Prague: The Fairytale City

When I was looking at studying abroad in Europe, Prague was one of my top considerations.  It was amazing to visit the city and check out life in Central Europe as opposed to staying in Western Europe the entire time!  I finished my European History final and from that, two friends and I hopped on a train to Amsterdam Airport and from there, we got on our first domestic European flight!  It was so easy to fly the airline and it only took us 1 hour to get from Amsterdam to Prague!  We arrived and after a few stops on the metro, we came across our hostel.  My friend Jack and Lindsey and their friends from Italy had booked the same hostel, and oddly enough, we were in the same room as them!  In addition to that, our hostel was right around the corner from the Old Town Square where all of the excitement in the town happens.  Traveling with just a small suitcase really made us appreciate the free towels, hairdryers, and breakfast that the hostel gave us.  It was dark out, but we all decided to check out the city by night.  We met up with Jillian's friend who is studying in Prague and he showed us around some local sights.  After some bar hopping and meeting new friends, we called it a night. 

Apparently a big deal!

Full Day 1:
We had heard good things about the free city walking tours, so we decided to indulge in the opportunity.  We met outside the astronomical clock tower in the Old Town Square in the morning to meet our cheery tour guide.  He taught us a lot of history, but kept us laughing and on our toes the entire time.  Again, we got so incredibly lucky with the weather this weekend and got to experience the beautiful changing of leaves.  After our tour ended, we decided to go to the Jewish section of the city.  We went into the Old Jewish Cemetery as well as a couple synagogues.  It was interesting, because I had never been in one before, but being in the Czech Republic, we felt it was necessary.  The Old Jewish Cemetary was certainly very moving.  There was such little space back then that graves were buried twelve bodies deep and gravestones were piled on top of each other.  The area was very uneven and showed how desperate space was during that hard time.  We went into a memorial and the tribute was to the children of the holocaust.  Drawings and paintings were posted all over the walls, along with a picture of the child, the camp they were sent to, and the date that they died.  It was equally as humbling as the Anne Frank House.  That night, we took advantage of the hostel's kitchen and made dinner at home then hit the town for some more bar and club hopping.  We met an assortment of European students at a friends flat and got a very international feel for the night. 

Getting our Starbucks Coffee fix.

Astronomical and Zodiac Clock.

 

The Old Town Square.  Right by our hostel!

Old Town Square.

Charles Bridge

Prague Castle from the river.

Relaxing by the river.

 

Beautiful statues line the bridge.

Old Jewish Cemetery.

So little space and so many unfortunate deaths.

Day 2:
Our second day in Prague was full of exciting new experiences. 
We started off our day at the John Lennon wall, a tribute to John Lennon's work for peace and displays love from all around the world.  It was so colorful and such a reviving start to our morning.  After spending some time at the wall, we went to the Petrin Tower, also known as the miniature Eiffel Tower!  It was a great opportunity to see the best view of the city and to grab some hot mulled wine and some lunch.  Later, we walked around the castle grounds and enjoyed the enormous Gothic St. Vitus Cathedral.  That night, we enjoyed a wonderful Mexican meal at a restaurant recommended by some locals.  It was amazing to have Mexican food, since every single one of us had been going through deprivation.  For night life, we checked out a Halloween club party and were treated to a fire and flame show as well as some fun music to dance to. 

So much love!!!

'Laska'  is the name of one of my favorite poems and look what I found!

Love Like Lennon.

What a wonderful saying!

Are we in Paris?

Beautiful Praha Castle and Cathedral

Praha

 

 

St. Vitus Cathedral

Prague was so beautiful and so full of history, it seemed like a fairytale.  I will remember this trip for the rest of my life, and Prague has now become one of my favorite cities in Europe! 

