Prague - Alyson

     On Tuesday, January 17th, we traveled to Prague. We left the hostel soon after breakfast and got on the train to Dresden at 12:30. After we arrived in Dresden, we had about an hour and a half until our train to Prague departed. As my knee had been irritating me for a few days, I spent that time sitting down and resting, though I was very fortunate to have Rosalyn and Aidan bring me a piece of pizza for lunch. We arrived in Prague at around 17:30 and got our transit tickets. On the way to the hostel, we had an issue with ticket validation which worried a lot of the group. We did make it to the hostel, though, despite the long and stressful day.

    The 18th was not any easier. Though we had no issues with public transportation, we were going to see Terezin. No amount of reading or research could have prepared me for being in Terezin. Even 10 days later, I'm still unpacking what we saw and learned. The cliche of ghettos and concentration camps feeling oppressive when you walk in is entirely true; every step was heavier, every breath harder to catch. It's difficult to wrap my mind around the atrocities that occurred there, but standing in those dark, dusty, cold rooms and trying to imagine it, even though I'm not even grasping a quarter of it, was something I'll never forget. That evening, we had a complete change of mood when we attended the Czech Folklore Garden for dinner. It was difficult to fully enjoy the festivities after such an emotionally draining day, but I tried to live in the moment and have a good time.

    On Thursday, we went on a tour of Prague. The tour itself was fascinating, but it was quite cold out, and being outside for around 5 hours was pretty tiring. The architecture was beautiful; standing in or outside of thousand-year-old buildings was just incredible. I particularly enjoyed our time in the library of the Strahov Monastery. The books, natural science collections, and especially the frescoes in the Philosophical Hall were all amazing. After the tour, I went back to the hostel and had a quiet night finalizing my presentation.

    Friday morning I gave my presentation on the Czech Philharmonic. It went pretty well, despite my accidental closing of my presenter's notes a few slides in. After the presentations, a bunch of us went to the Musical Instrument Museum. The first exhibit, Musical Menagerie, seemed to be focused on children, but I still had a fun time playing various percussion instruments and reading about animals in music. The upstairs exhibit was also very interesting. The highlight was, of course, the Amati Violin, which I could have stared at for hours. I also enjoyed playing a hand-pumped organ, attempting to assemble a clarinet quickly, and tuning/playing a small harp. That evening, we saw the Czech Philharmonic, which was incredible; not to mention that our seats left me with a great view of the viola section! To see an ensemble of that caliber playing an all-Czech program was wonderful. 

    The 21st was our last full day in Prague. I realized I hadn't gotten a picture with the Dvorak statue outside the Rudolfinum after last night's concert, so I took a quick trip back for that. At this point, I realized that I was beginning to feel under the weather, so I went back to the hostel for a nap before the matinee performance of Kate and the Devil. The performance itself was excellent, even if the costumes and set weren't quite my style. I was pleased that I was feeling better afterward, so I went to dinner at U Fleků and enjoyed excellent beer, potato soup, and a vegetarian plate. The next morning, we were off to Austria!

LeighAnna - Vienna

 We've made our way to our third (and final) country: Austria!

Vienna was lovely. Some highlights included our tour at the Schönbrunn palace (where I felt like I was in Downton Abbey on steroids), the Kunsthistorisches Museum (which had a lot of incredible artwork including paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Raphael), and free tap water at restaurants! Seriously, my wallet has been hurting paying around 3 euro just for water every time we eat out, so free tap water has been a relief.

I've also loved the food here. I've been having a lot of soup since it's cheap but also because it's hot and I'm always in need of warming up after walking around outside so much. I get a lot of beef stews and potato soups, but every restaurant I go to has a completely different take on them so it hasn't gotten monotonous. My favorite so far was an amazing Austrian beef stew from a cafe our walking tour guide recommended. The stew had bits of pancake in it, which was unexpected but actually so delicious.

I had a fun little side quest to retrieve an iPhone from a woman named Cecelia whom I had never met. My sisters were traveling in Europe last summer and one of their phones was stolen, so I tried to mail a new one to Cecelia, the person they were staying with in Vienna. I sent it out in June, but it didn't arrive until October—long after my sisters had returned home. Luckily, I had plans to come to Vienna myself! When I mailed it out last year, I never expected that package to be in my hands again seven months later. But here we are, reunited at last! Mission accomplished.

