All Good Things Must Come to an End

Seventy eight days I've been exploring Europe. That's 78 days full of adventures, near-death experiences, getting lost, trying foods I would've never even considered in the U.S., seeing things people only dream of seeing, and meeting some of the best people I'll ever meet. These are some of those people. I'm hoping I get to see some of them again someday...until then Facebook and Skype will be our median for exchanges. 

From Left to Right: Fabian (Germany), Lisa, Me, Jamie (England), Leila (France), Abby, Guy (England), and Seren (I think England but she said something about Dubai as well). 

Seventy-some is also the amount of days I've been in Europe taking classes. As all classes usually end, we had finals. I don't like talking about it as I make myself upset, but let's just say I spent my last weekend in Oloumoc in my dorm room studying for about 10 hours to end up still not doing well. 

The only way to recover from a finals blow like that is by participating in a Bar Tour put on by our very own Dr. Clark. It was a great experience, and although I didn't make it through all 10 bars as the tour was designed, I did get to go to multiple Olomouc bars I didn't know even existed. Below is our fearless leader himself... 

...Dr. David Clark folks! 

After a long night of bar touring there's no better way to start off the morning but at 4 am and head to Bratislava to catch a plane to Dublin, Ireland! (Yes that comment was dripping with sarcasm.) Here's my pack all ready to go, snacks included. 

The trip to Dublin was a little different than usual as I had a new travel buddy, Abby. Usually it's just Katie and I but Katie's family was in town so she was traveling with them. Abby and I took a different (earlier) flight and met them at the Dublin Airport. Along the way I made a new friend. I don't know what his name was but this little boy kept peeking his head over his seat the whole plane ride playing with me. 

Upon arriving at the Dublin Airport I was in awe and a little overwhelmed as everything was in ENGLISH! It was awesome but also a little hard to focus as I kept wanting to read everything I could. I even started reading a European newspapers just because I could. 

The first thing I started reading in Dublin. 

After waiting about three hours for the Holoubek's plane to land (that's Katie's last name if you didn't already know), Mark (her dad) and Chase (her older brother who also came on this trip) rented a car for us, and we headed down to the southern tip of Ireland to a town called Cork. Below is a picture of the mini van we took. I'm not going to lie I was scared we might die when I saw and remembered they drive on the opposite side of the rode. 

In Cork we got a nice little B&B and had a good next day of exploring the coast and kissing Blarney Stone. I even got to put my feet in the ocean for the first time in my life! Then once we got back into Dublin us girls went and found our hostel and let the other Holoubeks tour the Guinness Storehouse since they would be leaving early the next morning. Then we met up with them later, and Mark was kind enough to invite Abby and I to enjoy an amazing three course meal and river dancing show with their family. 

A small clip from the amazing show we got to enjoy. 

After the show we send Katie's parents back to their hotel and showed Chase how to really go out on the town. ;) Just kidding. (Thought Chase would get a kick out of that.) No, really we just went and checked out the Temple Bar area but were all too tired to stay out too late. The Holoubeks left the next day and us girls were on our own. We did pretty good though, the first day doing some shopping, eating a big Irish breakfast, getting a sweet hostel, touring the Guinness Storehouse, the Wax Museum, and successfully eating a LOT of candy. 

We left our mark on our hostel. Hopefully we will be back in 10 years to see it! 

 

Us girls touring the Guinness Storehouse. It was one of the best museums I've ever been to...partly because at the end you can go to the Sky Bar and have a free Guinness beer with your ticket. 

On our way from the Guinness Storehouse to the Wax Museum Katie and I found candy heaven. This whole trip Katie and I have had this unspoken rule that whenever we find a candy store we go in, no questions asked. All we have to do is give "the look" and we both know what's going to go down. Unfortunately I might have eaten all my candy too fast and after the Wax Museum felt like I was going to throw up. Oh well, as Jan our professor would say, "Succede" which means, "it happens" in Italian.  

Me being held up at gunpoint in the Wax Museum. Overall it was a cool museum although I think we would've enjoyed it more in America because a lot of the figures were from Irish history.

