"Summary"

Here’s my trip for people who don’t like paragraphs:

Total distance traveled: 4224 mi (6798 km)
In train: 1334 mi (2147 km)
By plane: 2890 mi (4651 km)

• Discount airline flights: 3
• “Real” airline flights (where you don’t pay for drinks!): 1
• Most number of beds in a hostel room: 17 (Stockholm)
• Most nights in one place: 4 (Berlin)
• Latitude of the point furthest north: 59〫N
• Cheapest pint: 35 Kč /1.49 € (Prague)
• Most expensive pint: 6.50 € (Dublin)
• Weight of my backpack: 12.4 kg
• Pairs of pants that I brought: 1—not enough. I thought it was going to be warmer.

Tastiest moments:

• My first croissant in Paris
• Lemon-meringue tart in Paris
• Ham cold cuts at a fancy restaurant in Berlin (check back, I'll find the name/address)
• A "quark" pastry in Berlin (basically a yogurt custard. Side note, still have yet to try frozen custard in the US, midwest style)
• Venison steak & potatoes in Stockholm (definitely paid for it)
• Mysterious green pastry in Stockholm
• Beef goulash in Prague--seriously. It was really good. All the goulash I've ever tried was pretty normal, like a stew, but it's really good when made correctly
• Honorable mention to the breads in Germany too... they're all grainy and seedy like the stuff we sold at Village Mill
  

Outstanding views:

• Anywhere along the Seine in Paris
• Anywhere in Stockholm. Probably from Södermalm, though, since it has some cliffs with good vantage points, if I had to pick one.
  
• Side streets along the Charles Bridge, Prague (see Prague entry). Or, from the west side of the river, from the bridge north of the Charles. Key is getting out early, before the bridge fills up with crowds

Best places to simply sit:

• St. Patrick Cathedral park
• Along the Seine, east of Saint Michael's down below and right on the water. I ate a splendid picnic dinner with Brianna here
• The park behind Notre Dame. It almost doesn't look like a park that's actually open, but it is.
• Along the water on Djurgarden, Stockhom.

A few other superlatives:

• Most likely place to strike up a conversation on the subway: Berlin. By 2 a.m. they're all drunk and really friendly. A little too friendly.
• Most likely place to encounter groups of crazies dressed up for bachelor/bachelorette parties: Dublin
• Most impressive church/cathedral exterior: Notre Dame. Interior: St. Nicholas, Prague.
• Most expensive: Stockholm
• Cheapest: Prague
• Most likely return destination: Stockholm, then Paris.

And now you know why I put "summary" in quotation marks. :D

Comfy in Prague

“Comfy” is a very good word for Prague, I’ve decided, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it that way. To be honest, I didn’t know much about Prague going into it, I only added it to my list because one of the girls I shared my office with basically said it was the coolest place she had been to in Europe, so that was good enough for me. And it didn’t disappoint. Despite it being small, and despite us sort of running out of things to do by the last day (which was probably a result of lack of research rather than lack of options), I really liked it. By the way, “us” refers to Amanda and I, Amanda being another MIT student who was working at Dow for the summer. Basically, the city center of Prague is a beautiful mix of Baroque buildings that are full of history,


a river lined with plenty of vegetation,

and a very homely atmosphere, which was even all the more impressive considering the SWARMS of tourists. (Haha I know, I was a tourist too, I’m just saying, there were tons of us, even more noticable than in Paris.) Basically, when people ask what my favorite city was, I tell them that it is undoubtedly between Prague and Stockholm, although they were so very different that it’s hard to compare. I don’t know, it was just a very open environment, cheap eating and activities, and even the other tourists seemed friendlier than in other places.

