Last stop: Prague

Prague is the only place that we arrived at night.  The directions to get to the hostel involved us taking a bus and 2 trains, or paying for a shuttle.  Since it was late, we chose the shuttle.  We got to our hostel, and this is by far the nicest hostel we have stayed in.  All of the rooms are named, rather than numbered.  Our room is called Balcony...because there is a balcony! It is the first place where we didn't feel the need to use our own pillowcases because it all actually looks clean!

The first day we went to "Old Prague."  It is the old center of the town.  It used to be surrounded by a guard wall in Medieval times, and it even has an old gun powder tower in the center.  We went through a couple markets and shops here, and saw all sorts of hand-made wooden Czech toys and marionettes.

We noticed that in Prague, more than the other places, there are a lot of american food companies, including Hooters.  It seems like after communism fell, the american companies jumped on the opportunity.

We went and saw the old astronomical clock, which apparently was awesome in the 1400's.  Every hour it has characters that move (imagine It's a Small World clock- but less color and movement).  At the top of the tower a trumpet man plays.  We later found out that the real trumpet guy was only added a year ago because this clock was voted the most disappointing tourist attraction in the world (stone henge being second)!  But for a clock from the 1400s it was cool.

We ate lunch at an Italian place, that actually made us feel like we were in Italy.  After that, we decided that since our Prague itinerary was less polished we would go on a free tour the hostel recommended.  Most of their tour guides are all about our age and are from around the world, but speak good english.  It turned out to be very good.  Our tour guide was a Czech girl named Jana (pronouned Yana, very Czech).  She had been studying in texas only a few months earlier, so her english was very good and she knew tons about the city.  We ended up seeing all of old town Prague.  Here are some of the pictures:

 The Communist Museum (located between a McDonalds and a Casino- shows you what they think of that!) 

 Author Franz Kafka statue outside of the Jewish Quarter of a giant with no head, hands or feet and Kafka riding on his shoulders -from one of his short stories. 

 Powder Tower (from the original wall that circled the town and stored gun powder in it)

 Church of St. James where there is a a real hundreds of years old human HAND hanging from a chain, with many myths and stories about the origin of it and what is represents. 

And this is a little joke that the locals like to do with their money. The 200 czk has two hands reaching out and touching but if you fold it back it looks like that... you get it :)

After the tour we went and saw the St. Charles bridge.  It was made in the 1400s and is made from stone.  It is still standing and still open for pedestrians to walk on.  It is covered in beautiful statues along the sides, and there are tons of musicians playing and artist drawing people on it.

That night we ate dinner at a small cafe and then went to a bar called the Iron Curtain.  It has all sorts of artifacts from their communist era and all sorts of pictures on the walls of people like Reagan and Gorbachev, and other famous communist era people.

In the morning the next day we went and saw the Prague pendulum.  It is the former site of the world's largest Stalin statue.  It represent the time that has passed since communism fell.  It took a lot of stairs to hike up the giant hill to see it, but we got to go through an awesome park and see some great views of the city.

We ate McDonald's for lunch because we hadn't done it any other country.  We decided we needed to do it once.  Turns out it is exactly the same here (I know, big surprise), just less menu options.  That afternoon we decided to use the same tour company to do a tour of the Prague Castle (this one wasn't free, so I think their lured us in with the free one ;-) ).  Our tour guide had told us from the day before that between the two tours we would see 70% of Prague.

 The castle is huge.  It's the largest Medieval Castle in the world.  It's really more like a village.  The presidents office is still there.  It has Europe's longest Cathedral inside of it. Here are pictures of some of the beautiful architecture:

Later we explored some more and found a delicious cinnamon dessert- trdlo! Yum!

 We stopped and looked at the John Lennon Wall (basically graffiti of Beatles lyrics) 

We also found the fence on a bridge over a canal that has "Love Locks" all over it. This is some custom where a couple attaches a padlock and throws away the key and it symbolizes their everlasting love. Um... we didn't do it- we didn't buy a lock, besides that there was no more room, AND we heard they just cut them all off every year anyways ;) 

 This is the Zizkov television tower. As you can probably see it has giant baby statues all over it. This is from the famous Prague born artist David Černý - he has created some very controversial pieces of art and this is just one typical example. It symbolizes television being bad for children as the babies all have no faces, but bar codes stamped across their face.  

 Here are more of the babies outside of their modern art museum. 

