Passport? Check. Tickets? Check. Plan? Meh.

Righty, get it together!

2011-03-12T15:02:00.000-08:00

We actually got up early this morning. Before lunchtime. Hooray us! Had to, busy day planned.

We went to sleep LATE last night cause outside our hotel they like to do drag racing. And have Latin dance par-tays. And I'm pretty sure city officials in the trash department are working on the "dumpster emptying" techniques, as they emptied the trash outside our hotel 6 times during the night. A truck. Lifting a squeaky trash can. While beeping. 6 times.

Now, this morning. LW placed our order at the bakery in French. Sucar or chocolat? And we bought our fruit at the market, before he even opened. Bear in mind this is what I affectionately refer as the "Fruit Stand/Discotheque" (source of Latin music last night), so a little slow opening is to be expecting.

Now, we're fed and off. Train to Montemart. No missteps getting there. Basically train experts.

1st things 1st- saw wall of love. We're girls. So sue us.
2nd things 2nd- climbed Mt. Everest. Couldn't figure where anything was, but we figured we'd see it from the top.

Sacre Couer was up there. Google it. BEAUTIFUL mosaics. No dead people. They really hide their dead here, it's weird. And a crypt isn't cutting it. Next stop, some square with tons of artists. They draw you- with pens, pencils, chalk, paint, markers. Caricatures, aged photo, whatever you want... for a tidy sum. Took a pass to haul ass to St Chapelle. Come to find out, that opens at 1, not closes at 1. Language issue there, I suppose. We were a little frustrated that we rushed away from the accordion players, harp player (with a pop-&-lock dancer friend), and a guy standing on a table showboating with a soccer ball.

Since the line was TOO long, we moseyed to McDonald's for our French burgers with "deluxe potato" and frites with creamy sauce. And Coke Lights (no ice). If I hear one more French person call Americans fat, I'm gonna question their "Golden Meal" which is a Big Mac, fries, Coke (Light if you must) AND 6 CHICKEN NUGGETS! Sheesh.

Went to Notre Dame for the 2:30 English tour. After a "Who's on 1st, What's on 2nd". Get ready:

LW: Where do we go for the tour?
Notre Dame Lady (NDL): You want to see the tour?
LW: Yes. Where do we get in line for the tour?
NDL: Up or inside?
LW: Inside. (Still not in on the joke, obviously)
NDL: Then go inside.
LW: It's in English, right? At 2:30?
NDL: I don't know.
LW: Well, what's this line for?
NDL: The tours.
LW: Wait. What? We want to go on the tour at 2:30.
NDL: You want to see the tours?
LW: Yes. We want the tour. At 2:30. In English.
NDL: You have to get in line for the tours.
LW: What?

We looked at the sign, directly behind her and realized tours means towers in French.

Ummmm... all that. And the English tour was canceled. So, back to St. Chapelle. Stood in line, but it was only half of what it had previously been. Geniuses, we know. Inside the church is painted. Impressive enough, but then you go upstairs.

Unbeleivable. Breathtaking. Unimaginable... but we paint with words, so we got this.

Imagine all the stained glass in the world. Ta-da. It's 75% of the church (accurate, not an estimate). It was built cause they received the robes of the Virgin Mary. Lovely has a video of it. Once we figure how to do that, we'll get it on here.

The cafe time. It's tough being us... drank coffee and wine. Stared at the Parisians. Thought deep thoughts. Solved world issues.

S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G TIME. Amazing. The end of that. Except note that we walked from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower... which is like going from The Varsity to Columbia, SC. On foot. With 1 leg. And shopping bags. It's tough.

Then we rushed, rushed, rushed to miss our boat tour. :(

So, we got tix for the next one. :) It was SO much better than the Budapest boat tour we did. 1. It was Paris at night from the Seine. 2. It included more than a listing of hotels.

Then we had dinner @ the cafe and now we're tucked in... ready for bed and our early-ish flight.

Hark! The Fast & the Furious are gearing up outside our window for the sequel from last night. Ahhhh... Parisian lullabies.

Restriction

2011-03-11T23:29:00.000-08:00

People, we are not blogging for our health. You are on blogging restriction until we see some comments.

Relationships take work from both sides. I can't love you enough for both of us.

The end...(at least until we see some more comments.)

Who needs enemies when you have friends like Issy?

2011-03-10T15:37:00.001-08:00

Okay, so two guys walk into a bar, the third one drives a toyota to the gas station. Sound familiar? Before we talk about finishing our bus tour, here's how we started the day:

1. Somebody slipped us a roofie, cause we could NOT get up this morning. We finally dragged our tired butts out of bed at 10am (for those of you who know us, this is quite late) to shower and get ready. It takes a while to fancy ourselves up properly for the Paris streets, but we were out and looking for a bakery by 10:30.

2. Bakery found. Accidentally passed on a "frommage" pastry (CHEESE!!! who knew?), but got some delicious "pommes" (apple) pastries and fruits. Luckily they also sold sandwiches, so we bought some of those for later even though Lovely almost ate hers for breakfast. (It was chicken salad with a delicious curry sauce...who can blame her?)

3. Ate breakfast in park under observation of creepy homeless man/woman. Who collected our trash bag for undisclosed reasons. Almost left with souvenir French child. WAY too cute to pass up.

4. Direct quote from Lovely "With expert Metro skills arrived immediately, without fault, at Musee d'Orsay. Not ONE misstep. Begin embellishment." Apparently that last part was for me. So, the Musee d'Orsay is AWESOME!! It looks like the world's LARGEST and most BEAUTIFUL train station. Inside are all kinds of famous and important artworks including these highlights: several pieces by Seaurat (Lovely's favorites), lots of pieces by Degas (Lady Whitehouse's favorites), and a bad-ass model of the Paris Opera House that the architect constructed to convince people to let him build it. It's basically a tiny model that is to scale and cut in half BUT (the best part), under your feet is a replica of Paris showing how BEAUTIFULLY the Opera house fits in with the surrounding architecture. Too cute.

5. Tried to get a cup of coffee, ended up with half a mouthwash cup of "espresso" and a can of Coke Light. Total sum: 5 Euro. Bitch, please.