This guy was not from Irish history but was part of the Hollywood Horror basement part. If you don't recognize him he is Spiegel from Lord of the Rings. I hate this guy. He is so creepy! 

This was a model of the tallest Irish man...I wasn't impressed. I wanted to see him compared to Yao Ming or something. 

On our third day in Ireland we visited Saint Patrick's Cathedral, the Dublin Palace, and Trinity University. We also did a lot of wandering and exploring through the shopping district (shocking I know). Then we had to get a good nights sleep as we were up at 3:30 am to get to the Dublin Airport and catch our flight to London. 

Right away I knew London was going to be...how do I put this...interesting. Upon arrival we had to go to the ATM to get pounds (the currency they use). If you didn't already know this, the conversion rate from dollars to pounds is not in our favor. Then we endured one of the worse, if not the worst bus rides of my life for the hour and a half ride to Victoria Station in central London. After we finally found the way into the train/underground station, we jumped into two different lines that said "Tickets" to later find out they were not the lines for the underground "Tube" as they call it. Two hours later we finally found our hostel and let's just say our first thought was, "This is how we are going to die." It was very gross and sketchy. It was the cheapest option (and when I say "cheapest" I still mean expensive but cheap in "pounds" terms). We dropped our bags off and got out of there as fast as we could. After leaving we decided our weekend was going to be a lot of avoiding our hostel as much as possible. To kill the rest of the day we walked around some parks, walked around Kensington Palace and down a street full of Ambassador's homes, and toured the Sherlock Holmes Museum. We made sure we didn't go back to the hostel until around 12 am. Then we all had a horrible nights sleep as it was scalding hot in our room and we had bed springs jabbing us in our backs all night. 

The next day started at 7 am and I did a daring thing and took a shower at our hostel. There was black mold on the ceiling, the doors barely closed and it was so hot in there you couldn't even dry off because condensation would accumulate faster than you could dry. I tried to keep a positive attitude though, and we left to have an English breakfast. After that we headed into the Westminster area. There we saw Big Ben, Westminster Abby, Buckingham Palace, a marathon of 10,000 runners (which eventually got irritating as it closed many main roads forcing us to go around things), and the changing of the Royal Guard Horses. 

The path to Buckingham Palace. 

Buckingham Palace. The flag was up and according to Abby that meant the Queen was in the palace! 

Big Ben :) 

Westminster Abby. As Joey on FRIENDS would say, "By far the best Abby I've ever seen."

Changing of the Royal Guard Horses. 

After all that sight-seeing we decided we needed to stop and have some proper English tea and deserts. It was delicious! 

Next we headed to take a ride of the London Eye, the biggest ferris wheel in the world. Again with the pounds conversion it cost an arm and a leg but was a view never obtainable without getting that high. This is the view about half way around. Big Ben is on the right and the House of Parliament is on the left. 

Us girls in the ferris wheel cart. It was huge and even air conditioned! I wish I could say the same for our hostel. 

After the London Eye we went to the London Bridge, only to discover the London Bridge just looks like a regular bridge. The bridge we thought we were going to see was the London Tower Bridge. After we discovered this we were getting so tired we decided to settle for pictures of the London Tower Bridge instead. 

London Tower Bridge up closer off the end of a pier. 

After a day packed of touring we ate an decided to head back to our hostel to get a few hours of sleep until we had to get up at 2:30 am and head to the Victoria Train Station again to catch the bus to the airport. 

This is a snapshot of the London Eye at 2:30 am on the bus headed to the airport. 

We finally arrived back in Olomouc around 2 pm today (Monday), and I am avoiding packing. I literally have a huge drawer under my bed full of just souvenirs. I'm not sure I'm going to get everything home. Some things might get left behind. 

These last two days in Olomouc are going to be full of packing and absorbing as much of Europe as I can. I'm hoping this will include a trip to the Olomouc waterpark, Holy Hill, Beer Festival starting Wednesday, and one more Globus trip. (I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to miss Globus.) As my title for this post implies all good things come to an end, this is not true for my blog. I've actually really enjoyed doing these posts and hope to continue them upon my arrive back in Nebraska. I will for sure be taking some time on the plane ride home to right a post to advise future NSA students on what to expect, what to pack, what to leave at home, etc so they can hopefully learn from my mistakes. 

