Final

We've been home for a while now and are feeling the effects of our trip all the time!
We've gained so much from it and we've both written our college essays about this amazing experience :)
If you'd like to read them - contact us!
We have a program coming up on January 11 at the library in Pittsford. So if you'd like to hear us talk about the trip some more, come visit!

We can't wait to get traveling again!

I hope you all enjoyed reading about the Ariel and Emily World Tour (Part One, obviously.)

Emily

London and Home - not the last post!

The last few days in London were just as exciting as the first. But first and foremost - WE'RE HOME! After missing our flight to Burlington due to (probably) volcano-related delays we had an eight hour layover in Newark and arrived home at 1 A.M. your time, 5 A.M. London time. Being home is quite strange. First of all, I haven't seen Ariel now in about six hours. That seems quite unusual after not leaving her side for 3.5 months. Second of all, the culture feels odd and familiar all at once somehow. When I was in the mall the other day, for example, I couldn't help but notice how American everyone was; it was just little things, like different mannerisms, but it makes a big difference. I also ate with my hands one of my first nights home. No forks allowed when it comes to wings in America.

Remember that we have some presentations coming up! Dates for public presentations will be announced in a separate post.

Now I'll talk a little about the rest of our week in London. We visited the London Bridge over the River Thames (the only bridge downstream from Kingston until 1929) and were surprised at how boring and industrial it looked; it's the latest in a succession of bridges in this spot. It's fairly modern as it is from 1973.
So we walked upstream slightly to find the Tower Bridge, which is an absolutely gorgeous, ornate suspension bridge.

We, later that day, walked to the Westminster area to see Big Ben and Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye.

The Houses of Parliament are where the House of Lords and the House of Commons meet. The current palace was designed by architectural team Barry and Pugin and construction began in 1840 and was only completed after many setbacks in 1870.
There we saw the building's clock tower, nicknamed Big Ben after it's largest bell. It is massive - the third largest freestanding clock tower in the world!



Also in the area was the Westminster Abbey cathedral. It was absolutely giant. One of the coolest parts was knowing that a plethora of coronations had taken place there in the past.

After that we visited the London Eye. I personally think of it in the same way that I think of the Eiffel Tower. It's not incredibly attractive, actually, it's quite the monstrosity, but it's given London a symbolic landmark the same way the Eiffel Tower is now arguably the most recognizable Parisian landmark. We didn't ride, because it was ridiculously expensive just for a big Ferris Wheel. Instead, we went to the nearby Film Museum. It mainly focused on commercially successful movies and actors and housed a huge collection of movie props, scripts, etc...

We took some time to visit Buckingham Palace. We weren't able to see the changing of the guards; there was a special event that day (we are still trying to find out what it was), but we got to see the guards doing their marching routine back and forth in perfect synchronization in front of the palace.

The Tower of London is also very cool. It's very historic. In fact, it's the oldest building used by the British government and houses the crown jewels. Definitely worth a visit.

On our very last night, we saw Billy Elliot in London's West End Theater. It was absolutely amazing. I laughed, I cried; I was engaged the entire time. The dancing was particularly impressive and the music (Elton John) was also beautiful. I definitely recommend it and I'm sure Ariel would agree.



Look out for some more posts...
We've got one coming up announcing presentation dates and one FAQ/summarizing conclusory post on the way!

It's our last week of the Ariel and Emily World Tour, Part 1 - Europe and Israel! Wow, that's a long title. Either way, we currently have about two days left to enjoy more of London before heading back to Vermont. So far, we've been packing our last week full! Since we've been doing so much, I'll try to just highlight the more interesting things.

So far, we visited three nice museums: the National Portrait Gallery, the Museum of London, and the British Music Experience. My favorite of the three was the British Music Experience; it was really interactive and focused on British music from the 1940's onward, especially the British Invasion in the U.S. The museum was packed of band artifacts, including a drum head from the Yardbirds, a jumpsuit from Mick Jagger, handwritten lyrics by David Bowie, and so much more! It was amazing! We also went to a nice concert at the same place with a guitarist and violinist duo.

Of course, we've been getting in a little bit of London shopping, since it's known for huge department stores. We spent some time at Harrod's and Selfridge's, both of which were extremely expensive and had everything from a giant lime green plaster horse to imported caviar. It was so overwhelming; we didn't even really know where to start with it all. We did also visit more reasonable stores, including the Topshop flagship (so many cute clothes!).

Since Emily and I are both big Harry Potter fans, we decided to try and find some of where the story in London takes place. We visited a cafe on Tottenham Court Road, walked around the Charring Cross area, found where the Leaky Cauldron and entrance to Diagon Alley would be, and also saw where they filmed the visitors' entrance to the Ministry of Magic. In case you don't know what this means, I'll give a short explanation of each place.
When Harry, Ron and Hermione fled from the Death Eaters in the beginning of the seventh book, the ended up escaping at a cafe on Tottenham Court Road.
The Leaky Cauldron is a pub for wizards near Charring Cross. Through this pub, there is a brick wall area which provides the entrance to Diagon Alley, a wizard shopping street. We actually found a pub near Charring Cross with a brick wall behind it.
The scene in the movies where Harry Potter and Mr. Weasley enter to the Ministry of Magic (wizard government) building was filmed also near Charring Cross.

Well, that's basically what we've been up to, and we have a schedule for the rest of the week including the London Bridge, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Parliament, the Tower of London, and seeing Billy Elliot at the West End theater (London's version of Broadway). Such a fun and busy last two days!

See you soon!
Ariel

Cold water, old churches, and controversy.

So I've got a couple things to update y'all on.
We spent the weekend in Newquay (pronounced noo-kee) at the beach where we had a lovely apartment with a view of the ocean.
We met some more of David's friends who were all very sweet but were absolutely crazy to go in the water. Actually, Ariel went in too. She tried surfing, which was very brave of her and was able to successfully catch some waves!

We also spent a day in Exeter. It's a university town with lots of great shopping and some historic buildings such as the Exeter Cathedral which was completed in 1400.


Today, there was an important election in England for majority control of Parliament. Correct us if we're wrong, English politics are rather confusing. For the past 13 years the Labour Party was in power and this election will determine its fate. Gordon Brown is running for reelection with the Labour Party (though it seems unlikely that he'll win) against the Conservative David Cameron and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg. If all goes well, results will be in first thing tomorrow morning.

That's all for now! Stay tuned for our last week!
xxx
₤mily

Devon

Place of the Week

Dartmoor! It's a moorland National Park known for it's Tors, which are like giant rock hills and are used in the "Ten Tor Challenge", a competition for people between 14 and 21 (including school groups) can walk distances often up to 50 or 60 miles!

And did I mention there are PONIES?!



Food of the Week

Fish 'n Chips!
We were staying right near the coast, so the fish was very fresh. This is a very popular meal right around Devon so it's only appropriate that this should be our food of the week.

London -

So we're currently in Gerrard's Cross, just outside of London. We got here by bus...it was a long ride but went without a hitch. More about London once we actually explore the city!

