What a disgusting Monday

It is rainy and gross!

This weekend was good! Thanksgivig on Friday was a big success, everyone loved the potatoes and stuffing that I made, and good times were had all around. Lorcan inhaled 9 Carmel cremes, I unplugged the sink and it felt like a family dinner.

Sunday I went to church at the Cathedral. The music was stunning, the gigantic organ really has a thunderous quality to it, and Katherine mentioned that when it was first installed, there was no such thig as amplification or surround sound, so the noise must have been completley overwhelming for the people in the church.

After that we wandered around the city and looked at the Christmas market. It was realy cool but my feet hurt by the end of it. Strasbourg really feels it is Christmas capital...

After that we wathed a pair of football matches, a glorious victory for Chelsea at Arsenal, an a gritty win for Barca against Madrid.

Laura and I wandered about after the match because Lee an Heledd went off to go watch a movie. We went to a place called Irish Times an participated in a pub quiz (or the second half of it) and made friends with a French guy named Cedric. We're meeting him next week and making our own lil team to see how we can do.

Tomorrow we're going to a football match as Racing Club de Strasbourg as they (as second bottom of french league 2) take on bottom ranked club Bastia.


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Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Sadly our planned dinner has been shifted. We'll make do with what we can.

I'm buying my ticket home today, more on that after these messages from our sponsors...


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Continuation

The story has developped and here are the new points:

My parets called and left me a Happy Birthday duet on my voicemail since I was in class. Totally made my day.

It's still a beautiful day in the Stras! Photo proof:




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Wednesday

It's a sunny morning in Strasbourg. Two classes and a Chelsea match (hopefully) today.

More as the story develops.

Prague, part 2 (ish)

We arrived tired and well, tired mostly. Klara's dad and Milan's mum met us at the train station (where our bus arrived) at half noon and he took our bags in his trunk and she walked us into town. We waited at her office for a few minutes and Klara's younger sister Anna met us with her friend Ester. The 5 of us walked about for the remainder of the afternoon, stopping to wander about in a shopping mall (nicer than most I've seen in the states) and eventually caught a tram home for the evening. After dinner and a quick nap (just me, there's also video proof of me snoring...), we (Lee, Anna, Matt, Ester and I) walked down to a pub nearby for some authentic Czech beer, and paid a considerable amount less than had we been in Strasbourg. The next morning we walked through town with Anna and her parents. We got to see Wensensloss (spelled so incorrectly here it hurts) square, old town, the churches of saints Michael and Nicholas, and of Our Lady of Tyń. The old town hall tower has an astrological clock and each hour there is a procession of the apostles through two little doors above the clock. After that we crossed St Charles bridge, and hopped a tram up to Prague Castle. We stopped for lunch at a brewery called St Norbert's, which used to be run by the monks. I think it was somewhere around 400 years old. Prague castle was massive, and wrapped around the gothic cathedral in the center. The cathedral was built over a span of about 1000 years, with work finishing in the 1800s. Next we walked up to an observation tower modeled after The Eiffel Tower. When I say up, I mean it. Not only was it on one of many hills around Prague, the lift was broken so we walked the 300 stairs up to the top, which swayed considerably more than the Eiffel tower. Granted it was 1/5 scale, you could see most of Prague from it and at night the city is beautiful. The cathedral at Prague castle is flooded with light.

We (the lads) went out downtown that night and tried some different Czech beers and had a generally banterous evening.

The next morning we got up and went to a castle outside Prague built by Charles IV and further fortified once he became Holy Roman Emperor. It started a foggy morning, so much so that the trip there was actually a but bothersome, but might have been cos I prefer driving. Funny story about the ride there: Milan's parents took one car and Klara's took another. Anna and ester rode with Milan's parents, and Klara's mom suggested that matt go with them. Lee and I sat comfortably in the back of Klara's dad's car while Matt sat squished with Anna and Ester. We figure that Klara's mom was trying to start somehing between Ester and Matt, because Lee is the best fit for a crowded back seat, seeing as he's smaller...

