24 Hours in Prague

 

At noon, from Petrin Hill you can look out over the city of Prague and listen to its hundreds of bell towers clanging simultaneously.  The city of a thousand spires, it's called.  The architecture evokes provincial France or Italy, with red shingled roofs and labyrinthine streets that invite you to wander until you completely lose your bearings.  Along the river Vltava, however, the colorful, ornate buildings, trees, and hefty old bridges lined with time-blackened sculptures could fool you into thinking you're in Paris.  Prague often feels like Paris' shadow-city, a sombre and stubborn city that has remained more intact over the centuries than almost any other city in Europe.  Spared the brunt of WWII bombings, it was instead subjected to mental oppression under Communist rule from 1948 to 1989.

Today the Museum of Communism is located right behind a McDonalds.  But if you want my pick for the best museum in Prague, go check out the Alfonse Muchy (Alphonse Mucha) Museum.  This Czech artist lived an amazing life and defined the style of Art Nouveau, a style which can be spotted all around the city.  When you get hungry, if it's early in the day go to Cafe Slavia for breakfast or brunch.  In Prague you sit yourself and wait for a waiter or waitress to come to you, so pick a seat by the window.  Order their pear crepes (prepare yourself for heaps of whipped cream) and an espresso and sit contemplating the universe for a while.  For coffee or an afternoon treat, try either Grand Cafe Orient or Cafe Louvre (the latter was a favorite spot for both Kafka and Einstein).  Don't forget to say thank you - "Děkuji."

Of course the Old Town Square and the Astronomical Clock are worth a look, but these places are often packed with tourists and pickpockets so don't linger too long.  Wander north from there to find yourself in what used to be the Jewish ghetto, now one of the wealthiest areas of town.  The Spanish Synagogue, with its golden Moorish interior, is one of the most beautiful synagogues in Europe and is also a museum where you can learn a great deal about the history of of the Czech Jewish community, including the Nazi occupation and the post-war decades.  The Old Jewish Cemetery is right down the road.  It contains almost 12,000 tombstones (though the number buried here is over 100,000 - Jews were not allowed to be buried outside the ghetto, so the dead had to be buried on top of one another, up to ten layers deep).

After those incredibly sobering spots, you'll likely just want to walk and be alone with your thoughts.  The Knihkupectví Franze Kafky is right across the street from the corner of the Jewish Cemetery, and here you can browse the literature that has come out of Prague over the past century.  I bought two of Milan Kundera's books and then walked to Petrin Hill.  The park is very, very steep, but the view in the orchards at the top is spectacular.  The precisely-lined trees are a bit eerie, especially for those of us who recall Teresa's dream in the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  But it's a beautiful, peaceful spot meant to be lingered in.

Either before or after Petrin Hill, explore the West Bank near Kampa Island.  Kampa itself is beautiful, green, and the site of an interesting art museum with a free outdoor sculpture garden.  It includes some giant bronze babies without faces, quite creepy, by the very outspoken Czech artist David Černý.  His art is scattered all over the city as urban installments.  Back on the mainland, you can walk a bit north to the Franz Kafka museum, outside of which there is another statue of his: a fountain made of two men pissing on the Czech Republic.

Due west of Kampa Island is the Lennon Wall, which should not be missed.  It's in a beautiful neighborhood, so take your time.  The Lennon Wall is constantly changing as new layers of graffiti are added to it.  If your'e lucky, you might get a live performance of "Let It Be" by a random street musician.  Prague is quite safe to wander after dark, so take your time finding a place for dinner.  Don't be afraid to deviate from your intended path at any point, because the most beautiful corners of this city are the ones you stumble accidentally upon.

24 hours in Stockholm

The Venice of the North.  Spanning fourteen islands, and situated within a wider archipelago made up of tens of thousands more, Stockholm is a city well-acquainted with the sea. So the best way to get acquainted with the city is by boat.  Start your day on a Stockholm Sightseeing tour, such as "Under the Bridges of Stockholm," which will take you for a couple hours out around the city.  The Baltic and giant Lake Mälaren meet among its many waterways, and you'll be able to see everything from the main skyline of Östermalm (above, top) to the Brooklyn-esque island district of Södermalm.