6. Ring situation to be discussed later.

7. Decided it was time to eat again, so we stopped to eat our sandwiches in the Tuilleries (sp?). Basically the gardens behind the Louvre. They had lots of potential, but it being cold as the inside of Mama Ayres' deep freezer, nothing was blooming. We think there was a bronzed tree though.

8. En route to the Orangerie (another museum behind the Louvre), a man "found" a gold ring right next to us. Second time that this happened in the last hour. Very tricky. It's not a pretty gold ring either. It's a big ol giant man gold ring that they look utterly shocked to have found. And then offer to you like you dropped it. Because Lovely and I wear men's gold wedding rings all the time. Weird how it doesn't fit them either (which they show you repeatedly). Obviously they did not take a look at Lovely's tiny circus hands. BUT it's 24karat gold which they also show you repeatedly. Not sure how this trick gets me seperate from my money, but we knew it was going to happen somehow. So we held tight to the bag and walked quickly away.

9. The Orangerie: circular Monet's, CHECK. Museum pass: finally scanned. We basically got into the Louvre twice for free, since they barely glance at the thing. We are thinking of re-selling them.

10. Next: back to the Louvre. It's basically like trying to get into the Pentagon (NOT). You walk up into a glass security room where there is a walk-through metal detector and bag x-ray machine. Also 2 security guards. Everyone before is scanned HEAVILY. As we walk in the door, one guard leaves. Lady Whitehouse proceeds to put the bag (GIANT bag full of pipe bombs) onto the xray scanner, at which time, security guard two pops his head out the door to ask someone for a smoke. Bag scans through machine as Lovely sets off metal detector, totally unnoticed. No one even turns their head as we walk into the world's most IMPORTANT museum. Why are we so obviously not terrorists? Next time, I'm wearing a Berka.

11. We decided to wander a while, and during our wandering, stumbled upon a delicious bakery and a beautiful church: St Eustace. The bakery provided us with a chocolate and pistachio pastry and some gourmet chocolates filled with things that were explained to us by a friendly French person. St Eustace was a better experience for us than Notre Dame. It was more genuine and obviously loved. There were beautiful pieces inside the church (including a Keith Haring triptych..weird), and one interesting chapel with a sculpture that looked like puppets in a French market. We also POTENTIALLY saw a dead appendage in a glass box. We're not sure because we couldn't find a good vantage point.

12. Waited AN HOUR for our bus to show up outside Notre Dame to finish our bus tour. Which we still didn't do, but whatever.

13. Jumped off at Arc de Triumph to climb to the top. It was a mere 248 steps to the top, totally worth the views.

14. Dinner at Le Petite Ozio, an amazingly friendly and delicious Italian resturaunt. Wined and dined for 3 hours on Pinot Grigio, Bruschetta de Prusciutto, Gnocchi Gorgonzola, and Pasta alla Victoria. AMAZING. Even more amazing was the bathroom. Here's the situation: you walk down a hall covered walls, floor, and ceiling with astroturf. Immediately before the kitchen, take a right into a black door. Once inside, you flip a switch to find that said bathroom is lit SOLELY by a spotlight hitting a mini spinning disco ball. That's right. Not a typo. The remaining decor is black subway tile from floor to ceiling and 3 blue candles. Lovely's convinced George Michael was bussed in to decorate.

15. Left the resturaunt singing "Faith" by the man himself. Continued to sing alternating Disney princess songs and show tunes until we found ourselves at the Eiffel Tower. Our favorite Metro stop. After taking some photos (and being solicited to buy tiny Eiffel Towers about 100 times), we took the metro home.

The End.

Goodnightersons.

Where's a Wendy's?

2011-03-09T13:14:00.000-08:00

Oh today. It started off a little rough, but we have since figured out that we probably deserved it because our travels had been so smooth up until then. Here's what happened:

1. On the plane. Our 3rd seat partner got shifted to the front (YES!!!) only to be replaced by a woman who was rude and not a polite space sharer (noooooo....). This exclusively bothered Lovely because she was next to her and the lady was encroaching on her leg space.

2. Despite sleeping pills, could not sleep because plane was the size of a pea. Never been on such a small plane for an international flight. I'm pretty sure it's the same model we flew to Raleigh-Durham several years ago. We think it was a Puddle Jumper 747. Terrifying.

3. We are pretty sure that Charles de Gaulle airport is set up in the shape of a Nautilus. We were trapped in there with revolving doors that only occasionally revolved and despite SEVERAL attempts of friendly French people to instruct us, we still didn't understand due to the fact that they were speaking French...weird.

4. Finally we try to buy tickets which we could not buy with the denominations of money that we had, so we had to get in line in the office. We then approached the WRONG ticket lady because she did not sell tickets to Paris (even though we were in Paris) and were instructed to the ONE person selling tickets to Paris, who then sold us a ticket to Issy (NOT in Paris as it turns out). She was WRONG.

5. Welcome to Issy. NOT PARIS. It was a lovely town. Not so many people. Not so many buildings. Not a lot of art museums, but hotels looked cheap. We approach the ticket lady with the innocent statement of "Can you show me how to get to this address?" (being the address of our hotel).
Ticket lady in Issy: "Do you speak French?"
Us: "No"
Issy Welcoming Committee (formerly known as Ticket lady): "(huff...puff...sigh) WHY YOU ARE HERE?! YOU SHOULD BE IN PARIS! WHO TOLD YOU TO COME HERE?!"
Us: (insert looks of terror here) "We're not in Paris?"
Issy Welcoming Committee : "THIS IS ISSY!! THIS IS WRONG!! (sigh...huff) Give me the map."
(Lady Whitehouse tries to fold the map so it will fit through the slot)
Issy Welcoming Committee : "DO NOT FOLD THE MAP! JUST GIVE IT TO ME!!"
Us: "How do we get here (pointing to our hotel on the ever so broad and terrifyingly general Google map)?"
Issy Welcoming Committee : "YOU HAVE TO BE IN PARIS!! SEE, THIS IS PARIS. YOU ARE NOT IN PARIS, YOU ARE IN ISSY!!"
Us: "Ummm...ok, so how do we get to where we need to go?"
Issy Welcoming Committee: "Give me the map...NO, DO NOT FOLD IT!!"
Us: "I just want it to fit through the slot..."

