Chicken Fried

“You know I like my chicken fried, cold beer on a Friday night, a pair of jeans that fit just right, and the radio on. Well, I was raised up beneath the shade of a [Texan] pine, and that’s home you know – sweet tea, pecan pie, and homemade wine, where the peaches grow. My house, it’s not much to talk about, but it’s filled with love and grown in Southern ground…”
-Chicken Fried, Zac Brown Band

Truth be told, I’m a Southern girl at heart. I was raised in the South, my kids will come to love the South someday, even if they never live there, and one of these days, I’ll be buried underneath that big open Texas sky.

That being said, I want to live in Europe for a little while. Long enough to really get a grasp on the culture and fit myself into it, to establish lasting friendships so whenever I visit I have a place to stay and friends to catch up with.

I know this is all very random, but I’m thinking about this because, honestly, only I could attract every Texan visiting the same countries as us everywhere we go. Sitting in the hotel lobby last night, trying desperately to get internet so my mom could tell the people she works with that no, she can’t make some meeting because she’s in freaking Germany, and a guy wearing a UT ring sat down next to me and said hi. We struck up a conversation, making jokes about each other’s respective schools and discussing what had brought him to Munich – apparently he just graduated from the UT business school and was celebrating by traveling between Switzerland, Germany, and Italy for a month. Alone. How incredibly bad ass is that?

[I’m sorry, but I have to interrupt my own story here to say that I just told my mom I was hungry and her response was “Here, have this,” and passed me a bottle of vitamins. Cool, thanks.]

Anyways, Dallas' story made me realize that I want to do nothing more than travel around alone at least once. I want to see places and do things on my own time, meet new people and be forced to speak and learn other languages. Maybe after college or during a summer? We’ll see.

Discovered: Why it’s called “backpacking.”

Traveling through Europe by train is supposed to be super classic, right? You haven’t experienced Europe properly until you’ve traveled by train, yes? I agree, absolutely, entirely, without any doubts. If you’re ever in Europe you absolutely must take a train for at least an hour. But let me let you in on a little secret: it’s called “backpacking across Europe,” not “dragging your suitcase across Europe” for a good reason.

We started our day on the one pm train to Schwandorf, where we would get off and connect to another train going to Munich. We each had a suitcase (and not exactly small ones, mind you) and a purse to drag along in a five-minute connection in a country where we didn’t know the language. We knew from the get-go that this was going to be an interesting part of our day. However, two stops before Schwandorf, at Furth im Wald, the train came to a stop and over the intercom came a voice that said the same short sentence in about three languages before finally making it to English – “everyone off the train.”

Not the only confused people getting off the train, we looked around us for an explanation but saw only a few houses and the platform we were on, surrounded entirely by field and trees, holding. This was getting more interesting. Finally though, one of the train directors took pity on all of us poor non-German/Czech speakers and said something along the lines of “We can’t take you all the way, there’s a train coming to take you to Munich.”

Slightly more apprehensive, we boarded another train, dragging our bulky suitcases up the tiny little stairs behind us and shoving them into a small little compartment with a nice lady from Mexico City who attempted to teach a few of the German words she’d picked up in the six months she’d been living there – “danka” (“thank you”) is the only one I remember. Two stops later, we attempted to get back off the train, but the door we went to was stuck and we couldn’t open it, so we had to turn our suitcases around and run back down the tiny corridor, our suitcases getting momentarily stuck behind us as we ran, causing our shoulder joints a fair amount of pain as they were almost entirely jerked out of socket. We all but threw our suitcases out of the train, looking at the empty platform and wondering where in the hell our train was. The random switchover in Furth im Wald had caused a bit of a delay and we had about one minute to make our connecting train. Panic began to course through my system as the idea of being stuck in some random little town for the rest of the night played through my head.