After the long walk up we could finally make out the shape of the castle. In a stroke of luck, the fog broke right before our tour began. We had a joker for a tourguide. We couldn't tell when he was just making stuff up or when he was being serious. He ended the tour with something similar to this: "merry Christmas, happy new year, and the world is small so maybe I'll see you again" he also claimed that it was possible that the portraits of former Czech rulers might have just been made up, since a certain one was the first we had a real historical account of. After that we drove back and has dinner at the house. The lads and ladettes went out after and went bowling (at the same place we were the first night) and then came home and played cards for a bit.

The next morning we said our goodbyes and headed out into town around 10. We just walked around for a bit, and hopped on our bus at 13:30 and have been on the move since. It's been pleasant travels but just as it is at home, I prefer travelling at night cos then you don't lose as much in theway of active time. Travelling by trains at night is actually awesome because you get to sleep AND get to your destination, unless you get stuck in an uncomfortable recliner. I am obviously not still bitter about that...

It's dark in Karlsruhe. Nothing else to report!


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The Golden City

Prague was beautiful. That's the long an short of it. I'll explain more later.

Also, Klara's family were the most amazing hosts and tour guides. Their hospitality and insight into the different sites around the city was boundless and really made this trip fantastic.

Patrick


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Prague

We hopped in the car and are on our way to a castle outside the city. Lee and I think that klara's mom is tryingto hook matt up with Anna's friend Ester... Yesterday we did a walkig tour of Prague, and saw the old town, st Charles bridge, te Prague castle, and a look out tour resembling a 1/3 scale model of the tour d'eiffel in Paris. After we paused for a bit the lads an I went on a self navigated pub crawl, finding some interestig spots around Prague. I noticed today that this is the first time i've been in a car since the day I arrived...

It's a foggy day in Prague, more details as they become available...


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Nürnberg

Lee needs sleep.


So yeah that basically explains how we all feel. It was a long night in train stations.

We're on a double decker bus now, 95km outside of Praha (Prague). Will update you as events unfold.

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Trips beginning

It's 20:53 on a Thursday night. We're hoppin on a tram to begin what will be a long trip to Prague. Will keep you updated as we go.


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A Long post about Madrid

The 14 hour ride from Paris to Madrid was actually pleasant (for me at least). I slept on the top bunk and was able to plug in my phone so it would be charged when we arrived. before we called it a night I was able to chat with a British ex-pat who was now living in Spain. he is an arsenal fan, and we discussed football and satellite tav and the progression of football in the united states. he told me the story of going to the Arsenal match in Madrid (I think) in the champions league and how the stadium was so impressive, no to mention the fact that he got tickets in practically the third row since someone he knew (a friend of a friend i believe) was filming Gol 2, and had some spare seats with the extras.

In the morning we relaxed at the train station for a bit while we waited on Diane who was meeting us there. After we met up, we made our way via metro to our hotel. Granted my sense of direction though useful, was a bit turned around and I picked the wrong station to get out on, meaning we had to walk about 10 blocks instead of 3. But i wasn't sure what way the numbering on the streets went so it could have gone either way. After settling into the hotel and changing, we wandered out into the city. The churches in Spain, being the catholic country it is, were impressive. We started at the fransician basilica (cathedral?) near us, and then made our way up to the cathedral at the royal palace. The cathedral was immense, proper in fact for a King and Queen's daily mass. The face of the cathedral opens into a courtyard which is also the courtyard of the royal palace. A neat fact I learned before we left for Madrid was that the Palace has two flag poles, and if one flag is up, it means the king is not present. In the case that two flags are raised, it means that the king is in residence. The present king was raised by the dictator Franco, and had a rough childhood (accidentally killed his brother who happened to be the King's favorite.) A cool thing about his home is that there is a window in it that opens into the courtyard from which you can see directly into the cathedral and have a clear view of the altar if the doors are open. That's pretty neat if you ask me…

