Tonight was the official start of the holiday season in Prague. The Christmas markets opened today in Old Town where they sell tons of souvenir type things, sausages, grog (spiced wine), ornaments, crepes...and so on. It was so beautiful seeing everything lit up but it was VERY crowded for the lighting of the 40 foot Christmas tree in the Old Town square in front of the Tyn Church. A childrens choir sang before the lighting and it got everyone in the Christmas mood and spirit. The tree was lit at 6pm and you can watch the video of it below. There were hundreds of people around it was a crazy scene trying to get out of the square. Lots of pushing and shoving but so worth it to see the lighting! Angela and I immediately played Christmas music when we got back to the room!! One month and I'll be home to enjoy the season in RI but I am so excited to see the season here in Prague!
Happy Thanksgiving a day late to everyone!! We had a traditional thanksgiving here in Prague as best we could. We were able to be all together and some of the kids in our group had their parents here as well so I was happy they were able to celebrate the holiday with us too! Our Prague family all participated in making and buying food and drinks and we were all able to have a filling meal. We had about 9 chickens (could not find turkeys here), corn, green beans, peas, carrots, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, bread, chocolate cake, cheesecake and a ton of different pastries. The meal was mainly prepared by the Kennedy's, Kristin's mom and dad. Since the stoves were so small each of our kitchens were occupied by some sort of food. It was hard not to snitch at the potatoes in our room since we were all so hungry and craving a good Thanksgiving meal. We all left the meal feeling very full and content. I was so happy we were able to celebrate since we were all missing the traditions at home. It was a great Thanksgiving that I will always remember. Hope everyone else had a food, fun, and love filled day!
Well after about 18 hours of being in Prague I was back in the airport again to make the journey to SWEDEN!!! To start off all the rumors about Sweden being frigid, not true well at least it was warm in the 5 days I was there. Okay back to the journey. I arrived at the airport and took a bus to Linköping where I met Gabriela, my fourth cousin I would say. I think the relation is our great-grandparents were first cousins, I really should know this but its that far back I know at least. Thursday night we had homemade Swedish meatballs, potatoes, and Julmust, which is a Coca-cola type drink that the Swedes drink at Christmas time and is very good. After dinner we watched Australia which is a good movie with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and is a story about love and cattle driving in the Outback during World War II. Its long but really good! Friday I was able to sleep a little late and Gabriela went to class until about noon. Once she got back we walked around Linköping a bit. I got to see a bit of the old town(picture to the left), Linköping University (Gabriela's school), a chocolate factory and some of the city center at night. I was also able to see a Protestant Church, yay finally! The Linköping Cathedral was yet again another old and beautiful church. After walking around for the rest of the day we went back to Gabriela's place and she cooked again another wonderful dinner of the student sausage meal and mashed potatoes. The sausage was a very easy dish with just sausage, onions, ketchup, and mustard stuck in the oven for a bit and you have a delicious and easy but not so healthy meal. It was soooo good! That same night Gabriela's friend Anna came over and we watched Swedish Idol and had glögg, candy, gingerbread, and Lussekalter ("Lucia Cat" which are donut type pastries). The glögg is a Scandinavian Christmas drink and is a spiced wine that is served hot and is put it little glasses. We also put raisins and almonds in the glass as part of the tradition. The candy Anna brought was just a variety of candy from the grocery store and there were a lot of different flavors and shapes. It was another early to bed night because we were heading to Stockholm the next day. Saturday we took a 3 hours bus ride to Stockholm. We checked into our hostel and immediately started the tours. We first went to the City Hall and got a tour. The first room we saw was the Blue Hall which was not blue it was brick. The original plan was to paint the room blue but when the architect saw the room he changed his mind to keep the brick but the name stuck. We then saw the council chamber were the members