BULL FIGHT!!

Hey all! I know I just blogged Sunday, but these past couple days have been quite busy, and I'd love to share them with you! This is our last full week of classes. I have one more class tomorrow then we're off to London and Dublin for another week long break! After that, we have have exams and Alaina comes! It's going by so quick!

Before I go to the bull fight, I wanna share pictures from Monday night. It was our friend's Attie's 21st birthday. Her parents were coming on Tuesday so we didn't do anything crazy. We went to the international beer house which was my first time visiting. It was so cool. They literally had beer from every single country and sooo many different kinds of beer. The first time I went up to the bar I asked for like 3 different types of beer and they didn't have any of them. Finally I just pointed to one and said eso! It ended up being a coconut beer. It was so good and tasted like I was on a beach!

Rated R for Gory Murder Scenes
Today my friend Brittany and I went to a bull fight! I'm really tired right now because I've been in el centro since 11am and got home at 930pm from the bull fight. However, I know that if I don't do it before I leave for my trip, I won't write with the same fever as I will write now. Today was a perfect gorgeous day for a bull fight and I have some great pictures!

I never knew exactly how a bull fight worked or that there was actually an order to the bull fight.  I'll give you the inside scoop. So there are 6 bulls and 6 matadores (killers in spanish). One bull comes out at a time. The first bull comes out with something already stabbed in its back. The 6 matadores tempt it with their bright pink capes  for a little bit and try to wear the bull out. Then, 2 blindfolded horses, with lots of padding are ridden out and the guy on top baits the bull to charge at the horse. When the bull charges, the horse rider stabs the bull with a spear! (I couldn't believe how calm the horses remained, even though the bull was ramming itself into the horse multiple times). The bull must be stabbed twice by the man on the horse until the next stage begins. Now, it is 3 of the matadores jobs to stab the bull with these mini spears they have. Once the bull is stabbed around 6 times, it is finally time to kill it. This is when one of the six matadores comes out with a red cape instead of bright pink. Beneath the cape is a long silver sharp sword, which he will use to kill the bull right behind the next. Hopefully these videos and pictures will help you understand. :)

Me in the arena!

The opening ceremony. The only reason I'm showing you this picture if for the horses on the left. This is what they wear as protection from the sharp bull horns that ram into them. I still don't know how they just stand there and take the beating?

The 6 matadores

A matador with a red cape. You can also see the spears that are sticking out of his back.

Dead bull :( 

3 horses came out and dragged it underneath the arena.

I know what you all are thinking. How can Lauren actually be excited about them killing helpless bulls? Ok, let's get this straight. In the beginning I was SOO nervous to go. I am an animal lover, trust. During the first bull fight, I was squeezing Brittany's arm so tight and had my other hand over my face to be prepared to cover it as soon as it looked like they were going to stab the bull. I still was never able to see them kill the bull. In the last video that I posted, you can see my camera freak out towards the end because I thought I was going to see him kill the bull because I would never watch that for fun.  Sometimes it was really gory and I couldn't even watch after they stabbed the bull to kill it because blood would be coming out of its mouth, which was really sad. However, however, I am really really glad that I went. When most people think of Spain, this is what they think of. It was everything your mind plays it up to be when you think about Spain, and Sevilla in particular. From the dazzling outfits of the matadors to the "Ole's!" in being shouted throughout the stadium, I was definitely able to experience a part of Spanish tradition today and am so so very happy I did. It is not something I would love to do everyday (bull fighting season starts Easter and happens everyday until the end of Feria and then like once a week until September), but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, especially when I kept reminding myself that for Spain, this is a form of "art" and is not considered animal cruelty. To the Spaniards, they raise the bulls just like farmers raise pigs, to kill them then eat them. Although I disagree with how they torture them before they kill them then eat them, I still understand why for Spaniards, it's not a horrible thing.
For those of you with a strong stomach and who would love to experience a Spanish tradition then I would
highly recommend it!

Ok, now you may rest your tired reading eyes for a week until I get back from my trip and will have lots of more posts! Get excited!

Hasta Luego,

Lauren

Semana Santa Part 3: Semana Santa!

