Our day in Munich (By: Jacob)

When we were in Germany, we stayed at my mom's friend's house, right outside Munich. My mom's friend, Tara has four children (all boys) so we were excited to finally be able to hang out with kids, especially Luke and me. On the weekend, we went to a beer garden, which was awesome and then on Sunday, we climbed a mountain called Blomberg. 

We played with the kids on the weekend and then on Monday, when the kids were in school we got to spend our first day inside Munich.

The first place we went to was a plaza with the famous Glockenspiel. I didn't enjoy the Glockenspiel performance, because  I thought it was boring and my neck really hurt after tilting my head up for 10 to 15 min. 

The next place we went to was the FC Bayern Munich Stadium, called Allianz Arena.  Bayern Munich is one of my favorite soccer teams so I was really excited. At the stadium, we were lucky enough to take a tour. I really enjoyed the tour because we got to go to see all these places that I would never be able to see if I went to a game. On the tour we got to see the the field and learn a little history. 

My favorite part was seeing the locker rooms and the place where the broadcasters from each country sit and report about the game. I still wish we were able to get on the field, but we couldn't because they were cleaning up after the weekend's matches.

We went to the FCBM museum and learned even more about the history. Finally before we left, we went through an awesome room called the GIFT SHOP. I got a hat and scarf.  

Finally the last places we went to were the BMW Welt and the Olympic Park. At the BMW Welt there were a bunch of different BMWs, Mini Coopers, and Rolls Royces that you could get in.  There were also some games we could play.  Maggie, Luke and I spent hours playing the games. My favorite car was the one that might be on the road in 10 years, called the BMW i8Concept, because the outside of the car had really cool designs, and it was an electronic car (like a Tesla).

Finally, the last place we went to was the Olympic Park. At the park, there was not a lot to see and do because the stadium was closed, but we did get to see the pool where Mark Spitz earned 7 gold medals.  I spent our ride home deciding if it was my best day on the trip, or up there in the top three.  I think it's top three. 

Prague (Luke)

  Although our itinerary has been changed and altered, one of the cities we had on our agenda from day 1 was Prague. Our first impression of Prague was great, the architecture we saw when we were driving in was just outstanding as we crossed over the Vltava River.

Plus, Kathy Shield, a family friend from back home who was studying in Prague, would be a great tour guide for the city.

   On our first day, we visited the Jewish Quarter. First we went to the Klausen Synagogue which was small and had two floors and was pretty. Then we visited the Pinkus Synagogue which had two floors of names covering the walls. These names were the 80,000 Jews living in Prague that died in the Holocaust. It was really sad.

Then we went into the Jewish Cemetery which from above looked like a Jewish cemetery a little overcrowded with 12,000 graves above ground. However, underground there are about 12 layers of bodies we could not see, making the cemetery have a total of around 100,000 people! The oldest gravestone is of a man named Avigdor Kara who died in 1439!

   The next day we took the metro to see Kathy. One of the neat things about the metro is that it’s really deep underground. It is so far underground that when we took the escalator up, our ears hurt due to the elevation change. One of the metro stops in Prague has the longest escalator in Europe! We met Kathy and then walked along the Charles Bridge with her. We saw a water wheel and next to it an ugly gnome. Then Kathy showed us the John Lennon Wall.

There was so much writing on it. Some of the writing was about John Lennon but most of the things written on the wall were just graffiti or designs that people wanted to draw for fun. The wall served a purpose during Communism, where the people of Prague would express their desires for peace in private, so they wouldn't be caught. The wall is hard to find, for that reason.

   Kathy then showed us three sculptures by a well known sculptor in Prague who is a bit crazy named David Cerny. The statues were just three regular babies, from behind, in a crawling position. Then we saw their faces. The faces instead of eyes, a nose, and a mouth had a bar code. But, it did not look like a bar code due to how it is sunken into their faces.

