The... | Prague | Amsterdam |
...People | Eastern European, will say what they think and don’t just smile at you when they are not really happy | Very North American like, smile a lot and will try to help you (whether you need it or not) |
...Amount of Tourists | Lots! | Lots! |
...Authentic Ethnic Food | Easy to find, see “Typical Czech Restaurant” in blog | Hard to find...we still don’t know what Dutch food is... |
...Bridges | Large bridges crossing the river | Small bridges crossing the canals |
...Water | A wide river, the Vltava | Lots of canals & an open harbour |
...Houses | Colourful | Colourful |
...Interesting signs | Street signs mounted on buildings, give not only the name of the street but also the district | Many houses say when they were built on them (ie: 1608 AD) - Frequently in Roman Numerals!!! |
Prague vs. Amsterdam, a friendly comparison
I have been promising to write about my time in Prague forever, but I also feel like I should report on Amsterdam, which is where we went this past weekend. I think this might end up being a comparison between apples and oranges, but I will hope for the best!
Prague
We arrived in Prague last on Friday night and went for a short walk. Our hostel was in the very centre of the old town, a 2 minute walk to the old town square that is home to the famous Orloj clock (the first few pictures in my Prague I album). What struck me almost right away was the amount of tourists and the amount of attractions catering for tourists. My favourite was a restaurant called “Typical Czech Food” (in case you wanted authentic Czech food and wasn’t quite sure you would get the real thing somewhere else). Needless to say, Prague never sleeps. We however, did fall asleep eventually. The next morning we got to talk to some more people staying at our hostel. It was actually a lot of fun...we sat in the kitchen and suddenly hear someone speaking in English. We of course had to ask them where they were from and turns out that one of the guys was from Edmonton (goes to U of A, is in mechanical engineering, but is writing his MCAT this summer...what??) while the other one goes to Pennsylvania State University (where our friend Luke, who was also on the trip with us goes as well)...Luke and the Penn. State guy didn’t know each other though (the schools is probably 20,000 people though, which would explain this...fun fact while I am side tracking: Princeton Review rated Penn. State as the # 2 party school in the nation!) One other funny story: Irene was with us on the trip and the guys at the hostel told us that they were doing a 4 week program in Frieberg, Irene was excited because that’s where her internship is too...or so she thought. Until, after talking to them at length about the geography of the city, they realized that Irene doesn’t actually live in the same city as they do. Irene lives in Freiburg (at the South of Germany, on the France, Germany, Switzerland border) while they live in Freiberg, which is in the East part of Germany, in between Prague and Berlin.
Back to Prague! We then went to the Old Town Square to see the clock for its 11am show. The clock (Orloj) does a show on the hour, every hour. During this time, the Skeleton on the side of the clock dances, a person at the top of the clock tower plays the trumpet, and more “magical” things happen. We then began our walk around the city. First however, we needed to convert some of our Euros to Czech Crowns. The Czech republic is set to switch to the Euro sometime in the next 2 years, but until then, you have to deal with dividing all prices by 24 to calculate their value in Euros. You also feel a little uneasy paying 120 crowns for something, even though this only adds up to 5 Euros (or 7.50 Canadian Dollars). The other thing with money conversion is that you need to choose wisely where you convert. While some places will give you a great rate (and charge no commission!...I have a feeling they make only a little bit of money per client, because their conversion is more like 1 to 23.3 than 1 to 24, but this adds up when you have many customers), other places (Western Union) has a pretty awful rate (1 in 17)...we only made the Western Union mistake during one of our conversions so we didn’t end up losing that much money (but we were still clearly unhappy)...I think the important thing is to always figure out how much you will get before you give them the money, because with the Western Union places for example, they have a decent rate written on the board, but if you look carefully you see that you will only get this rate if you convert some absurd amount of money to crowns (like 1000 dollars or something!), otherwise you get the much less great rate...this is my piece of wise advise to any of you thinking about going to Prague in the near future...the key part of this lesson was to avoid all Western Union services forever and ever. At least in Eastern Europe.
We then walked around the city a lot. It is indeed a really gorgeous city which is hard to describe in words, so please go look at my pictures on facebook. The city is divided by the Vltava river and many beautiful bridges connect these parts of the city across the water. We walked along the famous Charles bridge which has huge crowds of tourists walking through it in what was really a human traffic jam. From the bridges you can see the old city of Prague which is just amazing to look at. In Prague buildings are of different colours: blue, yellow, pink, green, white, and everything in between. We spent a lot of time just walking around the city and well....wow. We then climbed (by a cable car, not stairs unfortunately) to the observatory which is located across the river from Staromesto (the old part of Prague, literally means “old place”... in Russian anyway, which is quite similar to Czech, I thought...oh yes Czech is in fact the language that they speak in the Czech Republic...we weren’t completely sure about this when we first arrived). The observatory is a place on a hill from which you can see the rest of the city. There are also lots of gardens to walk around, and all I really wanted to do was to lay in the grass (the weather was amazing...probably 28 degrees and not humid at all!). The main attraction of the observatory was a huge telescope that allowed you to observe spots on the sun...which we did. They looked black under the telescope.