Of course you'll eventually want to explore these areas on foot.  Stockholm is a very livable city: it's clean, crime and homelessness are low; there's an unbelievable number of places to shop, eat, and sit down for a cozy fika; and there are cultural must-sees for everyone, from the Skansen to the ABBA Museum to Vasamuseet, a museum containing an entire salvaged 17th-century ship that sank off the coast of Sweden. Skansen is the Swedish version of Colonial Williamsburg, only it's way more epic because it covers practically half of the Stockholm island of Djurgården, and it includes a zoo of Nordic animals.  If you want to feel like you've walked through Swedish history and gotten a glimpse of all the regions - including the northern Sami villages - simply visit Skansen.  The park is a vast expanse of recreated farmsteads and timber sheds, mills and belfries, glass workshops and stables...  It's a beautiful, immersing experience.  My personal favorite was seeing the Sami village reindeer (photo below), and watching the wolf pack in the zoo.  There are also squirrels and peacocks that run all over the park, and be warned - they're not afraid of people!

Making your way through the main bustling district of Norrmalm around the Central Station, pop into the Stockholm Urban Outfitters at Biblioteksgatan 5.  It's housed inside what used to be the Röda Kvarn (Moulin Rouge) of Stockholm, a beautiful old building reminiscent of an opera house (see photo below).

Make sure you take also head to the south side of town and stroll through Södermalm.  You'll spot some hipsters and find more than a couple places to buy lunch, fika, or an Indie literary magazine.  Speaking of magazines, if you want a really neat bookstore that also has a fantastic collection of old and hard-to-find DVDs and periodicals, check out Papercut.  You can see their selection on their website here.

As the sun starts to set, make sure you take a stroll through Gamla Stan, the small island at the heart of Stockholm, and the oldest district of the city.  The dusk light will lend itself to all the old orange and pink pastels of the buildings here.  In Gamla, you can step down into hovel-like cafes that were stables and wine cellars as far back as the 1500s!  You can get lost in cobbled alleyways and winding streets, only to turn a corner and find yourself before a beautiful old cathedral, a bronze sculpture atop a fountain, or perhaps the Nobel Museum, which is small and definitely worth a quick walk-through.  Make sure you step into one of the many chocolate shops or cafes and grab something sweet.

If you're staying in Stockholm for a couple days and want an awesome hostel choice, stay at the af Champan, which is the white ship pictured above.  That's right, they converted that standing ship into a hostel.  You stay in cabins below-decks.  I haven't tried it yet, but looks pretty awesome.

London | Day N° 21 | Oxford & the Eagle and Child

Today I am leaving my beloved city of London. In this short period of time, I have come to love this city: each day I found another aspect that deepened my affection, respect, and interest in this wonderful place. I’ve traveled to every major city in the US, and I love them each in their own ways; but London far outdoes them in my eyes. There is something completely different about this place, about the UK. Honestly, it’s the pride of its people. The British are so fiercely proud of their land and ways, and have good reason to be. It makes for a very elegant, refined, and respectful society, one that I’ve adored from afar for many years, but experiencing it has only made me love it more. Perhaps if I lived here, after many years, I would get a bit sick of it; but for now, I would give anything to spend more time in this city.

So it was with great sadness that I spent my last day in London. Honestly, I didn’t even spend much of it in London – around 11:00, Eli and I took a bus to Oxford for the afternoon. But in the morning, we walked down to LSE one last time, down Aldwych and the Strand, around Horse Guards Parade and past the Palace. It was cool and grey, of course, and I find that I have even come to love that. I, who want to spend the rest of my life drowning in sunshine, was so cosy and happy in the chill British air and under rainy grey skies.

After walking through a grey cool London to our bus stop at Grosvenor Square, we boarded a double-decker bus and crossed the deep green countryside to reach Oxford, and I got to see a bit of the UK outside the city: rolling green hills, shallow valleys, pastures of sheep, little villages. It was so perfect. When we alighted on High Street, Eli and I immediately delved into Oxford’s campus. I’m not familiar with the area, but we visited Radcliffe Camera, St Mary’s Church, one of the libraries, Christ Church, and many beautiful courtyards. The architecture of the school is obviously so impressive and old, and the gardens and lawns were well-kept and so British. We randomly happened upon a small exhibit of ‘Magical Books’: artefacts from the creation of those magical worlds that have become entwined with Oxford. Yes, this was a special exhibit for Middle Earth, Narnia, and some of the other fantastic places that are tied to this place in various ways. I couldn’t believe that we happened across this little room, because it was too perfect to be true. Almost half of the entire exhibit was dedicated to the works of JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. 