Happy Easter everyone! It's about 4pm on Easter Sunday and I'm just chilling in my room after lunch, waiting for 9pm dinner date with my American "family" in Sevilla. Everyone is feeling a little homesick this weekend. I've hung out with Brittany and Attie every night because we all feel homesick. I think it's the pouring down rain (blah!) and the fact that this is our first Easter ever not being with our families. On the CIEE facebook website people keep saying that its so weird not being with your family at Easter. I agree! Its also weird that they don't celebrate Easter like we do in the U.S. For example, I woke up this morning to a perfectly normal day and no one even mentioned Easter. Finally I asked if it's common to say "feliz pascua" like happy Easter, and they said no! My family then asked me if its important in the U.S. Heck yes it is! It's a time spent with family and friends and that is what I'm missing today: my family and friends. But that's ok, you've got to expect to be a little homesick every once in awhile when you're away from your family for 4 months. Ok onto what Semana Santa is and what we did this weekend!

What is Semana Santa?
Semana Santa, or Holy Week is one of the most (or the most) popular events that takes place in Sevilla every year during the week leading up to Easter. (A lot of the things I'm going to tell you are based on what I've heard from other people, my family, or read about in the news). Many of the churches in Sevilla have brotherhoods, or Hermandads, which are the groups of people that partake in Semana Santa. The Hermandads carry giant wooden floats of the Virgin Mary (most popular float) and Jesus throughout the city. Some processions (or pasos) take up to 13 hours. Usually the Hermandads are barefoot for the entire 13 hours. They consider this their act of penance.

It's kind of ironic how big Semana Santa is in Sevilla. After talking to my host family, they mentioned that while there are a lot of churches in Sevilla, there aren't as many parishioners and Catholics as a lot of people believe. They think that we're more religious in the United States than here. So if this is true, I think it's kind of funny that Semana Santa is so big and that the Hermandads use it as an act of penance...maybe for all the times they didn't go to church this past year?

Raining on my Parade
Attie, Brittany and I were really excited about Semana Santa. We made sure we arrived back in Sevilla by 1am on Thursday morning just because we wanted to see the most important paso, Madruga, which lasts all night. Well, unfortunately, it was pouring down rain and they cancelled the Madruga procession for the first time since 1847!
Friday everything was cancelled too. It even hailed here! Its so weird that its always gorgeous in Sevilla with great weather, but then the one time it calls for good weather it doesn't stop raining. Well after sitting in our rooms all day, Brittany and I were a bit gloomy, so I went over to her apartment (her family is gone, usually you never have guests over) and we had a movie night! Saturday was another rainy day and by 6pm we were all going stir crazy. Attie and I decided that no matter what we were going to get out of the house and meet up for tapas.

Here comes the Sun (dodododo)
We actually had really good luck Saturday night because guess what?! It stopped raining by 8pm! We saw a ton of people congregating around the Catedral, and after asking a few people, found out that the procession was going to start in a half hour (it was actually an hour, but that's Spaniards for ya!) Here are some pictures and videos of the procession. Some of the pictures are hard to see but it was hard taking them in such a big crowd!

The Hermandad members. They look like the KKK don't they?! Every Hermandad has a different color, the Hermandad del sol is a hunter green.

Paso de Jesus Cristo.



The band. In some sections there were little kinds probably 5 years old in the band. I think its cool that the Hermandads included people of all ages.



Mary!

Saturday night was just perfect. We were so excited to see a paso because we had thought we were going to be able to see one. After that, Attie and I headed over to the Artesania place where they have food and jewlrey from all over the world (as mentioned in a previous blog) and had some greek and mexican food. When we got there, they had singers and a DJ and everyone was dancing. It was so much fun! We joined in and learned a little dance before getting our food. After dinner we grabbed Rayas Icecream which is like the best icecream in town . I usually just get icecream from a mom and pop store near my house where  they speak to me in English and I to them in Spanish, but this icecream was really good too! The strawberry sorbet tasted like real strawberries!

