London

Arrival in London was something of a treat, no, I'm kidding. The customs man for Non EU members must have been new.









I was the 6th person in line and it took an hour to get through customs and by the end of that wait, the line was up the stairs and around the corner! When I finally got through, the belt for the baggage from Paris was already finished and I couldn't find my bag, so I had to report lost luggage and they had to contact Paris. "Hopefully we'll get it to you before you leave London." What?! Anyway, as I was about to finally get out of the airport after 3 hours time passed, they found my bag; one of the baggage patrol workers had moved it and not put it in the Paris flight section with left luggage. What a relief! It was okay because the weather was stunning and surprisingly strange for London at this time, sunny!

The street to my hostel was lined with beautiful white, pillared buildings for blocks with intermingled benched parks. After I settled in and found out what "the next lot" meant (meaning next group of stairs) to find my way to my room, I headed out to the Chelsea and South Kensington areas. With the sun hanging just above the tree tops being glorified in a beautifully painted, fire sky, I couldn't have been any happier: sun, warmth, birds singing, ENGLISH! Gosh I love that language :). The Chelsea District is a ritzy one and I window-shopped and park-hopped. The city is wonderfully sprinkled with parks everywhere, much like having a Starbucks on every corner. Later, after I figured out that my inch of walking on the map was more like 500 miles, I took the metro back to the hostel, exhausted.


Saturday I walked along the Thames River (Below Right & the London Eye, Largest Ferris Wheel in the World; West. Bridge) taking in the numerous bridges hung like Christmas lights across the water. Splendid colors and weather mixed together to make this a lovely day also. I enjoyed the Victoria gardens, Westminster Abbey (Above Left), Westminster Bridge, the Parliament Building (Below Left), Big Ben (Below Right), Hyde Park, and the horse stables with the guards on horses preparing for the changing of the guard.

Their costumes of long, red robes, a golden hat with a long spire coming out of the top of it and long hair-like material pouring out of the top (maybe meant to mimic the horse they rode), and the chin strap that didn't make it to the chin, but rather came across the mouth almost like a horse bit, were quite intriguing. Hmmm…. (And that was one LONG sentence!)




I wandered around Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus checking out markets and then I made my way through a riot in front of the National Gallery (Right). I enjoyed The National Gallery with its Italian, French, and Dutch artists. I love Caravaggio and they had lots of his work. Well of course I again tried not to take the $10 per ticket metro, but I was rather knackered (English term for exhausted) at the end of this day too. London is very, very spread out!


I visited the Portobello Road Market (Left) and South Kensington where I met my cousin, Rowan, and my Uncle Hank and his wife, Lee, on Sunday. We had traditional English pub fare and a great time. We had a great lunch, shared stories, laughs, and adventures. After lunch, my Uncle and Lee were getting ready to finish their trip, "Around the World in 13 Days" because their flights and destinations took them around the globe!



Monday I woke up and ran even with the rain, but it was a sweet breath of freshness and toured Hyde Park and the Kensington Palace, as well as St. James Park and the Buckingham Palace. I went to the Millennium Bridge (Left), London Bridge, and Tower Bridge too, after my run (Right).









I took some great shots of the Tower Bridge and hope to do a photo series of "Bridges from Around the World."










I visited Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and I must say it looks nothing like my Globe Theatre replica in my London Dickens’s Christmas Village of ceramic houses, but nonetheless, it's the real one and was a treat (Left)! The Tower of London, sailboat harbors, and many markets were had as well.





The next morning I got up and ready early to meet my friend, Elizabeth (who I went to the University of Denver with) at the train station. However, my ½ inch walk to the very close Waterloo Train Station, which I planned on being 20-30 minutes and arriving earlier than she would from her flight from LA turned into one HOUR! Yikes! Needless to say, I was late and for your first time in Europe without anyone to meet you (ME!) can be a bit unsettling. Sweat pouring off of me and a great workout, Liz was still there waiting, thank goodness! Bye bye London...