Then, Kathy took us to an Easter market where we had a new food called Trdelnik. It is dough wrapped around a stick, that is then heated up and sprinkled with sugar and little pieces of walnut. We walked to a park with a big hill and climbed up. We finally got to the top of the park where we could see almost all of Prague.

   The next day we visited the Prague Castle and Cathedral. The Cathedral was big and reminded me of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice except without the golden tiles everywhere. We also got to see a museum with all sorts of weaponry. For about 3 dollars, there was a little station where I got to shoot 3 arrows from a crossbow. I missed the target all three times. It was a lot harder to shoot with a crossbow than a regular bow.

   We also went to a concentration camp/ghetto called Terezin. It was really sad. Around 150,000 Jews were sent there during the holocaust, and about 33,000 of them died - not from being killed like in the extermination camps, but from the horrible living conditions there. Most people there were shipped off to camps like Auschwitz. The conditions there were awful. Around 300 people had to stay in the same room with only a hole for a toilet and a little bit of water with a tiny portion of food, if any. Terezin was also used as a place for propaganda films by the Nazi Party. They showed films of the Jews, playing soccer and basketball, eating and drinking by a pool, swimming, having fun. At the end of the film-making, almost all of the people in the propaganda films were sent to Auschwitz. We went to one room in the museum where it listed all of the kid’s names who died in the Holocaust from Czechoslovakia. The names covered the room’s walls. It was a sad day, but we learned a lot, too.

   The next day we spent with Kathy. The first thing we did with Kathy was go to Old Town Square where we got a few treats. We saw the big astronomical clock that was really complicated. Then we walked all over Prague admiring it’s cool architecture. Kathy told us a story about a church we were close to. 

During World War II, the Czech Republic was under German rule and there was a Czech resistance group trying to fight them. After planning and preparing for six months, two parachutists bombed the third highest ranked official in the war, Reinhard Heydrich. They could accomplish this feat because Heydrich had a convertible car drive him to work every morning in Prague so they dropped a little grenade in his car. Seven people were involved in planning the attack, but one of the men told the Nazis where the other six were after the attack, and the Nazis, mad that Heydrich (who was the #3 man in the Nazi Party) had died, flooded the church the six resistance group members were hiding in, and they all died. That was how Heydrich got assassinated in Prague. Then after her story ended we were at the church and even today you can still see the bullet holes in the church that the Nazi’s used to try and kill the assassins.

   Our last day in Prague, we went up to the top of the Radio Tower by our house. We pointed out all of the places we went and those that wished we had visited. The weird thing about this radio tower is there are more of David Cerny's babies that look like they are climbing the tower. It was so creepy.

I loved Prague so much. I liked the Cathedral and Castle, I liked it’s crazy architecture. If you get the chance to go to Europe, you have to go to Prague.

Our Seder in Budapest, Hungary (by Maggie)

Since my family and I were in Budapest, Hungary during Passover (one of the Jewish holidays), we decided to celebrate it at a community center with a lot of Hungarians and some other Americans who were on vacation there. We came into the Seder thinking the rabbi would speak the Seder mostly in English. The beginning of the 4 1/2 hour Seder started - in Hungarian! They continued in Hungarian for around 5 minutes, then they started speaking in English - for 20 seconds! We all thought maybe they were just doing a longer greeting in Hungarian because there were more Hungarian-speaking people than English-speaking people, but it turns out, that is how the whole Seder was.
Eventually, an hour went by and my dad said, "you guys can have a few minute break." We were very relieved that we got to have a few minutes off.  Luke and I sat a table and spoke in ENGLISH!

The most fun part of the Seder soon came where we got to fight with scallions! This hasn't happened at our Seders at home, but apparently it is a tradition at this Hungarian Seder.  I don't know why they fought with scallions, because I couldn't understand the explanation in Hungarian.  We got to hold up our scallions that were on each plate, but since Luke didn't have one, he held up his spoon. We could not believe how funny it was that Luke held up his spoon, so we giggled.  We got to hit each other with the scallions which was really fun. I totally won the scallion fight - both of my brothers lost.

