The "Long Trip"--- Days 1-5

          Our whole group went on a ten day trip around Europe. We had Willie as our bus driver again. He was our bus driver on our short trip. On our first day we left Vienna, Austria and drove to Český Krumlov, Czech Republic. I spent most of the day with Shelly, Becca, and Kendal. We climbed a tower by a castle, ate cinnamon bread, looked through books at a few small bookstores, went to a wax museum, and explored a mirror maze.
         At first we didn’t want to go to the wax museum, but we found out that it was cheaper if you bought a combined ticket for the wax museum and the mirror maze so we agreed to go to the wax museum for Shelly. The wax museum was more interesting than I thought it would be. We saw lots of famous people including Charlie Chaplin, Michael Jackson, Franz Josef I, Maria Theresia, Sisi, and Harry Potter. We then wandered over to the mirror maze. They made us put on plastic gloves so we wouldn’t smudge the mirrors. We entered the maze a few seconds apart. It was super fun because you could see people as you were walking, but you didn’t know where they were. We took lots of pictures because it was funny to see more than one of you in the same picture.

inside the mirror maze

        When we went to find a restaurant for dinner we went to several places before we found one that would take us. The first restaurant we went in to looked nice and was empty so we were excited to have the place to ourselves. When we asked the people for food they asked us if we had a reservation. We told them we didn’t and they told us that they were booked. We were a bit confused how they could be booked when no one was there, but we left without much of a fuss. We eventually found a cozy place and had a bread bowl with goulash soup. It was not the goulash I was familiar with. I was afraid to ask what was in it, so I ate most of the bread and left the soup…good thing I wasn’t super hungry!

The disappointing bread bowl!

         We went back to the hotel and got ready for bed. We were about to watch Harry Potter 7 part 2 when some people from our group invited us to go bowling. Becca and I agreed so we all walked over to the bowling alley together. It was bowling, but it wasn’t like in America. The shoes were too big and had rips in them and it was hard to find a ball that was the right weight, but that added to the experience. It made it exciting and different. I ended up getting my normal average score of 110. It was great being able to cheer everyone on as they were bowling. We took up three lanes so I was cheering constantly when I wasn’t bowling. I just love bowling!

Late night bowling!!!

The next day we drove to a little town in the Czech Republic where our bus driver’s ancestors were from. We had been working on his family history for him ever since we got back from our short trip so it had only been a few weeks when we went. It was a surprise for him because he didn’t know where his family was from. We saw the church and cemetery in the little town and gave him a copy of the pedigree chart we had been working on for him. He seemed to really like it. Stephen got to play the organ in the church and we sang along. It was great that we could show Willi his hometown because it was on the way to our next destination... Prague.

On the way to Prague I read more of my copy of “Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen”. It is so fun! I love seeing words I just learned. It makes me feel as though I really know German. In Prague we stayed at the “A Plus Hostel/Hotel”. It was close to downtown, but it was not “A Plus”. We split up in the afternoon so I went with Annisija, Kendal, Becca and Lyndsi across the Charles Bridge to find the castle. The Charles Bridge was crowded so it was hard to keep track of each other. At one point we had to hold on to each other so we wouldn’t be separated on the bridge. Even though Prague Castle is the longest castle in the world we had trouble finding it because we didn’t know the word for castle in Czech. We found a monastery and some other cool buildings and even bought a few things at a market. I got a decorative plate of Prague to add to my collection.

Thank you Maddie!

The next day was Sunday, so we found the local chapel and went to all three hours of church. It was in Czech so we had to have the missionaries translate for us. It was an adventure trying to sing the songs in Czech. I’m sure we got the sounds all wrongs, but it was fun to try anyway. I learned that the word “Rodina” means family in Czech. We went back to the hostel after church to change our clothes then went to on a tour of the Jewish Quarter. We saw a really old cemetery with hundreds of headstones. It looked so chaotic because they were not in any kind of order and many were falling over. We also saw a few synagogues.

Monday morning we cleared out of the hostel and walked around inside Prague Castle. We went inside St. Vitus’s Cathedral, walked around the Old Royal Palace; saw the Basilica of St. George, and walked down Golden Lane. The Cathedral was my favorite.

Thanks again Maddie!

We took the bus to Dresden, Germany several hours away. I passed the time by sleeping and reading Harry Potter. Our first stop, after dropping our stuff off at the hotel, was the Frauenkirche. We climbed to the top and were able to see the entire city and the surrounding area. I have already been to the Frauenkirche, but it was nice to go up on top, because I didn’t do that last time. We then walked by the Zwinger and listened to the bells chime.

Day five of our trip started with a great breakfast at our hotel. Becca, Torrey, and I then went to the Frauenkirche and listened to a devotional type thing. I had a hard time paying attention to the speaker because I wasn’t sure exactly what the topic was because it was in German, but it was exciting to hear the organ. After the service I walked around the mall with Annisija. We had a great time walking around making fun of the odd clothing styles in various stores. Later that day we headed for Freiberg, Germany.