After what seemed like an eternity (but was probably only a second or two) a nice guy on the platform made eye contact with me and in a heavy German accent said, “Munich?” I’m not sure if I said words or just nodded, but he quickly said “Platform Five,” and off we ran, down a flight of stairs, down a hallway, up another flight of stairs, onto a platform and threw our suitcases into a non-descript train right before the doors closed and it pulled away (yes, I did shout “danka” back to the man, don’t worry!). Relieved, we started hunting for our last compartment to hide in before arriving in Munich. We found one with only a friendly old man occupying it and dragged our suitcases in before we realized we were being confronted with a problem: there was really no rack area where we could stow away our suitcases. There was a small rack where maybe you could place a long thin backpack (or a really fabulous big purse) but our suitcases were never going to fit. And even if they did fit, the rack didn’t really promise to support their weight. We finally just piled them all onto the spare seat in the compartment, apologized to the man for disturbing his peace (though I doubt he understood what we were saying), and settled in for some more sitting. As I type this, we’re pulling from the stop for Neufahrn (Neiderbay?), my feet are resting up on the suitcases my mom, Mandy and Mahdis are sleeping and I’m pretty sure I’ll pass out soon. Two more stops until Munich, that’s enough time for a nap, right? I need to get my strength up before I mess with these suitcases again.

You know what the best part is? We get to do all this again on Thursday. I wish we had backpacks.

Prague it up, baby!

June 20, 2009
Today, we arrived in Prague at about seven pm after a nine-hour flight to London, a four-hour layover, and another two-hour flight. My first impression of the country is one of beauty: I’ve already taken dozens of pictures since getting here and I can’t wait to take more. If only I’d gotten the Canon Rebel XSi before coming. :[ But my little Sony CyberShot will get the job done. And I will have the Rebel XSi in time for Buenos Aires for New Year’s Eve.

We stumbled across a little pub near the hostel where we’re staying and ate there around nine pm. The owner (we assume) looked surprised that American tourists had stumbled across his little place but served us great food and beer that we happily inhaled after so much less-than-delicious plane food. We paid in Czech crowns and called it a night. (A picture of the pub is below.)

June 21, 2009
So, apparently today is really the only full day we’re spending in Prague. But, what a full day it was.

After leaving the hotel at nine, the whole day was just go, go, go. We walked to the main squares in Prague, shopping as we saw shops that interested us (I got a quite fabulous bracelet, boots that should have been $200, but I only paid $45, and a scarf), going to open air markets that sold the freshest fruit and best candy I’ve ever had in my life (pictured left), talking with random locals and attempting to learn a few basic words in Czech, taking too many pictures on random benches and in front of random fountains (that's Mandy being very excited about Prague to the right), and finally making it to the main tourist attractions by around two.

We walked by the famous Astronomical Clock, getting very lost on the way there (but finding cute little churches and cafes during that time), ate a late lunch on the river, crossed the Charles Bridge (or Karluv rnost, pictured right and below) to St. Nicholas Church and Prague Castle. We didn’t go to the Frankz Kafka museum, which would have been cool, but the Castle (and the palaces surrounding it) amused us for too long. We didn’t get to go inside, but the courtyard was absolutely stunning – the private chapel and all the fences were gilded with gold, enormous statues were everywhere, and non-smiling guards were standing solemnly by. In fact, we tried to make them laugh, and someone succeeded, but I’m ashamed to say it wasn’t me. After seeing the castle and taking more pictures than will ever make it onto Flickr, Facebook, and this blog combined, we started wandering around, stopping at a Starbucks to listen to people speaking in dozens of different languages, going in search of a little bar I had spotted on the way that was serving free drinks if you were cheering for the right team during the football (soccer) match (Brazil v. Italy) but never finding it. Instead, we stumbled across a Hard Rock Café, which was extremely exciting. We went in and got a few drinks and hung out with out waiter, who was a cool blond Czech boy named Honsek (pronounced: On-seek), who encouraged me to try a Sex on the Beach, despite my misgivings about peach schnapps. The drink ended up making it onto my list of Top 5 Favorite Drinks. After that, we grabbed some pizza at a nearby restaurant (we wanted local food, not American food) and by the time we got finished there, it was past eleven and we started the thirty-minute walk back to the hotel.

