Viennese Cake & Czech ...Pasta?

I'm going to try to fit my Vienna & Prague posts into one to save room/time, let's see if it works!

Our 11-hour train ride from Berlin to Vienna was...pretty terrible. The three of us were crammed into a 6-person compartment with 2 other people (who were very Austrian, but also very nice, so it wasn't so bad in that respect) and spent 11-or-so hours trying uncomfortable (and unsuccessfully) to sleep. We arrived in the city at about 6:30 in the morning, spent entirely too long looking for our hostel (which was literally right next to the train station, but we weren't used to the city layout yet and took the long way there), and went in to see if we could check in early. The guy working there said that we could, but that we'd have to be put into a 6-person instead of the 4-person room that we'd booked. We said it was fine, because all we wanted was a place to sleep, so we got our keys and went up to our room and when we got there we realized that it was empty. As it turned out, it was a slow week at the hostel or something, so we had the entire room to ourselves the whole time we were there. We each took a quick shower and by 7:30 had crashed. We slept until about noon, got up, and headed out.



First we headed to a street market. It was sorta gross out so it rained on us a bit but we enjoyed it nonetheless. They were selling everything from all sorts of clothing to food and we just wandered around it for a while. We ended up going into this intense Turkish restaurant called Kent for dinner, because we'd been recommended it, and got some aaaaaaawesome Turkish food.



Afterwards we headed back towards the hostel and took a long walk down Mariahilferstraat, which is the street our hostel was on and also one of the main shopping streets in Vienna. We stopped into a famous bakery called Aida and got coffee and cake!



The cake is called Sachertorte and it's a Viennese specialty. Vienna is apparently known for both its coffee and cake. And it was delicious!



Afterwards we continued our walk down Mariahilferstraat and found the museum/palace district, which was lit up gorgeously at night. It was at this point that my camera started to malfunction, which is why all of these pictures look of such high quality (because I've stolen them from Nicole, props Nicole!).

There was a nifty bar in our hostel and Vienna's not so known for it's hopping night scene, so we mostly hung out there at night. They had food there too, which was nice, because since technically all we'd had for dinner was cake/coffee we were starving.

The next day we got up earlyish and decided we were going to wander around the main area of the city. We walked over to where we'd been the night before, past the parliament, past the town hall (or what I think was the town hall, but I'm actually not sure) and found this gorgeous church. I'm still not sure which church it was, but it had all of this renovation going on outside, so we couldn't really get good pictures of the outside. The inside, however, was gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. There's no other word for it.



After that we walked back to the palace and spent a whiiiiiile there taking pictures and just enjoying it. The streets are all so cute and it was just so nice and so fun.







That night we wanted to get some traditional Austrian food. We'd gone to this adorable cafe back on Mariahilferstraat for lunch and gotten some nice sausage (and in my case spinach, potatoes, and eggs - IT WAS SO GOOD), but we wanted a real meal. There was a Mozart-themed restaurant around the corner from us, so we headed there. I got these insane egg dumpling things, Nicole got fried Camenbert, and Kendra got apparently delicious pumpkin soup. It was a good meal.

The next day was the day we were leaving, but we didn't have to leave the hostel until about 4pm so we had the morning/early afternoon to ourselves. I really wanted to attempt to go to the Zentralfriedhof cemetery, where a lot of famous composers are buried, but Kendra and Nicole had homework and things to do, so I decided to go on my own. I took the tram and it took me about 45 minutes to get there and let me tell you, the ride was so worth it.









For one, the cemetery was absolutely gorgeous. Literally the most gorgeous cemetery, and possibly one of the most gorgeous places, I've ever been in. Each of the graves was created so perfectly and so elaborately. Everything was beautiful. I really don't even have enough words to describe it. I saw (pictured above) Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Strauss's graves. I also saw a Mozart monument, but I don't think it was his actual grave since I had read somewhere that he's not buried in the same cemetery as Beethoven. When I was at Beethoven's grave I ran into this woman who started babbling at me in German. When she saw the look on my face, she stopped, I asked "English?" and she started talking in perfect English. Turns out, she and two other men (who were there with her) are making a documentary on Beethoven's 9th symphony. Her name was Isabel from Chile, and the two guys with her were from Edinburgh and somewhere in California. I think the Californian was excited to meet another American.

