Tues, July 29: Parliament and Opera House

We woke up tired but ready to go. Breakfast at our hotel is awesome. I had fruit, eggs, salmon lox, yogurt, tea and coffee, bread and Brie. Basically a feast, and at 10 in the morning. We headed to parliament to book tickets for a guided tour. There were spots available in the 2 o'clock tour, so to pass a couple hours until then we walked to Andrássy Út, the so called "Champs-Élysées of Budapest". The street was big and had really nice stores, plus the Opera House stands on the street. We booked tickets there too for a 4 o'clock tour and a five minute opera concert. We walked back to see parliament. Parliament is one of the biggest parliaments of the world, and was completed in 1902 after 17 years of construction. From September to June, 199 members of Parliament meet to vote. In 1944, the two houses, the House of Lords and House of Commons, were abolished and the meetings were held as one. The highest dome stands at 96 m high, symbolic of the year the Hungarians settled  (896). The dome in St. Stephen's basilica is also this high, symbolizing the equality of church and state.

Parliament

After our tour, we couldn't stand the idea of walking back yet again, and in a surprising move, decided to take a taxi. Let me tell you, this never happens. The Apodacas always walk. It was a nice break though, despite the fact that the driver most likely gypped us. If he did though, it was clever, because the meter was running. We had a quick drink at a cafe and then went to see the opera house. We had our tour in Spanish because the Spanish speaking group was smaller than the English speaking group. We had a Hungarian tour guide who spoke great Spanish. We learned that the opera house was built by Miklós Ybl and opened in 1884. The Hapsburg emperor Franz Josef funded most of it, but he only visited once. What was most interesting to me was the actual opera concert hall. It's completely covered in gold detailing, but they only used 3 kg of gold. They do this by painting with an incredibly thin layer of gold.

We bought tickets for a "mini opera" and saw a guy perform a few nice emotional pieces. It was really a good time. We walked right next door to the beautiful Opera Cafe. Even though the inside of the cafe was beautiful, it was empty so we sat outside. Jack, les and pato had "opera cake" and I had a chocolate cake, and we all had hot chocolate.

Our walk to the hotel wasn't too bad, and we got to see a new area of town. After resting for a bit, we went back out to dinner. It almost doesn't count as "going out" because it was about 10 feet from the hotel. We were excited to try Russian food and Les and Pato had some vodka. The menu didn't have a lot of choices, but what we ordered turned out to be wonderful. We were completely surprised when our food came out. We had been expecting inelegant Russian food, but our plates all came out looking like art. It was by far the most refined cuisine we'd tried all trip, and it was delicious! We questioned the authenticity (did Russians really eat delicate slivers of duck breast atop a little hill of potato purée?) but were completely delighted by this nouveau cuisine. Our walk across the street was quite nice ;) 

Mon, July 28: walking tour of Budapest

Our legs hurt!!!! Budapest is a big city, and we walked lots and lots of it today. We walked to the area called Castle Hill, way across the Chain Bridge. We marched up a hill to see what was up there and to get a good view of Budapest. The National Gallery is there in an awesome monumental building housing all things Hungarian, starting in the Middle Ages. There was a little area where you could pay a small amount to try out some medieval weapons, and Jack,fafa and I all tried.

Nice shot?

We walked further along Castle Hill and stopped to take pictures of the beautiful Matthias Church, but decided that we really needed to come back to this area.

St. Matthias Church

We had a quick lunch/snack at a cafe overlooking the beautiful city. It was a great moment made even better by the classical musicians serenading us. 

The view 

We meandered further around the hill and looked at the view more before climbing down. We decided to go to Margaret Island, a nice piece of land in the middle of the Danube. The island used to be a royal game reserve in the 12th century, and then began housing monasteries. Then all the religious buildings were destroyed by Turks. Now it's basically a massive park with some old historical monuments. They had these four person bikes that we decided to rent, and there we were, the Apodacas riding a massive bike cart thing around a tiny island. It was fun, needless to say.

