What Kind Catholics Eat a Pork Knee on Good Friday?

The next leg of my Spring break, spent with Whitney and Emily from TU and Mike (Whitney's friend), started off in Praha (Prague), Czech Republic. I had been adament on making it to Eastern Europe, especially after spending a few months in my History of East European Jews class, and FINALLY I was there! Not knowing what to expect, our adventure started just after we got off the bus from Vienna (a breathtaking bus ride, during which Mike and I were enthralled by a Czech film...with English subtitles, of course), as finding your hostel as soon as entering a new country always is. This adventure was filled with attempting to make swimming hand motions to signal the Czech woman we came across that we were trying to find the direction to the river, to which she responded with a completely confused and helpless expression. She later indicated that we could "Glab glab glab" to a Taxi...ask a Taxi driver about the river because he would probably understand. Well, never you fear - we found the hostel, without having to glab glab and dish out money to a taxi driver.

We came across a wedding tradition - the bride and the groom each have a lock. They lock their individual locks together on a bridge (to symbolize their unity) and then throw both keys into the water.

You may not know it, but there's this wonderful little place called the John Lennon Wall. A popular tourist attraction, this wall is covered with visitors' additions and whatever they felt necessary to express, be it John's face, words of encouragement, speaking out against hate, etc. The colorful destination was definitely a highlight of our trip. Of course, I left my own addition to the wall. Unfortunately, all I had was a pen that stopped working halfway through the quote I was trying to add: "Say anything, but say what you mean," one of my favorite quotes from a band called Mae. I got as far as "say anything"...wonder what that will bring. Maybe stories of dragons saving princes from evil princesses. Or not.

Lunch was at a restaurant I would like to refer to as "the green room" - the green walls and tablecloth gave all pictures taken inside a green tint. Add to it the fact that I was wearing a green shirt...well, it was as though grass and trees were so glad to be alive and in springtime, that they threw up all over this restaurant. Seriously. It was awesome. As we contemplated what Czech food we wanted to eat, Catholics Whitney and Mike all of a sudden realized that it was a Lenten Friday...Good Friday for that matter, and they could not eat meat. As they had been ogling the various Czech pork dishes, their faces suddenly sunk with the realization. Trying and failing to come up with a legitimate way to rationalize the meat, Mike decided he would let fate, God, etc. decide by asking the waitress what she recommended. Were she to respond with some vegetarian entree, he would take it as a sign of "really, guys? Please." from God. Her response of "the pork knee is very Czech" gave Mike all the go-ahead he needed. Assuming a 'when in the Czech Republic' mindset, Whitney promptly seconded the pork knee order. And then the two Catholics massacred their meat on Good Friday.

The only redeeming quality of the Prague Castle was probably this Alfons Mucha stained glass window. As I hadn't been able to make it to the Mucha exhibit in Vienna yet, I was very happily surprised to find a stained glass such as this in the St. Vitus Cathedral. That happiness was probably about all that got me through the most boring audio guide I have ever tried to listen to - it was like one of those history classes that turns people off history for the rest of their lives. They really should think through letting boring people teach history; more people could be interested if they weren't turned off so at such an early age.

The good tourists we are, of course we went to go check out the Astronomical Clock, the oldest parts of which date back to 1410. The lower part, a calendar, wasn't added until around 1870. Let's be honest - I have no idea how to read this combination of times from a different scale, calendar, zodiacs, and moving figures. It's only slightly too much. Slightly. Right. I can't help but wonder if people actually understood what the top part was saying, in a time illiteracy was common. I can't imagine not being able to read, but understanding this seemingly (to my eyes, of course) ridiculous and random clock-thingy-do-wop. But who knows. Maybe it makes perfect sense.

Mussels, Raspberry Beer, and Comics

The next part of my Spring/Easter break was a quick trip with Sue to Brussels, Belgium. After our overly frantic rush to the airport in Rome, we took the plane ride to Brussels to calm our poor hearts. With RyanAir, there are no assigned seats, so Sue and I ended up separating our ways for the duration of the flight. I found myself seated next to a loud, boisterous man who couldn't stop complaining about everything - from the man who wouldn't sit down so we could take off, to the woman who couldn't figure out how to fit her suitcase in the overhead compartments. As obviously enthralled with that conversation, I quickly found my headphones and promptly went to sleep, not waking until the sudden jolt of landing which was interestingly enough followed by a round of applause by my fellow flyers. Not having ever thought this happened outside of the movies, I was left wondering what the flight had been like to award an applause at the landing. I didn't dwell too much on these thoughts as I tried to figure out how to find Sue. After reuniting, I was able to revel in the French that surrounded me everywhere (plus Dutch, but I didn't really care quite so much about that, let's be honest)!! I used that opportunity to do my best to remember what I could of French, speaking as much of it as I thought possible. Unfortunately words like "bitte," "danke," and "Gruss Gott!" came to me more quickly than their French equivalents of "s'il vous plait," "merci," and "Allo!" Seriously. It was very fun and challenging searching my memory for the correct words, though.

