prague.

forgive me for my month long lapse. i can explain, i swear…

anyway, prague. oh right.

it was a beautiful city and a great last stop on our european excursion. the city was full of culture, music, historic architecture, fine foods and great weather. yes, to top the last few days in europe, god granted us gorgeous blue skies and moderate temperatures.

we arrived in the city early in the morning by lufthansa airlines (our favorite) and took a bus from the airport to the nearest metro stop. from there we arrived at a stop near our hostel and walked along the quite streets to our destination. the hostel was great: all sorts of amenities, ikea furniture, and relatively cheap prices. we dropped of the luggage and headed back into the city center by metro. its signature medieval square greeted us as we gawked at the spires, stonework, glockenspiel and bells.

like most european cities, it is entirely possible to traverse it by foot. which we did. we walked down the main shopping street and stopped at a chíc café for lunch where we ordered something like a mushroom & cheese crepe. delicious. the only difficult thing about prague and the czech republic was its currency. the crowns were at a conversion rate too tedious to conquer by quick thinking and so we decided it best to spend little and not think about it.

in lieu of the fact that the city is packed full of music venues and classical concerts we attended an opera that evening. i didn’t quite know what to expect. there weren’t too many people in the audience, but the singers and musicians were excellent. with our extensive mastery of the german language we were able to decipher the meaning of the opera by understanding words like “man” and “ham”. very useful.

it was a very colorful city. red and copper rooftops, green gardens and bright flowers, and unique shops and stores. the river splits the city 70/30 with the castle being on the latter side.

we took this trip as our last opportunity to relax in europe. while we did a lot of sight seeing and walking, it was a relatively easy-going trip. sometimes its just beneficial to people watch.

the city was full of glass and jewelry shops. and at night, they were the most well lit establishments, boasting and sparkling their treasures.

at the castle, the royal cathedral was too a sight to see. it reminded me a lot of the cathedral in cologne. basically the same plan and interior/exterior styles.

we walked a little through the palace, but there wasn’t too much to see: a great hall, chapel, and knight chamber.

the last days we spent most of our time at the national museum of art. it was somewhat comparable in size and capacity to the louvre. it contained mostly modern art, though also had exhibits on architecture, design, industrial design, and some ancient folklore artifacts.

one of my favorite installations was this bright red assortment of instruments and tubes, making up two opposing characters, set adjacent to a red background.

finally, we took a few night pictures of the city all lit up.

home, sweet home.

we arrived safely at dfw around 1pm, texas time. whoop!

soon i’ll post about my last week in germany, a weekend in prague, and the travel home.

letzte Woche in Deutschland

it has been a while since my last post. here’s a quick summary from the past week.

monday.

we had a final cultural studies session with stefanie discussing our time in berlin and in germany as a whole. later we met with the AIB history buff again and learned about german politics and history over the past 30 years.

tuesday

this morning we had our big AIB breakfast. we each had to bring a specific thing. geoff and i were in charge of the fleisch [meat]. we bought 200g of fleischwurst, mettwurst, rühershinken, and gekochter shinken. wurst is like salami or sausage, and shinken is ham. one of them apparently was a tube of raw meat spread. yay raw meat! i tried a bit [sorry mom] and it wasn’t that bad. once you got past the idea.

then we took a class field trip to the aquazoo! basically an aquarium. so we saw penguins, seahorses, sharks, otters, crocodiles, snakes, and turtles. i don’t know if it was because it had been so long since i have been to a zoo, but i was thoroughly impressed and awestruck by the animals. i felt like a 4 year-old, complete with gaping mouth and big eyes, staring past the glass into god’s creations. i also decided, with the help of rachel, that i would like to one day own a salt-water aquarium.

after studio, we all including stefanie and lars, went out to eat at an ethiopian restaurant. the food was good, but interesting. everyone shared with another a huge platter of soft bread with meat and sauces on top. you just broke off the bread, grabbed meat, and dipped it in a sauce. it was also fairly spicy, but my inner-spanish blood could handle it.

wednesday.