The first day there, we took a Free (aka tips appreciated) walking tour, which was actually really good, since we had neither a guide nor a plan. As it turned out, one of the most famous parts of Prague is the old Jewish Quarter. Basically, at one point, the Jews (all Orthodox, from what I can gather), thrived in Prague, and there was a very strong community. Then, in 1747, Maria Theresa of Austria decided that the Jews were becoming too successful and expelled them from the city. However, the economy of Prague collapsed a bit after this, so in 1781, Emperor Joseph II decided to entice them back with some incentives, like the right to own land, and the right to vote, etc. Of course, not everyone moved back, and there were still restrictions imposed on those that did, so the population never quite recovered. Still though, many of the old synagogues are still standing, including the Old New Synagogue, the oldest active synagogue in Europe,


The High Synagogue,


And the Jerusalem (or Jubilee) Synagogue, which was actually built following typically Moorish architecture of the time:




So those were neat to see, because usually synagogues are quite bare and small, especially in comparison to the incredible size and number of cathedrals in Europe.

Also, I learned that the story of the Golem, an old Jewish folk tale, actually was supposed to have taken place in Prague! I suppose at one point, hearing the story, I might have been told that, but I don’t think I knew that Prague was a real place at that point in my life and I certainly didn’t know where it was. So it was cool, just as it’s been cool to connect stuff I learned in high school history classes to real places and objects, to connect that story to the city.

Another neat thing in Prague was the Astronomical Clock,

which just looked cool, even though we couldn’t figure out what information it was giving us.

Also, on Saturday night, we attended Black Box, a performance of Prague’s famous black light theatre, which was pretty freakin’ awesome. The show was just over 90 minutes long, and they alternated scenes of black light dancing (all ballet-based) and a normally lit story about a cop trying to chase two thieves, acted out without any words for the benefit of the typically international audiences. Both were quite entertaining, the “play” basically served as not only a break for the eyes but also comic interludes, and the actors were great. The black light scenes, of course, were awesome to watch. Two of my favorites were: one, a scene in which the dancers had suits that were which on, say, the right side of their body, and black on the left, such that when they faced our right, they kind of looked like normal profiles dancing, but then when they faced us it just looked kind of crazy cool. Another was one where they had clear plasic cubes with the edges lit red, and they started by spinning the cubes fast enough to make it look like there were extra edges, then suddenly when the cubes stopped spinning, dancered appeared inside! WWAAA CRAZY!

Following the show we did a pub crawl, which was way cooler than the one I did in Dublin, I suppose because it was Saturday and not Sunday. But still, the guide wasn’t super weird like the one in Dublin was, there were tons of people (50? 60?), I spent less money than in Dublin, and we met lots of really fun people (corrobarting my “even the tourists are friendlier” theory). Among our Saturday night friends were: a guy from India that, upon request, started dancing Bangra in one of the clubs (he was really good at it!!), three Cataláns (they’re everywhere! Haha, I think I spoke Spanish at least once in every country, yay!), including one that also danced quite well, a really nice Scottish guy and a Portugese guy that seemed to just really love life. Hehe it was quite the entertaining night.

Sunday was a little bit more tourism, hitting up the castle and the Jewish quarter, and then on Monday we basically just had time for breakfast and a little walk around a public photo exhibit before heading to the airport. And then I was back in Tarragona!! And now I’m not anymore :( :( Last night, though, was an excellent last night, and I got one of the coolest going away presents, or presents in general, of my life. Defintely one of the absolutely most thoughful presents ever—I’ll describe it later, it deserves its own entry.

(Side note, I don’t know when I’m going to publish this, but I am currently writing from the Zürich airport during my FIVE HOUR layover between BCN and Boston. I can’t remember, looking back to when I bought the ticket, if there was simply no better option or if I wasn’t paying attention, but whatever, the time is going by quickly.)

And that’s a wrap. Eurotrip complete. I think I need to think of a good name for the excursion as a whole, so I can have a cool title for a photo album, like Alisha and Kendall’s eXtreme X-Country eXpedition. Haha, wow, I’ve been doing a lot of excursions in the past year! Ok, well thanks for listening (I got a lot of fake yawns when I started describing my trip to my friends in Spain… but they kept asking for more details!). Byeee!

