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Rauland, Odda, and Haukeliseter Norway

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:46:00 +0100

Rauland, Odda, and Haukeliseter Norway

Norvege

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:38:00 +0100

For my last trip I decided to go to Oslo, Norway and stay with some family friends. I haven’t seen the daughters since 2^nd grade so it was a fun reunion! They had leftovers from thanksgiving so I finally got to have sweet potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and best of all.. pumpkin pie! We started off the next morning with smoked salmon and eggs before they left for work and I headed off to explore Oslo. My first stop was the Holmenkollen ski jump and ski museum. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t cooperating and although I got a nice view of Oslo in the tram on the way up the mountain, by the time I got as high as the ski jump I couldn’t see more than twenty feet in front of me. After wandering around the base of the jump a bit, I found the museum and the man working the desk let me sneak up to the elevator go up the tower for free! The fact that I’d snuck in made me unsure of where I was supposed to go and hesitant to ask someone in case they asked for a ticket.. so after following signs for the jump lookout deck, I found myself in front of the elevator door. I had the impression that there was usually someone there running the elevator for tourists but I decided to give it a go. The door opened, and although there were no buttons for different floors, there was an arrow pointing up. I pressed it and started a nerve-racking ride to the top. I’m not sure if the glass windows helped or hurt as I slowly inched upward, all I could think about was what if the elevator wasn’t being used for a reason, what if I plummeted down the hundreds of feet into the cement at the bottom, or what if I got stuck halfway up. No one knew where I was! If there was a security camera in the elevator the guy at the bottom definitely got a good laugh as a I swore, clutched the railing, and then started deep breathing exercises while focusing on the slowly approaching top to avoid looking at the thin cables moving me upwards. Luckily I survived and the door opened into a barren room, I was the only tourist on this foggy day in early December. There were some photographs of the stunning view I would have had without the clouds, and after walking around the viewing platform for a few minutes, I decided I’d pushed my luck enough and headed back down to ground level (the ride was equally as terrifying). I took the metro into the center of Oslo and walked along the main pedestrian street, the Christmas market, the Parliament, King’s Castle, and the Nobel Peace prize center. I got to the harbor and the fortress just in time for sunset (3:30 pm, I’d forgotten going north meant a change in daylight) and then headed back to the house to get ready for the mountains!

After a 3-hour drive, we arrived in Rauland. The cabin was wonderfully cozy, and after building a fire in the fire place and enjoying a Danish Christmas beer, we had a nightcap of Norwegian goat cheese and wine. I slept great, albeit with a sweatshirt, 2 pairs of leggings, wool socks, and 2 comforters (with the heat on). Hopefully I can survive winter in Utah when I get back, the warm weather in Bordeaux has turned me into a weakling! I woke up to a view of snow snowcapped pines, a calm lake reflecting the morning light, and mountains! The delivery of Norwegian Flatbrød from a friend in town came just in time to be dipped in my hot chocolate.. Yum! On the way out of town we stopped by said friend’s house and I learned how to roll out the flat bread and learned to cook it on the crêpe-pan like apparatus.

Next: off to Hardanger fjord! The scenery along the way was stunning; there is SO much water everywhere! It seeps out of every rock; there was a waterfall around almost every turn in the road, not to mention the streams, marshes, and lakes that lined the road. Just before getting to the Hardanger plateau, we came to a huge expanse above the tree line that looked like the arctic (the pictures I’ve seen of it at least): huge expanses of ice and snow glinting in the sunlight, almost no houses, and nothing in the distance but mountains and blue sky. Leaving the plateau we started the tunnel section… we drove through at least 7 on the way to the coast, the longest one was more than 5 kms and completely straight, another one only took a few minutes to drive through but spiraled upwards through the mountain, I got so dizzy I have no idea how semi-drivers survive in there. The roads were pretty bad and on the final stretch down to the ocean we passed 2 trucks that were stuck on the icy uphill and an hour earlier we passed a car that had just slid off the road into the trees. Luckily we made it with no mishaps! The valley leading down to the fjord was spectacular: waterfalls thundered down the dark cliffs and a lazy river wound through peaceful farms with still-green fields and log houses. The fjord was beautiful, but the drive to get there was the best part by far.