After another hour or two, we finally got to eat our matzah! We ate it sooo quickly because it was so good and we were starving!  

We soon got the real part of the dinner which was duck and french fries. If you know me, I'm not such a good eater. I was not so happy with the duck part of the meal.

My other favorite part of the Seder that we do at home too, is finding the afikomen which is a piece of matzah that adults hide and kids try to find.  Jacob found the afikomen first, so he got a chocolate bar that was bigger than ours.

Next, Jacob and I got to hand out matzo to everyone at the seder which was really fun.  I did not speak Hungarian like most of the people at the Seder, so when I passed out the matzah, I would stick the matzah next to them and hope that they grabbed a piece.

The Hungarian seder was very fun and very long.  It was also fun because we got to talk to other Americans who had also just been in Prague, where we had just traveled, too.  It was nice to have other people to talk to.  We will never forget the Seder because it was so different from the Seder that we have at home.

My 10 Favorite Foods on This Trip (By: Maggie)

10) Falafels in the Old City in Jerusalem. My mom likes the ones with all the sauces, but my Dad and I liked the ones that were a little more dry!

9) Chicken Rotti in a small cafe in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Rotti is like a quesadilla with spicy chicken inside of it. It was really cheap, so we ate it a lot!

8) The Chicken with Lemongrass that my brother and I made in a cooking class in Lovina, Bali. We made 5 different dishes, but this one was better than the others.

7) Soup Dumplings at Din Tai Fung in Shanghai, China. At Din a Fung we met up with a friend of my moms from high school. His family knew what was the best to order at that restaurant. It was the soup dumplings. Luke and my parents liked a cheap restaurant called Yang's better. I think they are crazy that they did not like Din Tai Fung better. They thought I was crazy that I liked Din Tai Fung better.

This isn't actually from Din Tae Fung - but these are Soup Dumplings!

6) Patatas Braves in a really loud restaurant in Madrid, Spain. Patatas Braves is potatoes with a sauce that is a little spicy and surprisingly good.

5) Clay Pot in a warmmmmmm restaurant in Cappadocia,Turkey. The clay pot is very different food then most food. The reason it is so different is because they use a sword to cut of the top of the pot and there is meat inside the pot.

4) Pizza in a hole in the wall in Florence, Italy. The pizza place we went to was so busy and so small that there were only 4 seats inside, so we had to sit outside while it was drizzling.

3) Beef Luc Lac at a rooftop restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam. I think the beef luc lac is the only kind of meat I really like so every one in my family was shocked.

2) Gelato in a cafe in Florence, Italy. All my family thought this gelataria has the best gelato in all of Italy. I got cookie flavored my dad and luke got chocolate orange my mom got blubbery cheese cake and jacob got vanilla.

1) Sushi at a sushi boat restaurant in Tokyo, Japan.  This was one of our first meals on our trip and still one of the best I have had. My favorite was the cucumber rolls with sesame.

The Sagrada Famila (By: Jacob)

When we were in Spain, we went to the incredible cathedral called the Sagrada Famila. The Sagrada Famila was built in 1882. There are still parts that have not been finished and have been added on throughout the years.

The estimate finish of the entire thing is from 2026-2028 (that is 132 years after it was first started to be built) In between those two (2026-2028) years everything would have been built from the original model built by the architect, Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi's saying was "there is no straight lines in nature", my family went inside and looked around. We were all stunned with all the color and the way it looked, I thought it looks like what a cathedral would look like in the future, but this was built more then 100 years ago. One of the most amazing things about the inside is the roof it was so cool how he made bricks and green paint and made it look like sparkly stems of leafs.

Inside Guadi was trying make it look like a forest canapy with beams acting as trees and sparkly green stuff acting like stems and leafs. The thing that most amazed me was that Gaudi was able to distribute the weight of the roof on to the beams so that he could do what ever he wanted to the walls with out it coming down.

