Mark visited and then we went to Berlin

Here are the photos!



And now... I think I'll just post Mark's blog from the visit (haha). He's got an interesting blogging style. But it's funny, and thorough... and I need to be working on a project :)

Russia NOT RUSSIA PRAGUE 75.5,76

11/11/08 (Mark arrives)
That evening we took the "metro" to some cathedral with a neo gothic exterior and an art neuveau interior and toured the graveyard. The whole yard was paved, the graves were stuck so close together that there was no grass or bare ground, and the entire place took on the look of a statue park.

On the way back we passed through a childrens' lantern festivil. little kids running aroun waving sharp sticks at eye level, it was adorable.

12/11/08
2:32 pm

spent the morning walking around west Prague. I went through the big castle. Then I met up with Angela and we went up the Eiffel tower (small version) and saw the city.

Shower, Big Metronome and then I get to go to a class for 500 of these Czech dollars.

9:31 PM

I almost didn't make it to the meet up point in time because I got lost another four times and went in circles at least twice on my way back from the metronome. It doesn't help that it seems to get dark here earlier than it does in Russia. Also I was startled when a little child jumped out from behind a car and barked at me.

I then sat in the best class I have been in in over 2 years. It was a lecture class about the rise and fall of sovietism in eastern European countries throughout the cold war. It was a great perspective to get because I've heard little about it in America and the Russians don't talk about it at all when they talk about the period.

Russians have never ever mentioned their eastern European occupations in any exhibit on the soviet union or Russian history that I have seen in Russia.

Every country has their own information biases.

Tonight I'm going to try clubbing for the first time ever.

Russia NOT RUSSIA PRAGUE BERLIN 75,76,77,78

13/11/08 7:00 PM

Angela and I saw a CG Czech movie (feature length, cartoon comedy, had it's own plot and love story and things) about the construction of the astronomical clock. It was strange, I'm not sure where I can begin with it. Of course it doesn't help that we can't speak Czech but that probably wouldn't have helped that much anyway.

I'll just list things that the movie had:

Talking goat
romantic interest who steals nails from coffins to make money? maybe to help her gigantic preacher father?
a young man who owns the goat and loves the romantic interest and who is a great wood carver.

I'm still a bit unwell from last night, but lets continue.

So the great wood carver comes with his talking goat(male voice and character but female goat, he milked it at many times in the movie) to find work in Prague...

No, I'm not even going to try. It's too weird.

Tomorrow we leave at 5:40 to go to Berlin, 2 days, what will we do to fill our time?

***

14/11/08

Berlin

We arrived at around 2 and found that our hostel is not at all like how a hostel is supposed to be. The lobby is amazing and is decorated with fountains, pianos, and lounging space. Angela booked beds in a 6 dorm but we ended up in a 4 bed room which looked exactly like a hotel room; it even had a TV. Thanks to Angela the room only cost us the price of the 6 room which was 12 euros a night.

After buying food at the grocery store, we licked the Brandenburg Gate, we saw some guy dressing manikins up in costumes for posing in pictures. We passed the decorated British Embassy and a wall which had a relief of Lenin on it on our way to Checkpoint Charley. We visited the Wall museum which was very very big for what we were willing to do (and extremely crowded, that is there was exhibits and translations smashed 30 or so to a wall of a room, it was very exhausting).

Relaxed for hot chocolate, went to the bob store (an independent design store, featuring only artists from Berlin) where Angela bought several surprisingly good presents for other peoples, we found what I thought was the "topography of terror" but was really an empty lot (it was dark already so it was herd to tell what was what).

I'm pretty sure that at this point we visited one of the most amazing chocolate stores I've ever visited. They had Chocolate monuments, a titanic, and a volcano (all of which 4 feet by 4 feet by 3 feet). I walked around with my mouth open the whole time I was there.

Relaxing some more, we meandered around the area and saw some pretty cool stores and monuments (churches, opera houses, theaters and such).

We headed over to the Sony center to see if any movies were playing, on the way there we passed some sort of weekend winder festival which included a sledding hill. The Sony center looked alright but most of the area (large buildings) were vacant of stores and things and the sony center's choice for cobblestones was awful (think slippery cheese graters on the ground). Both the new bond movie and "Burn After Reading" were playing but, because we missed the 8:15 show, they were playing at 10:30.

To make the most of the night we wandered past the Brandenburg gate again and through the amazing Jewish memorial to the capital building.

The jewish memorial is a field of square columns which don't look that impressive from the outside (maybe like a graveyard) but the varied columns hide what the ground does and the memorial actually goes something like 18 feet below street level. The effect is that one goes in and gets lost in a haunting dark forest of Grey walls. (Grey is a proper noun? What?)

