Around Prague

One morning while going to class there was a huge gathering of people in the park by my apartment. From a distance the crowd looked like they were talking animatedly to one another. However when walking through the crowd, it was silence. Everyone in this photo was deaf and they were all signing to one another. I'm not sure what the mass meeting was but it seemed to be some sort of rally for the disabled population in Prague, it was really cool.

This is the Loreto in Prague. It's a copy of the Loreto in Italy where they claim the Virgin Mary was born... but the house was moved by angels... interesting. Well anyway, it was a really pretty building.

U Fleku Brewery, Prague

On friday March 18th, the ISA program took a trip to a nearby brewery called U Fleku in Prague. The building was purchased in 1499 (7 years before the USA was even discovered by Columbus). It is the only brewery in Central Europe that has been brewing beer straight for over 500 years. Even though the restaurant and brewery were taken away and nationalized by communists... it was eventually given back to the original family of owners. 

I actually think beer tastes absolutely AWFUL and so I didn't drink their world famous dark brew.

In the outside courtyard of the restaurant and brewery

They said the ceiling was painted with blood and something else that I don't remember... but it's really old!

Vysehrad, Prague

Yesterday we took a walk up to Vysehrad, which is right by my apartment. Vysehrad is a castle that was built in the 10th century... although it looks a lot more like a raised park with fort walls. It's really nice up there because you get a really nice view of the Vltava river. At Vysehrad there is a cemetery where a whole bunch of famous Czech people are buried and there is also the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul. There are people everywhere up there just laying on the grass reading or taking walks, especially on a day like yesterday when it was really warm.

Prague's night boats

Tonight I felt like going on a little solo adventure down by the water to take photos of all the boats. However, the boats were not illuminated beautifully as I was expecting... and were dark. So it didn't work out so great for me but I did take some other photos of the water!

The "Dancing House"

The only lit-up boat, haha

Berlin, Germany

My mom left early friday March 11th.... as for me? I left for Berlin at 6:30 AM, luckily I was able to pass out during the 4.5 hour bus ride from Prague to Berlin. We arrived in Berlin around 12... and we had until 2pm the next day to try to see everything... clearly an impossible task! Lucie and Daniela, who run our ISA program, took us on a walking tour of the city and then after that we had free time until it was time to head back to Prague the next day.

TV Tower

Berlin was a really great city, much different than Prague... Berlin was DESTROYED after the war, while Prague was UNTOUCHED and so the buildings etc were obviously not from centuries ago like they are in Prague.

Everyone has heard of the Berlin wall and it was really amazing to be able to see it in real life. A wall that separated an entire city... insane.

"Why"

"Save our planet"

"Wake up, Fight Back"

There are also pieces of the wall all over the city. The Western side of the wall was covered with grafitti and a lot of art... but the eastern side was not allowed to be touched by the citizens... going anywhere near the wall could result in them getting shot.

There is also a line throughout the city to show where the wall once was.

We also visited Checkpoint Charlie, which was the most famous crossing point between the East and West sides of the Berlin Wall.

We took a little break from the really intense history and visited Fassbender and Rausch, a world famous chocolate store! They had chocolate versions of all the famous monuments and buildings in the city, plus the chocolate was delicious!

With only a few hours left before heading home, four of us decided to venture outside of the city... head into the suburbs to see the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst

... here was the historic site of the surrender of the German Armed Forces on 8 May 1945, we got to go in the room where they surrendered, which was really cool

Berlin was really fun and we wish we got more time there because I really wanted to visit the Holocaust Memorial there, its all different blocks of varying heights and sizes covering an entire street block and you can walk through them and it seemed really cool! but we just didn't have enough time :( maybe next time!