More weekend fun in Ukraine!

Sometimes when we're not teaching or planning another upcoming trip, we like to actually have fun in Kiev! A few weekends ago, several of us met up at the Roshen Chocolate Factory which has amazing chocolate and is decked out for Christmas.

We walked to Riley's host families house, which is huge and very family-esque and lovely! After sunset, we bundled up and set out into the nearby forest with Riley's host dad Andre leading the way. We walked around a beautiful lake and up a hill to go to an awesome Byzantine cathedral that had nothing but forest around it. It looked like Aladdin's castle to me :) We went inside, which was lit only by candle light, and listened to the monks chanting for a while before we set back out into the forest. We passed a pony farm, where we stopped to pet them of course. We hiked through the forest in the pitch-black, freezing cold night, gathering small pieces of firewood and laughing along the way. We finally reached a clearing at the top of the hill where we threw in our little bits of firewood and Andre started a bonfire. We gathered logs to sit on and sat around the fire, roasting hot dogs and starbursts while passing around a bottle of Fanta to swig from. We sang girls camp songs to Andre and Andre sang Ukrainian folk songs to us. It was so much fun. I love bonfires!

We put out the fire and headed back home a different way than we came, which involved walking through deep ditches and down steep hills. For a while, we questioned our judgement in following a man we didn't really know through a dark forest. But Andre didn't let us down, we got back to the house safe and sound! We all split up after that, and me and Riley went to a movie theater to watch an English movie! There was an Indie Film Festival going on in Ukraine; the movie was one of the worst I've ever seen, but it was worth it just for the experience of being in a movie theater with an English movie!
Riley came over to spend the night for church the next day, and of course we stayed up late watching Grey's Anatomy while eating a mini-feast we bought from the local supermarket on our way home. After church, Jenessa and Riley came back to my apartment to watch MORE Grey's Anatomy and take Sunday naps. Later that night, we met up with a few other people from our group at the Kiev Opera House where we watched Cinderella opera.

This weekend, I met up with Natalie where we walked down Kreshatyk street in the beautiful and rare sunshine. Kreshatyk is the main street downtown, and it's shut down on the weekend so people can walk on it. It was great before, but now it's way more awesome as everyone's getting ready for Christmas! We went to a small cafe and talked for over an hour, and then came back to my apartment. Natalie stayed to read while I met up with Riley and Katelyn at the temple for baptisms :) After, me and Riley met up with Natalie to go to the store and buy food for our feast. We ended up making nachos that we ate with salsa and hummus, with a side of homemade egg nog. It was so good! Then we all settled down on my floor to watch Grey's Anatomy while enjoying fruit and chocolate fondue/ talking about ex-boyfriends/ laughing about inside jokes.

I love weekends in Kiev! It's a much needed break from teaching. And now we only have 2 weekends left! Crazy.

The way we do Prague: Part 2

Oh, Prague. I don't know if everyone liked Prague as much as I did, but it was my favorite by far. The ambiance and mood created by the gorgeous city is something I haven't quite experienced anywhere else, and I fell in love with it.
Vienna had it's own sort of beauty, and we definitely had a lot of fun there. But it wasn't like Prague, with its wide Danube river surrounded by trees changing to there Fall colors; the green islands scattered lazily throughout the river; the rolling green hills, not far far from the castle with the gothic spires of the towering St. Vitus Cathedral, joined in the skyline by the spires of St. Nicholas cathedral only a few blocks away; the rows of bridges with their perfectly symmetrical arches, providing shade for the ducks and swans; the cobble stone roads and adorable European-style buildings along every street running through the center; the vast rows of buildings on the other side of the river that seem to be never ending as they slowly roll up the gently increasing hill; the open spaces around the river that act as the perfect canvas for breathtaking sunsets; the delicate balance of hectic tourist areas and quiet, peaceful areas nearby; the views! oh my gosh the different views of the city from different hills surrounding the main areas will take your breath away no matter how many times you see them. I love Prague.

