The following takes place on 2/22/10.
Monday morning, we actually wake up on time to get our free breakfast...which isn't much. It was cute though, I mean cafe latte, juice, and a croissant. I don't know if thats Italian, but it was simple and good. It started to rain, and Fitkin went to go get the most touristy umbrella possible....it had pictures of all the major monuments in Italy on it. Me....being the cheap Jew I am, didn't want to buy an umbrella just to use it once....so I'm getting by thus far....but its starting to come down harder. Now we are on our way to meet up with the tour guide from yesterday for our big day at the Vatican. As we wait, around 10am it starts to pour hard, and Fitty starts to give me shit for not buying a 3 Euro umbrella. So I start to get worried cause its pouring hard. So FINALLY as I'm drenched (which makes my hair look great btw) I haggle a guy to give me an umbrella for 2 Euro. The MINUTE I pay for it. LITERALLY the minute this happens....the rain stops. And it never starts again for the rest of the day. I literally spent two Euros for nothing. I never got to use my stupid blue umbrella. I'm still angry about it. RAGH. I have a blue Failbrella.
Hmmm 50 minutes left in the flight....I'm currently flying over Geneva. God I'm thirsty....should I buy the water? Sigh. Anyways the Vatican. So sadly we don't get Dave our tour guide from yesterday, but this other guy whose name I don't remember nor do I care. He was from Canada. Now he was knowledgeable but the problem was, he got way too preachy during the tour. And it really was annoying, he talked about how he hated stupid people...etc...etc...the other thing that annoyed me about these tour companies is that they made sure they had the biggest group possible, even if that meant making other groups wait around for an hour(us) just so they could add another 10 people. I understand its more money, but it also makes you look kind of bad.
So we go to the Vatican museum and it was amazing. All those amazing things I learned that the Vatican had “borrowed” from the Roman Empire....I finally got to see. They have some AMAZING works of art, statues, paintings, from so many ages and cultures. And it still baffles me to see the kind of things they were able to create over a 1000 years ago with primitive tools. So baffling that we have no idea how they did it! My theory? Aliens. Did you ever see Stargate? In the directors cut you see that the ancient Egyptians were actually given the technology they have by aliens with pyramid shaped spaceships. So yea....thats my theory...based on Stargate...but applied to the entire Roman empire. I feel proud to know that I was able to reference Stargate on my Europe trip. I feel like a winner here.
So we move through the Vatican museum looking at all this “acquired” art. Then we come to the Raphael rooms, and I feel bad for the guy. He is totally overlooked and I think he is a superior painter to Michelangelo. Its like the Mona Lisa argument I made the other day in Paris. It's all about publicity. Mikey got it better. Not to say that the Sistine Chapel didn't blow my mind, because it did, and it was gorgeous. But I like Raphael's style better. The rooms had such beautiful paintings, and this elaborate intricacy. He had such respect for his contemporaries.
Side note: Fitkin is currently sleeping next to me and he looks terrible. I've dubbed him the Flying Pepperoni, you don't need to know why, but his superpower is the ability to sleep, and look worse after he wakes up. :) It might be the lack of water and the vast amounts of beer and wine that have taken his toll on him, but to me, Europe has beat him.
Back to the Jesuspalace. Vatican. Godthrone. That is another thing I wanted to get at. I'm looking at this religions and you all know I'm Jewish. If you don't you clearly aren't paying attention. I don't know too much about Christianity, let alone Catholicism....and I'm not ragging on the religion. I think everything I saw was beautiful....but it just seems so strange to build all these beautiful statues, or idols, or gold domes for people, and saints. And there are saints for everything I've learned. Saints for weddings, saints for food, saints for sleep, for everything. And I know I'm butchering the religion...I just want to put my thoughts on paper as best as I can. I look at this beautiful building, specially St. Peter's Basicalla....I think it was St. Peter. The first Pope I believe...we actually went to see his tomb along with the other Pope's who are entombed in these elaborate gorgeous sarcophagus that you are free to see...along with St. Peter. Anyways, the Basicalla, is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen....and its built by this religious institution...I would think that Jesus would have wanted them to use all that stolen Roman marble, gold, statues, etc....to build houses or provide food to the poor and starving. I feel like I'm standing on a pedestal...I'm just confused, and maybe I don't even understand enough about my own religion and I sound like a hypocrite, but when I compare the Tomb of St. Peter to the tomb of King David, one of the greatest Kings of Israel, its like comparing The Empire Strikes Back, to The Phantom Menace (Star Wars reference, win.) St. Peter is ornated with gold, and lavish things, and encased behind bulletproof glass, and then King David. It's in a cave, with a large stone coffin at the end of the cave that you can touch and pray at. I don't know where I'm going with this....I'm really tired. I liked the Vatican....I was just trying to put it in perspactive.
Sistine Chapel...that was great. I don't have much to say about it except wow...and that the fact that it was just packed with 100's of people talking and trying to sneak pictures while getting yelled at took away a lot from it. Like I said before, Love/Hate relationship with tourism. I can't hate it because I am a tourist. The fresco of creation, as well as Michelangelo's Judgment Day painting were both gorgeous and have to been seen to be believed, although it was so high up I couldn't really focus on anything. Also we checked out the Basilica, but you already heard my take on those things, along with the tombs of past popes and cardinals. Also interestingly enough there was a coffin filled with the last members of the royal Tudor family.
Fitkin wanted us to climb up to Michelangelo's dome, and I obliged, and we climbed a miserable 300+ stairs, sweating our way to the top for a BEAUTIFUL view of all of Rome. Totally worth it, even though at one point, the starts slanted sideways....we took photos for your viewing pleasure. Back down we went, and on our way to find a super late lunch around 4pm. What did we eat? Pizza. Yum. I had a Margherita pizza....and back we went....actually this was when we went to the Harley store for the second time and failed. We then went and rested up before our last big dinner in Rome, and actually our last dinner for Eurobot. Between The Vatican and Dinner we had a 2nd lunch (well Fitkin did) and a bottle of wine.
Then at dinner we ate at La Carbonara. Fitty and I split a bottle of Chianti and finally had the dinner we had so wanted to have in Italy. Before we ate though we got to watch the waiter spend 10 minutes flirting on these two Italian girls next to us. Fitty and I felt inadequate. We both had Spaghetti Carbonara, which was incredible. Best thing I've had in Italy. Then we come to the secondi course the protein. I had this thinly cut slices of beef, cooked with radish. It was juicy, and delightful. Satisfied with our food victory, we go and get gelato at our favorite place, and in a rare Eurowin, we go into the doors literally two seconds before the metal gate closes....and we gelato ourselves to victory. That dinner and desert make up for that god awful first dinner with the shitty Italian kids and their French-style snootyness. But it doesn't make up for the baby that has been crying this entire flight. I love kids, but seriously, rub a little Jack Daniels on their gums and let them sleep through it for 2 hours. Rant.
Anyways we are about to land, and I have one last entry to write about in Euroblog...today's....there really won't be much to say, as we didn't do too much. In fact most of what happened, to day has been peppered into these last two entries, but I will gloss over just in case. Because there is one last major...almost catastrophic fail I did today. :) I'll write about it from Stef's apartment in Paris. Although I have almost one more full day left in Paris, it won't be Eurobot because I won't have Fitkin. Sadly he will be going straight from Orly airport to Charles de Gaulle airport because we will be landing at 11pm, probably getting out by 11:30, and by the time I get to Stef's it will be past 12am...and Fitty's flight is at 7am. So it doesn't make sense for him. I'll miss Fitbot. But the adventures will never be forgotten. So anyways, until my last entry...
-Gileurowinsadfittybot
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Eurobot: Day 10
The following takes place on 2/21/10
It's hard to really recount the last few days only because there was so much that we did. Especially the 21 and 22. To start, let me just say that I can summarize what we did very quickly, in maybe one or two sentences, and then I'll go into detail...just so that I can see it in front of me so I don't forget. Colosseum, Forum, Ancient Ruins, Dinner, Gelato, Wine. Ok....looks simple enough...that was a ridiculously long day.
