece of ancient real estate 411. We saw Agustus’ house, the home of the Vestal Virgins, the old Senate building and lots of other things.

After the Forum, we went to the National Museum. It had some really amazing Roman sculptures including the familiar discus thrower.

After yet another  4-story museum, however, we were exhausted.  We blazed on  to the Church of Santa Maria Vittoria to see the Ecstasy of St. Theresa—a Bernini sculpture. Then we rode the metro to Santa Maria di Popolo to see two Caravaggios—the crucifixion of St. Peter and Paul on the Road to Damascus. Caravaggio’s dark backgrounds make his figures stand out vividly.

After marking our required sights off the list for the day, we parted ways. I hurried to the Capuchin Crypt to see it before closing. You would be proud. I rode the metro and used my street map to get there with time to spare. The crypt was bizarre to say the least. The walls are completely covered in skulls and various bones. If it’s not strange enough to keep human bones lying around; its even more bizarre to get all creative and use them to decorate. The last room had a particularly calcium-rich display and a placard that read: “As you are now, so once were we. As we are, so too will you be.” Or something like that.

True, but I am alive now, so I prepared to make the most of it. With another trek. I peeked into the church above the packed Crypt to see a nearly empty mass going on. It made me sad to see so few people.

My overly ambitious map analysis got me in trouble again. I saw the Vittorio Emanuel on the map and walked to it. It is a seriously over the top memorial. On my way back to the hotel to meet Claire, I stopped by my beloved Trevi.

Post-Trevi, I got a bit turned around in a poorly-marked neighborhood with some nice restaurants. A young waiter saw that I was looking at my map from across the street and said “Buona sera.” I kept walking and ignored him until he said good evening and then I felt badly. He crossed the street and asked me where I was going, then showed me how to get there. As I was walking away, he said “I’ll see you later for dinner. Beautiful ladies like you eat free.” I should have asked him if beautiful (i.e. sweaty, dirty, and tousled) like me could eat free right then… I was famished.

Instead, I met up with Claire who laughed and kept calling me “Pink One.” Earlier that day, one of the ever-present purse salesmen had attempted to get my attention by saying: “Hey! Pink One! [I was in a pink dress] Pretty Eyes! You like my bag?” Mercy.

I was rather devastated to find that the maid had purloined my chocolate back at the hotel. I know the poor maids get blamed for every tourist’s missing items, but I dissected every one of my few items in the small room. You don’t understand. Chocolate is like gold to me. So we walked to a supermarket where I got some chocolate biscotti cookies.

When we got back to our hotel, we learned from the concierge that we could plug our laptop into a cable in the wall of a closet in the lobby to access the internet. We did so to research a random beach. I had recommended Gaeta, and Claire had discovered Sperlonga, a slightly less-crowded proximate. We looked on blogs describing how to get there and decided a get away was in order in the midst of our get away.

I dropped my PJs in the water after showering. The thing with traveling is that you have no backups. I am running out of clean clothes so I will sleep in a toga made of the wrap I bought to wear into the churches. Very Roman, right?

Carnies and things going wrong in Vienna

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Today several things went pretty wrong, but one thing was very right: I started the day with a giant pastry filled with chocolate.

Because we took a wrong turn getting to the station to catch our train to Vienna, though, we couldn’t eat it for awhile.  Mistake No. 1. The second mistake is that I wore my luggage, which can be converted to a backpack or wheeled along, on my back. It was so heavy that I kept almost falling backward on the escalator in the underground station. Don’t laugh. It’s terrifying to have a pack that weighs 50 percent of your body weight on your back.

Our train was an old one with little compartments to sit in. We had one to ourselves for most of the ride so we could enjoy our chocolate bliss. The train  windows were open, which always makes the ride feel a lot wilder and faster. It was rocking quite a bit, too,  so it felt a bit like a train gone wild. To add to this feeling, when I flushed the train toilet, I saw tracks speeding by about 12 feet below me. Yes. The toilets empty onto the tracks.