Anyway we went up in the capital building and saw the city from the glass dome.

The movie theater was amazing, the seats were the most clean and comfortable that I have ever sat in in a theater. We were shown commercials first, there was a jeans commercial, a few feel good beer commercials and an ice cream commercial with an actress from desperate housewives, at the end of which, the curtains closed and the lights turned on to reveal a man selling the advertised ice cream. In our state of mind, that was quite funny. we saw was "burn after reading" and it was quite crazy. Very enjoyable but "holy cow what the...!". It was an interesting movie to say the least.

***
15/11/08

Berlin

We started this day by going to the wall memorial which showcases a complete wall system (the wall, the killing field and the back fence), The memorial also included a rebuilt and re-excavated church that was demolished for the wall. (the church is a round stone building under a wooden fence cage which gives it a fuzzy appearance)

Walking from the memorial we passed a redecorated and pretty attractive (beautiful? mearly interesting?) Jewish synagogue. Because of the Neo-Nazi problem jewish memorials and monuments have permanent security forces guarding them (this one had two uniformed officers walking back and forth across the front, the cemetary has a plane cloths policeman)

Form there we visited a series of markets ("hackers market" is the incorrect name I remember) where we lunched and looked at German crafts (by the way, Germans are very very nice).

we then visited the "East Side Gallery" which is a 600 meter section of the wall which is used for murals (many about the wall and the division of Berlin, they seem caught up on this wall thing).

At this point we visited the bombed out church and it's style-shattering modern bell tower (Germans seem to like sharp juxtapositions of style).

We were getting pretty tired, so after quickly visiting the victory column we returned to the coffee shop at checkpoint Charley and I had an orange chocolate hot chocolate (Belgium orange chocolate).

Bought souvenirs for my host family, wandered a book store for a few minutes, kicked a church, ate curry wurst, rode the double Decker city buses (sitting at the very front) from one end of the line to the other and back again. It was a joy.

Back to the Hostel to celibrate Angela's 21st birthday with lift (a mineral water apple juice mix) and marshmallow-cream filled chocolates and "The Office" "30 rock" "The Daily Show" and "the Colbert Report". Hooray!

Catsup

First of all, here is a cool commercial for "Skoda," a Czech company.



Good work, Skoda!


Next: pictures from Helsinki!

Krumlov & Hlobuka

We took a program trip yesterday. We saw some castles. It was neat.
Here are some pictures:

Vysehrad

My article is now up at: At the Lennon Wall, our school paper. There are, as always, some edits that I'm not happy with, but you can pretty much get the idea.

If you are a college-y person, you should check out Cary's video blog. He made it for admissions at Lewis & Clark.

It's fall here, and it is Beautiful. Breanne and I took a little trip up to Vysehrad, a public park and the site of a medieval castle and fortification. During the Czech national revival at the turn of the century, it also became a symbol of Czech nationalism and there is now a graveyard there where lots of Czech intellectuals and artists are buried (but no politicians!). It was a really pleasant experience. Here is a slideshow:

And here is a poem (I haven't been writing daily, alas.)

Vysehrad above the city, October 17
Fall smells the same, anywhere there is fall.
The leaves are different shapes here, but I still think
of raking a big pile at the foot of the slide, and coming out with maple
stems in my hair and dirt-tasting
crunchy leaf crumbs in my mouth.
The busts on the graves of all
the Czech intellectuals peer
above their leaf cover and gaze at eachother, and the
pilgrims, and the neo-gothic
cathedral.
Fall, a wedding with brown dresses,
seasons deciding whether
old or new copper fits in.
And every park in Prague has a dog,
a baby carriage,
and a lone old woman.

Home from Poland

Hi y'all!
We went to Krakow this weekend. It was really fun, and I have lots of pictures and lots of stories to tell. Unfortunately... I also have a lot of homework... but here are the highlights!
We took a sleeper train:
We saw a DaVinci painting at a museum: We saw an amazing gothic cathedral - inside was all painted up:
We saw another cathedral, where the pope used to chill: We saw and purchased some cool Polish crafts from the famous "Cloth Hall"
We sampled local cuisine:
And we enjoyed clear and beautiful weather the whole time.

Here is a link to the album with the rest of my pictures from this weekend:

Krakow

Or just watch the (captioned!) slideshow below:

Even more Eastern

Breanne and I took a short trip to Bratislava this weekend. We went to the ballet, the viticulture museum, the castle... we took in the sights and even experienced the grocery store.

Here is the photo slideshow, of course:

Misses!

