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Saturday, December 11, 2010

From Christmas lights to red lights...Prague and Amsterdam.

Welllll my life has been a blur the past week. give or take four months.
Thursday night was my dance performance for salsa. I bought special black heels to go with the shiny plastic gold dress (which I actually thought was kind of cute, but I think my style is way off of average perspective). It was my roomate Caryn's birthday, so we had a party in the locker room (complete with bags of chips and drinks) before the performance to get our salsa mentality into full swing. The actual performance was a lot of fun. I started out doing the bachata with four other gals...we were front, center, and unfortunately the main event of that song. Then I danced the salsa with Chris. He's very nice and doesn't suck, have sweaty hands, or step on my feet so he's above par for my class. Of course I messed up a few moves, and of course that mess up was the only clip from our performance that made it into the "Salsa 2010" video. Really? But I definately had the biggest smile onstage...pulling out new moves, people just couldn't keep up.
Friday morning Stephanie and I got on our 6:30am flight to Eindhoven for a layover. We landed and had no idea what country we were in, but for future reference, Eindhoven is located in the south of the Netherlands. We flew to Prague and very conveniently met up with Ari, Micheal, and Nick in the airport who we were staying with in the same hostel room. Our hostel was FANTASTIC. Legitimately felt luxurious compared to what I'm used to. Private bathroom, hot shower, down comforter. Bliss. Our first night in Prague we had a delicious Czech dinner. I had goulash, like beef stew, dumplings, and good ole czech beer. Our table had a picture of our waiter framed in the middle, it was odd but makes sense? Otakar the waiter. We wandered around the numerous Christmas markets and tried hot wine and honey almonds. That night we went out to a few bars and ended at a club where our guy friends got in a fight <<onstage>> (for emphasis) for legitimately fifteen minutes becuase some guy chatted up Stephanie. Boys are oh so strong and protective. I fled the scene after the entertainment of it died down. The next morning we went on a fantastic tour led by our pothead tour guide. He was HILARIOUS and every other word was a curse word, but really, I learned a lot. We saw Prague's pride and joy, the famous midieval astronomical clock in the main square that was built in 1410 and has an hourly show with figures of the Apostles and other moving sculptures. The main square had an unbelieveably beautiful Christmas tree that had lights that looked like gleaming icicles surrounded by an adorable Christmas market with hot food (brats, hot wine, goulash, roasted chestnuts, rolled cinnamin bread) and hand made Prague souveniers. We toured Prague's Jewish quarter (called Josefov) which dates back to the 13th century when Jews were forced to vacate their homes and settle in one area. There was a phenomenal musuem that Stephanie and I went in later (Pinkas Synagogue built in 1535) which houses the exhibit, "Children's drawings from Terezin 1942-44). This emotionally wrenching exhibit houses 4,000 original drawings of the 10,000 prisoners under the age of 15 in Terezin (they weren't all on exhibit). Only 242 kids survived. Mind blowing. It was so sad to see despair in many pictures. But it was incredible to see such joy and hope in others. There was a teacher that gathered the resources for children in Terezin to be able to draw pictures becuase she wanted to take away some of the pain and bring happiness through art. (This would be Mrs. Hardy, a teacher of mine from high school, back in the day!!) It was incredibly moving, especially when I read a poem from an eleven year old boy, near death, yet still praising God and the strength of his Jewish people. How lucky I am living in today. We saw a beautfiul Spanish synagogue built in Moorish style which is the oldest Prague Jewish house of Prayer. We got kicked out for taking pictures. Stupid tourists.
After our tour on Saturday we signed up for a pub crawl and got a free beer n t-shirt that says "crawl with me" haha. hmmm. We met some guy that works for Lego and travels the world for his job. He lost my jacket at one of the bars. Swell guy. The first bar we went to had a man who screamed and called it music who was the entertainment. I politely asked him if I could karaoke Britney Spears but apparently he owned the place and had an agenda. We mistaked one bar for a strip club, walk in, walk out, terrifying. I had to buy a hot dog off the street vendor the forget about that place. Our group got seperated from "the group" and we asked a variety of taxi drivers before we found "Northern Europe's Largest Club!" The club is five stories with different music on each floor, smoke doors, spotlights to stand and dance on, dance floors made of colorful lights, and a light show in a seperate balcony type room. There were balconies to dance on lining each dance floor and cages that I was not a part of. Definately competitive with Madrid clubs. One floor literally was labeled, "Black Music." Why does America get singled out for being racist and intolerant?