No caption necessary 

The walk both to Castle Hill and Margaret Island was super long, and we walked back to our hotel exhausted. We spent a little time there and then went to dinner around the neighborhood. We found a restaurant called Don Leone, serving both Hungarian and Italian food. I had a Monte Carlo steak, which came with an egg and tomato sauce all over, plus potatoes on the bottom. Yum! Good first day in Budapest

Sun, July 27: train to Budapest

Sun, July 27

Not gonna lie, this morning was quite a drag. We had to pack and say goodbye. Breakfast was still great, though. A driver arrived to take us to the train station at 10:30, giving us a lot of time to catch our 11:39 train. It turned out to be too much time, especially after our train was delayed by 40 minutes. We were left standing in the middle of the train station waiting for a platform to be posted for almost an hour. Finally we headed to platform 4, and that's when the bizarre events began to unfold. We were some of the last people to get on the train, and two girls were pushing behind mom and cutting jack off from getting on the train. There was little remarkable about this event (we were used to pushy tourists), and the only thing I noticed about one girl was her polka dot scarf and something green in her hand. It took a while to settle in: we had to kick people out of our reserved seats, the hallways were stuffed, and our huge suitcases were a pain to stow. Our seats were in a cabin of six. Our cabin mates included two Germans, one old and the other no more than 21. They weren't traveling together but spoke some German among themselves. Then a guy approached mom and asked, "are you Leslie?" It was totally bizarre because we had never seen him in our lives, and he really didn't look like a guy who would know Les for any reason. Seeing her confusion, he held up a New Mexico  ID and her green wallet. He explained that he had found it thrown on the platform. Emotional Leslie was totally in shock and incredibly grateful to this stranger who had spent time walking up and down the cabins looking for a Leslie. He left and she checked inside her wallet-- not surprisingly the cash was missing, but that was it. In all the pushing to get into the train, someone must have slipped her wallet from her purse. Then I remembered stupid polka dot girl who I had thought nothing of at the moment, but who definitely had been holding something green in her hand and who was unnecessarily close to mom. The ride was long and we didn't have a lot of cash since the rest of mom's crowns had been stolen. We sent jack and Patrick to look for lunch and see if they accepted credit card. They returned an hour later, after they had a sit down lunch. The train accepted US dollars which was wonderful news for us, because otherwise we would have actually starved. Mommy and I went, then, to have our lunch. She had a beer and I had some chicken paprikas. It was pretty good for train food and I really liked the experience because I'd never been in a dining cart in a train. There were lots of rowdy Europeans on the train. The hallways were also littered with people not sitting in seats whom we had to climb over. It's all an experience right? The train ride wasn't bad at that point, but then it started stopping unexpectedly. At one point we were stopped for an hour, in the middle of Slovakia. Jack and I followed the example of the weird European backpackers and stepped outside. 

Somewhere in Slovakia

There's no doubt rough experiences bring people closer, and in this cramped cabin, our old little German friend finally started talking a bit after we offered him one of the sobaos jack had stolen from the breakfast in Spain (yes, really). The little guy was dressed in a suit with suspenders and all. I can't even begin to imagine how bored he was. He had boarded the train at 6 am, and stared out the window the ENTIRE time. He didn't even sleep. 

Our little friend staring out the window

The only things he had besides his suitcase were glasses, his ticket and an ancient cellphone. The girl next to me was pretty interesting. She was traveling to spend a day in Budapest and then was heading to a music festival an hour out of Budapest. We kept stopping and it was frustrating not knowing why or when we were going to get to Budapest. 