Our bus from Vienna arrived in Prague around 6:30, and we settled in to our new hostel. Much to our dismay, we found ourselves in a room full of stereotypical Australian girls dressed in the sluttiest costumes ever. Always so random. We left to walk by the river, and I realized how happy I was to be back in Prague. It just has this peaceful, magical atmosphere about it. As we were walking, we passed a swan that confidently glided right up to us. Pretty soon, we were sitting on a bench by the river, feeding a large group of swans and ducks and eating our sandwiches, laughing about one thing or another- we had so many inside jokes by the end of this trip :)

We kept walking to this castle that had 3 arches overlooking the river- we each took one, and sat quietly for a while, taking in more of the beauty of Prague.
The next morning, we walked through Old Town Square to get to our little Indian restaurant for lunch buffet. The waiter recognized us from last time and welcomed us back with a smile, and the food was so good! We all split up after that, to do what we each wanted to do most on our last day there. I rented a perfect little bike from this small shop nestled in a corner of a courtyard from a very nice man.

I rode over the river across the nearest bridge, straight up onto this gorgeous, huge park on a hill. It seemed to have never-ending winding paths covered in fallen leaves, lined by tall tress wearing their fall colors, surrounded by areas with some of the greenest grass I have ever seen.

As if that wasn't beautiful enough already, all I had to do was look to my left and I had the prettiest view of Prague's river, bridges, castles, and cathedrals that I had ever seen.

It was unbelievable. I rode through the park for a while, then made my way to the main street where it became clear that I was in the living quarters of Prague. Kids rode their scooters past me, a gang of boys ran by me with their baseball gear on their way to the park, I moved to the side as moms pushed strollers on the path while little kids skipped ahead with dogs running by their sides. It was completely adorable.

I rode up to another park, which I had to take very steep, narrow paths through a forest to get to. There were even more beautiful green open spaces, gently rolling up and down for miles,, and trees with colored leaves swaying in the breeze. I rode up more, across a smaller river, across a road to a bridge over a larger river that had a horse farm right next to it, so I rode past people happily riding horses in this quiet part of town.

It had a few cottages nestled into the hill here and there, but it was so much more open and primitive than the main part of the city, yet still retaining the beauty and charm of Prague. There was hardly anyone around, and the loudest sound was the music of the rushing river at the bottom of the hill.

I have never, ever seen anything in my life as beautiful as the scenery I saw on my bike ride thorough Prague. It was like a dream! The pictures I have don't do it justice, especially since I only had my ipod to take pictures with on our last couple of days there.

I rode back a slightly different way then I came, stopping at Prague castle to go inside the always impressive St. Vitus Cathedral, and the view from the castle's hill was, as usual, completely gorgeous.

I continued riding to the other side of the river, through Jewish town,

and finally back to the bike shop through quiet, peaceful side streets, and returned my bike. I hurried back to the river to meet Riley and Natalie at the spot we had stopped the night before to feed the swans. We sat on the same bench, shared stories about our day, and watched the beautiful sunset.

We walked back through the main part of Old Town Prague to buy our host families gifts and a few last souvenirs, then went back to our hostel, which was crawling with people in legit costumes. I love halloween :) We ate chocolate ice cream with spoons Riley snuck from the restaurant upstairs, and watched some scary shows, then packed and got ready to leave the next morning.
If, when I get home, anyone asks me what city I would recommend the most, my answer will always be Prague, hands down. It's my favorite.

The Vienna Experience

Ok. 5 days in Vienna, Austria with me, Riley and Natalie. Turned out to be some of the most interesting five days of my life. It all started Tuesday morning in Prague when we overslept and literally rolled out of bed, scrambled to gather our things from our hostel, and ran through the streets to the bus station. We made it with 60 seconds to spare, and the moment we stepped on the bus we were in the lap of luxury. We all had huge windows that allowed us to watch the beautiful, green Czech and Austrian countryside as we drove by.

Comfy chairs, personal tv screens, and 2 free drinks during the ride- I got hot chocolate both times :) We pull up to Vienna, and I wake up Natalie and Riley. By the time we get off, it's just us three left standing there with our luggage on some random street as the bus pulls away. Immediately, Riley starts to freak out because Vienna looks NOTHING like we had pictured it. I also am freaking out because I see the ferris wheel across from us, which means we were in the completely wrong spot and lost from moment one. Luckily, we found the right metro and caught it in the right direction. We get off at our metro stop and come up, but we come up at the wrong spot so my carefully written out directions are useless. We are cold, lost, tired, and weirded out by how different Vienna is from everything we'd imagined, and as we're trying to figure out which way to go, a smoke bomb explodes right by us and Riley screams. Really? A smoke bomb? As if things weren't weird enough already! Eventually, we found our hostel which was SO nice and awesome, and settled in.