We start off by sleeping in too late and miss the breakfast given to us by our place...so we decide to search for it ourselves. It being Sunday....alot of things were closed, and to summarize it up, we spent an hour looking for food that wasn't there, and ended up eating pizza around 11am at the same place we had pizza the day before. Thank goodness there are some non-Catholic people living in Rome. By the way, I have to tell you that the biggest draw back to writing about this 2 days after it happened, is I can't remember the hilarious things that happened. There were so many “fails” that I'm glossing over because I can't remember. Like this for example...just now Chris just came out of the shower yelling at me in Italian, but apparently it was a poem about how the god Apollo made a ball out of the skin of a chicken. See things like that happen all the time but I can't remember them. ANYWAYS, back to the 21st.
After checking the internet to find out that they don't really do Vatican tours on Sundays we decided to head to the Colosseum, and once we get there. Wow. It was huge. I mean I'm still standing by my ground that the church in Prague is more impressive in my eyes, but this was still amazing to look at. I think the overall thing that I enjoyed about not only the Colosseum but also the ancient ruins on the hill next to it was just....how old it was, how it was still standing, and how we could just casually walk in it. Amazing. The sad thing is that I also learned that this ruins are ruins only because Romans sacked it....mainly to build the Vatican. It was never bombed, or torn apart by war. Oh well....we were able to see what it should have looked like, and I think it would have ended up being one of the seven wonders of the world.
Ok so I took a long break and now I'm writing to you from Campacino Airport in Rome, we waiting for our 8:30pm flight to Paris to end Eurobot and this place is like an train in India. Cattlecar style. I'll hopefully get back to this later. Anyways back to Sunday...so we are sight seeing, and we are with a guided tour which was very helpful to understand who made what, and what is original and what was replaced in the 15th century....also the guide destroyed my fantasies of the movie Gladiator being real. Sigh. A man can dream can't he. So after that tour we get grouped up into like 150 people for the Ancient Rome tour where we went to see the Forum, and some palaces and other amazing things. I wish I could remember what I saw, but I don't have visual references in front of me. I will say that it was amazing, from what was still standing these palaces and houses were built to last. I mean these days we build things that are cheap and you assemble quickly...cough...Ikea...cough...but they built houses from marble, and granite, and ornamented it with gold. It was amazing....and I think my whole theme during my trip in Rome was....I wish I could have seen it the way it was meant to be seen. Kind of like Avatar with 3-D glasses. So we were touring all day and then we decided we were hungry. Actually Chris decided we were hungry....and we wanted to eat at this restaurant which for two days straight I could not remember the name, even after Chris would remind me. All I remembered was that it was a pasta sauce...so I kept thinking: Bolognese, Pomodoro, Pappardelle, Ragu, Bippi boopy, pasta fazoole, minestrone....every name I could think of in Italian. It turns out its called Carbonara. Whoops. Memory fail. So we go there and it turns out they are closed on Sundays so we plan to go there on Monday night....but what to do.....we go back to the internets and it tells us to go to Piazza del Popolo (Plaza of the People) and we will find something. So we go and window shop in the streets and we see all these fashions....its just amazing. I feel like I'm ahead of the curve so let me tell you America....purple is going to be HUGE. Just buy anything with the color purple and you will be as hip and chic as the Italians.
Ok more tangents....I'm currently on the plane to Paris...EasyJet and I just learned that there is no complimentary beverages. You have to buy EVERYTHING even water. And I'm dying of thirst. It's like 2.50 Euros just for a little .33cl bottle of water. Stupid cheap poor people airlines. I wish I was rich. I would never fly this shit. This is worse then Southwest.
Ok back to Eurobot. So we find a place to have dinner, and I get a lasagna. So finally I'm having lasagna in Italy and let me say....mine is better. I kid you not, I mean this was good....but it was no Gilad's Lasagna de Sappore. I actually never found beef lasagna once in Rome. Interesting. But I enjoyed it....and then we had pizza too. Afterwards we went to find this famous cafe called Caffe Grecco but unfortunately and failurely for us....it was undergoing renovations. I think at this point I would like to point out another fail that I remembered. Chris wanted to get his dad a Harley-Davidson Rome shirt because thats something special I suppose. Now this store was a 30 minute walk from our apartment...and it took him THREE visits before he actually got his shirt..and I was dragged along to two of them. Here is how they went: Visit One: They were closed on Sundays. Visit Two: Chris forgot what size shirt his dad was. Visit Three: Success shirt. Anyways back on track, we get gelato afterwards, two bottles of wine, drink one, and pass out. Another successful day in Rome.
-Gilbedbot
It's hard to really recount the last few days only because there was so much that we did. Especially the 21 and 22. To start, let me just say that I can summarize what we did very quickly, in maybe one or two sentences, and then I'll go into detail...just so that I can see it in front of me so I don't forget. Colosseum, Forum, Ancient Ruins, Dinner, Gelato, Wine. Ok....looks simple enough...that was a ridiculously long day.
We start off by sleeping in too late and miss the breakfast given to us by our place...so we decide to search for it ourselves. It being Sunday....alot of things were closed, and to summarize it up, we spent an hour looking for food that wasn't there, and ended up eating pizza around 11am at the same place we had pizza the day before. Thank goodness there are some non-Catholic people living in Rome. By the way, I have to tell you that the biggest draw back to writing about this 2 days after it happened, is I can't remember the hilarious things that happened. There were so many “fails” that I'm glossing over because I can't remember. Like this for example...just now Chris just came out of the shower yelling at me in Italian, but apparently it was a poem about how the god Apollo made a ball out of the skin of a chicken. See things like that happen all the time but I can't remember them. ANYWAYS, back to the 21st.
After checking the internet to find out that they don't really do Vatican tours on Sundays we decided to head to the Colosseum, and once we get there. Wow. It was huge. I mean I'm still standing by my ground that the church in Prague is more impressive in my eyes, but this was still amazing to look at. I think the overall thing that I enjoyed about not only the Colosseum but also the ancient ruins on the hill next to it was just....how old it was, how it was still standing, and how we could just casually walk in it. Amazing. The sad thing is that I also learned that this ruins are ruins only because Romans sacked it....mainly to build the Vatican. It was never bombed, or torn apart by war. Oh well....we were able to see what it should have looked like, and I think it would have ended up being one of the seven wonders of the world.
Ok so I took a long break and now I'm writing to you from Campacino Airport in Rome, we waiting for our 8:30pm flight to Paris to end Eurobot and this place is like an train in India. Cattlecar style. I'll hopefully get back to this later. Anyways back to Sunday...so we are sight seeing, and we are with a guided tour which was very helpful to understand who made what, and what is original and what was replaced in the 15th century....also the guide destroyed my fantasies of the movie Gladiator being real. Sigh. A man can dream can't he. So after that tour we get grouped up into like 150 people for the Ancient Rome tour where we went to see the Forum, and some palaces and other amazing things. I wish I could remember what I saw, but I don't have visual references in front of me. I will say that it was amazing, from what was still standing these palaces and houses were built to last. I mean these days we build things that are cheap and you assemble quickly...cough...Ikea...cough...but they built houses from marble, and granite, and ornamented it with gold. It was amazing....and I think my whole theme during my trip in Rome was....I wish I could have seen it the way it was meant to be seen. Kind of like Avatar with 3-D glasses. So we were touring all day and then we decided we were hungry. Actually Chris decided we were hungry....and we wanted to eat at this restaurant which for two days straight I could not remember the name, even after Chris would remind me. All I remembered was that it was a pasta sauce...so I kept thinking: Bolognese, Pomodoro, Pappardelle, Ragu, Bippi boopy, pasta fazoole, minestrone....every name I could think of in Italian. It turns out its called Carbonara. Whoops. Memory fail. So we go there and it turns out they are closed on Sundays so we plan to go there on Monday night....but what to do.....we go back to the internets and it tells us to go to Piazza del Popolo (Plaza of the People) and we will find something. So we go and window shop in the streets and we see all these fashions....its just amazing. I feel like I'm ahead of the curve so let me tell you America....purple is going to be HUGE. Just buy anything with the color purple and you will be as hip and chic as the Italians.