Our train pulled into Budapest at around 10:30, a whole 4 hours later than it was supposed to. We were tired and hungry, and we couldn't find out driver. We figured he knew that our train was delayed, but he just wasn't there. That left us with the task of finding a taxi. We first had to leave the station and go to an ATM to get cash for our taxi driver. We saw a taxi pulled over to the side, and knocked. The driver was possibly homeless and most definitely "out of it" (drunk or something). Weirdly enough, he told us he wouldn't drive us, and believe me, we didn't want him anyway. A much more respectable cab driver pulled up and we got in. Our hotel was beautiful-- modern, luxurious and elaborate. We checked in with a girl who spoke perfect English. After explaining our missing driver story, she asked how much we had paid the taxi driver, fearing that as it so commonly happens in Budapest to tourists, we'd been ripped off. Our cab had been a fair rate, and was actually cheaper than what we would've paid if our original driver had taken usz We settled in and went out in the search of food. All the kitchens of the restaurants were closed, but we saw a tiny gyros shop run by a really nice guy and we got take away gyros and ate in our room. Goodnight Budapest 

Sat, July 26: last day in Prague

Today was the day for doing anything we'd missed. We started by going back to the Prague Castle to see the gunpowder tower because we'd run out of time on Thursday to see it. The tower housed an exhibition of the uniforms the castle guard wore, and a history of the guard. There was a lot left to see in the castle area. We took a walking tour and saw the beautiful palaces in the castle area. 

We stopped at the steps of the St. John Nepomuk church and read out of the guidebook. We walked to the Loretta Chapel to see the beautiful rococo facade.

We also climbed up to the palace across from the cathedral. During WWII the Germans had made it their Czech headquarters. We went further up the hill to see the monastery, and there we managed to stumble upon Bellavista, a beautiful outdoor restaurant with, well, a bella vista. We sat at a table with a full view of Prague. Les and pato had big beers, and jack and I had ridiculously awesome chocolate cake. Jack and pato also had some soup- served in a rye bread bowl, naturally.

It took some effort to get up and leave the beautiful place, but we walked down from the hill through a vineyard, stopping every hundred yards for a picture of something or other. Jack had to quickly stop by the hotel to download pictures and then we were off to the communist museum, something we didn't want to leave Prague without seeing. The museum was all the way in Wenceslas Square, and we marched quickly. We got there at about 4:30 and were happy to learn that it didn't close at the usual Prague hour of 6. The museum was pretty awesome. It included the entire communist history of the Czech Republic and the Soviet Union, broken into manageable chunks. They had a bunch of historic memorabilia and exhibits. They also had footage of the demonstrations that occurred in Prague in 1969 and later. The revolution in the Czech Republic is referred to as the "Velvet Revolution". Although it was much less violent than the revolutions of other Soviet satellites, it was by no means easy. Communist rule in the USSR was finally dissolved in 1991 after  Gorbachev's declaration of glasnost and his resignation as president of the USSR. It was cool to see footage of protests in places like Old Town Square that we were well aquatinted with. We were finished with the museum by 6:15, and the question of dinner arose (after a quick stop at Zara). We had asked the hotel to make a reservation at an Italian restaurant, but we didn't know if they had been successful in contacting the restaurant, or if they even had room for us (if was one of Prague's top restaurants). We decided the best thing to do was walk to it and check, then find another place if they couldn't take us. We walked to the restaurant, only to find the address didn't exist. Using the reliable blackberry we searched the address online and found that it was located behind the Tyn Church, not in Josefev where  we were. We found the address but the restaurant was hard to find. You had to walk into a small door, down a hallway, down the stairs, and well, then pasta heaven awaited. The restaurant was three lively rooms. We agreed this was our best dinner in Prague, and I was allowed to have VinSanto and cantuccini for dessert (something jack and I had really liked in Italy). It was a nice walk back to the hotel, and I managed to drag my family into an Italian leather store so that I could buy a purse (yay!). We went to sleep and left packing for the morning.

I will most definitely miss Prague. Everything was wonderful, from waking up anticipating a wonderful breakfast and Czech adventures to going to sleep satisfied in what we had seen and still thinking about the history. On to Budapest! 