After I got back to the hostel, the three of us got our things and made it to the train station. We caught our train at around 5:30 and were finally in Prague around 10, got to our hostel shortly thereafter (with the help of a suuuuuuper nice English-speaking concierge at the Hilton on the way), dropped our things off, and went out to find a place to eat. Unfortunately, on a Thursday night in Prague at 11pm there is little open that serves anything but alcohol. Thankfully, we did manage to find a small pizzeria that was near close, sat down, ordered food quick, and downed it because we were starving by then.

After eating, since we hadn't done anything terribly tiring that day, we headed out to walk around a bit. Our hostel was - I kid you not - a two-minute walk from Old Town Square. So, naturally, we headed in that direction. Old Town Square is incredible at night. I know there's really not much around there besides pretty buildings and tourist shops and restaurants, but the dark and the lights combined with the perfect night was...perfect. Since it was a Thursday there weren't very many people in the main square, so it sort of felt like we had the place to ourselves. We walked down past the old Synagogue and to the water and hung over the railing staring over at the Prague Castle and Charles Bridge. It looked like a fairytale land. I truly cannot describe how beautiful that city is. Truly. Before we headed back for the night I stared up at the castle and leaned over the water saying, "Alright Prague, I have to go to sleep now, promise not to go anywhere while I'm gone, okay?"



The next morning we let ourselves sleep in, because since our hostel didn't serve breakfast we had no real incentive to wake up early (plus we'd had to wake up early every single day thus far and wanted a break). We finally got out around noon and wandered around in the labyrinthine streets behind Tyn Church, basically where our hostel was. There are a lot of hidden shops and cafes and bars and restaurants back there, and we found this restaurant with a lunch special where you got soup, an entree, and a dessert all for a fixed price (I think it came out to being about $10 when we converted it), so we went in.



Do you think this looks incredible? Because IT WAS. Best meal I've had since coming to the castle, hands down. Even better than the amazing dinner we had in Paris. So. Good.



Here is a picture of Kendra in front of our hostel! It was under this archway and through this passageway into a courtyard. It was really cute and so close to everything so we loved it. Also very clean, which was a nice plus.



Next we wandered around the main square. There was a market going on there (I think it was a Christmas market) with lots of booths set up with people selling sausage and chicken and fried dough and jewelry and marionettes and mulled wine and everything you could possibly want.



There was even a cute street band playing in the center! We stopped to look for a while and this little kid came wandering up, and the trumpet player started playing at him, but he didn't even notice. So cute.

After that we wandered back towards the water again, just sort of going in and out of touristy shops and stuff like that, trying to see everything that we could. The day was really nice, which was a nice change from the crappy weather we'd had in Vienna.



Next we decided to wander into some shops. We found this store called Brick a Brack which was just basically an epic thrift store, and it was awesome. We spent a while in there, and wandering through its sister store a little bit down the street.



After wandering some more we found this cute outside cafe. Kendra and I ordered coffee and Nicole got water and we sat outside for a while enjoying the weather and sipping on our drinks. Prague is such an easy city to see in only two days, so we let ourselves relax while we were there. We'd been so pressured in Berlin and were still so tired from all the stress of classes/that that we allowed ourselves time to recover. And Prague is one of those cities that you feel like you have to take slow, because it's just...like that.

That night, after doing a bit more wandering in the Jewish area and peering (since it was closed) in to the awesome cemetery there, we found a bar called The Dubliner (ironic that we found an Irish pub in the middle of Prague, no?) and spent most of our night there. They had live music, which was really awesome. A lot of bars that we passed actually had live music. Prague is supposedly one of the bar/club capitals of the world, so we tried to take advantage of it.