Another really cool part was the 2 different types of art work on the outside. On one side there were curvy lines and no straight lines and those were done by Gaudi.  

The other side had straight and pointy lines and they were done by a man named Domenec Sugranes.  Apparently, he didn't get the memo about how to build on Gaudi's church!

 If you ever get a chance to come to Barcelona, I highly recommend going to the Sagrada Familia.

The Divine Comedy (From Inferno to Paradiso)

   During this trip my dad introduced me to the Dan Brown books and I instantly fell in love with the DaVinci Code Series. The latest book Dan Brown wrote was called Inferno and the first half of the book takes place in Florence so luckily we got to do a tour of the Palazzo Vecchio ( a palace used by the Medicis) called Inferno Places. Our tour started by going through a little door that led to a secret room with a staircase. We hiked up the staircase where we got to another floor. The Medicis, who ruled a lot of Tuscany, used this as a staircase back in the 1400's. We then got to a door that led into the Hall of Five Hundred. It is a huge room with enormous paintings on the walls and ceilings. 

 I thought it was so amazing how these pictures are painted, they are about 40 ft by 30 ft! Our tour guide told us that if you wanted to get married here it would cost you 80,000 euros (worth 110,350 US dollars).

    We then went up to the very top floor called the La Soffitta or The Garret. There are tons of wooden beams parallel and intersecting with each other. What is so amazing about these wooden beams is that not only do they hold up the roof but they also hold up the paintings on the ceilings of The Hall of Five Hundred. If you were to fall down through the wood you would rip a painting on the ceiling and fall to your death (spoiler: this happens in the book).

We then went down a floor and saw the door that leads to the Vasari Corridor. The Vasari Corridor connects the Pitti Palace (another Medici palace) and the Palazzo Vecchio stretching over a kilometer long and over the Ponte Vecchio (a bridge). We didn't go in the corridor because it was a different tour. 

    We then headed to the Map Room and learned about one of the Medicis' main symbols they used: a Turtle with a Sail.  The Turtle symbolizes a leader analyzing a decision and thinking about it while the Sail symbolizes that once the leader makes his decision he needs to act quickly. We also passed a fake death mask of the poet of the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri.
In the Divine Comedy there are three parts Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. It is a 14,233 lined poem and explains Dante's journey through seven steps of hell to where he goes to paradise after the long journey.

We then went into the Map Room where I started quickly searching for the Map of Armenia. In the book the two main characters find The Map of Armenia and behind it is a secret door. 

Sure enough, the tour guide took a key out of her pocket and opened the door. 

We walked through it to another room where there were steps leading up to a window. I opened the blind and I could see everybody in the Hall of Five Hundred except they couldn't see me because I was looking through a little grate.


It was so amazing. In Dante's book one of the parts of Inferno is Palazzo Vecchio and that is the Hell.

   Our tour ended so the five of us explored the other palace art we hadn't seen. I thought it was cool how on the second floor the pictures on the ceilings were of gods and directly below them on the first floor was the portraits of the Medicis because they considered themselves like gods. Some facts about the Medici Reign-

1. They were like dictators 

2. They would get people's money and use it to pay artists who would paint amazing paintings of t

3. They started the Renaissance and ruled for about 300 years

    After seeing all the beautiful sculptures and paintings we crossed the Ponte Vecchio and got some lunch at a little sandwich and pizza place that we absolutely adored. We then walked in the rain a couple of blocks to a Gelateria my mom's friend suggested to us. It was the best ice cream we had ever had. 

My mom got this weird pie ice cream while Jacob got vanilla, Maggie got cookies, and my dad and I got dark chocolate orange which was the best ice cream ever. It was like Pardise. Today we had gone from Inferno (Hell) to Paradiso (Paradise). It was a really fun day and if you get the chance to go to Italy you have to GO TO FLORENCE.