6 cities. 9 days. 1 long blog post.

just got back from a long, awesome, tiring, beautiful, hilarious excursion that my study abroad program organized for us. we spent 9 days and 8 nights traveling through eastern-central europe on a rented bus, seeing new sites and trying weird food (accidentally ate LARD in krakow. gross). i'll try to be concise...

krakow
the first stop on our journey was krakow, poland's religious and cultural capital (warsaw is the actual capital). we arrived in the city in the afternoon, went on a walking tour through the old town square and castle areas. the next day we went on another tour of the jewish quarter, kazmierez. went to the galicia museum, and spent a lot of time walking around. the most interesting thing about being in the city at this time in particular was the fact that the Polish president, along with about 30 other political officials, had recently died in a tragic airplane accident. to be in a country where the head of state has recently died is a strange thing, especially in a super patriotic country, like Poland. we left the city for auschwitz the day of the funeral--taking place in krakow--which made getting out of the city very difficult. (shout out to ANNA for being in krakow the same weekend :)

auschwitz/oswiecim
we finally made it out of the city, and were able to visit 2 former concentration camps located in the city of auschwitz (german name)/oswiecim (polish name). it was my second time visiting these camps, the first time was when i spent a semester in israel in 11th grade, so it was a very strange feeling to return to such an eerie place. it was obviously incredibly moving, though, and i definitely learned a lot more about the holocaust and world war II. the next day we also went on a tour of the city and visited the Jewish museum there - i found it really disturbing that there are people living minutes away from a former death camp.

olomoc
the next day, we ventured to this city in Moravia, the eastern part of the Czech Republic. there's a huge university there, with about 50,000 students - i felt like i was in the Madison, WI of the czech republic :) lots of college students everywhere, we slept in a dorm, and went out to a bar/club at night. good times all around.

brno
the second biggest city in the czech republic, also located in Moravia. we were only able to spend a few hours there: visited the museum of Roma culture and then ate a quick lunch. then we hopped back on the bus.

mikolov
a gorgeous winery village, located right next to czech-austrian border. went on a walking tour with an ex-pat from Michigan, who showed us the castle and biggest barrel of wine i've ever seen. it was really awesome to get to see different parts of the czech republic, other than prague. this country has such a unique history and so much to offer.

vienna
by far one of the most beautiful places in the world. i felt like i died and went to architectural heaven. went on 2 walking tours of the city, got to go to the belvedere castle museum where Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" is housed. i went to the modern art museum there, where they had an exhibit about television (!!!!!) - got to watch some episodes from the Andy Warhol TV show that aired in the 1970s. very cool stuff. we went to a summer-castle that had amazing gardens and beautiful fountains, and got to lay out in some parks as well. we really lucked out with weather.

finally returned to beautiful prague. what an unreal adventure. more to come soon.

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ciao,
julia