I hope you've enjoyed hearing my European adventure stories as much as I've enjoyed sharing them. If ever given the opportunity to travel anywhere in the world I say TAKE IT....and take me with you! :) 

The Beginning of the End

Two weeks. Two weeks from today I will be back in Nebraska and this wonderful, fairy tale, European vacation will be over. I can't believe how fast it's gone by. We just got back from our last group field trip yesterday, and I'm not going to lie there were recorded tears shed (Not by me but by some other people...*cough*Katie and Ann*cough*cough**). The emotions running through me are so mixed I don't even know how to explain them. There's part of me that never wants to leave Olomouc, then there's the part of me that can't wait to get home, but then I snap back and think I shouldn't be wishing to go home because soon I will wish I was back in Europe. Ugghh...all of these conflicting emotions! Well since it was our last group field trip I'll give you a quick low-down of what we did. 

On Tuesday we all packed into our customary coach tour bus and headed for Kutna Hora, Czech Republic. Kutna Hora used to be a very wealthy town as it was a major mining location of silver. We made a few stops along the way but eventually ended up at a very nice hotel in Kutna Hora just in time to do a little exploring, take a little nap, have some supper and finish up some homework. While we were exploring we went into a wine shop and tasted some great wine and tried to carry on a conversation with an old man that owned the place and spoke almost no English. It was interesting to say the least, but he was very sweet and very hospitable. Then next morning in Kutna Hora we headed to Saint Barbara's Cathedral. It was pretty cool but once you've seen cathedrals like the one in Prague it's not quite as impressive. 

This is Katie and I on the roof of our hotel in Kutna Hora. Yep we managed to climb out of our window and have some fun on the roof. 

This could be my favorite picture of the whole trip (minus how awful my hair and everything looks). If you don't know these guys, they are our Czech professors/trip organizers/Dr. Clark's accomplices. The guy on the left is Jan and on the right is Martin. They are by far two for the coolest and nicest guys you will ever meet. I do feel kind of guilty, even though I never had to go to the hospital/doctor, our group this year has put these guys through a lot. There's been multiple face plants on the cobblestone (Laura and Jed), an allergic reaction that ended up taking six hours in a Polish hospital (Abby), eye infections (Katie), bronchitis (Lisa), and much much more. I'm sure they probably just want to get rid of us infectious, loud, pain-in-the-butt Americans. 

Once we left Kutna Hora we stopped in Ceske Budejovice at the Budweiser Budvar Brewery. Other than the freak downpour we experienced, the tour was great. We even got to sample some of the brewery's famous beer. 

Thea, Lisa and I having our samples. (I'm not a huge fan of beer but you can't say no to free beer samples!) 

 After the brewery tour we hopped in our coach bus and headed to Cesky Krumlov. My overall impression of Cesky Krumlov is that it's a smaller version of Prague. It's touristy but I don't think it's as bad as Prague, and it kind of has a more smaller-village type feel to it. Upon arrival we had the remainder of the day to explore. The next day we were up early to head to tour the castle and theater. 

Thea, Elin, Katie, Lisa and I of the civilian bridge that connects the palace to the theater. Once you side-stepped the fact that it was freezing outside the view was amazing. 

We weren't allowed to take pictures in the palace but our tour guide was great and very informative. The theater was also remarkable. They obviously didn't have the technology we have now but they still managed to have very impressive special effects.

After the castle and theater we went and had a great lunch with Jan, Martin and Dr. Clark and then had a free day the rest of the day until we all met up for supper. 

Our last supper all together was bitter-sweet. We had a great time talking, drinking, and reminiscing on experiences we had on this trip. Then at one point during supper we all gathered around while Ann, Thea, Laura, Caleb, and Tara read off the awards they gave to each person on the trip. Some of them were very hilarious, and it was another one of my favorite parts of this trip. 