Fri, July 25: Terezín

We started off the day with a walk to the metro station at Wenceslas square. It wouldn't be an Apodaca trip without ten minutes of confusion over how to get tickets, but soon enough we were on the metro. We got off at the Florenc bus stop because our online Terezín guide had told us that buses departed there, but the ticket guy sent us to another stop. Eventually we were on a bus and arrived at Terezín at one. Terezín was originally built as a military fortress. The name comes from the translation of "Theresa's town", referring to Joseph II's mother, also an enlightened monarch, Maria Theresa. Terezín is much more known for being a Jewish camp and ghetto during World War II. Beginning in 1941, Jews were transported to the town of Terezín, and in little time the original inhabitants were forced to leave so that the entire garrison town could be used as a camp. Most of the people going through Terezín would end up at Auschwitz. 35,000 Jews died at Terezín, and a total of about 150,000 passed through it. Terezín's living conditions were inhumane, but it was used to film propaganda and the camp was presented as a place where Jews were satisfied with living and participated in cultural activities. We began our tour at the Ghetto Museum. The museum was well organized and presented information about all aspects of life in the camp. It offered an abundance of information about the Nazi's dealings with "the final solution to the Jewish question". The museum really showed how real this had all been. Since a really early age I had been interested in reading about the Holocaust. Although I read plenty of books that described the horrors, but they were never vivid. The museum had evidence that showed the destruction of thousands of lives in the way even a book could never do. We left the museum puzzling over how such an atrocity could have ever happened. 

Our next visit was to the barracks of Magdeburg. An exhibition showed what a barrack may have looked like. The beds were so close and small. It was calculated that at first each detainee had about 1.6 meters squared of room. The measurement increased after a group was sent to Auschwitz. We saw a large display commemorating and showcasing the artists, writers and musicians of the camp. Some artists like Lee Hans drew the camp as it was, and it was considered "negative propaganda". A lot of artistic work comes from children of the camp. They had good teachers, and were encouraged to draw or work on plays. 

Along a road stand both the Jewish and Christian burial halls. In here, the dead were given a small ceremony before being cremated. Across the street stands a vault where the ashes of the deceased were hidden so that the public was kept in the dark about the number of those who died. 

We saw the Jewish Cemetery and the crematorium. Tens of thousands of bodies were burned after the burial site could no longer hold more bodies. 

We were planning on seeing the small fortress that was located about a kilometer from the main museum. Unfortunately we ran out of time because we had to make our 5:20 bus. Sad as it was, Terezín was very much worth the trip. 

Thurs, July 24: The Prague Castle (pražská hrad)

IWe shook up our morning routine today by waking up extra early to beat the crowds at the Prague Castle. The walk to the castle was uphill but enjoyable, and only about five minutes from our hotel. The castle overlooks the city and its sea of red rooftops. Our first stop was the St. Vitus cathedral. It was first a rotunda in 929, and was further developed in 1344. The final façade was completed between 1871 and 1929. 

Are you God fearing yet?

Within the cathedral lies the St. Wenceslas' chapel. Good king Wenceslas was killed at the hands of his brother. A door in the chapel contains the Bohemian crown jewels, and only seven keys exist to the door. The jewels are viewed only about every four years (I picked this up from a tour guide standing close). 

Remember St. John Nepomuk from the Charles bridge? (Probably not). His tomb is here, and four life-size angels surround the tomb. 

Next on the list was the Old Royal Palace. The most exiting part of the palace was the window where the defenestration of Prague occurred. For anyone who has ever studied European history, this term has huge significance. Through this window, two catholic governors were tossed out a window, sparking the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). Curiously enough, and apparently not important enough to include in history textbooks, the two men thrown out of the windows survived by landing on a dung heap and the church set up two obelisks to commemorate the miracle. 

