Trip to Prague and Berlin! Pt 1

From Monday Nov 14 to Mon Nov 21 I was in Berlin & Prague on vacation with my two friends Akeem and Lauren. Iceland has this website, hopkaup.is, that is like a groupon.com and we got round trip tickets to Berlin for 40% off. So we couldn't resist and took a week off from school to go travel in Europe. We got to Berlin Monday afternoon and settled into our hostel (Circus hostel, we were in an 8 person room with 4 Brazilian guys and an Irish guy) then walked around the square we were in to get lunch at this placed called Adonis where we got delicious Shawarma for 3 euro. We walked around the streets for a while and went into a few stores, although they were too expensive. We rested at the hostel for a bit then went to the bar in the hostel and we talked with some other people staying there including our roommates. Lauren, Akeem, and I soon left to get dinner at a traditional German restaurant which was quite good. I had flammkuchen, sort of like a pizza, with goat cheese and pumpkin--mm some of my favorite things that I have not had in Iceland. We then went back to the hostel and went to bed and in the morning got breakfast at the hostel. We went to a mall in Alexanderplatz and did some shopping then got our luggage at the hostel and found the bus to Prague. The bus was about 5 hours and I slept for some of it, it wasn't too bad. We arrived in Prague at night and found our way to our hostel the Czech Inn, a little ways outside the city but right by a tram stop. We had a private room here so it was just the three of us. We went out to dinner for hamburgers at a café close by that the receptionist recommended. Food in Prague is really cheap, and really good.

Wednesday we explored Prague and walked a lot. We started at the Prague Castle where there was a beautiful church and you had great views of the city. We walked down the old steps and went to see the John Lennon wall and then crossed the Charles Bridge to get to the old square to see the old clock tower. We then walked around going into shops and exploring the streets of Prague. I loved Prague because it has such an old European feel to it, and it is not so hectic and busy. We got some street food for lunch from a cart on the street, and all had sausages. We were in the city for most of the day walking around and shopping and were exhausted so went back to the hostel to rest before dinner. For dinner we found a place just up the street from where we were staying called U Bulínů, and it was fabulous! I got a HUGE plate of food and a small beer for about $15. It came with 2 potato pancakes, 2 bacon dumplings, 2 bread dumplings, 1 potato dumpling, sausage, smoked pork, pork shoulder, and red cabbage. I couldn't finish it all but I made a good dent in it. So delicious, my favorite meal of the whole trip.

Thursday was our last full day in Prague and we took the train to the bone church (Sedlec Ossuary) in Kutná Hora, about an hour train ride. On the train we mostly saw fields/farms and some snow in the trees. The bone church is in a suburb of the city Kutná Hora and it was a very quite and eery place, especially with the grey sky and slight fog (and the fact that there is a church decorated with bones from 40,000 to 70,000 people). We had to pay to go into the church and were there for about a half hour. It is quite small but very interesting and creepy. If you want to learn more about the church, check out its wikipedia page! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary. Basically there were these heaps of bones that were unearthed during construction of the church and in 1870 a woodworker was commissioned by the Schwarzenberg family (you can see their family crest made out of bones) to put the heaps into order.  

The chandelier contains every bone from the human body.

Family crest

After the church we got a dessert at a little café down the street and then took the train back to Prague. We walked around the city some more and had more street food, this time Lauren and I had fried mozzarella cheese which was pretty good. We were on a quest to find some awesome shoes, but they were all too expensive. Then we headed back to the hostel for a bit and went out to dinner for more delicious Czech food at U Sadu. I had a chicken bramburger, which was chicken surrounded by potato pancakes (instead of bread) covered in a mushroom sauce. It was all really good. The next day (Friday) we woke up really early to catch our 730 bus back to Berlin. 
Now I have to go cook for Thanksgiving and will write about Berlin later! Happy Thanksgiving!

Inspired by Iceland

 So if you've seen my shutterfly website you've seen my pictures from the last two events I've done through Inspired by Iceland. It is a new tourism campaign here in Iceland, and it is absolutely awesome and would probably only work in Iceland. Basically people post videos inviting tourists to do activities with them. The president had pancakes at his house, the mayor invited people to have sushi, my friends did a jeep safari today, and so far I have walked an Icelandic Sheepdog named Mosi, I went mussel picking and saw sheep being sheared yesterday, and today I did yoga! All for free! It is starting to get attention and yesterday when we were picking mussels there were people filming us. They have been following some of the recent invitations and are interviewing people and filming the different invitations. Here is the website where you can check the invitations; my friends and I check it daily! http://invitations.inspiredbyiceland.com/invitation/list