All in all, it was a pretty great day; we’ve kept our phones off and avoided TV as much as possible, but one thing we’ve still been paying attention to is the whole mess in Iran because the two women traveling with my mom and I are actually Iranian. In fact, I just watched the video clip of Neda’s death (graphic – don’t watch if you have a weak stomach) on CNN and I’m realizing how out of control this whole situation is. Moussavi is preparing to become a martyr and encouraging his protestors to not lose their temper yet (supposedly – no one is sure since international media is barely allowed to report anymore and all our information comes from social networking sites) thousands are dying in Iran every day. I wish there was an easy solution to this whole situation, but there never is. There’s never an easy solution for anything. (Photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/son_of_persia/3652037011/ )

Anticipating!

First and foremost, I apologize for taking so long to update!

I leave for Prague in roughly seven hours. After a few days there, I'm taking a train to Munich, which is also going to be awesome. I recently mentioned that my mom is letting me plan the Munich part of our trip, and I've finally made my decisions:

1. St.Nepomuk's (also called Asamkirche) -- a rococo style church. (Pictured.)
2. The New Residenz palace of the Bavarian rulers -- 130 rooms open to the public & the royal jewels on display.
3. Nymphenburg Palace -- the summer residence of the Bavarian rulers.
4. St. Peter's Church -- the oldest church in Munich. It has the best view of the city.
5. Alte Pinakothek -- a museum full of the Old Masters: Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael, Da Vinci, etc. :]
6. The Glockenspiel -- 32 little mechanical figurines re-enact some of Munich's history.

There are other museums to go to -- The BMW museum, a modern art museum -- and palaces to see, so I'm sure there will be some of that too. What we're doing in Prague is going to be a surprise for me though! I'll try to update throughout the trip -- pictures, posting, etc. Hopefully! I've got to go finish packing though. Have a wonderful week, all of you!

Why Verizon sucks & Mary Kay is awesome

First things first, in my last post I mentioned that I hoped that reformist Moussavi would win Iran's presidential election, but it's been announced that Ahmadinejad has been re-elected, despite the fact that the vote count is still highly disputed. He's planning his victory parade and refusing to guarantee Moussavi's safety.

As far as life goes -- my family might just kill Verizon Fios. See, on Wednesday, we lost internet. We thought it was because of a big storm that rolled through the area, so we didn't complain too much, but did ask them to get it up and running. They said they would soon, probably within the next few hours; one day at the most. Two days passed. Still no internet. So on Friday, my mom and I started making some phone calls, trying to figure out why we had no internet still and finally, after getting hung up on four times, repeating our problem to five different people, and being told "Oh, our computers show that internet is up in your area," five times, we were finally told "Oh, you don't have internet on your plan."

Excuse me? Yes, we do. We've had it for over a year now.

There was much yelling involved from both my mother and I and finally the (admittedly poor) guy on the phone finally said that he could get our internet up and running soon, but would have to switch us to billing. In the transfer to the billing department, we were hung up on.

Saturday. We'd had a dinner party to go to Friday night that we were already late to by the time we were told we didn't have internet, so further calls had to wait until Saturday morning, when my father could ge involved. While I think my mom and I were doing a pretty decent job, he's a much more intimidating person, even over the phone. However, the same basic thing starts happening to him -- during four hours, he was hung up on three times, talked to numerous people, then finally started demanding to talk to a supervisor because, let's face it, this is getting ridiculous. Now, my father is not a yeller. In fact, he's kind of the quiet angry man that just stares at you when he's pissed and you know without being told that you want to get the hell out of that room. But, on the phone with Verizon, he was treading that thing line between 'speaking loudly' and yelling. Why? Because someong finally admitted that all the previous people we'd talked to had lied to us.

Ummm, what?

Now, we never really figured out exactly what we were lied to about because after we figured that one out, we were hung up on again. But when my dad finally got to talk to a supevisor -- I was scared. I'd never seen him that angry. But it worked -- by 4 yesterday afternoon, we finally had internet again. I think they owe us like six months free, but we're still trying to get them to get our Verizon emails working (because they disabled those and won't give them back) so that hasn't even come up in discussions yet. We'll see how that goes.

The only other real thing going on is that I had my Mary Kay Grand Opening party yesterday. It went really well! I sold almost a thousand dollars in product and everyone had a lot of fun. I have to order a few things because we actually sold out of a few things people wanted, so I'm about to start working on that. I'm really excited!