This past week was absolutely wonderful. I had my final exam for Evolutionary Psychology, which was not wonderful. It was essentially four hours straight of writing on topics that we have been learning about since September. My Swedish Film and Sustainable Eating classes are also over now too - on the last day of film we watched Tilsammans or "Together" which was a HILARIOUS movie set in the '70's. Probably my favorite film we watched the whole semester, so it was a nice way to end the course. I will actually miss my professor a bit - he had a very strange and unique sense of humor. For sustainable eating, I had to write an essay about a food or dish - I chose Wonder Bread. My presentation was yesterday and hopefully it went well!
On Thursday night, we had a Sinterklaas celebration on the top floor of Spoletorp. On December 5, children in the Netherlands put a shoe in front of their door. At night, Sinterklaas comes from Spain and puts candy and small presents in the shoes with the help of Zwarte Pieten. If you have been badyou will get sent to Spain. We celebrated Sinterklaas with Secret Santa - a small present, accompanied by a poem. The night was absolutely perfect - the entire Spoletorp family was gathered around TONS of sweets, including pepernoten and chocolate from Belgium. We sang traditional Sinterklaas songs and Peter appeared dressed as Sinterklaas, which was legendary. (I borrowed some pictures from Lucia and Alana :))
We all exchanged gifts and read our poems, some of which were hilarious. I received a candle holder, great smelling shower gel and a little globe-shaped pencil sharpener. As soon as I opened the gift I knew who it was from - one of the first weeks Kate had texted me asking me to get a sheet and a shower curtain from Ikea for a boy in her corridor (Simon). I somehow did not look at the packaging closely enough and ended up buying a curtain that you would use for a window - obviously useless for the shower. I didn't even realize until Lucia told me weeks later. Ever since, the "shower curtain" has been sitting in their corridor and I still feel vaguely embarrassed every time I see it.
My gifts were, of course, wrapped in the curtain and since Simon was the person I had bought the curtain for I knew it was him. Coincidentally, I had drawn his name too and my present was a sketchbook with pictures from Spoletorp North on the front. Some of the other presents were a giant mug for Alice, a mini golf set for Kate, giant slippers for Anubhav, incense and a paper star for Lucia, a necklace for Linde, etc.
Alice reading her poem from Linde :)
The whole night was so happy :) it really did feel like Christmas and I'm so glad I got to celebrate with the Spoletorp Family!
During the day on Friday, Lucia and I went for a 5k run. Normally this wouldn't have been a big deal, but the weather outside was CRAZY. 30-40mph winds and it was snowing! It was actually a great run though - we went to the hill and as we ran down it felt like we were flying :)
Afterwards, a couple of us went for fika, then Regina and I set off for the airport to head to Prague. Unfortunately, all trains in Skåne had been canceled due to the weather, so the trip was a bit disastrous. First, we got on a bus at Lund station to get to Malmö (so we could get the train to Copenhagen). Though we had asked the bus driver if it would go to Malmö C (and he said yes), we were supposed to transfer at some point during the ride. We ended up at a random bus station, and we had to navigate through the wind and very wet snow to find which bus actually went to Malmö C. We finally made it to Malmö Central which had taken 2 hours (normally 10 minutes). Luckily, our flight was delayed by 15 minutes, and we had left very early, so we didn't miss it!
We reached Prague's airport around 11pm and met up with Regina's friend Emily. We all took a bus (terrifying - it was going extremely fast and sliding all over the roads in the snow), then a metro to our hostel. When we got off the metro and walked up the stairs the sight was breathtaking. It was snowing and there was a HUGE Christmas tree in the middle of the street.
We were so wonderstruck that we walked in the complete opposite direction of our hostel, dragging our suitcases through the snow for about 10 minutes before we realized and turned around. Finally we made it to our eighteen bed room where Katherine was waiting! After putting down our stuff, we decided to walk around a bit more and get some food (despite it being extremely late). The streets were still very lively and full of people. We got some french fries, then walked to the Old Town Square, which was even more beautiful than the street we initially saw. It was only about a 5 minute walk from the hostel.