Warsaw

Krakow to Warsaw. We found ourselves surrounded in a snow haven as our train jerked along its icy tracks; rolling fields of whiteness glistening in the sun and the warmth that the wintry season brings was welcome. Amongst the beauty, nevertheless, the freezing sensation in our toes continued in Warsaw. But good news, I didn't lose any toes. They were saved by dodging in and out of cafés every 20-30 minutes. Lots o' cocoa!
Upon arrival, I immediately fell in love with Warsaw. It sent me straight back to Seattle with its skyscrapers. The modernity and oldness combined made Warsaw a very unique retreat. And by 'old' I mean the reconstructed oldness of Warsaw after 1945 'old'. 85% of Warsaw was destroyed during WWII. The Old Town center (Right) was completely rebuilt to exactness, and is now a Unesco World Heritage Site.
The Marie Curie Museum was small, but impressive; what an amazing woman. Thank goodness I had Brains accompanying me to explain all of the chemical and physics jargon!
Amazing architecture of the Political buildings, University, and places of worship lined the Royal Way Street on our way to the Old Town. The Old Town is dominated by the Royal Palace that dates back to the 13th Century. While wandering we had no idea that leaving the walls of the Old Town would land Laurent in the arms of a very drunk, out of work actor posing with helpless men with their head's placed on a stump and his accomplices axing off their heads (Right). Unable to free Laurent from this money trap, I finally gave in very angrily and took his picture. But, at least I was quick enough to tell them that we only had Czech Crowns with us and apparently that was fine; good to get rid of the coins anyway!
The way we usually chose where we were going to eat was by how frozen we were. This time we chose an amazing cozy little restaurant. Yes, Le Petit Trianon was not kidding when it said 'petit.' I was shocked when we walked into this French restaurant with the 4 tables; I looked around to see if we had walked into the wrong place. However, our dinner turned into more of an evening of laughter, good company, and a wonderful Host/Bartender/Waiter/Cook help that lasted 4.5 hours! We surely enjoyed our dinner with the cutest older man waiting on us very slowly in his tuxedo. This dinner hit the spot and warmed the freezing sensation we had been feeling, well, of course until we had to walk back to our lodging at midnight. Brrrr…
The Pawiak (w=v) Prison Museum was quite an emotional stir about all the people persecuted during WWII by the Nazis (Right). This museum was the former Gestapo prison during the Nazi occupation. Many prisoners' personal items, poems, news briefings, and rooms were displayed. This took me back to my feelings when I was in Dachau Concentration Camp summer of 2004.
We found ourselves a wonderful chocolate café, E. Wedel (http://www.wedel.pl/), with the best drinking chocolate I've tasted in a while, (well, of course, Starbuck's drinking chocolate, Chantico, is pretty good too and it actually originated from E. Wedel!) which followed us to our final destination, the New Year's Eve Gala and Ball at Downtown Restaurant.









All dressed up, sparkly, and ready to ring in the New Year, we headed to our NYE Party. At the entrance to the restaurant an elaborate dessert table with an ice sculpture of 2006 and a E. Wedel chocolate fountain atop it greeted us and I knew we were in the right place (Right). A chocolate fountain? Just for me?! An all-you-can-drink selection of wonderful spirits and an all-you-can-eat fancy buffet catered to us for the evening until 2am. It was quite a gourmet smorgasbord.




We were also swooned to the music of a Warsaw band playing old, favorite Jazz classics for the evening and dancing enjoying ourselves.











"Happy New Year!"



We left feeling content with the party, music, fireworks, and the New Year. What a delightful treat to have seen winter at its finest in the East.

Krakow

Glad to be recovered and able to walk, Krakow offered a beautiful escape from the nightmare of the day before. Blanketed in snow (okay, slush, snow, and ice), we truly enjoyed the beauty of the old city that dates back to the 7th Century (Above Left, church). Wawel (pron. Vavel; Tower Right) Hill and Castle were magnificent covered in a blanket of snow (and sledders were enjoying this too!).







I managed (as usual) to find one of the most expensive restaurants in town for dinner (by accident on both of our parts due to not speaking Polish, eh voilà!), but nonetheless, we saw the largest medieval town square in Europe, Rynek Glowny and that was a treat.










We saw beautiful churches and cathedrals (Below right & left) and walked in the beautiful park (Right) that surrounds the entire town center on our way to the Jewish quarter, Kazimierz.





















Although not as impressive as Prague's Jewish quarter, it was still a nice tour, even if our toes were frozen. Your first warning that your toes are going into frostbite mode is when they stick together. Yes, when you can no longer feel your toes, they're frozen, but when your toes are no longer toes, but a mere webbed blob, you know that this is Stage 1 of frostbite.







The Opera House







Now! Off to Warsaw...

Hello toilet. Oh hello, Brno...

...sorry, didn't see you there, Brno.

What we were told about Brno is that it is famous for giving you the real Czech feel away from the tourists, famous for its Moravian wine, and of course the Motorcycle Grand Prix. However, my slated wine tour never happened.