The rest of the conversation did get us to where we wanted to go, despite the Issy Welcoming Committee almost ripping our map in half because it did not fit through the slot.

6. Starting at that point, Lovely & Lady Whitehouse ceased communicating. We know how to stay friends. So, we do what any smart tourist does at this point... took the Metro to the biggest tourist trap you can find (Oh hi Eiffel Tower) and get a cab. Hotel finding achieved.

Starting here, things got much better. We showered off the disappointments of the morning (and 25 hours without sleep for the most part) and hit the town. First on the agenda was FOOD. We had Croques. Mine was Croque Madame (basically a ham sandwich with an egg on top) and though Lovely ordered a "country sandwich," it was my sandwich minus the egg. Still the most delicious food items we'd had in a long time. Oh, and of course we had wine. Which was red AND cold, apparently the French are with me on that one.

We dared to take the Metro again and surprise!! we actually ended up at the Eiffel Tower!! Yay us! The first item on the agenda was finding a bus tour. I know, I know. It's like the cheesiest thing ever, but they are SO helpful in establishing the lay of the land and giving us a basic background of major sites. Plus it's our tradition and they are typically narrated with poorly translated history jokes. Doesn't get much better than that.

SO, we got on the bus and about 4 stops later...we woke up and decided the rocking lull and the beautiful Mozart in the background was too sweet of a lullaby so we got off at Notre Dame. If you break out your map of Paris (NOT ISSY), you will see that we really didn't sleep through too many important points. I mean, you can always find the Louvre again right? Notre Dame was quite lovely although we only found 1 skeleton sculpture and no dead people. To be completely frank, we've seen prettier churches. With more dead people. But this one does have a lot of history and they do confessionals in glass booths RIGHT by the door. Hey-oh.

We tried to go to the top of Notre Dame, but she was closed for the night (rats!) so we headed towards the Louvre. Lovely had basically sworn off going here cause everyone said it'd take too long and you'd feel rushed on our schedule. Wrong. My dogs were barking, but we walked every part of her except the top floor of Reichleiu. BAM people! We saw the biggie things:

Mona Lisa (what nothing-special painting),
Winged Victory of Samothrice,
Code of Hammurabi,
Venus di Milo (sculpture unknown--did yall know that?),
2 sphinxes
Colossal Statue of Ramses (colossal is an overstatement--above average)

AND A DEAD PERSON. A mummy really, but sweet. Overall, very nice.

Also, there was a lot of performing artists everywhere. We saw 4 shows. Didn't speak to my soul, but stupid unenlightened Americans.

Took an evening stroll through the streets of Paris, stopped at a grocery store for some dinner makings (most delicious sandwiches-- prosciutto, mozzarella, tomatoes, and soft brie-like cheese, and pesto all on crusty bread. Wipe that drool.), and headed back to our hotel. TA-DA.

Time for bed times. More tomorrow.

Ps - this post was co-authored by Lady Whitehouse and Lovely because Lovely has been kicked off the blog. We're not sure how this happened, but we're working on it.

Paris, who knew?

2011-03-09T04:52:00.000-08:00

So, we're in Paris. Yay!! We just got to our hotel, which took no small amount of maneuvering. The metro/railway/subway system here is confusing (to put it nicely) so we've seen most of Paris through a train window thus far. There is some EXCELLENT graffiti here...that's about all we've seen of it, but more is to come.

Next stop: FOOD!! (Preferably prosciutto sandwiches on crusty bread).

Write more later.

I can't work like this.

2010-07-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

Krakow Day #2:

We split up today. I went to Auschwitz/Birkenau.

LW and Hom went to Wawel Castle.

We met up in the afternoon and did the Wielecka Salt Mines as our typical trio.

So, I can only talk about my day. No funny, no jokes, no insight. It's sad. Just like you'd expect. It took about 2 hours roundtrip busride and we toured for about 3 hours. 2 hours at Auschwitz I and 1 at Birkenau. I won't go in to details on here, since some people are more tenderhearted than others. Just know I did it.

Salt Mines on the other hand. Quite a different experience. Not so heavy.

Tomorrow is our last day and we are planning on hitting up the monastary. Have I already said it's only open to women 12 days a year and tomorrow is one of them?!?! AMAZING timing.

Btdubs... anyone want some amber. We're apparently in the capital of it. Sheesh.

He tried to convince the state offiicals to care about the country. He failed; it crumbled.

2010-07-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

Quick update... internet cafe closing soon.

We’re in Krakow and talk about totally different from our other destinations.
Prague Day #3: This was planned to be a kind of “lazy day”. We walked around a bit and saw some last minute items. More Cerny sculptures. At some point we hooked into a free walking tour. I mean, he was describing the story of a severed arm in a church. Yes, please. I’m in. We took it until the end, about 20 minutes, which ran us through the old Jewish ghetto. Strange, sad note: it’s the oldest Jewish quarter in Europe because Hitler saved it planning to make it a museum after the Jewish race was extinct. Told ya—strange and sad.

We took an overnight train out of Prague to Krakow. When we were leaving the guy in charge told us to be sure to lock the door and keep our money on our persons because of “banditos”. We shared the cabin that was built to hold 6 European (skinny) people, with 2 British gals. Made it to Krakow, 1 ½ hours after schedule (at 8 am)… no banditos. No sleep either.

We’re totally exhausted, but we persevered and took a 4 hour bike tour of Krakow. It’s not as historically uplifting as the others… nothing is really “old” here because they’ve been owned, ransacked, tortured, rebuilt, etc. by everyone. Including the Hapsburgs! Everyone’s (in this travel trio) favorite monarchy. Saw basically everything, including Oskar Schindler’s factory… and churches... lots of those.

OK, more update tomorrow. Too tired/stupid to do more now.

No scotties allowed... unless they're on a leash.

2010-07-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

Praha: Day 2. Buckle in... she's gonna be a long one.

This one was a busy one... here's all we did, in bullet for with comments for each. No better way to do this.

Charles Bridge
So this is like a super old bridge that connects “Old Town” to “Castle District”. About every 30 paces or so there is a statue. None of which are important except St. James of of somewhere. He was thrown from the bridge in his day (1320's) and later was named the super-duper saint of Prague. Important part-- if you rub the plaque on his statue it means you'll return to Prague someday. So, we did it. And there's a hound dog in it, and since I'm fiercly missing my dog... rubbed that too.