Guest Blogger

Jolly Ho! My name is David Chamberlain and I am from Devon in 'Ye Olde England'. Ariel and Emily have been living with me for two days now and I am sick and tired of them. I mean seriously, skype at 2am? Anyway... they've visited Dartmoor which is our equivalent of yellowstone except much less interesting, seen Kick-ass in a British cinema and been to the most amzing place in the world, Milton Keynes (this is our equivalent of Birmingham Alabama, by which i mean scummy). They also made fun of my work outfit, apron and my clip-on tie from Waitrose which is our equivalent of Wholefoods except it hasn't got health foods and it's where rich people go to laugh at peasants. I tried to introduce them to British comedians but as most of them are from up North they couldn't understand the accent. Tomorrow we are leaving at 8:30 to go to Newquay which is a haven for young people and surfing in England and three of my friends are also coming which will mean extra bullying for Ariel and Emily. They also visited my school yesterday and i'm pretty sure they hated it. They were also ignored by people because of the fact that they are American but i forced them to talk and the problem was resolved. If you want a cheap laugh then just ask the girls to video me saying stuff in a funny accent. Toodle pip, cheerio.
Dave x

A little bit of everything!

Since we last wrote, we had two more days in Wellingborough, one day of travel to Devon, and now we've been here for almost a day. Here is a little recap of what's been going on and a few weeklies.

One of our days in Wellingborough, we went to Cambridge, which is home to England's second oldest university. It was a little like most other college towns (students riding bikes everywhere, people studying for exams currently, etc.) although with the added charm of it being founded in 1209. The other day in Wellingborough, we visited Stoke Bruerne and saw the canal locks in action. It was so cool seeing the water level raise so much in such a short time. Walking along the canal was gorgeous, and it was so fun to look inside of the boats and see the tiny kitchens and such.



Overall, we've found England to be similar in looks to New England, with small towns, brick houses and lots of the same place names. Basically the biggest difference we've noticed so far is how much older everything here is. It's amazing to think that it's perfectly normal for buildings here to be over 500 years older than the United States.

We spent our first full day in Devon at the local high school with our host. For me, I found this school to be much different than the others that we visited in how they interacted with us. At the Hungarian high school, not many of the students' English was well enough to have a proper conversation, and at the international school in Switzerland, so many of the students were American, so it was just like meeting a new classmate. At the English school, however, we found that a few people (jokingly) refused to talk to us because we were Americans. However, we were forewarned that they might not be that friendly, but it was all in a good-natured way.


So now onto the Weeklies! Since we were only in Wellingborough for half a week, we decided to combine the weeklies from there with the ones from our week in Devon.


People of the Week

We interviewed both of our Wellingborough hosts this week.

Name:
Issa
Harry

Where were you born?
Issa: The east end of London. I'm a Cockney, although Harry has the Cockney accent.
Harry: London

What is your favorite place in England?
Issa: London
Harry: Derbyshire

What is your favorite English food?
Issa: Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.
Harry: Roast Lamb

What is your former job?*
Issa: Most recently, the Equal Opportunities Coordinator at Northampton University.
Harry: A printer

What are your current hobbies?
Issa: Working with children, being a School Governor**, line dancing, swimming, and reading.
Harry: Riding my motorbike, photography, gardening, and watching football***.

What are some places you've traveled to together?
Israel, American, Australia, the Far East, Europe, including Italy, France Portugal, and many more places.

What is your favorite place in the world?
Issa: The Italian lakes
Harry: New England

Anything else?
"When you first asked us to host you, we were surprised by your age. Most English kids don't do something like that until 18 or so."

* - Issa and Harry are retired.
** - School Governor is a bit like School Board in the U.S.
*** - In America, it's soccer.




Word of the Week

Although it's all still English, they do use different words for certain things. For example, in England they might say, "Let's use the zebra crossing to get to the other pavement." In America, we would way, "Let's the the crosswalk to get to the other sidewalk." There are also certain words they pronounce differently, like "zeb-rah" instead of "zee-brah". Overall though, it's great not to have as much of a language barrier as certain other countries.

More soon!
Ariel

Paris Weeklies! And Arrival in England!

It was a lovely week in Paris! Here are our weeklies to sum it up!




Photo of the Week

The Eiffel Tower - taken from the second tier by my father.


Place of the Week

The Paris sewer system, first created in 1370 and updated in 1991, is like no other sewer system in the world, as we learned in the Paris Sewer Museum with its 2100 kilometers of tunnels. The museum itself was incredibly smelly and we could actually see and hear the waste rushing beneath our feet through the grates, but it was fascinating.
Additionally, I'm a bit of a theater/literature nerd and I was so excited to visit the sewers that were referenced in Les Miserables multiple times.


Food of the Week

Beef Tartare. I didn't try it, but my father and Ariel ordered it and were incredibly surprised to find that it is actually raw hamburger meat seasoned with horseradish. My dad ate the entire thing. I tell you, he must have a stomach of steel because it did not look appetizing in the least.


Phrases of the Week

The phrases for this week are rather dull and most people know them; but they are useful when trying to properly practice French etiquette. They are simply "Bonjour" (hello), "Merci" (thank you), and "Au Revoir" (goodbye).
These basic phrases are simple as it is considered rude not to greet a shopkeeper and then thank them on the way out.


Arrival in England

We arrived just yesterday in Wellingborough, England, just North of London. It's a very small town but is surrounded by beautiful countryside and some fascinating history. Our hosts were very sweet to plan some excursions for us! Today, for example, we visited the Warwick Castle built by 1068 by William the Conquerer in Warwickshire. It is now a prominent tourist attraction in the region and includes a falconry, a theatrical dungeon tour (incredibly scary, but the actors were also very funny...I was laughing and screaming simultaneously), a giant slingshot, and a turret walk.

Paris!

Well, we've been having such a fun week here in Paris with Emily's parents! It's been filled with museums and monuments and delicious food and lots more! Since it would be far too much to write about everything we've been doing, I'm just going to give you the highlights.

As far as the sights go, we have basically been to all the most famous ones in Paris. We saw the Notre Dame (and a Gregorian chant concert there!), climbed up most of the Eiffel Tower, saw the Bastille memorial, went to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, and saw the graves of Jim Morrison, Frederic Chopin, Gericault and the Stroganoffs. For museums, we visited the Sewer Museum, the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, the Victor Hugo House, Musee de Musique, and the Pompideu Center. We've been very busy, as you can tell. To make it more condensed, I'll just tell my favorite places.

My favorite of the monument was the Arc de Triomphe, I think. It was so much fun to stand on the very top and look down at all the cars during rush hour trying frantically to take the right turn off the rotary. The Smart Cars were especially funny to watch, since from above they look ridiculously small compared to the normal-sized cars, which looked small on their own.

I also really liked Pere Lachaise, which was the graveyard. It has the graves of so many famous people, including Jim Morrison, Frederic Chopin, Gericault, Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Camille Pisarro, the Hugo family and so many more people. We visited the first three of those graves, as well as the Stroganoff family. Pere Lachaise is one of the most famous cemeteries in the world, and is also almost unnavigable. Unfortunately, we forgot the book with the detailed map and home and didn't want to buy a map just to visit a couple of graves. Needless to say, it was quite an adventure. Some of the graves we found simply by following groups of other people or looking for where people were crowded around, which is how we found Jim Morrison and Chopin. Gericault's grave was the first we visited, so we tried our hardest to remember from the map at the entrance. Gericault, in case you don't know, was an artist who painted "The Wrath of the Medusa", among others. On his tombstone, there was an engraving of this painting, so it was quite a gorgeous tombstone.

How we found the Stroganoff family, on the other hand, is quite a story. Originally, we were trying to find the Hugo family plot, which was surprisingly difficult. On our way to find it, we found this huge monument to the Stroganoff family. After looking them up online we discovered that they were a family of Russian barons and traders, and beef stroganoff is thought to be named after them. Just a random fact.