Amster Amster Dam Dam Dam

My, oh my, time does fly when you are having fun!
I haven't had much time to update you all because I have been so busy traveling to Amsterdam, meeting  friends from DU, studying for finals, and traveling to Prague, Czech Republic!!
Two weeks ago, my friend Jack from DU, who is studying abroad in Perugia, Italy went on a big European backpacking trip with some friends and my town of Maastricht was their first stop!
It was so fun to see them in Europe and to share our adventures with each other!  It was definitely a treasure to have some of my closest friends with me in Europe.
Showing my friends around gave me an excuse to explore some more of Maastricht.  We got coffee and relaxed by the river, a spot where I don't typically hang out, but it turned out to be one of the calmest places I have experienced in the city!
Following Jack and his travel group, my friend Jillian and I headed up to Amsterdam for the weekend.  It was actually my first trip to Amsterdam, and what a trip it was!
We arrived, settled into our hotel, and hit the town!  The first sight we saw was actually a more modern phenomenon...Occupy Amsterdam!  Police on horseback were monitoring the scene, and people peaceably protested.  We passed by the carnival that was posted up in the main square and after passing countless canals, we arrived at the Heineken Brewery.  The experience was much more than your average brewery tour with 4-D Brew rides, Clydesdale horses, and of course lessons on tasting beer.

The beautiful Amsterdam Centraal.

On the way to the Heineken Brewery!

We explored the city some more and met up with some more friends for dinner at a delicious Indian restaurant.  It was definitely a sight to see the Red Light District all light up at night, but it was not the area where I would like to spend a lot of my time.  We took a quick stroll through the glowing alleys and decided it was time to go. We really made the most of the second day, since our train was leaving at 10pm.  We started out at Madame Tussaudes Wax Museum only to be surprised by a really scary haunted pirate maze at the beginning of the walking tour.  Talk about a wake up call!  I had never been to a wax museum before, but I had always wanted to, so it was fun to be in Amsterdam for that experience! 

Some pretty cool guys.

On Daniel Craig's arm.  Life is good!

We had reservations for the Anne Frank House tour in the late afternoon, so to kill some time, we went on a canal tour and had a nice lunch.  The weather was gorgeous and gave Amsterdam a beautiful touch.  The moment we stepped into Anne Frank's secret annex, I could feel a sense of sorrow, fear, but also humbleness.  It was incredible to walk through the doorway that was hidden by the movable bookshelf and enter the world that she and her family spent two years living inside.  Inside Anne's room, pictures of magazines and postcards that she pasted on the wall were still hanging there.  That was certainly one of the most moving parts of the museum.  It is just so incredible that her and her family lived in the secret annex for two years; never running outside, never shouting, never being able to take a breath of fresh air.  It was a very eye opening experience. 

My friend Jillian & I in a clog

Gorgeous Amsterdam.

Typical Dutch Roofing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anne Frank Huis.  69 years after the family went into hiding.

Hup Holland Hup

Goedenmiddag Wereld!
Goodafternoon World!

Lately, I have been domestic in my adventures, but I really feel like I have experienced more of what the Netherlands has to offer.  Before we studied abroad, our coordinators told us to try to stay in our abroad city for a few weekends, even though the opportunity to travel is right at our doorsteps.  It would be a shame to study abroad and not explore your own city!!  For that reason, I have enjoyed my time exploring Holland the past two weekends.
Last weekend, my study abroad program arranged a trip to see the Dutch National Football Team play in Rotterdam.  They offered us discount tickets and a free bus ride, so me and some friends jumped on that opportunity right away!  Since we are studying in Europe, we thought it was necessary that we watch a national football game.  Keep in mind, that when I saw football, I mean SOCCER!  Europeans will look at you crazy if you call it a 'soccer' game!!  The bus ride to Rotterdam was very entertaining.  We were all decked out in orange and were painting each others faces with the colors of the Dutch flag.  It felt like a football hooligan bus, only full of American's! 
Once we got to the stadium, we bundled up because it was a downpour, but made sure our proud orange was still showing.  Fortunately, our seats were just barely covered by the stadium and it just so happened that we had an excellent view!

Netherlands vs. Moldova

The Netherlands are ranked 2nd in the FIFA world ranking, so the fans were so dedicated and enthusiastic, despite the rain and wind.  We enjoyed swaying back and forth with the crowd to the traditional Dutch 'Hup Holland Hup' game day song and we even heard some songs that were played at Oktoberfest!  I had bought a Holland flag the week before, and proudly tied it around my neck to show my team spirit.  Now, it is hanging on my wall in my room as decoration!  The game went by pretty fast and in the end, the Netherlands beat Moldova 1-0.  Hup Holland!!

