1st half of 10 day trip to 5 countries!

The trip begins! Bright and early, love taking the suitcase on all the public transportation...

 Place: Cesky Krumlov

Location: City in Czech Republic

Cost: Castle: 80 Kc, $4 Bread: 20kc Bowling: 60kc

Never in my life did I think I would be in the Czech Republic, but I am sure glad I was able to be!  It is a beautiful farm land with little towns scattered throughout.  I was disappointed that there was no big border crossing check, but I guess it’s more convenient not to have one.  The little town Cesky Krumlov is great. The castle there was neat to tour, it had a huge bear outside in the moat! We walked through lots of little shops, an antique shop, and stopped at a little Hungarian bread shop. It was like a super delicious breadstick, cooked on a rolling pin over an open fire, and then rolled in cinnamon and sugar. So good! The money they use here is pretty confusing. It is called Koruna and $1 equals about 18 koruna, so I took out 3000 koruna! Its confusing to have to convert, but it’s a fun change.  On top of never thinking I would be in the Czech Republic I never thought I would go bowling while there, but I did!  And it was such a fun night!  Like most towns in Europe shops are all closed around 6 or 7 and so the city was dead. We all headed back to the hotel, thinking we’d watch a movie or something. But one of the boys had seen the bowling alley, so we all went back out and had a great night bowling! My team did great, six people and together we scored 841, killing the other teams! We were laughing and cheering and probably being way too American, but hey, you can’t help but be loud and American while bowling. Needless to say this will go down as one of my favorite nights, bowling in Cesky Krumlov!

 This is what everywhere look like out the window if its not farmland. It reminds me of all the war movies

 We all have matching shoes!

 3000Koruna

 There really is a bear in the moat right before the castle.

 Willi our bus driver. we stopped in a little town on the way and gave him some of his family history that the girls had been working on, and looked for his great grandfather in the cemetary. It was really neat- he ended up inviting us to his hometown for sunday dinner onthe way home

 Stephen got to play the organ in the church in that cemetary in that little town while we all sang I am a child of God.

 Essay 15

Place: Prague

Location: City in Czech Republic

Cost: Tower: 50kc

 The first thing that greeted me in Prague was not a pretty sight, our hotel! But no, it wasn’t a hotel.  It was an “A+ Hostel!” Oh man it was nasty!  But hey that’s all part of the experience right? Well that’s what we kept telling ourselves, but really it was ok, we just didn’t shower. Anyways the rest of Prague was much better. It was very pretty! There is a large center square, the largest in Europe I think.  There is a huge clock tower there that I climbed. The clock is an anatomical clock and says tons of random stuff, day, time, season, ect. There is a river that runs right through the city and there are several bridges crossing it, Charles Bridge being the most famous. I walked across it several times and honestly it was one of my favorite parts of the city. It was always bustling with people, tourists, and little stands selling all kinds of homemade trinkets.  We went and found the famous Lock bridge- a bridge cover with locks, and Lenin Wall. It is this huge wall that has tons of graffiti supposedly of “Leninism’s” and Beatles song lyrics. I had fun taking pictures here and added a quote of my own to the wall.

Essay 16

Place: Prague Cathedral, Jewish Quarter

Location: on palace grounds, in prague

Cost: Jewish Quarter tour: 200kc

On Sunday we toured the Jewish Quarter which was super interesting. I didn’t realized how much I actually knew about Judaism, mostly from the books I have read. It was fun to be able to share my knowledge with other members of our group.  My favorite part of the tour was the cemetery. It has 1200+ headstones and way more bodies than that because they would add earth, dirt, to the sight and keep burying people. So the cemetery is like a huge layered hill, some headstones buried way down.  My most favorite part of Prague was the Cathedral up by the Palace. It is inside the palace actually. It is a huge Gothic Cathedral, built to resemble Stephansdom here in Vienna.  The best part is that one of the towers collapsed while it was being built, and while they were in the process of rebuilding it the architecture time period changed, moving in to Baroque style.  So they decided to finish the tower in the new style. So it is a completely Gothic Cathedral, beautiful, with a Baroque top. So weird! And it is so visible; the styles are 100% different so you can’t miss it.  We walked up there at night and the whole thing was lit up. Ah, it is breathtaking. We laid on the ground and stared up at it for a long time. This is what gave me an appreciation for the beauty of Prague, cause before I thought it was just an ok city, but that church is amazing. The other thing about being in the Czech Republic was the language. I could not communicate at all, and it was so frustrating! It made me realize how much german I do know, and how important it is to be able to communicate. I was excited to get to Germany so I could speak again!