My favorite museum was Musee de Musique, which showed the history of musical instruments. Some of the old instruments they had there were amazing, like a guitar with the back of the guitar made from a tortoise shell and a huge collection of lutes. The museum was very interesting, especially since three out of the four of us are musicians.

Of course, I also enjoyed the bigger museums, like the Musee d'Orsay (which had paintings by nearly every famous impressionist painter), the Pompideu Center (a modern art museum), and the Louvre. Unfortunately, a lot of these museums were so huge that it was impossible to see everything. We spent hours at the Louvre and really only saw one wing!

The most interesting and unique museum, however, was the Sewer Museum. It consisted of an underground tour of the Paris sewer system as well as the history of and just about everything else you'll ever need to know about the system. Although it was quite interesting, it was difficult to breathe freely in due to the overpowering smell of feces.

That's all for now, keep reading for weeklies in a couple of days!
Ariel

Americans in Paris

We're all safe in Paris...

My parents MIRACULOUSLY were booked on the only airline stupid enough to fly through volcanic ash and arrived only six hours later than scheduled. Thank goodness. Ariel and i arrived from Switzerland by train and are immersing ourselves in the Paris experience...for example, lots of baguettes and brie are involved.

So basically we are having a Vermont party here in Paris. People are stuck here...the Kenneys and the Pattises. So we're all hanging out here in the Kenney's apartment. It feels like Vermont inside but when we look out our window it looks like Paris. It's very strange. I can't believe this coincidence!

It's amazing not only that other Vermonters are here...but they're actually staying two doors down!!!! We discovered it this morning and were completely blown away.

Anyway Paris looks amazing so far...I can't wait to see more of it (and post about it, of course)!

Keep reading.
Also bear in mind that you don't need to make an account to comment...just comment anonymously!!
xxx
Em

Switzerland and Weeklies!

For our Swiss day trip, we visited Bern. It was about an hour away by train (the European public transportation system is amazing!) and is the capital of Switzerland. While in Bern, we had so much fun! First, we went to the Einstein Haus, a museum about Albert Einstein located in the apartment he lived in with his wife for two years while in Bern. The museum basically told the entire history of Einstein; he had such an interesting life. Among other things, I learned that he didn't win the Nobel Prize for the Theory of Relativity, but rather for discovering the photoelectric effect. Unfortunately, I still don't exactly understand what that is.
After the Einstein Haus, we went to Barengraben, the bear pit which Bern is famous for. The bear we saw was named Bjork. Right next to the pit is a tourist center, which plays short movies about the history of Bern. From the video, we learned about everything from Napoleon's conquest of Bern to the chaos caused when he removed the bears from the bear pit (the bears of Bern are very iconic, the city's shield even features a bear). Also while in Bern, we saw the large clock tower that helped Einstein discover the Theory of Relativity, the Parliament and water jets, many fountains, and small stores.

To see Switzerland's schools, we spent half a day at our hosts' high school visiting her classes. Since it's an international school, it was interesting to hear not only how many countries various students had lived in and came from, but also how many languages people speak. There are people who speak over five languages fluently! It's amazing! Another interesting thing for us was having to be awake and functioning by 8 a.m. for school. After the English teacher suggested we take notes on the lecture, I realized that I'd gotten pretty out of practice with it. Still, it was nice to hear English being spoken everywhere, since it seems to be the main common language at the school.


Food of the Week



Chocolate! What else? We are in Switzerland after all...


Word of the Week

entschuldigung - sorry or excuse me
(ent-shul-di-gung)

Yes, it's hard to pronounce, but we often used it to get by a crowd of people on the tram or apologize after stepping on their foot.

In Basel (where we are staying), they speak Swiss German. This is different from High ("Regular") German, particularly because it isn't really a set written language of it, so spelling differs. The Swiss are very nationalistic, though so they usually would rather English than High German. However, the languages do share many similar words, as both are dialects of German.


Place of the Week



Bern! It was great there! You can read more about it farther up in this post. This particular picture is of the Zytglogge, which means clock tower.


Photo of the Week



On our first day in Basel, our host showed us this wall. Although it looks like graffiti, the city actually commissioned an artist to make this mural on a building wall. In case you can't tell by the picture, it shows many of the rock and roll greats in some of their most iconic poses as well as various band logos. Since we love rock and roll music, we really liked this wall.

Switzerland (and some Italy)

Italy. Hmm. I am constantly losing track of time. Let's see if I can recall the important events that have not yet been blogged about. Wow, you know you've truly crossed the line from average human to blogger when you start using "blog" as a verb.

Anyway, Italy was fantastic. We took a day trip to Milan, which was interesting. It was quite clear to us that it was a business and financial capital; there was one street where nearly everyone we passed was sporting a crisp suit and accessorizing with a briefcase (you could tell that most of them were the type who thought it was nearly criminal to wear a black belt with brown shoes...Milan is also a fashion capital). Since this trip is somewhat about determining a career direction, this trip to the Wall Street of Italy spurred a lengthy conversation which consisted mostly of arguing (We are debaters, after all) alternately the merits and negative aspects of working in an office-setting.

Another memorable moment was that first glance of the Milan Cathedral (in Italian, Duomo di Milano, or in Milanese, Domm de Milan). We had taken the Subway to a random stop that, on the map, looked rather concentrated with stores and restaurants because at that point we were looking to do some shopping and eating. Completely unsure of what to expect, we stepped out of the Underground and suddenly this gleaming white structure was towering over us. We were completely breath-taken by the sight of the Gothic cathedral and when our breath returned we promptly got out of the middle of the road (yes, somehow that's where we found ourselves) and snapped a photo.

While we're on the subject of Italy - a HUGE thanks to our hosts, once again, CLAIRE AND ALDO. Thank you, thank you, thank you.


Now we are in Switzerland staying with equally hospitable hosts - a truly amazing and inspiring ex-pat family (we haven't yet asked permission to use their names). But - Thank you guys!

Basel is a river town, similar to Turin and Budapest, which were, probably not-so-coincidentally, some of our favorite places to visit! There's just something beautiful about a waterfront.
It seems to be an incredibly unique town because of the HUGE portion of the culture that is dedicated to the arts.
In the past couple of days we've visited a few of the numerous museums that Basel is home to, including the Dollhouse Museum and the Tinguely Museum.

Jean Tinguely, the museum's focus, was a Swiss artist who specialized in meta-mechanics. While his work appears whimsical and playful, Tinguely's art is primarily a satirical illumination of modern greed for material goods. Over his lifetime, he created pieces that moved, lit up, spouted water, played music or video, and even self-destructed!
I personally think he must be one of the most original artists of the 20th century.

The Dollhouse Museum (In German, Puppenhausmuseum) took a lot of time simply because of the SIZE of the collection of dolls, miniatures, and teddy bears. I was especially interested in the teddy bears because of the story of the development of the teddy bear. I honestly had NO IDEA what the orgin of the teddy bear was, and now I can't believe I had never inquired about it, or even inferred as to what it might have been.
For those who don't know, it was named after Teddy Roosevelt after he refused to shoot a young bear who was tethered up, meant to be an easy kill after a largely unsuccessful hunting trip. After that, thanks to some ingenious marketing, the popularity of the Teddy surged, inspiring all sorts of variations; these included mechanically-engineered bears who could perform sommersaults and dances, bears of every color, and clothed bears.

So far, Basel has been fascinating.
You can expect another update very soon!
xxx
Em

Photos!

Photo of the Week



This was the freakiest thing ever. But so so awesome. We saw tons of caterpillars all lined up one after the other traveling across sidewalks, grass, roads, etc...
I've never seen anything like it! The longest train we saw was 24 caterpillars!! Here's a picture. Look closely and see if you can count them!