I will close out with a picture of me and Beethoven being grumps together. Not sure I can quite compete with Beethoven, who is the reigning champ of grumpiness (I would say he even beats out Grumpy the dwarf), but I do my best. 

Emma- Prague

    Prague was one of the places I was most excited for when coming on this trip and it did not disappoint! The train ride to Prague was absolutely beautiful, and it wasn't even too long which was nice. We started off our time here on a very somber note. On the first full day, we visited Terezin and had guide give us a tour of the grounds. While it was a emotionally difficult time, the guide did a very good job at explaining all the hard truths of the situation. Later that day, we went to the Czech Folklore Garden for dinner and a show. The dancing was incredibly fun to watch, especially when some of the members of our trip participated in some of it!

    The next day, we had a guided tour in the morning around Prague, which was absolutely freezing, but I saw a muskrat, so that alone helped me power through the cold. This was especially exciting because I did not just see the muskrat from the distance. This little fella was BOLD. I thought if I came closer to him, he might run away, but he actually walked right up to me and caused me to back up a little bit out of fear he might bite me! But I'm not sure if I had ever seen a muskrat before this and certainly not that close up, so it was a 10/10 experience and definitely deserves a whole paragraph in this blog.

    That night, some friends and I went up to the top of the Prague Clock Tower and got some amazing views of the city. Like Leipzig, I happened to be right up there at sunset so I guess I have impeccable timing when it comes to going to high places. That evening, we went to an art museum that had exhibits on Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali. I gotta say, I was blown away by Dali's art. I knew him from the melting clock paintings, but some of the stuff there was absolutely crazy, like bodies bending with bones coming out of skin, elephants with super long legs, and weird abstract horses. 

The next day, I went to the National History Museum, which I didn't really have high expectations for since I'm not super into history, but the amount of natural history stuff they had was amazing. They had a huge collection of rocks and minerals, models of animals from current time and prehistoric time, fossils of plants and animals, and so so so much more. That night we saw the Czech Philharmonic which had such an incredible set. I loved the choice of songs they played and I thought it was super cool that it was an entirely Czech set.

The last day, I packed a whole bunch in because I wanted to do a lot before we left Prague. First I went with some friends to the Prague Mirror Maze and we took some goofy pictures, then we climbed up almost 300 stairs at the Prague Eiffel tower to get another amazing view. After that we saw Kate and the Devil which was an incredibly entertaining opera with super fun costumes and dancing. Then we went up the Prague funicular to the Magic Cavern to see some funky art and ended off the night by going to a horror themed bar with some rad decorations. Damn! That's a lot in one day!

Next stop, Vienna! 

Pupils Peruse Prague - Ben Helgeson

I don’t remember much about Prague but I do feel that so far it was my favorite city. Day one, when we had just gotten off the train to start heading to our hostel, we ran into a situation. I’m sure there are many perspectives from this moment in the other blogs but I will share mine anyway. When we first arrived, Powell gave us our bus passes right away. When you get a bus pass you have to validate it on the bus as soon as possible. When we got on the bus to go to our hostel, we had large backpacks on that took up a lot of space and the bus was very crowded before we got on. Two students were unable to validate their passes given that they had large heavy bags on, we had just arrived, the bus was crowded, and a host of reasonable reasons to be unable to validate a pass. Within about a minute of us being on the bus, a man walked up to us to check our tickets and realized that the two students had not validated their passes. These students could have easily been told this and slipped their tickets into the validation machine, which takes two seconds at most, but the official did not let them and kicked them off at the next stop. We all got off the bus with these students and things only went further south after that. The official spoke almost no English and requested that the two students pay 1000 Czech Koruna each. People became upset, the police were mentioned several times but never called, and we had trouble telling if we were actually required to pay this fee or if this was all just a scam but it was a stressful situation for everyone given the fact that we had literally just arrived in Prague. It wasn’t until Powell (who had taken the other half of our group on a later bus given how crowded the first bus was) that things really started to heat up. Tones were raised but no large issues were caused. Eventually, the guy lowered the fee to be 1000 crowns for the two students combined which ended up only costing about $45 US dollars. After that everyone was pretty done with the day and either got dinner or went to bed right away. 