The next day we decided that we wanted to see Prague Castle. The castle itself wasn't terribly exciting (and we didn't want to pay to go into it), but the church within it was incredible.



It's weird that I've been to so many churches now (or...I guess I'm in Europe, so it shouldn't be all that weird). In almost every city I've gone to I've gone in one (or in London's case, attempted to go in one). This church reminded me very much of Notre Dame, actually. It wasn't quite that huge, but it was made similarly inside and was just as beautiful.



After we left the church we decided to explore the area some more. We just randomly found ourselves walking down this incline into the town area surrounding the castle and before we knew it, we were on a cliff (basically) overlooking the entire city. We literally just stumbled onto it, totally by chance.



This picture really doesn't do it justice, but unfortunately Nicole's camera died before she could take many good pictures. I had my disposable camera with me though, so when I get those pictures developed (probably when I get home) there will be much more to see! It was beautiful though. Possibly more beautiful than the view in Budapest, which I previously had loved the most out of any view that I'd seen so far.

After leaving the castle we headed back into Old Town Square, got some street food (fried potato pancakes - SO GOOD - and chicken and sausage skewers), and went to the St. Nicholas church to see a string concert! We got an awesome discount of like 7 euro since we're students too, which was nice. The concert was five violins, one violist, one cellist, and one bassist, and occasionally a trumpet player. They were the Prague Radio somethingsomething Orchestra and they were phenomenal. The church was freezing despite the heaters built into the seats but we didn't care. The concert was only an hour but I wished that it had been longer. They played part of Dvorak's New World Symphony too, which is one of my favorite symphonies ever (if not my favorite), so my night was made. It was late by the time we got out and we had an early train to catch the next morning, so after it was over we just headed back to the hostel.

The next morning we had to wake up at 5 to make it to the train station in time. Thankfully, everything went off without a hitch, and we got into Berlin (since we had to take a reserved train to Berlin before taking local trains back to The Netherlands) at about 11am. This was my favorite train ride. Though I was incredibly tired, because it was light out, I could actually see where we were. I've never seen a more beautiful place on earth, hands down. The town at the Czech, and then at the German, border were beyond words. Valleys with sprawling forests and lakes and tiny town settlements with glorious gothic churches. I'll go there someday. We also passed through Dresden on the way back, which was so exciting for me since one of my favorite books (Slaughterhouse Five) takes place there, and one of my favorite bands is called The Dresden Dolls.

At the Berlin station, we grabbed a quick lunch and went looking for a train to take back (since the trains are local we didn't have to reserve them and they also leave relatively often so we didn't have a set one that we were going to take). We found one that was leaving around 11:40 and got on it. As we were looking for seats, I realized that everyone around us had tickets with seat numbers on them, which meant that the train we were on was a train that we actually did have to reserve. I told Nicole and Kendra and headed out of the train. At first I don't think they followed, but eventually they realized that I was right, except that by this time it was too late for them to get off the train because the door had shut and would not open again. The train left, with them on it, and me standing on the platform. Oops.

After a minor freak-out, I went down to the ticket center and asked the woman there (who thankfully spoke English) if she could help me figure out how to get to The Netherlands. She printed out an itinerary for me that didn't require me to have to reserve anything and by 12:08 I was on my way back. I managed to make it back to the castle mostly with no problem (one of my connections was only 3 minutes long due to a late train, but I made it!), and was finally back in my room by 7:30.

Nicole and Kendra walked in about 3 hours later though. Apparently the train they were on had stopped at another Berlin station before leaving for real, and they got off there, took the metro back to the Hauptbanhof, and spent an hour-or-so there looking for me before taking another train back. Then there were all sorts of train delays on trains going to Venlo (apparently I managed to make it back just before the delays began), which pushed them back even farther.

All in all, travel break was awesome. It was very nice, very fun, very relaxing, and very exciting all at the same time. Kendra and I are also leaving tomorrow at 6:50am for Dublin and we could not be more excited!

Berlin(erplatzplatzplatz)

I have decided to title this entry above due to the fact that every main square in Berlin as an erplatz added onto the end of it. Alexanderplatz, Potsdamerplatz, you name it. They all do.