So last Friday (the 5th) we (Emily A, Vanessa, and I) walked an Icelandic Sheepdog named Mosi with his owner and two other exchange students around the pond. His owner told us about the breed and we each took turns walking Mosi. The Icelandic Sheepdog was recently recognized by the AKC as its own breed. They are good family dogs, are small-medium sized, friendly, and energetic although they shed a lot. Mosi was really cute, doesn't really bark, and breeds so I think we should get a puppy...:) He even has his own facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sindra-Mosi/187041648224 

 Side note: last weekend on Saturday I went to see Mammút perform at Bíó Paradís, an independent movie theater, for about 40 minutes and then saw a documetary, An Independent Mind, brought on by Amnesty International. I went with my friend Akeem because he loves Mammút. We sat down in the movie theater lobby at a table eating popcorn and watching them perform a few feet in front of us. Then we saw the documentary which was really good. It was about the right to freedom of expression. It followed eight characters from around the world attempting to exercise their right to freely express themselves. Their stories included facing the threat of imprisonment for drawing a cartoon of the President (Algeria), being sent to a labour camp for telling a joke, being tortured for writing a poem (Syria), and being forced into exile for singing a song (Mali).


Back to Inspired by Iceland. Yesterday (11.11.11!!) a bunch of exchange students and I rented a van and drove 70km to a farm Bjarteyjarsandur. 8 of us went: Lauren, Emily, Begga, our friend Cecilia from Sweden, and Jake and his two friends Lukas (Czech Republic) and Elise (Vancouver). To get to the farm you had to drive around a fjord (the same one I had driven around to go up North) and it was so beautiful. We had great weather, it was sunny and warm out about 50 F. We were a little late so we met the farmers down at the beach. Three horses were hanging out there and two dogs and I was so happy. The dogs were border collies and were "wicked smaht". They would pick a rock out, bring it to you, and then you would throw it and the two dogs raced each other to get the rock. And every time they got the exact same rock you threw even though the whole beach was rocky. I think I threw more rocks to the dogs than I found mussels :) . Then we headed down to the waters edge and were told how to find the mussels, which size to look for, and how to clean them. Lauren found a HUGE mussel and we were told it was a different kind called a horse mussel (we had been getting blue mussels). Arnheiður (the women organizing this invitation) told Lauren that she would experiment with it. So after about 45 minutes our fingers were freezing and we headed back to the farm. We had free coffee and desserts while Arnheiður cooked the mussels. We all sat at a big table and talked. There were a few other people who also came, one was from Minnesota, one from South Africa, and one from NY (she was here for work as a journalist). There were two kinds of mussels, one batch was cooked in butter with onions, carrots, and herbs from the garden, and the other batch was cooked in beer. They were both good but the butter ones were definitely my favorite. Arnheiður kept bringing out bowls of mussels and we also had garlic/cheesy toast. It was a mussel feast! We must have had about 8 bowls of mussels, it was never ending. She cooked the horse mussel and Lauren ate some of it, although she was a little scared of it. After our feast Arnheiður told us her husband was going to the barn to shear sheep so we all went to see that. There were so many sheep in the barn and some were sheared, some with intense horns, and a lot of different colors. We watched three sheep being sheared and then looked at some of them for a while. Then we headed back to say goodbye to Arnheiður and to thank her. It was an awesome day and the farm was in one of the most beautiful spots I've been to. We got back to Reykjavik around 6 and Lauren, Begga, and I walked down Laugavegur (the main shopping street downtown) for a while going into some shops, and then we had dinner--soup in a bread bowl! It was yummy.

This is the beach and the buildings in the distance is the farm.

Food!

Everyone that rode in our van.

Sheep Barn!

This morning (Saturday 12th) I woke up for another invitation that I was doing with Vanessa. We did vinyasa flow yoga at this studio from 10:30 to 11:45. It was kind of far away so we took the bus. Vanessa wanted to get there earlier than I so she left on another bus. It was the first time I took the bus by myself and went someplace I didn't know. It took me a couple minutes to find the yoga studio but I finally did and made it on time. I was pretty proud of myself for doing it on my own. The class was good and it was warm in there so we sweated a lot. The instructor would walk around and correct us so it was nice to actually get some feedback. I hadn't done yoga in awhile either so it was nice to do it again. Elise was also there and a couple other exchange students I recognized. Tonight is our friend Elizabeth's birthday party upstairs in the attic so I will probably stop by for a bit. Then tomorrow I will be packing and getting ready for Berlin and Prague!! We are leaving early Monday morning for a whole week! I am going with Lauren and Akeem and am really excited! I've never been to "mainland" Europe before.