Memories in Vienna, Berlin and Prague!!!

I knew that I was going to have a lot of fun on this fall break trip but I never knew how much fun I was going to have! While traveling around europe ( Vienna, Prague and Berlin) I experienced 2 new languages (czech and german), used a new money currency (koruna), learned the underground subway system in 3 countries, made memories, visited tourist attractions and grew as an individual.  For the 9 days that I was away traveling , I wrote on my Itouch notepad application and here is everything I wrote: 

 Day 1, Saturday night: Today is the day!! I am so excited to be going on this journey to Vienna, Prague, and Berlin with Alexis. Then when we get back we get to see Laura and Alyssa! Yay so excited!  We are currently on the train to Vienna,Austria right now. Our train left florence at 9:52pm and Alexis and I our in cabin car 409 and seat 81 & 82.  We are suppose to get into Vienna at 8:30 am on October 23rd. We are sitting next to two older ladies and a guy.  The guy speaks English but the ladies don't. It was weird getting into our little cabin because the two ladies had the door shut by tying a piece of clothing to the door and to the metal pole so no one could come it.  It is kind of hot on the train but we have the air on so hopefully I can sleep. It kind of also smells like feet in our train cabin because the 2 ladies have their shoes off and their feet stink. I hope I will be able to sleep tonight. 

Day 2, Sunday: It is currently 4am and I have not really gotten any sleep. Alexis and I were talking with the guy named Chris who is sitting with us on the train and he is from Australia. He has been traveling around Europe for 3 weeks now by himself and only has 9 days left. We were asking him all of these weird questions and he has been really enjoyable to talk to.  Anyways it is really hard to sleep on the train! When I got to Vienna, Alexis and I went to the hotel and checked in. Then we meet up with Chris ( the Aussie from the train). We ended up walking all over Vienna with him and we had a blast! He showed us how to use the underground subway system. We went to St Charles Church, the museum quarters, Schonbrunn, St Stephens Cathedral and Vienna State Opera House.  I even saw a Starbucks here and the clothing store Forever 21! We said goodbye to Chris at the end of the day because he is staying at a different hotel plus he is heading to Germany tomorrow. I am back at the hotel now and my feet and legs are exhausted from walking everywhere. I am ready to tour around Vienna again tomorrow with Alexis. 

Schonbrunn Palace

View of Vienna

St. Stephan's Cathedral. 

Day 3, Monday: Lets just say that I slept for 13 hours last night since I got no sleep the night before, I felt refreshed. We got up for breakfast and we also ate a lot. The temperature was about 50 degrees, cloudy and rainy. We headed to another famous cathedral. When we got there guess who we saw...Chris our friend from Australia that we met on the train. We talked to him for a little bit and then we took jumping photos in Sigmund Freud park. Then we said our final goodbye to him because he had to leave for Germany. Alexis and I walked to the giant ferris wheel and then we took the subway to the city center. We officially know how to use subways!!yay! So we looked through forever 21 ,h&m, zara and tourist shops. Then we wanted to get into the Vienna opera house but we found out that tickets to the operas cost 160 euros...nope not going to happen. We met this nice lady who told us this information and she also told us to go to the art museum and get this special torte Vienna is know for. So Alexis and I went to Albertina so see the Monnet and Picasso art exhibit. It was really cool. Then we went to Hotel Sacher (famous place were all celebrities stay when they come to Vienna) and got what Vienna is known for, Sacher Torte cake. Alexis and I got a little cake to go. We brought it back to our hotel to eat and it was amazing.  It was very rich and chocolatly. It was made with dark chocolate yummy!!! Best cake I have had in a while!  It was really nice to walk around Vienna and find hidden treasures. Here are some interesting facts: Sigmund Freud was born here, Mozart died here and Gustav Klimt who painted 'The Kiss' was born and raised here. 

Opera House

Our friend Chris in front of another cathedral in Vienna 

Ferris Wheel!

Sacher Torte!! yummy!!

 Day 4, Tuesday: We woke up early to eat a nice breakfast and check out of our hostel. We had to take the underground subway to Wein Meidling train station. We are getting to be pros when using the underground subway!! We got there and found our train to Praha (Prague). It took us about 5 hours to get to Prague. The whole train ride I was reading my book and it made time go by much faster. We were in cabin 368 seat 35 and 36 and we got yelled at in german for putting our feet on the seats on train. I kind of like taking a train rather than a plane because I love looking at the scenery of Austria and Czech Republic. So we got to Prague and we had to figure out the underground train system. It took us forever to find a map and we figured out what rail lines to take. Also everything is in Czech here not German. Good thing some signs were in English though.  Then we found out Prague does not use euros. So we had to exchange some of our money into kuoron. When we were getting on he underground train subway police came up to us and showed us their badge and said something to us in Czech then they said 'can I see your tickets? (for the subway) we showed them and they let us go on our way. I was scared when they first approached us because we did not know what they wanted, but they saw that we had all of our luggage and wanted to make sure we bought a ticket. Anyway we made it to our hotel safe and sound. Once we got settled in our hotel we took an adventure and walked around Prague. We saw the church called Church of the Infant Child and we came across the palace area. Tomorrow we are planning on traveling around old town square. We made it back to our hotel and played a good game of bananagrams. 

Waiting for our train!

Streets of Prague

Day 5, Wednesday: We got a good nights rest and had a delicious breakfast. We walked around Old Town Square today. First we took the underground subway there and we walked around. Today we saw Wenecelas Square, Powder Tower, Opera House, Astronomical Clock, Church of our Lady before Tyn, Charles Bridge and the Jewish part of Prague. When we got to Astronomical Clock, we walked the tower and saw the whole city of Prague. It was gorgeous!! By this time it already started raining and it ended up raining for the whole day. We still walked around and still saw all of the tourist attractions. We were stopping by  a couple of souvinor shops.  In one of the shops the people asked where we were from and we told them USA and that we were studying in Florence. The guy asked if we spoke Italian or Spanish and we said we did and I ended up getting a free postcard!! Yay for knowing Italian and Spanish! It was a fun day!! I even bought Czech made christmas ornaments! 

