The End of Missing Someone

"I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone."--Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Long Awaited, The Spring Break Posts: Part 3

Prague, Czech Republic: 4 April to 7 April
Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic: 7 April to 8 April

Though we flew from Glasgow to London and London to Berlin, the majority of the time we traveled by train and/or bus. Catching the train from Berlin to Prague was one of the least harrowing of our train travel experiences; it went off without a hitch.

We arrived in Prague on a gloriously sunny day. It was very hot and everyone was outside riding bikes/walking/sitting in parks/etc. Language barriers and bad directions meant we got lost trying to find out hostel, but a nice couple who were walking into the city gave us a hand and we eventually made it. There wasn't much time (or energy!) to do much on the first day we were in Prague, which was unfortunate because the weather was so great. We managed to find a grocery store to pick up some food, wandered around the neighborhood where our hostel was located (outside of the main areas of the city by a fair bit) and then headed back to the hostel which had a restaurant/bar where we spent the rest of the evening listening to a guy playing acoustic guitar and singing. We met a bunch of really friendly people (one of whom we actually ran into again in Cesky Krumlov, without planning it) so it was a pretty good, if tame, night.

Our room in the hostel had 2 rooms within it and a bathroom (so nice to not have to go down the hall to take a shower!). Since there were five of us, we stayed in the five person room and left the three person room to the three boys visiting from Florence. They were pretty nice but we didn't talk much since they were leaving the next morning (well, 2 of them left. They actually lost one going out the night before they left and we have no idea if he was ever recovered...).

Prague was pretty crazy while we were there because Obama was in town to give a speech. This meant that not only were there a LOT of tourists in the city, there were also policemen every 3 feet decked out in full armour and carrying machine guns. Kind of freaky, but cool that he was there when we were. Though we didn't go and see the speech, we did see Michelle Obama's motorcade taking her to visit the Jewish Quarter!

The coolest thing about Prague was all the markets. Though they were pretty touristy and many items were repeated in stall after stall, it was still fun to see all the things they had for sale. We got some really tasty donut-y things that they were baking right there in the market. Very tasty but messy! Additionally, the city was decked out for Easter so that was cool.

We went on a walking tour the first full day we were there, which took us from Old Town Square to the Jewish Quarter, Wenceslas Square, and a few other places. It wasn't one of the New Europe tours that we'd taken in other cities and it was not anywhere near as good. But it was still a good way to explore a bit of the city, at least the part that surrounded Old Town Square. Most of the exploration further afield was left up to us.
Atomic Clock in Old Town Square. Cool. But I don't really get how it works and our tour guide couldn't explain it.

What? You don't have an upside down horse with a right side up rider hanging in YOUR local mall? Peasant.

The Charles Bridge is supposed to be really beautiful at sunset, so we headed up there to see it. Unfortunately, it was really hazy the entire time we were in Prague so the photos I got weren't as good as some I have seen. Oh well, it was still fun. But touristy (as is everything in the center of Prague). There are statues (some rather violent) lining the bridge, and at one of them everyone was stopping to rub part of the statue, so of course I did so as well (lemming). I wonder what it meant....

Prague Castle was nice, though it's a pretty steep climb to get there! I honestly must have gotten pretty jaded about castles and cathedrals on this trip, because I wasn't as impressed with these as with some of the ones I've seen. There was a cool museum about the history of Prague and that was really interesting, but the Castle itself was definitely not as ornate as the ones we saw in London or Vienna. It has its own type of charm, though, which I saw again at the castle in Cesky Krumlov (must be a Czech thing!).

After wandering through the Jewish Quarter (which we had passed, but were unable to visit because the police had it blocked off in anticipation of Michelle Obama) we decided to splurge a little and spent the evening drinking cocktails from a restaurant near Charles Bridge. Yum.

The next day we traveled the 3 hours (by bus) to Cesky Krumlov, a small town in the Czech Republic that Shauna's older sister had visited when she was studying in Europe. It was super cute and is home to the second largest castle in the Czech Republic (after Prague Castle) so it offered some fun history as well as quaintness.