Cerny statue
It's in front of the Kafka museum, which doesn't do much for me. But Cerny... Cerny on the other hand is ridiculously amazing. Papa, turn away. So the statue is called “Piss” and it's 2 metal men essentially peeing in a pool that's the shape of the Czech Republic. Oh, and they are writing Czech phrases. Anyone know anything about Cerny? He was commissioned to do this big piece for the EU, which was so controversial they rejected it... but it was hysterical. And he painted a Solviet tank pink. BAD ASS!

Lenon wall
The story here is that during the Solviet occupation of here they painted this one wall with a mural to John Lennon and the “All you need is Love” theme... and it was painted over... so they did it again. Back and forth, back and forth, finally they conceded the wall to them. Now it's layer upon layer of graffiti, most of which is still quotes about peace and John Lennon. Very cool.

Strahov monastary hill
So, come to find out the hill closes from 12-1. Not sure why... but at 12:00 they ring the bell for 10 straight minutes. It's cute... then it's old. So, in our wait, we visited the

MINATURE MUSEUM
BEST MUSEUM EVER!!! Saw a flea with golden horseshoes on, holding a lock and key. Through a microscope obviously. AND, camels passing through the eye of a needle. And they got the Lord's Prayer onto a piece of hair. At some point, LW's (who went through backwards) came and yelled at Hom and I, “I don't know what's in that room, but I just saw a zoo on the leg of a mosquito.” Don't have that in the U.S., do they?

Monastary Philosophical Hall
This is supposed to be amazing, but it was under renovation. Nothing to discuss. Outside this room was the ever impressive shriveled sea creature collection. Ever wondered what Donatella Versace will look like in old age. Exactly like this nurse shark that wasn't preserved properly.

Monastary Theological Hall
It was actually amazing what they housed here. There were TONS of super old books that were housed here, a narwhal horn!, and there was a section of books that were about trees and plants... but each one was made from the tree it was describing. And there was a Bible from the 9th century. Which is ridiculous to even think about.

Convent
Oddly, the rooms in here were mostly empty. We spent most our time here today, but I can't describe why. There was an amazing fresco on the ceiling of the old dining room. Plus we were the only people there, so it was nice and quiet... very peaceful. We almost had a skeleton siting in an altar, but it turned out to just be a porcelain figure.

Loreta Square
Here's where things got interesting. On the way, we learned there were skeletons of 2 Spanish saints... which of course we had to find. And a surprise to be named later. There was a VERY old chapel in the middle of the gardens and a more “modern” (circa 1700's) church as the main church. It's still active cause we totally saw monks and nuns. Anyways, we found the saints. They were so far away but we found them, saw the skeletons and masks they're wearing (YEP!) in the newer church. Here's the surprise, there's also a statue to the crucifixion of the bearded lady. Repeat: there's also a statue to the crucifixion of the bearded lady. Here's her story:
Her pops promised the King of Sicily he could marry her. She totally hated kings and Sicily and told her old man... NO WAY! He didn't care, said he ruled with an iron fist and she was in. So she prayed, and prayed and prayed and prayed to make it no so. And God grew her a beard. BINGO! No marriage. Joke's on her. Her old man was so mad he had her crucified and now she's the patron saint of the forsaken.

On (my) stupid request WALKED to Petrin Hill where we saw a replica Eiffel Tower and did a mirror maze. In the mirror maze, not as cool as it sounds, there was a diarama of a fight between the Swedish and Czech army. Hom thinks it sounds like a hissy fit, bitch slap fest, since neither country is known for its military prowess.
Funicular down

In true, stupid (still my idea) fashion, on the easy walk down, we decided to take the Funicular. Which LW pointed out should be pronounced “Fun”icular. It's like the Inclined Railway in Chattanooga. But Czech.

Tram 12 to Letny Gardens
So, we totally took our first tram to Letny Gardens. Big park. Very dog friendly. The goal was to hit up a beer garden that has the “Best View of Prague”.... which everything here has, just refer to the brochure/sign/etc. On the way we saw the metronome. HUGE... very cool for an unexpected treat. It was after 15648646512314 stairs, so at the time I might not have appreciated it well enough. Totally found the beer garden after that and it did have a great view of Prague. And lots of well-behaved dogs. It made me miss Sam. Not the well-behaved part. That's not my dog at all... just the floppy ears and running.\

TA-DA people! That was our day... in a tiny little nutshell. You got the gist though... tomorrow's much calmer, but we're not going to have Internet access for a while. Pops/Mama/Mom Cown-- don't freak out. We'll write more when we can.

In the light of day...

2010-07-28T00:03:00.001-07:00

I realized what I forgot that we accomplished in Vienna that last morning. AND WHAT AN IDIOT I WAS!

Schonbrunn. Duh. We just took a hop, skip, and a jump there to check out the quaint little hunting lodge of our favorite monarchy. (http://www.schoenbrunn.at/en/)

It was everything you'd hope for out of a hunting lodge.

Holy Mackeral that's a fast boy scout!

2010-07-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

So, we're in Prague. I want to post about all of the wonderful things we did today, but I'm soooooo tired. (I know, vacation is tough...) We saw lots of great things today, and after trying to figure out what tour to take, we ended up deciding that we should just start our own tour company. Each tour would begin with us talking about the Hapsburg's, because they pretty much ruled everything over here. Of no fault (or purpose) of their own. The Hapless Hapsburgs...

Our first order of business was the Prague castle, which doesn't really look like a castle from the inside, but kind of looks like one from the outside. There was a really neat-o room in the old part of the castle though where they used to hold jousts when it was rainy outside. Pretty neat. And there were signs everywhere that said "No taking pictures! Unless you have two little cameras." (at least that was our interpretation, so we made sure we were holding two cameras at all times).

Then we walked through Belvedere gardens, very strange. There were greek statutes, hedge mazes, peacocks, a fake stalagtite wall, and a cage with a bunch of owls in it... It was very Through the Looking Glass.

Last point of business was of course food. We found an AWESOME resturaunt and ate ourselves sick on pork (weird I know) and honey cake. Honey cake looks like dirt, but tastes like heaven (as lovely has explained).