Lisa, Katie, and I on our last night out as a whole group. :( 

After we had supper we had a great time sitting around, drinking and just really enjoying the last night we had together. Some of the group even made it to see another sunset...not me I need my sleep. 

Of course in the morning nothing cures being dirty, tired, and sad the trip is almost over like an ice cream bar and candy. Katie and I had a breakfast of champions that's for sure. 

We are back in Olomouc now. Studying my last weekend away in order to prepare for Dr. Clark's much dreaded, hard, Central European final on Monday. Then Monday night Dr. Clark has prepared a 10 pub bar craw for the group to participate in for extra credit if they wish. Now that's the kind of extra credit I never complain about doing. Then Tuesday Katie, Katie's family (who just arrived in Europe), Abby and I all head to Dublin, Ireland to start our last week of travels before we head back to the states. The days are most definitely flying and soon you'll be back to reading a boring Nebraskan blog. Until then stay tuned for how finals end up, our adventures in Dublin and London, and the sad day when I fly back home. 

Ohh...The Things You Can Do In 2 Weeks in Europe

Okay, I can't even explain to you how much stuff one person can do in just two weeks in Europe. It's crazy!  After arriving back from spring break, classes started up again and we started to get back into a somewhat normal routine. (I mean how much can you really get into a normal routine 6,000 miles away from home.) Katie and I finally got our much anticipated, gigantic package from Mr. Colton Albrecht. (Thanks Colton!) It contained everything we had been needing and missing from the United States (mostly candy) except a tanning bed. 

As you can see we hit the jackpot with the box. We got letters, my "sleeping shirt", pens, two containers of Tums, Snickers, Reese's, Twizzlers, four boxes of flavored water packets, Starbursts, two packages of gum, my favorite mix of Planters Nuts, pistachios, Peanut M&Ms, two boxes of Milkduds, and two notebooks (much needed, the notebooks over here are horrible). 

Once again I want to thank Colton for his package. He's a lifesaver! 

Also with my free time I've discovered Europe has NOT been good to my body. I've recently tried to get a quick run in each day. Below are some pictures of  the gorgeous views I get when I run. I'm definitely going to miss these views when I go back to running in Kearney. 

Then one night the girls (from left to right: Karen, Lisa, Me, Katie, Hayley, and Abby) and I decided to head out and get drinks at a place Dr. Clark suggested called The Osa Bar. They have very creative drinks there and some of them look pretty potent. After we had a few individual drink we all shared a "European fishbowl". It was amazing! 

Then of course as you can guess if you give Americans and long straws like that you're going to start a spitball war. Katie and I dominated with me getting Abby square in the chin and Katie getting Lisa in the nose. I don't think I've ever laughed quite that much before. It was a great night. Thanks girls! 

Look at that concentration.

Looks like I must have hit my target. 

Another major event during this two week time for the Americans was hosting 'American Night' at Belmondo. To give you a little background information Belmondo is a club here in Olomouc that has a different country theme every Wednesday night. It is very popular with the international students and gives a lot of them an opportunity to showcase their countries. Upon arrival we heard about Belmondo and attendance has almost become a Wednesday night ritual. It's fun getting to go and see what the other international students put together to represent their countries. Then also as the host of the party you are to provide snacks and a drink that represents your country (paid for by the Belmondo club) and you give some type of mid-night surprise (usually a dance or song) as entertainment. Below is us working on our mid-night surprise dances. 

Then, for our snacks and drinks we made mini hamburgers, hotdogs, and fries and then had jello shots for our drinks!

Below is the whole group all dressed and ready for the evening. We had all kinds of outfits, from Miss America (me) to typical sorority girls (Lisa and Katie) and from the best American superhero (Hayley) to GI Joe and GI Jane (Evan and Laura). Dr. Clark even got into and came as Hugh Hefner (below).  

Mr. Hugh Hefner himself with Miss America. 

Miss America and the best dang American superhero you've ever seen, alias name Hayley Herzog. 

A picture of the group waiting for the tram. We have the Statue of Liberty (Thea), and indian (Abby), a sorority girl (Katie), GI Jane (Laura), American superhero (Hayley), a sorority girl (Lisa), and then me as Miss America. 