After this journey up to the observatory (and down) we were incredibly hungry and wanted some authentic Czech food (NOT “Typical Czech Food” though). Luckily, Irene’s friend Susanne was with us (she is actually from the Czech Republic!). She helped us find a place to eat and helped us order. This is what I gathered about Czech Cusisine: It involves lots of meat...lots and lots of meat. Usually this meat is eaten with Dumplings. When I say Dumplings I don’t mean your typical Dim Sum style or “stuffed” dumplings...I mean these big white circles that look like white bread but are softer...and they are not stuffed with anything. They usually absorb the sauce that the meat is in quite well. I have a picture of them up in the first Prague album on facebook as well J). All our dishes pretty much consisted of these dumplings and some sort of meat in some sort of sauce...delicious for when you are incredibly hungry (and even if you are not)! After our meal, we spent the rest of our afternoon wondering around the castle district of Prague, and taking pictures of the city from above (the castle is on a little hill).
After a long afternoon we hung out at our hostel kitchen for some time (it was the place to be!...it has a huge window that opened up and from there you could see lots of old cobblestoned streets!). After this we were again hungry (so actually about 6 hours passed from our last meal...I am sure this isn’t clear from the blog since I focused on the food component so much J). This time we went to another restaurant that looked relatively Czech. At the same time, this restaurant was also a microbrewery and so they ONLY served their own beer. They also had “flavoured” versions of their beer, and so we tried the coffee, banana, ginger and caramel versions. After we ate, we spent a large portion of the night playing King’s, which is similar to the King’s Cup we play in Canada, but more creative. If you pull a 5 from the deck you have to do the “Jive” meaning that you have to make up a dance move, the next person must repeat your dance move and make up their own, and so forth. Needless to say we were laughing so hard by the end that most of us still remember many of the epic moves we invented. After this game, we went out to what promised to be a “4 story club”. When we got there, it only looked about 2 stories high. Inside, on a poster, it indicated that it had 3 stories, but really we could only discover 2. Also, no one was really dancing which was disappointing for me because I was excited for dancing to good European music (okay, so I am pretty sure that many clubs actually play mostly American music heh...) After this “club” we left to go to another one, which seemed a little more lively. Once again though, I was disappointed to find a dance floor with great music, but no one dancing. By this time it was 3am, so the excuse that it was “too early to dance” didn’t fly (though clubs usually get exciting here around 2 in the morning). On the bright side the club had a room with the comfiest leather covered bean bag chairs I have seen, so those were fun to sit on. After this long and crazy day, we were very exhausted and so we went to our hostel and passed out in seconds.
The next day was our 2nd, and last day in Prague. In the morning Liz, Irene, and I took a tour of the Jewish Quarter with a guy named Roman Billy. This was probably one of my favourite things about Prague. The Jewish quarter is huge and has quite a few synagogues standing. Prague was not heavily bombed during World War II so most of the buildings are in great condition. Roman Billy told us about the history of the Czech Jews starting from around 10th centory or so AD. He told us about how times differed, in terms of how much freedom Jews had in the Czech Republic (and Europe in general). Many times Jews had to wear distinguishing symbols and were forced to live in ghettos. The word ghetto came from Italy, it was first used in Venice, and has been popularized ever since. The Jews in the Prague ghetto had to wear tall yellow hats, which ended up becoming a symbol of Prague Jews and are there are still pictures of these on many of the buildings and synagogues in the Jewish quarter. The Jewish Ghetto in Prague was dissolved in 1848 by Franz Jospeh, he was a much more liberal ruler than his mother Maria Theresa. During our tour we saw the Spanish Synagogue (which has service only on Fridays, Saturdays, and holidays) as well as the New-Old Synagogue * which has frequent service for more Orthodox Jews. Roman then told us about the history of Czech Jews during World War II. The majority of them were deported to Thererinsdat (Therezin) which was not in itself a death camp. However, conditions in Therezin were so poor that many people died of disease and Malnutrition. Children in that camp had a little bit more freedom and were allowed to draw. Their drawings are now stored in the Pinkas Synagogue, just around the corner from the New-Old Synagogue. Therezin served the Nazis as a “model” camp. On 2 different occasions, Red Cross delegations came to inspect and check whether “crimes against humanity” were in fact committed. During those times the Nazis disguised the camps as more of an educational centre. They said that Jews were shipped there so that they could learn how to adjust to European life better. During the visits, the Nazis opened fake cafes and shops to show that life was actually pretty grand. Of course all of this was completely false and was taken down as soon as the Red Cross delegations left. Even sadder is the fact that people didn’t stay in Terezin for long. They were usually shipped to Auschwitz within a few months. Of just over 100,000 Czech Jews, 77,297 perished in the Holocaust. The fact that there was an actual count of Jews who were killed is in itself remarkable, because in many other places such as Poland and the Soviet Union almost no real counting at all was done, and people’s identities were not written down. It was sometimes hard to tell whether the Nazis embellished the number of Jews they killed in order to look good in front of their superiors, or whether they underestimated the number. Many people vanished without a trace.