On the way back we stopped at Haukeliseter lodge so that I could try the traditional sour cream porridge. It doesn’t sound very appetizing, but with some cinnamon sugar and raisins and washed down with the local microbreweries pale ale I nearly inhaled it. The porridge probably shouldn’t be part of a regular diet though; I can imagine cooked down sour cream is good at blocking arteries.

We had dinner with the flatbread friends and had a Norwegian appetizer of the fresh-baked Flatbrød, butter, and ‘Old Cheese’. It turns out this cheese is actually very new cheese, aged only 14 days, and the strangest consistency cheese I’ve ever eaten. The mold that creates it looks like millions of long hairs throughout the block. Not an enticing description, but camouflaged with enough butter it was pretty good! *note: many stores in Norway are OUT of butter until after Christmas. OUT. All of them! It has something to do with lots of people trying the lowcarb diet and the agricultural producers diminishing manufacturing since they haven’t been paid enough. I cant imagine not being able to find butter in the store! For more info: http://expatsnorway.com/2011/12/03/i-cant-believe-theres-no-butter/

Back to dinner: we had a nice meal of potatoes, cauliflower, fish, and some delicious onion sauce accompanied by the house-brewed beer. So satisfying. He also sent me home with a whole bag of flatbread so hopefully I can bring some of it back to Bordeaux or even Utah!

The next morning we went to the Rauland Vierli ski resort which was awesome, I wish I’d been there when there was more snow! The rest of the day we wandered around downtown Rauland and then had a last supper of trout with sour-cream sauce, I never knew sour cream was such a big part of Norwegian cuisine!

And back to Bordeaux for finals!

Rauland, Norway- learning to make Flatbrød

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 13:43:00 +0100

Rauland, Norway- learning to make Flatbrød

Oslo, Norway

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:51:22 +0100

Oslo, Norway

Dinner + Dessert at La Plume D’Oie-La Roque Gageac

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:47:49 +0100

Dinner + Dessert at La Plume D’Oie-La Roque Gageac

La Roque Gageac

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:42:00 +0100

La Roque Gageac

La Tour St. Michel and some of our lunchtime cheese sampling

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:53:32 +0100

La Tour St. Michel and some of our lunchtime cheese sampling

Family week

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:50:00 +0100

I left Thursday afternoon to meet my aunt and cousin in a small town in central France made famous by its small scale, high quality knife production. They picked me up at the closest train station (an hour away) at 9pm and we headed off in what we hoped was the right direction for Lagioule. Trying to find our bed and breakfast turned out to be more difficult than anticipated due to a combination of poor night vision and never knowing which part of the directions we were at. We ended up in the small ‘town’ of Jabrun: 2 houses next to a cemetery, no sign of a B&B. Right town, but we clearly weren’t where we were supposed to be. Luckily a pickup truck came along right as we were discussing what to try next (11pm now) and I hopped out to ask for directions. The man kindly offered to lead us to the B&B: we ended up driving in a circle right back to the main road where we’d been about 15 minutes before; I’m sure he got a good laugh stumbling upon three lost American women late at night in the middle of a farm town.

After some crepes and coffee in the morning we headed to Lagioule. We went to the local cheese factory, tasted fresh cheese, 2 month, 4 month, 12 month, 18 month, and 24 month aged versions, and watched the workers making the fresh curds. The knife forge didn’t have tours until the afternoon so we walked around town looking at knife shops (nearly every other store) and checked out the tiny church and cemetery on the hill. The knife tour was very educational and made us savvy buyers: we learned each step of the process, saw the wooden handles being carved and sanded by workers, and learned that any cheap “Lagioule” knives we found in stores were in fact made ‘in Pakistan by children who work in slave conditions’. Geez! Apart from being educational, the tour was also an hour-long advertisement for their store, the only place, so they claimed, that actually made every single part of their knives, down to the forged metal. Their strategy worked on us and we left with a set of 12 wood-handled steak knives (my cousin’s goal for the trip), a kitchen knife for my aunt, and a new pocket knife/wine opener and bread knife for the McIntyre cabin. Not a cheap day! That night we tried the local specialty: Aligot. Its a mashed potato-like dish that is cooked with the local cheese in a way that the cheese and potatoes are mixed so perfectly that it creates ribbons of stretchy cheesy potatoes when you serve it. Deliciously rich and velvety smooth, but so filling that it was impossible to finish.