As Brussels is renown for its comics, we decided (the instant we heard about it) to hit up the comic museum (Centre Belge de la Bande dessinée). Oh. My. Gosh. Soooo freaking cool! A breakdown of the steps to making a comic strip, original artwork, and exhibits on various famous Belgian comic artists filled our visit. A museum for the whole family, you could easily find really cool things like the Smurfs (did you know they were Belgian?!!!):

Tintin and Astérix (wonderful memories from my high school French days) were also found in the museum. I was thrilled for obvious reasons.

After the museum, we decided to walk around, but (obviously) in the direction of food. The street that finally captured our attention:

Lined with restaurants on both sides, we were glad that we already had planned a destination that we had heard had good food at a reasonable price. Otherwise, the indecisiveness of Sue and I might have left us wandering the streets until our stomachs finally forced us to make a decision on the matter. We wouldn't want that, now would we!? The stereotypical Belgian dish is moules et frites (mussels and fries). While I'm always up for experiencing culture through food, I was a little antsy about whether I would like mussels enough to eat an entire bucket of them. Going a slightly more conservative route, I ordered the seafood pasta, which still had the necessary moules for my convenience:

Mmmmmmmm! I was very much a fan of this meal! Washing it down with a framboise - raspberry beer, another specialty of Belgium left me in a state of pure contentment.

I must say - Belgium is a slightly odd place, in the best way possible. 'Why?' you may ask. Well, the things they are known for (moules et frites, beer, chocolate, art nouveau, and a hub for the UN: 

)are only a slightly bizarre combination. Where else could you go chocolate store hopping, sampling for free the specialties of each store? Where else can you find random comics on the sides of buildings:

Well hello there, Tintin!

But seriously, a very fun a quick trip. For a pictoral telling of my Brussels trip, click here.

I Rome from Town to Town

...I go through life without a care - The Wanderer

To start off our week-long Spring break (or Easter break - Osternferien), we thought what better place than Rome? Saturday night, we walked around the neighborhood of our hostel and ended up finding this nice little cafe that we decided to try. This ended up being the best food of the entire time in Rome! Not only was the food delicious, but our charismatic waiter spoke fluent Italian, English, German, and French. We were only mildly impressed. Right. As one who speaks some of 3 of the 4 languages, I just sat in awe while for the most part understanding what he was saying. I want to be like that. So cool, seriously. And Italian, too? Wonderful.

The only protestant in a group of Catholics, I saw the more Catholic side of Rome during our short few days there. Not that I'm complaining or anything. Not at all. Palm Sunday, we were able to score tickets to Palm Sunday Mass at St. Peter's, with none other than the pope presiding! Pretty cool, even for us non-Catholics. The square was absolutely packed! Luckily, we thought ahead and got there early (especially good since I mysteriously lost my ticket to the event...something I was ready to take as a sign that I shouldn't be an in cognito protestant at this event. Okay enough Catholic/Protestant comparisons), and therefore got seats "fairly close" - we got a seat, which is more than I can say for about 70% of the people there. But seriously, I've never seen so many Catholics in my life:

Mass ended up being fairly cool and interesting, albeit 3 hours long. As I was already sleep-deprived and didn't understand most of what was being said...AND literally the ENTIRE GOSPEL was sung, I fell asleep. Whoops! I tried not to, I promise. But the entire gospel sung in one church service? Please. I grew up Episcopalian, a church in which people will start very obviously start checking their watches when they think the service is going too long. Only slightly different.

After mass finally ended, we made our way to a) stop and get some YUMMY pizza, and b) to be more touristy! Hitting up the Colosseum, we couldn't help but get in the mood for fighting:

Afterwards we visited the Roman Forum, where we had the best tour guide I've ever encountered, Paul. He really made the history come alive for us as he led us around. He entertained us so much, we were very tempted to take a tour he was doing that night, but thought better of it as our stomachs made their presence and the fact that we hadn't eaten in a long time very evident. We also wanted to catch a few more sites and were second-guessing our abilities to go on a third tour of the day. I know I'm not much of a tour person, so even though we had one really good one, I wouldn't have enjoyed another one quite as much.

The next day we got up super early to climb to the top of St. Peter's Basilica before Mike, Ellen, and Whitney had to head to the airport for their flights back to Vienna (Sue and I were staying another day). 501 steps later, we had:

-passed the first stop towards the top which gave us an inside view of the Basilica

-conquered staircases that began to curve vertically, causing us to walk slanted

-reached the top of where we could climb

-been given beautiful panoramic views of the city:

Naturally, we also saw the inside of the Basilica. It was only slightly RIDICULOUS! If you were to look at a picture of the inside, you would never guess how high the walls go or how big it is in general, unless you were to compare that to the size of the people inside. Looking like ants engulfed by the walls and gates that extended up all the way we had just climbed, we were awestruck by the beauty and grandeur.

After the others left, Sue and I ventured out in search for an authentic and cheap cafe from which to buy lunch. Finally we succeeded - English (for the first time since we arrived in Rome) was nowhere to be heard in this cafe. The guy we ordered our food (with the pointing system that works for all languages) didn't speak a lick of English. We knew we were in for a treat, an idea that was confirmed the moment we put the food in our mouths. The bread literally melted in my mouth as the cheese and meat provided the perfect compliment. Adding a few cups of strong Italian coffee made the meal perfect and just what I needed to get through the rest of the day after less than adequate sleep for the previous few nights.

A trip to the Vatican museum left me with just one word: wow. Not the biggest fan of the Sistine Chapel - overrated and too busy in my opinion - I was consistently amazed by all the rest of the artwork, from that on the ceilings and walls:

to the tapestries, the elaborate floors, the newer art exhibit, and more. I took a lot of pictures there. Feel free to look at as many or as few as you desire. If you're not the biggest fan of art, I would suggest skipping about 100 of the pictures, which are pretty much all from the exhibit. I told you I was impressed.

The next morning after a lot of crazy running around to try to find our way to the airport, a venture made mildly more complicated by the vague Italian directions and the lack of any signs pointing us in the right direction, we finally grabbed a cab and made it to the airport with 5 minutes to spare before check-in for our flight closed, and about 10 minutes before boarding began. With a sigh of relief as we got in line to board, we pushed out of our minds the ponderings on what to do if stranded in Rome.

Elizabeth in Österreich

Just in case I was already missing her after seeing her only 4 days before in Dublin, one of the loves of my life, Elizabeth (my roommate freshman  year and my to-be roommate next year) came to visit me in Vienna! We did all of the wonderfully touristy things such as visit the gardens of Shönbrun, the Hofburg palace, the Naschtmarkt. As Saturday was the nicest day we had seen as of yet in Wien, we all enjoyed just walking around all day while showing Elizabeth all around Wien. What should we find while walking the Ringstrasse but a protest in full-swing, complete with live music! It was the most peaceful protest I've ever heard of. Maybe I should describe how the Austrians do protesting - drinking Ottakringer all day while listening to live bands perform in honor of the protest's subject. This one was against the economic decline. And here I thought we all liked it when the economy wasn't doing well. Guess I better re-think that thought process. Ah well. Better luck next time, eh?

Given the extent of our Saturday (followed by a night on the town Austrian style, of course!), we were all too willing to accept the bad weather Sunday and gave in to the idea of a slow day spent inside. That's not to say that we didn't do anything, oh no! We had cuddle time watching a few episodes of The Office:

Elizabeth, Whitney, and Sue all cuddled on my bed ready for The Office time!

We also made a fully Austrian dinner including (but not limited to) Wienerschnitzel and Knödel. YUMMM!

This is Ire Land

A trip to Dublin with friends Elizabeth and Blake from TU was the rest of my Midterm break. Naturally right after dropping our stuff off at the hostel (although it was about 2am) we headed out to find ourselves a nice glass of Guinness to commemorate our arrival. Day 2 was super-tourist day. Among the many things we saw was the Christ Church Cathedral.

I was obviously ridiculously excited to finally see an Episcopalian church! My companions just laughed a little to themselves as I walked around completely happy to finally be in a non-Catholic church. Not that I have anything against my Catholic friends at all - but as a protestant kid, I do get a bit more excited at finding the Episcopal Churches and Churches of Ireland. It was a nice complete change in things.

We also stopped at the Jameson Distillery. I highly advise it. If I had to pick from the Jameson Distillery and the Guinness Storehouse (THE most visited site in all of Ireland), I would choose Jameson. I had heard that at the beginning if you volunteered, you got more whiskey. Naturally, I raised my hand when the tour guide asked for volunteers. As a result, I was one of the "official whiskey tasters" for the group. In the center representing Texas, I tasted and compared Jack Daniels (distilled once), a Johnny Walker scotch (distilled twice), and a Jameson whisky (distilled thrice!). I actually preferred the Jameson. Blake had to help me finish my samples of whisky; I just couldn't drink the Jack after the other two.