We're getting geared up now for tomorrow, so you should too...

PS - while we were sitting on the square waiting for the amazing clock performance, there were about 50 boy scouts chasing down men in white robes with crosses on them...I will never understand Europeans.

Its the opposite of ringing a bell. You order a honeycake and an angel gets its wings ground up.

2010-07-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

So, I lasted exactly 9 hours in a hostel before we canceled that reservation and got this gal a hotel.

Prague Day #1:

So far, so good. Went to Prague Castle... took the 287 (though I only counted 283) steps to the top of St. Victus and saw basically all of Prague, and probably half of all neighboring countries. That thing MAY have been higher than the swing ride we went on in Vienna... maybe. The rest of the area was decent. We learned more about our most favorite motley crew of royalty, the Hapsburgs. Based on everything we've heard, they're like the Inspector Gadget of royalty. Everything works out for them, but not cause they did anything right. We did find a church with a visible skeleton inside.

Saw the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square. Here's a recap... get ready:

At the start of the hour, it chimes.
During the chime a skeleton statue moves a bell, not in sync with the chime.
Two doors at the top open and the 12 apostles scoot past in an quick, unidentifiable manner
A rooster blows a raspberry at you
2 trumpeters play a little diddy

45 seconds and ta-da it's 9 o'clock. Next showing in an hour. Talk about anticlimactic.

Oh, guess we didn't fill ya in on the end of Vienna.

So, in total redemption of the city, we found a church- oldest one in town, like 2 steps from our hotel that housed a FULL skeleton in baroque clothing from like the 1700's. Ummmm... Holy Chapel of the Right Hand move over. We got a full body we're dealing with here. What an unexpected, amazing surprise. All this before we even tackled the task of breakfast. To be fair, you couldn't make this one light up, but he was in full baroque clothing!! With a ring on!!

Then we hightailed it to somewhere that didn't stick with me. To-go beers tonight have my memory a little fuzzy. We did have weiner shnitzel at the market and FINALLY found some damn Hungarian berries (remember- small, roundy, red?). Turns out uncooked, they're a bit tart. We did hit up the Belvedere gardens. They were ridiculously nice, and had “sphinx” statues. Wait til the pictures come out of those things. Risque to say the least. Then we made our train (YES!!! WE MADE IT!!!) and hightailed it outta there. 4-5 hours later, welcome to Praha. On the train we figured that 3 ½ Hungarian berries and 1 chunk of chocolate are the perfect match. Can't waste time while we're on vacay.

I bet this place gets a lot of crazies...

2010-07-26T00:46:00.000-07:00

Hello world! I haven't blogged in a while, not due to anything except exhaustion. We've been everywhere and back, and today we are headed to Prague after a whirlwind Viennese tour. :)

I'm sure that Lovely has updated you on everything, but I am still going to talk a little bit about what we've done. Yesterday we slept until we woke up (This is still vacation after all, and those of you that know Lovely are aware that it's a bad idea to poke the bear when she's tired), and then we we walked around for the morning looking at different buildings in Vienna. This city is much smaller than I thought it would be, but just as beautiful. It's truly incredible to walk around in these places where the streets are older than anything in America. I have noticed a different feel here than in Budapest. It's colder temperature wise here than it was there (thank god), but it also seems to be a colder culture. If that makes any sense. There was just a sense of excitement in Budapest that I don't get here. Not that I'm not enjoying myself, it's just interesting to have traveled a few hours and to be somewhere so wholly different. Different architecture, different looking people, different languages, etc.

Anyway, after that we went to the PONY SHOW!!! Known to some as the Spanish Riding School. It was such a great tour! We learned all about the Lipizzaner horses that they train to be prancing, dancing beauties. It's an extremely intense program and basically they are pony royalty. They pour their own water!!! Smart little ponies. Before the tour, the guide basically said if you touch the ponies, you're dead meat because they don't want your peasant hands all over their princely ponies. However, one young lady decided that she was the horse whisperer and after letting one of the ponies (in the corner naturally so she wouldn't be identified as her true self) lick her hand for a few minutes, spent the REST of the time in the stable whispering to that horse. So, not only did we see the royal ponies, we got a sneak peek at the horse whisperer...(that's sarcasm if that's not coming across...she was one of the crazies).

We also learned that the horses are in training for about 12 years before they are even allowed in the show and that each rider stays with his horse throughout the horses career in order to build trust between rider and horse. Horses are trained from young age and shown until they are 20-25 years old at which time they retire into the fields at Piber (their pony making farm outside the city). Sweet life. Additionally, riders may as well be dirt on your shoe compared to being a pony. Ponies 1 - Riders 0.

Lovely told you all about the carnival I've heard, so I'm going to skip that. Every ride was in english, but it was the most ridiculous things like "Octopus" or "Roller Coaster" or "Daytona Beach." Yeah...

We have determined that my ankle has been bitten by a bird eating spider (calm down Mom, it was really just stung by a bee), however last night it looked like a someone had shoved half a tennis ball underneath the skin. Better this morning, but it certainly is cramping my style.

More later...

LOVELY-- HOLD ON TO THE CHAINS!!!

2010-07-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

First day in Vienna done.

We totally saw the Lipazzano horses at the Spanish Riding School. Well they're off for 7 weeks for the summer, so we had to do a tour of the stables. But whatever. I think everyone knows my love for PONIES! Highlights of the tour:

seeing the actual horses and baby horses. They is so cute and at night they let them in to this field to eat grass. 6 biggie sized horses and 6 babies. The field isn't huge--Ealey could probably cover it in 3 seconds, from a standstill start, so they're cramped on there. What's better than lots of ponies? Lots of ponies in a TINY area.
learning the saddles are fit to the horses; riders-- not so important

learning the horses are treated like royalty. Really-- they get to walk the short way to the arena, us bipeds have to walk around

We didn't actual see them perform. Again, with the break. But we saw the arena. And it's ridiculously beautiful. And the ceiling is flat with no interior support. Major feat for when it was build... which is a bit of an unknown. Long time ago though-- obvs.

Next order of business for the day, was Sacher Tort. Check. Nothing to report worth reading. It was a 5 euro slice of cake. It's good, better than most cakes. Mama A has made better.

