Prague

Last weekend I went to Prague! I met my friend Eileen there on Friday night. We checked into our hostel which was right next to the Charles Bridge and walked around on Charles Bridge.

Prague Castle

One of the statues on Charles Bridge - really creepy at night

The next morning we walked over to the Old Town Square and took a free walking tour, which was really interesting and informative. I love a good free walking tour. We saw the Astronomical Clock, which was really pretty. The figures move on the hour. The clock is apparently the second most disappointing attraction in the world, second only to the Mona Lisa. However, I thought it was pretty cool nonetheless. It shows where the sun and moon are in the sky, the phase of the moon, the time, and more that I've forgotten.

We saw the Estates Theater, where Mozart's Don Giovanni premiered. This creepy statue was next to it:

Is it a dementor? Nazgul? Nope, Don Giovanni apparently.

We also walked through the Jewish Quarter and learned about the history of the Jews in Prague, from being forced to live in the ghetto to the Holocaust.  Apparently, the Jewish Quarter is now one of the nicest parts of town. Our guide also told us the story of the Golem, a creature created by a rabbi to help the Jews. He deactivated the Golem every Sabbath, but one time he forgot and the Golem went crazy and started rampaging through the town. The rabbi managed to immobilize the Golem and he was placed in the attic of the synagogue. However, no evidence of the Golem had been found there.

The New Old Synagogue

Statue of Kafka

We learned about the history of Communism in the Czech Republic. It is strange how our tour guide, who was in his mid-20's, was born under the Communist rule. It is pretty recent, but at the same time seems so long ago.

We later went up the hill to get a view of Prague from above. It was a little rainy and foggy, so the view wasn't the best.



I later walked around and ran into the John Lennon wall. The wall is covered in graffiti of Beatles quotes and inspirational messages.

The next day, we went to the castle! We walked around the huge castle complex and went inside St. Vitus Cathedral.

St. Vitus Cathedral

The front of St. Vitus Cathedral

We then went to the Jewish Museum. We saw the Pinkas Synagogue, the walls of which are covered with the names of the Czech and Bovarian Jews killed by the Nazis. There are over 80,000 names and not all of them are known. On the second level there is the artwork of the children in Terezin, a concentration camp that Hitler used as an example of how well the Jews were being treated. Almost all of the children were killed and their artwork is haunting. We also saw the Old Jewish Cemetery. When the Jews were confined to the ghetto, they only had a small piece of land in which to bury their dead. Because there are strict burial rules, they had to find a solution since they were running out of space. They decided to put another layer of land on top of the current one. So there are twelve layers of bodies buried here and there is a tombstone for every person.

Later, we just wandered around Prague. The architecture is so interesting and varied.

The street next to our hostel

That night we went on a free ghost tour, which was pretty funny. Our guide was a very enthusiastic, overdramatic teacher. We visited a lot of the same places, but learned some of the legends of Prague. The coolest place was the door of the alchemist building. We also spent a lot of time in Old Town Square:

Greece

The week before last I went to Greece twice! I first went to Kos and Rhodes with another IES student, who had posted that Ryanair had a 10 euro ticket to Kos and Rhodes. This offer was too good to pass up, so there I ended up at the airport, at 4:30 AM, on my way to Kos. When we got there, it was a little deserted as tourist season hadn't started yet. Our plan of lying on the beach all day was ruined by the fact that it was cold and rainy. However, we did eat delicious Greek food.

Kos - a little rainy, but still pretty 

A variety of Greek food

Baclava, yum!

The next day we took a ferry, which we barely caught because of the horrible directions given to us by the ferry company. The ferry was super nice, like a cruise ship. We landed in Rhodes, checked into our super nice hotel on the beachfront, and walked around the Old Town. Since Rhodes was a medieval town, there is a castle and everything.

We then headed on a bus to Lindos, which is the typical Greek island town that everyone thinks of, with the white-washed buildings on a hill next to the sea. 

Lindos! 

Sadly, we could not spend more time in Rhodes, which was so nice compared to Kos. After going to school in Rome for a couple of days, I headed back to Greece with my friend, Kassie, this time to Athens.

Athens was amazing! I had heard that Athens wasn't very nice and people generally don't have good things to say about it. The area that we stayed in, near the Acropolis, was really nice. We saw a few temples from afar, the Palace Gardens, and some strangely dressed guards and then went to go eat more Greek food.

In front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

The next day we got up early and went to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. It took over 600 years to build the temple!