The next day we set off for Bordeaux, my parents were arriving at 3 and we had a 5-hour drive to get there. After picking them up and settling into the house they were staying in, my mom took a jet lag nap while the rest of us started in on some Lagioule cheese and white wine my cousin had picked up earlier on their drive. We took the tram into downtown Bordeaux for dinner at the Brasserie Bordelaise had a meal of regional specialties like seafood Carpaccio, Cassoulet (a very rich slow-cooked bean stew from southern France typically containing meat such as pork sausages, duck, goose, pork skin, and white haricot beans), eel stew, and grilled scallops… we ended the night with crème brûlé and Armagnac (brandy from southern france made from distilled wine) followed by a walk along the river and mirroir d’eau.

Sunday we met for the St. Michel flea market, held in the low-income/’artsy’ part of Bordeaux, the area many new immigrants live in when they arrive from North Africa. The market was packed and my cousin came away with a few good finds. Afterwards we headed up the quays to the food market and indulged in local oysters, the best grilled shrimp I’ve ever had, white wine, and fresh bread. My mom also introduced us to Livarot (my new favorite cheese) as well as a seasonal cheese from the Alps that’s so soft it’s served with a spoon. The market was insanely busy because of the sunshine and warm weather and everyone was in a great mood: a group of people sitting next to us gave us most of a bottle of wine as they left and told us to “enjoy Bordeaux!” I’d never seen French people be so friendly with tourists before! For dinner, I borrowed my French families Raclette machine (basically a cheese heater) and we had a filling and fattening meal of potatoes, cornichons (mini pickles) foie gras, salami meats from the market and sooo much cheese.

The next morning we set off for the Dordogne, a region a bit east of Bordeaux known for its foie gras production, truffles, and tiny towns centered on commanding ancient fortresses and castles. My mom and I visited a friend there this summer for a few days, so she knew of a great B&B to stay at right on the Dordogne river. We rented canoes for the afternoon and had a leisurely paddle past several of the ‘most beautiful towns in France’ and plenty of castles and manor houses. Such a perfect afternoon! When we got back to La Roque Gageac, we explored the steep narrow streets in the last light of the day and hiked to the top of the cliffs for an amazing sunset view of the river valley.

Being the only guests at the B&B and having a wonderful chef who received a box of freshly gathered Cèpes (King Bolitus mushrooms) was the best.. they appeared in nearly every dish we ordered and we ate like royalty. After a restful night (so quiet!) my dad and I got up before breakfast to scramble to the top of the cliffs one more time and see the sun rise over the valley. A delicious breakfast prepared us for the road trip back to Bordeaux, and I set off for class.

The next day I decided to skip class in favor of wine tasting so we picked up some bread and cheese at my favorite shops and hit the road for the famous wine region north of Bordeaux: the Médoc. Luckily one of the vineyards my cousin (the red wine connoisseur) was interested in had a tour available in English. We learned a lot about the history of wine making in Bordeaux, the differences in grape varieties, soil types, wine tastes by appellation around Bordeaux, and got a tour of the aging tanks and barrel storing room. We ended the tour with a dégustation (tasting) of bottles from 4 different years, and came away with a bottle of 2007 that the guide told us should be aged 4-10 years, but probably wont survive past Christmas.

That night we had dinner with my French family, which consisted of more oysters and seafood, lots of champagne and wine, duck breast, and chocolate cake. When I got out of class on Thursday (Thanksgiving!) we went to a 2-hour wine and cheese tasting. I learned a lot more about wine, tasted the effect a bit of cured meat can have on the taste of wine, and then sampled at least 20 cheeses from the self-serve wine cave. It was definitely a bad idea to let me down there… all the cheese and wine along with a seafood dinner that was our Thanksgiving meal made me horribly sick the next day. Unfortunately it was also the day of our cooking class so I mostly sat and watched as my family learned to cook chicken breast stuffed with mushroom and foie gras, lamb wrapped in pork intestines with a mushroom sauce, and puff pastries with a foie gras- mushroom filling. My weak stomach barely survived all the raw meat but I started feeling better as we wandered the Marché de Noel. I had no idea Bordeaux was going to be so into Christmas celebrations! There are lights and Christmas trees (sapins) everywhere and the longest Bûche de Noel in France was set out and given out for free on Friday night! I had to study all evening since my final for my two geography classes was Saturday morning at 9. . terrible timing. Afterwards we spent a relaxing last afternoon together walking around town and picking up gifts.