Dobra Kava = good coffee

More more more!
I only have tonight, and then I'm done with classes for the week, Again. On Monday, we had a visiting speaker in my Media & Democracy class: Iva Drapalova, who was the AP bureau chief for Prague during Soviet rule, 1968-88. She had a lot of great stories, about being tailed by the secret police, about working for people who she never spoke to, and about journalism being a really poorly paid field. She was really witty and fun (and 84 years old!), and honestly quite a bit more interesting and well-spoken than my actual teacher, who is probably a great journalist, but not a great teacher, especially of philosophy.
Czech class has been really cool this week; our teacher is out so we were placed in a different class, which is quite a bit more organized and fast-paced. We are learning adjective endings, numbers, and restaurant vocab. Today we learned a couple other phrases as well:
Jsou zamilovani. = They are in love.
Laska je slepa. = Love is blind.
Miluju te. = I love you.
In Prague Art & Architecture yesterday, we took a walk through the city to see the gothic architecture, and then went to the National Gallery, which is held in a former convent. It was cold... but interesting! We saw the evolution of Gothic art from functionalist to emotional, and the shift of feelings from peaceful reverence to suffering, in the faces of statues and paintings. We saw about 20 statues on the same theme; Madonna and Child; and our teacher explained in detail the significance in each tiny difference. It was fastinating, no lie.
I have reporting this afternoon, and then East-Central European politics tonight. If I can survive through that my roomies and I are going out for traditional Czech dinner! Huzzah!

Here is a slideshow of MORE pictures, this time, from Breanne's camera. There are pictures from Dresden & a couple from Prague near the end of last week. There are some pictures of me&the roomies, and some of my NEW CAMERA. :)

Paranoid, Extremely Angry (Dresden was fun!)

We went to Dresden! I purchased a new camera! And we saw many beautiful things. We had a lovely time on Breanne's Birthday weekend in nearby Dresden, Germany. The city is most known because it was destroyed in WWII (see: Slaughter-house 5). But it has been rebuilt quite a bit and is a very nice place to walk around and see the sights.
The city was mainly developed under Augustus the Great and his sons/fathers/family (they were all named Augustus the something, so I'm a bit sketchy on the details), who brought in a bunch of art to the museum and built a bunch of churches and other large buildings.
Here is the comprehensive slideshow:

So.. Germany! Thank goodness. It was great to be somewhere where I understand the language. I could speak to shopkeepers and waiters and all, which made me feel very empowered. However, they were all also eager to speak English. This is so different from Prague; even after we express that we know no Czech, everyone here will keep talking to us in it. Different world.
Germany was also nice for its clean, open, and organized grocery stores and other such accessibility (quote: "This only has two languages on it, and one of them is English!" vs. Prague, where everything is in 5 different Slavic languages).
We stayed in very clean, pleasant, and colorfully painted Hostel Mondpalast, which is located right in the middle of the night-life action.
So, good game, team!
Highlights: re-visiting the Zwinger museum of old masters, to see:
(I also bought a print.)Learning about otherwise smiley and innocent midwestern Ali's eyebrow-raised suspicious face:
Taking pictures with all the many boroque statues:german pastries!!!
And of course... taking pictures with my new camera!
(the color is called "bohemian brown")

Churches with bones, miners

We've finally started traveling!
Yesterday, most of my roommates and I took a day trip to Kutna Hora, a town about 1.5 hours outside of Prague. We took the train, under the direction of Breanne, and despite the fact that no one spoke English and that Czech people are really grumpy, it actually worked!
We arrived at the train station, which was described by our tour books as 'a 40-minute walk out of town'- and then walked to a little suburb of Kutna Hora called Sedlec. Sedlec is the home of "the bone church," a church decorated inside with immense sculptures and such made of human bones. This chandellier, for example, includes every kind of bone that is found in the human body.
So... that was really odd. This church became like this, because the cementary of this church was a very popular place for the rich to be buried. Then the plague came... and just more and more skeletons came to this place. So in the 19th century some artist came in and made all of these decorations and such from bleached bones. Very odd. Oh, Europe. Here's Breanne in front of one of the huge pyramids of bones:
So, yeah. Then we walked to Kutna Hora proper. It was really hot out, so that was a bummer, and I think it was a couple miles away. But we made it, and walked around the town. Kutna Hora was completely abandoned. Apparently on Saturday afternoon, Nothing is open. Stores, bars, restaurants, everything was shut tight, with very few exceptions. It was such a great change from Prague... there were tourists, but so few, we could walk down completely empty streets... it was just relaxing and wonderful. We found a restaurant from my guidebook (go go The Rough Guide to Prague!), and it was fantastic. Here we are:There were quesadillas and crepes and gnocchi, it was delicious. We went around the table and talked about what our parents do for a living, and what we thought each other's parents did for a living. Everyone was surprised that mom is an artist and dad is... whatever dad is... (as usual)... and that was fun.
After lunch, we took a little break in a grassy park in the middle of the city. Kutna Hora is an old, old, town, that was rich several centuries ago when it was primarily a mining town. The town produced silver coins that were used throughout Europe. The town was quite close to Prague and even London in size and wealth for a while in the 14th century, and as a result an enormous gothic cathedral was built there. Now, it's a really little town (20,000 people).
We went to the church (the Cathedral of st Borora)... and it was Amazing. My guidebook called it "arguably the most spectacular and moving ecclesiastical building in central Europe." as far as my experience has shown, I would tend to agree. It.was.huge! 5 or six stories just in this one enormous room- with peaked arches pointing up to morw pointed arches... There were original paintings all over the walls from the 15th century, there were pulpits and statues from every era. 50 feet above the congregation pews, there were 7-foot tall carved wooden statues of the virtues, looking down and reaching out to those sitting below.
Something that particularly struck me about the church was the emphasis on the occupation of the town. Instead of glorifying kings and saints, the church glorified miners - the common people of Kutna Hora. St. Borora (Barbara, maybe?) is the patron saint of miners, and there were paintings and carvings and windows all dedicated to the profession. How very democratic, or something!