After that we went to the Prado Museum. Though well organized and the art was pretty, it's not really art I enjoy. The Dutch Masters painted dark scenes, sad faces and painful religious scenes. The spanish painters were better, but i think that the time period between the 1200s-1500s were just a depressed time in history, the paintings just showed that. There was a painting mentioned in a book I had read, The Siege of Breda, the painting was called "The Handing Over of Breda" by Velázquez it was interesting because in the book they described the painting and how two of the books characters were present, and in the epilogue the author went into detail recounting how scholars of recent times have gone about trying to disprove that the characters are present. The book is historical fiction based on the journals of Iniago Balboa.

That night, we went to a midnight show. It was a flamenco show, and the dancing and guitars were spectacular. The singing was interesting, and the entire show was impressive all around. It was like tap, but not the 20s kitche that you think of, big smiles and huge swinging arms. There was lots of stamping and quick steps. We got home around 2:30 am, and crawled into bed.

The next morning we hopped on a bus and went 45 minutes south, to Toledo. It's an ancient town, and the old fortifications from when they were fending off the Moors are still standing, and the city's built up on a hill in a bend of the river. It's a stunning location, and quite protected too, it's the kind of place the Medieval spaniards would have seen as the ultimate fortress.

As with most old fortified cities, there is a cathedral. This cathedral is a bit different…. It was proper huge. I don't remember when it was built, but in the description of it, they mention the five naves. Because of the alignment of the pillars, the church essentially has 5 aisles (there are 4 rows of pillars) and I feel that there are some churches that consider themselves a good size that would have fit in this church at least twice. As we wandered around the town, eventually getting lost, we just enjoyed the hilly windy streets, with tall buildings on either side.

The next morning we got mom set and said our goodbyes in the subway station. Diane and I got cleaned up and then made our way to the Museo Renia Sophia, where the modern art museum is located. Picasso and Dali were our main targets. Some of the art was definitely different: a series of transparent hoses arranged on the floor that were connected to a pump that pushed water and bubbles through them, a gigantic framed set of newspaper headlines, large monochrome canvases… Not my cup of tea but Picasso was great, it was different because instead of just showing the final piece, they often had his planning drawings, a starting point. I really liked that, seeing his work before it became "picasso'ed". After that we found Starbucks (bad idea) and sat down for a coffee. It was a bad idea because that's where Diane's backpack (which had her passport inside) was stolen. Frustrating, but we found out where the Embassy was and went to talk to them. It was closed, which I was confused by, but they called someone on staff at home who told Diane what she needed to do, and we went to the police and filed a report. It was a rough end to a great trip, but to be honest i was happy that nothing bad happened until the last day. Spain is notorious for pickpockets and thankfully her wallet wasn't in the bag, so it could have been worse.

I caught my train home that evening hoping that my First Class ticket would be just that, First Class. I was wrong. Yes, it said first class, and yes we were at the head of the train, but I would have much rather been in a bed rather than a recliner… So between my little bit of sleep and the tossing and turning it was an uncomfortable night. To add insult to injury, the train arrived in Paris 2 hours behind schedule. I had 2 hours and about 15 minutes to transfer from where we arrived to a different train station initially, but because we were s late as we were, I was going to miss my train to Amsterdam. I got a refund for the ticket and just took the next train home to Strasbourg.

Strasbourg and Paris

Strasbourg and Paris

The train to Strasbourg left at about 10 the following morning. We got to Stras after one change in Stutgartt. After repacking my bag and ditching the dirty clothes, and unpacking some of mom's stuff that she was leaving with me. We went to the Cathedral in Strasbourg and then on a boat tour around the island and up to the European Parliament. A traditional Alsacian dinner of Tarte Flambee and beer and then we caught the last train to Paris.

