Author: astraykate

Last weekend was the IES hiking trip to the Vosges mountains in France! We stayed in a cute hotel that fed us obscene amounts of potatoes and cheese, and I kept getting merci and danke mixed up. It was amazing.

We saw cows being herded across the mountains with massive bells on their necks.

We found a cave where I may or may not have smacked my head on a rock with surprising force.

We found an inchworm!!!

Michael got super into explaining something (he’s one of the IES teachers and led the hikes)

We went into an old WWI bunker and I got a bunch of rusty metal in my hair. It was super cool and also dark and creepy.

Day two was full of super cool vistas and lakes.

We found an excellent example of the doctrine of signatures, a lichen that looks like lungs and was used to treat lung diseases. It turns out that this one is actually true!

The sole came off of Rachel’s shoe and Race had to fix it with a strip of duct tape. Very reminiscent of when Garret (also pictured) had his actual toe stuck back together in Portugal by Anna.

It was an amazing hiking trip! And now it’s only 4 days until I meet the rents in Berlin!!!

So last weekend I took a trip to Vienna (Wien) with Halsey and Fiona. We took an overnight bus there and back, and stayed in an absolutely amazing Air BnB!

We started with a big breakfast!

And then we were off the explore the Schönbrunn Palace, the casual summer home of the Habsburg monarchs…

Complete with the replica of Roman Ruins, built in 1778…

An Obelisk fountain from 1777…

And MUCH more, which we would discover when we went back on Sunday!

After we checked in to our home for the weekend, we picnicked in the park by the Prater.

And saw the famous Wiener Riesenrad, built in 1897

We opted for a more open air experience, and swung around the park at a rather impressive height, scoping out places we wanted to go the next day.

One of which was the Belvedere, the Baroque palaces for the Habsburgs, started around 1712.

Here is the Upper Belvedere, which houses an art museum that boasts a huge collection of Klimt, including The Kiss and Judith, which I couldn’t take photos of, and Napoleon Cross the Alps. I had no idea that the Napoleon portrait was there, and it took me completely by surprise. It is crazy to think that now I have seen that painting AND the Alps themselves.

The lower Belvedere boasted some pretty amazing rooms.

The Lower palace also had an amazing collection of Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who did many works on classical-subjects, and is now alongside Mucha as one of my new favorite artists.

We stopped for a traditional Austrian lunch, and the crew was already sick of me taking pictures of them…

We stumbled upon an old WWII monument that I couldn’t read.

And then went to Karlskirche. Which was nuts.

This Baroque church was consecrated in 1737, and was built after a large plague epidemic, dedicated to the saint of plague sufferers

The coolest part about this church was that we could go all the way to the top. This is the very top ceiling fresco.

Here is a fresco of God sparing the plague sufferers…

An Angel destroying heresy (note the only legible word is Luteru, a reference to Luther, the Lutheran upbringing in me cringed a bit)

We walked past the famous Vienna Opera, complete with cute stoplight.

And stumbled upon the Hofburg, with a Mozart impersonator!

Then it was on to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, where we happened upon a very important mass…

A Bishop was there! I think, I’m not familiar with the different ceremonial garb…

We then followed the crowd and accidentally sat through an hour of Catholic mass in German (I had hoped some of it would be in Latin because then I’d actually understand it) and I managed to simultaneously have no idea what was going on AND when I tried to fit in more I completely crossed myself backwards. The singing was absolutely gorgeous though, Ave Maria was written to be sung in cathedrals.

The next day it was back to the Schönbrunn!

We went inside the Palmenhaus.

I gave Halsey the camera…

We went into the desert house and I saw a REAL LIFE WELWITSCHIA MIRABILIS. It’s the only species in its family!!!

The Neptune Fountain.

Me!

The crew!

Me and the crew! (I have to say that I brightened those photos up, you couldn’t see anything otherwise)

The Gloriette, in all its glory.

A shameless posed photo, senior picture style.

And we ended our trip through the Naschsmarkt!

Overall an amazing time, Wien is an amazing and beautiful city!

We started our trip to Prague with a walk around the famous Prague Castle.

The St. Vitus Cathedral was as beautiful as I’d been told!

We saw the statue of St. George, a common emblem here, as he slays the dragon.

We had lots of Trdelník, a traditional pastry is Prague.

The inside of the Basilica of St. George.

The Golden Lane was about as crowded as could be. It dates back to th 15th century, and used to be home to the palace goldsmiths.

There was a bunch of kitschy touristy stuff, like a torture chamber.

St. George again!

The Old Royal Palace (current building) dates back to the 14th century, but the original goes all the way to the 9th century!

The inside of St. Vitus Cathedral!

Construction of the current cathedral started in 1344, but there has been a building here since 930!!

The stain glass window done by the famous Mucha, one of my favorite artists.

I have zero idea who is in this coffin but a lot of Russians were VERY interested in it…

The beautiful Charles Bridge.

