OK, so I'm back, I hope... I know that to many of you, this resurrection of mein blog is an event of great rejoicing, but for still more of you, something that will not affect you in the slightest, my posts being merely a mild annoyance on your home-page thingy. I think either way, I win:).
The main reason for my almost year long hiatus from posting is that bane of every 16-18 year old Irish teenager's life, the Leaving Cert. You see, dear and faithful followers (most of you are in fact facing this nightmare this year, and I sympathise, sincerely *evil grin*), the Leaving Cert stripped my life of any and all free time and interesting happenings. For the best part of those nine months my mind was fixated on school 24/7, with short breaks taken for essential activities such as messing with facebook and watching Grey's Anatomy. In any case I rarely had anything remotely interesting to talk about, and anything I did find interesting was inextricably bound up with the leaving, which is not something I would want people to read, at least not from me.
In case you wanted to know, it went fine. I mean, I didn't really handle the stress very well(not that there was a whole lot of pressure on me), I just tended to ignore it (or throw the odd tantrum. I know, I'm like 5), which kind of backfired on me in the actual exams. But it all worked out in the end. I got my first choice, and was only 10 points off my (revised) ideal pointage.
In the interim period between the exams and the agonising few days before the results I amused myself with general summery things (not really, most of it was computer-based), i.e., travelling. That's right, I went on my first real holiday. And I mean REAL, none of your wasting your time sitting on a beach surrounded by other Irish people, eating chips and Chinese food kind of holiday. I mean a real embrace the culture, eat the food say "dankeschon" every so often holiday. And, I have to say, I LOVE Europe, like the real bit of Europe, not so much England, that's just like Ireland with meaner people, bigger roads and cities and crappy accents (no offence). But REAL Europe, now that's the place to be...
Our first stop was Salzburg, which must be noted as it is the home of The Sound Of
Music, and, yes, we did the tour (if you're wondering who "we" is, it's me, my brother and his partner). You should do it too, for the craic. It also has a pretty streets, an apple-inside-green river(???) a beer-hall (we didn't go there though — next time:)) a cool fort-thing on the mountain and Mozart's Geburtshaus (and his other house actually). It's somewhere I would honestly consider living. I also really liked the food.
Next was Vienna, which is just a really
pretty city, I think anyway. And it's so easy to get around, with like trams, the S-bahn(or something) and the U-bahn EVERYWHERE. Ich Liebe! Ummmm, places of interest include... the palace type place, Schonbrunn, it also has the zoo and gardens and other things of that nature... that Prater place - the amusement place, and the big tower with the lift that goes up to 6.2 metres per second, with the rotating restaurant on top. I liked that:). There's also lots of other culture-y things like Churches and whatnot.
Next, if you're still with me, was Budapest. I'm honestly in two minds about this place, probably mostly for the fact that it was raining when we got there. I found that there was an unsettling amount of homeless people on our route to the restaurant-y area. There was also a disregard for the architecture, which I did like, there was too much graffiti on nice buildings. These nice building were many, however, which pleased me. This was Pest... I preferred Buda, probably because we stuck to the tourist-y places, during daylight. Buda Castle and the Fisherman's Bastion(?) is REALLY pretty.
From there we took a night-train (which I'm not supposed to talk about) to Krakow, which was exciting:P, because the train-guy said something to the effect of "lock the door at night, because 'weird' things can happen in Czech Rep":P.
We got there in one piece anyway, and had to spend like 6 hours wandering around in yesterday's clothes until we could check in to the hotel. I LOVED Krakow. The old part of the city is so... I dunno, it's... pretty, and preserved fairly well, but it's also really alive. Market Square was our hub for the three days we spent there. Along with the, 70 ish, restaurants lining its edges, the church (I don't know the name), which has the most colourful interior I've ever seen and the coolest tradition (a fireman plays the trumpet out of the upper windows every hour, and sometimes waves down at all the people:)), the Cloth hall, which like an indoor market (it's really just souvenir stall now, buts it's still cool) and the Ratus(??) town hall, the square comes alive every night (in tourist season anyway) with carriage rides, markets, and buskers. i have to say, the fire-guys were very cool, or hot, and the group of dancers were really dedicated, dancing for, like, EVER:P. There's also Wawel(above), the castle or something… and the Cathedral, where all the kings are buried (including the only female King). Oh, and the Dragon's Den.
Aaagh there's way too much i wanna say and I've totally lost your interest soooo long ago...
I think the most important thing I did on holiday was go to Auschwitz. The fact that now, it's all clean and the people around you aren't emaciated, hurt and terrified, and that it's not way overcrowded, it's quite hard to truly comprehend the magnitude of what actually happened there. The most striking things were the room with the human hair, because there's a strange, kind of unpleasant smell in there, and the gas chamber. The sheer size of Birkenau is also quite remarkable. I was quite numb by whole experience, not that I didn't care or realise the evil of it, I just think my mind refused to think of it in terms of the human lives. I do DEFINITELY think that everyone should go there.
We also found Schindler's Factory. There wasn't really much there at the time, but they are setting up an exhibition there. We were able to read (a lot of) information about the beginning of the factory, and about what Schindler did to help the Jews. We were also on the stairs feature in the movie:). It was there that I bought "A Girl From Schindler's List", the memoirs of one of the young girls. It was good and gave a more human perspective on the Holocaust, I'd recommend it to anyone who isn't extremely sensitive to graphic content, because I think anyone who can handle it should read it.
To avoid ending on such a serious note I'll end with this: Krakow Zoo is pretty:) I also quite like some of the food... I can only remember one traditional dish I had, that was Zurek, which is this soup that ya lob some sausage, egg, and what ever else ya want really, into and which I'm determined to try and fail to make come winter:). I actually had it twice in one day, though that day felt longer since we were up since 6.
Anyway, I suppose I should end it there... I'm sorry I tend to get carried away with these things... I'll make the next one shorter:P