Well, today is another gorgeous day. I spent most of my morning in the park reading and will be heading to the centro in a couple of hours to grab some dinner with my friends. We bought bull fighting tickets for this coming Wednesday (the first one starts today) so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures there! Happy Easter everyone!

Hasta Luego,

Lauren

Semana Santa Part 2: Berlin!

I've kind of been putting off writing about Berlin. (I know what you're thinking. She's writing it like two days after she got home from the trip, thats not putting it off! However it's raining cats and dogs in Sevilla so I don't have anything else to do except be on my computer). Why have I been putting it off you ask? Because one of the main things we did was go to a concentration camp. WWII and the Holocaust has always interested me and been my favorite subject in history. However, it's always been a detached fondness of the subject. I never really knew (and probably never will know) just how horrific the Holocaust was. Not until I visited the concentration camp did I realize how detached and lightly we touch on the subject at school. Last night while talking to my mom about it, I had to hold back tears about something that has never affected me and happened 50 years before I was even born. The realness and severity of the concentration camp really takes you aback. I'll try my best to go into as much detail about it as possible. That way, I hopefully will not have to talk about the concentration camp again for awhile.

Anyways, onto a brighter note, Berlin was one of the cities I had most been looking forward to and the city definitely didn't let me down. We were only in Berlin for 2 days but I think we did the city justice with the time we had. We stayed in a hostel on the east side of Germany, which was the communist side just 20 years ago and is now the new hip side buzzing with vitality and filled with restaurants and shops bursting with life. Our hostel was a far far contrast to the hostel I described that we stayed in in Prague. It is probably only a few years old and is clean, quiet and comfortable. We stayed in a room with the coolest Spanish boys (remember everyone in Spain is on vacation right now) who wouldn't come back in the morning until we were leaving for siteseeing that day (8:30-9am!!!). They were really nice and we talked in a mixture of Spanish. Usually them speaking English and us speaking Spanish. It's too bad they live north, they were pretty cute :)

Hostel Eastener. Nicest one I've been too!

The first word I think when I think of Berlin is liveliness. I loved the city for just this reason alone. After WWII and the division of the city, Berlin had been utterly destroyed. For the reason, it doesn't have the old buildings and skinny cobblestone streets like I had expected, but high tech, modern buildings and big boulevards, just like Chicago or New York. It was so refreshing seeing something "Americanized" let me tell you! (I'm finally on my last month stretch to headed home and I can now say that I'm ready to see my family and America again. I miss my family so much! )

Site Seeing:
Most of the day Monday was spent site seeing and walking around Berlin. Most of the sites from Berlin have to deal with either WWII or the division of east and west Germany, so that is what we focused on. I'll post some pictures with descriptions on everything that we saw!

The Reichstag. Kind of like the White House of Germany. It was located on the west side of Germany during the cold war and is now still in use today for the country.

This is the Brandenburg Gate. It was the division line between west and east along with the Berlin Wall.

 

Only 6 years old, this is the Holocaust Memorial that has more than 2,700  cement rectangular boxes in disorienting shapes, sizes, and positions.

This is the Sony Center located in Potsdamer Platz which was the "neutral zone" or "no mans land" during the division of the city. Just 20 years ago it was a destroyed piece of land filled with barbed wire, dirt and overgrown weeds. Now, only 10 years old it is one of the city's main hubbub areas with great shopping stores and restaurants. 

Attie at the Topography of Terror, which is a museum. Outside is a piece of the original Berlin Wall. The Topography of Terror took you through the years of Hitler and the Holocaust. Once again, it was interesting to me, but nothing moved me like the concentration camp.

These next photos are from the last remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall. People from all over the world come to paint their feelings on it. It's my favorite thing in Berlin for sure.

Espana!

Love the saying.

U.S.A.!

Concentration Camp
The next day on Tuesday, we joined a tour group and traveled 30 minutes outside of Berlin to the community of Oranienburg to visit Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Sachsenhausen was the main concentration camp in Germany. It was the headquarters for all of the concentration camps in Europe and also a very "important" research facility where they tested new murderous drugs on the prisoners and also "perfected" the killing gas that was used throughout all concentration camps.