Tolkien's hand-painted 'Conversations with Smaug'   

As soon as we walked in, I saw two small hand-drawn maps set in glass cases that looked familiar… it took me some time to come to terms with the fact that these were original maps of Middle Earth and Narnia hand-drawn by Tolkien and Lewis. I don’t think I’ve come to terms with this even now… I have spent so many hours reproducing Tolkien’s world, through maps, language, music, script, art; and there it was, the original, in the creator’s hand. The exhibit also included quite a few of Tolkien’s watercolours: ‘Conversations with Smaug’, Bilbo and the giant eagle, cave paintings from Middle Earth, the death of Smaug, and, possibly the ultimate treasure for a Tolkien fan and an artist, the original hand-painted covers created by Tolkien himself for the novels. First of all, it was almost beyond my comprehension to see these things that he had created by hand. Second of all, the man was a fantastic artist. His watercolours on their own are beautiful, richly coloured, and masterfully done. That on its own was impressive! There was a number of other incredible related things, including the script from the One Ring and the carvings from Balin’s tomb written in Tolkien’s hand, and torn and burnt pages from Book of Mazarbul that Tolkien had created.

Another of Tolkien's illustrations

It still leaves me shocked to think about it. If I were to ever plan some elaborate, grandly-scaled theft, I wouldn’t steal endless amounts of cash from a vault or casino; I would find a way to get my hands on these artefacts, these pieces of paper that are beyond worth. The maps and manuscripts and illustrations hold far more worth to me than the things other people would consider valuable. Tolkien shaped so much of who I am, and I have the deepest reverence for his genius.

  

That being said, imagine my reaction when Eli and I went to the Eagle and Child, a very old and small pub in Oxford that Tolkien and Lewis (along with others) met at to discuss their writings. They called themselves the Inklings, and I remember when Eli and I first became friends and bonded immediately over our love for writing, our fathers (who are Tolkien geeks too!) hinted that we were creating our own Inklings group. And that’s what we called it for years, when we got together at a café or bookstore to write and read each other’s manuscripts and discuss our ideas. We have both dreamed of coming to the Eagle and Child since we first met; it kind of signifies the ultimate step of our friendship to us, like we’re coming full circle.

It’s a small, dark place, with a fireplace in each room, a little bar, and a conservatory at the back (which is probably new). The Rabbit Room is set to one side by the bar, with a long wooden table right by the large fireplace. This is the room that the Inklings met in, where they sipped beer and pored over each other’s manuscripts. It was honestly too much to handle.

It’s quite an interesting phenomenon: it’s quite evident that the majority of the greatest creative masterpieces have come from the North, particularly from the United Kingdom. What is it about this land, the chill, the grey clouds and stone, the deep emerald green, that inspire such imagination in men? One would think that the brilliant hues of the tropics would be a more fertile land for imagination and tales, but the greatest stories come from these cold hills and cliffs. I don’t understand why, but I can certainly feel it when I’m here.  

The Eagle and Child can be a place where time stands still. When Eli and I had our little Inkling meetings years ago, we’d just sit and write for hours on end, with no other worries, gone to the world. We’ve since lost that… but at the Eagle and Child, tucked in a corner by the fireplace, hot Earl Grey tea at the ready, we found our sense of writers’ timelessness again. Imagination can come alive here, in this little old pub. The dark shelves and fireplaces, wooden walls, quiet private tables in little rooms; I can easily see how these men were inspired to write about

the halls of Rohan, underground burrows of talking badgers, hushed conversations around a Bag End fireplace. Middle Earth and Narnia came alive right here. They were crafted over many hours and conversations and pints over this wood table and by this fireplace. I could have stayed forever.      

But of course, we had to pass on. We returned to London around 18:00, and got ready to depart for Paris. We’re taking an overnight bus from London to Dover, in a ferry over the English Channel, and then down from the coast to Paris, to arrive early in the morning. Then, we skip over to Versailles for a day, to stay in the beautiful Trianon Palace!      