The next day the boys left and Steph and I wandered around shops and Christmas markets. Largest success of the day: fur hat purchase. That night was St. Nicholas Eve and there were holiday events going on in Old Town Square that Steph and I watched from a great restaurant. On St. Nicholas Eve people dress up as Mikulas (St. Nicholas), angels, and devils. While the angel is a creature of good, the devil acts as a reminder for children to behave throughout the year to ensure that they will be given treats on St. Nicholas Eve and not stuffed in his sack and sent to Hell. What a holiday to bring in the Christmas cheer. Terrifying. Apparently I've been great this year becuase I made it out alive. Besides binge eating on market food and faceplanting in the snow while simultaneously losing my camera, the night was simply fantastic.
Waking up with Bohemian Bagel in the morning was blissful. Steph and I then went up to Prague castle and wandered around the grounds, briefly being attacked my Asian tourists. We asked them to take a picture of us, and then one popped in our picture from the group whilst relaying their camera to another person. By the time the photo shoot ended we had taken about twenty or so different pictures complete with thumb ups and peace signs. Hilarious. The castle grounds overlooked all of Prague so that was very pretty, especially becuase the town was covered in a pretty blanket of white and it began to snow yet again. To get to the castle we had walked over Charles Bridge and stopped at the John Lennon Wall. This wall was graffiti'd by Lennon in the 1980's with lyrics of Beatles songs and since has been painted over and over again with pictures and saying symbolizing peace and hippy loveeeee.
Tuesday our flight was delayed to Amsterdam for hoursss. and so Stephanie and I hung out in the airport with some people going to Amsterdam as well and had a few drinks. When we arrived three hours behind schedule we went to a coffee shop on the way to our hostel. People were using plastic bags aka vaporizers to smoke weed and the place was run by a long haired man who had not been sober in years. We ordered a latte (really Mom, it was a latte) off of the "Less Interesting Menu: We used to sell coffee, but now we only sell drugs." A 60 year old Californian business man dressed in a very expensive suit with the biggest smile and smallest eyes I've ever seen was chatting us up at the "420 Cafe." Small world story, I ran into Alex, Stephanie's cousin that we stayed with in Barcelona in our hostel. He had gone there for a vacay of relaxation and happened to be there the same dates, in the same hostel. We met up with the Wake Forest boys and walked around Red Light District complete with lingerie clad women in windows lit up with red lights knocking on the windows and "Sex Shows, Come on In!" places in between those. Oh, and coffee shops. The sex show signs were in the shape of a banana. I'm really upset someone told me why that is. Amsterdam is an interesting place. What was really strange was the whole town was barren at about 1am. Our hostel was the hopping place to be, "The Flying Pig." It had a smoking lounge with a giant bed, a dance floor/bar, and a pool table surrounded by couches. And all the people that I feel like would appreciate the John Lennon wall even more than I did.
Wednesday morning may have been the greatest morning ever. We ate at this breakfast cafe that had trees and vines and purple lights surrounding the interior. It was like a Rainforest Cafe without the wierd robotic animals. Pancakes are officially the greatest thing.
The rest of the day consisted of us walking to the main sights we wanted to see, but getting cold so we'd stop in a coffee shop and eat food. We had about eight meals in total that day. When it's cold, what are ya gonna do. Cheesecake muffins, Thai pan beef, pancakes, french fries with garlic and ketchup (but really its great), donuts, kebabs, lots and lots of coffee. Solution.
Alex, Steph, and I toured the Anne Frank House which was a really well put together musuem that her father, Otto Frank created as he was the only surviving one of the hidden group.  Anne's diary quotes on the walls, all of the rooms were furnished, the secret bookcase was open, and it was well worth seeing, but very sad, of course. I just need to read the book now! Later we went to the amazing Van Gogh musuem. I absolutely loved seeing his paintings that he accomplished in the ten years before his suicide. Fabulous style. He created over 2000 artworks in ten years! There were also Monet paintings among other well-known artists. So amazing to see the originals.
Of course our flight was delayed to Madrid. I fell asleep on the plane, woke up two and a half hours later excited that we were on the ground, I had slept the whole time! False, we hadn't even left yet. Something about snow and crashing kept us grounded. Amateurs.
Excellent trip to end my European tour on... now finals, would love to just skip them and fly home?

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