still meet today. After that we went into the Golden Room where millions of golden tiles were used to cover the walls in beautiful murals. The Queen of Sweden is on the front wall and she is holding the city of Stockholm in her lap to protect it. After city hall we walked to the Palace. In here we got a tour of the royal and guest apartments and the crown jewels. After walking for a few hours we found this little cafe called Art cafe down an alleyway. It was a really cute underground little place where we got tea and chicken curry sandwiches. Once done with our snack we headed back to the center from old town to see the lights a night a bit. Around 6pm we walked back to the hostel, showered and found a place to eat dinner. We found this really good Chinese/Thai place where I got a non-Swedish meal but was able to try pear Swedish cider, Rekorderlig. I thought the pear was appropriate hence my last name. Gabriela and I were pretty tired from the day so we decided to head back and just read and hang out in the room and rest up for Sunday. Sunday morning we woke up and headed to a different part of Stockholm to see the Vasamuseet or Vasa Museum. This museum is dedicated to the warship, the Vasa, who sank on her first voyage in 1628. 300 years after she sank in April of 1961 she was pulled up from the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Because of the low amounts of salt and the temperatures of the sea, the Vasa was in great condition for being underwater for 300 years. The ship was restored and made to look as close to the original as possible. About 90% of the ship is original but some things had to be replaced to complete the ship. It was amazing to see the detail and effort that went into this ship. The picture to the left is a skeleton that was found in the bottom floor of the ship. The sailors who were on the bottom floor when water rushed in from the open cannon doors when the ship started to tip were drowned. 32 people died in this disaster. After the museum we went to the Palace again and were able to see the changing of the guards parade. It was a very long and serious program with a lot of guns and salutes. We then headed to a different part of the city to find some lunch. We found this coffee shop over a bridge to the island Södermalm where we got a large hot coffee to warm us from the cold and rain and I got Kladdkaka which is an amazing gooey chocolate cake, heaven in your mouth good, and Gabriela got carrot cake which was also very good. After we finished our tasty and very healthy lunch we walked the main street and went into shops and malls just to look around. Around 4pm we headed to the Swedish Museum of Natural History and saw an IMAX film about the Wild Coast in southern Africa. It was a very interesting film about the sardine migration to the northern warmer waters and the other wildlife it bring along with it. Sharks, dolphins, seals, penguins, and many birds all follow the schools to eat. It was a very cool 3D film. After the film we headed back to the hostel to and got our own pizza to go. The pizza was very good but an interesting thing about Swedish pizza places is they give you a container of cabbage to put on top of the pizza. It was a very strange combination but it was also very good. We ended up shower and just hanging around in the hostel becasue again we were exhausted from walking around all day in the chilly rainy weather. We had to get up early and get Gabriela to the bus station so she could catch her bus back to Linköping in time so she could get to her classes. After dropping her off I pretty much roamed Stockholm for the day again. I bought some souvenirs, hung out in a coffee shop and read, wandered down to the water front and sat for about an hour just to watch the boats come in and out. At around 3 I headed back to the bus station to get a bus to the Skavsta Airport and my hotel which was right next door. I checked into the hotel around 6pm. Took a shower, ate some dinner, packed up, read a little in bed then crashed early for my 4:30am wake up call to catch the 6:30am flight home to Prague. The breakfast in the morning was very good and consisted of a ham, cheese, cucumber, and tomato toast, yogurt and muesli, and coffee. Well worth the money. I finally got back to my dorm at around 10am and was happy to be back and free of traveling stresses. I am so so happy I was able to meet up with Gabriela and see Sweden!! I am hoping I will be able to get back to Sweden someday and have the rest of her family and my family meet, *cough* family vaca!! *cough* Anyway, another great trip but I am happy to be able to be home and sleeping in my bed.
