A Series of Small Adventures

      The last few weeks have gone by in a blur!  It seems that after the travelling seminar time has sped up.  Therefore, I will try to briefly catch you up on my life here in Prague.

      The first weekend after the travelling seminar was our long Easter weekend!  Most of the students in my program took this opportunity to travel, but I decided to save the money and spend Easter in Prague.  Eva had a friend visiting so we walked around to the typical tourist zones like new town, old town, and the castle.  It was our first taste of tourist filled Prague; the streets were full of foreigners and Charles Bridge was all but impassible.  Despite the hordes of picture snapping crowds, the mood was festive and I couldn't help but enjoy myself.  Old town was taken over by merchants and food venders all selling from little brown stands decorated with flowers, sheep, and eggs.  The decorations were complete with several huge living trees temporarily planted in the square covered by colorful ribbons.  We enjoyed some Eastern European treats (we thought they were specifically Czech but found out they are traditionally from Hungary) called trdelnik.  It consists of a slab of dough wrapped around a metal pole spun over hot coals for a few minutes before being doused in butter and rolled in cinnamon.  Needless to say it was delicious and I ate three in the course of two days.  The Czechs celebrate Easter with a large meal with the family topped off with a traditional cake that is usually made in the shape of a bunny.  The handful of CET students left decided to bring together our little family to have a large potluck feast.  I made corn chowder and others added mac and cheese, veggie salad, and some other goodies to the table.  After scarfing that down I pulled my dad's black bottom cupcake recipe out of the oven.  I attempted to make the brownies in a rabbit mold to be festive, but the gooey cream cheese collapsed every time.  We ate the remains of three bunny cakes and a few batches of mini brownies in record time.  Fortunately I avoided the main Czech Easter tradition where boys whip girls with branches until the girls reward them with chocolate and eggs.  Supposedly the whipping is supposed to keep us young... I think I'll pass.

Trdelnik in New Town

Easter Market in Old Town

Potluck Dinner

Black Bottom Bunny!

      The next weekend I joined another Czech table with one of the Czech buddies who lives upstairs named Pavel.  We took a train about 30 minutes outside of Prague for a beautiful hike to Karlstejn castle.  We hiked for about an hour before we hit a little town and grabbed some lunch.  We had planned to continue our journey from there but were tempted by a looming mountain.  The group optimistically agreed to climb to the top only to find a long stretch of treacherous albeit beautiful stairs.   We made it to the top and soaked in the spectacular view before hiking down and continuing on our planned journey.  We hiked for a few more hours until we finally found the castle.  Karlstejn is one of the most beautiful castles I have ever seen.  My typical attitude towards castles and palaces is seen one, seen em all, but I'm glad I made the 10 mile hike out to see Karlstejn.  We didn't stay at the castle long, and ended up running the last quarter mile to make the train home to Prague.  A day in nature was exactly what I needed after beginning to feel gloomy in cold grey Prague.  I came back feeling rejuvenated and ready to go.

Top of the Mountain

Karlstejn Castle

      The next Wednesday a few of the other CET students and I jumped at the chance to do some community service with local youth.  We joined with about thirty kids ranging from ten years old to seventeen and created teams for a soccer tournament!  The guys on my team spoke almost no English, but they seemed excited enough to play.  I laughed in one of my teammates's face when he told me to play goalie so that the other team wouldn't shoot.  I asked why they wouldn't shoot on me and he responded with "they won't want to shoot on a girl."  I said "oh hell no!" which of course he didn't understand, and quickly replaced myself in goal with some other guy so I could actually play.  Though my team didn't win we had some fun kicking the ball around.  After the last game one of the program organizers came up to me and said in a shocked voice "you can actually play!" to which I responded "I've played since I was four."  It's like they've never seen an athletic woman before.  Ridiculous, but still fun.

