Praha

So the next stop in our little voyage was Prague.  I have wanted to go there ever since my friend studied abroad there a few years ago, she was so in love with the place that I had to see it for myself.  So we took a train there from Vienna to Prague.  This was not the best idea considering the Czech republic's rail systems are SOO bad that the Eurail passes don't even include that country.  We were going a semi-normal speed until we hit the Czech border, and at that point I am pretty sure I have done some speed-walking at a quicker pace than this train.  We were enjoying ourselves with the friendly german family sitting in our car, and the conductor came and asked for our tickets.  No problem, we hand her our tickets.  Wait, there is a big problem.  Kate cannot find her ticket, only her reservation.  They are two very different things.  She had her receipt and kept trying to show it to the lady and all she knew how to say in English was "NOT MY PROBLEM."  I am fairly certain she was a spawn of the devil.  After many tears and about 20 euros, she left us alone.  Later as I was looking through my tickets, I obviously found her ticket!  The Czech rail definitely does not offer refunds, so we were just out of luck.  But the nice german lady in our car gave us 5 euros for our tears.  

So anyways!!  We got to prague in the afternoon and found our hostel, which happened to be a 3 bedroom apartment.  It was nice and quiet and there were some cool people staying there.  The next day, we decided to do a walking tour with a guide around the city.  Our guide was awesome, it's really too bad that I don't want a Czech boyfriend.  He was soo knowledgeable and told us all about the history and stories of the city.  It was about a 4 hour tour so we covered a lot of ground.  After doing our city tour, we were supposed to get a free voucher for a night time "ghost tour" of the city.  We never did receive the vouchers, but we decided to try to do it anyways.  It seemed necessary since it was Halloween!   We found another guy that offered a tour, and all am going going to say is that I really felt bad for the guy.  We did learn a few interesting facts along the way and that's all that matters.  The next day we did some shopping (and bought an inappropriate amount of overpriced souvenirs), climbed the astronomical clock tower, and then did ANOTHER ghost tour just for fun.  This one was equally as bad but at least we tried.  All in all, for some reason my favorite thing about Prague was the astronomical clock that I have a picture of below.  I loved that thing!  I would go back again just to see it.  The legend we learned is that after the clock was created and finished, the clergy of the town burned the guys eyes out that put it together and designed it.  I guess they didn't want any other city to have a clock like theirs.  I think that this legend might be true, because it really is unique.  

Franz Kafka's former place of residence. 

THE clock.   
The St. Vitus cathedral 
Some of the stained glass inside the cathedral
The church took over 6 centuries to finish 
A Big Band playing on St. Charles Bridge 

Trying to get into the Halloween spirit. 
View of the castle from the clock tower. 

Vienna, Austria

Playing on the playground in Vienna 

        This is for you Dad. 

So, I don't even know where to start!  I had a two week vacation for All Saint's Day (One of the 8 weeks I have this year...French people seriously love vacation) and my friend Kate from home came to visit me for one of the weeks.  We started off staying in the town where I am living (Colmar), and spent a day with my host family too.  Next we went to the largest city in Alsace, called Strasbourg.  It's basically a bigger version of the city I live in.  We stayed there for one night and then flew to Vienna, Austria and stayed there for two nights.  Vienna was really fun!  We stayed a really nice hostel called the "wombat lounge."  It was supposed to rain for 2 days straight when we were there but we ended up not having any rain at all!  We really lucked out.  The first day we went to the St. Stephen's cathedral, and went down to the catacombs that are in the church.  There are over 16,000 dead bodies down there from the black plague.  Photography was forbidden but I obvi snapped a few pics illegally.  Oops. 

 The next day we went to a palace near the city called Schoenbrunn palace.  Pictures weren't allowed inside so I actually went by the law this time, however there were some beautiful gardens that I got some pics of.  The inside of the palace reminded me soo much of Versailles, and I finally figured out that Marie Antoinette's mother lived there.  Every single room inside was decorated with such detail, I can't imagine the time and money that went into building it.  The gardens were enormous, with a zoo, a labyrinth park and perfect landscaping. We of course went into the labyrinth, which wasn't as scary as I thought it would be.  We also spent some time playing on the children's playground seen above which entertained us for a good half hour.  

     View from the end of the gardens

Another Karl's church.  Seriously who is this guy? 

           One of the many labyrinths 
Statue in the gardens, so detailed! 
Kate and the palace 

         Sleeping ducks in the garden :)
          I guess Fall is here. 
         BONES.  so creepy. 
St. Stephen's Cathedral 

Why don't I live in Deutschland?