 Clock tower I climbed

 We went to Hard Rock. Twice. American food just sounded too good!

 Charles bridge

 The crazy Baroque tower!

 Our SICK NASTY HOSTEL, note we have no curtains

 There is our shared toilet and showers

 Prague is really medieval for some reason, although this has a harry potter feel...

 Jewish Quarter, Synagogue

 Exactly why cobble stone sucks. Look at that mess!

 Rubbed this statue on charles bridge for luck and to wish to come back to prague someday!

 Amazing Cathedral

Essay 17

Place: Dresden

Location: City in Germany

Cost:  Transportation Museum: 3€ Dresden City Museum: 3€

I loved Dresden! The city is new, having been totally destroyed during the bombings in WWII, except for a few buildings; and these buildings are all black now, stones completely burned by the fire storm.  The first stop was the Frauenkirche, the famous church that was destroyed, sat in a pile until the 80’s and then was rebuilt and completed in 2005. It is a beautiful church, the inside is much brighter than most we have seen. The neat thing about it is that there are a few of the original stones placed here and there throughout the building, and two of the sides and original, they didn’t crumble after the fires.  This church along with the rest of the city has a very special feel. It’s very humbling yet majestic and hopeful.  I really loved it. We walked along the rivers edge and Brother Minert told us about how people ran there to escape the fires. A mormon family was saved by going down a certain small street their father chose, the other big street having been covered in liquid phosphorous that would have killed them.  I went to two museums and enjoyed them both very much. The first was a old transportation museum which was very interesting and it was worth the 1€ I spent to take pictures.  Lots of  old trains, cars and bikes. There was also a film with live footage of the city. That was super neat to see the old city, all the way up through when it was bombed, the destruction and then rebuilding of the city and the Frauenkirche. I feel like that church is definitely an important symbol of peace and makes Dresden special.  I also went to the Dresden city museum which had some neat propaganda posters and random old school house appliances. My favorite was the toaster!

 haha I don't know what we are doing, bu that is the bus I spent way too much time on!

 We were lucky enough to be at the castle in the morning when a parade of soldiers was going on, they were welcoming the president's "special guest"

the amazing turkish bread Trdelnik!

 Finally a nice hotel in Dresden! LOOK! a chocolate on my pillow!

 Frauenkirche

 See the old part on the right, and the old dark stones on the left

 yay!! back to euros! never thought i would say that...

 Museums

 SOOOOOOO High up there!

 it says "all for germany" Scary!

 Karl G Maser!! He is out back behing the church there in dresden! there is story to that but.... its almost 1..

Essay 18

Place: Freiberg Temple

Location: Freiberg Germany

Cost: Free, 10€ for the Hostel

I am staying in another hostel! But this one is okay because it is at the temple! Oh it is wonderful to be staying somewhere the church owns, where you know things are clean.  We got to see the temple for a second, but had to hurry over to the grocery store to buy things for dinner and breakfast.  We all got our random items, me and Becca splitting some bread, cheese, yogurt, fanta, nutella, apples, and headed back to the hostel to eat. There is a nice, large, kitchen and eating area. I really enjoyed eating with everyone.  It felt very homey, especially when I was washing everyone’s dishes by hand. After dinner we played scum for a bit and were all just having a blast. I think everyone was just in good spirits because we were all so excited to be at the temple.  We all ran outside at one point because someone said Moroni was in the sky, and he was! The clouds were so low that the lights shining on angel Moroni made the image be reflected on the clouds. So neat!  It is a small temple, the pictures I have seen of it are very deceiving. I was up early to get to the temple, a whole 30 second walk. It felt so good to be back in the temple.  I was confirmed first and baptized second. I was able to be baptized for one of the boys here with us, one of his family names. He did it in German, so that was neat.  We also got to meet a Brother Mentzer, who was in President Uchtdorf’s ward for 20 years!  It was so interesting to learn about his life and how there came to be a temple in East communist Germany.  The font area was not even actually in the original temple finished in 1988 but was added on in 2002ish. It was beautiful.

 becca and I

Sweet church hostel room. Loved how we got to make our own beds and take them apart in the morning. somehow that was ok, knowing that it was all clean.

Second half of the trip coming soooooon!! Guten Abend!