My Team

      So now we're up to the most recent, and perhaps eventful, weekend.  On Friday I joined a group of other students to go on a CET sponsored trip to Kutna Hora.  The town is about 40 miles East of Prague and used to be a mining town in the medieval times.  According to our mine guide, the mines at Kutna Hora produced one third of all the silver in Europe during the medieval times.  The town was really beautiful and quaint.  It felt like a more authentic and less dolled up version of touristy Cesky Krumlov.  The main event of the day was a tour of the mines.  We dressed up in white robes, helmets, and grabbed flashlights before descending into the earth.  I couldn't help but quote Lord of the Rings way too many times.  The mines were really beautiful;  they looked much more natural than the mines I had imagined.  The walls were covered with limestone and clear water pools lay around every corner.  At some points our group had to shimmy through the tight corridors and duck under the low ceiling.  If there was any doubt before, I know now that I am definitely not claustrophobic after that trip.

Kutna Hora

In the Mines

      On Saturday Jeanette and I headed to a cinema called Bio Oko to see a film called Orator.  The cinema was hosting the Kiwi Film Festival which featured Australian and Indonesian films.  The film we saw was Samoan and was the first film ever shot in the Samoan language.  The movie was beautiful and extremely emotional and I came out wanting to know more about Samoan culture.  I definitely recommend it!
      Finally, on Sunday, I joined my last Czech table with my roomate Marketa to go to the Prague Zoo.  We took the metro to a train to a boat to a bus to the zoo.  I'm not sure if the goal was to use every method of transportation available, but I'm pretty sure we succeeded.  In fact we even learned the phrase "Do zoo jeli skoro všemi dopravními prostředky - tramvají, vlakem, přívozem, a autobusem i metrem" which means "We took nearly all possible public transportation vehicles to the zoo: tram, train, ferry, and bus and metro."  It was a really fun day, mainly because the weather had finally begun to feel like spring in Prague.  I shed my jacket when the sun came out and went bare armed for the first time in months.  Just feeling the sun on my skin made it hard not to have a good time.  Other than the beautiful weather the zoo was pretty much the same as any zoo anywhere: animals hanging out in cages for humankind's viewing pleasure.  I did get to see a tiger exceptionally close up and the polar bears were much more active than any I've seen before.  One of them even did two splash inducing belly flops!

Tygr

Lední Medvěd

      This week has been relaxing.  Jeanette and I finally made our way to the bar and darts place across from our academic building.  We were terrible at darts but had fun all the same.  Last night some of us went bowling which was a blast.  I got straight gutters for the first three frames but came back to be two ahead of last in the end.  Today I went to a student favorite for dinner called Huny Bunny.  The food was fine but the atmosphere was fantastic.  The walls were covered in funny signs, Mucha posters, and even a campaign poster for Vaclav Havel that depicted him in a head dress holding up a proud peace sign with a cheesy smile plastered to his face.  I went a little souvenir crazy and bought four small prints and a water color from a cute bookstore and a mini street sign from an even cuter antique store.
      So that pretty much catches you up on my life up to now.  This weekend I'm going to meander through the castle gardens which just opened up with the warm weather.  Next week we're heading to Budapest on Thursday!  I cannot wait to see the city and spend some time outside of Prague!  It's hard to believe we only have four weeks left here.  I feel like I spent so much time filling out applications, paperwork, getting a visa, packing, and mentally preparing for this trip and now it's all ending so soon.  It is with a bittersweet feeling that I look towards the last days of my experience here in Prague.  I intend to make the most of these last few weeks and leave nothing undone!