Old Town Square was absolutely bustling.

We did a tour of the Old Town Hall, which dates back to the 14th century.

These murals of “Slavdom’s Homage to Prague” were made in 1939 and hidden with plaster during WWII in order to protect its images of nationalism.

The 12 Apostles from the medieval astronomical clock, installed in 1410, the third oldest in the world and oldest still in operation.

This room is one of the few that is still completely original in the Old Town Hall (due to fires) and had one of the best preserved medieval ceilings in the world. It dates to the 14th century.

All of this door is original too, including the hinges AND the key!

The underground rooms used to actually be on the ground floor, but were covered in order to mitigate flooding issues in the city.

At one point it was used as a prison, and was covered by graffiti, see the one from 1699?

I ended my time in Prague with beautiful views of the city from the tower! It was a wonderful trip, and so great to see family again!

So, the salt mines outside of Kraków might be my new favorite place, and you’re about to see why…

The Wieliczka Salt Mines are an underground salty Disneyland (I’m assuming, I’ve never been to Disney before).

These mines have been open since the 13th century, and only 2% of the massive tunnels are available to tourists. This 2% is a veritable theme park and walk through of the history of the mine, complete with creepy mannequins acting out olden-day mining techniques.

See the man cranking the brine wheel? Yep he moves and everything. This place is nuts.

Miners spent so much time down here that they carved chapels out of salt. SALT. Complete with wooden and salt crystal chandeliers.

There’s Pope John Paul II again. Carved out of rock salt. No biggie.

Recognize this? Yep. The Last Supper. But extra salty. On account it’s a ROCK SALT CARVING.

Honestly I expected a random NPC to come up to me and announce that I had to retrieve something from the lowest level of this dungeon.

And all of this, these sculptures, chapels, and salty walls (which I definitely licked) were underneath this beautiful town:

I would have moved 160 meters below ground to the Wieliczka Salt Mines, but we had to get out of Kraków and head to Prague.

Last extremely delicious and cheap meals were had…

I noticed this random head statue for the first time even though I walked past it at least 5 times…

And then we got on an overnight train (my first!) to Prague.

I’d like to say I took to sleeping on the top of three bunks like a champion while we hurtled through space at 300 km/hr, but I absolutely woke up every hour or so because I thought I was about to fall out of bed and was instinctively bracing myself. Ah, well, we can’t be perfectly suited to all types of traveling.

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Be Advised:

This post contains images taken at Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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I’ve thought a lot about whether or not I wanted to make this into a post, and whether or not I would include any photos from the tour at all. I came to the conclusion that many people I know will never get the chance to see these places first-hand and it is my belief that such things need to be shared, not hidden away, lest we forget and repeat the past.

My first impression was that it was too green.

I don’t know why I assumed that nothing could grow around the most infamous Nazi death camp, but I just never pictured the grass and trees and singing birds that I saw when approaching the Auschwitz sign.

It was odd to see something in person that I had seen as a kid in school in textbooks. It was even odder still that now the German made sense to me in a way it never had before. “Arbeit macht frei”, I now translated to “works makes you free” before the tour guide could give us the version I knew growing up, “work sets you free”.

It was insane to see the exhibits they had set up, showing how far-reaching Auschwitz truly was, how large of a camp it had to be to cover so much area across Europe.

We saw stacks and stacks of Zyklon B, the gas they used in the chambers.

These massive piles of objects only begin to paint a picture of the amount of people who came though here.

The yard by the “Death Block” where they held executions.

The gas chambers, with the “ovens”.

Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, is more what I expected of Auschwitz I. It is about 5 minutes away from Auschwitz I, and is in a large field, with a railway running through the middle on which the prisoners were brought into the camp.

They had an original train car on display.

The ruins of a gas chamber that the Nazis blew up before the liberation of the camp.

The sleeping quarters themselves were our last stop on the tour. Imagining 4 or more people on each of these “bunks” is hard, even when you are standing there and looking at them.

The magnitude of these camps was something I could not have prepared for. I feel that it was an important thing to do, and it reminded me of both the horrors and the love that mankind is capable of. There were a million ugly things about these camps, but, amidst all of that, there were stories about the people who survived or fought back or sacrificed themselves for another. Some things just need to be seen, and I think that Auschwitz is one of them. The monument at Birkenau sums up the importance of the preservation of the past, however bleak: “For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity”.

Last weekend I got to travel with my cousin Emily and her awesome friend Becky! I met them in Kraków (my new favorite European city) and we explored a bit and went on some tours!

We toured the Wawel Royal Cathedral…

I thought we’d found the burial site of Chopin, but it turns out it’s just a plaque!

The crypt at the cathedral is super creepy, and super old (11th century!!!)

Pope John Paul II is everywhere. I was ignorant as to why until our last day there. Duh, he’s from Poland!

Cousin photo op!

The Wawel Dragon, which is famous in Polish folklore.

