Spring Break

                  Dobry Den! This weeks blog is going to be about my spring break.

                  On Sunday, April 15^th, at about 1:00 am, my girlfriend, Faviola Seiler, and I landed in the airport in Barcelona, Spain. We just left Venice where we had a class field trip. I thought it would be a good idea to save some money and just spend the night in the airport. It was the opposite of a good idea. I obviously haven’t learned from my mistakes here. So now we are trying to find a place to sleep in this airport, and it seems like nothing is going to work. The floor was disgusting so that option was out. The chairs were also really uncomfortable no matter what position you sat in. However, the worst part was how unbelievably cold it was. I was not expecting it to be cold in Madrid in mid-April. I took clothes out of my suitcase just so I could stop from shivering. Luckily, that was probably the worst part of our spring break.

                  Once the sun came up, everything was so much better. I was no longer freezing, and we also ran into our good friend, Laura Hawk, in the airport. She was also studying abroad, but she was with a different program in Ireland.

From left to right: Faviola Seiler, Laura Hawk, Myself

                  After saying goodbye to our friend, we went to our hostel. For the next couple of hours, we decided to get some rest because we did not get enough sleep in the airport. The afternoon came around we thought we deserved some time at the beach. We packed up our towels and swim suits and headed out. Once we got to the beach, we quickly discovered we wouldn’t need the towels we brought. The water was so cold. I could barely stand in the shallow water on the shore for more than a couple of minutes. We still made the best out of it by collecting sea shells and getting some much needed sun.

Me on the beach in Barcelona

                  The next day we got up to switch hostels because we couldn’t book either one for our entire stay. It was pretty nice this way though. We were close to the beach our first day, and we would be more in town for the rest of our stay. After we checked into our second hostel, we decided to head for the gothic quarter. It is an older part of town that was built in the gothic period. However, we learned that it was remodeled to look even more gothic pretty recently to attract more tourists. While in the gothic quarter, we stopped by the Barcelona Cathedral and a museum of the famous architect Antoni Gaudi. We spent the rest of our time looking for food and souvenirs. That night, we went out on a pub crawl, and we met a couple guys from Mexico. We then took a midnight stroll along the beach to get back to our hostel.

Barcelona Cathedral

                  On Tuesday, we got up early and went to the famous Park Guell. This is a park that was designed by Antoni Gaudi as a sort of beautiful high class neighborhood. Sadly, only one of the sixty plots were ever sold due to the fact that the area was so far from the city of Barcelona. However, they still built the rest of the entrances and service areas. This is why it is such a tourist attraction now. It is a beautiful park with a lot of Gaudi’s designs, but it is public because only a couple people live here today. Here are a few photos:

                 We spent the rest of the day on an adventure. You see, I found out that Barcelona had a certain restaurant that I had not eaten from in many weeks. Taco Bell. We searched all across town for this restaurant. My maps app only showed one of the three locations and the location it showed was actually a couple blocks off of it’s target. We were not deterred. We found our wonderful Taco Bell in a nearby shopping mall. It was arguably the best food I had in Spain. And to top off this wonderful meal, they served beer. It was not the best beer, but it was beer.

TACO BELL WITH BEER!

This adventure ended up costing us the rest of our afternoon, but we didn’t have anything else planned for the evening. We spent the rest of the night at the beach just sitting in the sand watching planes come in to the airport one after the other.

                  Wednesday rolled around and it was our last day in Barcelona. We got up early to get tickets to go into Sagrada Familia. It’s a good thing we got up when we did because the earliest ticket we could buy was for 5:00 pm. We spent the day wandering around to see the rest of the sights and we also took a free walking tour around some of the older places in Barcelona including where they have all of their protests today. We even stumbled across one. After some more site-seeing, we went back to Sagrada Familia. This is a church that was designed by Gaudi and began construction in 1915. It is supposed to be finished in 2026. We were lucky enough to get inside and see how beautiful it is. I have already made a promise to go back when it is finished.

Inside Sagrada Familia. This is to show Gaudi's use of natural lighting to make a room colorful

                  After Sagrada familia, we hopped on an overnight bus and went to Madrid. We arrived in Madrid at about 6:30 in the morning. After we got there we decided to hit the ground running. We were only going to be in Madrid for a day so we had to make the most of it. We stopped at all of the major sites. First we walked by Plaza de Cibeles which was under construction and could not be viewed at the time. We then went to the Crystal Palace which is a glass and metal structure built in Buen Retiro Park. After this we walked to Puerta Del Sol and Plaza Mayor. These are both famous squares that are in the heart of Madrid. A quick walk again and we were at the Royal Palace of Madrid. This palace was originally a fortress but was expanded over the centuries and became the capital of the Spanish Empire. We then went to the Temple of Debod which is an Egyptian temple that was dismantled and rebuilt in Spain.