The most beautiful Christmas tree ever.
I truly think it was one of the most beautiful places I've seen since being abroad. The next day we woke up and headed to a walking tour. It was UNBELIEVABLY cold and when our tour guide (an interesting girl from Manchester) gave us the "9.5 minute history of Prague" while standing in one spot I thought my feet were going to fall off. Nevertheless, the city was incredibly beautiful.
Jewish Museum in Prague - part of the Jewish Quarter
I thought it was interesting that much of Prague is actually preserved from WWII and it wasn't bombed as much as places like Berlin. Hitler loved Prague and planned to live here when the war was over. The Jewish Quarter was meant to be a museum for an "extinct race." Such a horrific/fascinating thing to think about.
"Stumbling Stones"- Stones in the ground which have the name, DOB and date of death of a person who died in the Holocaust. They are placed where that person had lived or worked. One of these particular stones was for a five-year-old :(
Rudolfinum - a concert house in Prague near Charles' Bridge
Old-New Synagogue
Charles Bridge
Group picture - naturally my eyes are closed...
After the tour, Regina and Emily both left to meet friends and Katherine and I headed to the Prague Castle (Hrad). This involved crossing a bridge parallel to Charles Bridge and walking up a large hill.
Entrance to the Castle
SNOW
St Vitus Cathedral
Charles Bridge at night
After the castle, we headed back to meet Emily and Regina at the hostel, then we went to a little Italian place for dinner. We relaxed for a bit, then headed to a pub crawl! First we went to a pub, where there were unlimited drinks for 2 hours. We played some beer pong and Katherine and I made some Australian and German friends. It was a great time!
Next we went to a club that was nearby. Our friends tried to get us to dance which Katherine was happy about, but I wanted nothing to do with. Eventually we left and headed back to the hostel, because Kat had an early flight and we were tired.
Selfies in front of the Christmas tree
Regina and Emily went to the castle the next morning, so I had the morning to wander around by myself. I got a bit lost and went to a wax museum on a whim, which was a mistake. There were realistic life noises playing and I was pretty much the only person in the museum. I basically walked through it as much as possible.
We met at Charles Bridge at noon and walked to the John Lennon wall
It was amazing! Coincidentally, it was also the 33rd anniversary of John Lennon's death (thanks James :))
Next, we went to the top of the clock tower. The view was breathtaking :) The sky was so blue and the red rooftops stretched out so far.
The chocolate museum was nearby and it wasn't terribly exciting, but we did get a free sample and we bought Belgian Waffles with melted chocolate on top - amazing.
We had a low key night with dinner at a Czech Restaurant. I had an amazing sandwich and it was incredibly cheap. I also tried the dark beer, which was amazing.
The next morning, Emily left early for her flight back to London. Regina and I got waffles for breakfast, then headed to the Jewish Quarter. We bought tickets to the Maisel Synagogue, the Pinkas Synagogue, the Spanish Synagogue, the Ceremonial Hall and the Old Jewish Cemetery. The Jewish Cemetery was breathtaking - the gravestones were all crooked and covered in moss. Since the Jewish people hadn't been given more space to bury their loved ones, bodies were buried on top of each other. There are 12,000 gravestones visible, but there might be as many as 100,000 bodies buried there. It was unbelievable to see.
The Spanish Synagogue was incredibly beautiful as well. There were signs not to take pictures (though many people did), so I don't have very many.
My favorite that we saw was the Pinkas Synagogue. The walls were covered with 70,000 names of Czech and Moravian victims of the Holocaust.
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The names were tiny and handwritten so neatly. I didn't take any pictures so I got some off the internet. It was heartbreaking to see all of the names. Upstairs, there were pictures from the Terezin Camp that children had drawn secretly. They depicted the horrible conditions of the camp, as well as the places back home that they remembered.
Prague was such a gorgeous city :) I'm so grateful to be able to travel, but I'm also grateful for the feeling of returning to Lund again. I'm so happy I've had the opportunity to live in this adorable town with such great people.
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