Sunday, July 11, 2010
new blog
well since sweden i have missed blogging - so i decided to start a new blog just for my every day stuff... the new blog is emilycotton.blogspot.com i hope you come visit!
Sunday, April 4, 2010
2nd day in iceland
i woke up early my second day in iceland and packed up all my stuff... i think that people thought i was crazy for having so much stuff for such a short trip... little did they know i was hauling three months worth of stuff along with me :)
anyhow i set off for the blue lagoon which is definitely the most famous tourist location in iceland. it was a very pretty drive from downtown reykjavik to the blue lagoon and it was a nice relaxing morning sitting there and hanging out... the springs were amazing and very warm which was nice in chilly windy iceland. there is a bus directly from the springs to the airport so i headed back there and snapped some shots of the scenery along the way.
then i hung out at kef airport for a little while and waited to head back to boston...
anyhow i set off for the blue lagoon which is definitely the most famous tourist location in iceland. it was a very pretty drive from downtown reykjavik to the blue lagoon and it was a nice relaxing morning sitting there and hanging out... the springs were amazing and very warm which was nice in chilly windy iceland. there is a bus directly from the springs to the airport so i headed back there and snapped some shots of the scenery along the way.
then i hung out at kef airport for a little while and waited to head back to boston...
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
iceland!
i have wanted to come to iceland for about 5 years... i don't know why but it has always been on my list, and now i am finally here! given that icelandair had the cheapest flights to and from stockholm my way home seemed like the perfect place to come.
i arrived in kef yesterday afternoon, now many people fly through kef to other destinations in europe - but clearly not too many get off in iceland... after the transfer area which was quite large i got to the baggage claim area which was smaller than the one at the good old manch-vegas airport... i was shocked - this was supposed to be a capital of a country!!! the size shocks just kept coming...
for those of you unaware here are some iceland facts. the population of the country is 317,000 and 2/3s of the population lives in reykjavik... so that means that the population of reykjavik is about 200,000 but downtown reykjavik is about the size of downtown concord (a town with 40,000 in population) with fewer large buildings... CRAZY!
anyhow, so last night i walked around reykjavik and got myself some dinner... although iceland's currency has been greatly devalued it seems to have had little effect on prices here... although hotels are incredibly reasonable food is even more expensive than it was in stockholm!
the city is beautiful, i can see the ocean from my hotel and there are all sorts of little brightly colored houses. this morning i did some blogging and emailing and then got up had breakfast and walked around the downtown, i bought my customary print and found the 66 north hat that i had been wanting since stockholm... otherwise no shopping for me...
this afternoon i went on a horseback riding trip. icelandic horses have been bred in complete isolation so they look really different kinda short and stout and very furry and when they run they go kinda sideways. anyhow it is quite cold in iceland and VERY windy but the horseback riding across the lava field was quite fun... however the pics are pretty bad, it is not easy to shoot with a slr while riding a horse- sorry :(
there is currently a volcano erupting in iceland - it started on march 21st and is apparently quite a big deal... i guess everytime this small volcano has erupted in the past it has triggered a HUGE volcano next door... so people are thinking that might happen again soon the last time it happened in 1783 BAD THINGS happened... so obviously i wanted to go see it - but also obviously since i didn't know about this until yesterday all the tours were booked... oh well
so tonight i am going to go get myself some icelandic fish and chips - repack my bags and tomorrow i am going to go to the blue lagoon before the airport back to boston!
i arrived in kef yesterday afternoon, now many people fly through kef to other destinations in europe - but clearly not too many get off in iceland... after the transfer area which was quite large i got to the baggage claim area which was smaller than the one at the good old manch-vegas airport... i was shocked - this was supposed to be a capital of a country!!! the size shocks just kept coming...
for those of you unaware here are some iceland facts. the population of the country is 317,000 and 2/3s of the population lives in reykjavik... so that means that the population of reykjavik is about 200,000 but downtown reykjavik is about the size of downtown concord (a town with 40,000 in population) with fewer large buildings... CRAZY!
anyhow, so last night i walked around reykjavik and got myself some dinner... although iceland's currency has been greatly devalued it seems to have had little effect on prices here... although hotels are incredibly reasonable food is even more expensive than it was in stockholm!
the city is beautiful, i can see the ocean from my hotel and there are all sorts of little brightly colored houses. this morning i did some blogging and emailing and then got up had breakfast and walked around the downtown, i bought my customary print and found the 66 north hat that i had been wanting since stockholm... otherwise no shopping for me...