Four hours later, we were in Vienna, Austria. The problem was that Vienna has several train stations. We knew what ours was called and stayed on the train waiting for it. Mistake No. 3. Turns out the train we were on doesn’t stop at that particular station, and we were  now on a train speeding past Vienna. The conductor informed us of this fact. We also learned that the next station was 20 minutes away, and if we made a transfer in 4 minutes, we could be back on a train going in the opposite direction (back to Vienna).

We made our transfer despite me being ridiculously back/top heavy, but in the the shuffle our reservation paperwork for later in the trip was dropped between the back of one of the seats and some plastic. The space was way too small for a hand, but we sure tried. Mistake No. 4 (is that how many we are up to?). The train agent was coming by to stamp our tickets, and panic was setting in. I finally grabbed  a pencil from my bag and managed to fish them out.

Finally, we made it to Vienna. The weather was chilly, and we bought a transport card (10 euros for unlimited rides for 48 hours) and found our hostel. The Do Step Inn is quite  nice for a hostel.

By now it was about 4 0′clock. We found a grocery and then had a picnic in front of the Albertinum.  I used my insurance card as a knife/spreader for the brie and rolls we had purchased.

With a little over an hour left before closing, we went into the Albertinum. It was a great museum. Upstairs were some impressionists, downstairs were some underwhelming ink blot drawings, and in between were the Hapsburg apartments. These gorgeous rooms were decked out so beautifully that we thought they beat Versailles. One ballroom was lined with statues of the muses. We waltzed around the empty room and tried to identify which was which (I’m getting so much better at mythology after all of this art).

After closing down the Albertinum, we went to St. Stephen’s Cathedral. This place has an awesome roof. It’s difficult to describe, so you should look it up. We were walking around quietly watching the locals have their evening mass, when I looked over at a sweet elderly woman lighting a remembrance candle. Suddenly the candle belched this 3 foot flame. I’m talking about those little tea candles that usually blow out as soon as you light them. It was crazy and once I saw that her eyebrows were intact, I started doing that awful laughing thing where you don’t want to do it out loud and are choking yourself. I made eye contact with another guy who was cracking up, or I would have thought I was seeing things.  I made a fast exit, the mood spoiled.

I was so freaked out.

Almost everything was closed, so we headed to the Prater, an old carnival with a famous archaic Ferris wheel. Before I proceed, let me tell you something about myself that will help you appreciate my experience: I am afraid of carnivals and hate /fear clowns to the point that I’m almost a caulrophobic. I call carnivals “carnies” out of spite.

This particular carny is old. Thus, the rides were old. The only thing more troubling than a carny to me? One with ancient rides that could break at any minute or launch you into space. We were pretty entertained watching the crazy rides that were a bit too extreme for comfort.

It was a fun way to end the day.

Czeching out

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We had a hard time getting up this morning, because the German guys in the room next to us thought something was funny–all night long.

They also got up to leave at 5 a.m. …or maybe they didn’t bother going to sleep at all. With all the clubs and discos, Prague never sleeps anyway.

I had a mysterious pastry we had purchased at the train station for 40 crowns the night before. Before you panic, there are about 17 crowns to a U.S. dollar. This made for confusing conversions all day. You feel like a high roller spending 2000 crowns for two nights in your posh (not) hostel, then realize that that is a little over $130.

We walked up the river to the Charles Bridge–probably Prague’s most iconic site. It’s one of several bridges in the area…there is one not too far away that people bungee jump off of. This brings me to my next point:

You might expect that a formerly communistic country would be–well–up tight. Prague is rather lax. Bungee jumping fits right in with the bar hopping, legal prostitution, widespread Absinth sales (Absinth drinks, foods, chocolates, ice creams) and table dancing. There are random pits in the street, and we watched a biker attempt to outrace a speeding tram–in front of the tram. Don’t worry, he succeeded.