The infamous window

As we sat down to see what was next on the agenda, feelings of exhaustion settled in, and mixed with the cold, caused a deep longing for a warm bed (for me, anyway). Because it was actually cold, and I didn't have a jacket, and we all needed a nap, AND our hotel was near, we decided to take our afternoon break a bit early. At 2:30, feeling refreshed and dressed in layers, we returned to the castle. On our second visit, we saw a huge exhibit of all things Prague. We learned about the first settlers of the area (they settled around the Prague basin and we saw some pottery shards), the early lines of kings (the Přemysls) the customs of the area, the burial rituals (they tied bodies down with rocks so they wouldn't come back from the dead) the jewelry (look at the picture!) ..well, we saw everything. 

As promised

We went on to walk around the Basilica of St. George which housed the remains of St. Ludmilla, king Wenceslas's grandmother who was strangled whole praying by Drahomirá, the king's mom. 

Chapel of St. Ludmilla

A quick walk around the palace gave an idea of daily life as a Czech royal, and a view of the Golden Lane provided some insight as to where rudolf II's marksmen would have lived. 

A (royal) room with a view

The inside of one of the cottages on Golden Lane

For the second day in a row the attractions closed right at five, so we had a long amount of time to get to the concert we were going to see at the Clementium Chapel of Mirrors. The hour-long concert consisted of a string quartet and an organist. Mozart, Bach, Smetena, Dvorjak and Vivaldi were all in the repertoire. It was beautiful and our hard fought front row seats were ideal. After the concert we went to dinner at a nice Czech chain restaurant that came recommended in our guidebook. Huge beers, goulash and Czech pancakes filled our table. If there is one thing to say about the food, it's don't eat the dumplings. Have your beer, your goulash and your schnitzel, but avoid the gross hunks of water and dough at all costs. Ew. In case that puts a downer on Prague cuisine, let me share a good use of water and dough: trdelnik. 

They translate as doughnuts, but the pastries are much healthier and debatably tastier. Wrap dough around and around, add sugar, cinnamon, almonds and nougat, roast over coals, and there you have it. Trdelnik. Now try and say it. 

We ended our night with a beautiful walk across the Charles. Will Prague ever cease to amaze? 

Na shledanou! (That's goodbye, you silly American) 

Wed, July 23: churches, municipal hall, Jewish quarter

After a nice breakfast and multiple trips to the coffee machine, the Apodacas headed out to take Prague by storm (sort of). We began our day by visiting the churches we'd seen on the east side of the Charles Bridge. One of the churches, the St. Nicholas Church, provided a comprehensive account of Praha's religious history. The church itself is known to exist as early as the 13th century. It described the Hapsburg dynasty and the protests against their Catholic rule. Those who favored small independent states over the monarchy rallied for Protestantism, because it went against the Hapsburg's Catholicism. 

We went on to the Municipal Hall, a huge Art Nouveau  building. We saw the Smetana Hall and the clusters of women's and men's parlors surrounding it. 

The smetana hall

The parlors were each decorated with a unique motif. One of the parlors, for example, repeated an oval in every decoration. One of the women's parlors, the confectionary, had a huge brass coffee urn. 

We grabbed a small snack of coffee and desert (and wine for the parents) at the tea room in the municipal hall. Then we headed out to the Jewish quarter. To get there we walked down a street of expensive stores. We frequently stopped at the windows of prada, dolce and gabana, Hugo boss and audemars. 

Jack getting ideas for his next birthday present 

We first went to the Pinkas Synagogue which had the memorial of the Czech Jews who had died in the Holocaust. Of the 90,000 Jews who once lived in Czechoslovakia, only 10,000 were still living in the area after the events of World War II. We saw an exhibit of the art drawn by children at the Terazin concentration camp. We walked around the cemetery, with about 12,000 tombstones and what is thought to be 12 layers of graves.

We saw the ceremonial hall and then went on to visit the beautiful Spanish Synagogue. Sephardic Jews settled in this part of Staré Město after being expelled from Spain (in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue......and the Jews were expelled). The gilded synagogue actually looks like a Spanish mosque. 