this afternoon i went on a horseback riding trip. icelandic horses have been bred in complete isolation so they look really different kinda short and stout and very furry and when they run they go kinda sideways. anyhow it is quite cold in iceland and VERY windy but the horseback riding across the lava field was quite fun... however the pics are pretty bad, it is not easy to shoot with a slr while riding a horse- sorry :(
there is currently a volcano erupting in iceland - it started on march 21st and is apparently quite a big deal... i guess everytime this small volcano has erupted in the past it has triggered a HUGE volcano next door... so people are thinking that might happen again soon the last time it happened in 1783 BAD THINGS happened... so obviously i wanted to go see it - but also obviously since i didn't know about this until yesterday all the tours were booked... oh well
so tonight i am going to go get myself some icelandic fish and chips - repack my bags and tomorrow i am going to go to the blue lagoon before the airport back to boston!
thoughts on trip as a whole
so not that i haven't written enough about the past ten days - but it was a really fun trip :) first it was nice to not travel by myself but also not to travel with a HUGE group, which business school seems to lend itself to. i think 4 people is the perfect number and we had a great group... we all seemed to be interested in pretty much the same schedule, getting up early, seeing lots of stuff, having a drink or two in the afternoon, having great dinners and heading to bed at a very tame hour.
so yay! the girls were lots of fun and we had MANY laughs along the way... in terms of cities i think that vienna was my favorite, it was so beautiful and especially at eastertime the markets and the eggs were amazing. budapest we had a great time but it was not at all what i was expecting - it is still very european whereas i guess i thought it would be more similar to turkey? or just more eastern?
prague was the only city i had been to before and it was great to go back... my family oftentimes travels in the winter and it is amazing what a difference a few months can make - prague was packed! and it was warm and just sitting out in the square with a drink was great. i remember on my last trip which was in december we were all FREEZING the entire time... this also makes me want to go back to scandinavia in the summer, i think that traveling during the winter is just more difficult, you can't pack as much in during the day. i certainly don't want to join the hoards of tourists in july in august but i think in the future i will try to take more trips in the april-may and sept-oct ranges.
so yay! the girls were lots of fun and we had MANY laughs along the way... in terms of cities i think that vienna was my favorite, it was so beautiful and especially at eastertime the markets and the eggs were amazing. budapest we had a great time but it was not at all what i was expecting - it is still very european whereas i guess i thought it would be more similar to turkey? or just more eastern?
prague was the only city i had been to before and it was great to go back... my family oftentimes travels in the winter and it is amazing what a difference a few months can make - prague was packed! and it was warm and just sitting out in the square with a drink was great. i remember on my last trip which was in december we were all FREEZING the entire time... this also makes me want to go back to scandinavia in the summer, i think that traveling during the winter is just more difficult, you can't pack as much in during the day. i certainly don't want to join the hoards of tourists in july in august but i think in the future i will try to take more trips in the april-may and sept-oct ranges.
prague
so unlike the train from vienna to budapest which was only 5 hours and where we could play bananagrams the entire time the train from budapest to prague was 7 hours and cramped and our car had a heating issue in that although it was 65 degrees outside the heat could not be turned off... i had a total heat attack and had to leave the car... but otherwise we got there safe and sound
so by the time we found and checked into our hotel it was definitely time for some food. we headed to pivovarsky klub where we had awesome beers and some great czech food... we sat for quite a while and soaked up the ambiance as well as the beer. on the way home from restaurant to the hotel we faced quite the conundrum, we got to the train station at 8:55 apparently the stands that sold tickets closed at 9, however, at the station we were at they were already closed. so having no way to buy a ticket we just got on the train anyways, they had a similar systems in vienna and budapest and although we had always purchased tickets we had never seen anyone get caught for not purchasing them. well when we got off at our stop we were busted. now i would have been fine being busted if i had the opportunity to purchase a ticket but we didn't! initially the cop wanted to fine us each $35 when a ticket costs $1, we talked him down to just fining us $35 for all four of us... but still pretty annoying. we headed back to the hotel and played more bananagrams... it was starting to become a theme.