Our hotel was amazing! It was the same one that Dad and I stayed in when we went for Spring Break my sophomore year at Purdue. They gave us a suite for the price of a normal room, which was quite generous. Once we arrived we had discussed going out and getting a glass of wine in a cafe but ended up too tired, so just called it a night.

The next morning, after an unplanned lengthy lie in, we headed out into Paris. We were about 10 blocks from Ile de la Cite, where Notre Dame de Paris is. We wandered past the Inside out architecture of le centre Pompidou, which inside has a Modern art Museum. One of my favourite comments of the trip was mom's statement that "They've cleaned Notre Dame since I was here, it looks like a completely different building!" We spent most of the morning on foot, walking from the hotel to Notre Dame, then along the Seine to the Musee D'Orssay. The Musee d'Orssay was by far the most impressive museum we visited while we were on our trip. Personally, the Impressionists are my favorite painters. And beside the fact that the art there was amazing, the building itself was impressive. A former trains station, it has been transformed into a museum. They built small galleries off in the wings and the main area is still open, you walk in and the roof soars above you, you can see some of the galleries that look somewhat like boxes out in the open area ahead of you. We walked for a bit in a fruitless search for Julia Child's parisian home, only to be thwarted by strange numbering practices along rue de la universite… Next stop was the Eiffel Tower, and rather than walk to it, we took the subway. It stands to reason that even though walking was possible and also perhaps a shorter route, the trip on the subway had a specific goal. The view of the Eiffel Tower from across the river from Trocadero is stunning. I split with mom at the bottom of the tower and took the stairs (all 668 of them) and we met on the second floor. Partly because the elevator didn't stop at the first floor… but it was good. We were standing on the second floor as night fell across the city. The view was stunning to say the least… My favorite part was scanning the city to find the landmarks that we had already seen. Center Pompidou stands out for being ugly by Parisian standards, Notre Dame seems dwarfed by the city around it, and Sacre Coeur stands illuminated on a hill in the distance. We hopped a train home to grab some reading material and then took the metro over to Sacre Coeur. We toured what is in my opinion the most beautiful church in Paris and then settled in a cafe on the square at Montmartre. I've been sat in the three cafes on the square now, one each time I've visited the city. We had to walk home, as I didn't have change and the metro stop didn't have a ticket booth. Needless to say we slept well after that walk.

The following morning we aught a red tour bus near Notre Dame. It was one of the open top tour busses, which, for the morning was a wonderful idea. The bus sped around town,and we hopped off at the Opera as our first stop. The building was massive and the interior was beautiful. Marble (real and false) everywhere, and stunning gold leaf on the details. The inside of the theatre itself was impressive, crushed red velvet seats and expansive stage were gorgeous. After the opera (which I attempted to exit by a non exit door) we hopped back on the tour bus and went up the Champs Elysees (ba dah be dah pa) and took our pause at the Arc De Triomphe. A grueling climb up the spiral stairs (approximately 200 I believe) we found ourselves in what I would call the first ante chamber (I toured enough homes that that was a common phrase I heard over the course of the trip) of the building. Its a lobby up inside the middle of the arch. After a pause for movies and reading, we hiked up the 46 stairs to the roof where we noticed that dark clouds were gathering to our west and after taking some pictures, we made our way back down to the bus stop. We were in the third row, which is just outside the covering on the upper floor, which meant that after a few minutes we were starting to get a bit wet. We had wanted tog et off close to Les Invalides (a Napoleonic hospital made to look like a basilica) and instead were left a mile away, stuck to walk in the rain around Invalides to the Rodin museum. One thing I learned there was that sculpture is notoriously difficult to photograph… We then headed back to the hotel (where our bags were in the luggage room) and then made a quick pause at a post office before finding our train at Gare d'Austerlitz. The 14 hour ride from paris to Madrid was actually pleasant (for me at least)...