Ein Prosit naar Holland!  ( A cheers for Holland! )

Home sweet Maastricht.
Maastricht may seem like a small city, but once you explore and walk around, it is so big and there is so much to do!  It was nice to explore the city and walk around, since I always am on my bike and in a hurry to get to class.  A friend and I decided to climb to the top of the St. Janskerk clock tower to take a new look at our city.  The hike up was certainly daunting.  Dutch stairs are already steep enough as it is, but add a narrow, winding, and never ending staircase to that and you get the ascent of the clock tower.  Once we reached the top, the view was phenomenal and totally worth the climb up.

The Vrijtof Square from above.

My cute Dutch town!!

The Guesthouse is somewhere to the left in the distance!

Notice the modern wind turbines in the distance.  Clean energy!

After seeing the city from high up, we decided to go read in one of the cities parks.  Behind the Maastricht University Library is an interesting petting zoo area with exotic deer and sheep.  I enjoy visiting the animals to take a break from studying.  It's the closest thing to wildlife I have seen in the Netherlands!  Further down from the animals is a beautiful park that lines the ancient wall of the city.  We found a relaxing spot and had a picnic, caught up on some reading, and soaked in the autumn sun.

Ancient city wall!

Het fiets.  (The bikes)

Vespas...we are so jealous of them.

Have you ever seen so many bikes?!?!?

Gruß von Oktoberfest!!

Wow! What a weekend! 
Beer, lederhosen, pretzels, roller coasters, traditional German songs, countless new friends all made for one of the best weekends of my life! I have never seen more happy people in one spot before!!
The Oktoberfest celebration or the 'Wiesn', as most in Bavaria call it, gathers up a line up of beer from major Munich breweries and serves up over 5 million liters of 4.6 % German beer.  I'm not usually a huge fan of beer, but the cheery atmosphere made it much easier to get into the Oktoberfest mood!
Here is a recap of my first Oktoberfest experience:

It all began in the early hours of Friday morning...Me and 4 girls left Maastricht at 6am in order to catch our trains.  Our connections went very smoothly and we had a little downtime during our layover in Köln, so we peeked outside the train station and BAM! There appears the huge, beautiful Kölner Dom, or Cologne Cathedral!  Construction of the Roman Catholic masterpiece began in 1248 and is the largest church in Western Europe as well as one of the world's largest churches.  We didn't get a chance to go inside, but I definitely want to go back to Köln and spend some time in the cathedral.  

Early morning at the Koln Cathedral en route to Oktoberfest!

 The German ICE High Speed trains look so high-tech and beautiful in a way they are constructed.  After traveling around Europe so far, I have found that the German trains are the cleanest, the fastest, and the most comfortable.  German quality I suppose :)  We all have the Benelux & Germany Eurail Passes, so all we had to do was book a seat reservation for our trip.  We booked the reservation sort of last minute, but as it turns out, we had the best seats on the entire train!  We sat right behind where the conductor controls the train, and we even had a little foot rest...not bad for a last minute 2nd class reservation!  We were clearly very happy about our seats, which made for a quick 4 1/2 hour trip to Munchen Germany!  

Gettin' Comfortable.

 At about 2pm, we arrived in Müchen, Germany.  The central 'Hauptbanhof' was packed with people in lederhosen and drindls with beers and bratwursts in their hands.  From that moment, I could tell it was going to be an adventure of a weekend!  We found the Müchen metro and made our way to our hostel.  The hostel we stayed at is part of a company called 'Hostival' - a mobile hostel that travels to all different parts of the world for big festivals and celebrations and rents out affordable beds.  Appropriately named, we stayed at the Hangover Hospital.  The hostel complex is made up of big canvas wall tents with 10 bunk beds in each one.  We were lucky to get a room together and we shared it with two others from Argentina.  Since we slept in canvas tents, it did get very cold at night and in the morning, but the hostel provided some blankets (ewe) that I gladly took, no matter how grossed out I was to be using the hostel blankets.  No bed bugs so far!!  It was actually a very humorous experience and we made the best of it, as did everyone else staying there.  All we could do is laugh when we would walk into our weekend home.

Livin' Large in the Hangover Hospital.

 

...welcome home!