Person of the Week (Interview in Previous Post)

Claire and Aldo!



Food of the Week



XxxXxx

The Weeklies: Person, Photo, Word and Food

Person of the Week

Name: Claire

Where were you born?
Bucarest, Romania

When did you move to Italy?
At age 21

What is your favorite part of Italy?
Venice

Why did you come to Italy?
To study

What did you study?
Pharmacy, but initially I wanted to study language. I can‘t remember why I changed. It was probably easier to study and find work in Pharmacy

What do you do now?
I work for the public health as a pharmacist.

How did you learn English?
In school. I have studied English, French, and Russian…then later I learned Italian.

What do you do for pleasure?
I enjoy travel. I enjoy traveling where I have friends, so I can visit them while traveling.
I love to cook. I prefer to prepare cakes. I like to bicycle and here the city hall gives bicycles for very inexpensive prices to use in the city.

What is your favorite Italian food?
Probably pasta. Italian food is the best, and then French and Asian. It is difficult to say which, of French and Italian food, is better.


Photo of the Week

Well, the pictures overall won't upload right now, so we're going to do it all later.


Word of the Week

La vita bella - The beautiful life

Italians really do live a beautiful life, what with all that delicious food. We enjoyed Italy so much!


Food of the Week

Since we're in Italy, obviously our food of the week is PASTA! We love pasta! This was some incredibly delicious pasta with pesto, potatoes and cheese sprinkled on top. Delicious!

Our bonus Food of the Week is gelato! It's sort of like ice cream and comes in so many delicious flavors. There are gelaterias on every corner!

Italia is molto bene.

Hello all!

We are having a blast in Italy. The food is amazing and the people are incredibly friendly! On Easter, we enjoyed one of the best meals we've had on this trip, or ever. It was a multiple course meal, and everything was delicious. Here is the menu:

http://www.agriturismodelluogo.com/Pasqua_e_Pasquetta_2010.pdf

It was in a beautiful place...pictures on the website:

http://www.castellodibrusasco.com/

We ate with our hospitable hosts, Clara and Aldo, with a very sweet family from Rome, and with another friend of theirs who takes beautiful pictures, as we later found out on his website. If you're curious....

http://www.francoborrelli.it/

We've been spending a lot of time exploring the town we are staying in, Chivasso, and nearby Torino (or Turin).
Chivasso is small but very cute with its cobblestone streets, cafes, and boutiques; we are thankfully staying directly in the center of it all! There's even a gelateria right down the road (unfortunately, for my health).

Torino is also so, socool. Great shopping. But on a more intellectual note, it has some really fascinating history. For example, a huge portion of cinema really got its start right in Torino. So, logically, we decided to pay the National Cinema Museum a visit today. It was a truly amazing museum. It was incredible in size, but extremely entertaining all the way through. We started with the "archaeology" of cinema...beginning with the development of shadow puppets and moving forward into the more modern moving pictures which were rapidly-changing frames. As we progressed through the museum, we encountered countless authentic movie props and special effects displays. It was especially cool to see ourselves zooming through space. I'm not much of a science person, so it was all very hard to grasp, but was incredibly entertaining. I just accept it as a form of magic =]

The museum began to move away from the logistics of film and into profiling actors and actresses such as Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, who we were glad to recognize.

The museum, overall, is a MUST-SEE in Torino.

Tomorrow, we will hopefully be visiting Milan!
And the next day, we will be attending a concert of some sort at the Torino Auditorium.
More then!

xxx
Em





Ps.

Pictures from Valencia and Montpellier are up!


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=175078&id=537740457&l=29ad164ea6

Palavas and Fun with Trains

Palavas:

Right near Montpellier there is a seaside town by the name of Palavas. It's fairly empty at this time of year but during the summer it is a hopping French tourist town. We went twice; once at night, once during the day. At night the canal was lit up beautifully but it was something of a ghost town, as we've said, it doesn't fill up until the summer. During the day, we were able to see hundreds of pink flamingos in the water. Palavas is a historical fishing town, and we could certainly see why - it was in the perfect location for access to the canals and sea! Pictures later!

Fun With Trains:

Fun is an overstatement. And saying that "fun is an overstatement" is an overstatement. We had a little mix-up on Thursday trying to get to Italy. The clocks we had been using all week were set exactly an hour earlier. So we got to the train station exactly an hour later than we had originally planned. Awesome. But we were able to stay an additional night in Montpellier and then catch the next train on Friday, which actually worked out well because we had an amazing view of the Mediterranean Sea for a large portion of the trip.

We're in Italy now (yay) - and we'll post more about it soon!

Place, Photo, Word, and Food of the Week.

Place of the Week

Place de la Comedie - A great little plaza that is home to dozens of restaraunts, shops, a giant carousel, and the opera house mentioned in the previous post. We spent tons of time trolling around this square discovering fun sidestreets and food stands because it's quite close to where we're staying.

Photo of the Week



This is the triumphal arc in Montpellier. It was completed in 1693 to commemorate Louis XIV. The reliefs added in 1715 show events that occured during his reign, for example, the digging of the Canal du Midi linking the Bay of Biscay with the Mediterranean Sea.

Word (Phrase) of the Week

"Parlais vous Anglais?" - "Do you speak English?"

We speak VERY little French - that's not to say we didn't try - but when it proved too difficult we would ask this question. If they said "no" we would ask them if they spoke Spanish. If they said "no" to this, we were forced to give up or resort to cryptic hand gestures - but they usually spoke some English.

Food of the Week



What else? Crepes!!

They. are. delicious...and there were crepe stands on virtually every corner! That's just one more reason why we loved Place de Comedie - crepe central.

For anyone who has never had a crepe (how sad - seriously, stop reading and go find a creperie) they are just like thin pancakes spread with whatever your heart desires - nutella, bananas, almonds, honey, caramel, fruit, vegetables, anything. Then they're folded into a neat little triangle and enjoyed. Immensely.

More later - see you in Italy!

xxx
Em

Montpellier so far.

We've been in Montpellier, France for about four full days now, and I've been sick, but we're trying to do as much as possible in spite of that. Hopefully if I'm feeling better tomorrow, we'll try to do a day trip to another city close by. We'll tell you about that if we do.
First of all, here's some background about Montpellier, in the form of Fun Facts, because who doesn't love a good Fun Fact?
1. It used to be the second biggest city in France (Paris was biggest) in the 13th century.
2. It's been a University town also since the 13th century.
3. Montpellier is home to the oldest botanical garden in France.
4. It was a huge port town and trading center in the 14th century.
5. The Guilhelm dynasty established Montpellier as a major European power beginning in the twelth century and lasting for centuries after that.
6. Currently, Montpellier remains a cultural capital of Europe.

Up to now, here's mainly what we've done.

We seem to spend a lot of time in Place de la Comèdie, since it's a short tram ride from our host's, right in the historic center, and a good walking distance from many other sights. In the Place, there are small vendors as well as larger stores, people everywhere, and the large L'Opera Comèdie.

Additionally, we have spent some time in Place Peyrou. This Place is home to a statue of Louis XIV on horseback as well as the Peyrou Aqueducts and Water Tower. The Aqueducts took almost the entire 18th century to build and show what impact the Romans had on Montpellier.

Across from Place Peyrou is Montpellier's very own Arc de Triumph. This was commemorate Louis XIV's victories over the enemies of France and Protestant heresy and the construction of the Canal du Midi.