Munich

A week of travel, and stopping was the hardest part… I would have loved to keep moving, to see a few more cities before I went back to class. It's going to take a few posts to go through everything that happened over the week, and it'll take a bit longer to show you the best pictures from it all. I only took 274, which compared to some of my friends trips is paltry. Clare took over 400… but I'll start from the beginning (of the trip, going any further back would get wordy and tiresome)

Munich (München)

I arrived in Munich the night of Halloween. It was a 4 hour train ride from Strasbourg, straight through. There were small stops along the way but I didn't really pay attention to them. I spent the train ride writing a bit and then reading. I found a hostel near the train station (no idea how, I just wandered down some streets.)

I hopped on a subway (regional train really) and swung out to the airport to meet mom. I had forgotten which city she was coming from, I remembered that there were flights we had looked at that came in from Philly so I went to that area. It was the international arrivals so you'd figure that it'd be ok, but Delta has to be special and arrive somewhere else. Mom called me from a pay phone and we eventually found each other.

After dropping our bags and a quick change at the hotel we headed out into Munich. As it was with our entire trip, churches were one of the first things we visited. A smaller church called St. Paul's I believe? It was just tucked into a neighborhood, I think it was built in around either 1809 or 1909, the script they were using made it difficult to differentiate numbers. We hopped on the subway and went up towards the Residenz, the home of the Kings of Bavaria. We saw another church just built into the city, it was in a block of buildings and looked seriously out of place. It was the Theatinerkirche. The interior was beautiful, it seemed as if it had been whitewashed; there were tons of details, but no color on them. They looked like they might have been gold leafed and painted before but maybe the gold had been stripped. The Residenz was across the street, and we tried our best to find a way in but we were at the wrong end of building and walked 2/3 of the way around it in order to find a way in. The building was beautiful, the former Dukes of Bavaria, later Electors of the Holy Roman Empire and then Kings of Bavaria in their own right had a great place to live. The whole thing was massive, a large complex that had been refurbished multiple times during its use and then presently still under repair because of the destruction of World War II.

Lunch outside (in the cold) at a bier garden with impossibly small sausages and then we went to the Marienkirche, the church of Mary. It had been quite destroyed during the war, and they rebuilt it. There was a little work being done on one of the spires, but it was completed indoors. There was a tile that looked as if someone's foot had been imprinted on it, and the explanation on a little plaque on the wall said that that's where the Devil stood the night it was completed. He stood there and laughed as from that vantage point you can't see any of the windows because the pillars block them all. The story goes that he stood there and laughed saying, "What good is a church with no windows?" Taking another step forward he could see them all and then recognizing his mistake he flew off in defeat.

We had an early evening, neither of us had slept all that much the night before, Mom on a plane and me in a hostel with an extra snore-y guy on of the other beds.

The next day we found how we could get out to Schloss Nymphenburg, the summer home of Kings and Electors. It was expansive, and had extended from one home (still quite large) to encompass two sprawling wings and hundreds of rooms. The paintings on the walls were gorgeous. The atrium was Rococo, and the gold leaf and extra frilly details were everywhere. The tour included a museum of porcelain and carriages. The carriages were as elaborate as some of the rooms in the house, it was interesting to think that they were actually used for processions. there were sleighs too, and I had never actually seen a proper sleigh (Santa's flies so that doesn't count). The porcelain had some really detailed pieces, I was drawn to a lion that looked frightened. That afternoon we went on a bus tour, and i worked to listen to it in French for practice. We went to The Deutsches Museum after the tour, and it is their version of Chicago's Science and Industry. It was a pretty cool museum, they had a lot on things on metallurgy and flight. It kind of mixed the Air and Space museum at the Smithsonian and Science and Industry in Chicago. I was pleased to see a pair of old Hiedelberg presses that were quite similar to the windmill press and the S27 Cylinder at Printing Partners. We ended up at Höfbrauhaus that evening. We enjoyed reading, pretzels and our beer.

It's raining in Paris. More news as it becomes available.


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