February Travels: Prague, Czech Republic

The four of us, Steven, Becca and Charlotte and I, spent 4 days in Prague. I won’t catalogue everything because I know I am so behind at this point it isn’t worth it, but I will do my best to tell about all of the highlights!

The first day I arrived before them and took a walk (in the snow!) and had some pancakes (random I know) before napping and then waiting for them. There was a whole conundrum because I didn’t realize they had no internet or phone service. I thought I heard a small knock at the front door but I wasn’t sure and it was an AirBnB(so not my house and the owner was home at the time). Which turned out (a half an hour later) to be them knocking on every door imaginable because they had no way to reach me. Anyways, once we got settled, we went to a restaurant nearby and I had my first, heavy Czech food experience (goulash and potato pancakes). Yummy! 

It was snowing when we arrived!

Goulash!

The next few days we explored the city: we hiked up to Parc Letkin which overlooks the city, we saw the clock in Old Town, we crossed the Charles Bridge and took pictures in front of the colorful Lennon wall, we ate trdlniks from the street vendors on multiple occasions (even though they weren’t traditional according to our Airbnb host), we ate more fattening, heavy food, we went out on the town one night and got to boogie with the whole dance floor to ourselves, we had fancy cocktails in an impossibly slow cocktail bar called Le Fleur, we went to a beer hall where a jolly man played the accordion, we walked miles everyday, we went and saw the Prague Castle, we ate a meal on the river overlooking the Castle, we braved the rain pouring down on us a few days. Oh yes, and I can’t forget our whopping TWO trips to the cubist lamppost (Becca and Charlotte, I know you’ll be up-in-arms and that Steven will be patting himself on the back that I included that truly unique monument). And the best part of Prague is that everything you do is impossibly cheap when you translate it over to euros or dollars. So even the fancy restaurant that we ate at only cost us about 10 dollars a person (with wine and a huge meal!).

The next day there was NO snow! 

Cool moving sculpture

Old Clock Tower!

Charlotte overlooking Prague on her horse!

Charlotte and I 

Friends in Prague!

Gnocchi and bacon!

Prague at night!

The cubist lamppost

Lenin Wall

Prague Cathedral

See the street art?

The Dancing House

Mirror house!

Beer hall with accordion man!

Flying over the alps

Back to sunny Nice

FRIENDS

Honestly, it was just such a fun trip with wonderful friends. We laughed a lot, sang even more, and just had a great time together. I’ll always have the fondest memories of Prague. Naz dravi! 

February Travels: Würzberg, Germany

I have the absolute funniest (well I don't know if funny is the word I would use to describe it....) memory from this trip and it is of the hostel. When we arrived in Würzberg after I was in Heidelberg, we checked into our hostel which was called Babel Fish (a funny enough name as it was). We checked in at the hostel around 11 or 12 and left our bags there. In the room, we met a middle-aged man on his computer and a young Korean girl on a 50 day European trip alone. It seemed a little strange seeing as the bed next to us was filled with random junk: food, books, a walker, etc. But we left for some sightseeing for the day.

We walked around the streets, took a tour of the Residenz there which was really cool. It was all done up in baroque/rococo style and we got a free tour in English which was the best part! Then, we went to this hole in the wall to have amazing hot cocoa. Finally, we had a final meal together (sausage and potatoes and white wine from the region) which was at a restaurant right on the river. We chatted and just relaxed and grabbed a drink before heading back to our hostel. It was our last night together before I went off to Prague and I was sad to say goodbye!

The Royal Residence (we couldn't take pictures inside but it was magnificent!) 

Rococo Style!

The fun began in the hostel that night. We got in around 10 or 11 pm and got ourselves ready for bed. There was already a ton of people asleep and no one in the common areas which we found strange! We were watching a few things together on our phone when a young guy on a bed across from us starting whispering things to us. He called me “Frenchie” and asked where we were from/”if I had a Nokia charger.” We went out to brush our teeth and ran into this frantic redheaded man, a “self-described Scottish man”. He asked us if we could help him because he had missed his bus and had nowhere to sleep. We were unsure what we could really do but directed him towards the receptionist. We returned to our rooms and went into our beds to go to sleep, when the young guy started talking on the phone with someone, while 4 or 5 other people were asleep in the bed’s around us. We started cracking up and that was actually when he called me the Frenchie and asked for a phone charger. And then proceeded to speak extremely loud on the phone to someone while everyone else was asleep. 

