torence777

I made a last minute trip to visit my friends in Poznan before leaving Europe and returning home to the United States. Before I left, I wrote down her address on my ticket and left for the train station. I boarded the train and looked out the window at the winter wonderland until it was dark. I was switching trains in Wroclaw, so I knew that I shouldn't fall asleep! To my horror, the train stopped in the middle of no where and I heard mixes of Polish and Czech. I stepped out of my cabin to see what was going on.. and the conductor just spoke to me in Czech. "Ne, ne Anglicky." He should his head and pushed me in the direction of the door. No one spoke English, but it was clear that ... read more

After a restless night of hearing the Slovenians downstairs dancing, banging on the walls and singing "We all live on the Yellow Subamarine..." we woke up at 8am. We went to the bakery next to our hostel and got a loaf of bread and some juice, and we were on our way to explore the city. We walked through the copper markets which sold Bosnian tea sets (almost identical to turkish tea sets), and through the old part, but continued to the new part of the city which we soon found to be a little bit depressing and empty. We walked down the main street for about two hours... We saw bullet holes in the sides of buildings, condemned structures, graffiti, etc.. The National Museum was a beautiful building, yet it hasn't opened again since the ... read more

I saved the Jewish Quarter for when my aunt, Cynthia and her friend, Anne came! So, it was their first day in Prague. They just arrived last night. We met at Malostranska and walked across the bridge. I showed them my academic building on the way to the Jewish quarter and they were pretty impressed. We all got tickets to see six sights of the Jewish Quarter museum... They were kind of expensive- 300 crowns each, but I got the student discount :) We saw the cemetery where over a quarter million Jews were buried in a grave yard smaller than a soccer field. They apparently were buried on top of each other because they weren't aloud any more land for living or to bury the dead. Next, we saw the Spanish synagogue. It was very ... read more

So, this is my first weekend of not traveling in a whole month. I can definitely say that it is relieving to be in Prague with a sense of permanence. However, there were not many others in the dorm this weekend. In my suite it was just three of us! But we decided that we would do something fun this weekend. On Thursday night, we went to Cross Club. Its a really cool bar with weird industrial artwork and fixtures everywhere. Every night they invite an artist or a DJ. Thursday, it was a Reggae DJ. It was really cool. It was a nice laid back night with just three girls and four guys. Friday night we went to a cool indie place where they have indie movie showings and bands. We bought tickets to see ... read more

So despite walking a calculated fifteen or plus miles yesterday, we got up bright and early because we had a lot to see before we hopped on a train to Zagreb. First, we went to the train station to get our ticket to Zagreb. Then since I was dreaming about that Mocha I had yesterday, I had to get another! We walked into the main square of the city and where the castle up on a hill was visible. Again, no signs or routes shown, so we just went up and eventually found a trail that took us up to the castle. The trail was heavily wooded and beautiful because of the changing leaves. On the way up, we met a Slovenian lady and her dog whose name was "Funny." She was a mix of some ... read more