The Crystal Palace 

Royal Palace of Madrid

                  After all of this site-seeing we finally visited our reason for going to Madrid. The museum of the Americas. While I was having a lot of fun before, this was where Faviola really wanted to go while we were in Spain. This museum talked a lot about the Spanish discovery of the Americas and talked about the history and culture that was across the Atlantic as well. This was Fav’s favorite place to visit and we actually ended up getting kicked out because they were closing, and she was taking so long. After the museum we went to the place I wanted to visit. Las Ventas in Plaza de Toros. This is a famous bullfighting ring that was built because Madrid needed a bigger one. While it is still used for bullfights today, the building is also used for other events such as concerts and even tennis matches. Sadly, we arrived to Las Ventas too late and could not get in. We were still able to walk around it and see all of the statues dedicated to bullfighters.

Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas

                  The next morning, we headed to Paris. We landed in an airport just outside of Paris and didn’t get into the city until one or two in the afternoon. We checked into our hostel and went straight to the Louvre. The largest art museum in the world, and it was free for us as students. We walked as fast as we could to see the famous Mona Lisa painting. It was much smaller than I thought it would be. It was also surrounded by many other paintings that I thought were much more beautiful. But what do I know. Anyway, we then spent the rest of our time walking around admiring the other beautiful pieces of art the museum had to offer.

The famous Mona Lisa

Faviola and I standing in the pyramid outside of the Louvre

We then spent the rest of our night walking to the Eiffel tower. It was dark now so the tower was lit up in a way that made it glow. Faviola and I shared a romantic meal just a couple blocks away from the tower. We then decided to call it a night.

French dinner with french fries and french wine

The next morning, we got up and enjoyed a French breakfast at a café. After learning that it would take a whole day to see the Palace of Versailles, we decided to make the most of our time and visit the rest of Paris instead. We ventured over to the Statue of Liberty. Many bad jokes about being in New York later, we walked around and did some souvenir shopping. After this we made our way to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart which looks over the city of Paris. We then walked by the famous cabaret Moulin Rouge. After this, we did a little more shopping before it started to get dark. That night we enjoyed a romantic picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower. We had some wine and sandwiches while the Eiffel Tower was lit up. The tower would then sparkle every hour which was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. We finished our picnic and went back to our hostel for the night.

Statue of Liberty in Paris 

 Moulin Rouge Cabaret

 Basilica of the Sacred Heart

The Eiffel Tower Sparkling

The next morning, we woke up in a bit of a frenzy. We discovered that we forgot to book our flight home. Sadly, the cheapest flight we could get would cut our day shorter than we had planned. We hurried over to Notre-Dame Cathedral and made our way inside. It was a massive cathedral in beautiful gothic style. After this we had to hurry to the airport so we wouldn’t miss our flight. While I had wanted to visit the famous catacombs of Paris, I was content with the idea that I would just have to come back to this beautiful city.

Sunday night, April 22^nd, Faviola and I landed back in Prague and then hopped on a train back to Olomouc. Spring Break was a great trip for my girlfriend and I. While we didn’t get the chance to see everything we wanted, we still enjoyed the heck out of these beautiful cities. Besides, I have so many reasons to come back to Europe now. I can’t wait for my next adventure. Na Shledanou!

Field Trip #3 Krakow, Poland

                  Dobry Den! This week, my blog will be about our class field trip to Krakow, Poland.

                  On Saturday, May 5, 2018, our class hopped on a bus to go to Poland. Our first stop was the Wieliczka Salt Mines. The mines are located just a little bit outside of Krakow. The mines opened and began working in the 13^th century. Today, the salt mines are a national historic monument, and they are visited by more than one million people every year. The salt mines has also been visited by quite a few celebrities throughout its history. Some of the most notable visitors have been Nicolaus Copernicus, the famous astronomer, and also Pope Saint John Paul II. The salt mines reach a depth of more than 300 meters, however we only got as deep as about 130 meters. Some of the most beautiful sights in these mines, in my opinion, were the chapels, especially the chapel of St. Kinga, and the underground lakes.