We saw the big church. It had no Chapel of the Right Hand so I mean, it was the 2nd best church we've seen. It was MUCH older though. 13th century style.

AND... BEST PART OF THE DAY!!! The fair. Before I begin, know that we're all totally safe and sound.

So, Vienna has this permanant fixture fair. Old skool style too. Ferris wheel, the whole 9 yards. And all the rides are operated manually. Not in Six Flags- green for go; red for stop, but in turn this knob to really make the thing spin. Also, it seems the safety standards of Vienna are far more lax than back in the homeland. Example: there was a ride like the Gravitron, but it didn't have walls or a top... or seatbelts... or really any rules. So imagine children just being slung around in a basin for 2 minutes. And, there was on overriding theme of "American things" here, such as all the ride names... but they weren't descriptive. The roller coaster was called "RollerCoaster" and this thing where an octopus picks up a boat and shakes it was called... you guessed it "Octopus".

We splurged and did 3 rides.

Ride #1: The Funhouse, since Hom thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever. You go up, idk 4 or 5 floors, then we take a covered loopy slide all the way down. But the best part of the funhouse was the background. It had famous American celebrities AIRBRUSHED on it. One was Sisqo. That sun bellybutton tattoo was a dead giveaway. I'm telling you-- they have the wrong impression of America.

Ride #2: It's like the swings at Six Flags, on Red Bull. You go up 117 meters. To save you the conversion, it's 383 feet. Oh, Hom & LW are scared of heights. Ok, so 383 feet up and we're swinging and it's great (for me) and then you start to go down... and the swings speed up and the chairs start turning. Amazing. Hom has a video and he and LW are freaking out, eyes closed and I'm cackling in the background.

Ride #3: This one is a bit tougher. It was technically called Tornado, but it should have been called Zeus' Revenge. To best explain it there was a post that was really tall and at the top was a lightning bolt. From the lightning bolt hung the car you sat in. The thing swung like a swing-- back and forth, while the lightning bolt spun slowly like a clock. Causing the car we were in to flip. Totally fine if you're afraid of heights. The travel companions are upstairs resting currently.

Tomorrow is officially (sadly) 1 week in the books.

Admin note: spell check considers everything misspelled cause it's not Austrian. If something doesn't make sense, make it.

Slovakia isn't as pudgy as Iowa

2010-07-25T01:05:00.000-07:00

Administrative note: using another keyboard where there are extra letters and the ones I use all have new homes. I changed it to an English keyboard, but now I'm have to go one wrote memory to know where things are. Things could get dicey.

VIENNA! Got here last night about midnight due to a little problem with the train. We missed the bitch, to clarify. But we're here.

To recap what's been going on. We left Budapest and went to Bratislava. For you boys that just giggled, it's NOTHING like Eurotrip and even after a dozen Slovakian beers, it's still not funny. Misgauged that one. Don't even mention the movie Hostel.

So, we got to Bratislava and met up with Hom. He was at the train station. We just hopped on another train to go to Zilina. Everyone's following along on their globes, right? If so, this one might be tricky, ccuase it's near the Polish border, best I can guess. So another 2 hour train ride... and we're in Zilina.

Went out with some one of Hommy's co-workers [shout out to Susanna!] and about half a dozen other people. Susanna did most of the translating for us because no one else really spoke English. After some drinks and a few bars, it comes out Susanna's cousin not only speaks English, but does so REALLY well. Like really well, but it's Australian. Lots of "mates" were being thrown around. And she knows all the words to "I Wanna Dance with Somebody". She's a fun gal.

Slovakian drinking night before led to 4 hours of sleep and miserable hangover. But Hom's a trooper and got up at 8:30 am. LW & I were forced to go along with this stupid plan.

Leaving Zilina for Terchova, an hour by bus. We get there and here's were the plan starts to unravel. We miss the 20 minute bus we need to get to the cable car to take us to the top of the mountain. Oh, and it's raining... and out here NO ONE speaks English. That's like looking for someone in LaGrange to speak Polish. Ain't happening.

So, we're kicking it around Terchova trying not to be mad about our day and I wanna see the church. Here my friends, we find trip redemption. A nativity scene. I took a video of it, cause it was so awesome. A VIDEO OF A NATIVITY SCENE. Let that sink in for a minute. It's all carved in wood and moves. Think large music box. But everything has to move, including one manuever that makes it seem like the Virgin Mary is going to head-butt baby Jesus. Joseph gets her under control. It was 6 hours of travel roundtrip from Bratislava to see that nativity scene.

We ate dinner in Bratislava... and we ate well. As we have most the trip. I'm totally turning Boticellian. We tried traditional Slovakian hulusky. It's basically macaroni and cheese with bacon on top. I like how the Slovakians think. Then we walked around for a bit, which caused us to miss our train to Vienna.

Alright, the kids are up... so more later. And Hom will make his first post tonight. Promise.

Would you say you know more people or dogs named Sam?

2010-07-23T11:44:00.000-07:00

FINALLY I have unlimited access to a computer... with an Americanized keyboard. It's on! Long post... begin... now.

We're officially in Zilina, Slovokia. We took a train from Budapest and met Dennis in Bratislava, then train trip to Zilina. We're meeting up with 1 of his co-workers tonight and her friends to see how the Slovaks play. I'm nervous all ready. Tomorrow we're hiking. Obviously not my pick. Oh, did I mention the 80% chance of rain? No. Yep, hiking in the rain. Sign me up.

This morning we rolled over to St. Stephen's Basillica in Budapest. It's ridiculous huge and beautiful. Everything-- everything is gilded. But, the best part is the "Chapel of the Holy Right Hand". OH YEA! So, to educate you folks, St. Stephen is the #1 most favoritest Hungarian eva! He totally founded the Hungarian State and they RUV him for it. Sadly, he passed in 1028. Somehow, in the course of life they found his right forearm. No joke-- and after years of it being bumped from place to place, I mean- Budapest has been owned by everyone-- they finally got the damn thing back to the mother land. And they keep it... in a glass case, with a metal castle around it, in a chapel, connected to St. Stephen's Basillica. Ummmm... it's SO strange. Oh, and the hand is holding a rosary made of rubies. I mean, how would you decorate your mummified hand. For 200 fornit you can make light up... that's like less than $1. Unfortunately, we would have had to break a 1,000 fornit bill. MEH!