Our tour guide through the castle was HILARIOUS. She probably spoke very little English and had just memorized the spiel that they're supposed to give on the English tour, and you could tell. We would enter a room with a dining table in it, and she would say "There are tin plates on the tables. They use this for eating," or "On the left is a portrait of a young girl. On the right is a portrait of an old woman," and then move to the next room. It was a little creepy because she would lock every door behind us and then unlock the next door, so we were kind of trapped in each room.

The castle at Cesky Krumlov also houses several bears. We saw one as we were leaving after the tour and I took about 400 photos of it. It was a little sad because there was litter in its little area and I'm sure it wasn't the happiest bear in the world, but it was fun to see some wildlife after spending so much time in cities.


Getting to Cesky Krumlov was easy enough, but getting from Cesky Krumlov to Vienna was RIDICULOUS. We had to take an hour long bus ride to get to Ceske Budejovice where we could get on a train, and then had to take a train, another bus, a (really creepy one car) train, bus, train, then a tram ride and a metro ride and we were finally at the hostel in Vienna. It was insane and I am not exaggerating.

Hardly anyone spoke English, but a lot of people helped us out which we were so thankful for (because otherwise we'd probably still be lost in the Czech Republic somewhere). One of the ticket checkers on the first train actually rode with us until the last train and directed us where we needed to go. The trip also invovled a mad dash to a train because we thought it was about to leave, but then we sat on it for 45 minutes. We were misinformed.

By the end of the day we were exhausted so it was a real pain when we arrived at the hostel and they tried to charge us for an extra bed. Once we got that worked out, it was clearly time for dinner. We headed down to a main street near our hostel and found the most delicious ice cream place in the world, where we ate almost every night we were in Vienna (most nights we had a real dinner, too). You could mix and match flavors, so the possibilities were endless. Delicious.

I just realized that I've begun talking about Vienna in my post about the Czech Republic! Oops. Well, I guess you'll just have to wait a bit to hear about the rest of Vienna, as I have my last final tomorrow (unconcerned....). Or maybe I'll get bored later and finish what I've started.

Long Awaited, The Spring Break Posts: Part 2

Berlin, Germany: 1 April to 4 April

On our first day in Germany we decided to push through in spite of how tired we were. We didn’t want to miss out on an entire day in the city and the weather was beautiful. Instead of being hardcore tourists, we wandered around the city to see what we could see on our own. Surprisingly, we covered quite a bit of ground in the first day: the Dome and Museum’s Island, Unter den Linden (a swanky street running through Berlin), the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, and Humboldt University.

The Reichstag was cool because you can go all the way up to the top of the building. When it was rebuilt after all the madness that was World War II, they decided to make a clear glass dome in the top of the building and allow anyone who wanted to go up to do so. The dome shows you right into the rooms where Parliament meets and discusses stuff. It’s supposed to be symbolic for the transparency that government should employ. Berlin is an interesting place because it seems like it is constantly trying to make amends for World War II. The scars from the war are virtually everywhere, and it’s really interesting to see such a modern, beautiful city marred by its dark past like that.

When we were on top of the Reichstag, looking over the city, I got a really strange feeling. It took me a long time to figure out what it was, until I finally realized it was the fact that Berlin is so FLAT! On top of such a tall building, you could see all the way to where the buildings of Berlin met the clear blue horizon. I honestly felt like I was on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, no land for miles. It was a little eerie, because I guess I’m so used to the hilly/rocky/mountainous terrain that is Vestal/Middlebury/Glasgow.

After going up on top of the Reichstag, we were exhausted and decided to lie down in the sun on its big grassy lawn. This was a brilliant idea, except I got sunburned. Boo.

We wandered back to a little marketplace we’d seen earlier that was lined with restaurants that had terrace seating. We weren’t going to waste a minute of the glorious weather, since we’d been in the gloom for so long in the winter months of Scotland! Everyone else wanted brats, and I got a pizza. Delish.

