September 25, 2013

Today was my first dull day in Rome! I am here visiting and staying with Caroline DeWeirdt. So far, I have had an incredible time! I have toured the city, lived like a local, had amazing food and gelato, walked all over the city, and even got lost by myself!

Last night, I was supposed to get into Rome around 6pm, but my flight was delayed, so I got in around 9pm. Caroline and all of her roommates, five really nice girls, and I went for a late dinner at 11:30pm. We found an amazing Italian restaurant with probably the best pizza I have ever had in my life! It was so nice and relaxing to sit out at a pizzeria late at night, eating pizza and drinking wine! After dinner, Caroline and all of her roommates and I went out to a club/bar. It was really fun and interesting to see the difference between an Israeli club and European club!

Today was a ton of fun! Caroline and I met up with my roommate from Tel Aviv, Sarah. The three of us went to the Vatican and walked around. Caroline wanted to stay in the museum longer, so Sarah and I went and got lunch and relaxed a bit, while Caroline stayed in the Vatican museum. Once Caroline finished exploring the Vatican, she had to run off to class, so Sarah and I continued to explore the city. We went to the Colosseum and walked around it and the ancient Roman ruins. It was so cool to see and think about the history of the ancient Romans hundreds of years ago. The weather was so hot today, so Sarah and I just sat on a bench outside for a while and relaxed and caught up! As we were walking out of the Colosseum area, Sarah and I ran into our suite mate from the University of Tel Aviv, Lauren. After the Colosseum, Sarah and I went to the famous Spanish steps and walked around that part of downtown, and did a little shopping! I found a really cute Italian leather (I am not sure if it is real or fake) across the shoulder bag. I have been looking for a bag like this one for a long time, so I was really happy to finally find one! Sarah and I split up then and she went back to go hang out with her friend and I met up with Caroline in one of the city squares. We went for a walk around and window shopped. So far, I love Rome; it is beauutiful and fun and old and there is tons of great shopping!

September 24, 2013

I am writing this post on the airplane now, from London to Rome. I had a great time in London visiting Abbie Brown. We went to the museums the first day, the Tate Britain and the British Museum. We saw a lot of British art and artifacts from all over the world, at the British museum. Although I am not a huge museum fan, I did enjoy the artifacts at the British Museum a lot! Other than the museums, Abbie and I went to a pub almost every night. It was fun because I got to meet all or almost all of her friends from home and her university. It got a little overwhelming at times because there were so many new people! Being the legal age to drink makes things much easier and more fun! Abbie and I also did a little shopping and a lot of walking around! Over the past week, I have spent so much time on the tube and trains, living the London way!

The last day of my trip in London was great! Abbie and I woke up early, got ready, and went downtown. We spent the whole day walking around downtown and a market and Brick Lane. Brick Lane was cool to walk down because it has a ton of thrift shops and vintage shops on it. There are a lot of Hipster people that live in this area, so I saw some very interesting people HAHA. The market was fun to walk around though. I bought a really cute little skirt and a pretty handmade turquoise ring, that I have been wearing every day since. For lunch, Abbie and I met up with one of Abbie's best friends from her university, Jess. She was really nice and fun to talk to. That night, Abbie and I went downtown for dinner to meet up with my friend from DU and freshman roommate, Rachael Kaplan. She is studying abroad in London and just arrived there that day. I wanted Abbie to meet Rachael, because they will both be in London and it would be nice to Rachael to know a familiar face in London! The three of us went to a really good tapas restuarant and overall we had a great night! Well I am off to Rome now for two days and my next post will be from Italy!

September 16, 2013

After another great day of touring yesterday, I forgot to post about my day! Yesterday was an amazing last day in Prague. My dad and I took a tour of the old city and the Jewish Quarter. We started out in the old city and learned that all of the buildings and the houses and structures and architecture were extremely old. Basically the whole city is from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The “modern” and new building and churches were still from the eighteenth century. All of the architecture is beautiful and either Barak or Medieval or Renaissance architecture. Our tour guide showed us old churches and the current senate building, with used to be another palace. We also saw the famous clock in the Old Town Square. It was built in the thirteen hundreds (I think) and it very intricate and complicated. It tells the time, minute, hour, and second, and when the moon rises and sun sets and sun rises. It also showed where the moon was in position to the sun and the earth. In my opinion, the coolest thing about this clock was that there were four sculptures on the side of the clock and at the beginning of every new hour, they move. Also, there are two doors and a gold rooster at the top of the clock. At the beginning of every new hour, the doors open and the twelve apostles are shown dancing in front of the doors, and the gold rooster makes a noise and dances. It is amazing that this clock and whole structure was created so many years ago.