Wenecelas Square

Old Town Square

Astronomical Clock

View of Prague 

Charles Bridge (You can see the palace in the distance)

Day 6, Thursday: Today was another sightseeing day in Prague. Alexis and I walked over to the Prague castle district. Along the way we stopped in some tourist shops. It wasn't raining today which was good and it was about 53 degrees. First we went into St Nicholas Church. It is the most beautiful building during the czech baroque time. It was gorgeous to see the architecture of this church. When we got to the Prague castle we saw that they were changing the guards in front of the palace. That was pretty cool to see. After that was over we bought a ticket to see Basicilla of St. George, Golden Lane, Powder Tower, St Vitus's Cathedral and Rosenberg Palace. Let me tell you being a student gets you lots of discounts!! We got a student discount for the castle and we have been getting student discounts throughout the whole trip when we show our international student card. Its a deal!! Anyways, The golden lane is a road lined with small shops that were built out of a city wall surrounding the castle. There are 11 miniture shops. I even ended up buying a coffee mug on the golden lane.  After spending about 4 hours touring the castle buildings we got hot wine. Hot wine is sold everywhere around Prague and I wanted to try it. I thought it tasted like a hot fruit punch. It was vey fruity but good. Then we were sovinor shopping te rest of the day. Tomorrow we leave for Berlin nice and early! 

Palace 

Guard

Changing of the Guard 

Golden Lane

Hot Red Wine

Day 7, Friday: We are finally in Berlin, Germany!! This morning we went to the train station and there was no one there. It was kind of shady but more people started arriving! When we got on the train we got into the wrong cabin and it was so crowded that we could not walk through the train to get to our cabin so we had to sit in between the train cars by  the bathroom door for an hour until we got to the next stop. We got to the next stop and we ran to our cabin car that we were suppose to be in and someone was already sitting in our spots so we had to find open seats to sit in for the next 3 hours. We did and I read my book for the rest of the train ride. The language in Germany is German of course and the money currency is back to euros yay! we got to the train station and now the hard part was trying to get to our hotel. We did not have a map of Berlin so we had to buy one. Once we found one we had to find our hotel on the map and then fire out how to get there using underground subway and the regular subways. It is so confusing and we had to ask. We ended up figuring out how to. To get to our hotel we had to take the subway to the underground subway and then walk 2 blocks. Anyways we got to the hotel. It is not in the city center but it works and we know how to use the subway system here now. Once we were all checked in we went to see some tourist attractions. We took the subway to Brandenburger Tor, Victory Column, German Parliament, and Tiegarten Park. We got to walk to the top of Victory Column and I saw the whole city of Berlin. While walking through tiegarten park I could smell fall in the air. All of the leaves from the trees were changing colors and it reminded me of back in Wisconsin.  When I saw the Tor, the sun was already setting and it was beautiful.  Berlin is a very educational city and I can't wait to learn more and see the Berlin wall tomorrow!!

Brandenburger Tor

Victory Column

View from Victory Column

German Parliment

 Day 8, Saturday: Today was an adventure. Alexis and I saw tourist attractions all over Berlin. By the end of the day my feet and legs were hurting. First we went to see the remains of the Berlin wall. I really enjoyed learning about the Berlin wall and I liked see the different memorials. After the Berlin wall we took the subway to see the Berlin tv tower. We were going to go up it and have lunch but the line was too long and we didn't have time to waste. Then we went to Checkpoint Charlie. Checkpoint Charlie was was the name given by the Western Allies to the  crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin. Throughout Berlin it shows on the street where the Berlin wall was located and It was cool to  see that at Checkpoint Charlie. Then we wanted chocolate so we went to a famous chocolate place in Berlin called Ritter Sport chocolate. I ended up get 4 squares of chocolate but I plan on saving it till I am back in Wisconsin, then I will eat it. Then we went to the Jewish museum that just opened up and it was really interesting. We were starving so we ended up stopping in Hotel Adlon.  This hotel is the fanciest hotel in Berlin and we had coffee and  desert. I felt like I was having a tea party!! We walked to this other church then and then we headed back to our hotel because we were exhausted. I am learning a lot about Berlin.

Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

Subway system= very confusing 

Guard Tower

Chocolate Place

Berlin Wall! 

Checkpoint Charlie

Day 9, Sunday: daylight savings time is today so we gained an extra hour of sleep. After checking out of our hotel we went to the Olympiastadion in berlin. We saw the big stadium of the 1936 Olympics. The FIFA world cup in 2005 also was there in which the Berlin  soccer team won. The Berlin soccer team plays their games there too. It was my first time ever going to a Olympic stadium and it was really cool. I got to see the swimming pool with the diving platform, soccer field, track, equestrian land and the bell tower. Walked up to the bell tower and saw all of the Olympic grounds. Then we went to the cemetery right by the stadium to see if we could find Alexis' great grandparents grave. It was a humongous cemetery so we couldn't find it and the building was closed because it was a Sunday. Anyway we had to head to the airport to catch our flight to Venice and then our train to Florence. On our flight back to Venice, we saw the swiss alps! We finally got to florence around 930pm. 

Swimming Pool

Flying Over Swiss Alps!

All in all, it was a great European adventure with Alexis and we had so much fun exploring Vienna, Prague, and Berlin together. We made so many great memories. Hopefully in the future I will return to these beautiful and historical countries. This was a trip of a lifetime!!