London | Day N° 20 | Knightsbridge, Mayfair, and Oxford St.

My last day at LSE – and the day of my final exam! I woke up quite early to study in my room, reviewing as much as I could. It’s so much material to understand in such a short period of time, but I can only do my best. I let Eli catch up on sleep while I went down to study at the New Academic Building on LSE’s campus for a little while before I took the test.

One of the differences in schools here (or at least a difference between William & Mary and LSE) is the strictness of exam-taking. At W&M, all students sign an honour code and are then trusted to be faithful on their exams and schoolwork; many tests are completely un-proctored by the professor or any kind of instructor. Here, the regulations during an exam are extremely strict. You must turn your mobile phone off and have it under your desk during the exam. You can only use LSE-approved calculators, and you aren’t supposed to have anything else on your desk during the exam (drinks, etc.). Your student ID card needs to be out on the desk so the invigilators (such a better name than proctors!!) can come around and mark you down several times throughout the exam. No one is allowed to leave during the exam, and in the last fifteen minutes, no one is allowed to leave, even if they’ve finished. I’m not complaining, it’s good that cheaters are so discouraged, but it’s quite strange.

Goodbye room..... 

Anyway, after I had finished my exam (and officially finished my program at LSE!), Eli and I met up with my friend from LSE and did a quick shopping trip to Knightsbridge, yet again. We didn’t get to spend much time there, but I felt that Eli needed to see Harrods while she was in London. We had a quick late lunch at the Caffe Concerto across from Harrods, and then had to scurry down to the tube to meet our friend for dinner. He (very generously) treated us all to a fantastic Indian meal at Benares in Mayfair. The restaurant was so beautiful, modern with black stone and fountains and colourful candles. We had the strangest assortment of dishes: my first course was a lotus kebab with lavender yoghurt (very spicy!), the entrée was jackfruit biryani (the jackfruit was almost flavourless and kind of had the texture of an artichoke heart or aubergine), and dessert consisted of tandoori pineapple (incredible) and Earl Grey ice cream. My friend also recommended a passion fruit and chutney martini, Benares’ signature cocktail, which was so interesting: quite sweet but with a rich spicy undercurrent in each sip. Every single thing I tried was completely different from the Indian food I’d ever had before; it was definitely a culinary adventure! Such a great recommendation and experience.  

Passionfruit-chutney martini   

Eli, my friend, and I then walked the few blocks down to Oxford Street. This is another busy shopping district, perhaps more accessible than Knightsbridge. We looked through a couple of British (maybe European) shops that I’d never visited before, Primark and River Island.  I wish we had more European stores like this in the US: our clothing shops are either very cheap and horrendously unfashionable, or very fashionable and expensive. H&M is the one of the few common shops that has low prices but supplies us with European fashion, but I wish we had more!

It was quite late at that point, but when we returned home (and after I said my goodbyes to my friends from LSE!), Eli and I stayed up for a bit planning out our trips to Oxford and France. We went through many opetions before finalizing all our various means of travel: bus, train, cab, shuttle, airplanes… This will certainly be an interesting trip, and we will definitely be experiencing many different aspects of Europe! It’s strange for me to travel so much without a car, which I’ve always had, and have to submit to the schedules and fares of public transportation; honestly, it’s much more of a pain too. But it’s a part of the experience!  

London | Day N° 19 | Eli and Zab Reunited in London!

At the Dorchester for high tea!

Zabelieth is together at last! Since our spring semester ended in May, Eli has been interning in New Haven, Connecticut, while I spent half my summer in Chicago and the most recent half in London, studying at the London School of Economics. Eli is starting graduate school in Uppsala in two weeks, and since I'm still in London, we knew this was our perfect opportunity to visit Europe together!

We are spending three full days in the UK, two in London and one in Oxford, and then crossing the Channel to visit Versailles, Paris, and Nice. After that we each fly off to our respective destinations: Eli to Uppsala, and I am heading back home to Virginia to start my last semester of college. Though we only have a week together in Europe, we are going to cram each minute full of new experiences! Between travel, sightseeing, dining, and leisure (beaches on the French Riviera.....), this coming week is destined to be absolutely incredible for both of us.