It was hard to see them off but I’ll be back in Utah within a month!

Marché St. Michel- Flea market finds

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:38:53 +0100

Marché St. Michel- Flea market finds

Laguiole

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:34:48 +0100

Laguiole

Laguiole Fromagerie

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:28:55 +0100

Laguiole Fromagerie

Photo

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:28:00 +0100

Eiffel Tower views

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:22:00 +0100

Eiffel Tower views

Centre Pompidou

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:15:00 +0100

Centre Pompidou

Ishtar Gates (Walls of Babylon) - Pergamon Museum

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:12:08 +0100

Ishtar Gates (Walls of Babylon) - Pergamon Museum

Fall Colors

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:46:00 +0100

Fall Colors

Berlin + Paris encore

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:39:00 +0100

The train trip from Prague to Berlin was beautiful: the tracks followed a slow moving river that cut through a canyon surrounded with yellowing aspens and rock outcroppings. These sections reminded me a lot of Utah, Boulder Mountain specifically, until my daydream ended with a pop of red: the roof of a very european house set away from the river and surrounded by fields and sheep. After being met by my friend at the massive Hasselbanhoff station, we headed to her apartment which was in the best possible location for a tourist: her balcony looked out on the Berlin TV tower and the “Marienkirche” (Church of St. Mary) which was built in the second half of the 13th century, meaning that it survived both World Wars, and communism, and is still worshiped in today. It was strange staring up at the futuristic needle that was the symbol of modernity and communism and then down at a building that has seen so much world history and seems so… aged. We went out with a big group of Germans that night and I was amazed at how well they spoke English, for some reason they knew english much better than most of the French people I’ve encountered. The next day we explored the massive Botanical Gardens and enjoyed the fall colors. On my last day, I decided to go to Germany’s most visited museum, the Pergamon. On my way I passed the Berliner Dome Church; which was is a very over-the-top and showy building next to the river; and the Reichstag. It was weird to be walking through places that I’d seen in Nazi propaganda films in High School history class, made even more surreal since it was filled with tourists and locals alike enjoying the warmest and sunniest day in months (according to my friend). The Pergamon museum is famous because it houses the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and original-sized, reconstructed Buildings brought from Turkey like the Pergamon Altar and the Market gate of Miletus . There’s a huge controversy today about the legitimacy of the acquisition of the Turkish items and many people have suggested that the collection should be returned to Turkey. There was also a whole Islamic art collection which had spectacular pieces of pottery, palace façades, metal-work, and rugs. It was an interesting and strange experience for me to see all of these Turkish historical artifacts in Berlin, being stared at by people speaking German, since I’ve seen so many similar objects in Turkey itself (in Ephesus, Topkapi, and around the country in general). I don’t know enough about the situation to take sides on the debate, but it does seem like Germany owns some important pieces of Turkish history!

Afterwards my friend showed me Dolores, a mexican restaurant by her house. Soooo good to get a burrito fix! This mexican cuisine in Berlin was even forward-thinking compared with where I usually eat in the US: they had 2 tofu options, of which I chose the Mole tofu, which was delicious.

I got back to Bordeaux just in time to see Glitch Mob, an american DJ group I like a lot, and then Foster the people, another favorite group of mine, 3 days later. A great week already, not to mention that I learned via facebook one of my good friends from Utah was going to be in Paris when I got there on Saturday after Foster the People!

I started off my third Paris visit with the Centre Georges Pompidou which provided not only a great view of the city in the late afternoon light but also some great modern art. Although a lot of it was the kind of art where I have no idea what is being represented or why it is considered art, there were some cool architecture exhibits and a large “magic mushroom” that an artist made in celebration of the effects fungi can have on the brain. As for the art that I understood a little better: there was a very interesting Lebanese photography exhibit in which the artist found negatives from an old photo studio and developed them. There were many with 2 men together and you could tell a lot about how they were interacting during the shoot (many were dressed very womanly..) and there was one of a woman in which her face was scratched out because her husband found out she went to the photo studio without his approval and went to destroy any picture of her without her veil on. The description said the woman later burned herself to death. There was also a photo exhibit by Marc Riboud Dation who has a very famous photo from the 50s:

and is a very well-known photo-journalist. His work was the most interesting for me, as the description in the museum said, “he links the ‘decisive moment’ with a more intimate or contemplative form of photography”.

