Berlin & Prague

Berlin Cathedral

National Gallery of Berlin on Museum Island

Cute little Berlin car

Humboldt University on Museum Island

Berlin Cathedral

River around Museum Island

Walking man wearing a Berlin hat

Alexia and I in front of the Berlin Wall

Memorial for all of the Jews in the Holocaust

Pariser Platz

Sign outside Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie

Sign on the other side of Checkpoint Charlie

Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

Outside our Prague hostel window

Old Town Square, Prague

Prague Astronomical Clock

Markets in Old Town Square, Prague

Delicious Czech pastries!

Old Town Square, Prague

Prague Astronomical Clock

Prague

National Museum of Prague & Wenceslas Square, Prague

Wenceslas Square, Prague

Charles Bridge, Prague

Prague's Eiffel Tower (used in the movie Eurotrip as the Eiffel Tower)

One of the first forms of graffiti

Church inside the Prague Castle grounds

Tori, Molly, Alexia, and me in the Prague Castle church

Prague Castle Church

Prague Castle Church

The girls plus Jindrich and his daughter and her friend at a traditional Czech pub/ restaurant

Another Church in Prague

 Last Saturday, my roommate Alexia and I went to Berlin.  It was interesting, I am glad I went, but will probably not return.  Seeing parts of the Berlin Wall still standing was quite interesting, but other than that, Berlin really only had a lot of museums (Museum Island) and bratwurst.  I have had my fill of museums and galleries in London, so was not really interested in paying 15 euro to get in.  The city itself was not very pretty, a lot more modern than I thought it would be.  So Alexia and I ran around the city for 5 hours making sure to see all the main sites.  After all of the running around, we went for dinner at an oh so very authentic German restaurant, a Tapas restaurant.  We were not so interested in eating brats and sauerkraut, but now we know Berlin can do Spanish food quite well.  From dinner we headed to a club.  It was much for of a European club than any of the London clubs.  Techno music, crazy lights, strange European dancing, smoking inside (I smelled like an astray afterwards, did not much appreciate that), strange drinks, etc.  It was a lot of fun, we met some very interesting people there.  We tried out first shot of Absinthe, absolutely disgusting, tasted like black licorice.  And no hallucinating, no seeing green, not sure if that is all a myth.  


The next morning, we headed to Prague on a train from Berlin.  It was an absolutely beautiful train ride, gorgeous hills, rivers, houses, castles, etc.  Much different of a train ride than the Amtrak ride from Chicago to Springfield, and surprisingly shorter.  Only 4.5 hours versus Amtrak's at least 5 hour train ride.  Once we got to Prague, we headed to our hostel which was located in Old Town Square.  Prague was beautiful.  It was so pretty it looked fake.  It took me awhile to realize I was not walking around Epcot at Disney.  Walking around, I could definitely tell that my mom's side of the family is pure Czech.  I had to do some double takes, thinking my grandma Kutilek had somehow arrived in Prague.  The food was good, very similar to what we eat at my grandma's; pork, ham, sauerkraut, dumplings, and kolaches.  In Prague, we did quite a bit of walking around, 9 straight hours of it to be exact.  It was tiring, but very pretty the whole time.  After we found out you could bring an empty bottle of sorts, a large water bottle, to a pub and they would just fill it up for you, the walking was much easier.  We went out to a pub with live music, pretty fun.  The beer there was very good, much better than any british beer I have had.  Tuesday we headed back to London, it was a short trip, but fun nonetheless.  On Monday, Shannon is coming to London and then on Wednesday we are going to Paris, quite exciting.

Marrakech, Morocco

The streets of Marrakech

My adorable little bed nook at our B & B

Our B & B

The breakfast area of our place

Tagine, it was either this or couscous for meals

Looked like the sand people from Star Wars

Mosque

The street markets

Jewelry at the street markets

Olives at the street markets, Moroccan people did not enjoy being anywhere near photos

Rugs at the street markets, pretty sure some of those are also in the Anthropologie catalogue

Large snakeskin sold at the street markets

The little streets of Marrakech

Our guide for the trip

Natural healing herbs and what not

An abundance of spices

Typical Moroccan food

They pour the tea from so high up! They normally pour the tea from above their head

Molly and I on our way to the mountains

The Moroccan women making Argan oil, apparently the new big thing in Europe for your skin and hair, smells like popcorn.