After that we hightailed it to Parliment with ever intention of taking the 10 a.m. tour. WRONG. The line to get tickets was so long and they would only let 1 person in at a time to buy tickets. Ridiculous. So, we totally missed the tour, but quelled our sadness with some Coke Lights and peanut M&Ms. Shut up, I'm on vacation.

Then the train station. Scary event. That place is packed! And really hard to figure out. We spent the whole time on the train, well minus a little nap on my part--again... vacation for me... quit judging-- trying to figure out which station was Bratislava. Apparently they announce the big ones, so with your listening ears tuned in super well, you might be able to pick it out. It does sort of sound like the speaker at McDonald's though. I'm a 7 on a scale of 1-10 worried about our future trips.

So, now you're caught up on Budapest.

About my last blog title. I realize I didn't explain that well, since Papa A thought I was talking about the Jonas Brothers. Pops-- how do you know what the kids are listening to?

Here's how the conversation went with 1 of the Netherland youngsters:

LW: "I babysit for a Dutch family... at least I think they're Dutch. The kid is named Jonas"
NY: "Jonas? We don't have any Jonas's. No Jonas. Not 1 Jonas"
LW: "What are typical names?"
NY: "We have a Hank, Paul, Mark, Olaf"
LW: "Wait... Hank is an American name."
NY: "We spell ours with an "e". Henk. You use an "a", right? See, they're different"

Today's post. NY2 (the one who was 'almost 17') was named Sam. My most adorable dog's name. PS- Someone update me on that mutt. Our conversation:

Me: "My dog is named Sam. To be fair, there are few things I love more than that dog."
NY2: "Would you say you know more people or dogs named Sam?"
Me: "Probably dogs."
NY2: "WHAT!!?!?!?!?"

These were probably more funny in the moment.

I think I'm losing mz mind...

2010-07-22T13:18:00.000-07:00

Direct quote from Lovelz todaz

(totallz out of the blue as we're walking down the street) "I think I'm losing mz mind."

"Whz?"

"I just imagined mzself catching a pigeon. That'd be awesome. I'd name him Peanuts."

Let this give zou an idea of how outofourminds tired we were todaz. We didn't let that stop us though, and managed to accomplish a trip to the baths, a trip back up to the Citadel, a hike down a hill in Buda, a trip to St Michael's, and lots of eating.

Oh, and there was a totallz ridiculous and pointless sight seeing cruise in there somewhere. HORIBLE. Dont reccomend it.

Speaking of eating, Canteloupe gellato has got to be one of the greatest things on earth. So tired, more later.

No Jonas. Not 1 Jonas.

2010-07-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

Pub crawl was the riduculous kind of fun that gives zou a headache in the morning. And though he will never read this-- a huge thanks to Alekzander for getting me a cab to the hotel when I did a bad conversion at the ATM and accidentallz withdrew the average monthlz income for Hungarians. Too manz yeros... gets confusing. Dont be concerned he learned English from plazing World of Warcraft. Ill never mock that game again.

Since we onlz slept 4 hours and woke up seriouslz hungover we decided to hit the Syechez baths. BEAUTIFUL. If this is how the Europeans recover from hangovers, count me in! And even the little kid bozs wear speedos. Our eating selections have been perfect todaz. A gzro that rivals Pita Palace-- dont tell Rollz. Langos = delicious. Google it. And finallz ate some goulash tonight. Trannszlvanian stzle. I might explode... and eat it again. Strange?

Too tired to be wittz todaz.

Hey boy hey

2010-07-21T19:24:00.000-07:00

So, we went on our pub crawl. Fun times! We went to a few bars and a few pubs and a dance club I think...

Initiallz, Lovely and i were standing outside with 3 16 yr old Nederlanders. Sound like a fun time?

Gotta go

20 fornit.

More later

Two guzs walk into a bar, one guz drives a tozota to the gas station...

2010-07-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

As Lovelz mentioned, make all the z's y's in zour head, because thez are switched.

Had a great daz in Budapest todaz, despite our night from hell. We did sleep til noon however...

Lovelz and I took a great hop on hop off tour through the citz, which was wonderful for a few reasons. First of all because we finallz got our bearings, and secondlz because of the amaying commentarz through out headphone guide (zes we looked like the most ridiculous tourists ever...dont care)

Actual quote from our tour

"Budapest no longer uses capitol punishment, bet zou cant guess whz...? Because it makes it verz hard to apologiye if zou make a mistake."

Would put more, but running out of time. Mz favorite part of the daz todaz was this great souvenir shop we found at the Citadel, where it had a nesting doll with 10 pcs, the last one was 1mm. Iám not kidding. It also carried a lot of vintage souvenirs from the communist perioid. Nesting dolls and communist paraphenelia... AWESOME.

Lovelz and I are off to a pub tour now and have big plans for tomorrow. Budapest is mz favorite so far (even though its onlz the second one)

what is small, roundy, and red?

2010-07-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

few admin items. the z and y key are switched. cant find the shift button.

IN BUDAPEST. few problems.

1. flight here-- worst ever. no leg room, seriouslz delazed, screaming child right in front of me.
2. jules> please dont be too mad, but the laptop is gone. ive got some hungarian hotel workers trzing to find it, but its not hopeful.

those are the onlz 2 downers. promise

Budapest is amaying!! its so beautiful and easz to get around. the onlz strange thing is the monez. and no one thinks im funnz. serious issue. the monez comes in huge denominations. i took out 20,000 fnt this morning and we blew through that handilz. it was a little less than 100 dollars. it makes the monez feel fake and no one thinks its funnz when i saz i want to put a hotel on it. obviouslz language barrier.

oh, the answer to mz title is forest fruit. idiots. thats how the waiter described it to me. the shnosberries taste like shnosberries stzle.

ok- were off to a pub crawl.

We're here... and exhausted

2010-07-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

Preface: this keyboard I'm using is European, so the keys are seriously scrambled... make these words make sense.

Breaking this into 2 pieces.