St. Mary’s Basilica was an absolutely beautiful sight, with gold leaf everywhere amongst stunning shades of blue.

We did a spot of shopping in the Cloth Hall, which has been around since the Renaissance.

The next item of business was the Schindler museum!

Schindler’s old office in his factory in Kraków was one of the few original things we saw during the walk through Kraków under Nazi occupation…

The museum was a good introduction to what we would see the next day. It was a snapshot of a life during Nazi terror, something we would get a lot closer to with our visit to Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau on our second day in Kraków.

We arrived in Lisboa (NOT Lisbon, honestly if we can learn to pronounce Mozart why can’t we learn the proper titles of cities?? C’mon people) and spent a few hours wandering around before our flight to Barcelona. This is where Anna, our resident adult, left us to join her friends in Copenhagen. It was very odd to be one member short.

Then, Barcelona…

We spent the first day kind of wandering about, seeing some of Gaudí’s buildings, going to a local brewery…

There are so may churches in Barcelona, it’s nuts.

The boys decided to goof around in a playground.

We got our first glimpse of the Arc de Triomf

Later by this church on our last night I could hear the soft sound of classical guitar in the distance. It was an amazing street performer that wrapped up our trip to Spain perfectly.

We went to the Park Güell…

The Park is an excellent example of Gaudí in his naturalist phase.

I went to La Sagrada Familia (by myself!)

This cathedral is by far the most beautiful building I have been in while in Europe…

On our last day we took a trip to the “Bunkers”

Which had some AMAZING views of the city.

It was the perfect end to an amazing Easter Break.

We thought we’d been dealing with sand. We hadn’t seen anything until day 4. Mandatory breaks had to be called about every 15 minutes so we could dump our shoes out. My hiking boots might need replaced. But, the views…

Milfontes to Porto Covo was 20 km (really more like 30 according to the watch) of amazing sights.

It was an especially awesome hike because we found our own private beach. We lunched there for two amazing hours.

If you ask any of the 6 other hikers what their absolute favorite part of this 4 day hike was, I can guarantee that they will all say it was the beach on the trail to Porto Covo.

Nearing Porto Covo, there was a very old fort overlooking an island.

This island apparently is home to ancient Roman ruins!

And there we have it, the last day and the last town of the Rota Vicentina! We stayed in an absolutely AMAZING Air B&B, where I had my own room with a FOUR-POSTER BED AND CURTAINS. I have always dreamed of sleeping in a four-poster bed, and as if that wasn’t enough, I took my first bath since leaving the states, AND we ate Italian food. It was heaven. Porto Covo is now my favorite town in the world. It’s hard to put into words what we saw on this trip and how we felt when the hike was over. I don’t think in my lifetime that I have ever done anything cooler than this hike. It is absolutely the highlight of my study abroad experience thus far, and I cannot recommend it enough. Portugal, I will be back.

Day 3! Almograve to Vila Nova de Milfontes. 15-18 km depending on who you ask, the map or my smart watch.

The beginning of the hike started out rather gloomy, but no rain!

Although we did have to carefully cross a stream to get to the trailhead.

We happened upon an abandoned house.

The Casa do Vagabundo

There was a lot of agriculture on this hike (it looked just like normal grass?)

And it was very nice to walk on that instead of sand for a change.

Arms and shoulders started to hurt..

And the city of Vila Nova de Milfontes came into sight (although we still had a long ways to go.

We had to climb a rather steep hill to reach this bridge.

Where we discovered a rather interesting mural…

AND cork trees that we being harvested!

We crossed the bridge and headed into town, where we stayed in hostel, cooked an amazing meal, and even got into the water for a bit! This town was very beautiful, and seemed like an amazing place to visit for a holiday. We couldn’t stay long though, because the next day was our last, and hardest hike of the trip!

Day 2, 25 km on paper, 30 according to my feet (and my Garmin).

At one point during this hike we had to climb up a cliff using a cord. I was surprised at this, but we would see it again several times.

The unique rock formations are another thing that made this hike so special, the sediments were pushed up vertically in most areas.

At the lunch stop, I finally goaded my friends into the picture my mom has been wanting. This is for you Ohio!

Massage trains were a must at this point.

I started handing off my camera to get some in action shots to prove that I also actually hiked and carried a far too heavy backpack.

We stopped at a lighthouse to replenish our bottles with some delicious hose water.

Bamboo sword battles ensued.

The obligatory group photo was captured.

Anna hugged a tree with one of our trail markers. I swear I still saw those suckers after the hike ended.

And we arrived at our destination: Almograve. The hostel we stayed in had free breakfast (!!) and they did our laundry (!!!!!!!). We stopped at a small restaurant and did what we do best: ordered 7 meals and shared them all. I’ve never had more fun eating dinner than I did on this trip with these awesome people.

And, of course, we had to try the local green wine and port. Then it was off to bed before our “short” leg of the trip, and day 3.