All I have to say about Brno is that I really enjoyed spending 24 hours on the bathroom floor dying while I got rid of my poisoned food from our dinner. Needless to say, I didn't really see much of Brno except for those few bathroom free hours before finding one of the only restaurants open in town on the 26th. Hmmm…makes you wonder, doesn't it? Brno was very quiet, yet nice, and yep, I did my touring through Laurent's camera. However, thanks to this wonderful man, I survived this terrible suffering and I felt like a million dollars the next 24 hours, well, maybe half a million dollars.

Off to Krakow and better days...

And you thought I forgot!

about finishing my Eastern Europe excursion. No, I've just been incredibly busy with all sorts of traveling and planning my next trip, you know, the tough life, that I haven't had too much time. But, no worries, I'm back until, well, one weeks time until I'm off to England!

Much,
Jen

"This Little Mother Has Claws"

Yes, yes, she definitely lived up to her standards, and much more: magical, mystical, a musical fantasy, the City of a Thousand Spires, the home for the some of the finest beers (Pilsner), and famous for Kafka’s krazy stories. Ahhhh…Prague, Praha. And yes, as Kafka wrote, "this little mother has claws." Gentle claws that want to keep you in Prague for longer than intended.







Horse street only! Wow!

When we arrived, and after we realized that we weren't where we thought we were on the map, and got off of a major highway, we found ourselves entranced by Prague's beauty. And of course by night, Prague was spectacular.

We met my friend Emily and her boyfriend, Dani, at a pub and discussed what they had seen since they had been there a few days before us. Of course, they had too many good things to tell us. After that we all decided that we wanted to go to a classical concert to profit from this place that creates famous musicians.

While enjoying the amazing colors and design of the Smetana Hall (named after the composer; Left) inside The Municipal House (Right), we were also surrounded by the astounding sounds of the Czech Collegium (Famous Czech Symphony Orchestra) and two guests, trumpeter and soprano playing a collection of world and Czech music in a Christmas Concert. The ensemble did a wonderful job of playing Bach, Dvořák (famous Czech), Smetana, Mozart, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and Gounod. To say the least, we left feeling very lucky to have heard this concert.

Merry Christmas Eve, ding* ding* ding* Up Up Up! Running 8 miles at 6:30am. Yes, I'm cRaZY, still! But, that was a great way to discover the city without the crowds, see almost all of the bridges (if not cross them), and run to the end of town with the

question of where to now? After our wonderful last morning run on the trip (bad kids, 1 week without running!) we found ourselves

engrossed by the stunning and impressive Old Town Square (Left & Right) overwhelmed with people,

laughter, the Christmas market, horse carriages and the over-towering Gothic steeples of Tyn Church (1365; Below: Left, Center, Right) resembling a castle atop a cathedral, wow! It was beautiful by night, by day, dawn, mid-day.

In the square was also saw the remarkable astronomical clock (1410, Center, Right) with apostles and a

skeleton that rings the bell on the hour. And of course I enjoyed myself with a fine Czech warm honey wine that went straight to my head, but at least I was a warm and funny honey!

For our Christmas Eve dinner we enjoyed one of the best restaurants in town (with equally quality service) sitting on the edge of the river with views of Charles Bridge (Below Right) and the Old Town.

Christmas Day was a nice, relaxing day where we toured some more and visited the famous Prague castle (Below Left) that could pass as a small city with the Cathedral towering over the city (Below Left & Front View Below). Best thing was that it was free that day! I think I've seen my favorite church in Europe: St. Nicholas Church (Below); an amazing baroque structure with light pink and green marble sculptures, awnings, façades, and the like.

We were blown away by its beauty.

St. Nicholas Church

As we profited from that and more of our favorite Old Town Square, we bought some wine and desserts and headed to the apartment Emily and Dani rented for their week. What great company and a way to spend the day with a great meal that they cooked. We went to a nice bar after and enjoyed our evening chatting and laughing amongst ourselves for a holiday well spent.

Before leaving for glorious Brno (in Czech), we visited the beautiful Jewish Quarter with a handful of incredible synagogues. The Old Jewish Cemetery, which is very old dating back to its first gravestone in 1439, has 12,000 graves (Left). But what is so unsettling fascinating is that it stopped being used in 1787 because it became so overcrowded that burials had to be done one on top of the other, 12 layers deep! Prague also houses the oldest still functioning synagogue in Europe that was built in 1270 (Right)!

And to the right, the Spanish Synagogue.

We sadly left our favorite city, but were still excited for the cities that lay before us. Well, except Brno…