We eventually arrived at the hostel. The rooms of the hostel were small and raked about second to last place in terms of the comfort of all the hostels. The shower was amazing though and had an excellent density of water. 

Bus stop near our hostel 

Terizin was a day I hope to never forget. It started with the drive there which was incredibly interesting on its own. Our tour guide had a thick Czech accent and deep gravelly voice as well as an inflection that made everything he said carry a deeper weight. Whenever he told a story it wasn’t hard to focus which I sometimes found was the case with the tour guides. He started by telling us about how Czech came to fall under Nazi control and how a Nazi general called “Heinrich” was able to help create the final solution. He also talked about the resilience of Czech students during the war and how they would sabotage weapons and other equipment used by the Germans. He then went on to tell us about how Heinrich had been assassinated. This led to a search for the assassins that was filled with the murder of thousands of innocent civilians. Once we arrived at Terizin I began to feel a haunting weight on my shoulders. You learn about the Holocaust in school and see pictures of concentration camps all the time. Still, it’s a different level of understanding once you step out of the bus in a place where it actually happened and think “this is where people were tortured and murdered for years and I am standing in the middle of it.” The entire tour was filled with stories of horrible things humans did to each other as well as the resilience of the Jewish people during their time there. When we were in the main town the thing that stood out most to me was how people were able to keep their humanity. It’s easy to go there and see only how they were tortured but you can also see them continue to use their skills and hold onto their humanity. I could write a book about everything I saw there but I’ll end the Terizin summary by talking about the prison area of the camp. There we sat in small rooms where Jews were forced to sleep in the cold, in pitch-black rooms crammed together with feces piled up in corners and dead bodies all over the place. We sat in rooms where women had to listen to the sounds of their children getting rapped and where people went crazy from isolation rooms. In that courtyard of the prison, as the group went on to learn about the next horrible atrocities that happened in the next room, I picked up a rock. 

Room where prisoners slept

Arch says "work will set you free"

Bus ride to Terizin

I must stop briefly here to talk about my unintentional rock collection. In Berlin and most of Europe, the streets and sidewalks are made of cobblestone. When I was in Berlin I saw that there were small loose pieces of cobblestone that were sitting on the sidewalk. I saw one and thought that it might make a good souvenir so I picked it up. Then in Leipzig, we went to the church where Bach worked and performed most of his life. Again there were some small loose pieces of cobblestone attached to the church and I grabbed one. Since then I have been grabbing a stone from every city I visit. However, the one I found in Terizin carried a different weight with it than the others. 

It was not a very large rock only about 2 inches tall and kind of skinny. When the tour came to an end and I walked out of that area of the camp, I wondered if I should keep this rock. It had probably been touched by the shoes of people who had committed some of the most inhumane acts imaginable and the feet of prisoners forced to strip naked and face the furry of a rabid dog assigned only to rip them apart. Or maybe it was never there until recently. Who knows. But as I walked out of Terizin that day looking out at the thousands of graves, I decided I would hold on to this rock as a reminder of what I had learned. I clenched it tight, angry that I could not help the people I had learned about that day. Then I got on the bus and went about the rest of my day.

The rest of the time in Prague was spent exploring and going up the clock tower. The food was amazing, the tours were great and good times were had in general. I'm sorry this blog was more of a bummer than the other ones I just hope to never forget Terizin and writing about it will help me remember that day. However, most of my time there was fun. I got to try absinth, explore the markets, and many more. It is truly a time I will never forget. 

View from the monastery 

Lutes stare out into Prague from the clock tower

In the Andy Warhol Museum 

Sarah Prague

     Coming from the slow-paced Leipzig Prague was a welcome change. The hustle and bustle of Prague was a new and exciting thing to experience. From learning how to use the subway systems to navigating crowded streets Prague taught me what it was like to live in a city. 

    Prague was an absolutely beautiful city! The architecture and overall feel of the city were truly spectacular. Looking down on the colorful roofs and buildings from up high was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I'm used to seeing gray on top of gray in cities in the United States but Prague was colorful and upbeat. When I needed a break from the city there was this lovely path in a park that would lead me out of the city. It was truly nice to escape the crowded streets and subways to just walk in along the path in the trees.

