To Eastern Europe, Again

Traveling with the parents

After brainstorming, I remembered my parents talked about going to Eastern Europe. Now, I’ve had my share of Eastern Europe (Romania, Budapest, Prague, Croatia, Baltic States, etc.) but Berlin has been high on my Europe list. So, here we go to Berlin, Prague and Vienna. It’s been over ten years since the 3 of us have traveled together!

3 Packed Days in Berlin

Day 1: Berlin take 1

There was no time for jet-lag. We headed out early in the morning to make our 10 am museum entrance time. 

Museum Island: Pergamon Museum and Neues Museum

We also climbed the Reichstag Dome and passed by the famous Brandenburger Tor, a symbol of division in the Cold War and now symbolizing German reunification between east and west. Our day ended at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church which was a half-bombed church with an amazing stain glass cathedral. This was the furthest west we ventured.

Day 2: Berlin continued

We followed Rick Steve’s ambitious walk through the city. With free audioguide in ears, we walked all day from west to east Berlin. We started at the Jewish Memorial Museum which was heavy, but well done. Our walk bought us to ...

Humboldt University where intellects like Albert Einstein studied.

The cheerful walking ampelmann

But this city is not for the elderly or slow because rarely did we make it across both sides of the street in one walking man go. The stop man halted us in the median every time!

I made friends with new boys, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
OK, so maybe we have a few differences in political viewpoints.

Plaza in East Berlin.
Reminded me of Almaty, Kazakhstan, with Soviet influence seen in concrete efficient rectangular buildings.

We also hit up the DDR Museum of everyday life in East Berlin. It’s a great interactive hands-on museum, but was way too crowded. We ended up in Alexanderplatz, a main square in Eastern Europe.

Taking the U-Bahn around town.

I love taking local transport and love it even more that my parents are still up for that too. You get a different taste of the city, perhaps a more realistic one, than if you take tours and taxis. Sure we took a few wrong turns, and GPS wasn't always reliable, but it worked out.

At the end of the day we retreated to our bustling neighborhood near Mitte. Lots of restaurants and mostly locals. It was supposedly up and coming, but clearly it has already came. Reminded me of Park Slope in Brooklyn. 

We ended the day at the Prater Biergarten with delicious food! 

This garden was 3x bigger than any other one I went to. I love that everyone eats outside in the summer.

Probably my fave meal of the whole trip: pretzel, potato salad, cous cous and wurst. 

By the way, currywurst is the best wurst.

Day 3: Berlin wrap up

We hit up Potsdamer Platz which is more modern and on the western side. Then we went to Checkpoint Charlie where there was a border crossing through the wall between East and West Berlin. The museum, though way too cluttered, was fascinating in showing how people escaped. They hit in gas tanks, canoes, dug tunnels, ziplined, flew planes and my personal favorite, hiding in the speaker belonging to musicians!

Historical walk along the wall.

The mood over Berlin was a bit somber as we visited several sites related to the Holocaust and Berlin Wall. 

Above left: Detour to see the astronaut. It was also nice to be in a non-tourist neighborhood. There’s great street art throughout the city.

Above right: East Side Gallery walk. This is the longest stretch of the wall remaining. Murals were painted in 1990 and again in 2009. On the backside was regular graffiti and a startling exhibit on the Syrian War.

Woman vs. dragon

Parents at Berliner Dom before taking the touristic river cruise.

Berlin has a great mix of old architecture and new modern buildings. Overall, it was a great city to explore and I would definitely go back to check out more of the other neighborhoods and non-touristy sites.

Day 4: To Prague, now Disneyland on crack
I went to Prague 16 years ago in 2000. I recall it being fascinating as it was the first Eastern European city I went to after weeks of western Europe. I remember it being beautiful and a perplexing blend of east meets west Europe. I went back with fond memories and curious to see how it has changed since I heard that it is not the same Prague. I could have never envisioned how different this city has become. The train station welcomed me with a Sephora for crying out loud.

