Griff Goes Adrift - Czech it Out!: April 2014

Thursday - today we hit the rode for Vienna. It wasn't a bad trip, it only took a couple hours from Olomouc. When we arrived we dropped our bags off at our hostel and right away we were off to explore the town. There is a really long street full of shops that we walked down to get downtown. I have learned that walking extremely long distances is completely normal. This walk from our hostel to the downtown area is about a 40 minuet walk. I don't mind it because Vienna is a beautiful town with a lot to see and take in and these walks are perfect for this. We planned on doing a few more outdoor activities that day, but it started to downpour! We ran to the nearest dry spot and made a new plan. We decided to go to the museum full of all of the royal collection. The wealth of the Habsburg's is something that I can't even fathom. In this museum, we were also able to see the Holy Lance which was said to have pierced the side of Jesus on the cross, and a cross that was supposedly made from the wood of the cross. They have since proven that these are just stories, however it is still very cool to see.

I also quickly discovered that using euros is expensive, I like crowns better. This area of Europe is famous for snitsle. Thad and I somehow got quick reservations at a restaurant that has the best wiener snitsle in Vienna. It was super dobře! The street we took from our hostel to the main part of the town was very long and full of shops. About a 40 minute walk. We also discovered a little bar where the owner told us of some great wine and wine shop. We decided to check it out. I ended up buying a few bottles, it was expensive but worth it. Later we went to a bar with the group had a bier out of a horn glass, good night!

Friday - We walked to a museum. We had a few to choose from and I decided to go to the museum of fine arts and history. Here we saw some ancient Egyptian artifacts, Habsburg items, and some beautiful paintings. It was a massive building and it was hard to see everything. It was a beautiful sunny day, so after the museum we decided to lay in the grass and enjoy the day. Then we made our way to the royal apartments. We started on the first floor were I discovered that the family had lots of expensive fine china. Then we went upstairs to the living quarters. I learned the sad story of Sissi, "my soul walks alone in this world. The soul that was supposed to my match was never born". After the Royal Apartments some of us walked through one of the most beautiful parks. The lilacs were blooming and it smelled wonderful. We then stubbled upon a small market full of Easter things, great food: fried bread, potatoes,strawberries and laughter.

Saturday - I was the last one on the bus because I almost left my coat in the hostel. But I was able to make it with no problem. Then we started our very long bus ride down towards Venice. We drove through the Alps and it was an amazing site to see.

When we arrived in Venice, we quickly discovered the temper that Italians can have. Our bus driver tried to park in a spot that was apparently NOT for us. We were all getting off of the bus and a man quickly came over yelling italian, and he did not sound very happy. Thankfully our teacher Jan can speak Italian and we were able to sort things out. We just had to move down the street, nothing too bad. We then went to the train station to get tickets to go into Venice (we were on the mainland and still had to get onto the island).

We stayed at a hotel near the train station which was very convenient because I am not a huge fan of lugging my huge backpack all over town. After getting settled, Jan took the group out on a tour of the town. It is very unique, and takes some time getting use to navigating the streets. It was so cool to see the canals and all the gondolas. I also liked seeing the buildings that are right next to the water.
The next day we saw the Cathedral, and the prison. It was neat to see these building that were all built in a marsh. It is amazing to see what man can build.

From Venice we all split and went on our spring break. I will do a separate post for this however.

Hello again All! Once again it has been a little while since my last post, apologies for that. I am really finding it hard to sit down and keep up with this blog when I am on the go most of the time. Too much to see! Well since my last post, we have seen quite a bit. I hope that I can cover all of it.

After a nice relaxing week in our hometown of Olomouc, we once again head to Prague. This time around we had our teachers Jan and Martin. This was the first time the group was able to spend time with them, and we were very excited to see what they had to say about the beautiful town of Prague.