    We went to two spectacular performances in Prague the first was a performance by the Czech Philharmonic. This performance was one of my favorites!  The orchestra performed pieces written by Czech composers, which made the concert more meaningful and personal to each of the performers. When this group was performing it was apparent that each of the performers found meaning in what they were doing. The other performance that we saw was an opera called Kate and the Devil. This performance was uplifting and goofy. It was a nice change of pace because most of the other performances that we had seen up until this point were rather serious. The performances that we witnessed in Prague were truly phenomenal in different ways and were some of my favorites so far in the trip.

Vienna waits

 Vienna is an amazing show of a cultural hub unaffected by the 2 world wars. Its collection of art and architecture is old and unending, and all of it was beautiful. However, the best peace of art was the Oprea don Govoni, the modern style of costumes was a unique yet cool choice adding a new twist on a classic. the music Aswell felt modern and new reflecting the costume choices. The beautiful set design was very Moden and minimalistic yet intricate and stunning. one example of this was a water prop which seemed shallow yet when the actor jumped into it, he fell deep.      

Sarah Leipzig

 Leipzig was a fantastic city! From getting to see St. Thomas church where Bach composed and performed to walking around exploring the city was truly amazing. When I had free time I was out shopping and enjoyed the city. On one of the days, I stopped in a really old bookstore where they had tons of old scores and manuscripts. One of the highlights of my time in Leipzig was seeing an organ performance and demonstration in St. Thomas church. It was really amazing getting to see an organ performance in Bach’s church next to his grave.

We also got to see some amazing performances in Leipzig. My favorite performance was a ballet of Rachmaninov’s piano concertos 3 and 2. Watching the dancers perform Rachmaninov’s music that wasn’t originally set to choreography was extremely interesting. We also got to see the Gewandhaus orchestra play Brahms's first symphony which was both powerful and extremely well done. Going to Leipzig was a fantastic experience from attending amazing concerts to just walking around.

the pleasures Prague

Our first introduction to the Czech Republic was a rough one. An incident with a metro worker and underwhelming living conditions of our hostel left a feeling of uncertainty about our stay. Luckly the more we stayed in Prague the more I fell in love with the city. For our first day, we were given a harrowing tour of Terezin death and transport center buy an amazing tour Guide, Pavel Bartle followed by a great but poorly timed dinner at the chez folklore garden. The next day's tour of the city showed how wonderful and beautiful the city was. The peak performance was Kate and the devil. The performance and stage props were a stunning show of nontraditional Oprea props and displays, almost like a realistic cartoon. the singers and the band played well by far one of the best performances I've seen.          

Lennon, Vienna

 Vienna was a very interesting city. Our hostel was right in the action. We only had to take the subway for one stop to get pretty much anywhere important. The first day we had dinner at Heiligenstadt at a restaurant that Beethoven himself are at. Very good food and music!

Our next day we had a tour of the city which was really fun and we went to see a visiting orchestra. We saw a piano concerto at the concert by Ravel that was absolutely astounding! The soloist was amazing, and gave us two encores. 

We had free time the next day so I went back to Heiligenstadt to visit Beethoven's apartment and then went to the Albertina. Both were very fun, and at the Albertina we saw very famous works by Picasso, Monet and more!

Vienna - Caroline

 Hallo aus Wien!

On Sunday we traveled to Vienna, Austria! The train was long but beautiful. We started the city off with a group dinner at Mayer am Pfarrplatz.  Always great company with this group. On our first full day in the city, the group took another walking tour and saw many famous sights. That evening was a wonderful concert with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, who is based in Rome. Like all of our other performances, the music was phenomenal. We got pretty darn lucky and even experience an encore of Edward Elgar's Nimrod. Such a stunning program.

Venue for the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia performance.

Four our second day in the city, we were granted a free day! A group of us students (along with the amazing Ryan Branchini) headed to the Belvedere Palace. There we saw many great pieces of art, with the most popular collection being the Gustav Klimt. I had a chance to learn a bit about Klimt and see famous works like The Kiss. We happily spent several hours in upper and lower Belvedere before a special dinner with some PLU friends! A couple of my pals, Ellie, Isabella, and Caitlyn happen to be studying in Vienna for the semester so we all got dinner to catch up. It was great to see my friends one last time before leaving Vienna.