I was so excited to arrive in a country where I spoke the language, it made getting around much easier. From the airport in Luton I had to take a 2 hour bus into Oxford where Katie Sheridan met me. It was so good to see her standing there waiting for me!! I was so happy to see her. Katie and I went to her place to get showered and ready for dinner at Worcester College. Oxford is one big university but has many smaller colleges within it. Katie goes to Exeter College but her boyfriend and the majority of her friend go to Worcester. We had a wonderful dinner of artichoke, ham, peppers, and broccoli quiche, an apricot and brie dip thing, and an espresso almond cake for dessert. The night continued with hanging out with Katies friends eating every last bit of food and I finally got to meet Dan, the boyfriend. Friday was Oxford tour day. I was able to see all of Exeter, Christ Church Meadows, many of the other colleges in the area, mainly it was a tour and picture taking of beautiful old buildings, castles and churches still standing from the 12th century. One fun thing we did see what the room used for the infirmary in Harry Potter. I didn't really recognize it but any HP fans able to imagine it??? The circular building to the left is a library at Exeter College were very old books are kept. You need special clearance to get in (which Katie has because of the wonderful historian she is) and every book printed in England during a certain time period, I forget which it is, is kept here. The picture with the immaculate greens is oh just the quad at the entrance to Exeter. Dad, you should have been the mowing jobs they had done. The lawns were perfect and so beautiful. For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant where I got chicken saag (spinach) which was the best curry I had ever had. That night we were planning on going out to a "Bop", basically clubbing but everyone was so tired from a long week of work that we all decided to stay in and call it an early night. Saturday was a more relaxing day. Katie and I did a little shopping where I got a sweater for $4 and tights for $1, got to love Primark (kind of like an H&M). After walking around all day we stopped in at Katies favorite coffee shop, Combibos, and relaxed for a bit. We headed back to Exeter to get ready for dinner and decided to try and make some Mama Sheridan cookies. I know most of you have had some of Mrs. Sheridan's chocolate chip cookies and let me tell you Katie and I failed miserably at trying to make them. We failed at the whole milliliters to cups thing. You would think since I am the math person we would be able to figure it out but nope, we just kept adding things until it tasted good and the consistency was right, the process was quite comical. They came out terrible and didn't taste great at all, you can see the disgrace to the We brought them anyway to Worcester and people were VERY nice about eating them. Sunday was a very lazy/work day. We laid in bed for about a half an hour at 8am debating whether to go to London Sunday or Monday. We ended up falling back asleep for 3 more hours so the decision was made for us that we would go Monday. After a late start we headed to a coffee shop closer to Katies house and she did some work and I did some reading. We headed back to Worcester around dinner time and had dinner there again. We went back early to Exeter to be able to get up early for London Monday morning. We didn't get to London until about 1pm because of a huge accident on the M40 and we sat dead stopped for about an hour. We had to leave by 6pm in order for Katie to get back for water polo practice. I saw everything I wanted to see in 5 hours and got to do a tour of Tower Bridge. I was able to see Buckingham Palace, St. James Park, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, The London Eye, the lions outside the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Millenium Bridge, Tower of London, and finally the site I had been waiting to see, Tower Bridge.I took a tour of Tower Bridge and got to go up on the walk way above the roadway and see London at night. I also got to tour the engine room of the bridge and see how the bridge opens for large ships. The steam and hydraulic power apparatuses were so cool and I am so happy I paid the money to see it. I debated it for a while but this is the one thing in London I really wanted to see and be a part of, all for the engineering, I am such a nerd. We got back in time for me to get dinner and Kait to get to water polo. We slept at Worcester that night since the bus station I needed to be at at 6am was right next to their house. I got to the airport and the only flight out at 11:15am (the time I was supposed to depart) was to Madrid!!! There was no Prague anywhere....oops. Well we should have gone to London on Sunday becasue my flight was Monday, not Tuesday. Everything worked out okay though. I was able to get a seat on the Wednesday flight and just went back to Oxford for the night again. Turned out to be a great night and we had a fabulous dinner again of pasta and this sausage sauce that was to die for! We ended up going out to an old English pub which was actually the same pub where Bill Clinton tried weed for the first time. He smoked but did not inhale. The pub has a sign to show where he sat, kind of corny but a little fun fact. I also got to try Old Rosy which is an old old cider recipe that has been served here for many years. It was not that tasty but glad I got to try what I had been hearing about all weekend. I finally got back to Prague Wednesday afternoon. I was very lucky about not missing classes becasue I conveniently planned the trip around dean's days and holidays so I didn't miss any class time. I am so happy I was able to visit my oldest friend in the world in England. It was so fun to be there with Katie and I am so glad I got to see her. She also says hello to everyone back home!!