On our walk from the train station to the camp, we were able to see the city. The city around the camp is deceptively adorable. The streets and houses reminded me of a lot of my hometown Greendale  and were lined with trees and cute houses. Not until we were told that these houses were built by the prisoners did I realize where we were and why there is even a tour to this city.

The tour was really good. Our guide told us a lot of stories from first hand accounts of things that happened in the concentration camp and what life was like every day. I'll go ahead and post some pictures from Sachsenhausen and tell you some facts/stories about the pictures. 

A picture of a man, not a boy, they found in Sachsenhausen after the war

The only 2 barracks left standing today. The others were destroyed after the war. Each barrack would have 400 men sleeping in there at once. 3 men to one bed, stacked 3 high. In the winters, the windows were open. In the summers, the windows were closed.

A track made of rocks and tar. Men had to "wear in" the soldiers boots by running around the track for 12-16 hours straight. If you were assigned this job, you were only expected to live a week because if you stopped, you'd get shot.

The bunk beds. Remember 3 men to each bed.

The toilets. The prisoners were only allowed to use the bathroom twice a day, which was horrible when many were sick with the flu or diarrhea because of the malnutrition they  received for meals. 

A grave site of thousands of prisoners unceremoniously thrown in  to the ditch when there were too many bodies being cremated and the SS guards didn't want the Allie's to see the smoke and locate them. 

This bunker is where they killed the prisoners. The prisoners were told it was a doctors visit. One of the common ways they were killed was by putting them in front of an eye chart to read off letters. Behind the eye chart was a hole where a gun was placed. The guards would then fire and move on to the next one. We also saw the ropes used for hangings and the "showers" that were gas chambers.

Most of this building was destroyed after the war, but these are what remains of the crematory where as soon as the prisoners were murdered they would throw them in there. 

The "hospital" where the sick went. Instead of getting better, the doctors used them as guinea  pigs and tried new drugs on them and would record how long the drug took to kill the patients. 

Ok so that was my detached facts about Sachsenhausen. Now I'll tell you how I feel about it. So where to begin. I'm not really sure! I just can't stop thinking about how the SS guards had absolutely no respect for human life. I guess I never really thought that any human being could be so cruel to another human being and torture them physically and mentally until they just decide to kill them. And it's even worse that it wasn't just like one person. In Sachsenhausen, it was more than 70,000 human beings who died from the cold, heat, starvation, abuse, or in the hands of the Nazis. The saddest part about it is that only 20,000 deaths were recorded, so that means more than 50,000 families will never have closure with knowing how their loved one died or where they are buried. Its just so sad. All of the stories that our guide told us was like listening to a horror movie that I'd never want to watch. I think thats good for now for my feelings on that. I wish I could just transfer my feelings and what I heard and saw onto paper. It'd be so much easier to get across what the camp was like. 

Some Fabulous Food!
The amazing weekend of eating and drinking did not end in Prague. Our first lunch that we had was at a Donor Kebab place right near our hostel. We were starving and saw some guy eating some yummy looking thing filled with all kinds of food. He heard us speaking English and told us to try this place out (he's from Ireland). He also told us donors were started in Berlin by the heavy Turkish population, so its definitely a Berlin cuisine. We ended up going in. I can't even describe to you how good it was and how filling for only 3 euro! Yummmm

You could choose what you wanted on it. I got just about everything. 

After the concentration camp, we were all mentally and physically exhausted (its a 7hour tour!). Attie's friend from Purdue, Evan, is studying abroad in southern Germany and took a train to meet us for the day. He was clutch for us the rest of the day. We went to this gorgeous area and sat and ate different German plates and drank different German beers for around 2 hours (we're finally becoming Spaniards! yayay!) I had two German beers and can't remember what either of them are called because Evan ordered for us. However, I wasn't a fan of the first one, but the 2nd one was a darker beer and I loved it! I didn't think I'd like dark beer, but I really really liked it :). I'll post some pictures of the food we ate. It was soo good!

The 4 of us relaxing and eating some brats after a long day of siteseeing.

Best apple strudel of my LIFE

I wish i remembered what these were called. Seriously best food ever.