At the end of the tour we heard about another one of this companies tours called the beer challenge.  It's sort of like a pub crawl, but more educational.  We learned all about Czech beer (pivos) and got to try all different sorts of them.  The Czechs think the foam on the beer is so important to conserve flavor that the glasses are bigger than normal beer glasses to account for the extra foam they put in.  We went to four different bars all around the city.  This group had about 15 people, so we got to know them.  We met people from Brazil, England, Russia, Boston, Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco.  

Our third day we went to see the other "30%" not covered by the tours.  We went and saw the giant horse statue in the new city center.  When we were there they happened to do a test of their air raid siren.  We thought the Russians were coming back!  They explained what was happening in Czech after the siren turned off, but no one looked alarmed so we guess it was a test of some sort...

We tried to go to the national museum next, but it was closed :(.  We went to the other side of town to see a famous set of statues.  There are two men, peeing into a lake in the shape of Czech Republic.  Their waist and pee streams move to spell out letters, that eventually spell out messages.  It takes a while to sit and decypher, so we don't know any of the messages, but still very cool.  This is from the same artist David Černý  that I mentioned before. We finished our day by walking and seeing some of the beautiful islands on the river.

I missed a bunch, but I think this is enough for now, since we are flying home tomorrow morning.  The main thing we learned is that everything here has a "funny story" to go with it, and the Czechs have a very good, often inappropriate, sense of humor.  When we get home you can see all of our pictures and hear all of our stories in their full detail ;-)

See you soon!
-Clark (I wrote this entry!) and Becky

Note from Becky:
I think that Prague may be my new favorite place we went. I love it all! People are funny and friendly, I think I may have seen the tallest man I have ever seen before, and they tell great stories- these are definitely my people!!!  The only things I could not get used to was having to pay for every bathroom I used and when they give you your change at a store or restaurant they place the coins and receipt on the table or in a dish (they don't hand it directly to you) and I always stick out my hand, I think I confuse them, oops! We learned a lot about the culture here and some things surprised me. But the Czech Republic has a interesting (and recent) history.

I am so exhausted (as you may be able to tell in some of these posts- I am half asleep at night while writing them!), my legs and back ache and my feet feel like I may have broken bones in them (haha- not really, but they are swollen and hurt!), but I am so sad tonight is our last night. I want to keep going! We have heard about so many other great places in Europe I want to go now, I am ready to start planning our next trip!!! I knew I would love it, but experiencing other's culture (language, food, history, etc) is an important and valuable part of life, it opens our eyes to the world and makes us think about they way we live our lives :) Can't wait to share more stories with you all! Love you! <3

Amsterdam, Netherlands, Holland, etc...

Alright, story first:
So when we last left you we were spending our last night in Belgium (which was quirky) and we were supposed to get up at 5am for our train at 7am to be in Amsterdam around 9:45am. I say "supposed to", because when I woke up in the morning and looked at my watch it was about 8:40am. Oops! Luckily for us this train ride is a common one that runs every few hours between the cities and was the cheapest of our transportation bookings. So we checked out got to the train station about 9:30 and went to the information window to ask how to exchange our tickets. The lady told us "hurry, go there now, the train is up there, talk to the train manager!" so we ran upstairs to find a train and many people who worked there, that lady told us she can not do anything and we need to exchange the tickets downstairs at the window. So we went back down and she said "no, I can do nothing, you need to talk to train manager". Back upstairs we went again (with our big backpacks on don't forget!) and that woman told us to talk to a man who said the next train to Amsterdam was at 11:50 and that we can just get on it and sit in the middle. We weren't sure what that meant but we went and got some breakfast (because now we had time to waste) and then jumped on the train that arrived at that platform at 11:50. We did not have seats and so we have to stand in the cafe car the entire ride, but it worked out and we didn't loose any of our money (if looking at the bright side) ;)

SO now were were in Amsterdam at about 2:30pm and checked into our hostel. The room here was actually in a hotel not hostel and so we had our own private bathroom and everything. So nice! But then we went out to explore the city. This first afternoon we shopped at the flea market in Waterloopein and found Rembrandt's house. We then walked to Artis Zoo but they were closing in 1/2 an hour and cost about 18 euros to get in! So we skipped that park and continued our walk to find some yummy dinner and another old cathedral. We saw pretty gardens and a dog park. Then we stopped at a grocery market for a few things (snacks and bought a new toothpaste) on the way home.