Stockholm Play by Play

Eeeeeh Stockholm was great! So great, in fact, that I am going to eschew my earlier plan of only writing highlights and just write down everything I did, because everything was great. It was only two nights so this should go fairly quickly, don't worry.

So I arrived on Wednesday afternoon, after taking a sleeper train from Berlin to Malmö and then another 6-hour train ride from Malmö to Stockholm, the majority of which I slept through as well. Thus, I arrived fresh and ready for action and after checking in, I went for a run. I've only been running about 30-40 minutes lately, when I do run at all, but on Wednesday I put in a full hour because there just kept being more things I wanted to see. Of course, since I haven't been running so much lately, I was pretty wiped out by that and all I managed to do for the rest of the evening was treat myself to a fancy meal of venison steak in a lingonberry cream sauce, which made me a pretty happy kid. Stockholm is quite expensive and that pretty much blew my budget for the day, but since I had spent the whole day asleep, I hadn't spent much, so it was ok. Plus, the next day I managed to win a free package of Wasa crispbread, some shrimp-flavored paste, and a bottle of lingonberry-flavored milk at a promotional stand, with, with the purchase of a tomato and some spinach, made up Thursday's dinner and Friday's lunch, so it was no problem.

Before I go on with the chronology, let me just take a moment to make clear that Stockholm is, simply, a wonderful place. The first person I met there was the bus driver, who let me ride for free because I didn't know that you could only pay at the machines, and told me exactly which stop to get off at. People continued to be equally friendly throughout my entire stay there, and I just felt a genuine happiness throughout the city. Also, Stockholm is a city made up of all islands (I stayed on Skeppsholmen, or "Shipbuilders' Island"), and I happen to love water, and is also 40% green space, and I happen to love nature, so things were generally to my liking.

Ok so Thursday. Thursday I woke up and went running again, because I had so many things to see and so little time. I ran up to the Olympic stadium, which was open, so I ran around inside a bit, then back. For pictures, you'll have to check out my running blog, when I finally update it. Then I showered up for my full day which included:

1. A tour of City Hall, where they hand out the Nobel Prizes. I also discovered that the U.S. flag and the Statue of Liberty are both included on a mosaic covering and entire wall of one of their banquet rooms.

USA! USA! USA! Haha just kidding...

Also, here's me outside the courtyard of city hall, looking back toward one of the other islands:

2. The Nordika museum, where I learned about how people lived through the history of Sweden. I also learned a little bit about the Sami people, the indigenous people of northern Sweden and Finland (and Norway?), who used to be called Laps (as in Lapland). It was funny, because actually, in elementary school, we did a Christmas Around the World kind of performance once, and I actually dressed up as someone who was from what was then Lapland. I was destined to go to Sweden from childhood, clearly.

2.5 Coffee and a pastry. I need to figure out what this pastry was called, but it was kind of a green roll with the ends dipped in chocolate. The outside, as best as I can figure, was some kind of pistachio marzipan, maybe, but I have no idea was was inside, but it was really really good. Like, so good. I also got to sit on the water--literally on a floating dock/raft that was part of the restaurant's terrace--as I ate it. Splendid.

3. The Vasa ship museum, which is a museum built dedicated to a giant 17th century ship that sunk within 15 minutes of leaving the dock on its maiden voyage, due to some miscalculations on the part of the Swedish king. Then, about 50 years ago, they found the ship and brought it to the surface and built the museum. It was really sweet.
4. From there I stopped by the hostel for a quick break before venturing back out, first to Gamla Stan, the center island, for some souvenir shopping (got myself some Swedish handicraft earrings), then down to Södermalm, a sort of more studenty/casual neighborhood/island where I went to a bar with a nice view of the whole city.

Friday morning I really didn't have time for much stuff, as my next destination was Prague, by airplane, so I need some extra time both to get to the airport (about an hour away) and get there earlier enough to check in. But I did manage to squeeze in a quick, almost running tour through Skansen, a sort of park which they typically describe as an "outdoor musuem." Basically, by physically importing old buildings and artifacts and by having employees in costume and whatnot, they have recreated all of historic and modern-day Sweden in a small park, that included a zoo, the town center, mills, stores, etc. It was really neat, but again, not enough time there. Here's a shot of the old furniture workshop. Yay woodworking!