the next day we set out early for the jewish quarter. prague has a great jewish history and the 7 buildings that comprise the museum are definitely a must see. i had been to all of them when i visited prague with my family in 2003 but it was nice to see them again when it was a bit warmer. we had lunch at kolkovna good old schnitzel and our first of many $2 .5L pilsner urquells YUM - nothing like cheap beer and fried meat! after lunch we walked back through both the old town square which had a crazy crowed easter market and made our way over to wenceslas square and the mucha museum. i had really enjoyed this museum the last time i was in prague and this time it was no different. mucha is a very interesting figure and had a huge impact on prague and the entire czech independence movement. we ended the day with drinks outside of the astronomical clock where we got to see the clock chime twice and then had a cute dinner followed by bananagrams, hearts and some european candy :)
saturday we decided that we didn't have enough left to do in prague for the two whole days that we had left and it was supposed to rain so we needed some indoor activities... we took the train about an hour and a half away to the pilsner urquell brewery in plzen. although plzen is a sprawling industrial town it has a cute old town area where both the brewery museum and the museum restaurant are. the brewery museum wins hands down for best audio tour they had hysterical characters that constantly talked about how disgusting the beer in the town used to be. the museum restaurant where we had lunch was fabulous, they serve unfiltered unpasturized pilsner urquell which cannot be bought anywhere else that was fabulous. we all had yummy czech treats including marinated camenbert and i had some great pork with deep friend potato pancakes - YUM! we walked around the town quickly and went on the brewery tour in the afternoon then headed back to prague and grabbed dinner... followed by even more bananagrams and cards :)
sunday we got up and walked over toward the charles bridge... we walked up the hill to the castle and saw all the major sights up there as well as the changing of the guard. then we had our only truly terrible meal - we asked for hamburgers and instead got this weird mystery meat that NONE of us could eat it was pretty hysterical. after that we walked around got some food to eat on the train and once on the train we celebrated carol's 29th birthday with some warm grocery store champagne :)
so by the time we found and checked into our hotel it was definitely time for some food. we headed to pivovarsky klub where we had awesome beers and some great czech food... we sat for quite a while and soaked up the ambiance as well as the beer. on the way home from restaurant to the hotel we faced quite the conundrum, we got to the train station at 8:55 apparently the stands that sold tickets closed at 9, however, at the station we were at they were already closed. so having no way to buy a ticket we just got on the train anyways, they had a similar systems in vienna and budapest and although we had always purchased tickets we had never seen anyone get caught for not purchasing them. well when we got off at our stop we were busted. now i would have been fine being busted if i had the opportunity to purchase a ticket but we didn't! initially the cop wanted to fine us each $35 when a ticket costs $1, we talked him down to just fining us $35 for all four of us... but still pretty annoying. we headed back to the hotel and played more bananagrams... it was starting to become a theme.
the next day we set out early for the jewish quarter. prague has a great jewish history and the 7 buildings that comprise the museum are definitely a must see. i had been to all of them when i visited prague with my family in 2003 but it was nice to see them again when it was a bit warmer. we had lunch at kolkovna good old schnitzel and our first of many $2 .5L pilsner urquells YUM - nothing like cheap beer and fried meat! after lunch we walked back through both the old town square which had a crazy crowed easter market and made our way over to wenceslas square and the mucha museum. i had really enjoyed this museum the last time i was in prague and this time it was no different. mucha is a very interesting figure and had a huge impact on prague and the entire czech independence movement. we ended the day with drinks outside of the astronomical clock where we got to see the clock chime twice and then had a cute dinner followed by bananagrams, hearts and some european candy :)
saturday we decided that we didn't have enough left to do in prague for the two whole days that we had left and it was supposed to rain so we needed some indoor activities... we took the train about an hour and a half away to the pilsner urquell brewery in plzen. although plzen is a sprawling industrial town it has a cute old town area where both the brewery museum and the museum restaurant are. the brewery museum wins hands down for best audio tour they had hysterical characters that constantly talked about how disgusting the beer in the town used to be. the museum restaurant where we had lunch was fabulous, they serve unfiltered unpasturized pilsner urquell which cannot be bought anywhere else that was fabulous. we all had yummy czech treats including marinated camenbert and i had some great pork with deep friend potato pancakes - YUM! we walked around the town quickly and went on the brewery tour in the afternoon then headed back to prague and grabbed dinner... followed by even more bananagrams and cards :)
sunday we got up and walked over toward the charles bridge... we walked up the hill to the castle and saw all the major sights up there as well as the changing of the guard. then we had our only truly terrible meal - we asked for hamburgers and instead got this weird mystery meat that NONE of us could eat it was pretty hysterical. after that we walked around got some food to eat on the train and once on the train we celebrated carol's 29th birthday with some warm grocery store champagne :)
budapest
so budapest was probably the city that i was most excited for prior to this trip i had already been to prague and i was guessing that vienna was just similar to the rest of europe so budapest was a real draw for me...