We started our journey to Berlin early two Friday mornings ago. We had to meet downstairs at 5am to drop off our room keys and board the busses to the airport. Since it was a mandatory excursion, everyone at the castle went, and we were accompanied by most of the main staff as well as many of the teaching staff. We got to the Cologne airport at about 8, if I remember correctly, left around 10, and were finally in Berlin around noon. We boarded two more busses, which took us into the center of the city and to the hotel that we were put up in, and by 2pm most of us were situated. We stayed in actual hotel rooms, which was a nice change, and Kendra and I were put in a two-person room together with our own shower and everything. We felt so fancy.

After splitting up into groups, we were all taken on a short walking tour of the city. Berlin is massive so it was impossible to see even remotely everything that we wanted to, but we did make good time.



We started at hour hotel, walked down Unter de Linden (one of the main streets with a lot of sights on it) past Alexanderplatz, up to Domplatz, which is there the Berlin Dome cathedral is. I was really surprised at how spread out everything is in Berlin. We stayed in what previously was East Berlin, so a lot of the buildings are obviously very communisty (just block-like and rather drab), and the streets are wide enough to fit...well, tanks. It was really strange, but I still liked it. Even the crosswalk lights are leftover from communism, little men with boxy hats.



Here's a picture of the cathedral with the Alexanderplatz TV (radio?) tower in the background. The day was really nice and pretty, and we enjoyed it muchly.





Next we walked down to the Brandenburg Gate, one of the most known sights of Berlin. Of course, there were a million people everywhere. It was cool though. Because that weekend was the 20th anniversary of the wall coming down, there was all sorts of activity going on everywhere.



This is the memorial for murdered Jews (not to be confused with the Holocaust memorial, though it does relate to the Holocaust, it is specifically for the murdered Jews). The group had a very fun time running through, around, and even over the huge slabs of stone. As blasphemous as that sounds, apparently the designer wanted people to be able to enjoy the memorial, to play on it and have fun with it. I could've spent hours there, but unfortunately we had to keep going.



By then it was starting to get dark. We walked to Potsdamerplatz and the Sony center, following the line where the wall used to be, and on the way past some of the dominoes getting ready for Monday's festivities. The idea behind the dominoes were to create huge massive dominoes painted like the bits of leftover wall are now and, on Monday night, signaling exactly 20 years from when the wall was finally fallen, to knock them down. Because we had a train to catch that night we didn't have time to stay and actually see it, but it supposedly was a very interesting experience.



Here's a bit of the wall still left standing, now graffitied and painted with little explanations on either side of it.



The next day my entire day was planned out for me due to my Art History class. Both of my teachers accompanied us to Berlin and we spent all day in two museums. We started our day at the Hauptbanhof, the main train station, which is pretty much in the middle of everything (and also is the station where Kendra and Nicole lost me later in the week - I'll explain later). There were these massive red steps set up outside of it that let you see higher up all over the city, so we climbed them and spent a bit there.

From there we walked to the Hamburger Hauptbanhof, which is a former train station converted into a modern art museum. I have to say, it was probably one of the best museums I've ever been in. Most pieces in there (and it was HUGE, so this was really staggering) actually were relevant to what we've been learning in class and we saw a lot of famous works by a lot of famous artists that we've been studying. It was SO cool. I unfortunately didn't get any pictures in it because I was too busy admiring everything.



After grabbing a quick lunch back at the train station, we headed to the New National Gallery (or Neu Nationalgallerie, I think). There was a massive surrealist and abstract expressionist exhibition there, which was really neat. We again saw a lot of artists that we have been studying, and also many others that we just know anyway (like Dali, etc..). It was pretty cool, I must say.