Eli arrived at Heathrow early Thursday morning, and I hopped on the tube to go meet her there. It was so good to see a friendly face after being without my usual friends or family for a month! I think she was just as shocked as I was to realise that we are finally in the UK together. We have been dreaming of traveling here for more years than we can count, and it's surreal for those dreams to finally come true.

Though we arrived back at High Holborn relatively early in the morning, I had class shortly thereafter, so Eli decided to be a trooper and walk down Drury Lane to see Aldwych and the LSE campus with me. We had a quick pot of tea at the Delaunay Counter, and were still speechless at the fact that we were there together. Since we were little, both of us have held British culture and literature in very high esteem, mainly because of our great love for the classics. My family ingrained in me great respect and love for British culture: for Winston Churchill and GK Chesterton, Adam Smith, Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, James Herriot, Doctor Who, and British things in general (teatime! horsemanship! dog-loving!). Through high school, Eli and I shared our love for this country and its traditions, especially in colonial times, and together we adoringly researched things like the East India Company. We worshipped writers like JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, and since then have only wanted to learn more and more about the UK. We've made teatime a tradition when no one else has, we've baked scones together, watched British films hundreds of time, and debated novels like Lady Chatterly's Lover. We've also done all these things over again more recently with French culture, but I'll get to that in a couple of days!

Anyway, upon arriving in London, jet-lagged Eli and I had tea at the Delaunay Counter, and after my class, we trekked down the Strand to the Mall and did a walking tour of the River Thames, Victoria Embankment Gardens, Buckingham Palace, St James, Westminster Abbey, and Fortnum & Mason, and Eli was so excited to find a Laduree branch on Piccadilly (where I got some delicious Marie-Antoinette-inspired tea!). We hadn't seen each other in months and were catching up, so it was a quick, casual tour of some of London's most famous sights.

The Promenade at the Dorchester

I had my final exam at LSE the following day, so after doing a quick tour, we settled down at Le Pain Quotidien on High Holborn so I could do some studying before teatime. Several weeks before, I had made a reservation for afternoon tea at the Promenade at the Dorchester, one of the renowned afternoon tea venues in London (along with the Delaunay, the Ritz, the Waldorf, etc.). Eli and I have been having afternoon tea for years, and threw a beautiful, elaborate tea party for our closest friends while we were in high school. But this is the first time that we've had the opportunity to enjoy a true British afternoon tea together!

It was wonderful. The Promenade at the Dorchester is completely stunning, with gold pillars, exotic tatues, bright walls, and tons of greenery. The teacups and teapots were exquisite, and we enjoyed many courses: tea sandwiches (cucumber, smoked salmon, egg, mozzarella and basil, herbed chicken), a Middle Eastern sampler plate, little miniature ice cream cones, scones with jam and clotted cream (of course), and an assortment of French pastries, which we couldn't even touch, we were so full at that point! It was just too perfect. The setting was beautiful, the service was very impressive, and the food and tea could not have been better. It was just a shame we couldn't eat more! They kept trying to bring us more food, and it was such a shame to have to turn it away.

When we had eaten our fill and and drank at least two teapots full of tea each, we simply returned back to High Holborn so I could study for my exam the next morning and Eli could finally get some much needed sleep. But we knew more adventures awaited us in the following days!

London | Day N° 18 | Baker Street and St James

The view of Buckingham Palace from St James Park  

Though my final exam is only two days away, I spent much of Wednesday exploring a couple new (but important!) areas of London. This morning, I finally managed to get into the Sherlock Holmes Museum, and after class, I walked to St James’, Buckingham Palace, and Fortnum & Mason.

In the three weeks that I’ve been in London, I have thrice attempted to visit the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221B Baker Street, but was unsuccessful until this morning. The other times I tried to get in, the queue was incredibly long – and probably because they can only allow a few people into the cramped flat at a time. Well, this morning, I woke up bright and early, made it to the museum half an hour before it opened, and was one of the first people in. Ha!

