Surfers in the English gardens
Church in Munich
So it all began when I came to the realization that I had a 12 hour bus ride ahead of me to get to Munich. I became increasingly more disinterested when I checked the weather report for the weekend.. Rain again. Then, on the subway to meet up with the bus tour I realized I forgot my passport and came to terms with the fact that I couldn’t go. Luckily bus2alps doesn’t check things like that and I was fine. At the border of Germany all trucks and busses have to stop to switch over their ez pass and our bus refused to start after that. We waited about an hr and a half for a new bus to come get us but the luggage was electronically locked on the bottom of the bus so no toothbrush or change of clothes.. We got to the hostel and it is surprisingly nice! I’m in a room with 4 of my friends and we have our own bathroom ( much better than the one in Amalfi). Shortly after arriving we went on an amazing bike tour! Our tour guide was incredible and we saw so much of the
City and went all through the English gardens ( which are bigger than central park) and then stopped for lunch at a biergarten with delicious beer and pretzels. On the way back we saw people surfing in a river in the park it was incredible!
Then we finally made it to the tents where they have spring fest. It is the same location where Oktoberfest is held and basically the same thing except there are less people who come for spring fest. It’s basically a huge carnival with huge tents ( that look like big permanent structures) with bands and beer. Last night we got there a little late but everyone was singing and dancing on the tables in their little outfits. I may buy one of the dresses today.
Today the plan is mainly to meet up with our friends at the festival. Tomorrow we are going to the concentration call dockau (sp?) and then heading back to rome.
All of holy week Rome has been buzzing with people everywhere. I have never seen so many priests, nuns and tourists in my life. We saw the pope do the stations of the cross on Good Friday at the Colosseum. It was rather incredible, except many people were so rude! We were all standing outside listening to the service standing on the most uneven rocks and people kept pushing and shoving to get closer and talking! But it was a really amazing experience and I have some pictures, we were all so packed into a little space though so it was hard to get good ones.
We were unable to get tickets to Easter mass, but we went to the Vatican after the mass to see all the people and decorations. It was really beautiful.
In Rome, everything is closed the Monday after Easter as well, which is somewhat disappointing for us because there wasn’t anything to do, but school was closed so that’s always a plus!
Apparently many of the Romans leave Rome for Easter weekend on holiday with family. It was weird to see just how quiet everything was. There were hardly even any cars by where we live.
This weekend we are going to the beautiful Amalfi coast, Capri and Pompeii. Unfortunately the forecast is not looking too good for us but fingers crossed!
The view of Prague from the castle/vineyard
So on the way to Prague we ran into a lot of people from our school who were coming to Prague too. We are staying in this big hostel with mostly college age kids and there are a few of our other friends staying here too. The first night we got inherent in the evening so we just hung out at the hotel and listened to a wonderful band then went to a really fun club with everyone.
Yesterday we got up early and did all of the touristy things.. We saw the castle, the Charles bridge, the Lennon wall (which was incredible), went to a vineyard and tried hot wine and this home made fresh bread pastry (delicious). Also we wet to the old square which had this church that every hour they put on this show almost like a coo coo clock. We went to this ‘typical’ Czech restaurant for dinner and it was soo delicious. today we just hung out and walked around. Prague is so wonderful but very hard to describe. It’s like a depressed city that’s finally turning around. The people are very trendy and it’s a big tourist area. We leave early tomorrow for rome where the weather is supposed to be in the 70s!
Amsterdam :)
Amsterdam was probably my favorite city yet. The people are so nice and it’s very beautiful. We stayed right on one of the canals and everything is so close and within walking distance. We went to the Heineken experience which was pretty bad.. Our friends had recommended that we go there but it seemed just like one big advertisement after the other. We also went to the Anne frank house which was great! It was so interesting to see how they lived. We also went to the van gogh museum. It was very nice except they didn’t have a lot of his most famous pieces like starry night. But it was wonderful! The last day we mainly just walked around and took photos.. The weather was so beautiful for us there :)
So Paris was a lot Better than I expected. The people weren’t terrible and it’s a very diverse and beautiful city. The food was amazing! We went to the louvre and it was kind of disappointing but still pretty great. It would have been nice to spend a whole day there. Notre dame was pretty nice and we saw the lock bridge and the Eiffel tower which was amazing at night. Unfortunately it rained most of the weekend and it was kind of difficult to get around in Paris because we had to take the subway everywhere. After 3 days we left for Amsterdam!