Pleasant train ride

We entered Prague via Dresden which is how I came the first time. Except the first time I was supposed to go on a night train from Innsbrook, Austria, straight to Prague but got lost in the train split and somehow ended up in dreary Dresden. This trip was much better, not being alone with no clue where I was. We rode first class, which was only $5 more, but it wasn't all that. We had two disgruntled Germans and a very chatty, friendly sociology professor living in the city of Brno who gave us the low down on many things.

It was late afternoon when we arrived. We headed off on another Rick Steve walking tour. Prague is a beautiful city since it was spared from all the European Wars.

Center of Old Town. Lots of art nouveau architecture from the 1920’s.

Astronomical Clock.

My most remembered photo of Prague that I took 16 years ago, except a running Sharlene is missing from the scene. Interesting the things I remember.

Prague Opera House. I remember this building.

Ended up on Charles Bridge overlooking the castle. Way too crowded.

Day 5: Prague continued
We awoke early to beat the mad tourists to the castle. After a tram ride and a little uphill hike, we made it before everyone else. Success!

Parents at the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague Castle. 

We had the grounds practically to ourselves at 9 am. The whole city was up too late the previous night.

Ornate décor in the cathedrals.

View of the city from the Prague Castle

Changing of the guard amidst the hordes of tourist.

Nighttime in Old Town Square. It really is impressive.

Horse and carriage for tourist entertainment.

Day 6: Kutna Hora side trip

We were mostly done with the sights in the city after a day and a half so we decided to escape the crowds and head to the nearby town of Kutna Hora. It's a UNESCO town and pretty quaint with two cathedrals, St. Barbara and Virgin Mary. But the main attraction is...

Bone church (Sedlec Ossuary)

Yes, I was fascinated! 40,000+ skeletons. I just kept thinking of all the bones turned into grotesque artwork (femurs, tibias, skulls, pelvic girdles, ulnas ….). I found out about this from my Lonely Planet top 500 places to see in the world.

Not a bad side trip, and fun to explore the local train and a non-city. If pressed for time though, I wouldn't prioritize it. We were able to finish Prague in 2 days, but had already scheduled 3 days.

Day 7: Prague to Vienna

Our last few hours we hit up the Jewish quarters in a series of 6 museums. I didn't recall any of this before. Did I really forget all this? Turns out that these sights didn't open to the public until 2003, so my memory may still be OK, somewhat.

Old Jewish cemetery. 12,000+ crumbling tombstones with 100,000 graves in layers.

We tried to hit up all the Czech foods which included pork knuckle, sausages, pickled cheese, churro-like-things and more.

Palacinky, crepe-like Czech pancakes. Our last meal well done. 

I'm glad I went back to Prague. It's still a beautiful city, but I'm sad that it has become so westernized. With joining the EU, westernization came in with a brutal storm. High end boutiques like Prada make some parts look like any other city. The worst was probably the insane amount of tourist crammed throughout the town. As my dad noticed, the tour groups would spontaneously break out in cheer. It was a totally different ambiance from my first visit. I'm glad my parents got to see it though. Needless to say, I have no desire to go back.

Day 8 and 9: Vienna

We trained into Vienna. After arriving in the evening we had a lovely dinner then two full days to explore. We went around on public transportation, mostly metro, and walked our way through the city.

We started our exploration with the Hofburg palace. It had great exhibits explaining the different ruling kings and queens.

Elaborate dinnerware and decorations in Hofburg Palace in the city

Apfelstrudel

My first two spins through Austria I somehow missed the Apfelstrudel. How?! I really don't know. But this time around I made up for it. Pretty delicious. Not flaky like the ones in the states.

Gelato break! 

I got skilled at deciphering flavors. It was all decent, but not near Italian standards by any means. No shortage of gelato. Wish I could pack it in like this lady. My hero!

Famous Opera House.

Vienna is known for it's music, especially with Mozart as its claim to fame. But, I'm not a huge fan of classical music, and most definitely not Opera. So we admired from the outside, unsuccessfully tried to get a tour of the inside and then moved on.

We hopped on the tram that circled the city, and put in another Rick Steve audio tour (he does know his Europe). We hopped off and detoured to this...

Iconic City Ferris Wheel 

It was originally built in 1897 in Prater, an old school amusement park.