Spanish Synagogue

They kicked us out promptly at five, so we decided to walk for a while and then go eat dinner around the area before calling it a day. We walked into the Intercontinental hotel and mom described an episode of Mad Men for us (yeah, I don't get it either), and we saw the cubist apartments and the convent of St. Agnes. Then we went to dinner at a very authentic Italian restaurant called Aldente. We arrived back at our hotel after what had been a twelve hour day. 

An awesome street ft yours truly 

Tues, July 22: walking tour of Praha

Prague's history is long and complicated. The name of the city itself reappeared innumerable times in my ap history class. Most notably, the so called defenestration of Prague set off the 30 years war (1618-1648) and the Prague spring in 1968 initiated growing unrest behind the iron curtain. While I am sure to learn a lot about Prague while I am here, it's fair to say I will only be scratching the surface of Prague's deep and long history. Guidebooks and tours can only say so much. I will certainly however be able to see a lot of history. Prague's history will be visible, tangible, and within my reach. 

My introduction to Prague came in the form of a bridge. Our day started with a walk across the Charles bridge. Our hotel is located on the west bank of the river, the quieter but equally beautiful side. The bridge is lined with religious statues of countless saints and figures. Some are shiny in spots where it is believed to be lucky if you touch (the statue of St. John Nepomuk for example is supposed to grant you a wish if you touch it). 

At the end of the bridge on the east bank was the old town bridge tower (Staroměstská Mostecká věž). We climbed to see the 360 view of Prague. Although we were surprised at the few stairs we had to climb (we've been up many towers in our sightseeing summers), the view did not dissapoint. 

The Charles bridge and the west bank

View from the tower, east bank

We continued by walking to the old town square, one of my favorite parts of Praha. We admired the square, the astronomical clock (Prague was the last major european city to have a clock, but by the look of it it seems well worth the wait), the beautiful facades, and the Tyn church peeking out from behind. We sat at a cafe to rest and replenish, and to plan the rest of our day. 

The square 

We decided to walk across the square and eat lunch standing at an outdoor lunch location. The attraction was the huge hams roasting. We ordered a sausage, two portions of ham and some potatos and cabbage to share among ourselves. The parents ordered beers, and like the rest of the meal, they were huge. It was a fun lunch. 

La familia dining in the old town square, featuring tyn church. 

We walked back across the square to get a look inside Týn church. The gothic church is relatively small but astounding, and it houses the tomb of mathematician Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). 

We ventured further to Wenceslas square to see the infamous Hotel Europa and the square itself with the great statue of king Wenceslas and the National Museum. The square is in fact not square, and more of a rectangle that stretches out for half a mile. Wenceslas, both king and saint, is remembered as a Bohemian national hero and good Christian. We took a good look at the Grand Hotel Evropa, an art nouveau hotel where the parents had stayed in 1996 (it was actually so spartan and reminiscent of the iron curtain era that they changed hotels after a night). 

Exhausted, thirsty, and hot, the troops marched all the way back to the other side of the bridge and rested in the hotel for a couple hours before venturing back out onto the streets of Prague. We ate dinner in our bank of the river, at a cute and delicious typical czech restaurant. Our full and exhausting day was concluded by  with a walk along kampa island. We crawled under our duvets and fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of painted facades and looming statues. A full day indeed. 

Monday, July 21- arrival in Prague

Thunder and lighting greeted us as our plane touched down in Prague. Our flight landed almost an hour late, and after collecting our bags we were able to spot our parents waiting for us. At 16 and a half Jack and I were flying alone for the first time, and as the jet setters that we were, it didn't come as a surprise that our first flight alone was from Barcelona to Prague. Everybody was ecstatic to see each other. We arrived at hotel constans late and asked the lady at the front desk if there was anywhere where we could find dinner. She informed us that it was typical of Czech people to dine at around 7 or 8, not 11. We walked along the busiest street in our vicinity and only one restaurant still had an open kitchen. Jack tried the typical goulash, served in a bread bowl. We walked back to the hotel content, and even in the rain Prague's beauty and energy was evident. We got into our huge hotel room and slept. 

The hotel room