One of the Klimt works.

PLU pals!

Day 3 in Vienna was all about the Schönbrunn Palace and the Vienna Symphony. The palace was absolutely beautiful. We got to learn all about Vienna's history, the imperial family, and the history of the palace itself. I wish I could have spent all day there! (there was even a zoo on the grounds!!!) We ended our evening at Musikverein for the symphony. The violin soloist of the evening was incredible and only 20 years old!!!! W.O.W.

The Musikverein.

For our last day in Vienna, we started our day at the Kunsthistorisches Museum with another great tour guide. We had a quick art lesson and then we all explored the museum. I walked through a beautiful hall of statues, a golden exhibit, greek antiquity, and an Egyptian exhibition. I saw mummies and a mummified crocodile! We spent a bit more time in the museum and then got ready for... DON GIOVANNI! I was super stoked about this show, and it delivered! I really loved their interpretation and the singers for the night. It left me speechless. Afterward, I got really lucky and met a few of the cast members, they were such great, down-to-earth people. A major highlight of the trip! Off to Salzburg!

Philippe Sly who sang Leporello.

Isa Signoret who sang Zerlina.

Wien Staatsoper.

Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Schönbrunn Palace.

Art in the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

The Kiss.

Art in Belvedere.

In Belvedere.

Art in Belvedere.

Art in Belvedere.

Art in Belvedere.

Art in Belvedere.

Vienna, Parker

Vienna was nice. Upon arrival I visited a restaurant with two friends, where only after we finished our meal did we learn that the place only accepted cash. Naturally, we didn’t have any, and we spent the next half-hour looking for an ATM, hastily running through the streets like the crazy Americans that we most certainly were. It was actually quite a lot of fun.

On Monday we heard the Orchestra del’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia perform. I was delighted to hear the G major piano concerto of Ravel, played by Vikingur Olafsson. Though I will say that I disagreed with many of his artistic choices (as I’ll admit that I usually do), it was undoubtedly an absolutely stunning performance. Only on one occasion have I ever attended a better presentation of any piano concerto.

While in Vienna we also heard the Vienna Symphony perform at the Musikverein. It has been a dream of mine for many years to visit the hall, and the concert brought back many sweet memories of my younger self marveling at the space through recorded concerts on YouTube. From the second-row seats we heard the violin concerto of Beethoven, which was, of course, awe-inspiring as only Beethoven can be.

When we weren’t at concerts our time was filled with various museums, tours, and adventures. Highlights, for me, include the St. Stephen’s cathedral, the Kunsthistorisches museum, and the Belvedere museum.

Vienna - Natalie Hodges

We arrived in the lovely city of Vienna on January 22nd & stayed until the 26th. Although it was a short visit, our class did plenty of activities! Our first day was mostly a travel day by train, and in the evening we had a group dinner at Mayer am Pfarrplatz; which had a variety of delicious cuisine.

The next day we were provided a tour around the city with Hebert as our guide. After the tour, I spent the afternoon taking in the sights and enjoyed a nice lunch with my classmates. After a short break at our hostile, we attended a performance of the Orchestra dell' Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Needless to say, the musicians were fabulous! Since we had the next day off, I chose to rest at our hostile and went through the gallery of photos that I have collected thus far on the trip. At this point, I believe I have taken a couple hundreds worth of pictures!

The next morning, I did my presentation on the Vienna Symphony for my class and then we had an afternoon tour of Schonbrunn Palace. This was one of my favorite tours so far, and every room we went into was magnificent to look at! In the evening, we saw the Vienna Symphony with Maria Duenas as the violin soloist. This performance was amazing to say the least, and I was enthralled by the musical talents of Maria and the orchestra.

Our last day was spent at the Kunsthistorisches museum. We were fortunate to have a tour of some of their most famous artwork and I loved looking at every exhibit they had. Though it was a huge museum, there were so many things to do! To top off the day, we attended a performance of the opera, "Don Giovanni". This was a thoroughly entertaining show and the voice talents of the performers were astounding!

Though our visit was brief, I appreciated every opportunity we had to enjoy what the city had to offer. Salzburg will be our last stop, and we are all excited to see what the last week of our trip will bring!