Only a short walk down the road are the Saint Pierre Cathedral and Jardin de Plantes. The Cathedral was built in 1364 and houses the oldest functional medical university in the world, founded in 1593. The gardens are, as we mentioned before, France's oldest botanical gardens. The architect, Jean-Antoine Giral, was also the architect of the Aqueducts and Opera House.

Well, that's all for today!
Ariel

O, Valencia!

Valencia Highlights

We did lots of fun things in Valencia. Examples;

Oceanographic - Super fun aquarium with the most marine species in Europe. We saw fish, etc from all over the world!
Museum of Natural Science - Interactive museum with tons and tons of exhibits relating to real-life (science actually became quite interesting) - for example, a station in the ergonomics exhibition about cushion firmness where you could sit on three chairs and see on a screen in front of you how deep your rear is sinking into the cushion. Interesting, but also wicked fun.

Fallas Museum - We JUST missed Fallas by one day. It's a Valencian holiday with tons of partying in the streets and fire and sculptures. The museum showcased the models (some plaster, some foam, some cork or carton) which could be a variety of scenes but were always models of one or more people. They're usually life-size or larger and often were quite realistic.

Torres de Ceranos - These were just outside our front door. They are giant climbable towers with a great view (check out below picture and info!)

American School of Valencia - This is the English speaking school that our host works at (read about her below). We hung out with 5 and 6 year olds for most of the day doing crafts and such and then observed/participated in/helped with a high school dance class taught by our host! so fun!

More soon about France!

Photo, Person, Word, and Food of the Week.

Photo of the Week



This is the view from the top of the Torres de Ceranos right outside of our host - Toya's - apartment in Valencia. It shows the part of the city that we were staying in. The view at night was absolutely beautiful!!

Person of the Week

Name: Latoya West.
Profession: Elementary school teacher in an international private school and high school dance teacher.
Hometown: Ardmore (suburb of Philadelphia).
Favorite part of Valencia: Plaza de la Virgen "cause it's super pretty".
Favorite Spanish Food: Seafood Paella.
When she learned Spanish: Age 11 - in school.
Any other languages: Spanish, Thai, American Sign Language, Korean, and of course, English. (Wow!)

She's been super hospitable, so thank you, Toya, so, SO much!!!

Word of the Week

Perdido - Lost
Ariel's purse was lost...and we've been watching more "Lost" (the television show) than usual. It's very confusing - so most of the plot is lost on us. So we thought "perdido" would be appropriate.

Food of the Week

Tapas - The National food of Spain, they're small appetizers that can be enjoyed anytime throughout the day - often including ham (jamon), patatas bravas, cheese (queso), etc...

Our crazy adventure!

On Saturday afternoon, we left my (Ariel's) parents in Granada with my sister to go to Valencia, another part of Spain. That night, our host took Emily, Jessa and I out to meet up with some of her friends for tapas. While at the tapas place, my purse fell off the bench next to me over the edge to the floor. We searched all through the restaurant, but couldn't find it anywhere, which meant that it was stolen. Unfortunately, it contained almost everything important for travel in it (that means passport, credit cards, etc.). Our host Toya and her friends were so helpful though; we split up to search pretty much every single dark alley near the restaurant. We didn't find it though, so thanks to everyone's advice, we decided to go to the Police Station, the U.S. Consulate and the Lost Property Office on Monday when things were open again to file a report for the stolen purse and apply for a new passport.

Monday morning, we made our first stop at the closest Police Station to where it happened. They asked me to write down my name and then started to search through a box of stuffed envelopes. We all got so hopeful that they'd have something, anything of mine because it would just be such a stressful process to get ALL of my important things replaced. Luckily enough, they pulled out a stuffed envelope for me and in it was... my passport, credit cards, ID card, everything!!!!!!!! It was honestly one of the happiest moments of my life! So that was the happy ending!

Now I know what most of you are probably thinking: you must have been completely stupid to just leave your purse sitting there. But the thing is, I was literally sitting next to it the entire time, until it fell that is. I was on the top floor of the restaurant, just over the stairs, but for a person to reach up and grab it from next to me, we figured out that it would have to be an enormous amount of effort from someone over six feet tall and they would almost certainly be noticed. We asked the people sitting directly below the stairs, the staff, pretty much everyone who could have possibly seen what happened to it, and they all said they didn't see anything. Basically, it fell down, a thief took it and ran to somewhere, a dark alley most likely, took out the small amount of cash in there, and left it for the police to find later on. I'm just glad it all worked out so well!

Photo, Place, Word, and Food of the Week.

Photo of the Week



I know what you're thinking. But this is in a museum, the torture museum in Toledo, Spain. This is surprisingly the most humane method of execution that we saw - the axe. It was an incredibly fascinating and sickening exhibit of all the torture methods used during the Spanish Inquisition. See the below posts for more information on various torture methods (if you have the stomach).


Place of the Week



This is the interior of the Mezquita - a Church turned Mosque turned Church. More information below.


Word of the Week

Zumo - Juice

We already knew this word from Spanish Class, thanks Ms. Gillette and Mrs. Rogers! But it comes up a lot in conversation because Ariel's Mexican father always calls it jugo, which is what it is called in Mexico. He is constantly being corrected because in Spain it is called Zumo.

Food of the Week



Churros con chocolate are our food of the week! They are deliciously fried - they remind us of funnel cake. And they're even better when dipped in the Spanish hot chocolate, which is so thick it's almost like pudding! We saw one woman make them right in front of us. It made me feel slightly ill but it didn't matter once I tasted them!

Granada, Spain

For the last three days, we've been in Granada, Spain. It's a small city separated from the coast by the Sierra Nevada mountains (which have snow!). One of the best parts about it is where we are staying: a cave in the mountains!

On the first day we got here, we just walked around the city at night. The next day, we spent pretty much the entire day at the Alhambra. It's an eighth century Mosque that was the last Muslim stronghold in Spain before the Reconquista. It was an enormous complex with a Mosque, Charles V Palace, an incredible fortress and a huge, spectacular garden. The Alhambra is located at the top of a hill, which was not the most pleasant walk up, but the top was so amazing that it was completely worth it.



Today, we toured the city. One of the highlights was the Royal Chapel, where King Ferdinand, Queen Isabella, Philip the Fair and Juana the Mad are all buried. Prince Miguel of Portugal was also buried there. We're not entirely sure why. We plan on learning all about them in AP European History next year! The Chapel was incredible and Queen Isabella spent one quarter of their wealth just to build it.

We're leaving Granada and my (Ariel's) parents tomorrow for Valencia! Can't wait! For Valencia, not to leave them.

New Photo Hosting Site!

We got a new photo hosting site at photobucket, so here's the link for it! We have uploaded some photos from Hungary but they don't have captions yet. We're going to do that and upload more photos soon.

http://s1028.photobucket.com/albums/y342/arielandemilytour/

Ariel and Emily

EDIT

Photobucket didn't work out too well...we have some up from Hungary...but we're now using facebook for our photos. If you use the link in the right sidebar under "More!" (the ones that say Israel photos, Spain photos, etc...) or click on the links below, it will take you to a PUBLIC facebook photo album. THIS DOES NOT REQUIRE A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT. Anybody can look at them; there is no need to sign in. Check it out!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=403714&id=786160572&l=6185d03aae

Holy Toledo! And other parts of Spain!

Sorry about the infrequency! We've been super busy lately and moving around locations almost every other day! And as always, we've been having technological issues.
Anyways, we've spent this last week in Spain!

