A Fairytale Ending

My final stop in Europe was Prague, the beautiful capital of the Czech Republic.  Walking around this happy city felt like walking through the pages of a coloring book.  Somehow Prague seemed like an imaginary place from a fairytale story, too perfect to be real. 

Let me paint you a picture.  High on a hill sits the Prague castle, keeping watch over the bustling city below and the red-roofed homes dotting the rolling green hills to the west.  Colorful Baroque-style buildings line the streets and the Vltava River runs peacefully through the center of town.  Content Czech people sit in parks and squares at outdoor cafés and beer gardens listening to live music while enjoying a coffee or a Bohemian beer.  Welcome to Prague, the fairytale city. 

Our first day my friends and I visited the Prague farmer’s market and took a picnic up to Petrin Hill.  Another day we visited the John Lennon wall, a public graffiti wall devoted to spray-painted representations of freedom, peace, and love.  We found some paint and contributed!  On one particularly gorgeous afternoon, we rented paddleboats for a leisurely ride in the Vltava River.  We also spent some time exploring Prague’s historic café scene.  During the Communist era, these cafés were popular social gathering spots.  One that we visited, called Café Louvre, was frequented by Albert Einstein in his day.  Who knows, perhaps Einstein was at Café Louvre when it occurred to him that E = MC2…

We had a few great meals in Prague, but dinner on our last evening was certainly the most memorable.  Three friends and I entered a random dining establishment with no idea that we were stepping into an authentic Czech beer hall.  The place was rowdy and seriously fun.  We were seated at the end of a long wooden table in a big room filled with Czechs eating goulash and drinking dark beer out of frosty classes dripping foam.  Waiters walked around with trays of beer and cinnamon-flavored shots, making sure customers were always satisfied.  For my last dinner in Europe, I ordered the roast duck with cabbage and dumplings.  Scrumptious. 

I’m writing this final blog post from the airport in London, waiting for my flight to Chicago and realizing with mixed emotions that my semester abroad is actually over.  Soon I’ll be back to the familiar, enjoying the foods I’ve missed, like juicy cheeseburgers, guacamole, barbeque sauce, homemade brownies, cold skim milk, and salads that actually contain lettuce.  And while I’m excited to get home to my family, I’m going to miss living this “postcard life.”  As I look back over these past four months, I feel overwhelmingly thankful.  I’ve gotten to see places and experience things that many people spend their lives dreaming about.  The memories I’ve made are simply priceless.  And Prague was just the cherry on top of it all, a fairytale ending to a fairytale semester.  

Going Greek

After taking my finals and saying a tearful goodbye to my fair Florence, I began my ten-day post-semester travels, which began in Greece.  First stop was Athens, where the long-awaited Boston College reunion took place.  Five of us BC friends met up after a semester spent studying in different corners of the world, from Italy to Spain to Ghana, Africa.  But here we were, together at last, visiting sights like the Acropolis and the Agora while catching up on each other’s lives.  In Athens, we had baklava that must be the best in the world because it managed to leave a group of chatty girls totally speechless.  Not an easy task.  We also enjoyed gyros off the street and began to cultivate an unhealthy obsession with tzatziki sauce.  Of all the places I visited this semester, the food in Greece surprised me most in terms of both deliciousness and affordability.  Double victory!   

The best Greek cuisine we came across, however, was on the island of Santorini.  We had lunch one day at a seafood restaurant situated in a bay whose tables were mere feet away from the crystal blue water.  We tried swordfish, mussels, shrimp, and grilled calamari.  Every dish was flavorful  and meaty and absolutely delicious, making it easily one of my best meals of the semester.  Other Greek specialties we enjoyed in Santorini included spanakopita, saganaki, mousaka, fava, Greek salad, tomato fritters, stuffed vegetables, lamb in lemon sauce, and lots of Greek yogurt. 

Renting an ATV on Santorini was probably the best 15 euros I spent all semester.  Our day was filled with exploring the island’s delightful towns and cruising to exotic volcanic beaches featuring black, white, and even red sand.  As I sat on a rugged cliff with some of my best friends watching the sun set that evening, I realized that I had just lived one of the happiest days of my life.  

Greek hospitality is something I will always remember about my time in Greece, particularly in Santorini.  The kind man who ran our little hotel, Stavros, treated us like his daughters throughout the duration of our stay.  When we first arrived, Stavros insisted on making us coffee.  Then he sat down with us so he could get to know us a bit.  Each day when we’d arrive back at the hotel in the afternoon, Stavros would pull up a chair and ask us to tell him all about our day, whether we went to the beach or to town, what we bought, and where we ate.  When we left Santorini after four days with Stavros, he gave us each a big hug and said, “May you have restful days.”  What a unique and wonderful blessing to bestow.  May we all have days as restful as mine were in Santorini.  