This modern story fits right in with the town’s history, because this is where the Defenestration of Prague took place. In case you aren’t up on the word “defenestration” it means falling out of  a window. Yup, they pushed some poor guy out of a window, and it helped start the 30 Years’ War. An overreaction? Maybe. But it also apparently started a history of taking no safety precautions. “A window pane? Please. And this ledge 70 feet above the ground looks like a good place to sit in this crowded room full of my enemies.”

Ok. Back to the Charles Bridge. The bridge is lined with huge statues and some vendors. We were out early, so we basically had it to ourselves. We crossed the bridge and headed up to the Prague Castle at the top of a hill.

We paid for a tour of the castle, which first involved a gorgeous church called St. Vitus. The glass was probably quite recent compared to most of what we’ve been seeing; it was so colorful and illuminated the walls in pinks and purples.

Next, we walked to the part of the complex that used to be a convent. It was simple, old and lovely. It became a convent in 973, and the princess-abbess was a role closely connected to the royal throne.

The palace itself had a beautiful ceiling, and we also saw the window where the defenestration took place. They had reproductions of King Wencesles’ crown that greatly excited some of the tourists who had opted to pay 50 crowns to photograph it. I wasn’t one of them.

The Golden Lane was a darling part of the castle complex with medieval store fronts. There are adorable shops with Czech crafts downstairs and amour exhibits/ a long skinny shop where you could pay to shoot a crossbow upstairs (there’s that safety issue again. Does it sound smart to shoot a crossbow indoors with about 40 feet of space? No. But does it sound awesome? YES!).

After the castle, we were hungry. We had only snacked since breakfast  the day before. So, we crossed back over the bridge and promptly got lost.

We found a place offering Czech goulash and dumplings  and apple strudel for desert for 160 crowns. We went in and it was deserted except for a parakeet in the corner. We had the pleasant courtyard to ourselves! The waiter was the sweetest, the food was delicious (though the meat they serve is pretty darn fatty. yuck), there was free water and they played American music.

Revived like those species of snakes that go several days without food then have a massive meal, we walked to the market square where a famous astronomical clock doesn’t do much. We kept wandering, walking through a beautiful art deco district full of expensive shops like Prada gucci and some places I didn’t recognize, so I know they were probably pricey. I wanted to visit the Old Jewish Cemetery, which is full of awesome tombstones, but you have to buy a pass that includes several synagogues. Smart, but the priciest graveyard I’ve ever seen.

We went back to the hostel for a while to enjoy the free wifi before going out for an evening stroll. We walked back to the Charles Bridge and to the clock tower. Prague is known for its art by Mucha. I think there is a museum which we would have gone to if we had had more time. Instead, Claire and I picked out postcards with our favorite pieces by him. You can see his same style on many of the buildings.

Somewhere in one of the streets made lively by musicians, we smelled something delicious: Trdelnik, a pastry that looks like an edible slap bracelet. Wallachians from Romania brought the recipe with them when they moved to Bohemia. Unleavened dough is wrapped around a rod and turned over the fire, then rolled in sugar and cinnamon.  People were boating and a street musician with a great voice was singing in a Biergarden in English. Later on, back at the hostel, I got to live chat with my family online. Great day.

Catching trains, chasing cops

Posted on by under Student Travel, Travel

This morning we winged it.

We hoped onto a train to Dresden with no reservation. Doing this is perfectly normal, but a bit risky. If someone with a reservation arrives for your seat, you could end up standing. Not a big deal unless your ride is several hours long, like ours was.

The train was a study in human culture, with screaming Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts with packs bigger than they were, bikes, bikers, backpackers, Asian tourists and average Germans looking annoyed at the odd riff raff on their train.

I kept getting bumped further back into the train. No big deal, but the connection between cars is terrifying. You can see the tracks flying beneath you and the air sucks up like a suction cup. Bad news when you’re in a dress.