Last Legs of the Travelling Seminar: Moravia and Vienna

      So after having a few very intense and emotional days in Poland, our group loaded up the bus to head back through the Czech Republic to Austria.  The first night we stopped in Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic.  We checked into our hotel and I pulled out Rick Steves to decide how to spend my one day in Brno.  I chose a few sights and headed out, but due to blizzard conditions made it only one block to a cafe.  That pretty much sums up my one night in Brno hah.  The next morning we checked out the Roma museum which looked very cool and creatively designed.  Unfortunately though the displays were all interesting to look at, there were no English translations and our tour guide didn't speak English very well so we didn't get a lot of information out of the experience.  We loaded the bus up once again to go a bit further on our journey.
      We stopped in the little town of Mikulov in Southern Moravia.  The sun finally came out and the temperatures broke the forty degree zone.  Needless to say my mood spiked and I fell in love with Mikulov immediately (sun will do that to you).  We went on a tour of the town to see the usual central square and castle grounds. Everything was so quaint and beautiful.  As we reached the top of the hill, home to the castle, we looked out at the spectacular view.  The sun bathed wine vineyards sprawled out along the rolling hills.  The view was breathtaking, and I became even more excited to go to Austria.  We spent the night in a wine cellar doing some Moravian wine tasting.  The experience was exceptionally strange and uncomfortable, but the wine was delicious, so I'll just leave it at that.

Mikulov Town Square

Looking out at Austria!

Moravian Wine Tasting

      We got up the next morning to more sunshine and warm (well warm to us) temperatures excited to get to our last destination.  We loaded up the bus and hopped on only to hear the wheels spinning as our bus stood still.  We hopped off and proceeded to watch our bus driver and program director try to dig the bus out of mud for half an hour.  They went to a nearby construction site for help and received a pick axe.  It was hard not to laugh as we watched our scrawny program director hitting mud with a pickaxe.  I offered to push but he had too much pride or something.  Anyway our bus driver finally pulled out to loud cheers from us!
      As we drove along the Austrian country side I was reminded of Iowa.  The rolling hills and windmills could have been taken straight from my drive to college if the grape vines were replaced with corn stalks.  We arrived in Vienna and I was shocked at how urban the city felt.  I guess I didn't realize how small and quiet Prague was until I got to Vienna.  The walls next to the river were covered in amazing graffiti and tall imposing buildings rose up around us.  I hopped off the bus already feeling a connection with the city.  We met up for a tour of the city, and I was practically jumping up and down with excitement.  I had read about some of the architecture of the Ringstrasse in my Intellectual History Class and I couldn't wait to see all the buildings I'd read about.
      So I suppose I should tell you a bit about the Ringstrasse so you can understand my excitement.  In the mid 1800s many European cities were tearing down old fortifications around the city centers.  Many of these cities had expanded beyond their walls and with larger empires like the Austrian Empire, attack of large central cities like Vienna, Prague, and Budapest became unlikely.  These fortifications were torn down and replaced with large boulevards.  Large boulevards surrounding the city center are common to most European cities, and Vienna is not special in this regard.  However, the Ringstrasse stands out among these great avenues due to the immense amount of planning that went into the building.  The placement of each building was decided and the architecture chosen according to the purpose of each building.  Instead of picking one style for the entire avenue or letting the buildings pop up on their own, the entire city of Vienna feels like it was created from a detailed blueprint.  The University building is in a Renaissance style, the parliament is in a Greek style, the city hall is neo-Gothic.  Maybe now you understand my excitement to actually see the city... or maybe I'm just a total art and history nerd and you're still confused.  Either way I'm moving on.
      As we started our tour I was blown away by how grand the city is.  Every building feels tall and important.  The city is also the cleanest city I've ever been in; Vienna is cleaner than Prague which is amazingly clean.  What blew me away the most was the amount of open space and sky visible inside the city.  Cities can feel a bit claustrophobic and grey which is why, despite the fact that I am a total city girl, I'm also exceptionally crunch granola and need a good hike, camp out, horseback ride, or ski trip every few months.  But Vienna felt wide open and clear.  The Habsburg Palace sprawls out on the Western side of the Ringstrasse and is home to a sprawling expanse of grass, trees, and a rose garden.  I cannot imagine ever feeling claustrophobic in this city.  I also got to see my favorite building: the Parliament, which was more powerful, strong, and beautiful than I imagined.  It was really amazing to look out across the horizon and spot at least five different architectural styles that were all built during the same period.  While most European cities are a hodge-podge of different historical periods and artistic styles, Vienna has all the historical and artistic diversity but feels completely unified and organized.  No wonder I love this city, it fits with my history nerd, art lover, and OCD planning and organization freak all at once.

