failblog.

really haven't updated this much, but in my defense i've kept a really great scrapbook! maybe i'll take some pictures and post them here..

and i just realized, i never posted about my barcelona adventure! at the time it was a fiasco, but in the end it was still an amazing trip. spain was definitely not to be when the airports were down and the train workers in the south of france decide to go on strike. really not cool. but, after a verrry long bus ride to frankfurt and a rather speedy train from frankfurt to vienna, i made it back and was able to make up my german final (alles gut!). very glad to know a decent amount of spanish, french, and german-- it was a very long, very eventful trip! even learned some finnish as well from some new friends i met during my extended stay in an awesome city.

i also made it to salzburg to see my friend lauren who's studying there for a year, and besides that i've been biking around vienna (really must start biking when i get back to the states.. i'm absolutely hooked!) and really getting to know the city. it's so hard to leave (i even sold back the bike today.. very hard to let go of my faithful steed) but i'm also really excited a summer in charleston! i plan on keeping the blog updated once in awhile with pictures and news, so check back from time to time!

finals are over and i've even packed (VERY thankful that we have a scale in the house-- my bags are stuffed!).. spent my last day in vienna (last final was yesterday) doing last minute errands and relaxing in a kaffeehaus by st stephen's... agh i'm really going to miss vienna!!

some pictures to make up for my bad blogging....

barcelona beach at sunset

la pedrera, barcelona

salzburg sound of music cow!

Happy Easter

... belatedly! Got back from Budapest on Saturday night and I walked so much in that city that I ended up slightly crippled.. must have bruised or sprained my right foot because by Saturday morning I could barely walk at all.

view of Buda Castle from the Chain Bridge

Turned out to be a hidden blessing that we had so much work to do this week-- I actually didn't even leave the house again until today when we went to the Sigmund Freud museum! Glad to be feeling almost 100% better now, as tomorrow we're climbing to the top of the Karlskirche , and this weekend we have a group trip to Krakow and Auschwitz.

On Sunday we made a wonderful Easter dinner: steamed asparagus, garlic and rosemary mashed potatoes, leek and potato casserole, marinated chicken, and baked apple pie :)

I myself only made the asparagus and garlic and rosemary potatoes, but for the chicken we used a marinade that was about half apricot jam and half regular mustard. absolutely delicious! I don't eat chicken often but this was a worthy exception.

i've never actually steamed asparagus before but it was so easy to do that now i'm pretty much hooked. cooking in our kitchen has me making a mental list of kitchen items i want to shop for when i go back home.. a garlic press, a steamer, a juicer... the garlic and rosemary mashed potatoes are pretty self explanatory, i just eyeballed the different ingredients and mixed them all together after boiling the potatoes and sauteeing the garlic. i also discovered that if it gets a bit dry, you can revive leftovers with a couple teaspoons of canola oil before you reheat it in the microwave.

i'll try to post again soon!

bicycle!

bought a bicycle on wednesday and i'm absolutely hooked. vienna's pretty bike friendly; where there aren't bike paths, you just bike on the road with the cars (yes i know, this would never work in america). i always wanted to try driving in europe, and this is probably the closest i'll get! the city is now so much more accessible and i don't need a bus pass, so i'm staying here this weekend and exploring :)

recipes!

with so much going on i haven't had the courage to tackle coverage of our awesome trip to italy, so in the meantime let me just say that i'm loving the kitchen we have here! with fresh produce from the naschmarkt, there's always something yummy to make. i'm terrible at following recipes, so here's two that i've come up with and love to make. they're really simple but

1. vEGGies

you'll need:

2-3 tsp olive oil

some salt

1/3 onion, chopped

1/3 red bell pepper

(optional: spinach)

2 large free-range eggs, whisked in a bowl with a tsp of butter and a dash of milk

handful shredded gouda cheese

3 or 4 cherry tomatoes, diced (really should be cherry tomatoes)

what to do: heat olive oil and a dash of salt in a medium pan on medium-low. once it heats up, add onion and bell pepper and wait for onion to start to brown. then add spinach if desired (highly recommended). once spinach is cooked add in egg mixture and stir. just before the eggs are done cooking, sprinkle in the gouda cheese and a little more salt if desired. when cheese is melted in, serve with tomatoes on top and enjoy :)

2. veggie fried rice

you'll need:

2-3 tsp olive oil

chopped onion, red bell pepper, zucchini, snap peas (and other veggies if desired)

1 free-range egg

1/2 cup rice

chicken broth (here we have tablets (i use 1/2 of one per 1/2 cup rice) , not sure if they have the tablet form in the states??)

some salt

what to do: heat olive oil and a dash of salt in large sauce pan as you boil 1/2 cup of rice in 1 cup water in a pot (with chicken broth to add flavor). add veggies to the pan, one at a time (onion first, then bell pepper and zucchini, peas last). when veggies are cooked, crack the egg and stir in with the veggies. add a little salt if desired. when rice is cooked, stir it into the pan and cook for 5-10 minutes (you may need to add a little more olive oil and salt as it cooks). the rice won't be very brown but it's quite good :) makes about 2 side servings.

now if i could just make gelato...