Ok more tangents....I'm currently on the plane to Paris...EasyJet and I just learned that there is no complimentary beverages. You have to buy EVERYTHING even water. And I'm dying of thirst. It's like 2.50 Euros just for a little .33cl bottle of water. Stupid cheap poor people airlines. I wish I was rich. I would never fly this shit. This is worse then Southwest.
Ok back to Eurobot. So we find a place to have dinner, and I get a lasagna. So finally I'm having lasagna in Italy and let me say....mine is better. I kid you not, I mean this was good....but it was no Gilad's Lasagna de Sappore. I actually never found beef lasagna once in Rome. Interesting. But I enjoyed it....and then we had pizza too. Afterwards we went to find this famous cafe called Caffe Grecco but unfortunately and failurely for us....it was undergoing renovations. I think at this point I would like to point out another fail that I remembered. Chris wanted to get his dad a Harley-Davidson Rome shirt because thats something special I suppose. Now this store was a 30 minute walk from our apartment...and it took him THREE visits before he actually got his shirt..and I was dragged along to two of them. Here is how they went: Visit One: They were closed on Sundays. Visit Two: Chris forgot what size shirt his dad was. Visit Three: Success shirt. Anyways back on track, we get gelato afterwards, two bottles of wine, drink one, and pass out. Another successful day in Rome.
-Gilbedbot
Eurobot: Day 9
The following takes place on 2/20/10 and then I wrote it.
We wake up in the morning, get our stuff all packed, and have breakfast. This time we get there so early that there is nothing good ready. :( Man we just can't win. We check out of our fantastic little room with the ancient TV, but free shampoo. :) We take the metro out of the city, and then hop the airport bus, since they have no train or metro running to the airport yet. The airport itself is actually really really nice. One of the nicest I've seen...very new. We have no problems with security, we just get through and have like 40 minutes to kill, so we just wander aimlessly....we are really good at doing that. We hop on our plane, which is called SmartWings, an offshoot of Lufthansa, and take our 2 hour flight to Rome.
After we land, we get our stuff together, and take the train (11 EUROS :( sigh) to Rome Termini station. This station is HUGE. This time though we mapped out how to get to the hotel before we get off the train, so for the first time in forever, we don't get lost....but we also have to walk pretty damn far with these heavy backpacks on us...and the sun is out and its not COLD! But we are dressed for it to be like 20 degrees so I start sweating for the first time in weeks. A strange feeling. So we finally get to Il Covo B&B and of course we get this romantic looking room with one bed, that has four posts and curtains you can draw shut. FAIL. The cool thing about this place is that its in a non-touristy area of Rome but its close enough that you can easily walk anywhere. We can walk to the Colosseum in about 10 minutes. Also the rooms are spread up throughout the area so we are in an apartment building with regular Italians, we have like 5 doors we have to get through before we get to our room...a million keys. I feel pretty safe here.
Fitkin feels at home here although I have to push him pretty hard to speak Italian. My method is this: We go into a store, I get the attention of the shopkeeper or whoever it may be, and then I get far back from Fitkin, leaving him forced to speak to them....and he does so really well. I'm his confidence booster. :) The first thing we do one we check in is wander around looking for pizza. We find it and its totally different, they basically hack off a giant chunk and weigh it for you, charging you by the hectogram. We tried two different pizzas and were so happy. After, we went and had AMAZING gelato at a place called Churi Churi, which is a Sicilian word apparently. In addition Fitkin is unable to pull out any money because the bank had frozen his credit card because he was doing huge international transactions and the bank freaked out....but we solved that problem later. Anyways we went to an internet cafe to figure out what to do about walking tours, and we found one free one that started at 5:30pm at the Spanish Steps....and it was currently 4:40pm. We decided to go for it.
So we power walked through, while Fitty was on the phone with the bank the whole time....it was tough that we actually didn't get to enjoy the sites that much since we were in a rush, but we did walk by a lot of beautiful 18th century buildings that were gorgeous...maybe they were older, I'm pretty bad judging age when it come to buildings. Sidenote, I'm writing this while listening to Muse's latest album “The Resistance” and I have to say its making me so much more productive while I'm writing. I'm just powering through this waiting for Fitkin to come back from the Harley Davidson store with a gift for his dad....then we were going to the Ancient Ruins of Rome. Ok back to yesterday....
We make it to the tour, and this is the most packed place we had been to in Europe...there were people EVERYWHERE, selling so much crap and I literally mean this stuff was stupid and pointless. Totally ruined the effect of the Spanish Steps, but I mean it was still beautiful. There was a gorgeous fountain in the center, and we learned this is the Pizza di Spagna because it is where the Spanish embassy to the Vatican is located. Also we learned that in Italy there are two embassies, one for Italy and one for the Vatican since it is it's own state, all thanks for Mussolini. So I have to tell you, there weren't many options for free walking tour in Rome, not like Prague....this is in fact...the only one. And it wasn't very good. The lady was charming enough but you could tell it wasn't very well put together, she wasn't that focused, but she did know a lot...but what I did learn wasn't really that great...I mean we went into a bunch of churches and stuff but I didn't get too much out of it because to me it was just an old building....I don't know the significance. Some things I did learn and see were the following:
The Pantheon survived being destroyed because it had already been converted from a Roman temple to all the gods, to a church in the 7th century. So I have to say its amazing being in a building that was built in the 1st century, and still looks amazing. It was huge, and just a testament to the ancient Roman civilization. Also the painter Raphael along with two kings are buried in the Pantheon.
We saw the Trevi fountain, and learned of its traditions, and it was a gorgeous fountain packed with WAY too many tourists. Once again kind of took away a lot for me, but I did throw in a coin backwards. :) I threw many coins in. I find it funny that I've been going to some of the most romantic places in the world, and I'm seeing them with a guy, Fitkin, and we are both currently single. :( Haha. Eurofail.
I also saw some beautiful sculptures in some churches by Carravagio who is the most famous Baroque artist in Italy. His sculptures of angels were gorgeous.
Ok so now its the 23rd, I took a two day break from this blog and I have no idea what else I was going to talk about for the walking tour soooooo lets skip to dinner.
Dinner. Now Chris and I have such high expectations for dinner, so we go and we search around the Trevi Fountain area for dinner. We finally find a place and it looks great, and they have a special preset menu. So in we go, and just in time, cause it starts to rain a bit. We get seated, and maybe 2 minutes after we get seated they seat like 10 different tables, and we are pushed into a corner, almost completely ignored. This honestly ruined the dinner. The food itself wasn't terrible...but it wasn't great either. I had bruschetta (only had garlic and oil), meat filled canellonis, and finally thinly sliced veal with roasted potatoes. So it wasn't anything that blew my mind, and I would have enjoyed it along with my wine except that right next to us, with a table separation distance of MAYBE 5 inches was this Italian family with their two pre-teen kids. Like maybe 12-13 years old. They were sitting next to us, looking at us, staring a lot, and obviously talking about us and making fun of us the entire dinner. It was really uncomfortable and I wasn't happy about it. So that was dinner one. God I hate those little Italian kids. I said a few words to them on my way out. :) Also they didn't know Chris spoke Italian until halfway through dinner.
So anyways, back we go to our apartment, and Chris gets a gelato....I have no room...I'm stuffed...and we stop by and get a bottle of wine. So we drink that, then I fall asleep and Chris goes down to this bar called Robin Hood which he describes as “the closest thing we will ever get to a real Coyote Ugly”. And so ends day one in Rome.
-Gilpastabot
We wake up in the morning, get our stuff all packed, and have breakfast. This time we get there so early that there is nothing good ready. :( Man we just can't win. We check out of our fantastic little room with the ancient TV, but free shampoo. :) We take the metro out of the city, and then hop the airport bus, since they have no train or metro running to the airport yet. The airport itself is actually really really nice. One of the nicest I've seen...very new. We have no problems with security, we just get through and have like 40 minutes to kill, so we just wander aimlessly....we are really good at doing that. We hop on our plane, which is called SmartWings, an offshoot of Lufthansa, and take our 2 hour flight to Rome.
After we land, we get our stuff together, and take the train (11 EUROS :( sigh) to Rome Termini station. This station is HUGE. This time though we mapped out how to get to the hotel before we get off the train, so for the first time in forever, we don't get lost....but we also have to walk pretty damn far with these heavy backpacks on us...and the sun is out and its not COLD! But we are dressed for it to be like 20 degrees so I start sweating for the first time in weeks. A strange feeling. So we finally get to Il Covo B&B and of course we get this romantic looking room with one bed, that has four posts and curtains you can draw shut. FAIL. The cool thing about this place is that its in a non-touristy area of Rome but its close enough that you can easily walk anywhere. We can walk to the Colosseum in about 10 minutes. Also the rooms are spread up throughout the area so we are in an apartment building with regular Italians, we have like 5 doors we have to get through before we get to our room...a million keys. I feel pretty safe here.
Fitkin feels at home here although I have to push him pretty hard to speak Italian. My method is this: We go into a store, I get the attention of the shopkeeper or whoever it may be, and then I get far back from Fitkin, leaving him forced to speak to them....and he does so really well. I'm his confidence booster. :) The first thing we do one we check in is wander around looking for pizza. We find it and its totally different, they basically hack off a giant chunk and weigh it for you, charging you by the hectogram. We tried two different pizzas and were so happy. After, we went and had AMAZING gelato at a place called Churi Churi, which is a Sicilian word apparently. In addition Fitkin is unable to pull out any money because the bank had frozen his credit card because he was doing huge international transactions and the bank freaked out....but we solved that problem later. Anyways we went to an internet cafe to figure out what to do about walking tours, and we found one free one that started at 5:30pm at the Spanish Steps....and it was currently 4:40pm. We decided to go for it.
So we power walked through, while Fitty was on the phone with the bank the whole time....it was tough that we actually didn't get to enjoy the sites that much since we were in a rush, but we did walk by a lot of beautiful 18th century buildings that were gorgeous...maybe they were older, I'm pretty bad judging age when it come to buildings. Sidenote, I'm writing this while listening to Muse's latest album “The Resistance” and I have to say its making me so much more productive while I'm writing. I'm just powering through this waiting for Fitkin to come back from the Harley Davidson store with a gift for his dad....then we were going to the Ancient Ruins of Rome. Ok back to yesterday....
We make it to the tour, and this is the most packed place we had been to in Europe...there were people EVERYWHERE, selling so much crap and I literally mean this stuff was stupid and pointless. Totally ruined the effect of the Spanish Steps, but I mean it was still beautiful. There was a gorgeous fountain in the center, and we learned this is the Pizza di Spagna because it is where the Spanish embassy to the Vatican is located. Also we learned that in Italy there are two embassies, one for Italy and one for the Vatican since it is it's own state, all thanks for Mussolini. So I have to tell you, there weren't many options for free walking tour in Rome, not like Prague....this is in fact...the only one. And it wasn't very good. The lady was charming enough but you could tell it wasn't very well put together, she wasn't that focused, but she did know a lot...but what I did learn wasn't really that great...I mean we went into a bunch of churches and stuff but I didn't get too much out of it because to me it was just an old building....I don't know the significance. Some things I did learn and see were the following:
The Pantheon survived being destroyed because it had already been converted from a Roman temple to all the gods, to a church in the 7th century. So I have to say its amazing being in a building that was built in the 1st century, and still looks amazing. It was huge, and just a testament to the ancient Roman civilization. Also the painter Raphael along with two kings are buried in the Pantheon.
We saw the Trevi fountain, and learned of its traditions, and it was a gorgeous fountain packed with WAY too many tourists. Once again kind of took away a lot for me, but I did throw in a coin backwards. :) I threw many coins in. I find it funny that I've been going to some of the most romantic places in the world, and I'm seeing them with a guy, Fitkin, and we are both currently single. :( Haha. Eurofail.
I also saw some beautiful sculptures in some churches by Carravagio who is the most famous Baroque artist in Italy. His sculptures of angels were gorgeous.
Ok so now its the 23rd, I took a two day break from this blog and I have no idea what else I was going to talk about for the walking tour soooooo lets skip to dinner.
Dinner. Now Chris and I have such high expectations for dinner, so we go and we search around the Trevi Fountain area for dinner. We finally find a place and it looks great, and they have a special preset menu. So in we go, and just in time, cause it starts to rain a bit. We get seated, and maybe 2 minutes after we get seated they seat like 10 different tables, and we are pushed into a corner, almost completely ignored. This honestly ruined the dinner. The food itself wasn't terrible...but it wasn't great either. I had bruschetta (only had garlic and oil), meat filled canellonis, and finally thinly sliced veal with roasted potatoes. So it wasn't anything that blew my mind, and I would have enjoyed it along with my wine except that right next to us, with a table separation distance of MAYBE 5 inches was this Italian family with their two pre-teen kids. Like maybe 12-13 years old. They were sitting next to us, looking at us, staring a lot, and obviously talking about us and making fun of us the entire dinner. It was really uncomfortable and I wasn't happy about it. So that was dinner one. God I hate those little Italian kids. I said a few words to them on my way out. :) Also they didn't know Chris spoke Italian until halfway through dinner.
So anyways, back we go to our apartment, and Chris gets a gelato....I have no room...I'm stuffed...and we stop by and get a bottle of wine. So we drink that, then I fall asleep and Chris goes down to this bar called Robin Hood which he describes as “the closest thing we will ever get to a real Coyote Ugly”. And so ends day one in Rome.
-Gilpastabot
Eurobot: Day 8
The following takes place on 2/19/10. Blah Blah.
Ah, Day 8, the day of relaxing. It was also the day we woke up so late that there wasn't anything good left for breakfast, and we were hungover. We recalled the night, and were very pleased with it. So we decided to walk around and do some souvenir shopping in the Old Town, and just explore the area. So that's what we did, and somehow we ended up on the Charles Bridge, and who did we run into? Why none other then Richard from last night! That made me happy. So we said our goodbyes, and I told Fitkin that if Richard was from California he would have earned a place in my good friends circle. That guy is awesome. Plus he's taller then me and has awesome hair. ANYWAYS, we go walk down Charles Bridge and see a restaurant we want to eat at because it has Budweiser (the Prague original not the American version), so we have it, and its good, but I have to say the best beer I've had here is the stuff brewed at the beerhall we went to on the first night in Prague. It was a good lunch though, we had among other things, cabbage soup.
After lunch we headed back to the room because we needed to shower and get ready to go to see the Czech Philharmonic which starts at 7:30. So we get to the Ruldophonium (thats the name of the building) and it is said to have some of the best acoustics in Europe....the coolest thing is that this building we are sitting in is almost 200 years old, and its in its original state for the most part. It was a gorgeous building, and we listened to both 20th and 19th century pieces. The first was very strange, almost like interpretive orchestral music....something new and very trippy. Then we go into two Chopin pieces celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth. A world famous pianist came and performed with the orchestra...and I won't lie but I started falling asleep during the second one. Finally, the last piece was a modern piece first performed in 1968....by a Polish composer, that was really a nationalistic piece. It was the best piece of the night. It was brassy, loud, and just amazing. The orchestra itself was fantastic, and made me so happy. I felt classy even though I was wearing jeans....I wish I had a suit to wear. So many people were so well dressed....not that we were the only ones that were wearing jeans but we were definitely in the minority. Anyways, we walk back and have one last street meat, before we check out in the morning and head off to the last leg of Eurobot...Rome.
-Gilclassybot
Ah, Day 8, the day of relaxing. It was also the day we woke up so late that there wasn't anything good left for breakfast, and we were hungover. We recalled the night, and were very pleased with it. So we decided to walk around and do some souvenir shopping in the Old Town, and just explore the area. So that's what we did, and somehow we ended up on the Charles Bridge, and who did we run into? Why none other then Richard from last night! That made me happy. So we said our goodbyes, and I told Fitkin that if Richard was from California he would have earned a place in my good friends circle. That guy is awesome. Plus he's taller then me and has awesome hair. ANYWAYS, we go walk down Charles Bridge and see a restaurant we want to eat at because it has Budweiser (the Prague original not the American version), so we have it, and its good, but I have to say the best beer I've had here is the stuff brewed at the beerhall we went to on the first night in Prague. It was a good lunch though, we had among other things, cabbage soup.
After lunch we headed back to the room because we needed to shower and get ready to go to see the Czech Philharmonic which starts at 7:30. So we get to the Ruldophonium (thats the name of the building) and it is said to have some of the best acoustics in Europe....the coolest thing is that this building we are sitting in is almost 200 years old, and its in its original state for the most part. It was a gorgeous building, and we listened to both 20th and 19th century pieces. The first was very strange, almost like interpretive orchestral music....something new and very trippy. Then we go into two Chopin pieces celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth. A world famous pianist came and performed with the orchestra...and I won't lie but I started falling asleep during the second one. Finally, the last piece was a modern piece first performed in 1968....by a Polish composer, that was really a nationalistic piece. It was the best piece of the night. It was brassy, loud, and just amazing. The orchestra itself was fantastic, and made me so happy. I felt classy even though I was wearing jeans....I wish I had a suit to wear. So many people were so well dressed....not that we were the only ones that were wearing jeans but we were definitely in the minority. Anyways, we walk back and have one last street meat, before we check out in the morning and head off to the last leg of Eurobot...Rome.
-Gilclassybot
Eurobot: Day 7
The following takes place on 2/18/10 but I was hungover so I wrote it later.
Ok so I've been dreading writing this one only because there is so much to write, but I'm laying here in bed in Rome, because I'm effing tired from the day, and its techincally 2/21, so I am falling behind. The day I am going to attempt to recall consisted of two parts. The walking tours, and the pub crawl. I might get lazy and condense because I cant remember everything I learned on the history but here we go. To start with, we had our free breakfast and it was delicious. I don't know if what they served was typical Czech fare, but it was yummy and filling. So we headed into Old Town Prague and decided to buy tickets for the next next to see the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra play some Chopin, among other things. It was a good deal too, and we had great seats, but more on that on Day 8, since thats when we go
We wander around Old Town, and I know I've said it before, but seriously this place looks like a fairy tale town. Walking through here is walking through the opening number of Beauty & The Beast. There are a lot of little restaurants, and souvenir shops, and I just loved it. It was pretty cold and gray, but no rain or snow! And it was still slightly warmer then Berlin. So we go super early, but somehow we don't get lost! So we meet by Starbucks (sigh yes they are there too), with a great called Free Europe that offers a tips only free walking tour of Prague. We go with a guy named Colin who is from Scotland and looks slightly like Timothy Dalton who once was James Bond. He loved talking about drinking...in fact he is the one who recommended us the pub crawl that we went on later in the night. So if I was going to talk about the entire walking tour we did it would take forever, and honestly, I'm important and don't that that kind of time. So I'll make a few bullet point like I did with Berlin. Things I saw that I loved.
A church from around the 1100's sitting in the middle of Old Prague
Learning about the three defenestrations (throwing someone out the window) of Prague
Seeing an astrological clock built centuries ago still working, with mechanical figurines that come out every hour from 9am to 9pm. It was revolutionary at the time
Seeing the oldest existing Jewish synagogue in Europe. It was built around 1200 and still stands. Actually what was cool about it is that it is supposedly where the Golem of myth is locked up in the attic.
Learning why the Jewish quarter survived, Hitler had planned to make it a museum to a dead race after he had wiped all the Jews off the earth.
Seeing the last standing concert hall where Mozart held performances.
Learning about the mortar used to make the Charles Bridge (which had some of the most beautiful statues of saints and Jesus and stuff), it contained wine, cheese, and eggs mixed in.
There were so many other things its really overwhelming to think about and to remember. I have a ton of picture, but overall the thing is, every building in that area is relevant in history somehow. They have 11th century buildings next to 16th century buildings, and beautiful churches all over the city, just sitting there nonchalantly. Also during our walking tour we had a lunch break where Chris and I met two traveling girls from Munich, and we talked to them and exchanged e-mail addresses. It wouldn't be the first contact information we would be getting from people abroad that day...as you will later see.
So after that tour ends, we decide to take part in another walking tour, this one of Prague Castle. By the end of the day we had been walking from 11am-6pm. With only 2 short breaks. So highlights of the Prague Castle tour were:
Seeing an old monastery and learning about Prague's patron saint, St. Norbert.
In the monastery, there was a brewery that made St. Norbert's beer, and we had that, along with amazing Goulash in a breadbowl. There Chris and I made Australian friends....who we forgot to get contact info from.
Learning about the communists infiltration of the Czech government, and how even after the fall of communism the information about who was a KGB agent during the time is still secret because many of them are still in the government.
Seeing the “other” Eiffel tower, built two years after the original in Paris, it is the same height as the original....but only because it is sitting on top of a hill...its only the top half of it. ;)
Prague castle itself is gorgeous, although its more of a palace then a castle. In the 1800's (or 1700's) it's facade was renovated to be more modern, and the stone exterior was covered, but a little of it still remains and it is remarkable.
The most amazing thing I actually saw was the Gothic cathedral within the castle walls. It is the most impressive thing I have ever seen, I took like 100 picture of it. It started construction in 1100, and was only finished in the 19th century. One of the towers was finished in a totally different style then when it was started. It began with Gothic style and the top was finished during the Renaissance period. Words can't really describe how in awe I was of it. I think it inspires more awe in me then anything I have seen in Rome. It is in my opinion...the most beautiful building in the world. You need to see it once in your life.
So after the castle tour Chris and I head back to rest up before we go on our pub-crawl. We have “street meat” on the way there, which is delicious, and mustardy. So we finally get to the pub crawl and start meeting people. The first of which was a Swede from Stockholm named Richard. He was awesome. I was calling him King Richard by the end of the night, we also met Yob and Gerard from the Netherlands and their sisters. I personally befriended a group of people from Belgium that loved that I was from Los Angeles and kept hugging me, and Chris danced with a mysterious non-speaking English speaking woman not from our pub-crawl who the Netherlanders thought was a hooker but I beg to differ. She was too good looking....plus Fitty didn't pay anything. Speaking of prostitutes, the Netherlander known as Gerard got so drunk that he met a hooker in the alley by one of our bars and had his picture taken with her....you can see those on Fitkin's Facebook. Hilarious. Oh also, we had played Kings with all the foreigners but their rules were totally different but awesome. Also their King is known as Mister, and the Queen is Lady, and I forget what they called the Jack but it wasn't very flattering. What else happened, oh I got a mysterious bruise above my eyebrow and my cheek and no one knows how, we just know it happened at the 3rd pub we were at. Awesome. What else can I recall about that night....oh at one point I started talking in an Irish accent which apparently was passable. Win. Also a bunch of people started to sing “Wonderwall” when I started to sing, and they did it with all the backup singing as well. It was beautiful. I think they were all Germans. Anyways that was my multicultural pub crawl. Fitkin says we had to take a cab back home because we got totally lost. Maybe he got lost. I teleported from the last pub to the bed around 3am. :) And that is the craziest night we had, and I'm pretty sure we will have on Eurobot.
-Gilpubcrawlwinbot
Ok so I've been dreading writing this one only because there is so much to write, but I'm laying here in bed in Rome, because I'm effing tired from the day, and its techincally 2/21, so I am falling behind. The day I am going to attempt to recall consisted of two parts. The walking tours, and the pub crawl. I might get lazy and condense because I cant remember everything I learned on the history but here we go. To start with, we had our free breakfast and it was delicious. I don't know if what they served was typical Czech fare, but it was yummy and filling. So we headed into Old Town Prague and decided to buy tickets for the next next to see the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra play some Chopin, among other things. It was a good deal too, and we had great seats, but more on that on Day 8, since thats when we go
We wander around Old Town, and I know I've said it before, but seriously this place looks like a fairy tale town. Walking through here is walking through the opening number of Beauty & The Beast. There are a lot of little restaurants, and souvenir shops, and I just loved it. It was pretty cold and gray, but no rain or snow! And it was still slightly warmer then Berlin. So we go super early, but somehow we don't get lost! So we meet by Starbucks (sigh yes they are there too), with a great called Free Europe that offers a tips only free walking tour of Prague. We go with a guy named Colin who is from Scotland and looks slightly like Timothy Dalton who once was James Bond. He loved talking about drinking...in fact he is the one who recommended us the pub crawl that we went on later in the night. So if I was going to talk about the entire walking tour we did it would take forever, and honestly, I'm important and don't that that kind of time. So I'll make a few bullet point like I did with Berlin. Things I saw that I loved.
A church from around the 1100's sitting in the middle of Old Prague
Learning about the three defenestrations (throwing someone out the window) of Prague
Seeing an astrological clock built centuries ago still working, with mechanical figurines that come out every hour from 9am to 9pm. It was revolutionary at the time
Seeing the oldest existing Jewish synagogue in Europe. It was built around 1200 and still stands. Actually what was cool about it is that it is supposedly where the Golem of myth is locked up in the attic.
Learning why the Jewish quarter survived, Hitler had planned to make it a museum to a dead race after he had wiped all the Jews off the earth.
Seeing the last standing concert hall where Mozart held performances.
Learning about the mortar used to make the Charles Bridge (which had some of the most beautiful statues of saints and Jesus and stuff), it contained wine, cheese, and eggs mixed in.
There were so many other things its really overwhelming to think about and to remember. I have a ton of picture, but overall the thing is, every building in that area is relevant in history somehow. They have 11th century buildings next to 16th century buildings, and beautiful churches all over the city, just sitting there nonchalantly. Also during our walking tour we had a lunch break where Chris and I met two traveling girls from Munich, and we talked to them and exchanged e-mail addresses. It wouldn't be the first contact information we would be getting from people abroad that day...as you will later see.
So after that tour ends, we decide to take part in another walking tour, this one of Prague Castle. By the end of the day we had been walking from 11am-6pm. With only 2 short breaks. So highlights of the Prague Castle tour were:
Seeing an old monastery and learning about Prague's patron saint, St. Norbert.
In the monastery, there was a brewery that made St. Norbert's beer, and we had that, along with amazing Goulash in a breadbowl. There Chris and I made Australian friends....who we forgot to get contact info from.
Learning about the communists infiltration of the Czech government, and how even after the fall of communism the information about who was a KGB agent during the time is still secret because many of them are still in the government.
Seeing the “other” Eiffel tower, built two years after the original in Paris, it is the same height as the original....but only because it is sitting on top of a hill...its only the top half of it. ;)
Prague castle itself is gorgeous, although its more of a palace then a castle. In the 1800's (or 1700's) it's facade was renovated to be more modern, and the stone exterior was covered, but a little of it still remains and it is remarkable.
The most amazing thing I actually saw was the Gothic cathedral within the castle walls. It is the most impressive thing I have ever seen, I took like 100 picture of it. It started construction in 1100, and was only finished in the 19th century. One of the towers was finished in a totally different style then when it was started. It began with Gothic style and the top was finished during the Renaissance period. Words can't really describe how in awe I was of it. I think it inspires more awe in me then anything I have seen in Rome. It is in my opinion...the most beautiful building in the world. You need to see it once in your life.
So after the castle tour Chris and I head back to rest up before we go on our pub-crawl. We have “street meat” on the way there, which is delicious, and mustardy. So we finally get to the pub crawl and start meeting people. The first of which was a Swede from Stockholm named Richard. He was awesome. I was calling him King Richard by the end of the night, we also met Yob and Gerard from the Netherlands and their sisters. I personally befriended a group of people from Belgium that loved that I was from Los Angeles and kept hugging me, and Chris danced with a mysterious non-speaking English speaking woman not from our pub-crawl who the Netherlanders thought was a hooker but I beg to differ. She was too good looking....plus Fitty didn't pay anything. Speaking of prostitutes, the Netherlander known as Gerard got so drunk that he met a hooker in the alley by one of our bars and had his picture taken with her....you can see those on Fitkin's Facebook. Hilarious. Oh also, we had played Kings with all the foreigners but their rules were totally different but awesome. Also their King is known as Mister, and the Queen is Lady, and I forget what they called the Jack but it wasn't very flattering. What else happened, oh I got a mysterious bruise above my eyebrow and my cheek and no one knows how, we just know it happened at the 3rd pub we were at. Awesome. What else can I recall about that night....oh at one point I started talking in an Irish accent which apparently was passable. Win. Also a bunch of people started to sing “Wonderwall” when I started to sing, and they did it with all the backup singing as well. It was beautiful. I think they were all Germans. Anyways that was my multicultural pub crawl. Fitkin says we had to take a cab back home because we got totally lost. Maybe he got lost. I teleported from the last pub to the bed around 3am. :) And that is the craziest night we had, and I'm pretty sure we will have on Eurobot.
-Gilpubcrawlwinbot
Eurobot: Day 6
The following takes place on 2/17/10, but I wrote it later cause I forgotteddeded.
So we begin the day with a great fail. We need to get to the train station to catch our 8:35am train, and I remember the main train station ends with the letters “hof” so I'm like, “Chris we need to go to Ostbanhof”, which of course was the wrong station, going in the WRONG direction. Whoops. No one should let me be in charge of directions. The real station was called Haupbanhof. Sigh. Regardless we made it there (and snuck on the Bahn without paying), and after me stressing out about where we were, and if we were at the right track, we got on our train and went on our way to Prague. I've never been on a train before....well the last time was from LA to San Diego when I was 7, but since then not really. This train was just like in the movies! We were in a compartment with an old man and a women and her two sons, all spoke only German. Chris of course slept most of the train ride, but I enjoyed watching the landscape go by, and just enjoying being on a train. It was so cozy! I wish airline travel was this spacy. We make a few stops but other then that it's a smooth 5 hours to Prague.
It's crazy how in the span of 5 hours you can move from the capital of one country, into another. The language and culture completely changes, and also the buildings....but I'll get into that later. So we arrive, and this time we don't get too lost. We only go the wrong way once! (my fault) and we find our hotel which was right by the national museum of Prague which is a HUGE massive BEAUTIFUL building and a little bit forward from that is a statue of King Wenceslaus...which is appropriate since we were in Wenceslaus Square in the New Town. Funny thing is, New Town started I THINK around 1600...and that's new for Prague. So we get to the Hotel Musketyr and you know its a nice old building, and we had our own bathroom! Hooray! We have a small “Tesla” brand TV that looks like its from the early 1990's but I mean, we aren't watching TV anyways. Chris notes that the hotel receptionist sounds like a strange robot when she speaks to us in English, but totally normal when she speaks in Czech.
Speaking of Czech this is the one country that we could NOT say anything. It is almost like Russian, very hard to pronounce and to remember words. I know only two words by heart. Proseem=please. Anglitski=English. So string those together and you get “please English”. Win. I'll talk about the architecture and buildings of Prague in the next entry, since I went on a walking tour that day, but I would like to point out that this city's buildings survived WWII since it was “Hitler's Paris”, so nothing bad came to it. Only one building was lost in WWII, the Town Hall. So we are walking into and looking at buildings that date as far back as 1200, and they are ORIGINAL. Not reconstructions or renovated like in Berlin. It felt like being in a fairy tail, or at Disneyland in Fantasyland. He must have based it on Bohemia. I would like to take this time to tell you I am writing this entry hung over and it is Friday the 19th at 11:30am. Guess what Fitkin is doing? That's right. Sleeping. ;)
So after our hotel we go into the streets to find some lunch, traditional Czech food. We were recommended a restaurant by our robot receptionist, and we set out to find it. We immediately noticed that this country, or at least this street by our hotel was like....a huge tourist trap area....meaning there were guys on the streets trying to get out to go to their clubs, someone tried to sell Fitkin drugs and women (I had to pull him away), we actually get dragged into a restaurant, we weren't sure if it was the right one, but regardless it was delicious. I'd like to announce that in Prague, .5L of beer is on average about $2.00 American. And that Prague makes some of the best beer in the world, in FACT they invented Pilsner, and have the original Budweiser. So we drink beer and eat delicious food, which was slightly different from Berlin in that they really cook the meat tough....on purpose. I had mushroom soup and a goulash, that was so liquidy and yummy, served with cream and special Czech bread. Chris had...some sort of epic meat dish with every meat known to man. So after lunch we try to figure out what to do...I mean by this point its like 4pm. So we start to research beer halls and find a good one, but first we nap. So we sleep until like 8pm and then head out and walk the streets until we find the beer hall. This place is OLD, I mean they were started in 1699, and I dont know if its the same building but its the same beer, and style. They had long tables you sit at with other people, which was funny because one of the couples we sat next to were from Los Angeles as well, and funny story, they were on The Newlywed Game on GSN, which I used to work for....they didn't win. I just thought what a small world for me to meet people like that in a beer hall in Prague.