ANYWAY, the train was empty in the back enough for me to sit down, but I had to sit next to these thoroughly smelly backpackers. They were laughing and making eyes at me and speaking in German. If I had known how to say, “Are you serious?” in German, I would have. I think my face speaks German, because they fell asleep and left me to listen to music, read my Bible and enjoy the smell of their filthy bodies while speeding through the beautiful German countryside.

When I think of Dresden, I just think of the horrible bombing it suffered in WWII. Not the best candidate for prettiest city, right? Well it was gorgeous. We started out at the Zwinger Gallery, which is one of the sites on my 1000 Places to See Before You Die Calendar. I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, but it was nice to cross it off the list, just the same.  It’s a palace-looking complex full of paintings.

We couldn’t take pictures, so I kept repeating the names of the artists I liked in my head over and over until I could get to my notebook. It went something like “Carpaccio Christ smiling, Rembrandt ghost, Lorrain mythological scene, and da Carpi remorse.”

I didn’t have to remember Raphael’s Sistine Madonna because it is one of my favorite paintings, and I listed it as one of the paintings I wanted to see on my scholarship application for this trip.

Post-Zwinger, we saw the Semper Opera House, then went on to the Albertinum. That’s kind of a strange museum. You jump periods from one room to the next. It’s about as jarring as a time machine.  We saw more Friedrich, Dix, Degas and a room of Max Slevogt, whose “Sudanese Women” was also on my application list.

We stood looking at a large mirror for a long time trying to figure out if the artist had done anything to it other than buy it and cut it into a square. I don’t think he had.

Done with time to spare, we decided to cross the  Elbe river and explore New Town. We watched kids play with bubbles, then played on a playground that  had a spinning thing that goes super fast and is brutal to jump off of. Just saying.

Next we hit up a Biergarden. Don’t get too excited, we just ordered some of Dresden’s signature cake and sat by the river. Claire journaled and I read a random book on her Kindle. We sat there for about an hour, and a bird defecated on me. On my Ann Taylor sweater. SACRILEGE!!!

Incensed, I decided to walk around a flea market set up in the town. Woahhh…the vendors were selling soviet paraphernalia, and Nazi insignia (the real stuff) like we Americans would old Boy Scout awards and military badges. Crazy.

That’s when we saw all the police. When I say police, I mean 80 officers with masks rushing toward the train station, where, coincidentally, we were scheduled to catch our train within the hour. Like any good, safety-conscious American girls, we followed the cops.

We saw a ton of young guys, some giving the cops middle fingers and yelling things that were probably inappropriate, but everything sounds inappropriate in German, doesn’t it?

Then we realized everyone was in yellow. All the yellow people walked into the train station (probably about 300 of them).  We did too. Suddenly, there was a BANG that sounded just like a gunshot. It must have been a some kind of firework, because the cops seemed completely chill. By now at least 100 cops lined the station.

Guess what all the fuss was about? The Dresden soccer team was leaving that evening for a big match. The fans wanted to see them off. Craziness.

I bought some tea that said “Gun and Gut” on it, and it tasted about as good as that sounds. Then we spent the remainder of the hour waving at the silly yellow guys across the tracks who kept trying to get our attention from the other platform.

We rode to Prague in a little compartment like the one in the animated Anastasia movie. We shared it with a couple from the UAE who kept asking us questions and a woman from Prague with whom we kept asking questions. The ride by the river was gorgeous.

In Prague, it was late and dark. The Czech Republic doesn’t accept Euros, so we changed some money and hopped on the subway. Prague is a huge backpacking hub, so i felt at home with my big pack.

We had to check into our hostel through another hostel. The directions were terrible, and the only people around who were sober looked like they would rather molest us than give us directions. We rounded a corner and saw the biggest black dog I’ve ever seen. No leash. Looked like a horse.

We pushed past (no rabies) and finally found our hostel. It’s right on the river walk in an old art deco building. The room is huge and we have two little mattresses on the floor. We have a shared bathroom. There are cracks on the wall. It’s a little dirty. It’s kind of sketch. AWESOME. I feel like a real traveler!

Night!