We went a little cable-car cafe in the Naschmarkt, quickly discovering how expensive Vienna is going to be. After, we set out to find the "Music Festival" that me and Natalie had read so much about. We learned that Austria needs to redefine it's opinion of what a music festival is. It was really just a giant, black jungle gym-looking thing that played the most annoying sound over and over again, occasionally changing to a different annoying sound, which we listened to while being blasted in the face with the freezing mist from a nearby fountain.

Really? We'd read about concerts and beautiful art and music! Everything that happened to us in Vienna was so random. We left to walk up the street when we saw a Vienalle building (Vienalle is a huge film festival that was going on in Vienna while we were there, but it was too expensive for us to go to). So we went inside the building to use their free bathrooms, take their free chocolate samples, pretend like we were actually going to buy something, and then walked out without spending a dime. We spent the rest of the night at the hostel, stopping at a grocery store on our way back to buy some fruit and snacks.
Who ever is reading this, must be wondering at this point "What is Vienna really like then?" Well, let me tell you. It is not rolling green hills, sparkling rivers, and wide streets of palaces and opera houses as we had all pictured in one way or another. It is crowded and maze-like, extremely westernized, and modernized. A lot of times we felt like we were back in America, and some parts of Vienna were even ghetto like downtown parts of American cities. There are extremely beautiful buildings all over the city, but they are hidden between rows of modern buildings like H&M and monstrous hotels.

Still, the city grew on us over time. You can easily have a lot of fun in Vienna, and see many amazing places with fascinating history behind them. I realized how much I absolutely loved the city by the time I left!
The next day was unexpectedly Vienna's independence day, so all the shopping places were closed, and it was very cold. We went to the beautiful Hoffburg Palace,

where we made a stop inside an exotic butterfly house.

We ended up on the Graben where we saw an old guy dressed like a knight doing an entertaining version of "break dancing".

We went into Cafe Hawelka, a well-known historical cafe in Vienna, which turned out to be over-crowded and expensive. Me and Riley got chocolate cake to share, and Natalie bought a coffee, then the manager came up and pressured us to order more from the menu. Riley caved and bought a hot chocolate for 4 euros, haha =p

Next we went to the Lobkowitz Palace where royalty once lived and where Beethoven's third symphony premiered.

We got in for free by slightly exaggerating how young we are =] We went to the Austrian National Library next, and it was incredible. I felt like I'd stepped back in time a few centuries- they had even preserved the books in there!

We walked by the Spanish Riding School

and St. Michael's Church, which dates back to the 12th century

and ended up on Heldenplatz street, where a huge festival with booths and music was going on for the holiday. Me and Riley split a yummy eclair. We continued on to the Opera House, and after many trial and errors, we bought our standing tickets for 3 euros and watched La Sylphide, which was wonderfully graceful and the music from the orchestra was wonderful.

Afterwards, we walked a long ways down to the river thinking it would have to be a pretty part of Vienna, but it was really just a concrete stream with graffiti everywhere. So we kept walking, determined to find "the part". However, the other side of the bridge was even more ghetto, and I kept thinking "There is no way this is Vienna!" Long story short, we made it to Prater, the carnival of Vienna, and it was actually quite nice.

When we began to walk home, we picked a street that looked pretty and walked down it only to discover that it was the street where all the prostitutes stood waiting for clients. We ended up being followed by these three guys, but we managed to shake them after about five minutes and found our way home. We took a break in front of the Opera House to rest our feet, and we saw a couple fighting where the girl was beating the guy. See! Everything that happened to us in Vienna was so random! We finally made it back to the hostel and stayed up late watching funny youtube videos.
The next day, after realizing Vienna was too expensive for us to eat out, we went to the grocery store and bought enough food to last us for the next 2 days, and saved a ton of money! We caught tram 71 to Zentralfriedhof, the central cemetery of Vienna. This cemetery was so huge, it had it's own transportation system within it!

It was the perfect atmosphere that day, with gloomy fog and ravens flying all around us. The graves were elaborate and interesting to see.

After some searching, we found the music section with the graves of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and Strauss.

