Our Adventures in Vienna with Constar

So, we had the pleasure of my mom's company for almost two weeks in mid-April. Constar hadn't been to Europe since the seventies, but she hit the ground running here in Prague. All in all, we had a blast. We ate some great meals, wandered the city, drank a few glasses of Moravian white wine (for those of you who know Connie well, you know that's a must!), and spent tons of time together. The undoubted highlight of my mom's visit, though, was our trip to Vienna.

I had been to the Austrian capital back in 1994, but remembered very little except for a huge ferris wheel in one of the city parks. I also remembered some little villages that clustered around the city and sold freshly made wines, but more on that later. In a word, Vienna is...imperial. Prague streets tend to be narrow and cobble-stone; it seems like the city has just grown up over the centuries and settled onto the landscape. If there ever was a plan for the city, it seems to have been change ten times (once for each century!). Vienna, however, seems planned - planned for imperial coronations, for victory parades, and for all the silly things that the Habsburg kings and queens wanted to do. There are formal gardens, palaces, and giant, neo-classical buildings (whether theaters, museums, churches, or governent buildings) everywhere. Even the central church, St. Stephen's, boasts the a 137m tall steeple. There's not much subtle about the downtown, that's for sure. It is gorgeous - there were tulips in bloom all over the city, and the gardens and grounds of the palaces are beautiful. We also stumbled into the Vienna University botanical garden, and were completely overwhelmed by the variety and beauty of the flowers. Although I prefer Prague (or even Berlin), Vienna was totally different and totally amazing.

Our favorite activities in the city were going to museums. The Kunsthistorisches Museum, which is across the street from the main palace in the city, the Hofburg, had an incredible collection of Italian and northern Renaissance paintings, along with antiquities from Greece, Rome, and Egypt. We spent a morning there, and could have probably spent more time. We all split up to see what we wanted at our own pace, and then joined up in the cafe for a quick lunch. We also hit up the museum at the Belvedere Palace (sorry the link's in German, but the pictures are great!) the next day - it had mostly nineteenth and twentieth century art, and a great collection of Gustav Klimt. The original of "The Kiss" is there, along with others of his works. We loved the Belvedere, and the grounds. Our final major stop in terms of big sites was the royal treasury at the Hofburg. We saw some ridiculous jewels, vestments, and relics there.

The touristy fun is only half of Vienna's charm, though. The city is justifiably famous for its coffee houses, and we chose Cafe Sperl for our first breakfast in the city. Sperl boasts that its decor is exactly the same now as it was at its opening in 1880, and I believe it. I would also believe that some of the waiters have worked there since 1880, too. Our coffee was ridiculous, as was breakfast, and it kept us going through a full day of site-seeing.

At the end of that day, though, we treated ourselves to a visit to the heurigen, small wine villages that cluster at the north end of Vienna on hillsides overlooking the city. We went to Grinzing and Nussdorf, and really enjoyed both. They serve several varieties of wine, notably Gruner Veltliner and Riesling, along with heurig, which means the most recent vintage of white wine. It's not meant to be aged, and is really easy to drink (i.e. low in alcohol, with a light body and not a ton of flavor). It was a bit too cold for us to enjoy sitting outside, but we had a blast each night. We particularly liked Nussdorf; we walked five minutes out of the central part of the village and were in the midst of the vineyards, and we also ate at a great brewery, Brauhaus Nussdorf.

Our final favorite from Vienna was the Naschmarkt; it's a place to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, and specialty foods from around the world. There were tons of places to pick up cheese, olives, vinegar, fresh meat and fish, or anything else you could want. While I won't wax rhapsodic about it like Danielle did for the Borough Market in London, it was pretty amazing. We stopped and ate Vietnamese for lunch (it was my mom's first time having it), and it was a perfect way to cap our trip.

So, the rest of my mom's visit was wonderful, but Vienna was the real highlight. We all got to see a new city and discover its sites, sounds, and smells. It was tough to see my mom go, but it's only a couple of months until we'll be back in the States. I think we all have enough memories from the trip to keep us going until July!

Highlights from Berlin

A few months ago, we found out that there was a Fulbright conference in Berlin that would bring together grantees from eighteen different countries. Phil was asked to participate and was on a panel discussing different grantees' experiences with their host country and their education systems. While the conference was the initial inspiration for the trip, the real draw was exploring Berlin, particularly with other Fulbright friends who were also going to be there...how could we say no?