Granitas with the Girls

The Amalfi Coast consists of a string of towns along the Mediterranean in southwestern Italy.  For our last weekend in Italy before the end of our program, eight girlfriends and I took a trip there to soak in the sun, marvel at the stunning views of sharp cliffs meeting the ocean, and enjoy a few days of uninterrupted girl time. 

We stayed in the town of Sorrento, but spent time in several other towns along the Amalfi Coast as well as a day on the island of Capri.  Capri is one of those destinations that sounds terribly glamorous, and indeed it was.  All taxis on the island are convertibles, and I must admit I felt like a movie star riding in one with my sunglasses on and hair blowing in the salty sea breeze.  I also had my very best gelato experience in Capri, at a little stand that served my pistachio and straticcella (vanilla with chocolate shavings) gelato combo in a fresh waffle cone that was made right before my eyes.  Another unforgettable part of my day at Capri was going inside the famous Blue Grotto where I experienced a color that was truly dazzling.  Pictures cannot do it justice. 

We also spent a day in the beach town called Positano.  It was there that we all became addicted to granitas, a lemon-ice drink that is perfect for hot days at the beach.  Positano was probably my favorite place along the Amalfi Coast; I loved the beach and the darling shops and the gorgeous cliffs with the colorful houses facing that never-ending, viciously blue ocean. 

Our last day was less tranquil, as we visited the nearby site of Pompeii and hiked Mount Vesuvius.  It was incredibly interesting to walk around the ghost city whose structures are perfectly in tact whereas its people had been wiped out in a volcanic eruption 79 years before Christ.  It is a city truly frozen in time, remarkable but also somewhat eerie.      

All in all, the weekend was a perfect last weekend in Italy with just the right mix of relaxation and activity, plus a dash of history and lots of granitas.  Any Italian would approve of such a balance.  

Tapas for Two

Imagine having the opportunity to travel to Barcelona, Spain.  Now imagine getting to explore the city with one of your favorite people in the world.  Two weekends ago, that is precisely what I got to do. 

Chritty Schuele and I met on our first day of classes at BC.  A friendly chat on the Newton Bus turned into a fast friendship, which only grew stronger with time.  We are two peas in a pod – Midwestern kids at an east coast school, die-hard fans of the Badgers and country music, social justice nerds with uncommon names. 

Fast-forward two and a half years to our epic reunion on a street corner outside our hostel in Barcelona, Spain.  After weeks of trip-planning and anticipation, I couldn’t have been more excited to see him.  The weekend was no disappointment; we did a heck of a lot in and around Barcelona.  Highlights include a saucy flamenco show, a stroll up and down La Rambla, a relaxing afternoon at the beach, an epic roadtrip (we rented a car!) through Spain’s mountainous Catalonia region to the baby-sized nation of Andorra which we thoroughly explored in less than one hour, and a visit to Gaudi’s breathtaking and incomplete church, the Sagrada Familia.  If you are unfamiliar with the Sagrada Familia, wikipedia and google-image it asap because it is the most unique church I’ve ever set foot in.  It is also hands-down my favorite of all the churches I’ve seen this semester; it features imaginative architecture for a cathedral and evokes a welcoming vibe that I absolutely love. 

La Rambla

Roadtrip to Andorra

Gaudi's Park Guell

Barcelona Beach

Sagrada Familia

The majority of my traveling as of late has been within Italy, so this trip to Spain was an exhilarating four-day immersion into a new culture, and of course, cuisine.  When it comes to dining, Spaniards and I are on the same page (minus the part about eating dinner at 11pm).  Tapas restaurants abound in Barcelona, where hungry customers stand drinking sangria while picking and choosing from a wide selection of traditional Spanish foods spread out along the bar before them.  Portions are small, so sampling multiple dishes is encouraged!  For an indecisive person like myself who wants to try a bit of everything, tapas is like an answered prayer.  Over the course of the weekend, Chritty and I tried it all – croquettes, chorizo, grilled shrimp, Spanish ham, pickled vegetables, paella, even pig ear…Chritty’s idea, not mine.  We also took a stab at cavas, the Spanish champagne. 

All in all, my weekend in Barcelona was the ideal mix of known and unknown; the place, language, traditions, and food were foreign to me while the company was wonderfully familiar.  Our "tapas for two" weekend is one we'll be reminiscing about for years to come.