After touring around the Old City, we went into the Jewish Quarter. This was also very interesting because it was all in tact and very old and beautiful. Apparently the Jewish people that lived in Prague were the first people to live there, until they were kicked out with WWII and the Holocaust. Even after the Holocaust, all of the temples and housing and the whole Jewish Quarter was not torn apart or damaged. Our tour guide told us that this was because Hitler wanted to keep everything the way it was and to one day show the world what the Jewish race was like and that he got rid of it. Luckily he did not succeed! (haha) There were four synagogues and only one of them is still in use, the New Old synagogue, the one that my dad and I went to on Yom Kippur. The rest of the synagogues became museums about the Jewish race and the history of the Holocaust. It was very interesting to learn more about the Jewish people and the Holocaust and the Jews in communist Eastern Europe. Another great site that we saw was the old Jewish cemetery. It used to have twelve layers of graves and people buried in it. This is because the Jews were only given a small area of land for their cemetery and it was believed that all the Jews had to be buried there. The tombstones were just slabs of rock with Hebrew inscriptions on them and a symbol which referred to their job or self (EX: grapes were for knowledge and there was a symbol for a doctor…) Since this cemetery is know a tourist site and part of the museum, most of the tombstones have been brought up to the surface and are laying all over. Apparently there are about 12,000 tombstones and some people think about 100,00 or more Jews are buried there. It was very interesting to see! Overall, I loved Prague and I think it is so interesting! Yesterday was our last day though and I am headed to London now to visit Abbie! My next blog post will be from London J  

September 14, 2013

Today was another spectacular day in Prague! My dad and I woke up, had our hotel breakfast, and then  relaxed a bit before having a wonderful tour of the castle and the royal city up on the hill. We had a tour guide that showed us all around the royal city and the royal churches and the palace. She also told us all about the history of Prague and the history of the Czech Republic and about when it used to be Czechoslovakia. It was very interesting and I learned a lot about the city and the capitalist government that powered the city and country. From the top of the BIG hill, where the palace was, there were amazing views of the whole city and the river and the bridges. It was so cool to be above the city and look over it.

After the tour of the Royal city and the area, my dad and I came back to the hotel to relax and figure out our plan for tomorrow. We decided that tomorrow we are going to get a tour of the Old City, on the other side of the bridge, and also take a tour of the old Jewish quarter. We could not go around the Jewish quarter today because basically everything was closed for the Yom Kippur holiday. Before dinner tonight, my dad and I were able to sit in on a little bit of the Yom Kippur services at the New Old Synagogue. It was an Orthodox synagogue, so the men and women prayed in different rooms. While the men were in the main temple room, with the arc and the bimah, the women were on the other side of the wall. The women were allowed to look through holes in the wall, and watch and listen to the men's (the only) service. It was very interesting and different to see a synagogue set up like this. It was like nothing I have ever seen before, especially coming from a Reformed temple. Overall, today was a great day and I am excited for another day of touring tomorrow!

September 13, 2013

WOW! I had another incredible day today! My dad and I arrived in Prague, Czech Republic yesterday late afternoon. We took the four and a half four train ride from Vienna to Prague. Upon arriving in Prague, my dad and I relaxed a bit and then walked all around the different squares in the city, trying to get our bearings of where everything is and trying to see and be apart of the famous old city of Prague. Prague is incredible! It is one of the only cities that did not get damaged and was and still basically is untouched from WWII. This means that all of the buildings and architecture are from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The city is spectacular and so old and beautiful.

Today was amazing! My dad and I woke up early, had breakfast, and walked over to the old Jewish quarter of Prague. This is where our tour met. We were going to Trezinstadt, the (at the time Czechoslovakian) Czech Republic concentration camp. Our tour guide was a ninety-two year old Auschwitz and Trezinstadt concentration camp survivor. He was in amazing shape, his brain was very sharp, he spoke great English, and had amazing stories to tell us. Although the tour through the prisoner camp was extremely depressing, especially after hearing his stories and learning about the real life there, it was so interesting and meaningful. One of the old buildings in the camp was converted to a museum which had all of the history of the camp and the people who survived there and the ones who didn’t survive. While we were walking through the museum, our tour guide told us his experiences from being in the concentration camps and how he was able to escape and survive. He said that he was a teacher for the young children in Auschwitz, and the children were valued more than the adults because they had more time to live, so the Nazi’s kept the teachers. He also told us that he met his fiancé at the time and later wife in the Trezinstadt camp, and their “honeymoon” was being transferred to Auschwitz. I cannot even image what life would have been like with all the TERRIBLE conditions of living and being in the concentration camps. After we walked through the whole museum, the tour continued to a secret (at the time) Danish synagogue that the Jews used to pray in. The sayings and prayers on the walls, in Hebrew, said things like “I will always remember you God, so don’t forget about me,” and other prayers of being liberated and keeping a positive outlook on the Jews lives. After seeing and being in this little synagogue, we went over to the Jewish cemetery, where the people who died in the camps went. It was  so sad to see because there were many tombstones that did not have a name on them; these people were unknown. Their only identity was that they were Jewish. The next stop on the tour was to see and get a visual of what the barracks looked like. There was a model of the women’s barrack set up. It was a small room, meant to normally sleep four or five people, but instead had fifty to sixty people living in it, with only one bathroom. Each “bed” was about two feet wide and there three levels of each bunk bed. The living quarters were almost the worst part about this concentration camp because so many people were crammed into such a small place and it was very overcrowded. Also, the heigene was not good and people were getting really sick and diseases were spreading and the people that died would just lay on the floors, they would not be moved because there was nowhere to put them eventually. The last stop on the tour of the Trezinstadt concentration camp was to an exhibit, in another museum, about all of the writers, musicians, artists, and live performers that were in the camp and their experiences. This was very interesting to see because the musicians wrote songs and operas about Hitler eventually stopping the war and losing his power and the Jews being freed. The artists drew pictures and paintings of their experiences in the camp and the daily life and realizations of how terrible the concentration camps were. These drawings were hidden and discovered later because the Germans and Nazis guarding the camp, did not want any outsiders to know what it was really like inside these concentration camps. The writers all wrote about their experiences in the Holocaust and labor camps. They also wrote poems and short stories about Hitler losing his power and all the Jews being liberated from the prison camps. Overall, the general theme of all of these literary and art works is about liberation.