We arrived in Madrid on the evening of March 9, so we really didn't do anything of interest for the rest of that day, other than going out for tapas. In case you didn’t know, tapas are a very popular food in Spain. They are basically small portions of food that you can share among friends at any time of the day (except for siesta, when everything closes). The next day, we went to the Prado Museum, touted by Spain as the best collection of paintings in Europe. We started out at the special exhibition, which is currently a collection Spain’s royal armor, called “The Art of Power”. Most artifacts were from around 500 years ago in a time when armor was used to prove wealth and power. The royal family would commission a piece from the greatest artists and armor makers of the time with elaborate gold and silver designs. In the permanent exhibit in the Prado, we saw paintings by world famous artists, mostly Spanish. Among the most famous were Velasquez’s “Las Meninas” and El Bosco’s “El Jardin de las Delicias”.
In the afternoon while walking through Madrid’s Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol, we saw dozens of mimes (los mimos) and street performers. The mimes ranged from a wookie to a three-headed table to a puppet popping out of a toilet. If you give them money, they will move or take a picture with you, but some of them were so creepy that you didn’t even want to be near them. We also saw a fun mariachi band on the street and actually even knew a few of their songs, thanks to Spanish class. Since Madrid is a huge city, the plazas are always bustling and the streets are night are always full, despite Spain’s cold spell while we were there.


After three nights in Madrid, we drove to Toledo, a smaller city famous for their damascene art, a style used for inlaying black steel with gold, silver and copper wire. The craft, like the city, is centuries old and sold at just about every kiosk and small store in the city.
We spent most of our day there at the Cathedral, which took 250 years to build, starting in 1226. Because the cathedral took so long to build, it has Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neo-Classical styles of architecture. The main points of interest were the portrait room, the sacristy, the treasury, and a collection of all the archbishop’s hats and robes. In the portrait room, there were portraits of every archbishop since the church was built. It was interesting to see how not only the styles of paintings changed, but the archbishops became increasingly older, probably due to longer life spans. Additionally, the archbishops themselves began to look more modern, with plastic-framed glasses and more contemporary body language for posing. The sacristy was the room where all the priests would change into their robes. Inside of the room, there were 19 paintings done by El Greco and a ceiling fresco by Lucca Giordano. On the fresco, there was an angel whose toes seem to follow you around the room. The treasury held a giant 400 pound tower for the communion wafer to be paraded around town yearly. It was about twice as tall as me and built out of silver and gold. Seems like a lot for a wafer, doesn’t it? The treasury also held gifts to the church from other cities and churches as well as very old bibles.
The morning we were leaving Toledo, we went to an exhibit focusing exclusively on torture and torture devices used during the Spanish Inquisition. Along with the more well-known devices, such as the stock, gallows, and burning stake, there were also iron chambers filled with spikes, a wheel that crushed the person against the wall, a skull crusher, and a breast stripper (to be used heated or cold). The museum was absolutely terrifying, since all the non-wood devices were original and actually used in torture. It was also horrifying to think that one wrong move your spying neighbors saw and reported could easily be cause for your torture. So many victims were abused and killed without even knowing what they did wrong.

After Toledo, we went to Cordoba, formerly the location of a huge tri-religion convergence and major power of Spain. At one point in history, the Moors, the Christians and the Jews all lived in Cordoba in basically perfect harmony for hundreds of years. However, a few hundred years before in the Inquisition, tensions started to rise along with suspicions and expulsions of individuals and even certain religious sects.
The major highlight of Cordoba is the Mezquita, a Church turned Mosque turned back into a Church. The interior is filled with 850 red and blue marble columns from 786 AD, which we all agreed looked a little like something from Willy Wonka’s. In 1236, the Mosque turned back into a Church when King Ferdinand III conquered the city. It was so interesting to look at one side of the building and see a very Moorish Mosque, then turn around and see an incredibly Gothic Church. It pretty much felt like two separate buildings.
We also visited a Sunday morning market in Cordoba, which was probably a mile long. We made it through less than half of it and saw everything ranging from jeans to craft supplies to food, all priced cheap. It was fun to see things like jeans for 6 Euro and delicious dried fruit. As with all of our Spanish cities, we spent a lot of time in the old section of the city. All of the old sections are basically similar with narrow and windy cobblestone streets, where getting lost is easy and part of the experience. Around a corner could be anything from a great view of the church to a little garden and statue.

Next, we drove to Sevilla, a relatively large city in southern Spain. Even though it’s big, it was so authentic. They still have traditional flamenco shows, bullfights, and other typical Spain characteristics. One of the best parts was a large, old church (we went to lots of religious building, as you can probably tell) which was home to Christopher Columbus’s tomb and a bell tower with a fantastic view. The tomb was this huge inscribed marble base with four bronze men carrying a bronze casket on top. Colombus’s bones have been moved so many times though, so we all began with different ideas of where he was buried. However, this is where he is now. We also climbed up the Giralda (bell tower) to the top, which was a windy and steep climb on a cobblestone path. The Muslims used to ride horse to the top of the bell tower for their call to prayer five times a day, which although it would be quicker than by foot, we couldn’t believe that horses could make those tight turns. The top had a great view of all sides of Sevilla, but we didn’t want to stay up for too long since it was getting close to three and we didn’t want to go deaf from the bells ringing.
We also visited a museum about the Inquisition in Sevilla, which really made the Inquisition so personal by showing that no one but the Inquisitors are safe. It was in Castillo de San Jorge and showed the excavations of the original architecture. It was presented in a very high technology way that related the Inquisition with today and the Declaration of Human Rights.
On our last night in Spain, we went to an authentic Flamenco performance. We sat in the front row, right in the center, close enough to touch the stage, which meant that not only did we have a great view, but we also were in the best place to get hit with various objects flying off the dancers. Each dancer performed once on their own and then again at the finale altogether (which we were allowed to videotape! Look out for the video soon!) and were accompanied by a guitarist and two male singers. There were three female dancers, two male dancers, a female singer-dancer, three male singers, and two guitarists in total. Everyone looked like they were so engrossed in the dance and having a great time during the entire show. All of the performers were also so excellent! In the first dance, we were hit with a stray hair comb off the dancer (we got to keep it), the second dancer sprayed us with his hair gel and we were hit with dust flying off the floor from the third dancer’s huge dress. It was so awesome!

Photo, Place, and Word of the Week.

Photo of the Week



This photo was taken (by photographer extraordinaire, Mark Milstein of Northfoto) in Vienna in front of the Habsburg Palace which you can read more about in a recent post covering our trip to Vienna.



Place of the Week




This photo was taken, again, by Mark Milstein in front of the Godollo Palace just outside of Budapest. This palace houses a Queen Elizabeth, or "Sisi", museum because she frequented the palace. For more information, check out the more comprehensive description in an earlier update. One thing we did not include in the earlier post, which is quite interesting, is the fact that during the Soviet Occupation of Hungary Godollo was used as a horse stable! It's strange to think that such a beautiful palace could have ever been used by animals!

Additionally - in this photo with us is Emily Milstein, Mark's daughter and a previous "Person of the Week". Read her interview below.

Word(s) of the Week

The words "push" and "pull" proved to be useful in Hungary. We didn't want to spend minutes at a time pushing on a "pull door".