Sono arrivato a Firenze!

arrived in florence! we'll move on to rome on the 8th, and spend a night in bratislava on the 11th on our way back to vienna. more pictures to come!

Prague

Our trip to Prague was highly anticipated, and didn't disappoint. Our art teacher, "Dr. O", gave us a city tour shortly after we arrived, and we had a full weekend of sightseeing and exploring.

It is thought that Prague gets its name from the word for "steps", as the river has several places (as shown above) where the water cascades over a sort of "step".









What to see in Prague:

1. hotel evropa - we stayed in this lovely hotel in wenceslas square (named after the same king as in the christmas carol!), it's affordable and absolutely beautiful. original art nouveau style, although if they renovate it i'm sure rates will go up. it's a little dark and mysterious inside, but i loved it. the dining room served as the model for the dining room of the titanic! there's also a stained glass piece inside just above the entrance to the dining room, and i have a theory it's an original Mucha. speaking of which...

2. Mucha Museum - i'm absolutely obsessed with alphonse mucha and his art nouveau lithographs. his museum is 80 k's (about 3 euros) for students and is definitely worth a visit.

3. st vitus cathedral (of course)! half gothic, half neo-gothic cathedral of prague; tongue and tomb of st john of nepomuk, stained glass windows (one is by mucha), and of course st vitus. so much to see in this church!

4. there's a communist museum in prague that's supposed to be really interesting, but i was embittered by the 140 kronig student price so we walked the city instead.

5. the local beer is quite good, so definitely try the pilsner urquell

6. jewish museum and cemetery - the history of jews in prague is really fascinating. there's a beautiful memorial to the czech and moravian jews who were murdered in the holocaust that you really have to see. the cemetery has over 12,000 tombstones on a small plot of land, and there are an estimated 70-100,000 actual graves (several layers, as there were few places in europe that jews were allowed to bury their dead).

7. climbing the clock tower in the old rathaus (which has a fascinating and complex astrological clock) will give you a great view of the city!

8. st charles bridge - famous for its statues, go and rub the statue of st john of nepomuk for good luck! legend has it that king wenceslas threw him in the river for not telling him what the queen said in confession. 5 stars appeared around where he fell into the water (thus he is always depicted with 5 stars around his head). when they retrieved his body, everything was decaying except for his tongue. when st vitus got boring, they popularized st john of nepomuk to attract more pilgrims to prague.

9. the city square by the rathaus has a lot of street vendors offering wurstel, soups, and hot wine. if you're traveling in cold weather, some potato soup and hot wine is absolutely wonderful!

your to-do list for munich

although i'd been to bavaria and the outskirts of munich with my wonderful host family in germany several years ago, i hadn't yet seen the city itself; so when the other students suggested a weekend trip, i went along and am very glad that i did! the city can definitely be seen in a weekend, and entirely on foot, but be prepared for an ambitious itinerary.

1. deutsches museum. first thing i did after checking into the hostel was to drag my roommate across the city to see this museum. admittedly, i didn't understand most of the very technical scientific explanations in the exhibits on space travel and engine mechanics, but there was a great deal to see and i definitely felt smarter after we left. my favorite part was the futuristic nanotechnology exhibit, which projected that before long we'll have tiny little robots swimming through our blood stream and filtering out impurities and clearing out our arteries. yeah, that was my reaction too..

2. kaufingerstrasse is a nice broad street that makes for a very pleasant stroll. you'll pass by the rathaus-glockenspiel, a very impressive and beautiful building on marienplatz. there you'll also see mary's column, and you know i love anything with my name on it. kaufingerstrasse also has good shopping, and maximilianstrasse will give you a nice ritzy stroll past the mercedes, prada, gucci, etc. stores.

3. the hofbrauhaus is a good time, and a fun way to try munich's world famous brews. dinners in touristy places can get expensive, so i grabbed a veggie doner kebab and caught the happy hour at the bar.

4. there was a free walking tour of munich offered in a brochure in our hostel. i just grabbed the map they offered and followed the tour myself, which allowed me to wander off a bit and get a closer look at the parts i found most interesting. munich is definitely walkable, and as we were only a couple blocks away from the train station i didn't catch a single subway or bus all weekend.

5. st. peter's belltower is well worth the climb and offers a beautiful view of the city. plus just 1 euro for students!

6. the englischergarten is the largest city park in continental europe (larger than central park in nyc!) and is a wonderful place to go exploring. don't miss the surfers riding the perpetual wave generated by the water rushing in to fill the park's meandering stream-- they're even out there in february!

7. the alte pinothek art museum is just one euro admission on sundays. you can guess what i did with my last afternoon!

my favorite thing about munich was just getting to wander around on my own time and seeing the sights and sounds at my own pace. my own pace is, admittedly, rather fast, but if you've only got the weekend, you have to fit in everything you can!