That night Kendra, Cara, and I all went out in search of something to do. We ended up at this music club/bar with a live band playing. We realized, halfway through, that they were speaking English with American accents. After they were done playing, we caught up to the singer at the merch table. Turns out they're from Washington state (Olympia, to be exact) and are touring around Europe with another musician called Angelo Spencer (who we also saw play, and is slightly better known that they are, as he has a kid with Kimya Dawson). Nic (the singer) was really excited to talk to us, since apparently in all the traveling he'd done so far he'd only met one other American.

The next day, which I unfortunately do not have any pictures of, was again filled with museums. We went to the Deutsches Historiche Museum in the morning (which is the German History Museum). It was actually really interesting, despite my lack of interest in...history. We had a guided tour about the history of Germany from WWII on, which was very informative. Our guide unabashedly talked about Hitler's regime and the Holocaust, which I have to admit I was rather surprised about, considering that from what I've heard most German people are somewhat ashamed of this piece of German history and don't like to bring it up much. The guide answered all of our questions though and gave a very in-depth explanation of everything and I really enjoyed the museum, despite the fact that we didn't get to see much more of it than that.

After lunch, we headed with Dojna (one of the awesome OSA staff) to the Jewish Historical Museum. The museum itself was really cool, the architect who designed it did so in a really interesting way that I'd have a tough time describing without a picture. We also were given a guided tour, but it was only about 45 minutes long so we didn't get to see much. We were free to walk around afterwards though, so we did, but left soon after.

That night, student government sponsored (with the aid of 7 euro from each of us?) a dinner. We all went to Bavaria, a supposedly authentic German restaurant (but in reality was just a campy, showy fake one - but it was fun, nonetheless!). We had amazing soup, really good sausage (or pasta if you are, like me, a vegetarian of sorts), and incredible apple pastries for dessert. You were also allowed to order drinks on your own dime, and Lewis, who I have recently met and who actually is also from Long Island (Coram, to be exact, he went to high school with Mara) was sitting next to me, and ordered literally the biggest beer I have ever seen.



Yeah.

The next day we met up early and headed to the dome cathedral in groups.



We walked up the almost 500 steps allllllllll the way to the very top (it was tiring, let me tell you). But the climb was DEFINITELY worth it. Despite the fact that it was sorta foggy and rainy out, the view was incredible, and we were happy (albeit, sopping) by the time we were done.





After that, we headed to the Reichstag, or the German parliament building, where we were given guided tours of the Bundestag, or the parliament. It was really cool to be inside it, to be in this awesome historical place where all sorts of crazy shit has undoubtedly happened. The president of parliament (akin to our speaker of the house) even just casually walked by us at one point, which was surreal, and so cool.



The Reichstag has a massive glass dome on top where people can go up and see the entire city. Obviously, we did.



Here's the Brandenburg Gate from above. Notice all the dominoes to the right! They were EVERYWHERE. More pictures to follow...





After that, our Berlin adventure was concluded and we were free to leave not only the building, but the city. Kendra, Nicole, and I all headed back to the hotel to pick up our things, rested for a bit, and then made it back to the Hauptbanhof station for our 11-hour 7pm train ride to Vienna and the beginning of our week-long travel break!

London Calling

My London blog is finally here!

We traveled on this trip into the city with Sam and Paige, but Paige stayed at a different hostel from us. Sam stayed with us and so did our friends Margaret, Sebastian, and Tiffany, who we all know from here at the castle. We got to London in the late afternoon on Friday after a semi-delayed flight and a traffickey bus ride into the city. We got to our hostel (which was DISGUSTING by the way), checked in, dropped all our crap off, and headed out to find something to eat because we were starving.

We ended up heading into Camden Town, which is this young hip-ish area with lots of bars and pubs and stores and stuff like that. We wandered around for a bit in and out of stores, found a record shop that Sam had previously been to on some other trip to London, found a smallish diner for dinner, and continued wandering.



We wandered into the Stable Market, which is this really awesome leveled market with layers and layers of shops, many with Middle Eastern themes. There were a bunch of falafel places, a lot of hookah bars, and a lot of cute little stores that sold things like scarves and jewelry. I ended up getting a scarf for 1.79 pounds, which translates to about $2.97, so I HAD to get it. Stable Market is where a former horse hospital used to be, so it's gigantic and wooden and most of the original barn-like structures are still there. There are also now these massive horse heads sticking up from the ground (as shown in the picture above), which are very fun to mess around with.