Temple of Olympian Zeus

We went to a Greek yogurt bar and I had the traditional Greek yogurt with black cherry, which was absolutely delicious. Next we climbed up to the Acropolis. There was a lot of climbing on this trip. We saw the Theater of Dionysius and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. It is amazing to think that in the Theater of Dionysius, you could see plays by the great Greek dramatists, like Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Menander, performed for the first time.

Theater of Dionysus

Odeon of Herodes Atticus

We finally reached the Acropolis to see the Parthenon. The Parthenon had a lot of scaffolding and cranes around it, but was still magnificent. This one building has so much history. We learned that there were previous Parthenons built before the current one and that the Parthenon has been used as a church and a mosque. It was blown up by a Turkish bomb, which is why the roof and a lot of the sides are missing.

The Parthenon! 

The Erecthion

The view from the Acropolis. You can see the Temple of Hephaestus

We then took a bus a couple of hours down the coast to the Temple of Poseidon, which is on a cliff by the sea. It was absolutely beautiful and so fitting for Poseidon.

The Temple of Poseidon on the cliff by the sea. So beautiful!

On arrival back in Athens, we went to the Acropolis museum to see the artifacts and statues from the Acropolis. The museum was very informative and well laid out. I wish that the British Museum would give the Parthenon marbles that Lord Elgin stole back to this museum because they would fit perfectly. But I understand that the issue is more complicated than that.

The Caryatids from the Erecthion. The one on the left has been cleaned.

The next day we got more Greek yogurt and went on a walking tour. It was supposed to take three hours, but it ended up being five hours long. We were a little worn out by the end of it. It was good, though, for learning about Athens as a whole and not just the ancient part. We went to the Parliament building, saw where the riots took place, and also saw the ancient sites. Near Parliament, there were men who would grab your hand and place bird seed in it so the pigeons would attack. They then expected payment. Pigeons are scary.

We then headed to the Panathenic Stadium, which was used for the first modern Olympics in 1896. It was reconstructed from the remains of the ancient Greek stadium and made of Pentellic marble.  That was really cool! We climbed up to the top of the stadium, ran on the track, walked back through the passageway that the athletes used to walk through on their way to the stadium from the changing rooms, saw a room full of the Olympic torches from previous games, and stood on the medal podium.

The view of the Acropolis from the stadium 

That evening, we took the funicular up Mount Lycabettus, the highest point in Athens. The view was spectacular.

The next day we got up early yet again to go to the National Archaelogical Museum, which had a lot to see. One of the highlights was the exhibit on an ancient shipwreck where they found a lot of artifacts.

We also saw the Temple of Hephaestus, which is the best preserved temple in Athens. It gives you a good idea of what temples really looked like.

Greece was so different from Italy. I actually preferred the ancient sites in Athens to the ancient sites in Rome. In Rome, the Colosseum and Forum are next to a busy road and are so congested. I liked that they separated the sites in Athens with a nice park area. I also like that almost all of the sites and museums are free for students in Athens. That was really nice! The coast of Greece was so beautiful as well. It was interesting to also see the effects of the economic crisis. There are a lot of buildings that have been stopped mid-construction because of the economy. I would love to return to Greece again and spend more time travelling to different cities.

London

I went to visit my friend from high school, Eleanor, in London a couple of weeks ago. I had been to London before, so it was nice to not feel the stress of having to see everything. It was so nice to be back in an English-speaking country and to eat food besides pasta!

We walked around and saw Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. I also got to see a friend from Rice, Addie, for a little bit. It was so nice to see familiar faces. We went to the National Gallery also, where I saw some of the pieces that we had studied in my art history class.

Parliament and Big Ben

Trafalgar Square

The next day, we stood in line to get tickets for the musical Matilda. After successfully acquiring our 5 pound tickets, we went to 221B Baker Street, the address of Sherlock Holmes. After wandering around a bit due to the faulty maps and definitely not our own inability to read them, we found the address and took a picture in front of the door.

Cool Sherlock themed art at the Underground station

In front of 221B Baker St.

We then headed on a red double decker bus down to the Tate Britain. First, though, we went to a pub and ate fish and chips. So good! We saw the Turner exhibit at the Tate, which was amazing! Finally, we walked back through St. James' Park and past Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace

Nature

St. James' Park was really pretty, even in the rain

After grabbing burgers, we watched Doctor Who and then went to Matilda. Matilda was really good! I had loved the Roald Dahl books when I was younger and it was really cool to see this musical. It was very funny and clever.

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend!