Kiss Me, I'm Irish

St. James's Gate Brewery; photo credit Alexa Berry

About a month and a half ago, some friends noticed that there were particularly cheap flights from Prague to Dublin, so we took advantage and booked our weekend there. Somehow I was lucky enough to get a window seat on the plane on both flights! We arrived Friday night, dropped our stuff off at the hostel, and then went right out to dinner. Our hostel was in a great, albeit expensive location known as Temple Bar. We went to a "traditional" Irish pub for dinner, which had a great atmosphere and had musicians playing folksy music. The Irish are incredibly friendly, which was a bit of a culture shock coming from Prague, and to be honest I did not get completely use to it during my weekend there. I also discovered that when I wear my glasses, I apparently look like Ariel Winters who plays Alex on Modern Family (I definitely don't look like  her, but apparently the Irish think I do).

Long Room at Trinity College

The next morning we went on a free walking tour of Dublin. Free walking tours have become one of my favorite things to do as soon as I get to any new city. They are a great way to learn history while making sure you get to see a lot of the major sights (and even though they're technically free, everyone tips the tour guides a few bucks). After the walking tour we backtracked to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. It was very cool to see such an old manuscript, but the best part of that exhibit was the Long Hall library upstairs. Our walking tour guide had told us that George Lucas wanted to film in the library for the recent Star Wars movies, but Trinity College did not grant him permission, so he took a lot of photos and created a CGI-generated library for his Jedis. After all that walking we went back to the hostel for a rest before heading out for another traditional Irish dinner (I had fish and chips), before walking around Temple Bar and O'Connell street at night.

Gravity Bar

On Sunday we had a lot of attractions to visit. We started at the Guinness Storehouse which was very well done. One of my favorite parts of the museum was learning how the casks (barrels) that stored the beer were made; I had never realized it was such a time consuming process to make just one cask, and each cask can only hold 8.5 gallons! Another part of the tour was the "tasting room" which was an absolutely ridiculous gimmick. We walked through a loud, dark hallway, and then abruptly entered a bright and quiet room, which was designed to shock our senses. I couldn't help but laugh, it was as if we were in a Willy Wonka beer factory. The best part of the storehouse was the Gravity Bar at the top, which provided us with a 360-degree view of the city.

St. Christ's Cathedral

After the Guinness Storehouse we walked to St. Christ's Cathedral. The church had some awesome tile work, and like every other church in Europe was huge, but the cool part was the "treasury" underneath the main floor. The day before on the walking tour we had learned that at some point in time a cat and rat somehow got trapped in one of the organ pipes, and through some magic of air pressure, their remains were preserved for a hundred years. While it's kind of gross, it's also interesting to really see things we had learned about in the walking tour. I also had not realized that they used St. Christ's Cathedral to film many scenes from the show The Tudors; I thought it was funny they had used the basement catacombs of the church as the backdrop for the Tower of London in the show!

The next stop on our hectic day of sightseeing was going to archaeology branch of the National Museum of Ireland (which was free!). Saw some great exhibits on the Vikings of Ireland. It's so impressive that most of the stuff on display in the museum was over a thousand years old, especially their gold and jewelry exhibit! A lot of the jewelry looked brand new, and the glass beads were incredibly similar to the beads sold in stores today. The best part of the museum was the exhibit with the "bog men" of Ireland. These remains were found in Ireland, but instead of being simply skeletons, much of their body still remains- organs and fingernails included! Later that evening I took the DART train a half hour out of the city to walk around the coastal town of Howth. While it was dark by the time I got there, it was still relaxing to walk around and be by the sea at night.

One of the things I liked most about Dublin was that we could walk everywhere! If I ever had to describe a city as a "quaint," Dublin would be that city. We lucked out and it barely rained during our entire weekend, which is a bit unusual for Dublin. I liked all of the attractions and things we did, but felt that the city was overall a bit touristy. While I am interested in going back to Ireland someday, and doing a tour of the coastal villages, I am satisfied with my trip to Dublin and felt that I saw everything I needed to see.

Trinity College; photo credit Alexa Berry

Kraków, Poland

Cloth Hall in Krakow, Poland

Memorial for 82 Lidice Children

Since my weekend in Krakow included a trip to Auschwitz, I want to include a summary of when I took a field trip to Lidice and Terezín here within the Czech Republic. This field trip was designed to teach us about the art that people made while inside the concentration camps. The Protector Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated by two Czech soldiers in 1942. After this happened, the Gestapo used Lidice to make a deterring example of the whole village. The Gestapo shot all of the men in the town, and sent all the women and children were sent to concentration camps; 82 children were gassed at Auschwitz. The only children to survive this horror were those who looked “Aryan,” and they were sent to live with German families. 

Barracks used to hold political prisoners in Terezín

After visiting Lidice we went on to Terezín. First we toured the museum that displayed artwork made by children living in the concentration camps, and then we went to the baroque-style military fortress. This fortress was originally built to hold artillery in the 18th century, but from 1941-1945 it was used as both a Jewish ghetto and  a prison for political prisoners and prisoners of war. While Terezín was not an extermination camp, many people died due to the horrible living conditions. Jews came to Terezín from all over Europe, but mostly Central Europe. Terezín quickly became a major transport center out to Auschwitz, but when people were sent out, they had no idea where they were going. I am glad that I went on this field trip so I could see how the past presence of the Nazi regime directly affected the Czech Republic, but also so that I would be able to compare the concentration camp of Terezín with the extermination camp that was Auschwitz.

"Work Makes You Free" Gate at Auschwitz 1

My weekend trip to Krakow started with an overnight bus ride from Prague that left Thursday night at midnight. I have to say, I did not sleep that much, so when we arrived in Poland I felt a bit like a zombie. After a quick breakfast at a youth center, along with the chance to brush my teeth, we headed straight over to Auschwitz to start our tour. We first toured Auschwitz 1, where many of the barracks had been turned into small museums or memorials. One of the most disgusting things I have ever seen was a room that had cases of human hair from the people who imprisoned there from 1941-1945. All of the women had their hair cut or shaved off to further dehumanize them, but the most sickening part was that the Nazis repurposed their hair as insulation in the lining of their soldiers' jackets. Another hard room to walk through was the  room that had 44,000 pairs of shoes. It was very difficult to see the mountains of shoes from people of all ages, especially when you saw that some of the women had brought or worn heels; it just really showed that nobody knew what was going on and obviously had no idea what to expect when they got to the concentration camps.

Cans that contained the gas used in gas chambers

While at Auschwitz 1 we also walked through a gas chamber and then the accompanying crematorium, which had ovens that look similar to MRI body scanners. The gas chamber we walked through could fit 700 people. All the Nazi officers had to do was drop gas in from the ceiling and all of those hundreds of people in the room would be dead within 20 minutes; the gas only needed human heat to activate and spread through the air. While this gas chamber could fit 700 people, the ovens could only burn through 350 people a day. At the neighboring concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis solved this problem by making multiple gas chambers, all with larger furnace rooms.

Next we went over to Auschwitz-Birkenau which was a much larger camp; the ultimate cruelty is that the Nazis made prisoners at Auschwitz 1 build the barracks here. Some of Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List was filmed at this location. We walked the length of the camp, which for most people, was their last walk ever before being lead to the gas chambers, which were even larger than at Auschwitz 1. When the fresh prisoners were getting shipped in, they were automatically sorted into two lines as soon as they stepped off the train, one line for people who were fit enough to be considered "valuable" to the regime and the other line of those deemed too weak, who were immediately sent to their death. The Nazis targeted anyone wearing glasses, since that had a stereotype of intellectual people; this means that I most likely would have been automatically sent to my death as soon as I arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Auschwitz-Birkenau

After our four hour tour, we got back on the bus and headed towards Krakow, which was about an hour and a half away. Since this was an organized trip, we got to stay in a hotel. While this was just a regular, 3-star hotel, after staying in a couple of hostels, this hotel felt like The Ritz. After checking in and dropping our bags off, we walked around Krakow for awhile. The main square is large and spacious and has many restaurants. The building in the middle of the Square is the Cloth Hall, which has many little vendors inside, so we did some shopping. We ended up eating at a little pierogi place for dinner, and it was delicious.

Wawel Cathedral

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel (which had a surprisingly good continental breakfast), and then had an organized walking tour of Krakow. The leaves were just starting to change colors, so every though it was a little dreary outside, Krakow was very beautiful.We started at the Schindler's Factory Museum, walked around the Wawel Castle and Cathedral, and finished at St. Mary’s Basilica in the main square. The inside of the basilica had a massive ornamental display at the front altar; it was absolutely beautiful. After lunch, my friend Alexa and I decided to go back to the Schindler's Factory Museum. The museum was very well done and did a great job of depicting was it was like to be in Poland during World War II and the Nazi Regime.

Underground church in the salt mine

Sunday morning we got up early, ate breakfast, and got back on the bus. Our last tour before leaving was visiting and walking through the Salt Mines in Wieliczka. These salt mines were absolutely huge, and we were quite far underground during our tour. In addition, this salt mine was the first ever UNESCO World Heritage site. While I am glad that we went to the salt mines, by that point in the weekend I was a little tired of tours and ready to go back to Prague. Overall, I enjoyed my time in Krakow, and I hope I get a chance to go back to Poland at some point in the future. I am grateful that I got the chance to visit Auschwitz, and even though I was there and walked through an extermination camp where so many people unnecessarily lost their lives, it still is difficult to imagine all of those horrible things happening.

Wawel Caste; photo credit Alexa Berry

The Grand Budapest Hostel

Budapest Parliament building

Last Thursday afternoon myself and five other girls boarded a bus to Budapest! We were a little delayed by some traffic, so by the time we got in, the metro had stopped running for the night. It took us quite awhile, but we somehow managed to purchase a 72-hour public transportation pass and make it to our hostel. It was after 1:00am by the time we were all checked in, so we all just passed out.

The next morning we woke up and decided to go on a free walking tour of the city. There was a tram stop right outside the front door of our hostel, and we were able to take that to the starting point of the tour. Our tour was about two and a half hours, and very informative. We learned that there are technically two sides of the city, Buda and Pest, which are divided by the river. We started down on the Pest side, and walked over to the Matthias Church up on the Buda side. After the tour we went out to lunch at a traditional Hungarian restaurant one of the staff members from the hostel recommended. Hungarian food is delicious, partially because it is so fattening! By the time we were finished eating it was almost 4:00 in afternoon and still raining, so we decided to do the Turkish Baths that evening. 

Széchenyi Baths; photo credit Nikki Johl

We went back to the hostel to rest for a few minutes and grab our swimsuits (which I have put to good use since coming to Europe!). We had heard to check out the Széchenyi Baths, because they were the biggest. The thermal baths were amazing; they were just giant hot tubs! We stayed in the outside baths because they were larger than the indoor ones, and that way we got to be surrounded by beautiful architecture and the night sky.Later that night we decided to check out one of the famous “ruin pubs” in Budapest. We went to Szimpla Kert, which has been voted as the third best bar in the world. It was such a cool place! There were two floors, with lots of seating outside.

Hungarian paprika at Central Market Hall

The next morning we rode the tram down along the river for shopping and lunch in the Central Market Hall. The market was very similar to Cleveland’s West Side Market, with food vendors on the lower level and souvenir stands up top. We wandered around the market for a few hours, each buying small trinkets, ranging from leather goods to traditional Hungarian paprika. We ended our time at the market by once again eating traditional Hungarian food. After lunch we climbed up a hill to the Citadel Fortress to the see the Liberty Statue. We were rewarded with a wonderful panoramic view of the city. After our short hike, our group split up, agreeing to meet back at the hostel for dinner (the hostel provides its guests with free dinner 3 nights a week!). Myself and two other girls went on a long and fruitless search for strong Turkish coffee, before arriving back at Matthias Church and Fisherman’s Bastion. I had wanted to go inside the church because we didn’t do that the previous day, but it was closed for mass, so instead we just walked around and took pictures. We then went back across the river to look at the beautiful, and huge, Parliament building. As I was talking to my friends on the tram ride back to the hostel, I mentioned Denison, and the man next standing next to me turned and asked if I went there. It just so happened that he had graduated from Denison about 20 years earlier!

That night the hostel cooked free dinner for us, some sort of pasta and cheese dish. We ended up going back to explore Szimpla some more. On Sunday morning we went out to brunch, and then wandered over to a quirky little art store. We then headed out to walk around on Margaret Island. The island was located right next to our hostel and had very nice public parks and a great water fountain. We walked back to the hostel, grabbed our bags, and then we were on our way back to Prague. Overall it was a great weekend! I found the layout of Budapest to be very similar to Prague, and everything was a comparable price, and I enjoyed everything that we did!