We ended up wandering into this HUGE bar, fell in love with a bartender for being adorable (Sam ordered a drink but he misheard him and thought he'd ordered two, so when Sam corrected him he poured the first drink into the second and only charged him for one - aw), got hit on by some drunk Norwegian guys in the city for a soccer game, and called it a night around midnight.

The next day we decided to explore the city. We were mostly going to split up but we all wanted to check out Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross and since there was some major tube construction going on this weekend the line that we'd have to take to get there would be closed on Sunday so we went then.



It. Was. AWESOME. 'Nuff said.

(We were clearly the oldest people there who weren't parents with their kids, but we didn't care and we all posed.)



Next we split up. I headed into Leicester Square because I'd heard it was a really nifty place to hang around, and also that there's a road called Cecil Court somewhere near the tube stop that Diagon Alley was supposedly based off of. I could not find it, so I just wandered a bit more. I ended up in the nearby Trafalgar Square, which is also another really cool place, and I conveniently ended up running into Nicole. We realized that we both wanted to see Buckingham Palace so we just hooked up and walked in that direction.



It was like a 20 minute walk away but totally worth it. We had to walk down the gorgeous mall to get there which was all lined in multicolored leaves and with the palace looming in the background it was perfect. We sat around outside it for a bit taking pictures and peoplewatching. It wasn't nearly as grand or massive as I thought it would be, but still cool nonetheless.





Then we headed back to find something to eat. We passed this really neat castle-looking structure on our way too, and I just had to photograph it.

Walking back from Buckingham Palace was not fun, since we were starting to get a bit tired from all the walking and were absolutely starving. We just sort of wandered some more through some side-streets and squares until we came upon a main-ish looking one. We stopped in a Pret a Manger for some food and went back out on the street to look for someplace to eat. We found a fountain in the middle of the square so we decided to sit and eat. We were almost done eating when I started to look around and really notice everything around us. I realized that the place we were kind of looked familiar, but I wasn't sure why. I looked for a sign or something that might say where we were, and I finally spotted the tube station.



Turns out we'd been sitting in the middle of Piccadilly Circus eating for the past 20 minutes without even realizing it. Go us.

After we were done, Nicole and I decided to head towards Westminster. After a few tube transfers, we finally got there. We stepped out of the stop and started walking towards the Thames, not sure exactly where we were in relation to everything. After about a minute of walking in one direction Nicole tapped me on the shoulder and told me to turn around. Big Ben was literally 20 feet away from us and, again, I hadn't even noticed.



We started heading in the direction of Westminster Abbey because Nicole and I really wanted to see it. We got some great shots on the way. The weather was supposed to be gross and rainy all weekend but it was gorgeous for all of Saturday afternoon/night. We felt so lucky.



The Abbey!





As it turns out, the Abbey is closed after 1:30pm on Saturdays. Needless to say, we were very disappointed. Nicole was meeting a friend who goes to Oxford there so they could hang out and catch up and get dinner, so I left her there and started wandering off on my own.



I headed back towards the Thames and the bridge and just sort of wandered (again), taking pictures, taking everything in. I literally cannot believe how much I loved being in London. It is hands down my favorite place we've been to so far. I loved everything about it and would love to live there someday, but the only problem there is that it is SO expensive. This weekend I only spent money on the hostel, food, a scarf, two souvenir pouches for friends (they were like 50 pence each), the tube, and postcards, and I easily spent around $175. It was ridiculous.

I wandered back to Leicester Square to see if I could find Cecil court again and I succeeded this time, because as I was going up the escalator in the metro I saw a sign on the wall advertising it! I walked down it, wandered into a few book shops, and just had fun walking around (I was in the theaterish district by now) and enjoying the people and the night, since it was dark by now. The street was mostly book shops, antique shops, antique book shops, and art galleries. I LOVE LONDON!