Well gang! After a lot of postponing, I have finally finished my Berlin post! For those of you who read my posts I just want to say thanks so much! I know they can be long sometimes but I just always have so many observations and thoughts! One more month and I'll be home! I miss everyone :)

Os quiero,

Lauren

Semana Santa Part 1: Prague?!...Czech!

Hi! I'm actually sitting on a train right now traveling from Prague to Berlin. I figured that I'm going to be posting 3 blogs about 3 big things I'm doing this week, so I might as well start writing. The train is pretty amazing.  It is so quiet and peaceful and definitely the way to travel. You don't have to go through the hassle of security in the airport and have your own little compartment of 6 people the entire way there (just like in HP!). I'm definitely a fan. Next time I travel in Europe, I'm just going to do a Eurorail pass to get me everywhere.

So did you like my title?! I hope so! Unlike Madrid, this one wasn't too hard to think up because all weekend, Brittany, Attie and I have been cheesing it up saying, lets... check it out (you know since Prague is in the "Czech" Republic?!).

We're on a week break for Easter Week, better known here as Semana Santa, or Holy Week, which is HUGE in Sevilla. It's probably what Sevilla is known best for along with Feria, or something along the lines of festival (which we get a week break again in another week!). During Semana Santa, no one has to work for the whole week and no one has school. It's pretty awesome. Anyways, lets czech out all the cool things I did in Prague this past weekend!

Extensive Hours of Traveling?!...Triple Czech!
Unfortunately, as Brittany likes to say, we were "nubes" (newbies) when it came to planning this trip. We planned Prague the 2nd week in Sevilla and had no idea the toll traveling takes on you. We were only interested in the cheapest routes possible, and because of this, most of our flights are out of the bigger, international airport, Madrid, not Sevilla. We take a really cheap bus to get there. The catch however, is that it's a 6 1/2 hour buss ride. So with that said, let me give you a briefing of our schedule for getting to Prague::  We left our houses at 7am with 6 days of clothes stuffed into our Northface backbacks (at the airport they weighed 20lbs!) Then we got on 8am bus to arrive in Madrid by 2:30. Take hour long metro ride to get to airport by 3:30. Fly our of Madrid to Brussels, Belgium from 5-8pm, then fly from 9pm-11pm to get to Prague. Once we got to Prague, we had to take 2 busses and a metro to get to our hostel. Although the traveling was tiring, we got pretty lucky on the place. Somehow, we were considered business class (maybe because we scheduled so early?) and got great meals on both planes. After this week of traveling, I've decided that paying a little extra money to get to the destination quicker and more comfortably is definitely the way to go.

Siteseeing?!...Czech!
Saturday we got up bright and early to hit the town. The weather was perfect too. It was nippy at times, but in the sun it was delightfully crisp and refreshing! It reminded me of a Saturday in the fall: perfect football weather. The main area that has all the main sites is the Old Town which is where we were most of the weekend. Seriously, for all of my talk about Prague, I just want to put exclamation marks!!!!!! It was such a cool city. We got really lucky because Prague celebrates Easter Week as well, which we did not know. In the Old Town was a huge festival with tons of adorable red tents set up decorated with eggs and flowers. I wish I could bring back the delicious smells that came from the tents. They had all kinds of yummy traditional Czech foods and we were able to try a bunch of them. They even had a stage with performers and vending areas that sold handmade crafts. It was just a great, happy atmosphere that really let you experience part of their culture.

Cute handpainted easter eggs!

Me in the midst of the festival with the famous clock tower behind me

For the first time out of the many trips Attie, Brittany and I have done together, we took a free walking tour. Prague doesn't have famous museums or anything of that nature, so we were able to take the 2 1/2 hour tour, see most the sites and learn some really cool things about the history of Prague and the monuments that we wouldn't have known otherwise. I'll post the main sites we saw on our tour and tell you a bit about them!

Called the Powder Tower because thats where they used to keep the gun tower, this is the first site you see before walking into the Old Town.