 On to the celebration!  
It was our plan for the first night just to explore the Oktoberfest grounds and scope out the scene for the morning.  Within 15 minutes of being there, we were offered 6 tickets to join 4 others at a reserved table in the Winzerer tent.  We thought, "WHY NOT?!"  It's not everyday that you get lucky enough to get into a reserved beer tent so late in the day!  We were escorted to our reserved table and apparently along with the reservation, came free beers and a free chicken dinner.  I don't think any of us have ever been so amused - it felt like a fairytale.  Traditional German songs as well as some American classics blasted throughout the tent while steins clanked and beer flowed.  We stayed at the table with our new friends for most of the night until we all decided to explore the carnival.  We went on three roller coasters and decided to call it a night since we were waking up at daybreak the next morning.  

The metro.  EVERYONE is going to Oktoberfest!

The Winzerer Tent serving up Pschorr Braurosl beer.

Kind of a bad picture, but you get the idea!

First Oktoberfest Beer!  Prost!

 

 

Celebrating :)

OKTOBERFEST DAY II
Up and at 'em at 7am once again!  We had heard that in order to get a spot at a table in a beer tent, you have to be up and in line early in the morning, so we followed that advice and were standing in line by 8:30.  The last night, we were told to check out the Schottenhamel Spatenbrau tent because it is where all the local kids go.  After standing in line and pushing through crowds of rowdy Bavarians, we got in!  Beer definitely took the place of coffee this morning...it was 10:37am when the beer maiden brought us our first round.  It was early, but we were just happy to be there!  

Guten Morgen!!

Day II

We got to know the German songs pretty well.

  After about 2 hours, we decided to get some lunch and check out another tent.  We enjoyed a tasty bratwurst and 'pomme frities' and headed over to the infamous Hofbrau Tent.  We had heard from friends that went previous weeks that this was the best tent so we were very excited to get in!  After some pushing and sneaking, we finally made our way in!  We also managed to get our hands stamped so we could get back in if we left the tent.  The Hofbrau house was so big and full of energetic people from around the world as well as tons of locals.  We hung out in the HB tent and explored the outside Beirgarten for most of the day.  There was also a hill outside the back of the HB tent that looked like a battlefield because there were so many people taking naps in the sun.  I couldn't help but laugh at the sight!  We sat down on the hill, but it was so steep I could barely stay upright - I don't know how people were sleeping on such a slope!  Of course, after sitting for a little we all got tired and some of us made the decision to go back to the hostel for an hour and nap.  Best Decision Ever!

Inside the Hofbrau Tent.

We met up with some DU girls at the Biergarten.

Enjoying my cold beer inside Hofbrau

 Gingerbread necklaces.  Too pretty to eat!!

By 7pm, we were back at the Oktoberfest feeling rested and ready for another fun night!  Back in Hofbrau to sing some more songs and enjoy the atmosphere and meet some more new friends.  We met some kids from Munich, and we enjoyed asking them all about German lifestyles.  After a while, our new friends took us on some carnival rides and then we made our way to a fun, local Munich bar.  Everyone in the bar was dressed in the lederhosen and drindls, so we felt a little out of place, but everyone was very welcoming.  Suddenly, a traditional German band appeared...trumpets and tubas included!  It was certainly a sight to see!  Later on, we called it a night, but had a fun time with our new friends from Munich.  It's fun to have international connections!


On our last day in Munich we decided we wanted to see the city instead of going back to the Oktoberfest again.  We checked out of our homely hostel and locked up our luggage at the train station so we wouldn't have to carry it all day.  We wandered to the Marienplatz, Munich's main city square.  I was in Munich for one day a few years ago, and I didn't get to see any of the city, so I was very excited to explore!!  As the clock struck noon, we watched the fun display high in the clock tower.  Then we made our way to Hofbrauhaus, one of Munich's oldest breweries.  It was fun being at the Hofbrau tent at Oktoberfest, and then at the actual brewery the next day.  We enjoyed an interesting Beer & Lemonade as well as delicious German spaetzle.  Once we were re-hydrated, we walked into the English Gardens and rested our tired feet in the sun.  It was a bit of a surprise for us American girls to see people in the nude doing yoga and sunbathing, but it just shows how much more tolerant they are in Europe and it shows that they have more important things to worry about.  
At 4pm we caught our train and headed back up to Maastricht.  

Marienplatz Clock Tower

The English Gardens

We were so fortunate with the weather this weekend.  High 70s invited us to Munich and now we have Germany fever.  We can't wait to go back!!  I couldn't have asked for a better first Oktoberfest.  Hopefully it won't be my last!
Prost!!