The next day, we intended to go on the New Europe tour, but we were running late (because we had to stop at a street market!) and we missed it. No matter, we spent the morning in West Berlin, seeing what we could see, and then headed back slowly through the city. There’s this really awesome church in West Berlin that was almost completely destroyed in the second world war, Kaiser Wilhelm’s Church. The people of Berlin opted to leave the church standing as a testament to the destruction of the war (yet another reminder of WW2 and how they want to make amends). All through Berlin, it seemed like the motto was “Never Forget.” This church now stands in between two new buildings (which are absolutely hideous). The new buildings are where services are held, and the old building is a memorial.

We spent all day wandering back through West Berlin, ended up in Tiergarten Park for the majority of the afternoon. Once we’d made it back to East Berlin we had a picnic dinner with food we bought at the same market we’d visited in the morning. It was delicious! Fresh bread and cheesy dip things and sitting in a park overlooking the Dome. Very cool.

On our last full day in Berlin we made it to the walking tour. CONFESSION: throughout this whole post, I’ve been talking about East and West Berlin as if we knew when we were crossing in between one or the other. Which we probably should have, and I did that here (accurately, I promise) so you wouldn’t get confused. But, embarrassingly enough, we had it backwards the whole time. Our hostel WAS in East Berlin, but we automatically assumed we were in West Berlin. Why? I have no idea. It was really embarrassing when we made the hour-long trek to the West Berlin meeting point for the tour, and they took us to the East Berlin meeting point in order to combine the groups, and the East Berlin meeting point was a 15 minute walk from our hostel. Yeah. I know.

So anyway, the walking tour covered a lot of stuff we’d seen and a lot of stuff we hadn’t, and it included information about everything that we didn’t know so I liked it a lot. I also considered it a good 3 hours of studying for my Economic and Social Change Since 1914 final, as we focused on WW2 and its effects a lot. Legit. The walking tour covered: the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Holocaust Memorial: Hitler’s Bunker (no longer there, now it’s apartment buildings!), the building that housed the GAF during WW2 and the Soviet Union’s “ministry of ministries” during the occupation and is now the tax collector building, the Berlin Wall: Checkpoint Charlie, Gendarmenmarkt (supposedly the most beautiful square in Berlin): Bebelplatz and the Nazi book burning memorial (through a window in the ground you can see a completely white room filled with empty bookcases), Humboldt University (which holds a book sale nearly every day in order to make amends for the book burnings), and the Memorial to Victims of War and Tyranny (a really cool statue inside a tomb-like building, with a hole in the ceiling. The statue is of a woman holding her dead son, and the hole in the ceiling means she is exposed to the elements: when it snows, she gets dusted in snow, and when it rains the floor of the memorial fills with water and it looks like she’s standing in her own tears).

After this, we took a breather in the grass of Museum’s Island, then spent a few hours in the German Museum, which takes you through German history. Pretty cool. For dinner, we had another picnic, this time with kebabs for the others and falafel for me. We were in a different park and after we ate we noticed a huge group of people dancing around in an empty pool. Of course, we joined them for a bit, dancing like fools, and then headed home.

Mothers' Day

To all the beautiful women in my family, and especially to my fantastic mom, Happy Mothers' Day! You have all been an inspiration to me, always.

Long Awaited, The Spring Break Posts: Part 1

London, England: 28 March-1 April

I realized today that I had not yet updated you all on my Spring Break trip, which is unfortunate because it's now been over a month since I first left and it's going to be a little more difficult for me to remember all the fun things. I wrote some stuff down along the way, but I'm warning you that these posts will probably not be wholly inclusive or altogether completely accurate. My bad. You'll still get the idea. So anyway, on to London!

Fortunately, Meggo was in London this semester and she and her flatmates graciously offered to put us up for the nights we were there. This probably saved us a ton of money since London is pretty expensive. It was probably really annoying for her flat of 4 people to suddenly expand to 8, but we tried to be good house guests. When she wasn't in class, Meggo showed us around the city a bit, as did Kevin. It was a lot of fun to see my old friends again, though strange to try and mix my Vestal friends with my Glasgow friends. Those two parts of my life just feel so completely separate. I was happy that everyone got along well.