The whole experience of being in Trezinstadt and learning about the daily lives was incredible. I knew previously about all the harsh conditions and poor life, but did not know about everything to this extreme. Also, just being in and walking around the area and buildings that used to once be a Holocaust concentration camp was very touching and moving. Additionally, hearing the stories and history from our tour guide gave the camp a very personal feeling. I was able to actually picture and imagine the terribleness that was happening at this time, in this place. Well I am off to bed now but I had a spectacular day, learned a lot, and hopefully tomorrow will be great too. Tomorrow my dad and I are touring the Prague C

September 10, 2013

Today was another great day in Vienna! This morning, my dad and I went to the outskirts of the city, about a 15 minute drive from the old part of the city. This is where the Schonbrunn palace is; the summer home for many years of Ferdinand and Eleanor Gonzaga and their family. We did a forty-five minute walking tour through the upstairs royal apartment. The palace has 1200 rooms in it and during the time that the royal family lived there, there were 1000 other people (mostly servants and family) living there too. The Schonbrunn palace is from the fifteen hundreds but a lot of it was destroyed in WWII, so the renovations and restoration was finally finished in the 60's. Although the palace was damaged and restored, it still looks like it is in perfect condition and still untouched from the fifteen hundreds. The summer "small" palace is known for its beautiful grounds and gardens. These gardens go on for miles and everything is kept perfectly as if it were a little backyard garden. There were fountains and hills and flowers and trees and everything was perfectly symmetrical.

In the afternoon, my dad and I went on a walking tour of the old neighborhood of Vienna. It is called the first district. The tour was about an hour and a half and the tour guide gave the tour in English (for us) and German (for the five others on the tour). We saw the old city walls, the famous old city Vienna church for the Royal family, the Ferdinand family regular, city palace, the parliament building, and the riding stables for the famous Spanish Lipizon horses. The tour was great and it the city is absolutely beautiful. After the walking tour, my dad and I went to get a late, light lunch at the famous and oldest coffee house in Vienna. My dad got the spicy sausage, which they were known for, and it was interesting! When his plate came, there were two long, skinny sausages laying in front of him, wrapped around the plate, with a pile of mustard and horseradish in the middle. EEEWWW! Anyways, we decided to spend the rest of the day walking around the city and getting lost. We figured that we probably walked about eight or nine miles all together throughout the day. Another long and awesome day in Vienna!

September  9, 2013

After a week at home of relaxing and spending time with family and feeling less worried about Israel,  I just arrived in Vienna, Austria. Today was great, my dad and I walked around the city, got lunch at the hotel and relaxed after a long day of flying. The city is beautiful; all of the building date back from the 18th and 17th century. Vienna is a really cool city because all the architecture, old wealth, and the way it looks is very old and breathtaking, but it is a very modern city with tons of restaurants, coffee shops, cafes, modern stores, international stores, bars, clubs, casinos, and international nice hotels. I had a great time just walking down the streets of the shopping district, the Ringstrass, and getting the feel of Vienna. After coming back to the hotel and relaxing a little bit (we were exhausted from traveling all day), my dad and I found a great typical Viennese restaurant. He got calfs liver and I ordered goulash. Both of the dishes were really good. Typical Viennese food is very similar to German food; lots of Veal, Schnitzel, beer, beef, sausages, and potatoes. Although the food was good, I do not think I want or need any more Austrian food! There is a very famous opera house in Vienna, that Mozart grew up playing at and it has hosted many famous musicians and opera singers. As my dad and I were walking around after dinner, we passed this opera house and the show that was going on inside, was playing on a HUGE projector screen outside on the plaza. There was a large crowd of people picnicking and sitting and standing watching the opera. I really enjoyed this informal experience of seeing the opera and being outside and hearing the beautiful voices echo in the streets! I am exhausted now so I am going to sleep, hopefully tomorrow will be as much fun as today!