So the beer hall, you sit and you don't order beer, they just bring you beer in big frothy mugs and just add a hash mark on a paper thats put by you. The beer will keep coming until you tell them to stop. In the end we had 5 beers each=2.5 Liters of beer, along with dinner, and a shot of something they brought us. It was amazing, and I was tipsy and done for the night but Fitkin needed more beer. So we stopped in another two bar, and tried two more beers, although I don't really remember the last one. All in all it was a good first day in Prague. And the next day was even more epic....probably the most epic day we've had thus far on Eurobot.
-Gilhungbottover
So we begin the day with a great fail. We need to get to the train station to catch our 8:35am train, and I remember the main train station ends with the letters “hof” so I'm like, “Chris we need to go to Ostbanhof”, which of course was the wrong station, going in the WRONG direction. Whoops. No one should let me be in charge of directions. The real station was called Haupbanhof. Sigh. Regardless we made it there (and snuck on the Bahn without paying), and after me stressing out about where we were, and if we were at the right track, we got on our train and went on our way to Prague. I've never been on a train before....well the last time was from LA to San Diego when I was 7, but since then not really. This train was just like in the movies! We were in a compartment with an old man and a women and her two sons, all spoke only German. Chris of course slept most of the train ride, but I enjoyed watching the landscape go by, and just enjoying being on a train. It was so cozy! I wish airline travel was this spacy. We make a few stops but other then that it's a smooth 5 hours to Prague.
It's crazy how in the span of 5 hours you can move from the capital of one country, into another. The language and culture completely changes, and also the buildings....but I'll get into that later. So we arrive, and this time we don't get too lost. We only go the wrong way once! (my fault) and we find our hotel which was right by the national museum of Prague which is a HUGE massive BEAUTIFUL building and a little bit forward from that is a statue of King Wenceslaus...which is appropriate since we were in Wenceslaus Square in the New Town. Funny thing is, New Town started I THINK around 1600...and that's new for Prague. So we get to the Hotel Musketyr and you know its a nice old building, and we had our own bathroom! Hooray! We have a small “Tesla” brand TV that looks like its from the early 1990's but I mean, we aren't watching TV anyways. Chris notes that the hotel receptionist sounds like a strange robot when she speaks to us in English, but totally normal when she speaks in Czech.
Speaking of Czech this is the one country that we could NOT say anything. It is almost like Russian, very hard to pronounce and to remember words. I know only two words by heart. Proseem=please. Anglitski=English. So string those together and you get “please English”. Win. I'll talk about the architecture and buildings of Prague in the next entry, since I went on a walking tour that day, but I would like to point out that this city's buildings survived WWII since it was “Hitler's Paris”, so nothing bad came to it. Only one building was lost in WWII, the Town Hall. So we are walking into and looking at buildings that date as far back as 1200, and they are ORIGINAL. Not reconstructions or renovated like in Berlin. It felt like being in a fairy tail, or at Disneyland in Fantasyland. He must have based it on Bohemia. I would like to take this time to tell you I am writing this entry hung over and it is Friday the 19th at 11:30am. Guess what Fitkin is doing? That's right. Sleeping. ;)
So after our hotel we go into the streets to find some lunch, traditional Czech food. We were recommended a restaurant by our robot receptionist, and we set out to find it. We immediately noticed that this country, or at least this street by our hotel was like....a huge tourist trap area....meaning there were guys on the streets trying to get out to go to their clubs, someone tried to sell Fitkin drugs and women (I had to pull him away), we actually get dragged into a restaurant, we weren't sure if it was the right one, but regardless it was delicious. I'd like to announce that in Prague, .5L of beer is on average about $2.00 American. And that Prague makes some of the best beer in the world, in FACT they invented Pilsner, and have the original Budweiser. So we drink beer and eat delicious food, which was slightly different from Berlin in that they really cook the meat tough....on purpose. I had mushroom soup and a goulash, that was so liquidy and yummy, served with cream and special Czech bread. Chris had...some sort of epic meat dish with every meat known to man. So after lunch we try to figure out what to do...I mean by this point its like 4pm. So we start to research beer halls and find a good one, but first we nap. So we sleep until like 8pm and then head out and walk the streets until we find the beer hall. This place is OLD, I mean they were started in 1699, and I dont know if its the same building but its the same beer, and style. They had long tables you sit at with other people, which was funny because one of the couples we sat next to were from Los Angeles as well, and funny story, they were on The Newlywed Game on GSN, which I used to work for....they didn't win. I just thought what a small world for me to meet people like that in a beer hall in Prague.
So the beer hall, you sit and you don't order beer, they just bring you beer in big frothy mugs and just add a hash mark on a paper thats put by you. The beer will keep coming until you tell them to stop. In the end we had 5 beers each=2.5 Liters of beer, along with dinner, and a shot of something they brought us. It was amazing, and I was tipsy and done for the night but Fitkin needed more beer. So we stopped in another two bar, and tried two more beers, although I don't really remember the last one. All in all it was a good first day in Prague. And the next day was even more epic....probably the most epic day we've had thus far on Eurobot.
-Gilhungbottover
Eurobot: Day 5
Took place on 2/16/10 but written on a different day. More fail.
So here we are, I'm almost caught up now! Its actually 6pm on Day 6, but its better then not writing at all. This is all fresh in my mind too so maybe I can remember funny stories as well. We start off the morning in the hostel, and make our way over to Hackesher Market, where we are going to go on a 4 hour walking tour of Berlin. Chris didn't seem to excited about it....but he's not really a morning person, whereas I'm not really an evening person....we really are the odd couple. We squabble a bit about where we think the proper place is to meet, and finally decide upon the only tour guide we actually see. So we shell out our 10 Euro for this walking tour and get swept away in history.
Now I'm not going to go over the entire tour here in this blog....for two reasons. One I can't remember the names of a lot of the places we saw....and it just too massive in scope. Berlin has a lot of history, and the interesting thing was the tour guide was emphasizing the fact that we put on so much emphasis on this 12 year period of Nazi regime, when Berlin itself has history spanning back to the 1200's. I think for me to mention what I saw, I'm just going to bullet some of the things I enjoyed and found interesting:
The museum island, where the national history museum, Pergamon (we'll get to that later), and other art museums are housed in old beautiful buildings
The Old Royal Guard house which is now a memorial dedicated to the victims of war, both solider and civilians
Humboldt University (where Einstein taught), and the book burning site across the way
Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall (it reminded me a lot about the Israeli Security fence built only a few years ago, its of the same design)
Seeing the location of where Hitler's bunker once was (its now a carpark surrounded by Soviet-era housing)
The Brandenburg Gate its this epic tall thing...I can't even describe....almost on the scope of the Arc de Triumph in Paris. Huge and imposing, Napoleon walked through it, as well as many other historical figures.
The holocaust memorial, sitting overlooking the Reichstag, its very humbling and a bittersweet reminder, right in the middle of Berlin.