8 Euros to ride?! No thank you. This reminds me of one "Before Sunset" a movie set in one day in Vienna back in 1994, a classic in my library.

Stephansdam Cathedral 

reflected in a newly erected glass building in the center of Old Town. OK, so I’ve seen many cathedrals in this trip, and in all my travels, but this view caught my eye.

View of city from the top tower of Stephansdam Cathedral

Night walk by Hofburg Palace, the city dwelling of the Hapsburgs.

The next day we meandered out to the summer palace and took a leisurely stroll through the gardens and the neighboring hoods nearby.

Summer Palace of the Hapsburg slightly out of town. Beautiful gardens.

What an empire these Hapsburgs had! I vaguely recall studying them back in MEHAP (yes, I said it. Modern European History AP. Sophomore year of high school). I still wish I had gone to Europe back then so I could match history with what I see. While Austria is a solid county today, I forget what a major power it was with the Hapsburg rule and Austrian Empire. A good history reminder.

Vienna was never high on my list of places to see, but nonetheless it is a beautiful city that I'm glad I saw. It had great transportation and it was nice to be in a real city, unlike completely touristy Prague. Though there were obviously many tourists here too.
Early the next morning I hopped on a flight back to LA, while my parents continued on to explore Vienna one more day and then train to Budapest. I went to Budapest in 2002. I hear that Budapest is now what Prague was like 15 years ago. It's apparently up and coming I'll keep my fond memories of Budapest from back in the days from a very special trip in and out of Romania, thank you.

It was great to travel with the parents again. As life progresses and work and other obligations creep in, it's unique to be able to spend one on one time with the folks in foreign countries. No one is getting any younger so we gotta take advantage of the opportunities! Thanks for a great trip!

A little layover in Tahiti

My friend, Florence and I, had been talking about traveling together for awhiles. She's taking a year off and I have my odd winter break so we started brain storming. A special flight deal to New Zealand came up with a 4 day layover in Tahiti at a resort so we went for it.

Turns out I kept forgetting that I was going to Tahiti, even as I was packing. I was so focused on New Zealand and Tahiti was never on my to-see list. I actually packed for this trip about 3 weeks ago (what?!) because I was in the bay area with the family for Christmas for a week then directly road tripped via Las Vegas to New Mexico for a week and a half. I was in snow on Tuesday in NM, rain in LA for 24 hours on Wednesday and then this on Thursday ...

Tahiti!
View of Moorea from our resort (yes, resort!)

This was the first time at a resort for both of us. New territory! We made a concerted effort to not do anything. It was hard at first, but I think we got the hang of it. Here was our "itinerary".

Day 1: Chill and two grocery store runs

Day 2: Chill. Did not leave resort

Day 3: 1 grocery store run. 1 SCUBA dive

Day 4: Chill. Did not leave resort.

We were thrilled when we found the local grocery store and even more excited to find out we had a kitchen.

French baguettes for 53 cents! 

Local dish, Poisson Cru, which is raw fish with coconut milk.
Sashimi was excellent and cheap.

We even found a rotisserie chicken ($16 for an extra-large one) but it was a miraculous chicken that fed us for 4 days and 4 nights. We made chicken with ramen noodles and bok choy, chicken sandwiches and jook. Too bad the cleaning lady threw out our coveted sauce in this magical bag. On the flip side, we learned that they wash your dishes.

The one and only activity we did in all of our time was one SCUBA dive with Eleuthera Plongee. Decent dive shop and definitely worth it.

Me at the shipwreck 25 meters down.
My first SCUBA pic and 6th dive

Plane wreck 13 meters down

Otherwise, we just chilled in the room or by the pool. I read my 3 National Geographics from 2012. Yes, that's how far behind I am apparently. With ok internet, I got some blotchy skype in. Unfortunately, I also got work to do so I was productive in that sense. But I can't complain because I also researched and booked my next vacation to Honduras while sitting in my Tahiti resort.

I'm starting to understand more the appeal of the resort vacation. Not too shabby. But this part is over and tomorrow we are off to New Zealand where we probably won't be able to maintain the chillness of Tahiti, but we'll try to not go crazy.