spring cleaning. i was going to sleep in, but at around 8:30am i woke to the bright blue sky and sun and decided to open my window and sleep a bit longer. as i reached to turn my latch twice (which allows the casement window to pop out at the top) i pulled and soon realized i had only turned the latch once (which allows the casement window to swing out on the side) therefore knocking off the glass lamp that sits on my sill to come crashing down on the wood framed bed and ruining all chances of me going back to sleep. after a few german curses, i got up and decided it must be a sign. i ended up cleaning my room big time. i am a pretty back “pile-maker” – one who doesn’t really put things away but rather sorts it all into piles. so finally i sorted it all, dusted and cleaned the floor, organized and made it look spectacular. it wasn’t that bad before, but i did get a comment from yvonne.

after studio, we went to a park over by where we live in wersten, to play soccer! what a blast. the weather is finally getting better here and we are all so excited.

afterwards, i went home for dinner with my host parents and their friends.

thursday.

rheincruise!

we took a train (very early in the morning) to bacharach – a medieval town about 3 hours south of düsseldorf on the rhein river. its in the region of castles so every 40 km or so you can see one in deep slumber on the hills above.

we walked around the town for a bit, grabbed a bite to eat, and boarded our boat for a 3 hour tour…

hehe. knock off…

the sun came out and it was a beautiful, but chilly ride.

gavin’s shoes above. geoff’s shoe’s below.

mmm. my freitag.

after the ride, we arrived in a smaller town to the south and ate lunch at a neat ma&pa medieval pub/restaurant. there we at schnitzel, pommes, und salat. (so basically chicken fried steak and gravy, french fries, and salad). it was a great meal.

afterwards we climbed 150m by foot to the base of the town’s castle and took a tour. it is the only castle in the region that has been completely preserved and not destroyed, then renovated. we saw the enormous 3m thick walls, kitchen, knights room complete with water closet, blacksmith and torture chamber. not quite as cool as i would have thought when i was 10 years younger, but still pretty interesting.

we descended the mountain and stopped for ice cream on the way to wine-tasting in the underground cellar, owned by the same people from today’s lunch

it was a really cool place, full of empty wine bottles stacked on the sides, and in the back was where the wine was fermented and bottled. so cool. we had the opportunity to try 5-6 different kinds of white wine, and i really liked them all. it was an older couple who were in charge and you could see in their eyes their passion for wine. later, we were able to purchase the wines we had tasted. i bought 2 bottles. at 4.80 and 3.20eu, who could pass it up?

friday.

today was pretty much all-day studio with judith. between working, gavin and i exchanged some cool design blogs and websites, and i created personalized icons for my symbaloo. woo.

saturday.

slept in a bit and then went with geoff, savs, and rachel to this sweet designer-indie-souvenir shop close to the hbf, called hausfreund. it means house friend. it was a little more pricey than i had wanted but i bought a few small things. being here has made me realize that i don’t really like to receive souvenirs; no offense to anyone who does, but i’d rather have something that i can either use daily or something that had some thought put into it and wasn’t haphazardly mass-produced.

for lunch, i had the urge to cool. so i stoped by the rewe and picked up some tortellini, pesto, stuffed peppadew peppers, and a baguette. with some evoo and a little luck, i created quite a culinary delight.

i worked on my project a bit, but i am in a mind-block. maybe its because i am going home so soon, or that i just don’t want to spend my last few days here working on a project. anyway, i need to get some work done soon.

on that note, we all went up to aib that night for some jungle-pong and poker. jungle-pong is probably the most fun group game version of ping-pong. you can play with an unlimited number of people; the more, the crazier. you number off 01-08 or whatever, and no. 01 starts by serving a normal ball over the net to the other side. however, before no. 02 can return it, the ball must hit the table once, and the floor once. then they hit it anywhere on the table (even on their side) and it just has to fall on the floor and bounce once before no. 03 can hit it, and so on. if you mess up on your turn, you get a stike. 03 strikes and you’re out. so fun.

after that we played poker with all of our extra loose euro change. i really like the euro in that they have 1 and 2 eu coins. so efficient. however, they ruin the efficiency by have coins like .05, .02, and .01 coins. the .01 coin is SO small. no one uses it. they should just get rid of it. anyway, i didn’t have the best luck at poker but was able to get rid of 3-4 euros worth of worthless coins. paul and gavin however will be paying in coins for the rest of their time here.

sunday.

today. i should really concentrate my efforts on my final presentation for studio. yes. that would be a good plan.

here’ to my last week in germany.