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st. nicholas day & hangin’ in nuremberg
from what i can recall from my travels around germany in 2007, nuremberg (nürnberg) had the king of christmas markets; topping many a list. not only is the setting gorgeous and the stalls seemingly unending, but they are famous for both their glühwein and their lebkuchen (gingerbread). i knew alex had to see this! i mean, germany is soooo close… and yet, so far. although it would take about one hour by car (or less) if one drove directly west of budějovice to get to eastern bavaria, the public transport connections usually straight up suck. even after twenty five years since the fall of the iron curtain, the infrastructure and…
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mein leipzig
i spent the first half of my birthday busing to leipzig via prague and dresden. i’m not sure at what point i thought that booking 5:40am bus tickets outta ČB was a good idea, but on the morning of my twenty-eighth birthday, it did not feel like one. (fortunately a pitstop at starbucks helped!) i’d never been to leipzig before but because alex and my mutual favorite band was playing there on my birthday night, so the plans were made for us! i quickly settled into our gorgeous flat in südvorstadt near connewitz, a neighborhood that i immediately took a great liking to. it felt strange to be somewhere so like…
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berlinale
going to the uber prestigious berlinale (berlin international film festival) has been one of those unattainable dreams of mine since about 2007. i mean, why would i ever be in germany in february? welp, when it’s only seven hours away by bus and alex has the week off for spring break, it seemed like the stars were aligning to make it happen. booking our visit over a month in advance had several advantages: the bus tickets were super cheap, a great hostel near potsdamer platz (festival headquarters) was quite vacant, and i had something to occupy my always-planning mind during long, cold january. berlinale is a generally pass-less festival, with…
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berlin valentine
berlin for berlinale and valentines’ week was a hell of a time. i was a little unsure about returning so soon after my all-too-short weekend getaway last summer somehow rubbed me a little bit in the wrong direction, but the city’s back on my good list now and it seems that valentines’ week was the perfect time to realize that it was just a rough patch we were going through. as i was being smothered by winter monotony here in south bohemia, five days in the hauptstadt was just the thing to refresh my spirits. although i was looking forward to seeing the city in it’s snowy winter glory, the…
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Passau Passt – An Autumn Bavaria Trip
we had a three day weekend thanks to czech national day! three day weekends are just made for trips. so we went to bavaria to a lovely little city on the SE german/austrian border called passau. passau is a small city in south-eastern bavaria (at approx 50,000 it has only half the population of ceske budejovice) and is only a four hour train ride away, with a change in linz, austria. (a great reminder of why living in europe is so wonderful and always exciting: getting anywhere in a short amount of time!) i wanted to go to passau because during my prior travels in germany (which are admittedly quite…
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It’s Not Me, It’s You: The Remnants of my Berlin Dream
i love berlin. everyone who knows me knows this. everyone who knows me and doesn’t know this, should. i first visited in 2006 on a whirlwind month backpacking central europe where it was by far my favorite stop on the trip, made even more fun by the fact that i knew some locals living there at the time (uw german department professors and affiliates) and they really pulled out all the stops to show me a good time. dinner parties, city tours, an evening at a crusty prenzlauer berg bar trying different flavors of berliner weisse– i loved it all. my friends there convinced me to take german language classes…