Just a few streets away is the old Joseph Cemetery *. This cemetery is remarkable because there are places where people were buried in 10 layers! Because the Jews in Prague spent most of their time in the ghetto, they had little space to burry. This is when they started burring people in layers, vertical layers. The tombstones however are all visible on the surface, and you can see tombstone upon tombstone as you look at the cemetery. I have some decent pictures of this in my album. One last thing about the Jewish quarter- Many signs in Prague label the district as well as the street name on street signs (frequently found on buildings). It is quite exciting to see on one side of the street the district labelled “Starogorod” while across the road the street signs bearing the district name “Josefov” (which is the name of the district of the Jewish quarter). It is named so because of Franz Joseph, the Austrian Emperor who put an end to the Jewish ghetto in Prague in the 19th century.
After our tour, we wandered around Prague some more by ourselves. Our goal was to buy souvenirs and spend all our Czech crowns (its not like we had that many, but they are not really useful in any other country, and in fact will be obsolete even in the Czech Republic in a few years). Mike managed this whole “spend everything you have” thing best. At the end he was left with about 7 crowns (equivalent to less than 30 cents)...just enough for a beer at the Czech supermarket J . A few hours later Liz and I got on our train and started our journey back to Berlin...as a side note (and a quick German lesson) one of the 20 or so words I know in German is Hauptbahnhof (pronounced: How-pt-ban-hof) , which literally means Central Train Station. Many of the cities we visit indeed call their main train station the Hauptbahnhof (for example, Berlin Hauptbahnhof etc...) the short form of this long word is Hbf. In Prague however, their main station is called Praha Hln (I am assuming that Hln is the equivalent of Hbf in German...will look this up and report back!).
Amsterdam
This past weekend, we took a (very) spontaneous trip to Amsterdam. Booking hostels even a week in advance was nearly impossible, and they were all quite expensive! Somehow, I managed to find a hotel in Weesp, which is a little city just outside of Amsterdam, 15 minutes by train to the city centre (so really its like getting from Glencairn Station to St. George Station in Toronto terms J). The price of the hotel was pretty much equivalent to the price of the hostels in the centre, but it has much better reviews and we would get our own shower...so we went for it!
We got on the train at 3:48pm at the Berlin Hbf. This in itself was no small feat. On our seat reservation it said that our train would be at platform 2 (the 1st of the FIVE (5) floor train station). We took this with a grain of salt, but still hoped that this would be true...haha. 10 minutes before our train was supposed to leave, we started looking for it on the screens located on the 2nd level that reported trains that would depart from the 1st level. None of the platforms 1 to 10 had this train departing from them...ah what? Luckily Luke got the good idea of going to the DB (Deusch Bahn= German Railway Company) office, and so we frantically asked them where our train was leaving from...the answer was platform 13, a platform on the FIFTH floor of the station. At this point we began running up the escalators, and just made it to platform 13 5 or so minutes before our train was set to depart. It was standing on the platform and so we rushed to the conductor so that he can point us in the direction of our wagon. He told us where to get on, and we started climbing the stairs...at this moment, I decided to glance at the sign one last time...and well...this wasn’t our train. This was the train leaving to Stuttgart, 5 minutes before ours. We quickly got off the train and asked a nearby lady whether the train to Amsterdam will indeed stop on platform 13, she assured us that it will...just after the Stuttgart train departs. Breathless, we waited. About 2 minutes before our train was supposed to arrive, something happened. People from our platform began to move in response to an announcement. Our newly made friend (the lady) was kind enough to explain- in the last minute the Amsterdam train was moved to platform 14 rather than 13. The platform was right next to ours, but it was still a little crazy to believe that they would move a train to another platform in the last minute. We were not big fans of the DB at this point, but we were happy to make it to our train...it was a group effort!