The only bad part about having parties at Belmondo on Wednesday nights is having class at 8:30 am on Thursday morning. When I got to class I looked down and this is what I saw....

...pretty gross I know, but I did it for AMERICA! 

Also while we've had these two weeks of basically just class, Dr. Clark and our other Czech professors organized multiple day field trips for us. They consisted of a visit to where Napoleon defeated the Russians near Olomouc,  a tour and talk with the American owner of a Harley Davidson shop in Ostrava, Czech Republic, a May Day celebration is a smaller town in the Czech Republic, and town castle/palace tours near Olomouc. 

Here is the girls and I waiting for the train to head to a May Day celebration. 

This is Lisa and I by the wood craving guy at the May Day celebration. His work was amazing!

And this is us girls standing by the open window on the train back trying to get some air. There weren't enough seats so we had to stand for the whole hour train ride. We did get to see some beautiful scenery though!

Now on to Poland...

I almost think our four day field trip to Poland should be its own separate post but as long as I'm catching you all up I just decided to include it in this one. We left for Poland on a Thursday and arrived at our first stop (the salt mines) in about five hours. The salt mines were really cool. Who knew such a world could exist so far below us? Our tour guide showed us all around down to the third level (there were nine total levels). Things we got to see that really impressed me were the huge chapel, the big open area that had like a gift shop and other things, and then they even had a restaurant down there. It was very impressive. I even ate a pretty substantial piece of salt off the wall as a dare. It wasn't too bad but very very salty. Below is Caleb faking licking the salt on the wall. He doesn't even share drinks with people so there was no way he was going to actually lick a salty, rock wall. After the salt mines we got back on the bus and headed into Krakow, about another 45 minute bus ride. 

The first night in Krakow Martin (one of our Czech professors) just showed us the town square, and we split into groups and explored around that area. A smaller group of us headed down a side street and ended up eating at a traditional Polish restaurant with a live three-piece Polish band and dancers as entertainment. Below is the amazing mushroom soup and crouton balls I got. Seriously it was some of the best soup I've ever had and I loved the little ball croutons. 

The second day in Krakow we got up relatively early and headed to the palace and royal grounds of the Polish King. Sorry I don't really have any pictures, they were not allowed in the museums and stuff. It was pretty impressive though. We also toured an arms museum with a lot of ancient weapons and firing arms used by the Polish in battles. 

Below is a picture of  one of my favorite parts of the museum/castle. Dr. Clark translated it for us. In Latin it says, "If God is for us, who can ever stop us." I love that saying and would kind of like to do something with it on my wall in my room back in Kearney. 

After that we spent the day exploring and of course shopping. Poland is known for Amber, so we did a lot of jewelry shopping. Then that night it happened to be Cinco de Mayo, so we decided we had to have margaritas to celebrate. Of course no one in Poland knows what Cinco de Mayo is but we walked the streets wishing people a happy Cinco de Mayo anyway. 

Our margaritas. 

Then our third day in Poland after church we headed to a pharmacy museum which actually was quite interesting. I'm usually not really into pharmacy but they definitely had some interesting stuff in there. Below is just one of the pictures I took, I thought it best represented the museum. 

After the pharamacy museum we had the rest of the day to continue to explore the city. After Katie, Thea, Lisa and I traveled out of town to visit the Saint Faustina Shrine we headed back into town on a long tram that ended up dropping us off in the middle of a soccer mob. I don't know how much Americans know about European soccer....I mean 'futbol'... but it's crazy over here. A lot of the time huge fights will break out between the rivaling teams and some people can get seriously hurt. Anyway there was a huge soccer mob being escorted by more police than I think our president is protected by and more armored cars than I've ever even seen on the movies. Of course we loved it and continued to follow them through town to the town center. 

Here are some of the police...

...and then some of the armored vans. No this was not all of them, just some. 

There's only one thing that could grab my attention from this huge mob and it was this girl. Literally we were following the mob and when I saw her I stopped dead in my tracks. I know in the picture it looks like she is kind of sitting on that chain but that chain was actually far away from her. It was just the angle I took the photo at. I was just amazed. I know there's a trick to it but it was crazy! 