Of course, the iconic address, doorway, and entry were thrilling enough on their own. But on the first floor, I found Sherlock’s bedroom, outfitted with a little bed, fireplace, single window, etc., and packed with knick-knacks. Every inch of the entire flat was outfitted with little objects that either tied directly into one of Sherlock’s cases, or fit with the general character of Holmes or Watson. There were shelves packed with bottles, potions, and medicines, all sorts of knives and pistols, tobacco pipes, body parts (dried ears and thumbs and such), magnifying glasses, letters, and unusual old items from every corner of the world. Next to Sherlock’s room on the first floor was the drawing room, with the two chairs beside the big fireplace, the two large, heavily-draped windows (all I could think of was them blowing up in the television series!), and the infamous wallpaper with bullet holes.

The second and third floors were more museum-like, with various artifacts from Sherlock’s cases enclosed in glass boxes. There were also two rooms with life-sized wax figures (made by Madame Tussaud’s?) of some of the most famous characters from Sherlock’s stories, including my beloved Irene Adler.  It was actually a little spooky!  The whole flat was very cool to see though, especially that famous entry and drawing room.

I had to head off to class after that, but when I finished my lecture at 17:00, I walked down Aldwych and the Strand to the Mall (the broad, tree-lined street that leads up to Buckingham Palace), and through St James’ Park, which lines the Mall to the south. St James’ is smaller and more woodsy than Hyde Park, and is very beautiful. There’s a shallow pond filled with geese and swans, and there were even a couple of squirrels scurrying about – but everyone was taking pictures of the little pests! There are almost no squirrels here, and it’s too funny to see the way people react to them here. After three weeks, the total count of insects and squirrels that I’ve seen is three and four, respectively. It’s incredible.

Buckingham Palace

Anyway, I walked around St James’ and the front of Buckingham Palace, which were both really picturesque and stunning. The statues in front of the Palace were some of my favourites, and the gates and guards were impressive. I wish I could see the gardens behind the Palace though! What’s really been the most incredible thing for me on this trip has been seeing these locations that are so iconic for me. I’ve revered these places for years (mainly through television and film), and it’s so strange and thrilling to see them in person, to actually physically be there, to see that they are truly tangible! Places like Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler’s homes (which I’ve seen thousands of times in the television series), Buckingham Palace (especially in The Queen, which is one of my favourite movies), Shaftesbury Lane and Millennium Bridge (Harry Potter), and many others have always been surreal to me, and now here I am. It’s way too cool.

Gates at Buckingham Palace

I had dinner at a Spanish tapas restaurant in Victoria (delicious!), then walked back through St James’ Park up to Piccadilly to stop in at Fortnum & Mason. Good lord, one would be hard-pressed to find another shop as glorious as Fortnum & Mason. I can’t decide whether I like Harrod’s better! Fortnum & Mason is known for being the grocer to the Queen, and has been on Piccadilly for more than 300 years. It’s much smaller than Harrod’s; the ground floor is dedicated entirely to tea (from Fortnum & Mason’s exclusive blends to jams, honeys, and biscuits), and the lower ground floor has the actual grocery (so many beautiful fresh fruits and meats… luxury oils, wines, champagne…). It was wonderful. I bought their Smoky Earl Grey blend, which was apparently made specially for the Palace when the Queen requested a smokier Earl Grey tea. I’m proud to say that I have greatly expanded my tea collection while I’ve been here, from Harrod’s Flowery Earl Grey to Whittard’s Afternoon Tea blend and the London Tea Company’s White Tea with Elderflower. When I get back home, I’m going to need a whole room for my tea collection… I think I have every kind of tea that can be found on the face of this Earth.

Fortnum & Mason 

It was raining lightly (of course!), and I couldn’t have said that I truly experienced London until I had walked through St James’ and Piccadilly in the cool, grey London rain! The weather has been quite cool while I’ve been here; I can’t imagine how cold it gets in the winter. But the summer is so lovely. I couldn’t think of a more perfect place to spend my August. 

Early tomorrow morning, Eli will be arriving at Heathrow airport!! I am uncontrollably excited that she will be joining me for my last three days in London, and then we'll be traveling France together. It's sad that I'll have to spend much of tomorrow studying, but I'll still be able to show her a handful of my favourite study spots: Waterstones, La Pain Quotidien, the Delaunay Counter... and we have reservations for afternoon tea at the Dorchester! Check back in tomorrow to hear all about our first day together in the city!