Proudly showing my certification as a whiskey taster and my measure of Jameson. Oh Ireland. I love you.

Saturday we went on a day trip to the Wicklow Mountains. The Irish countryside was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Granted it was a bit hazy and nothing was the vibrant colors it promised to be only weeks later, but we were still in awe. Words really fail when it comes to scenery, so I'll leave you with this picture and tell you to just check out the other pictures here.

Why is study abroad so wonderful? You can meet up with a group of friends from TU in Dublin for a night out. It also helps when people like Tyrel are randomly in the vicinity and can thus join in on the festivities. :D

The TU group in Dublin

Kyle, Tyrel, Blake, Elizabeth, me, and Jill

More Ireland pictures

Scottish Dreams

To start my Mid-Term break, I bolted to the airport after finishing my last midterm Wednesday morning. When I entered London for my transfer to another flight on to Edinburgh, I was completely confused by all the English around me. After so much time being surrounded by German and pretty much only  German, English with a British accent sounded more foreign to me. When trying to figure out which line I needed to get in, a woman who worked there asked me a question. After a second of complete lack of understanding, it finally clicked. She's speaking English. She asked my destination. I know the answer to this question. "Edinburgh" I butchered as she corrected my pronunciation with a "Oh. Edinborough." 'Well fine but why didn't they just spell it like that in the first place?' thought my confused and embarrassed mind. I only spent a grand total of about 10 minutes in Edinburgh before heading on a train to meet my friend in Stirling. Literally almost after she met me at the train station we went in true Scottish fashion to a local pub, where live celtic music was being performed. Welcome to Scotland.

The next morning Blake greeted me with my very own Hot Cross Buns! I must be in the UK or something. If only I remembered that old quip.

As is to be expected in pretty much every city worldwide, there were street performers. What WASN'T quite as expected was that street performers in Scotland includes men clad in kilts. Obviously there was a guy playing the bagpipes. What else was I actually expecting? Oh right - that my silly ideas of Scotland MUST be wrong. Think again. Kilts - check. Bagpipes on the street - check. Perfect.

More Scotland Pictures

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

Just some favorite highlights from when the parents and Troy visited my lovely country of Austria!

1. A trip to Salzburg with the parents.

2. The Sound of Music Tour - let me set the scene just a little bit for you. My parents and I all REALLY like The Sound of Music. Our tour guide was a little British woman who insisted on playing EVERY song from the soundtrack...and singing along. About 3 songs in, the McKinnon trio in the back of the 12-passenger van were the only ones to join in (naturally). The bus ride included stops so we could walk out and see the back of the von Trapp house from the movie...

and the cathedral in Mondsee where Maria walked down the aisle to "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria" for her wedding:

We were only partially convinced that that tour was pretty much designed for us. Seriously. Perfect.

3. Showing my parents the ropes in ordering strictly Austrian specialties such as Wiener Schnitzel, Ottakringer beer (actually pretty much ALL of the beers are dee-lish), and Apfelstrudel mit Vanillesauce:

4. The Augustinerbrau. Found at the bottom of the St. Augustine Church in Salzburg, this brewery offers fresh beer. It has an ideal setup: after picking a big stein of your choosing from the wall of steins (1 Liter, that is), you rinse your stein in a provided fountain then head over to the cashier. There you ask for "zwei grosses Bier, bitte" (2 big beers, please - Dad, now you can say it in German in addition to Spanish!) and then head just to the right where a little old man fills your large ceramic stein from a keg with ice cold, frothy, light, fresh beer. Please note: "light" beer in Austria does not mean the same as in the States, seeing as regular beer here is usually 5-6% apv. My dad and I were pretty much like kids in a candy shop in that place. It was wonderful. After grabbing your newly filled yummy beer, you head into one of the various rooms stemming off from the filling station. Each room is pretty much a quintessential German/Austrian beer hall with their long wooden tables filled with people of all sorts - from the big group of drunken middle-aged Austrians speaking loud German, to groups of tourist families with their little kids and babies.

5. Seeing my brother perform with his college choir for the first time...in a church in Vienna about a block from the Hofburg Palace.

6. Going out with Troy and some of his choir friends and showing them a bit of the nightlife in Vienna. All in all, wonderful week with the McKinnon clan.

Extreme Post Week Extravaganza

You're invited!

What: Extreme Post Week Extravaganza (catching up on the past month)

When: Installments every day!

Where: Right here

RSVP unnecessary!