 On our way to the Waterloopein market

 Cathedral with a clock tower

 Rembrandt's House 

Before I get too far into our days in Amsterdam, let me tell you what we thought of it:
1. The people are just as trendy as London, but have as much character as Brussels.
2. It is interesting how there are beautiful house, boats and gardens right next to graffiti, smoking coffeshops, and sex shops.
3. We both LOVE all the bikes. So much fun- just hard not to get run over!
4. It is interesting how some of them can speak English almost perfectly- with no accent!
5. It seems that everyone is always either drinking coffee and tea or beer. The cafes are always crowded with people outside drinking one of those things!

The second day we woke up and went to the Anne Frank House right when it opened to avoid long lines. No cameras are allowed inside but it was really neat to see where Anne Frank, her family, and 4 others actually hid, the history of that story really came to life. I need to go back and read her diary again!

We then walked up and down the streets and canals through the Nine Little Streets shopping district. And we found mall to browse through. Then stopped and ate lunch at a cafe where they had DELICIOUS tomatoen soep (tomato soup). And of course panini and sandwiches like every other cafe in Europe.

We found Spui Square and Dam City Square also at different points through out the day and got to see the Netherlands National Monument.

The city hall

So many birds on this thing! ;)

We then walked through the blocks of the Red Light District of course (can't miss that when you are in Amsterdam!) and it is everything you've heard it to be.

We ended the day with the Amsterdam city museum with a little history about the place- turns out that that people here have always been nice to the poor and have had great success and wealth in what they do. 

The last day in Amsterdam we went to the Mueumplein. Which is a lovely green park area with the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gough Museum. We went through both of these in the morning and saw some fantastic artwork (again no pictures inside the museums- sorry we have nothing to share) and then we had some lunch at a cafe where we ate toasties (like a grilled cheese sandwich).

We then went to the "Heineken Experience" at the original Heineken brewery. That was a neat experience to see again how they make beer (although we saw this at the Guinness factory) but also the history behind the brandname Heineken. 

Last, before leaving for the airport we walked through a small part of Vondelpark. This is Amsterdam's largest and most beautiful park. We stopped and got a snack to munch on and watched the bikes ride by and the dogs run around with the kids playing near by. 

We both really enjoyed Amsterdam and wished we could have more time to explore (wished we would have had time to rent bikes to ride around on). Also wish we could have talked to more locals and see more nature. Everything is just so green over here!  The weather has been cold and cloudy almost everyday here (I think it was sunny one day in London). It seems like the morning haze never goes away and next thing you know it is 8pm and it still looks the same. However in Amsterdam, one day the weather would change about 10 times in an hour. It was looking like rain one minute then the next the sky would clear and the sun would feel good but then it would go away and it really did start to drizzle! 

Okay, well I will post once more before we leave to tell about Prague a little, but we arrived safe and are here (just barely- we almost missed our flight!) but we love the hostel so far.  Let us know if you want anything while we are still here- we have free wifi in this hostel! 

Some more Amsterdam (I just couldn't put my camera away, I wanted to get it out every few feet to take a picture of something amazing or beautiful or unique or yea, you get the idea): 

 SO MANY BIKESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Becky and Clark :)

Waffles, Fries, Beer, and French in Brussels

We have spent the last two days in Brussels, Belgium.  We did the lower part of town one day and then the upper part of town the second. However, getting off the high speed train when we arrived from London (we went through the chunnel! ;)) was an adventure.  We had to try and find a cash machine that would let us get out enough money in the huge station (their train and metro stations are as big and nice as airports). And then we needed to find the trams, not the real train,s or the metro, or the buses... as that is what our directions said. But not everyone speaks English here as we found out! However after some time wondering, we made it to the hostel! And its nice and new compared to our others we've been in so far- even sharing a 6 bed room :)

The history and government of Brussels is very interesting and confusing as we have heard and figured out. If you're interested- look it up-but it will probably just confuse you more since the locals here can't even seem to keep it straight. They have more than one official language and so all the street signs and everything are in both French and Flemish, In fact most everything that has a sign reads about 3 to 5 different languages with English being one of them only about half the time. The tour guides even find out who there speaks what before they begin so they know what to speak as everyone here speaks about 5 languages too.  But the streets are full of character in the lower end and there are fascinating things around every corner.

We went to the Grand Place (which our hostel is just half a block from) which is the city's main square full of beautiful buildings. And in there we took the Town Hall tour and learned some interesting things along with getting to see some gorgeous government rooms/buildings.

Then we went and found the famous Manneken Pis (little boy peeing fountain) and the Jeanneke Pis (a girl peeing) and the newest statue the Zinneke Piss (the dog peeing on a street corner). I told you Brussels is kind of quirky and crazy- but fun!