 This past weekend I went to Germany with my friends Kara and Inma.  They are both language assistants that live in Colmar too.  Kara has been living in Germany for a few years and has a boyfriend that still lives there, so this past weekend we tagged along with her to visit him.  Basically I am trying to figure out WHY I never learned German!  I always thought it was an ugly language, but I actually love it.  Also, Germany is sooo cheap compared to France.  I love France and all, but we are majorly lacking in the area of Wal-Martish or Target stores.  Germany is covered in them.  Every corner there is some huge discount store, such as Aldi.  I definitely stocked up on some goods that are hard to find or expensive in France, such as toothpaste, q-tips, dental floss, gum, hairspray and fake Nutella(sorry mom). 

Anyways, the cities we went to were Karlsruhe and Heidelburg.  Karlsruhe is where her boyfirend's Mom lives, so we stayed at her house for the weekend.  On Friday we went to a birthday party, and once again I can't believe how well German people speak English.  The teachers here are definitely doing something right.  They all say they speak a "little" English and then have a full conversation in fluent English.  Part of me hates them for it, but I guess I should be happy for them.  They even sang "happy birthday" in English, which apparently isn't out of the ordinary in Germany.  On Saturday we went to Heidelburg for the day.  I loved it there!  There is a famous bridge and a "castle" which is pretty much just ruins of something that kinda used to be a castle.  Bug regardless, it's a nice view.  One thing that surprised me is that there were soo many Americans there.  Turns out that Heidelburg is an American hot spot for traveling.  On Sunday we walked around Karlsruhe and saw the castle where "Karl" lived.  I have no clue who he is, but apparently he's a pretty big deal in Karlsruhe.  

                 I decided to document this poop picker-upper since this is something that we NEVER see in France. 

Heidelburg

Kara and Inma at Karl's castle in Karlsruhe

  

Wine-O weekend

I have to say that the best part about living with the host family is that they always seem to keep me busy! On Saturday afternoon, my host dad asked me if I wanted to go grape picking with him. Turckheim is the beginning of the wine route of Alsace, and there are grape vines everywhere you look. I thought it would be a fun and new experience. Now, most people who have vineyards have a machine that does the work for them, but apparently my host dad's friends still think that we are living in the middle ages. We actually made fun of them for about an hour after this little experience, but I won't go into detail about that.

So, I'm thinking that we'll go pick grapes for about an hour, drink some wine and call it a day. Oh no. These people were intense.  We were picking grapes for about 4 hours. You don't realize how hard of a job it is until you try it yourself! It was fun for a little while but after the first hour my back hurt, I was sweating, and there was NO wine in sight! We did have one coffee break for a little while. I also used "taking pictures" as an excuse to escape for a bit. We picked about 10 barrels full of grapes, and I had some interesting conversations with the other grape pickers, who actually try to make a living off of this. All and all it was a great experience, but I would not highly recommend it if you are as lazy as I am!

On Sunday my host parents took me on a bike ride through the wine route of Alsace. I didn't realize how long it has been since I have ridden a bike, so doing a 10km bike trip to get started again probably wasn't the smartest choice. I was pretty proud of myself though, especially since I only thought I was going to throw up one time during the trip! We had to pedal uphill for 20 minutes, and lets just say that I ended up walking the whole thing. It's sad when a 60 year old is way more in shape than me! I felt great after the trip though, it felt to me like I lost 10lbs.  But all in all the trip was SO worth it, all of the leaves here have started to change and all of the towns we went to look like they are out of a fairy tale.  Here are some pictures from the weekend: 

Don't they look friendly..

"the wine route of Alsace"

Welcome to my blog!

Hi everyone!  So I never thought that I would be the kind of person that would write a blog, but I would like to keep track of my life here and I thought I would share it with everyone else too.  For those of you who don't know the story, I am living in Colmar, France and teaching English to high school and middle school French students in Munster, France.  My official job title is "English assistant" and I am working for the French government.  The region I am living in is called Alsace, which is very close to Germany and Switzerland.  I arrived here a week ago and I have been blown away at how nice everyone here is!  All of the teachers at my school have gone out of their way to make sure I am comfortable here.  Currently, I have not found an apartment yet.  I have decided to live in the city of Colmar because it is a "big city" compared to Munster (which has 5000 habitants!).  So I have looked at a few places so far but nothing good has come along.  For now I am living with one of the English teachers at my school, Marie-Agnès, and her husband.  They live in the town of Turckheim which is outside of Colmar(I know it's confusing!)

 

Marie-Agnès and her husband are the same age as my parents, and both of their children are grown and moved out.  They basically treat me like I am their daughter!  They have even offered for me to stay here for the whole year, but I haven't decided what to do yet.  Yesterday they took me hiking in the Vosges mountains, which is about 30 minutes away from the house.  It was really windy, but it was worth the climb!  It was so cold up there that it was snowing, but the view was beautiful.  You can see the Black Forest in Germany from up that high.   Here are some pictures that I have taken so far. 

Turckheim (my current home)

Colmar (my future home)
Cows in the Vosges wear cowbells!

"La petite Venise" (little Venice) in Colmar

Well I will keep everyone updated on what else is happening here!  Thanks for reading :)