Camels!

Their saddles looked like we should be in a Free People ad

They were actually surprisingly cute

Hiking up the mountain

More rugs on our way up the mountain

Little waterfall along the hike

One of the many little towns along the mountain hike

Molly and I climbing rocks along the hike

The mule station, the mountain people's version of a taxi station

The Marrakech Square, snake charmers, monkeys on leashes, women drawing henna....

One of the many cobras just hanging out in the square

Belly dancer with a tray of lit candles balancing on her head

Little garden

Streets of Marrakech

Markets of Marrakech

More of the street markets

Molly and I at the gardens

Molly and I at the gardens again

Fruit market

More snake charmers

View of the square from a rooftop restaurant

I went to Marrakech, Morocco with Molly for 4 days two weekends ago.  It was quite the cultural experience.  It was a nice break of dreary weather, it was in the upper 70's, low 80's and sunny the whole time.  Once we got to the bed and breakfast, which is by far the nicest place I will stay in while in London and traveling abroad, we wandered around the markets and then went out to eat.  The main meals eaten there were tagine- with chicken, lamb or veggies, or couscous with tagine on top.  It was all really healthy food.  They had live snails in buckets, which they would use to make escargot in front of you, very appetizing.  The markets were difficult to get through, the streets were tiny so there was no escape from the vendors trying to get you to get into their store.  Surprisingly, the stuff being sold in the markets is also sold in the Camden markets here in London so I did not buy much.  After looking at the Anthropologie website this past weekend at the household goods, almost everything, especially dinnerware and rugs, were identical to what was sold in the markets.

The next day we went on a long, windy van ride up a mountain.  We got to ride camels which was pretty cool.  Although I thought we were riding camels in the desert, so just on the mountains was a tad of a disappointment. But the whole time I was there it reminded me of a Free People ad, and I am pretty sure they did a catalogue shoot in Morocco with camels.  They were much cuter than I thought they would be, but a lot scarier to ride than horses, seemed less predictable.  We then rode the van even higher up the very windy mountain into a little town.  Then we hiked up the mountain, which was a pretty intense hike, quite exhausting.  We finally got to the family's house where we were eating a home cooked meal of couscous and Morocco's favourite after dinner drink of mint tea which I believe contains about a cup of sugar, delicious, but very sweet. 

After lunch we went back to the city and cleaned up, napped, and then went back out for dinner around the square, where they push half of the entertainment (snake charmers, monkeys on chains, henna ladies, guys making fresh squeezed orange juice-so good, little 7 year old girls boxing, guys with drums, etc, to the side and have rows upon rows of food stands.  This, like the markets, is completely exhausting to go through.  They are all constantly grabbing you trying to get you to sit down and eat at their tables, trying to get your attention by calling you, apparently the only two famous women Moroccan men know, Hannah Montana or Shakira.  They offer to buy you for camels occasionally. There are little kids selling kleenex packs (I did not see toilet paper once while I was there, so good thought on their part) that would follow you around for about 15 minutes normally just tapping you with the kleenex pack.  

Later that night we went to a swanky hookah club to see belly dancers.   This was definitely a very strange experience.  Girls, non belly dancers, were walking around wearing very small, tight dresses with 4 inch stilettos, looking like they jetted over from LA.  After having to cover our shoulders and knees and seeing only women's eyes and hands for the past couple days, seeing Moroccan women dressed like this was surprising.  Our guide told us that a lot of these women are the same women we see wearing burqas during the day.  They apparently have their drivers take them to a hotel, change in the hotel, and go to the clubs for the night.  I was very shocked by this whole double life thing.  

The next day we wandered around the markets some more and went to a hamam, kind of like a turkish bath.  It was definitely the strangest experience I have ever had in my whole life!  The women did not speak a lick of english and none of us spoke any arabic.  If you have any desire to know what exactly a hamam is, google it, it is very strange.  The next day we headed back to London.  I was very glad to get back to city people where they tend to ignore you and not grab at you to go into their store and also to be in streets that do not constantly smell of monkeys and spices.  But overall, it was so so much fun and I would love to go back at some point!  This upcoming weekend I am going to Berlin and Prague for a couple days, very excited!