I then met up with my friend from Utah, splurged on sushi, and went out to a cool club on a boat (I’m not sure what the obsession is with clubs on boats here, but it is nice to be able to walk outside of a smoke and sweat filled room and look out over the calm dark Seine). After starting off the last day with a cheese and egg crêpe and a Starbuck’s chai (we don’t have Starbuck’s in Bordeaux and its hard to find good chai.. have to treat myself when traveling) I stopped by Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore as advised by my mom. The store is somehow comforting and I always wish I had more time to spend here.. maybe if I end up living in Paris someday! It also doesn’t hurt that I want to buy almost every book I pick up and read the back of, this time I ended up with a novel about the saga of a black Jazz band in Europe during the second World War. Afterwards I went to the Eiffel Tower with my Utah friend and climbed the stairs to the second platform (lots of stairs!) and I discovered I’m slightly afraid of heights, especially when gusts of wind are buffeting me and seem strong enough to blow me (or at least my scarf) over the massive barriers. I wasn’t expecting such a great view of Paris without going to the very top, but it was amazing even from halfway up. Paris seems to go on forever.

After carefully making it down the stairs to the first level and taking the elevator to the ground floor to expedite the escape, I headed to the Louvre. The Egyptian section was amazing, so many mummies! Unfortunately my friend and I didn’t know that the museum was closing early that Sunday so we ended up only seeing Egypt, a small amount of Greece, and making eye contact with Mona Lisa for 1 minute after sprinting through half the museum. We decided to go back for opening the next morning for half an hour before our train since we hadn’t seen any of the French paintings we wanted to. Seeing Le Radeau de la Meduse and La Liberté Guidant le Peuple in person was amazing. I’ve learned about both of these paintings in many French classes and standing in front of the 10 foot tall paintings, looking into the eyes of the life-sized figures after having written finals and papers about them was great. Such a different experience than seeing them on a power-point and being told that the painter was gifted in his way of portraying light. Being face to face with the paintings was an awesome experience. I also saw my first Monets: a couple winter scenes which were beautiful. I knew he was a good painter, but I’d only seen his work in French textbooks. Seeing his work in person was again so different, his style of painting was strangely calming to me.. maybe because I was wishing I was in the snowy woods in front of me.

Back to Bordeaux for the first real week of classes in weeks… dangit!

Strahov Monastery beer, dumplings + meat gravy, beer cheese +...

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 01:04:00 +0100

Strahov Monastery beer, dumplings + meat gravy, beer cheese + potato pancakes

Prague

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 01:01:00 +0100

After a sleepless night in Paris due to being locked out of our hotel (my friend with the only set of keys, including the key to the outside door, fell asleep before the rest of us got back from the bar and it took 21 phone calls and waiting until 7am to wake her up) we headed to Prague. The quick flight deposited us at the in the cold dreary outskirts of Prague. To get to our hostel we spent awhile experimenting with the metro ticket machine, since there were no translations and at least 20 options of which ticket to buy. The metro station was strangely empty so we asked a lady running a small souvenir stand but she shrugged her shoulders and shooed us away. The only other person in the whole station was a beggar woman who had positioned herself right next to the ticket machine and at first seemed to be trying to help us (in Czech) but turned on us quickly when we weren’t giving her money. She started cursing at us in a muttered mixture of English and Czech and with her crazy eyes and the strange rhythmic way she was saying “fuck you bitches” etc. etc., my friends and I were pretty sure she was casting a spell on us. Luckily some girls our age came a few minutes later and showed us which tickets we needed and the subway whisked us off to the luxurious Hostel Miles . After our gross and crowded hotel in Paris, this place was heaven-sent. We met a group of travelling Australians staying at the same hostel and ended up going to a few bars and then the ‘biggest club in central Europe’ with them. I’m not sure if that claim is true, but from my clubbing experience here so far, it was a pretty damn big! 5 stories, each having a different theme of music. There were some hilarious people at the club, but it was definitely nice to go out with our big English speaking group.

