Bohemian Rhapsody

When I walked into the Old Town Square in Prague, I felt like I was walking into a fairytale: cobbled streets, horse-drawn carriages, looming castles, and decorative clock towers.

Parallel to the Old Town Square, in Wenceslaus Square, is a whole other, highly developed world, filled with casinos, cabarets, clothing shops, McDonald’s and Starbucks (this last item I was pretty pleased to see, I must admit). I was surprised how highly commercial most of Prague is—there’s even a TGI Fridays and a Hard Rock Café. But underneath it all is still the cobbled streets and old beautiful architecture. It’s an interesting mix of old and new, communist and capitalist, fairytale and real world.

But back to the fairytale: The largest castle in the world sits atop a hill just across the river. It’s a bit of a climb to the top, but the view is breathtaking. I could have happily stood there staring for the whole day.

I also loved Lennon Wall (John Lennon, that is). It’s an ever-changing wall covered in graffiti with Lennon-esque ideas of peace and love that has been around since the 1980s when Prague was still under communist rule. It’s bright and colorful with a sense of community. Anyone can write on the wall—so I did.

Another pleasing discovery was Bohemian Bagel, which as the name suggests, meant that I could satisfy my bagel and lox cravings for at least a little while. Other than that there wasn’t any Czech food that I thought was particularly remarkable. I did eat a lot of goulash, which I enjoyed, and I tried bread dumplings (sadly not the dumplings I was hoping for).

One euro equals 25 Czech crowns, so I felt like I was dealing with Monopoly money—probably not the best way to think about money when traveling. The first day I took out 2000 crowns from the ATM. It would definitely be a lot easier to become a millionaire in Prague.

We spent three full days in Prague. When we were back in Chalon planning our vacation, we originally wanted to go to Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. But then it got cold. Like really cold. Like the coldest it’s been in Europe for years. People died from the cold. As we were trying to plan our trip in the freezing temperatures, one thought formed in our minds: we must find warmth. And where is it warm? Italy, of course. So after Prague we headed to Bella Italia!

...post soon to follow…  

Sunsets Over Chalon

I’ve become somewhat obsessed with taking pictures of the sunsets from my balcony. I can’t capture just how beautiful they are, but here are some of my favorite attempts. 

How To Confuse French Children

1. Start counting with your pointer finger rather than your thumb—they’ll think you’re shushing them.

2. Write in print rather than cursive—they’ll have no idea how to tell “r” and "n" apart.

3. Say “so” or “then” before starting a new phrase—they will think that “so” is part of the whole phrase.

Me (holding up a flashcard): Hands

French children: Les mains

Me: In English!

French children: In English!

If you ever come across a French child who thinks that the English word for “hands” is “inenglish,” you will know that I was her teacher. 

La famille en France

I flew from Denmark to Paris where I met…my mom and brother! I get my squealing tendencies from my mother, so needless to say it was a rather noisy reunion. They were both somewhat jet lagged, but chipper, and we made our way to our first destination: Dijon. Dijon’s only about 40 minutes from me, and we had to go through there to get to Chalon. So we figured we’d stop off for a night and wander around. Though it was about 30 percent wandering and 70 percent sleeping (again, jet lag). We had planned it this way though because Dijon and Chalon (our next stop) are not very big nor have any must-sees.

The next day I got to show them Chalon, which was really fun. They got to see my apartment and experience the many miles I walk each day in order to get around town.

Next stop: Lyon, which is only an hour from Chalon. I hadn’t really explored Lyon so I was excited to get the chance. We saw the ancient roman theaters (which may have been my favorite thing), the Musée des Beaux Arts, and we ate at some Buchons, which have traditional Lyonnais food.

After this, we headed back up to Paris to spend the remainder of their trip. We also met up with my Dad, who had to come a couple days late because of work. We were staying in the Marais, which is one of my favorite places in Paris…and there are Jews there! Several of my teachers informed me that there are no Jews in Chalon (which I’m pretty sure can’t be right). But leading up to Christmas I was often met with surprise when I tried to explain to people that I celebrated Hanukkah and not Christmas. I certainly didn’t see any signs of Hanukkah preparation around  (not that there is much Hanukkah preparation). So it was weird to be in a place where there were menorahs in the windows, bakeries with “kosher” signs on them, and men walking around with yarmulkes.

Our first afternoon we even went to a deli, where I got a hot pastrami sandwich! And we found latkes, though they didn’t compare to my Dad’s. You may be starting to notice a certain food related pattern. French food is amazing. Obviously. But there are just certain things you can’t find in small town France. So I had to take advantage of being in Paris.

Like, Chinese food for Jewish Christmas. Though this was only somewhat satisfying—I think I may have to give up on my great dumpling search. French Chinese restaurants just don’t compare to American Chinese restaurants…or perhaps Chinese Chinese restaurants, though I really wouldn’t know…

Surprisingly, we were able to find some great French restaurants. One of my favorites was owned by three men (we think they were brothers) who were the most stereotypical French looking people I had ever seen—complete with mustaches.

We hit up all the typical sights: Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Champs-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, L’Opera, Sacré Coeur, Notre Dame, Musée de l’Orangerie, Musée d’Orsay, Centre George Pompidou.  We also spent a day in Rouen, which is very pretty, and the town where Joan of Arc was burned.

It was interesting to see the things that were once different and surprising to me (and are now normal) be different and surprising in the eyes of my family.  For example: having to stamp your ticket before going on a train; not receiving any cream with your coffee unless you ask; specifically saying “bonjour” and “au revoir” to any shopkeepers; dogs and cats being allowed in shops and restaurants.

It was a busy 10 days and hard to say goodbye, but I was very glad to have a French adventure avec ma famille.

Hannah, Princess of Denmark

Denmark has bagels. And lox. If it wasn’t so cold there I may never have left. It had been a long, dark 3 months sans bagels, but upon seeing the “bagel man” shop near our hostel my world was set right again.

I started off my winter vacation in Copenhagen with Lauren and Alicen (2 other assistants). We were only in Copenhagen for a day because we were staying with one of Lauren’s friends in Aarhus (also in Denmark, but further north).

The Danes speak English really well. This was good news for me, because I had attempted to learn some Danish before I left and I’m pretty sure they’re just making it up as they go along. Sometimes I forgot that I wasn’t in an Anglophone country, because it seemed like everyone could speak English fluently.

Lauren’s friend was so sweet and welcoming. She cooked traditional Danish food for us and introduced us to her friends. The question we kept getting asked was “why are you here?” They just couldn’t understand why Americans would want to come to Denmark. We had to keep reassuring people that we thought Denmark was really cool and interesting—plus it is Hamlet’s country after all. . . .And I may have done some soliloquizing while walking along the streets of Denmark.