So...for future reference -

Push - Tolni
Pull - Huzni

Photo of the Week 3

As you read on our blog, we visited both a Marzipan Museum in Szentendre and the Hungarian Parliament building. Originally, we were thinking of using a photo of Parliament for our Photo of the Week, but after we saw the Parliament in Marzipan at the museum, we decided to combine the two. Which makes this a sculpture of the Hungarian Parliament made out of Marzipan! I know, it's completely crazy what they can do with that stuff!
After we start a new photo hosting site (apparently Flickr has a monthly limit which we have met), we will post the link and upload pictures of everything in Hungary. Sorry that we always seem to have technology problems of some sort - the voltage converter is broken, the Internet won't connect, our Flickr is full, etc. - I'm pretty much useless when it comes to technology.

Update!

We've done quite a bit in the past few days.

I'll start with Tuesday night - We went to see Eugene Onegin, a 3-act, 7-scene Tchaikovsky opera based on the Alexander Pushkin novel in rhyme by the same name. It was completely in Russian with Hungarian subtitles, so we had no idea what was going on. But we enjoyed the beautiful voices, full orchestra, and the Opera House setting itself. We later looked up a plot synopsis and discovered that it is the story of a man (Onegin) who rejects a woman and kills his best friend and later regrets it.
The Hungarian State Opera House itself was incredible. It's a horseshoe-shaped, Neo-Renaissance building located in Budapest (on the Pest side). It's not huge as opera houses go, but the acoustics were absolutely amazing, especially considering it was one of the first opera houses to be built in the world. It's a very historic building - many of the greats have played here or have been guests. Gustav Mahler was actually the music director here for a period of time.

Then on Thursday, we went to Szentendre(in English...St. Andrew)- a village slightly North-West of here. It was essentially an in-tact Baroque town that has (since the 1500's) been the center of the Serbian community in Hungary and an artist's colony. The town itself was adorable with its cobblestone, winding, narrow streets, little shops, and art galleries. We went to the Marzipan Museum there - which was amazing. Marzipan is an almond and sugar paste that can be molded into virtually any shape and then dyed to create life-like figures, scenes, and buildings. Check out our pictures!

The next day, Friday, we took a tour of Parliament and later explored the Jewish section of Budapest. The Parliament building was extremely ornate and is the third largest in the world after Romania and Argentina. We saw the crown jewels and the holy crown, which were, strangely enough, located directly under a 5-ton chandelier...which the tour guide himself actually called the most dangerous place in the museum. We also trudged up the huge staircase in the foyer. As we were doing this we could easily picture the Hapsburgs standing at the top of the staircase crossing their arms and tapping their feet, laughing at the out-of-shape guests who were not important enough to use the lift. We also saw the legislative room. This building was absolutely gorgeous and completely different from any government building in The States, which are clean and simple, as opposed to the extravagantly detailed design that the Hapsburgs used anywhere they occupied.

Later on Friday, we visited the Jewish section. It was incredibly run-down, though it looked like they were working on some renovation. We later learned that it was hardly been touched in centuries. The one part of the section that looked decent was the Synagogue. It was stunning. It was an Moorish Revival-style building that, after being bombed and suffering air-raids during the communist era, had just started to be restored in the early 90's.

On Saturday we took a day-trip to Vienna with our host to see the other half of the center of the Hapsburg's dynasty. It was incredible (and incredibly different from Budapest)! We immediately noticed how few people were walking around, even on a Saturday. Some parts were like a ghost-town. We also noticed that, unlike Budapest, there are more traffic laws and speed limits. And everything was incredibly orderly. Except for the street pattern. The streets in Budapest had been straightened out by the great architect and engineer, Szechenyi, in the 19th century. In contrast, the streets of Vienna never underwent anything of the sort and are incredibly winding and narrow in many places. The most obvious difference was probably the language. German, of course, as opposed to Hungarian. The similarities were also evident, though. The Hapsburg's palace was, of course, in true Hapsburg taste, extravagant and intimidating. For example, they had huge statues of men with clubs directly outside of the castle. Not-so-veiled threat? I think so.

The first thing we did when we got there was step into St. Stephen's Basilica, which is currently undergoing renovation, but is still incredibly visually spectacular.
We also went to the Holocaust memorial, the monument itself was designed to look like an Auschwitz gas chamber and had all the names of the camps around it along with an inscription in Hungarian, Hebrew, and English. We have photos that we will be posting as soon as possible. It was incredibly intense and sad, but also moving, to be in the midst of this spot where the Gestapo headquarters once stood. Similarly, we ate at a cafe that Hitler used to frequent when he was studying art in Vienna. I wish he had succeeded in his art...maybe we could have dodged the bullet that was World War II. Anyway, the cafe was amazing, even if it did have an eerie back story and incredibly high prices. All of Vienna was expensive, which makes sense seeing as their income is about 4 times that of Budapest's.
We also walked around the palace a bit, outside mostly, and were able to look into the courtyard where the horses have their stables and glimpse the perfectly-trained Lipizzaner horses, the preferred breed of the Hapsburgs, of course.
The palace was absolutely beautiful, as were the "storage buildings" where the Habsburgs stored their excess art, ancient artifacts, and such.
We took a peek into the royal butterfly collection, which is in a gigantic glass room where you can now order food and eat among the butterflies, and saw where Franz Josef kept his huge collection of books in a floor-to-ceiling library.

On Sunday (today) we visited Gödöllő in Pest County, which is a palace built for the Grassalkovich family and later passed on to Franz Josef and his wife, Elizabeth (known as Sisi to many). Sisi spent lots and lots and lots of time here and it now houses a museum, much of which is dedicated to her. They have recently torn up the gardens and are completely re-doing them - because nothing is good enough apparently. The place was amazing though, with ornate decorations (of course) and intimidating size.
After that we went to visit a horse stable, which was fun, but cold. The horses were clearly well-taken care of and were absolutely beautiful.




So as our time in Hungary comes to an end (we fly out Tuesday) we've been reflecting on these first five weeks of the trip in general.
Basically, these past two weeks have been very different from Israel in regard to the weather and the history and the people. For example, the subways and buses here are always completely silent, while in Israel people are incredibly friendly on public transportation.
It's interesting that not many people speak any English, which is also quite different from Israel, where most people did.
We've been having a blast and we're looking forward to Spain! Keep checking back for photos of Vienna, Budapest, etc...
Follow this blog (in the right sidebar)! and leave a comment =]

Emily
x

Food of the Week

Sachertorte (pronounced "sah-ker-tort") is also often called "Death by Chocolate", and for a good reason. It is a traditional Viennan food, which we ate on our day trip to Vienna today. It's basically two layers of chocolate cake with a semi-hard chocolate top and a fruity filling between layers. In other words, completely delicious. We enjoyed ours at a place called Cafe Central, a place with actually an interesting history. When Hitler was studying art in Vienna, that was his favorite place to enjoy some Sachertorte. The cafe itself was very beautiful, but it was strange to think that Hitler may very well have eaten the same food as us exactly where we sat. Here is a picture of Emily eating the cake, and in a few days we will try to upload more pictures of Vienna, including the "after" picture of the cake (slightly sick faces from too much chocolate).

Word of the Week 3 and Person of the Week 3

Koszonom - Thank you
Pronounced: koh-so-nome

Okay, we know that it's pretty basic and not that interesting of a word, but, in case you didn't know, Hungarian is one of the least similar languages to any other language. Basically, it's like nothing you've ever seen before. There's lots of gy's and sz's and other word combinations that are hard to pronounce. We have learned maybe around five or less Hungarian words so far, which are basically "yes", "no", "exit" and "thank you". Not really very interesting, but useful.


This week, we chose two people for our Person of the Week. Ildiko and Emily were both born in Hungary and Ildiko is Emily's mother. They are our current host family.

Name: Ildiko Milstein

Where in Hungary did you grow up? I grew up on the Northern side of Hungary, near the Slovak border in a small village.