One interesting observation is that most of the things we saw were either built in the 20th century, or were reconstructions of originals that were destroyed in WWII. Much of the old buildings aren't old at all. They say that Berlin is the “20th Century City” and that holds true. Oh also....our guide was British and looked and sounded like Clive Owen, the actor so that was pretty cool, and Chris and I had a snack with an Irish couple on vacation and it was great getting to know them. Our greatest regret is not going out drinking with them later on in the evening. So we go on....oh god Fitkin just beefed and I completely lost my train of thought. It's so awful. He's sleeping.
So the tour ends...and after an endless quest to find both a bathroom and a place to eat we succeed in both. We eat at the Pergamon Cafe which is across from the museum and then we go into what I think is one of the best museums I've ever been to in my life.
The Pergamon Museum is named for exactly that, the fact that inside houses an ENTIRE original reassembled entryway and interior of the Pergamon Temple of Athena from ancient Greece. Its massive, I took so many pictures. In addition they have the original Ishtar Gate from ancient Syria, around the time of King Nebudkanezzer, the Gates of Babylon, among other relics and statues from those times. These rooms, each one of them are MASSIVE, I mean MASSIVE. The museum is huge but only houses a few exhibits because they are so big. I just can't stress enough the fact that everyone should go to this museum. There is NOTHING like it in the world. The Louvre has art, but it doesn't contain something on the scale or scope of this. Wow. It's been 3 days since I've been there and I'm still overwhelmed by the thought of it. So we go through that and finish around 6pm. Head back to the hostel, and rest up. Around 7:30pm we venture out for dinner at a place that we heard was good, but we get there and its a little pricy. And so begins another one of our walks of fail. It's super cold outside and we walk 3 metro stops down a road away from where we had wanted to go and found NOTHING. We decided we had walked to Hamburg, even though that was far from the truth. So we get on the metro and we decide to go to the area of restaurants where we had lunch the day before. We knew there would be your German cuisine, and lo and behold, we ate at the place around the corner from where we had lunch. Our waitress spoke no English, and we just played it by ear, ordering beers and getting a different kind of beer instead. I actually got this weird beer hybrid that was half beer half Sprite. It was good but just...not beer-y enough. Fitkin drank lots of beer. I tried.....something new to eat....it was KNUCKLE. It was good....it just....wasn't amazing, but I am happy I tried something you wouldn't normally see on a menu in the states.
Afterwords I wanted to go to bed, Fitkin wanted to drink more beer, so that's what we did. We walked by a bar that had a Eurotrashy sort of feel to it, sat down and I had a beer....Fitty had two Jaeger/Red Bulls, and we enjoyed ourselves for the most part. I'm used to these kind of bars in Tel Aviv, but for Fitty it was a totally new experience. To be honest, I don't care much for these types of bars, but I had to let him have fun with it. So that was finished, and around 12am we left back to the hostel, to pack up our stuff, and get ready to leave early in the morning to catch our 8:35am train to Prague. Berlin was great, and I'm happy we went, but I feel like there really isn't THAT much to do there. Ok blogbot....I have to get ready for a pubcrawl in Prague tonight....this entry was written over the course of two days. IM ALMOST CAUGHT UP!!!!
-Gilblogfailbot
So here we are, I'm almost caught up now! Its actually 6pm on Day 6, but its better then not writing at all. This is all fresh in my mind too so maybe I can remember funny stories as well. We start off the morning in the hostel, and make our way over to Hackesher Market, where we are going to go on a 4 hour walking tour of Berlin. Chris didn't seem to excited about it....but he's not really a morning person, whereas I'm not really an evening person....we really are the odd couple. We squabble a bit about where we think the proper place is to meet, and finally decide upon the only tour guide we actually see. So we shell out our 10 Euro for this walking tour and get swept away in history.
Now I'm not going to go over the entire tour here in this blog....for two reasons. One I can't remember the names of a lot of the places we saw....and it just too massive in scope. Berlin has a lot of history, and the interesting thing was the tour guide was emphasizing the fact that we put on so much emphasis on this 12 year period of Nazi regime, when Berlin itself has history spanning back to the 1200's. I think for me to mention what I saw, I'm just going to bullet some of the things I enjoyed and found interesting:
The museum island, where the national history museum, Pergamon (we'll get to that later), and other art museums are housed in old beautiful buildings
The Old Royal Guard house which is now a memorial dedicated to the victims of war, both solider and civilians
Humboldt University (where Einstein taught), and the book burning site across the way
Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall (it reminded me a lot about the Israeli Security fence built only a few years ago, its of the same design)
Seeing the location of where Hitler's bunker once was (its now a carpark surrounded by Soviet-era housing)
The Brandenburg Gate its this epic tall thing...I can't even describe....almost on the scope of the Arc de Triumph in Paris. Huge and imposing, Napoleon walked through it, as well as many other historical figures.
The holocaust memorial, sitting overlooking the Reichstag, its very humbling and a bittersweet reminder, right in the middle of Berlin.
One interesting observation is that most of the things we saw were either built in the 20th century, or were reconstructions of originals that were destroyed in WWII. Much of the old buildings aren't old at all. They say that Berlin is the “20th Century City” and that holds true. Oh also....our guide was British and looked and sounded like Clive Owen, the actor so that was pretty cool, and Chris and I had a snack with an Irish couple on vacation and it was great getting to know them. Our greatest regret is not going out drinking with them later on in the evening. So we go on....oh god Fitkin just beefed and I completely lost my train of thought. It's so awful. He's sleeping.
So the tour ends...and after an endless quest to find both a bathroom and a place to eat we succeed in both. We eat at the Pergamon Cafe which is across from the museum and then we go into what I think is one of the best museums I've ever been to in my life.
The Pergamon Museum is named for exactly that, the fact that inside houses an ENTIRE original reassembled entryway and interior of the Pergamon Temple of Athena from ancient Greece. Its massive, I took so many pictures. In addition they have the original Ishtar Gate from ancient Syria, around the time of King Nebudkanezzer, the Gates of Babylon, among other relics and statues from those times. These rooms, each one of them are MASSIVE, I mean MASSIVE. The museum is huge but only houses a few exhibits because they are so big. I just can't stress enough the fact that everyone should go to this museum. There is NOTHING like it in the world. The Louvre has art, but it doesn't contain something on the scale or scope of this. Wow. It's been 3 days since I've been there and I'm still overwhelmed by the thought of it. So we go through that and finish around 6pm. Head back to the hostel, and rest up. Around 7:30pm we venture out for dinner at a place that we heard was good, but we get there and its a little pricy. And so begins another one of our walks of fail. It's super cold outside and we walk 3 metro stops down a road away from where we had wanted to go and found NOTHING. We decided we had walked to Hamburg, even though that was far from the truth. So we get on the metro and we decide to go to the area of restaurants where we had lunch the day before. We knew there would be your German cuisine, and lo and behold, we ate at the place around the corner from where we had lunch. Our waitress spoke no English, and we just played it by ear, ordering beers and getting a different kind of beer instead. I actually got this weird beer hybrid that was half beer half Sprite. It was good but just...not beer-y enough. Fitkin drank lots of beer. I tried.....something new to eat....it was KNUCKLE. It was good....it just....wasn't amazing, but I am happy I tried something you wouldn't normally see on a menu in the states.
Afterwords I wanted to go to bed, Fitkin wanted to drink more beer, so that's what we did. We walked by a bar that had a Eurotrashy sort of feel to it, sat down and I had a beer....Fitty had two Jaeger/Red Bulls, and we enjoyed ourselves for the most part. I'm used to these kind of bars in Tel Aviv, but for Fitty it was a totally new experience. To be honest, I don't care much for these types of bars, but I had to let him have fun with it. So that was finished, and around 12am we left back to the hostel, to pack up our stuff, and get ready to leave early in the morning to catch our 8:35am train to Prague. Berlin was great, and I'm happy we went, but I feel like there really isn't THAT much to do there. Ok blogbot....I have to get ready for a pubcrawl in Prague tonight....this entry was written over the course of two days. IM ALMOST CAUGHT UP!!!!
-Gilblogfailbot
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