At the beginning of April, we spent five days in Berlin for my first time and for Phil's second time. Berlin was incredible. I absolutely loved it. Here are my initial thoughts about the city:

1. There is phenomenal architecture in the city. Since Berlin was mostly built after WWII, it is one of the great cities for modern architecture. One of our personal favorites was The Pregnant Oyster, where we had a reception and dinner one night.
2. The restaurants are top notch: a large range of options, very international, and reasonably priced compared to other major European cities. One highlight was Monsieur Vuong, the best Vietnamese food I've had since we lived in Boston.
3. The history of the city is unparalleled. The scars and wounds of WWII and the communist regime are still palpable. From the remnants of the Berlin Wall to the newly designed Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin exposes its past like few cities I've been in.
4. The museums are also high quality. We bought a three day pass and could enter fifty different museums! It was fantastic.

And that's just to name a few of my favorite things...here are some of the photos

Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche or Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church - bombed in 1943 and preserved as a testament to the destruction of that time.
Brandenburg Gate or Brandenburger Tor - along the central boulevard Unter der Linden of Berlin.

Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe or Das Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas - Concrete slabs of varying sizes laid out over about 5 acres. The monument is meant to be experienced alone as you walk through it, and it was designed so you cannot walk 2 people across. Moving, thought provoking, and beautifully designed, in my humble opinion.


Remnants of the Berlin Wall - not much of the Wall still stands today, but there are a few stretches of it that exist. An incredible outdoor exhibit called the Topography of Terror is publicly accessible near these pieces of the Wall. The exhibit gave a detailed overview of Berlin's Nazi and Communist history.





Modern Architecture - just a few examples:
I.M. Pei's addition to the German History Museum


The British Embassy - what's with the crazy blue and purple elements?

The interior of Frank Gehry's DG Bank building - some say that the central swooping silver conference room looks like a horse's head...well, sort of...

Pergamon Museum - an absolute high point of museum going. As long as you can get over the fact that these are completely stolen antiquities, they are incredibly impressive. The Pergamon Alter is a completely reconstructed original alter from the 2nd century BCE. Astoundingly beautiful and enormous.


The Ishtar Gate is the inner gate of the ancient city of Babylon built by King Nebuchadnezzar in the 1st century BCE. Unbelievable.
We had lots of fun, see?!

A Little Taste of Moscow in Prague

So, my good friend Danny recently came to visit us in Prague with his girlfriend, Paget, and two of their friends, Dmitri and MacReadie. Danny is a lawyer in DC, Paget is thinking about getting into marketing for pomegranate juice in Birmingham, MacReadie is a statistician for Homeland Security in DC, and Dmitri is getting an MBA in Paris. Reading over that last sentence, it really sums up what a bizarre, interesting, amazing group this was! We had a blast doing the touristy things in Prague, showing them the sights and sounds of the city, and staying out late ('til 3am! we're never out that late...). I just wanted to write up the defining episode of their visit, though: a trip to Petrovich, the best Russian restaurant in Prague.

Dmitri is from Moscow, and is a total foodie. Whenever he visits a new city, he always looks up Russian restaurants; he swears there is no good Russian food in Paris, so he was excited to see what Prague had to offer. When he told us the name of a restaurant he had found (Petrovich), we looked it up on all our Prague websites. Our diligent search yielded...nothing. Did this scare us? A little. But Danny, Paget, and MacReadie swore we could trust Dmitri, and so we did. And let me say: I am really, really glad we did.

The restaurant turned out to be really close to our house - just a five minute walk away. When we arrived and sat down, the waitress came out with Czech/English menus. Besides chicken kiev, steak tartare, and borscht, it looked pretty standard. I was mildly disappointed, until the waitress (after a brief conversation in Russian with Dmitri) brought out a giant tome of a menu in Cyrillic characters. I guess they save the good stuff for insiders, which Dmitri proved himself to be. Dmitri asked: "Is it alright if I order for everyone?" Um, yes. Please do. What emerged from the kitchens was amazing: pierogies (meat and veggie), sausages, Russian dumplings with sour cream, dark rye bread, cured meats and cheese, borscht, cheese and mushroom dip, and pickled herring smothered with beets and sour cream. We had never had anything like it, and it was all delicious. There was also wine, and beer, and...