Note the use of pictures! It's because I'm back in Tarragona now! Wow that went by fast. Prague was my next and last stop and just as enjoyable as Stockholm for me, so now that I'm back and can sit down for more than 15 minutes at a time, expect an equally detailed summary of that. Eeeehhh so much fun!!

Berlin in brief

Phew am I exhausted. But Berlin was great. I arrived Friday night after stopping at the Buchenwald concentration camp on my way from Frankfurt. Buchenwald was very sombering and thought-provoking, as expected. It was quite eerie to see the crematorium and ovens where human bodies were actually burned. What really made a big impact on me, though, was a photo exhibition that they had, because they had, from the US Army archives, a set of 10 or 15 color photos, from just after they liberated the camp. I had never seen any color photos of WWII before, and it really made it a lot more real. Although really, it was impossible to imagine those sorts of things actually happening, even being there, because it was just so inhuman that I think our minds block it out. But I am glad I went (still no apostrophes).

Ok, but on to lighter things. So yeah, I arrived Friday to Berlin, where I met up with my friend Laura and her two friends. It was really nice to have some company, and we had a really great time. We stayed four nights, which is my longest stay in one place, and covered pretty much ever major tourist attraction, which is an amazing accomplishment, because Berlin is enormous. But pretty neat. It's funny (omigoodness I found the apostrophe!), because there are a lot of really awesome buildings, architecturally speaking, but they're not really well organized, and you really have to go running around to see all the cool stuff. But it was well worth it, and since one of Laura's friends had a guidebook, we really got a lot of the historical context, which was super interesting.

Speaking of Laura's friends, haha it was kind of a crazy experience for me, because both of the two other girls were Catalan, and even though we spoke Castellano most of the time, they would talk amongst themselves from time to time in Catalan, and it was really a trip for me to be hearing and speaking both Catalan and Castellano while simultaneouslz being surrounded by German conversations. On top of that, like Amsterdam, everyone in Berlin speaks perfect English, so sometimes I wouldn't notice the German at all and feel just like I was in Spain. Except not.

Haha, no, we were definitely not in Spain, which was made quite clear as we discovered that our daily schedule really didn't coincide with the German clock. Personally, what time I eat or do things doesn't matter so much, and I'm apt to go with whatever the local custom is, if nothing else so I don't miss out on food availibility. But the other three really just couldn't fathom eating dinner at 6:00, and all four nights we basically sat down to eat while everyone else was starting to party for the night. We'd finish up about when the U-Bahn here was filling up with people who had already had way too much to drink, and when we were ready to go out for the evening, well.... let's just say the streets were pretty much dead. But we managed to make it work, so no big deal in the end. I was just amused as to how shocked they were and the fact that it really took all four days to catch onto the German routine.

Ok, so, let's see... any people or places to recount? Well, today, after the other three left to catch their plane, I went over to the Olympic stadium, where I watched to guys sneak down to the field level, jump a fence, sprint to the grass, lay down on their back for half a second, get up, and go sprinting back over two fences up to the visitors area (which was about 3 or 4 normal stories up a flight of stairs). A security officer ran out yelling but only half-heartedly chased them, and I saw them later walking smugly away somewhere else in the stadium.

My favorite place I visited would definitely be the Schloßgarten (finally, something easier to type on a German keyboard), way out west of the city center. We rented bikes one day and headed out there, and it's just an absolutely gorgeous park, very nature-y and whatnot.

Well, I think that's all to report for now. Tonight I board a sleeper train to Sweden, and I'll be in Stockholm by 1:30 p.m. or so on Wednesday. Wowowow this trip is going by quickly! And on top of that, I'm going to be back in the US in nine days!! I can't believe it. It's going to be so weird... spending green money?!?