we got to budapest in the rain which was too bad but we went down and walked around the market and had some lunch, we were staying on the pest side just a couple of blogs from the main tourist drag... the pest side definitely had more going on than the buda side so i was glad that we stayed there. we walked down the tourist drag and found pest's easter market which was fun, we also stopped at at h&m, one of our books told us that the schezenyi (totally butchered that spelling) baths were a must see... after cobbeling some pretty ghetto bathing suits together we walked through pest's easter market where one of the major dishes being sold was rooster balls - ICK... we had coffee at gerbeaud caffe mia and alexis had some drink with a ton of caramel in it that they were talking about for the rest of the week.
we found a cheap pizza joint for dinner and went back to the hotel. the next morning we headed out to the baths... this is when the real fun starts. there was a huge line for the baths so we waited for a little more than a half hour, during which we got to watch this video that told us all about the electronic bracelet system that they use that lets you in and out of the baths and unlocks your locker... so i purchased our tickets and after some delay we went to go into the baths... well then the shit hit the fan, apparently their entire system completely crashed in between them running my credit card and us walking over to the turnstile with our bracelets. no one could get in or OUT of the baths, no one could open lockers, EVERYONE was freaking out. this lead to old fat naked local men screaming that they just wanted to get out, but employees couldn't let them, we couldn't be let in but because the system was down they also couldn't give us our money back - it was hysterical.
obviously we didn't want to waste our entire day in pest sitting at the baths waiting until they got their system back up so after about 45 min we left, taking our bracelets with us and telling them we would be back in an hour or so to get our money back. as we walked out the door a man came up to us and was like please don't steal our bracelets - it was insane. we walked over to a little fake castle and saw some statues and came back upon our return they refused to give us our money back... even though they were the same people who had said they would give us our money back an hour earlier... but they had a huge sign that said "Get refunded for time not used" so i pointed to it and said that we hadn't used any time therefore we should get a FULL refund... finally it worked and we were on our way.
we took the train down to the terror house which was a great museum and definitely a must see for anyone in budapest. it goes through both the nazi and communist occupation of hungary in a very cool very modern art inspired way. definitely my favorite museum of the trip. then we went to lunch at a fabulous restaurant we all had the lunch special which was incredibly cheap and wonderful (menza) afterward we walked down toward the basilica and walked around inside and then sat and enjoyed some warmth on the steps then headed over to the great synagogue which is the second largest in the world, we walked back over to the basilica area where we found a really cute old wine bar that only served hungarian wines, we initially just ordered a bottle for the four of us but then they offered us a six wine tasting so we left quite tipsy :) then we had what i think was the best meal of the trip in a little restaurant behind the synagogue, i can't remember the name and am too lazy to look it up right now but i had the most amazing pear and gorgonzola risotto YUM.
the next day we got up and went over to buda, we took the tram up the hill to the castle area... we walked through the underground caves... honestly skip these they were bad and gave us cave hair. we then walked over to the matthias church which was beautiful and took some pictures of pest from up on the hill. we walked to the palace and looked around and mistakenly went into the city museum which was also bad... i would not recommend going into either of the museums in the palace they both look not so great. so we decided to go back to pest and take a tour of the parliament we knew that they last tour started at 4 so we got there around 1 to buy tickets... but they were already sold out! so we took some pictures found a sandwich place for lunch and then walked back to the basilica area to sit out in the sun and eat some yummy rose shaped ice cream cones we had seen the previous day.
that night we went to the ballet at the hungarian state opera. we saw anna karenina and although we basically had no idea what was going on the entire time it was great and very pretty and the theater itself was very beautiful too! we went out and got dinner and beer and headed back to our hotel for the night
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
vienna
alright so no uploading pictures because it turns out that the internet connection in my hotel in iceland is SUPER slow... but luckily i uploaded to picasa before i left stockholm this morning so there are little slideshow thingys at the bottom...
anyhow, i met carol, alexis and mia late friday night in vienna... our hotel was ok a bit outside of the city center but vienna is expensive so that was fine with all of us :) we were pretty good about getting up in the morning most days i think that we left our hotel at 9 at the latest quite a few days we left earlier :) our first stop was the hofburg to try and buy tickets for the lippanzaner horses, my dad lived in austria for a bit when he was growing up and gave me a list of must see things - the lippanzaner horses and the boys choir were obviously on that list. well the horses were the start of a series of complete fails on this trip - don't get me wrong we had a REALLY great time but a number of things that we specifically had been interested in seeing ended up being cancelled etc.