                  After we got our fill of salt, we left the mines to go into the town of Krakow. After we got into town we had the day to ourselves. We all split up to find something to eat. After lunch a small group of us wandered around the old Jewish Quarter for a while and then a lot of us spent the rest of the night socializing and having a couple drinks at a nearby beer garden. After the beer garden I went back to the hostel to get some rest for the next day.

                  My Sunday started with going to mass in the beautiful Basilica of St. Mary. After this our group got together and started walking to the famous Schindler Factory. The factory is famous because when Poland was occupied by the Nazis, Oskar Schindler had Jews working in his factory making pots and pans. Originally he used the factory to get rich by having cheap labor leading to large profits. After seeing how the Jews were treated by the Nazis in the nearby ghetto, he used it as a place where Jews could work and not be harmed. He then dedicated all of his efforts to trying to save as many Jews as he could. Oskar Schindler was even jailed a couple of times for black market deals he had carried out to improve conditions for his workers. In the end he saved 1,200 Jews from being killed in Nazi concentration or death camps. This factory has since turned into a World War II museum and now has exhibits about Nazi occupied Poland as well as an exhibit about Schindler and the Jews he saved.

Photo of Oskar Schindler in the Schindler Factory

                  This tour took up our entire morning so we were free to spend the rest of the day how we wanted. Quite a few of us walked over to the Wawel Castle which surrounds the Krakow Cathedral. This Cathedral used to be where Karol Wajtyla was auxiliary bishop before he later became Pope John Paul II. After this quick adventure, I spent the rest of my day souvenir shopping and then later I got something to eat with a small group of people. While we sat to eat we started talking to these two students studying in Germany. One was from Vancouver, Canada, and the other was from Kansas. It was nice to talk to a Midwesterner after so long. After a long conversation with these two, we went back to the hostel early because we had to get up really early the next day for something that was not going to be easy.

                  The next day we got on a bus at six in the morning. The bus was taking us to tour the deadliest concentration and death camp of the Nazis. Auschwitz. We were going to what is now the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Walking up to Auschwitz I to start the tour felt unreal. It was a sunny day and our bus parked in a regular parking lot with a shop and a café. We then got in line and it just didn’t seem like a concentration camp. It just wasn’t as heavy as I had expected. We then walked to the front gates, and that was when I realized it was real. We walked up and there was a gate which above read “Arbeit macht frei”("Work brings freedom"). This is when our group stopped talking and not another word was spoken by anyone but our tour guide until we were out of the camp. While we were there we toured the museum exhibitions which were held in the old prisoner barracks. We also walked through the infamous block 11 which was used for the torture of prisoners. Inside is a memorial dedicated to St. Maximilian Kolbe in his death cell. Right after that, we walked outside and took a moment of silence next to the death wall which was used for execution by firing squad. After this, we walked through the first gas chamber of the camp. This was also next to the first crematorium which once held three furnaces and a chimney stack. Today, there are two furnaces and the chimney stack which were made from original pieces.

Gate to Auschwitz I

                  We then hopped back on the bus to head over to Birkenau which was just a quick drive away. Here we entered the death camp next to where the trains used to bring cattle cars full of Jews, Roma people, and other prisoners into the camp. We walked next the unloading ramp where families were separated by those physically capable for work and those headed to the gas chambers. This was the spot where millions of people saw their families for the last time and that is something that really struck me the most. After this, we walked to where the gas chambers and crematoriums 2 and 3 used to be. They were destroyed by Nazis at the end of the war in an attempt to cover up what was going on at the camp. Today stands a memorial with plaques for every language. Each one read “For ever let this be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe.” After the memorial we walked to the barracks where the children stayed. We knew it was for children because there were paintings of children playing on the walls. After this we left the camp.

Gate to Birkenau

                  It is hard to put into words the emotions that are felt while touring such places like Schindler’s factory or Auschwitz-Birkenau. It’s not sadness but it’s not anger. It is very hard for me to describe how I felt personally. The most important thing that I took away from this was a quote from Primo Levi. “It happened, it can happen again…it can happen anywhere.”

                  After we left the camp we came back to Olomouc and things went back to the way they were. Krakow and the rest of Poland was a very eye opening and unforgettable experience that I am grateful for. I only have a few more weeks left in Europe and I plan to keep making the most of it. Na Shledanou!