What do you think of the public transportation system in Budapest? When I used to use it, I thought they were usually dirty and cold in the winter, but I could get anywhere I wanted. Nowadays, they have these terrible scandals with the management. They basically stole everything from the company. There are eleven managers currently being investigated for it. The systems are very old. They basically haven’t modernized anything.

What do you do for a living? We have a photo agency and I work in sales and marketing for Hungary. We sell celebrity and stock photos to magazines.

What’s your favorite Hungarian dish? Palacsinta, a crepe filled with chocolate, jam or applesauce.

What’s the Hungarian school system like? When I was in school, they made you go to the closest school to your house. Now, you can choose basically any school you want. You go to primary school from 6 to 12 or 14. You can enter high school now at 12, which I don’t think is a good idea. There’s too much of an age difference between 12
and 18. School seems very difficult now; there are tougher subjects and languages are very important now.

When and how did you learn English? I started at the age of 14. I was in the first class at my school allowed to learn English. Before, there was only Russian and sometimes German. I chose English mostly because I liked American music and wanted to be able to understand the words. I had such a great teacher; she didn’t even need to teach with a book. The teachers are always so important.


Name: Emily Milstein

What grade are you in? Fourth grade.

Do you like your teachers? Some of them; our gym teacher is not so good because she’s very tough, but I like maybe the English Science teacher. (Note: Emily attends a bilingual school, so has classes such as Science in both English and Hungarian.)

What’s your favorite thing to do in the city? I like shopping a lot with my mom. I also like to go to movie theaters and museums.

What are your favorite museums? In America, I like the Natural History Museum. In Hungary, I like the National Art Museum.

What do you think in the most useful word for us to know in Hungarian? Gyikhus, which means lizard meat (kind of like mystery meat at home).

What’s your favorite food/drink/candy? Spaghetti with tomato sauce, Sprite and Starburst.

Well, we've changed our schedule since we posted it due to weather and other factors mostly out of our control, but we are trying our hardest to make sure we end up doing what we'd planned.

On Saturday, we hid away from the rain by visiting Arena Plaza, a GIANT shopping mall. Picture the biggest mall you've ever seen, then multiply that by at least ten times and that's about the size of it. It has pretty much every store known to Hungary all within one store, along with an IMAX movie theater. Even though it wasn't the most intellectual day possible, it was a good glimpse into Hungarian popular culture. After talking to our hosts, we learned that basically the Hungarians feel that because they were deprived of so many cultural fads during Communism, they should make up for it now by "living it up" now. Every McDonald's here is packed, contrasted with McDonald's back in the U.S., which are barely ever packed. It's definitely interesting to see how even subconsciously they are trying to be as almost American as possible, as if to prove something. It's hard to explain.

We decided to be pretty as touristy as possible on Sunday and took a bus and boat tour of Budapest. The bus took us around to basically every big attraction and gave us the audio background on it; we learned about the Habsburg Castle, the National Museum of Art, the Opera Hall, and more. The tour was not a fantastic way to see the city overall, but gave us a nice background, since almost every stop on the tour is somewhere we have been or are planning on going. However, we did enjoy some of the interesting pronunciations - we could tell the guide was not a native English speaker. The boat ride on the Danube, while beautiful, was cold and too loud to hear any of the narration. We didn't really get anything out of it, but it was a nice view of the Danube.

On Monday, we went back to school for the first time in over a month. Sure, it was in Hungary, but it still counts, right? We met up with our hosts' friend's daughter and she arranged for us to go to three English classes. We also ended up going to a math class, but it was in Hungarian and I have a feeling I wouldn't have understood even in English. In the English classes, the students asked us questions. The classes' knowledge of the language and interest in us varied from "a little interested and good at English" to "not interested in us and okay at English" to "very interested in us but needed their teacher to translate everything". They mostly asked us just some standard questions about our classes, musical preference, state, etc., but we did get a few in one class about some more interesting topics, like how we felt on September 11, 2001.
After a long, hard day of learning (not), we decided to go to the Szuchenyi bath house and relax. It was gorgeous there! There are three giant outdoor pools ranging in temperatures from 34 degrees to 38 degrees Celsius. The 38 degree one is basically just a giant hot tub that you can swim in! In addition to the outdoor pools totaling the size of a football field, there are dozens and dozens of indoor pools. Those range from 20 degrees (freezing! I didn't even want to put my foot in it!) to 38 degrees and saunas at temperatures between 40 degrees and 70 degrees. We didn't even want to venture into those, since the coldest was about the temperature of the desert in the summer. Either way, we had a great time and left pruny, but relaxed.

Yesterday (Tuedsay) was a museum day for us and we chose the National Art Museum. We only saw the temporary exhibit, called Degas to Picasso, but that was where all the paintings we mentioned before were. It was so wonderful! Here is a list of only some of the paintings we saw by some of the better-known artists, but we saw a lot more! Also, I apologize for any spelling mistakes, our notes are hard to read.
The Prison Courtyard by Vincent Van Gogh
Flowers in a White Vase by Henri Matisse
The Muse Inspiring the Poet by Henri Rousseau
The Two Saltimbanques by Pablo Ruiz Picasso
Head of a Woman by Marie Laurencin

We got off to a great start today at our first stop of the day: Market Hall. It's basically a really large indoor food market with tons of fresh bread, fruits and vegetables along with meats, cheeses, fresh-cooked Hungarian food and more. We played it safe and went for bread, cheese and fruit, but it was delicious! We sat at a nice table overlooking the rest of the market and enjoyed our feast.
After that, we were off to the Hungarian National Museum. The museum covered every bit of history from around the 13th century to today. Thanks to our architectural knowledge from American studies, we recognized the building as Neo-Classical and could point out so many architectural features, such as the Corinthian columns, pillasters, a potico, and a pediment. Inside even just the landing area on the stairs, there were murals all around made by Karoly Lotz and Mor Than, two well-known Hungarian artists whose work we also saw at the Hungarian Art Museum in the Habsburg castle.
The exhibitions in the museum were really great. Even though all of the artifact descriptions were in Hungarian, they still had such a good array, from Habsburg-worn clothes to Arpad jewelry. There were English historical-background descriptions all around, so we did get a chance to learn about the history. Hungary has, probably like most countries, a really interesting history. Its ruling has basically been transferred through the years between smaller dynasties, the Ottomans, the Habsburg's Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Soviet Republic to today's Parliamentary government. Since it would take too long to recount everything we saw in and learned from the museum, I'll leave it at that.

As for our schedule, it's very tentatively looking like this:
Thurdsay - Szentendra
Friday - Jewish section, Parliament
Saturday - Orava castle
Sunday - Vienna
Monday - shopping (not the most intellectual option, but hey, we need to relax and look at designer clothes sometime, right?)
Tuesday - fly to Spain

That's all for now, we will probably start with Hungary's weekly requirements soon!
Ariel

Person of the Week #2

Our person of this week - or last week - is from Kibbutz Ketura.
Her name is Aliza and she lives on Kibbutz with her family and currently works with the Kibbutz volunteers.
She learned Hebrew in Hebrew school and has lived on Kibbutz for a fairly long time.
She told us EVERYTHING we needed to know about Ketura, including the workings of a traditional Kibbutz set-up.
We'll post all of these details later, and we may try to get an interview.

Thank you, Aliza!

We're past our monthly flickr limit...but never fear - we're going to change photo hosting sites so you can see the rest of these beautiful pictures.
We have great pictures from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the desert, Budapest, etc...