The famous astronomical clock. Every hour on the hour two little figurines come out of the doors above the clocks and go around while a trumpeter is playing on the top of the tower

The gothic steeples of Tyn Church. They're called the Adam and Eve steeples because the one on the left is skinnier (Eve) than the one on the right (Adam)

The Jewish Cemetary in the Jewish Quarters of Old Town. There are thousands of people buried here and most graves are  10 people deep because the Jews were only given a small piece of land to bury their dead. 

There is no real story to this. The statue is from a book written by an author from Prague. I just like the statue :)

Estates Theater where Mozart first premiered one of his works : Don Giovanni 

For lunch, we headed to Letna Park,  which is on a hill overlooking Prague, and went to a beer garden to get some cheap beer and really good hamburger with sauerkraut. While in Letna Park, I realized that Prague has an excessive amount of roller bladers! I have never seen so many! Afterwards, we trudged up more hills and stairs to get to the Prague Castle Complex which is the biggest castle complex in the world. It was a little confusing because the main castle wasn't big at all. It is the whole area around it with the church and other buildings that make it seem so big. (In fact, the big steeples I had seen from afar weren't the castle it was the church). I was expecting a princess fairytale castle and was a tad let down. Oh well! It was still really neat. We then made our way to the Charles Bridge which is about 750 years old and has 30 statues on it. The bridge was too overwhelming for me though. As my family and especially Alaina might know, I am not a fan of crowds because everyone is always in your way and moving too slow. It just frustrates me. The bridge had all kinds of street performers, caricature painters and venders that it probably took 20 minutes just to get across it. Arg! Although I was frustrated the whole time, it was still cool to see and some of the performers were pretty good.

View on on our way up to Letna Park with Brittany!

The castle complex

The Charles Bridge is the first of 3 bridges you see. (Bridge closest to us)

 Sunday was a really nice relaxing day.Since we had basically seen all the main sites on Saturday, we were able to mosey around the town and explore the different neighborhoods. We went to the "Little" neighborhood, which was across the river, and visited St. Nicholas Church, which quite possibly could be the prettiest church I've seen in Europe (which is saying something, considering every city in Europe has a bajillion churches). After the church, we climbed a hill to see the fake Eiffel Tower and then headed back down to see the Lenin wall which was soo neat!

writing for Purdue and Phi Mu!

After grabbing some delicious lunch at the Easter festival and watching the performers onstage, we hit our only museum we did all week, the Communist Museum. The museum kind of took you through the struggles of everyday communism the the Czech people had to deal with and had different artifacts from that time. They also had videos that you could watch. One was really powerful that showed live footage from the 1990's of peaceful protests to end communism and the police just being so brutal and beating the protesters. It kind of reminded me of a movie clip I've seen from the 1960's in the U.S. with black rights. After finishing our siteseeing, we ate dinner around 9:30 then headed back to begin our early morning train trip to Berlin!

Good Bars, Beer and Food?!...Czech!
Beer: Serioulsy, Prague recieves a 100% A++ in this category! I think the food and beer made Prague what it was. Our only akward bar was Friday night at midnight when we got in from traveling. We didn't realize that our hostel was in a sketchy area since we arrived in the dark, so we decided to go to a bar on the same street as our hostel. We walked by it and it had all types of cool wrting on the sign and we could see a DJ just rocking out. We had heard Prague is famous for their beers, so decided to go in and see what it was all about. Well, we go in there and it was kind of like the movies where everyone turns around and stares at you. We were the only girls and were outnumbered by men and dogs. Yes, dogs. Two dogs sleeping on a couch and one little dog trying to sit on my lap. We got a HUGE mug of one of many Prague specialty beers which was probably like 2 full beers for only 26 czech crown (It was really hard getting used to the money, but 23 crown= 1 euro, so 500 crown = around 20 euro. this made it very hard to gage how much you were spending). Now I'm not usually a fan of beer, butI raelly liked the Czech beer Gambrinis that we had. It didn't have that bitter aftertaste that I usually hate. During the whole weekend I had beer with all of my meals and when I was thirsty. In Prague, beer is cheaper than water (in Europe, they've never heard of free tap water, only expensive water from bottles). I tried Prague's Grambrinis, Hoegarden, which kind of had the color of lemonade but was amazing and Pilsner Urquell which I didn't really like. I also had hot wine from one of the tents at the Easter Festival, which tasted a little like apple cider.