On the train we started a great tradition- drink beer and fall asleep to make the time go by faster. Unfortunately I only slept for an hour, but the 7 hour train ride actually did not seem so long at all! The only downside of the train were the people who came around to check our tickets once we got into the Netherlands. They were rude to us and demanded to see our passports (which is actually what they are supposed to do, but usually when you show the ticket people your Eurorail pass they never ask for your passport...hmph!). At this point we made the false conclusion that Dutch people were rude...we were actually quite wrong! We arrived in Weesp around midnight, and checked into our hotel. The hotel had some sort of party going on and so instead of inviting us to the reception desk and checking our Ids or at least asking for our names, they gave us an interested look, asked if we needed the quadruple room (we said yes) and threw us the key...no checking or anything. We were totally fine with it of course J Our room turned out to be really awesome- I loved the showers most of all...you could choose the temperature of the water you wanted!!! That night we went to a local bar, a 5 minute walk from our hotel. It turned out to have REALLY good music, but as always, no one was dancing L It was packed with locals though, which was a nice change from the swarms of tourists we usually see in cities we visit (yeah I know this sounds a little hypocritical J). After the bar we headed back to the hotel, completely exhausted. It was a good first day in Amsterdam, even though it was windy, a little, rainy, and no more than 15 degrees outside.
It has been a few weeks since I have looked at this entry, but I would still really like to finish it. Our second day in Amsterdam was pretty crazy. We walked around the city a lot and took a boat tour. The canals and bridges just blew my mind. It was still cold and cloudy, but we managed to have a good time. We visited the Anne Frank house, which I think is one of the best World War II exhibitions that I have seen. The house has live interviews with Hanneli Goslar. She was Anne’s friend who communicated with her, through a high wall in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp a few days before Anne died. They were actually childhood friends in Amsterdam, and amazingly they ended up in the same concentration camp at the end of the war. However, Hanneli’s parents managed to obtain citizenship from Paraguay shortly before the way and so she lived in less harsh conditions at Bergen-Belsen than the other prisoners like Anne. This video was especially meaningful to me because I have actually seen Hanneli speak live at Yad Va Shem (the holocaust museum on the hills around Jerusalem) during my birthright trip 3 years ago. The house contained posters and photographs, and most of the rooms were preserved in their original state. The furniture was the only thing missing from the house because after the war Otto Frank (Anne’s father- the only one who survived the war, in Auschwitz) said that he did not want the furniture to stay. There was also an interview with him. In the house there was also a book that contained the names of all the Dutch Jews who died or perished in the Holocaust. The book was huge even though all it was, was a list of the names and birth/death dates of Dutch Jews. Not all Jews- just Dutch Jews. Towards the exit there was also an exhibition dedicated to Margot Frank- Anne’s sister. The exhibition confirmed the already prominent belief that Margot was a model daughter. I think in today’s terms she would be called well rounded...but not just CV wise, she was apparently also a fantastic person. Before the exit from the exhibition there were a few videos showing current controversial issues and what the general public that came to visit the Anne Frank house would do about them. The issues were quite contentious and it was fun to watch what people thought about political situations such as extremely nationalist parties in Romania.
Our last night in Amsterdam was a crazy adventure. For dinner we ended up sitting on the second floor of a really cool restaurant. The second floor was more of an attic with a window overlooking the bar so we had many a beer passed up to us through this window. It was great times. We couldn’t really stand up because the ceiling was really low. That night we went to an Irish bar where we met a bunch of Norwegian guys. They told us crazy stories of Norway...they kept telling us how it actually gets really nice in the summer...like 19 degrees Celsius...I no longer wanted to go visit Norway after hearing this. One think I probably forgot to mention before- the last train back to Weesp was at 1:30 am or so...the next one was at 7:18am the following morning. This essentially meant that we had to make an important decision- go home early or spend the night roaming the streets of Amsterdam. As you might have guessed we chose the latter J. The Irish bar closed at 3am. We still had 4 hours to entertain ourselves. We proceeded to sit at a Chinese fast food place until 4am...when it also closed. Lucky for us the Norwegian guys decided to hang out with us and so we had some entertainment. We then walked over to a semi-club place where we danced for a bit...once again though, this place kicked us out at 5am because that’s when they close. We then proceeded to the nearest McDonalds in hopes that we could spend 2 hours there before heading to the train station. We got to hang out in the McDonalds until 6am when...surprise...they closed down for a 1 hour cleaning session (23 hour McDonalds are kind of popular in Europe J). We spent our last hour in Amsterdam hanging out at the train station willing our train to come faster. When it finally came we were almost delirious, but we did somehow manage to get to Weesp at 8am and pass out until noon the next day. When we went to check out the next morning the friendly lady at the reception said: “Oh you are those kids that didn’t get back until morning!!!”...we were pretty famous by this point J. She did tell us that the same thing happened to her once so we didn’t feel alone. We spent our last morning in Amsterdam walking on the bridges and taking pictures of the canals. It is an amazing city. We also (as always) managed to visit a local grocery store and load up on food and beer for our 7 hour train back. It was once crazy weekend.
It took me a month of writing, but I have finally finished my friendly comparison. Now on to reminiscing about Europe...
-A