On our final night then a couple other girls and I just headed to a restaurant right across the street from our hostel that served traditional Polish food again. The waiter ended up loving us and giving us like six free sip-shots of the cherry vodka they make at the restaurant. It was the best vodka I have ever tasted. You didn't even need anything else to drink, just the vodka.  

He also brought us all an individual free appetizer. I think it was liver pate, if not it was good whatever it was. 

Once again I got mushroom soup and if I thought my mushroom soup from a couple nights before couldn't get any better, I was wrong. It came in this great little bread bowl and I literally ate almost the entire bowl along with the soup. 

Our last day of Poland wasn't the happiest of days as we toured the Auschwitz museum on our way home. Overall I liked it because it was very interesting, but on the other hand it was very depressing. To think people are actually capable of doing such harsh things to other human beings sickens me. Our tour guide described the camp best by saying it was a camp designed to slowly kill someone. Yes, a lot of the victims were sent straight to the gas chambers and killed upon arrival to Auschwitz, but the others got it way worse by having such tortuous things happen to them. Below is the gate into Auschwitz-Birkenau (the second camp establish). This is were the majority of victims lost their lives as most were taken straight off the train carts to the gas chambers. 

This is the all barbwire fence that surrounded Birkenau. It rained the night before so that added to the depressive look of the place, but something tells me even on a sunny day it still would've been depressing. 

This is the washroom area at Birkenau. There were 200 holes for toilets and because prisoners weren't given much time in the morning or in the evenings to shower and use these facilities it was imperative they use them quickly. Our tour guide also told us that if a woman had a baby in secret a lot of the time she would hide it in one of the holes because Nazi officers didn't like going in the washroom because they were afraid of diseases. So those babies were put in a hot or cold depending on the time of the year, dirty hole all day long until the mothers could get back and feed them for the night. Most of the babies died but some did end up surviving which shocked me. 

These are the living quarter at Birkenau. The bunks look big but most were to hold six people. When i was looking at their size I thought to myself maybe 2-3 people could fit in them...but six?!!? I can't even imagine. 

Then we traveled to Auschwitz the original camp and toured their living grounds and museum-type areas they have set up in the old living quarters. Below are some of the things they have on display.

Shoes of victims. This is just a single frame shot but the room with these shoes was very long and had glass window/walls on both sides with thousands, if not millions of shoes. It was one of the worst parts of the tour to experience and see. 

These are the uniforms and shoes the prisoners were given to wear and work 11 hours days in. 

This was another depressing part of the tour. It was a glass display box of some of the baby clothes and toys found among the victims confiscated belongings. Babies and their mothers were usually immediately taken to the gas chambers upon arrival to the concentration camps. Then if a woman had a baby and it was discovered she and her baby were usually shot. 

This was a big pile of glasses also found in the confiscated belongings of the victims. It's crazy to think that a lot of the workers probably needed glasses but didn't get them because they were taken away from them. I'm practically blind and couldn't imagine going even a hour without contacts or glasses. 

This was a large pit full of pot and pans again found in the confiscated belongings.

The firing wall outside the building they used as a prison/punishment building. Thousands of prisoners would be lined up along here and just shot at point blank range. 

Our tour then concluded with a look at one of the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz. I can't even describe to you the feeling you get when you're standing in that room and you think of how many innocent men, women, children, grandmas, grandpas, moms, dads, etc. died in there. Looking back still I hate thinking about it. It's the most terrible place I think I've ever been. 

Overall I'm very glad I got the opportunity to visit and tour Auschwitz and would highly recommend it for everyone to see sometime in their lives, but now that I've seen it I don't ever want to go back. Getting those thoughts and images out of my mind is practically impossible, so to go see it all again is something I don't think I could handle. 

As you can see, I told you I did a lot of things in a short two week period. Everyday was an adventure though and I wouldn't trade any of it for the world. I'm looking forward to our upcoming trip to south Bohemia next week, so stay tuned on a new blog about those adventures!