so we got to the hofburg the line for horse tickets was super long we get to the front and we are told that the horses are sick and will not be doing a performance but we can see them practice... so we went in and saw the practice which mostly involved horses walking around in a circle and not really doing too much interesting - but it was still packed as a result of the cancelled performance. the rest of the day we took a tour of the state opera house, walked through a crypt or two, and went to stephansdom... plus demels and a few other cute vienna stores, we also walked through a bunch of easter markets... the easter markets were amazing - so many beautiful painted blown eggs... we all wanted to buy them to bring home, but only alexis was brave enough, i knew with all my upcoming travels that they would be broken in no time... we ended the day with some great austrian wine and then ate dinner out in the square outside of the synagogue, during dinner we watched the kids play what seemed to be some austrian version of red rover - it was quite cute!
the second day we got up early again to go see the boys choir... however after waiting in line a bit again at the hofburg we were told that this was one of 2 sundays during their season (from sept to june) that they do not perform - UGH again! neither of our guide books mentioned this of course... anyhow, we hung out and waited for the hofburg to open and toured the imperial apartments, the silver collection, the treasury and the sissi museum... the austrians seem to looooooooooove sissi and franz joseph... we heard A LOT about them, including the fact that she was 5'10" 90lbs and ate only raw meat juice - GROSS... then we got giant sausages on the street and went to hotel sacher for sacher torte... another one of the things on my dad's list... the torte was definitely good but not quite what i was expecting... i was thinking it would be some SUPER chocolately thing, but it was more apricot-y... still very good and a fun experience...in the afternoon we went out to the summer palace and heard even more about sissi and franzy... they were pretty much our best friends at that point... afterwards we came back into the city and had some wine at another restaurant near the jewish museum, probably our favorite place of the whole trip, it was tiny and adorable and had great austrian wine
we finished off our last night in vienna with dinner at a diner - we tried a million other places but people there don't seem to eat terribly late and places were already sold out of food!
we got up early monday morning and headed to the train station for budapest...
anyhow, i met carol, alexis and mia late friday night in vienna... our hotel was ok a bit outside of the city center but vienna is expensive so that was fine with all of us :) we were pretty good about getting up in the morning most days i think that we left our hotel at 9 at the latest quite a few days we left earlier :) our first stop was the hofburg to try and buy tickets for the lippanzaner horses, my dad lived in austria for a bit when he was growing up and gave me a list of must see things - the lippanzaner horses and the boys choir were obviously on that list. well the horses were the start of a series of complete fails on this trip - don't get me wrong we had a REALLY great time but a number of things that we specifically had been interested in seeing ended up being cancelled etc.
so we got to the hofburg the line for horse tickets was super long we get to the front and we are told that the horses are sick and will not be doing a performance but we can see them practice... so we went in and saw the practice which mostly involved horses walking around in a circle and not really doing too much interesting - but it was still packed as a result of the cancelled performance. the rest of the day we took a tour of the state opera house, walked through a crypt or two, and went to stephansdom... plus demels and a few other cute vienna stores, we also walked through a bunch of easter markets... the easter markets were amazing - so many beautiful painted blown eggs... we all wanted to buy them to bring home, but only alexis was brave enough, i knew with all my upcoming travels that they would be broken in no time... we ended the day with some great austrian wine and then ate dinner out in the square outside of the synagogue, during dinner we watched the kids play what seemed to be some austrian version of red rover - it was quite cute!
the second day we got up early again to go see the boys choir... however after waiting in line a bit again at the hofburg we were told that this was one of 2 sundays during their season (from sept to june) that they do not perform - UGH again! neither of our guide books mentioned this of course... anyhow, we hung out and waited for the hofburg to open and toured the imperial apartments, the silver collection, the treasury and the sissi museum... the austrians seem to looooooooooove sissi and franz joseph... we heard A LOT about them, including the fact that she was 5'10" 90lbs and ate only raw meat juice - GROSS... then we got giant sausages on the street and went to hotel sacher for sacher torte... another one of the things on my dad's list... the torte was definitely good but not quite what i was expecting... i was thinking it would be some SUPER chocolately thing, but it was more apricot-y... still very good and a fun experience...in the afternoon we went out to the summer palace and heard even more about sissi and franzy... they were pretty much our best friends at that point... afterwards we came back into the city and had some wine at another restaurant near the jewish museum, probably our favorite place of the whole trip, it was tiny and adorable and had great austrian wine
we finished off our last night in vienna with dinner at a diner - we tried a million other places but people there don't seem to eat terribly late and places were already sold out of food!
we got up early monday morning and headed to the train station for budapest...
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