Flight here: we were a little rushed since we didn't get to the airport until 4 and our flight was at 5:15, but luckily made it through the airport to our terminal (E-05, seriously, that's like Birmingham) in 25 minutes. I have NO idea how. And that includes LW's shoes getting scanned for residue. I was a perfect little security sheep.

Actual flight was chocked full of kids (MEH!) and had so much turbulance, our meal was delayed hours. I was well in to "princess mode" by the time my cold bread and valiant attempt at a ceasar salad graced my tray table. BUT. BUT. There was an empty seat next to me. God may taketh away and but he also giveth.

OK-- in London. Got here at the charming hour of 6:30 am (London is 5 hours ahead). Cruised through customs and we were off. Walking, with a 30+ lb. pack all day. I'm exhausted. Here's the laundry list of everything we saw, once we finished circling Victoria Station :

Buckingham Palace
St. James Park
Big Ben
Parliment
The Eye
The Globe (rebuilt, obvs)
London Tower--actually went in this one and saw the Crown Jewels and did a tour of the chapel. Very neat!
St. Paul's Cathedral

Now, we're at the charming airport, Luton. It's about an hour outside of London via the train.

Fish & chips for lunch and a beer. (Can someone talk w/ Cypress about getting "Honeydew Original" on tap. Derek!)

Personal note: DJ- I *think* I found what my treasure hunt was sending me for. Can you confirm w/ Brandon that it was a mermaid statue?

Super rushed now-- maybe when we get to our hotel in Budapest more... maybe not. This gal's tired.

Just a side comment

2010-07-11T18:57:00.001-07:00

I, Lady Whitehouse, visited my grandparents this evening in a small Georgia town. They decided to order pizza for dinner (this happens frequently on Sundays due to the business in the early mornings, you know, church and all), and as my grandfather was clarifying the details before leaving to pick up the pizzas, he asked the following question: "What colors do you want?" To which my grandmother promptly answered "Cheese and Pepperoni." No questions asked.

In trip news, we have tickets to and from London, to and from Eastern Europe, train plans and a hotel in Budapest. I am currently working on finding accomodations in Prague and Krakow. If anyone out there in cyberspace could reassure Lovely about staying in hostels, that would be nice. :)

Also, GOOD JOB LOVELY ON THE BACKGROUND!!! You da bomb!

Domination

2010-07-11T18:46:00.001-07:00

It's official. The background has been dominated by yours truly. Take that blogger.

Rant #1

2010-06-23T07:38:00.000-07:00

Begin rant now.

For 2 DAYS I've been trying to find the most appealing, unisex (you're welcome Lord Hommy) to make our blog beautiful. And aesthetically pleasing. And just cause I want to, damn it.

Problem: they don't work if you're completely, technologically stupid.

They say click here, click there and bada-bing-bada-boom MOST BEAUTIFUL BLOG BACKGROUND EVER. Wrong. I don't have the click options. Complete rage is washing over me.

For the record, BLOGGER-- I can not be defined by a couple of green and silver boxes and some generic, sans serif font. That's not what describes my soul. I need something created by some 17-year old boy that has swirls, pictures, and my posts showing on something that looks like it was pulled out of steno notepad. THAT IS ME! Work with me, Blogger, so I can express myself!

Any suggestions on how to fix this... Lord Hommy?

End rant. Fade to black.

2 additional items of business:

1. We have a "follower". Obviously, Blogger, being the tricky mistress she is, won't say who it is so I can send a thank you note.

2. I'm pulling together a packing list for LW and I and LW is in charge is identifying some adequate digs for us to bunker down in while we're there. Goal: Ritz > Us > Hovel

To Do

2010-06-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

1. Tell Lord Hominator the new itinerary (again...)

2. Ask Lord Hominator if new itinerary is ok

3. Buy inter-European travel tickets, etc.

4. Learn self defense so we do not get sold to the European sex slave trade
a) KEEP LADY SA-SA AWAY FROM THE FILM "TAKEN"

5. Actually READ the books that we borrowed from the library. (They're FREE!!! Who knew?)

I'm a map, I'm a map, I'm a map, I'm a map

2010-06-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if these are the only rail lines that are options to travel on, but it seemed pretty handy. Sasa, I was wrong about having to travel through Brno for Prague-Krakow, so it seems like it doesn't really matter which order we do the trip in.

Map: http://www.interrailnet.com/downloads/interrail/interrail-railway-map-europe-2010.pdf

Also, I know Lady WH did a ton of math and checking on the prices for individual tickets vs. eurail pass, but I just wanted to double check at some point since everything I'm reading makes it sound like it's cheaper if you're only going a few places to do individual tix. Bratislava-Vienna was only 11 euros round trip - awesome. Also it's a bit extra, but it looks like there's an overnight option for Prague-Krakow if you guys wanted to sacrifice some sleep for some sightseeing time.

It's official cause I created a folder

2010-06-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

Alright, now we got this ol' blog thing fired up, let's get to documenting.
(LW-- you picking up that hint?!)

In accordance Lovely family traditions, I have created a travel folder. No joke, it's something we all in the Lovely family do prior to a trip to make sure important (and general just-need-it-cause-I-want-it) items are together, organized, and ready to be whipped out in a moments notice. Irony is that I'm on my 14th ID for work in so many months. 'Irony' being used in the way Alanis Morrisette uses it.

Focus. OK: so to fully explain the travel folder, and our trip as it's "mapped out" now.

Purple folder, pink label. (What? I'm still a girl.)

Labels for: Krakow, Prague, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest

Filings under each are sparse. Read: non-existent. But the folder is ready to house documentation damn it.

You did it!!

2010-05-24T21:19:00.000-07:00

I would just like to say a big congratulations to Lady Sa sa. She set up a blog on the interwebs! For those of you who don't know, Lady Sa sa is a firm believer in the theory that the internet is a fad and does not subscribe to the fads that "the kids are into." I mean, the woman doesn't even program her iPod. This is a HUGE accomplishment!!

Yay!!

So far we don't really have news except that we bought plane tickets and are now trying to parse out the details of our itinerary. Mostly inter-European travel options. Who knew you could fly for a mere $38?!

That is all.

And... we're off.

2010-05-24T08:24:00.000-07:00

Maybe? Hopefully? Dear God, please let this work.