I headed back to the hostel then and ran into Sam, Sebastian, Tiffany, and Kendra there. Tiffany was going to see a show so she left soon after (as it turned out, the queen was at her performance! She said it was so exciting. They all had to rise and everything when she walked in too). I grabbed a quick dinner, Nicole got back around 9, and then we all headed out again, back into Camden to enjoy Halloween. Sebastian had a ticket for a special club thing so he was only going to stay with us until around 12:30 (which is when we ended up leaving anyway), so we just went to find a bar again.

We ended up going back to the same one as the night before. It was PACKED. Every single person there was dressed up too, which was great. Even all of the bartenders were dressed up. People go all-out in London. I saw more fake blood than I ever have in my life. We ended up talking to this guy named Nico from Maryland who's studying abroad this semester in London. He was so excited to meet other Americans, it was really cute. There was also one guy in a full-on skeleton costume who would periodically come around and hug us and pretend to kiss us. It was so much fun. Afterwards we found another bar that was sort of clubbish so we danced in there for a bit, but then the tube was closing and we wanted to get back so we headed out.

The next day we decided to check out the British Museum, since it was only a 15 minute walk from the hostel. It was totally free to get in and they were having a huge Dia De Los Muertos celebration, so there were little kids everywhere too. We saw an Easter Island head, MUMMIES(!!), so many ancient Greek artifacts and a few sculptures that I vaguely remember studying at some point, and even the Rosetta Stone, which was awesome.

Afterwards we wanted to find some lunch. It was rainy and sorta gross out so we tried not too wander too far and ended up finding this cute little pub. It was totally packed though so the woman working there offered to let us sit upstairs to eat, warning us that there weren't any real tables but there were couches. We went up to see what it was like and found that it was like an upstairs lounge, and we were the only ones there, so we had a nice, long, and cozy meal up there.



Here's what it looked like!

That's pretty much it for London. After that we headed back to the hostel one more time to retrieve all our things and made it to the airport in time for our flight. Sam, Paige, Sebastian, Margaret, and this other kid Gio who also goes to school there were all on our flight, and it was awesome being with a bunch of people who we knew.

Since then I've just been schooling my life away. Classes are getting tough. But this Wednesday (so...yesterday) the OSA had a massive Halloween celebration here! There supposedly is a ghost living in the castle named Sophie (hence why the lounge in my building is called Sophie's Lounge), so they dressed the castle up in a haunted house (even had a professional haunted house person come to help out!), recruited a whole slew of townsfolk to come here and dress up and try to scare us, and took us around it. It was SO MUCH FUN. It wasn't all that scary, just really funny mostly, and I absolutely loved it. Everyone got dressed up, they gave out some free drinks, and it was just nice to hang out with everyone.



Here's my friend Alex, Dojna (who works in the OSA - she was dressed up as Sophie's ghost), and me!



And here's Alex again, Johnny (who also works in the OSA...I don't know what he's supposed to be here though), and me again!

After the festivities were over everyone headed to the pub in town. It was so much fun. Everyone from the OSA was there, Huber the groundskeeper was there, my lit professor was there, all the haunted house helpers were there, and all of us were there! It was just a really fun and exciting night and I feel like we all really bonded.

Right now it is 1:15am here and I have to be up in 3.5 hours! We're leaving for Berlin tomorrow (all 85 of us!) for our second mandatory travel excursion. We have a jam-packed schedule all of tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (which - by the way - is the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down, which means the day should be AWESOME) and then from there begins our week-long travel break. Nicole, Kendra and I have all our tickets and hostels booked and we are going to be spending our week in Vienna and then Prague. I'm SO excited. Our Vienna hostel was rated the best hostel in the city and was cheap to boot, and our Prague hostel came recommended by this girl Emily we know who's here also and is literally two blocks away from the city's main square. I don't think I could be more stoked for the upcoming week (as long as all the running around doesn't kill me this weekend!).

I'll have so much to update on when I get back, so keep an eye out! :)