This journey started at the train station in Olomouc. It was about a 2.5 hour train ride (much better than the bus that brought us here I thought). I was lucky enough to sit in a cab with another UNK student, a lovely old couple, and a young student who was also studying in Olomouc. We had a great conversation with all of them. The young student was able to translate for us and this was much appreciated. After many laughs, stories, and shared music, we arrived in Prague. Round Two!

We settled into our hostel, and we were off to explore the town. We had already been in Prague, but this time it was a much better experience. This was because we had our great teachers with us! We went from Old Town Square to the Charles Bridge, and finally the John Lennon Wall. After this we were set loose to rome the town on our own. We all broke off into groups. My group decided to clime Petrin Hill, which has a tower on the top. At first glance, it does not look like a bad walk, but it turned out to be quite the hike. This did not stop us from having a great afternoon! Once we arrived at the top, the view was breathtaking and pictures are not able to do it justice.

Then our small group headed to an American restaurant. This was the best thing I had in a long time. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the Czech food here, but there is something about having a good beef burger with crispy bacon and French fries (and no charge for Ketchup and mustard!). It was just a little taste of home which was nice.

The next day we headed up to the Prague Castle. I thought the outside was amazing, but the detail inside of church was incredible. The history behind it is fascinating. After walking around the church, we saw the changing of the guard. It was something neat to see, but I feel like it was a tad overrated. That night we went out on the town which is alway a good time.

Saturday we once again got on a train and headed to Dresden, Germany. This is a town that I would have never even thought about going to, but I am very glad that I did. It was one of the last cities in Germany to be completely leveled by the allies at the end of WWII. Despite this fact, the people here have managed to almost rebuild their city. Some of the group went to an art museum, but I choose to go to the museum of the castle and royalty that once was in Dresden. I was not able to get many pictures because it cost money to have the right to take pictures inside and I decided not to spend the extra money. It was an incredible collection, and I would encourage anyone coming to the area to take time to see this city and it’s museums.

Sunday, we went to the Jewish quarter in Prague. It was a very humbling experience. Again I did not take any pictures here because they asked that you did not. The first building we walked into consisted of walls covered in thousands of names. These were the names of the Jewish people from the Czech Republic that were killed in the Holocaust. When we went to the second floor, there was an area that had children’s artwork from some of the kids that lived in the concentration camps. Words cannot explain how sad this makes one feel. We then walked through a very old Jewish cemetery. Hundreds of very old tombstones were packed into a very small area. So many that they actually started to stack the graves on top of one another. I was able to learn a little more about the Jewish religion and way of life.

The next week was full of class. We had an upcoming free weekend, so we decided to plan something close and fairly inexpensive. This something turned out to be a weekend trip to Brno, which is located about an hour South West of Olomouc. This sort of random trip turned out to be a very fun time! We left on Saturday morning, and arrived around 11 a.m.. As always, we found a great place to eat. I literally ate an entire half of a pig’s ribcage. Such a great meal, but I was pretty slow the rest of the day.

On Sunday, we went to the Brno castle/prison. We had a great time exploring the lower part of the castle. Then we walked around town and explored all of the old churches and buildings. We were actually able to go to the crypts of one of the churches. It was very chilling. People were put below as a final resting place with no intentions of them mummifying. However the conditions were just perfect to preserve the bodies. Definitely a different way to see a church. In one of the rooms, there were a couple of dozen bodies, and the inscription in the wall read something like this: “What you are, we once were. What we are, you will become.” This gave me the chills! We continued to explore the rest of the day.

Monday we caught our bus and headed back home to Olomouc. Back to class and a busy week of planning for spring break :(. This week we will leave for Vienna and Venice, and later Spring Break. I have a lot to do in such a little amount of time, but I am really looking forward to it.

My next post will NOT be up for a while. These next few weeks will be very stressful and on the go, but also a very good time. I hope I can at least upload pictures to Facebook so I can keep everybody up to date with whats going on.

Na Shledanou!