The Parliament Building: Greek Style

Hero's Square in front of the Habsburg Palace

      Most of our time in Vienna was unplanned so we could explore freely and I turned to Rick Steves for help (duh).  I picked out the four things he gave three stars to and decided to see however many of them I could.  I asked around but most people from my program only wanted to go to one cheaper museum and then shop.  I debated backing out of my grand tourist plans to join them, but decided that I am fully capable of seeing a city on my own.  I'm so glad I did!  I started with the Habsburg Palace which was really beautiful, though not much different from all the other palaces I've seen.  Mostly the collection of table settings was insane.  The museum starts out with a whole floor of plates, pitchers, candlesticks, utensils, and the like which I fully intended to breeze through to get to the good stuff.  This would have worked out perfectly if I hadn't gotten lost in the maze of Habsburg extravagance no less than four times.  I moved from the palace to the treasury which was just a continuation of luxurious items from the Habsburg times.  I saw several sets of crown jewels, quite the collection of coronation robes, a few swords, and some other mostly gold knick knacks before I needed to escape the royal luxuries for something more my scene.

My favorite set of Crown Jewels

      I practically skipped across the road to the Kunsthistorisches Art Museum.  I knew what art laid inside and I was holding my breath as I bought my ticket.  I forced myself to look at every piece and read Rick Steves as I went, but I knew what laid ahead so I'm sure I went a bit faster than normal.  As I entered something like the seventh room I squealed.  Yes ladies and gentlemen... I, Patty Murphy-Geiss squealed and I'm not ashamed.  I had finally come to my favorite painting of all time: Caravaggio's David and Goliath.  I came across the painting for the first time in my high school art history class, and decided I wanted to paint.  This work started me off on the path towards my art major.  I admit I've squealed once before, and it was also in front of a piece of art: Raphael's School of Athens.  Again, I'm not ashamed.  If I can't squeal at art what reason is there to squeal? None I tell you. None.

My Post Squeal Face

      I spent the rest of the day perusing the other great paintings, many of which I knew from my classes.  I found a few by Raphael, Velázquez, Jan van Eyck, Durer, Rubens, and Rembrandt and couldn't have been happier.  I even ended the day with some extra time so I sat in the museum and read a book.  I read a book sitting in the sun in an art museum, it really doesn't get any better people.

Tiny Piece of the Habsburg Palace

      The next day I visited another art history museum called the Belvedere.  This museum is home to several Klimt pieces including his most famous: The Kiss.  These works were beautiful and much larger than I had pictured them.  My favorite was Wasserschlangen which portrays two women and some truly beautiful vines.  Though I came for the Klimt, I browsed the rest of the museum quickly before heading to my next stop and came across an unexpected surprise: David's famous portrait of Napoleon.  I absolutely love David, and though I really like his revolutionary pieces (google The Death of Marat... just do it), and think he totally sold out to Napoleon, he's still pretty great.  It was awesome to see another of his works, though I've still failed to find one from his revolutionary years.  I got back up to the city center to catch the tram around the Ringstrasse to complete Rick Steve's Ringstrasse tour (so amazing, I almost did it twice).  I finished off my last day at the Naschmarkt to buy some dried kiwi and a teapot to take home.  I finally hopped on the bus feeling extremely sad to be leaving what might just be my favorite city ever.
      The second leg of our trip was definitely my favorite, and I want to return to Vienna to see the plethora of things that I missed.  I'll need to learn either French or German to go into the field of politics I want to do or the field of History I'm interested in.  I kind of blew off German thinking it was a little ugly and after being kind of cold to Berlin, but after visiting Vienna I'm rethinking.  Even the German in Vienna is more light and beautiful than the German in Germany.  I love love loved Vienna and I want to live there someday.  The travelling seminar really was amazing.  Though a lot of the trip was rushed and planned out for us, I had some amazing experiences and a lot of fun.  I'm excited for the last trip we're making to Budapest in a few weeks!  Again sorry these blog posts came so late, I'll have to catch you up on my regular life in Prague (hah regular) soon.
-Patty