Meggo's flat is right in the Oxford Street area of London, a really popular shopping area. It was a little overwhelming when we got there sinc eit was a Saturday afternoon, and a lot of people were out and about.

I have the feeling that if I write extensively about each thing we did while I was gone, you'll be bored long before it's over (and so will I!). The list format has worked pretty well in the past, so I'll just list things and elaborate where necessary.

Tower of London--This was our first destination in London, primarily because Brady and Shauna are history majors and they really wanted to see it. I didnt' know much about it, to be honest, but I was really glad I went and it was totally worth the 15 pounds it cost to get in. This is where the majority of the beheadings/executions that happened in London took place; most notably that of Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIII's wives.

Tower Bridge--From the Tower of London you can see the Tower Bridge. Way prettier than London Bridge (which, I am told, is why Fergie used it in her video for "London Bridge" instead of the REAL London Bridge. Did she not think we would notice??)


Markets--Spitallfield and Brick Street. I can't explain to you how much I love markets. My favorite thing is walking around all the food stalls and seeing everything just splayed out and looking so delicious. I took many, many photos.


Walking tour of London--Meggo and her flatmates told us about this tour company, New Europe, which does free walkign tours in many cities in Europe. Basically they ask you for tips at the end and you contribute whatever you think it was worth. We really enjoyed the company and ended up taking their tour in Berlin as well. Our guide led us through London and we saw sights including Wellington Gate, Buckingham Palace, Horse Guards' Parade, Trafalgar Square, the outside of a bunch of museums, Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. It was a lot of fun.

The tour was particularly interesting because we happened to be outside Buckingham Palace when the Queen of England left with her husband, Prince Philip to meet with the President of Mexico. She was wearing a pink hat.


Spring Awakening--This is a relatively new musical that Emily is obsessed with. When we found out that you can go to the box office and ask them if they have any cheap tickets, we decided we definitely wanted to see a show in London. Shauna and I were the most excited about this, so we opted for the slightly more expensive front row center tickets. Crystal and Brady weren't as hyped on the idea, so they got some cheaper seats close to the back. It was TOTALLY WORTH IT. A really great show and super fun to have seen a real production in London.

Tate Modern--museum. The Andy Warhol room was closed but I saw a Claus Oldenburg which was cool.

Millenium Bridge--pretty self-explanatory.

Globe Theatre--where Shakespeare's plays were performed back in the day.

St Paul's Cathedral--we didn't go in, but it's very pretty.


We tried to get in to Westminster Abbey, since they have hour long choral services that are open to the public for free most weekdays. Unfortunately for us, the day we tried to go there was a memorial for the victims of the Australian Brush Fires. Nice, but too bad because seeing the inside would've been really cool.


Overall, London was a fantastic city. We were a little more frugal in London than in some of the other places we visited simply because it's much more expensive, but it was totally worth the money we spent there.

Getting to the airport from London was slightly more interesting. We opted for an early morning flight to Berlin, getting us there at 9 something Berlin time (an hour ahead of the UK). It meant our flight out of Stanstead left pretty early in the morning, around 6:30 AM. But Stanstead is nearly an hour outside of London, and we wanted to get there plenty early in order to check in and whatnot. This meant we had to leave Meggo's flat at around 2AM in order to get a city bus that took us to the bus that would take us to the airport, which left at 3:30 AM. When we arrived, there were a whole bunch of people waiting. We didn't buy tickets in advance because we'd wanted to keep all our options open. When they told us we couldn't get on this bus, we nearly panicked. A creepy man came up to us and tried to convince us that he would take us to Stanstead in his cab for the low low price of 100 pounds. We considered it, and then decided he was WAY too creepy, it was the middle of the night, and another bus was coming. So we waited it out, hoping that it wouldn't backfire on us and we'd get on the next bus. We did, but barely. So we made it to the airport on time, met up with Briana, and had loads of time to get on the flight, which actually boarded a bit later than planned. It was pretty stressful, especially since we'd had a 30 minute nap in place of a whole night's sleep!