Finally, we thought we could get some rest when the Scottish man came in barreling around, breathing SO loud and talking to people who were asleep. He came up to the Korean girl, woke her up, asked her where she was from, and was getting closer to her until I said “I think she’s sleeping, you should probably leave her alone.” He apologized and started trying to get on his bed. He was clearly very drunk, so drunk that he couldn’t get up the ladder to the top bunk and tried going around to the other side of the bed until his bunk bed mate told him he was on the wrong wide. Finally, he made it up but was still breathing heavily all the while basically doing seat drops (all you gymnastic kids out there know what I’m talking about) on the top bunk next to me until the same guy yelled at him again. At this point, he settled down, promptly fell asleep and started snoring like a freaking freight train. Berenike and I were just like “this can’t possibly get any worse.” We finally fell asleep only to wake up again around 3 when the guy got down out of his bed. Luckily, a nice American boy we met in the hallway gave us earplugs which helped for a bit. At 5, he ended up leaving the place and we saw him again when we woke up at 7 in front of the bathrooms, passed out on the floor because the other guy had told him off for being too loud. All in all, we slept like 3 hours and it was THE most ridiculous hostel experience ever. But it made for a story, at least. 

The next morning I took a Flix Bus to Nuremberg and then a DBahn bus from Nuremberg to Prague! It was a pretty easy trip, maybe 6 hours altogether. And I was in Prague! Ready to meet up with my other Toulonnais pals: Steven, Becca and Charlotte. 

Stop in Nuremberg 

You can't see but it was starting to snow!! 

Home

I always decide to write posts about my "feelings," that cringe-inducing word, when I am melancholy or extremely happy. But normally when I am melancholy. And sometimes I worry that people will read it and laugh at me but then I don't really care, because that's the beauty of writing on a blog into the weird space of the internet. You can write without watching your audience's reaction. You can be honest but not have the weight of other people's expectations. I suppose that is also the problem with the internet. People can feel entitled to say hurtful and unnecessary things to others because of their own insecurities and, whether it's honest or not, people read it and are hurt and the ones writing these things don't have to see their reactions and the pain they've caused. But, hopefully this completely unplanned blog post doesn't hurt anyone in particular. I don't believe it will. It may only hurt me or help me, which is sometimes the same thing.

So if you're laughing at me at this point, because of my semi-dramatic introduction, I really couldn't care less (although truth be told, that could be because I can't see you. I guess we'll never know. Unless you find me in the street and laugh in my face, but I would prefer if you didn't do that.)

I'm home. In California, perceived land of surfers, stars, and sun. In actuality, it is between 90 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit (which is between 32 and 38 degrees Celsius for everyone not in the U.S.), dry as a bone. I am very far from the ocean because California is absolutely massive, and I have yet to see a celebrity walking the streets of my suburban neighborhood (although to be fair I get the chance to see more stars than most). Everything seems the same as I left it, only different. I mean I was born in my little town in California and only had one house here so nothing changes too much. I've seen my high school friends (which are in actuality elementary school friends, the beauty of living in a suburb) and we've laughed until late in the night and went out on crazy runs to get frozen yogurt (a delicious food which I completely forgot about!). I've eaten so many cuisines I think my stomach isn't speaking to me (Japanese, Thai, Mexican, Southern, Italian, the list goes on). The beauty of living in California. I've been getting used to the crazy abundance of things we have in the U.S., the options, the amount of pure space around me, and also the tiny little bedroom I share with my sister. In some ways, the amount of space around me is both bigger and smaller than it was in Toulon. I really miss Emma who is in the U.S. but on the other side of the country, three time zones away from me and unable to call because she's in the middle of a national park. I also really miss Addie who lives in the same state but is somehow 7 hours away from me. The ridiculousness of the distance almost makes me laugh.

It is weird being back and no one can ever explain exactly what it feels like unless you've lived it before. And also it is really easy to be back. The old place feels like a dream and the new place feels normal again. And you're sad that the old place isn't as vivid as it once was. Sometimes I wonder why I have allowed myself to live in this strange moving place. Back and forth between France and California. I felt the same leaving Lyon, the same coming back, and the same thing again this year, moving back and forth from Toulon. And I am trying to leave again to France in September. What a mess. But at least, that is one thing I can always count on.

P.S. I'll post the other vacation ones eventually......hahaha