We ate lunch at a beautiful cafe "La Mokafe"  in the elegant expensive Galleries St Hubert (which is an enclosed shopping area) and had a delicious authentic Belgium Waffle. Although ordering lunch was difficult since we didn't know what we were getting (it was all in French!) But the people here take their food very seriously and everything is presented so beautifully on the plate and always looks amazing!

We also went through the Chocolate Museum and all the little hand made Belgium Chocolate shops to try some DELICIOUS chocolate! My favorite :)

And we also found a cute toy store called the Grasshopper! So adorable, with old wooden toys and some new Euro style games and toys.

Last we found St. Nicolas Cathedral and admired yet another beautiful cathedral in Europe ;)

Then today we explored by walking the upper half of Brussels. This area is very different then the lower half- in fact they speak a different language! But the streets are cleaner and the houses and buildings are fancier. We spent the morning walking around and saw the Place Royale, the Royal Palace (yes- two different places) , the sculpture gardens, walked through the Mercedes House Museum, saw the Notre-Dome du Sablon Church, the Place de Petit Sablon (another garden) and an amazing viewpoint of the city.

We also went the the Musical Instrument Museum -since the alto saxophone was invented here in Belgium!!!

We then had lunch in the park and walked through the huge (well, large for Brussels)) Parc de Bruxelles.  Delicious!!!

The afternoon we spent a little ways outside of the main part of Brussels at the Automium and Mini Europe.
Automium was originally built in 1958 for the World Expo in Brussels and is now considered the 'Eiffel tower of Brussels'. It is a huge (magnified 165 billions times) iron crystal. It has some strange exhibits inside, but a great view!

And then Mini Europe is an 'amusement park' of miniature models of famous places and monuments all over Europe. Like here we are at the Eiffel Tower in Paris! haha- it was fun!

We then ate lots of fries this afternoon and went to a bar that serves over 2,500 different kinds of beer! Wow!  The people here are not as friendly as the UK, they are kind of just fine with doing their own thing- it is more like if you leave me alone- I'll leave you alone.

Thanks all for now folks!

~Becky and Clark <3

The Rest of London

Okay, so quick post about the second two days in London.

We went through Buckingham palace and saw the changing of the guard. William and Kate's wedding stuff was a main part of the exhibit in some of the 19 staterooms we went through, We got to see her real wedding dress! No pictures inside the palace, but it was a pretty neat audio walking tour. The detail on the ceiling, walls, furniture, and floors was beautiful. Then attempting to see the changing of the guard was crazy on the streets but we saw the beginning part from the side way back and then went to the other side of the palace and sat up on a wall in the park and watched the rest. Very impressive!

Then we went through Covent Gardens to eat lunch and shop around. Went through a few neat local artists shops. The architecture of this building is so amazing too! Then we got on the tube and went up to King's Cross station to see Platform 9 3/4. We walked the length of the train platform from 9 to 10 and didn't see anything but then a man who works there asked if that was what we were looking for (I guess we were obvious with a camera in my hand and not boarding any of the trains) and he pointed us in the right direction up to the street corner. (I'm slightly disappointed it isn't in the appropriate spot- haha) Then we got back on the tube and went to the British Museum.

This place is CRAMMED with crazy amazing things!!! And it is all FREE to see. But I guess is does belong to the rest of the world and the British just "borrowed" it right? We saw SO many artifacts, history icons, art, monuments, etc that I can't even begin to list them...

The last day we went to Portabello Road Market and had breakfast at a cafe and then shopped. Got to see some need London culture that was different than the tourist-y parts. I haggled with a few market salesmen and got some jewelry.

Next we went to Kensington Palace. However a majority of the palace is under construction and so we decided not to go in, but took pictures in the beautiful gardens. Then we wondered through Hyde Park. Saw some memorial playgrounds/fountains of Princess Diana and then we found the Peter Pan statue!

Then it was off to Harrods!  And we got lost (not really) in there for hours. Very busy, but fancy-smancy stuff. We took some picture and marveled at some neat clothes, jewelry, furniture, electronics, musical instruments  appliances, etc...

W few more things we noted that are different here (since there isn't too much as we both speak English):
;) They say Lifts (for elevators) and dine in or take away (for take out). The food is pretty much the same in the US- a lot of different cuisines. We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner last night. And we had the best ice cream ever with some yummy chocolate "flakes". Yummmmm :0)

Then we left for the Tube for our last ride at 5am for a very early and tired ride :)
Will update about Brussels later....

Miss and love you all!!!!
~Becky and Clark
(2 very sore-feet, tired-eyes, aching-backs worlrl travelers!)