They next day we walked around the city a bit and I got the chance to try delicious but very strong grilled smoked Czech cheese. In the evening we joined our new Australian friends for a night at the Opera. None of us are habitual operagoers, but the tickets were surprisingly cheap (2 euros) and the opera house is one of the famous historic sites, so we thought it’d be a fun experience. I had no idea what to expect, I was anticipating disliking the music, but I had a great time! Although I had no idea what was going on most of the story, trying to piece it together by watching the actors/singers and reading the terrible translations into English was hilarious. The opera house was very luxe, full of red velvet benches and huge chandeliers hanging below beautifully ceiling paintings. Although we left halfway through, (after 2 hours and discovering that 2 hours remained, dinner took priority) I hope to go to more operas in the future. The next day I woke up early and went to the Charles Bridge to see the sunrise and get some time on the famed bridge without the tourist hoard. The statues on the bridge were amazing, and being there with only a few other people was a much better experience than the traffic jam of pedestrians I saw later in the day. We also went to the Lennon wall, a graffiti wall with Lennon and Lenin as its subjects, but also a place that travelers can leave messages for their friends to discover/artists to express their innermost thoughts . Afterwards we went to see the Jewish cemetery, famous because the city wouldn’t allow the Jews to expand the cemetery/the Jewish community couldn’t afford to buy more land. This resulted in burials up to 12 people deep, and the disordered assembly of gravestones stuck every which way, wherever they fit. We visited Prague’s most famous attraction the next day: the biggest castle in the world. It was pretty spectacular; my favorite part of it was the Lobkowitz Palace Museum. The family portraits along with a narrated explanation by the current Lobkowitz generation provided a lot of information about Czech history, and the arms collection was amazing. Each gun was detailed with ivory and metal carvings, clearly a work of art made exactly as its owner wanted it. A big panel painting done by Brueghel was another highlight of the museum, as only 5 such panels of his famous landscape paintings exist in the world. The music section was the most interesting, as the collection includes original scores by Beethoven and Mozart, including Beethoven’s 4th and 5th symphonies. I’ve never been a big fan of classical music but for some reason standing in front of the physical form of the most famous music in western history gave me the goose bumps. The Lobkowitz family started a revolution in music and made Beethoven’s greatest works possible by paying him to make music as he wanted, instead of on commission from a royal court as had always been done in the past. The craziest thing about the whole collection is that the family has lost and regained all the remaining objects twice: once during WWII, and once under the communist rule. Such dedication to the arts to get all those pieces back. After the museum we headed up the hill to the Strahov monastery, which is also one of the city’s most famous breweries. The house-made beer was the best I tasted while in Prague, (and we tasted a lot since it cost 2 euros per beer instead of the 8 we’re used to in Bordeaux) although our Czech dinner made me realize I would struggle living here.. my beer-cheese (not as good as it sounds) and potato pancakes served with raw onions (why?) wasn’t bad, but it definitely isn’t something I could survive on. Other than meat, cheese and potatoes is the name of the game in Prague. Luckily the next day our friend we were staying with showed us a restaurant that suited my tastes a bit better: I got a spinach and Balkan cheese veggie burger topped with grilled mushrooms and onions. So good! The communist museum was next of the agenda since it was raining and it seemed like something interesting and important to see. The museum was a huge disappointment and was comparable to walking through a hall of Wikipedia print outs for an hour. I did at least learn a few interesting things about Czech/communist history such as that the life expectancy went down by 5 years (!!!) during the communist reign due to the wide use of chemical fertilizers to increase production. I find Czech history very interesting, but this museum sucked!! As our sendoff, we went to the Chapeau Rouge bar, which had a great dubstep DJ, and parted ways in the morning: me to Berlin and my friends to Amsterdam. Overall I loved the Czech Republic and can’t wait to go back and explore the rest of the country someday. The spiced wine is something I hope to make a lot of at home, and Prague itself was at once quaint and stunning. Great start to the break!.. berlin post coming soon…

Trdlo: strangely-made but delicious Czech pastry

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:44:00 +0100

Trdlo: strangely-made but delicious Czech pastry