Food: I am going to go out on a limb and say the best food I have eaten in Europe has been in Prague, hands down, fo sho. They just had everything under the sun and even their traditional, non touristy restaraunt had pasta, meat, fish, and other yummy stuff just like American restaraunts. From the red tents, I had amazing potatoes with sauerkraut, cabage and ham and this really good donut thing.

Saturday night for dinner, I ate an ENTIRE pizza by myself! In Sevilla, we usually have microwavable pizza for dinner with tuna on top 2-3 times a week. If we don't have that, we usually have fried croquetas, fried chicken nuggets or hamburgers. Even the pizza joints in Sevilla don't taste like real pizza, that is why I was so excited to see that Prague had so many pizzerias around. We figured we'd have to try one out, so chose a restaraunt with a great view of the astronomical clock and all got our own medium sized pizza. I got one with ham and pineapple and it was almost as good as my ham, pineapple, and BBQ sauce pizza I make at Wiley. It was to die for.

Since the breafast at the hostel was one of toast, which is what we have every morning for breakfast in Sevilla, we went to this Bohemian Bagel Place and I had my first bagel in 4 months. It was the best thing I have had for bfast here yet!

Brittany's boyfriend, Sam studied in Prague last spring so was able to tell us an amazing non touristy restaraunt called Atmosphere. It didn't even have a sign out front, you just had to find it by the street numbers. I got oven baked chicken with cheese, bacon and some delicious broccoli sauce. My side was the best green beans I have ever had with ham and onions cut up into it. After everything I've eaten this weekend, its safe to say I've gained about 20 lbs! (It was totally worth it though)
Bars: So i've already told you about one bar. Fortunately, we had better luck at the other ones. After our free tour on Saturday, we signed up for a bar crawl for 20 euro and got a free tshirt, free admission into 3 bars and a night club and 1 hour of free drinks. It was so cool and we met a lot of cool people. These 3 American guys we met were really refreshing. It must just be something about European men who seriously want to marry you the first time you talk to them. We spent our hour of free unlimited drinking with the American boys without getting hit on and thourghout the night they would come save us from the many creepers that came out way. For example, a Croatian guy that I had litteraly said five words to asked me if any of the American boys were my boyfriends. I knew where this was leading, so hesitated not wanted to tell the truth to the Croatian. Then he said good because I want to tell you that I love you. Well Steve, who was always at our rescue came up and said yeah, actually she is my girlfriend and with that the guy left. Basically moral of the story is that I miss my American boyysssssss! <3 <3.

Losers after a game of flip cup with shots instead of beers

Hostel?!..Not so much a Czech
The hostel wasn't the best I've been to and as I've already mentioned, it was in a shadypart of town about 20 minutes walk from the center. I guess I always am rating my hostel experience to the great Barcelona hostel I stayed at and none of the others yet have been able to compare. I must say that this was the first hostel I felt a little uncomfortable. We stayed in a feet smelling 11 person both sexes dorm room. It was the cheapest and we've done it before so no biggie. However, I've nver been in a hostel room with 5 large overgrown german boys (men? not sure) who only sleep in tighty whiteys that are too small, who snore and fart in their sleep. That night when we got there, I was a little scared to go to sleep. This was also the first time I've been in a hostel where the showers aren't in your rooms but in the hallways where you share them with the rest of the residents in the hostel. Once the boys left Sunday, it got better, However, it was replaced by 3 French doctorate students who were girls but slept in the smae bed and had very long noisy good night kisses together. Maybe it's just the culture to make out with your friends before going to bed? Yeah, thats it.

Great Time in Prague?!...Czech!
Seriously, Prague was one of my favorite cities I have visited. Although it was touristy, you still felt very included in the tranquil, happy life in Prague, very simliar to Sevilla. Brittany and I kept spirits high when fatigue overcame us by being portable Ipods. We belted out every song known to man I think during our trip and she and I had a great time walking through the cobblestone streets of Prague :) It was definitely a wonderful wonderful start to a great Semana Santa week!