Vodka. About ten minutes into our meal, a mysterious, small pitcher of cloudy liquid appeared on our table. Shot glasses followed. We were being served horseradish-infused vodka with our meal, and we were skeptical. It also turned out to be delicious! If you're ever congested, I suggest a shot of this elixir. I do not, however, recommend having more than one. The horseradish kick covers up the alcohol burn, but the two flavors combine pretty well. We both felt, however, like we had truly eaten like the czars.

The rest of the visit was amazing, and we capped it with a visit to Sparta Praha's soccer stadium for a match. Danny, Danielle, and I avoided hooligans, ate sausages and drank beer, and watched Sparta cruise to victory. It was Danielle's and my first visit to a Czech pro-soccer game, and it was awesome.

I am sure we'll get back to a match, and we'll be updating soon on our trips to Berlin and Vienna, and on my mom's (current) trip to Prague. Until then, na zdorovje!

21 km, Half Marathon Euro-style

Call me crazy, but I love running. Really, I do. So when I had the chance to take on the Prague Half Marathon and run 21 km through this city, I took it! Running has been a constant source of happiness for me, particularly living in Prague. Before arriving, I was concerned about the accessibility of the city streets and Praha's penchant for cobblestones. To my surprise, I've found incredible places to run and train, bez (without) cobblestones. Over the past few months, I added some long runs to my weekly running and prepared to conquer 21 km or 13.1 miles.

On Saturday morning, Phil was extremely thankful that the race began at noon instead of the typical 7 or 8 a.m. I'm not sure if all of Europe starts its races later in the day, but my husband thanks the Czechs for deciding it is not a good idea to get up before the sun rises to run. I, on the other hand, was super excited to get going! I met our friend Zach before the race for a warm-up run. He's an architect, Fulbrighter, fellow runner, and all around all-star who ran his first half-marathon! We started the race together, but separated after the first kilometer. Since his legs are as long as I am tall, he ran a bit faster;) It was super fun to have a friend to start with and see at the finish line!

The weather was cooperative, cool but not cold. As we lined up at the start at Jan Palach namesti, I did notice one glaring difference between my previous races in the US and this one. The ratio of men:women runners was about 10:1. I haven't figured out an explanation for the much greater numbers of men, but I was certainly in the minority. The gun sounded at noon, as the race was kicked off by the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus. I guess it is a good thing that the race was important enough to the CZ that the president was there. But with all due respect, I think Mr. Klaus is a little crazy. He doubts both the existence of global warming and the utility of popular elections, but that's a conversation for another day...back to the race...

About half of the race was in beautiful, scenic Prague. Highlights included running in the following places: 1. across Manesuv and Legii Most, two bridges I run all the time, 2. under the Powder Tower, a centuries old Gothic tower 3. down Narodni trida (national boulevard) and passing the street we live on 4. along the Vltava River. The other half of the race was in less scenic Prague, but I didn't mind. Or should I say, my mind was elsewhere for a significant part of the middle of the race. There were some extremely rough patches during stretches of my race. I might blame the headwind along the river, or perhaps I started out a bit too strong, but my race pace definitely slowed down along the way. Not to be deterred, I kept going.

Highlights that made me smile during the race: 1. the Czech bands that played heavy metal, headbanging music at km 9, 11, and 18. There was also a Roxette cover band at the half-way point. Yikes. All were a great way to keep your feet propelling you past the "entertainment" 2. Hearing no less than five different languages being spoken along the way 3. Running by the Staropramen Brewery around km 17 and being stared at by some of the men working. The looks on their faces were saying something like, "Fakt, jo?" which translates roughly to "Really, yes?" They were not buying the idea that running is fun.

We also had dear friends from college in town for the weekend, Corey and Jenna. My personal cheering section did a fantastic job of hollering loud and clear at the start, at km 12, and at the finish. It was pretty special to have their support to look forward to during the race! By the end of the race, I was tired enough that I don't really remember running by the Charles Bridge, one of the most famous sites in all of Prague. All I know is that I was ready to be done! So when I finally crossed the finish line, I had run 21 km in 1 hour and 50 minutes! Yay! I promise, this is fun stuff...

Happy Easter!

Even if Czech tradition mandates willow wands and buckets of water, some things are the same here as at home. We had a wonderful Easter brunch at the Davises' house (the pastor of the church we go to here, his wife Shanna, and their three kids). There was an exciting Easter egg hunt for the kids, and plenty of incredible food for everyone. Besides ham, we had Mennonite sweet bread, hot cross buns, and tons of other delicacies. No Peeps, but I think we'll survive. It was the perfect way to celebrate Easter in Prague with friends!