After the Church, we wandered the town a bit, stopped at the grocery store, and then walked back to the train station. It was a very, very nice day.

Lots more pictures can be found here: (link)
look! comment on them Or just check them out in the following slideshow...


In other news...
I just made myself some delicious scrambled eggs, and my roommate found some chicken in not-whole-chicken form at the store. Cooking is looking up!

The apartmentmates are, though, preparing a complaint to the program leaders about parts of our accomidation... since we don't have any dishes at all that can go in the oven, we don't even have enough glasses for everyone, they gave us our wrong home address for people to mail us things, etc, etc... There's nothing too troubling, and we're getting by, but there are some things that would be expected (and that other people in our program were provided with), and it's pretty reasonable to bring it up, I think. (Complaining does make me feel sad, though).

Next weekend, we're going to Dresden! I've been there once before and adored the museum. I can't wait to go back and see:Which is huge and captivating, and:Which is probably my favorite painting ever (just look at her apron!)
And all of that reminds me: (link)

Classes... begin!

This weekend was lazy. I hung out at the house and went to the store a couple times. I bonded with my roommates... overall quite relaxing. We have been attempting to cook a bit with our somewhat limited utensils. We don't have a tea kettle or a coffee maker... no pans for the oven, etc... but pasta has worked so far, as has delicious Czech Ramen, and that's enough for now. I want to make some chicken, but I am scared at the supermarket, since I don't know what the packaging says... and I don't even know how to approach cooking a whole chicken... so, we'll see how it works without that, and how long I can last.
Yesterday, my classes began! We went to school early, because Breanne and I wanted to switch our schedules around a bit. Unfortunately, one of the classes I really wanted/needed for my major, Politics of the EU, is full! I switched it out for "Reporting", which should actually be great, since there are no journalism classes at Lewis & Clark. I'm a bit sad that I won't be able to fill that International Affairs requirement, though.
After the registrar, we hit up the library for textbooks. Here, we get textbooks and readers from the library... for free! We just have to return them at the end of the semester. Overall, this seems like a pretty good deal... No shelling out $600 for textbooks, and no heavy things to sadly depart from at the end of my time here.
My roommates and I then paid a visit to Bohemia Bagel for some coffee and, well, bagels. It's pretty cheap-ish (although it would be cheaper if we had a coffee maker... grr...) and RIGHT down the street from school... less than a block away. It seems like this will probably be a hang-out location all semester.
My first class is "Media in a Democracy". My professor's name is Bruce Konviser, and he is a freelance journalist from the US, living in Prague now for over 10 years. He has been in the Washington Post and on CNN, so I trust him to know what he's talking about. This class is about media ethics, and the role of media in a democracy. After a year at the PioLog, I think it will be really, really nice to discuss the issues of ethical and moral journalism... the duty of the media in the system, etc. It's pretty complicated, and I don't think we all really "get it."
Speaking of PioLog (being the Lewis&Clark school paper)... I miss it! I'm sad to be gone this semester, and I'm concerned that there won't be a good position for me open when I get back. I don't really want to edit news again, and I am nowhere near wanting to edit sports, features, or arts... but there's really nothing I can do; they need to give positions to people who are There. If I had my mac with me, I would offer to edit from here... but that's not really reasonable, since I'm completely out of the loop and the time zone. I really wanted to steal "back door"(the back cover, comedy page) this spring... but apparently they've offered that position to Ben. I guess I'll just have to fight him! :)
Back to Prague: Today, I had two more classes: Elementary Czech, and Prague Art & Architecture. Czech is a difficult language... but my professor seems like a nice guy who is very interested in us taking advantage of our time here in Prague. I hope I can be dedicated in challenging myself and learning as much as I can.
Prague Art & Architecture is going to be amazing. Today, the first day of class, our teacher took us on a walk up to Prague castle, where she talked to us about the Romanesque and Gothic styles on the churches up there. It was really cool! One of the big theses of her lecture today related to the "layering" of Prague's architecture. One building can show features typical of several different eras, as through the centuries, it has been renovated, repaired, and redecorated. For example, the St.George's Monestary was first constructed in the Romanesque style. A Gothic chapel was added a century later, and then a new Renaissance entryway was constructed centuries later.
Anyway... I love this class. I have never done art history before, and so far it's really quite amazing. I spoke to my Professor briefly about research she's been working on; currently she is specializing in the transition in the 1990s, directly after the fall of the Soviet Union. She said that there was a lot of change going on in that time, since during communism there was no private art market, no independent galleries, etc, and all of it thus needed to be created from the ground up.
Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my classes: I will have "Reporting" and "East Central European Politics." Hopefully they will go as well as my first three have.
I went to TESCO (our wal-mart superstore) today to try and get some school supplies... and ran into the entirety of Prague, trying to do the same thing. Kids and their parents held lists of school supplies and were crowding the aisles picking out notebooks and pens. I was scared... so I went home. There's always tomorrow.
And here, my friends, are the photos:


Technical note: The photo captions should just "show up" now. I went back in time (to old entries) and fixed the other slideshows as well... to make them hopefully easier to use and prettier. I also added slideshows to old entries that didn't have photos... So... yay! Everything is documented now.

Roommates, Orientation, Clubbing, 3-hour tour

Roommates, Orientation, Clubbing, 3-hour tour... That is what the past few days have been for me.
We had an orientation yesterday. The program seems, honestly, a bit disorganized... but o.k. overall. I got my cell phone (yay!) and incoming calls are free... so call me always!
We had a nice going-out group dinner, as well, which was really nice... they rented out a whole restaurant for us and we had a buffet-style typical czech dinner. This consisted of... goulash, potatoes, fried chicken-like things, fish, and lots of fruit. There was also lots of wine and beer.
After dinner, pretty much everyone in the program went to a club... and it was actually pretty fun. There was one floor that was all 80s and 90s music, and we had a pretty good time, we all stuck together, and felt very safe.

My apartment mates are very, very nice. I think we're going to have a great time... they are very nice girls and we're taking care of eachother. Here is a picture of Breanne, Ellie, and Ali:
We're starting to plan some trips out of the country (Dresden, Rome, London).... which should be really fun :). My roommate is named Breanne. She's from Seattle... and she's really fun & smiley.


Today my ears are still ringing (which can't be good) - but we went on a long tour of the city with a professional guide. We heard some neat anecdotes... so come to Prague, and I'll give you a tour For now, here is another slideshow... (you can just click to get to the web album, where you can zoom in and stuff.)

Pictures from yesterday

Here are some pictures from yesterday in Prague. If you can read the captions, I made a nice little narrative for you.

I am in my apartment!

I found it! There are 6 keys for this place. (You only need 3 to get in, though.) I took the tram to get here, in two trips with all my stuff. It is really, really nice. And... there's internet! We haven't gotten the wireless to work yet, but I'm plugged in, which is fine.

And here are some photos from Neuschwanstein!

Regensburg

I've been spending some time with Karin in Regensburg, where she will go to University next year. Here are some photos:

Pre-departure

Sure, it's Spring Break. But I'm spending this week-well, other than the parts where I'm sleeping in-preparing for my trip to Prague, which will take up my fall semester this year (August - December 2008).
I've been trying to learn some Czech, with a book & CD set given to me by my grandparents this Christmas, as well as by listening to Czech music (which is pretty hard to find). I'm also reading up on Prague and some Czech literature. All that's boring though.
Welcome to my blog! This is (hopefully) where I will keep you updated with photos and stories from my trip to Prague, when it does actually happen. So... have fun! I uploaded some photos from the Germany/Europe trip I took the summer before I came to college.

We spent a couple fun days in Prague, and it was fantastic. The city is rich with culture, and hasn't been completely overrun with tourists, at least in its appearance. The buildings still have the charm that has survived so many revolutions. I just can't wait to go back!