I laid my rose on Beethoven's grave,

and we sat on a bench across from the graves and ate our sandwiches while listening to classical music from these great composers. After, me and Riley got off the tram a few stops early to do some shopping while Natalie went back to the hostel because she wasn't feeling good. We ended up in a shopping section that was meant for the locals, not tainted by tourism. They sold cool things, and everything was so much cheaper! We all met up at the hostel later to make a feast in our awesome hostel kitchen, cooking alongside other people we met from all over the world. That night, we caught the metro to the bigger river,

crossed a really cool, long bridge,

and tried to find our way to the Danube tower. We soon discovered that the only way to get there was cutting through one of the creepiest parks we have ever been to. It would have been beautiful during the day, but we went into it at night, and it was like a big, creepy maze where a murderer could jump out from behind the bushes at any moment. We screamed when a runner ran by us, haha. Luckily, we made it to the tower safely, rode an elevator up to the top, and ate chocolate cake, apple strudel, and cold milk in the revolving restaurant overlooking beautiful Vienna.

Going back through the park was even scarier the second time and we were even more worried because we had about 20 minutes before the metro stopped running and we'd be stuck 1.5 hours walk away from our hostel, but we made it to the metro safely and everything worked out!
For our last full day in Vienna, me and Natalie went to check out a pretty palace by our hostel,

then walked down to the towering and intriguing Stephensdom.

We went inside and walked around, then doubled back to follow the sign that pointed to an elevator that would take us to some tower. We randomly went down some stairs and somehow ended up being herded into a tour group as the tour guide locked the door behind us, thinking we were the last two in the group. Me and Natalie looked at each other with big eyes and whispered to act natural and not talk in English- but it was too late, the tour guide heard us speak English and gave the tour in both English and German, and charged us for it too. But it was actually so worth it! We were taken through the basement of the Stephensdom, where we saw the coffins that held mummified royalty and religious leaders, accompanied by the pots that held their preserved organs in alcohol. We also saw a cellar where the bones and skulls of those who had died from the black plague in the 1300's stacked in neat piles reaching from the ground to the ceiling. It was the perfect tour for halloween! Me and Natalie split up after that so we could each get in our own things we wanted to do before leaving the next day. I visited the anchor clock just as it was chiming on the hour, walked the halls of the University of Vienna, founded in 1365, the oldest university in the German speaking world, and the place where Sigmund Freud studied and taught.

I went inside the beautiful Burgtheater, in use since 1741 and famous for it's brilliant dramatic art.

On my way back to the hostel, I also passed the Parliament building, which was one of the prettiest and most shocking buildings I saw in Vienna.

I also happened to walk through the courtyard of two beautiful palaces adjacent from each other

I returned to the hostel just in time to share a lunch of leftovers and story sharing with Riley and Natalie. We watched an episode of House and took it easy for a while :) That night, Riley took us to a cool little street with an ancient bookstore and lots of cool ships. We caught the metro to Prater, Vienna's well-known carnival park. I love carnivals! And the one in Vienna had such a cool atmosphere to it, it was the perfect ending to our trip.

Me and Riley rode the swings, which we later found out are the highest swing ride in the WORLD. That made me feel a little better about freaking out so much while we were on them :)

Then we all rode the Ferris wheel, one of the earliest ever built. We were packed in a box car with several other people, free to walk around where ever we wanted, and the view was gorgeous.

We went back to our hostel to make another dinner feast from our groceries (seriously, that's the way to do it on vacation! it was so cheap and yummy) and laid out in the hallway to watch a scary show in the name of halloween.
The next morning, we checked out and set out the cross the Naschmarkt to go to the cute little street Riley had showed us the day before, but we ended up staying at the Naschmarkt. It was extended into a huge flea market that was selling paintings, antiques, and various little Austrain knick-knacks. I could have spent hours in there! I loved fumbling through the old Austrian documents, taking in the bright colors of all the fruits, spices, and desserts being sold, the rush of hundreds of other people walking through the outdoor market, the sounds of several different languages buzzing around me, the vendors yelling out their prices from all sides of me.

It was so cool. I bought 3 very old post cards of Vienna, all of them with writing on them, one of which dates back to 1916. They are so beautiful! At 1:40, after running across town and barely making it in time AGAIN, we caught our lovely bus back to Prague, and our Vienna trip ended. I was sad to leave, we had SO much fun in Vienna, and so many things to laugh at.