Real World Cesky Krumlov 3

Cesky Krumlov was a great place to be. We only stayed there for 4 nights, but it was great.

So, the day after the hike, after I still had not done school work. . . 6 of us decided to go rafting on the Vltava River. I didn't take my camera on the raft, for obvious reasons of fear of losing my camera in the cold Czech river, so I personally have no photographic documentation of this excursion so you're going to have to use your imagination.

The morning started off pretty pleasant. There were little bits of sun peeking through the clouds and the weather was pretty cool and breezy. We thought the weather was going to hold up and make for a wonderful day on the Vltava, but by the time noon came around the sky was pretty grey and the wind was howling. It was such a gloomy day that the guy that was running the raft rental asked us if we wanted to get a full refund for the day. To that we said HECK NO! WE WANT TO RIDE THE RIVER! And so we did. We packed a bunch of snacks, drinks, and 3 pizza boxes to make our journey one of the most epic raft rides ever.

So, on the Vltava, they regulate the flow of the river so that they can control much of the flooding that would usually happen in the town. In 2002 there was a massive flood that sent water levels up as much as 6 meters above ground in the area of the old town center. So now they have a couple of man-made weirs that help regulate that flow of water. Pretty much, a weir is like a mini waterslide. . . I guess or water shute.

Before I go further into the story let me set up the raft situation. So there are 6 of us in the raft 3 girls, 3 guys, and all the food i mentioned earlier. With all this mass, our raft was pretty weighted down.

As soon as we launched from the shore, our first weir was about 200 meters away. We were all excited about being on the water that the weir kind of crept up on us and we had to make a decision to either go the the left side or the right side of the weir. Well... we couldn't decide which way to go. Half of us were screaming WE HAVE TO GO RIGHT, THE LEFT SIDE IS JUST A GIANT DROP! And the others were yelling, GO LEFT! THE RIGHT SIDE IS TO SHALLOW. The following 30 seconds were pure panic and yelling on the raft all the while we floated slowly closer and closer to the weir. Eventually it became to late to reach the left side so we had to try and gun it down the right.

We knew we had no choice at this point and it looked like we had to take on the mini waterfall head on. Everyone's hearts were racing and the thought of capsizing 5 minutes into our trip didn't seem all that far from becoming a reality.

All six of us were yelling and screaming as we hit the weir, attracting all of the attention of the sleepy little town and what do you know. . . we hit the weir in stride and got stuck on it! We seriously just stopped at the top of the weir because the water flow was so low and our raft was so heavy. So there we were stuck, sitting on the river while everyone around us were just pointing, laughing, and snapping pictures of the stupid American tourists who were stuck on the weir on the Vltava River.

To be honest, if I was watching this same situation from bridge, I'd be laughing to.

This is the weir we got stuck on. We were going down the broadest side.

So, to get unstuck we thought it would be wise if we all jumped out of our seats at the count of three to just push the raft loose with our weight and momentum. That didn't work. Infact we looked like a bunch of idiots jumping up and down on a raft, stuck in the middle of a fake waterfall. hahaha. So eventually Ian and Danny got out and pushed the back of the raft while the rest of us jumped and we broke free!

They had to dive head first to get back into the raft before we rushed away down the river, and as we moved down the weir we crashed right into one of the stonewalls and nearly snaped the raft in half. Luckily it bounced back but a wave of water rushed into our raft and soaked us. Luckily the pizza was unharmed and we continued on the the claps and laughs of our onlookers.

So, I realized (this is the 2nd night that I'm working on this post) that there is a lot to this river story, and so I'll summarize the rest of it and, if you want to know more about it in detail, just talk to me when i get home.  Otherwise, I'll never catch up on this blog!  I haven't even finished Prague yet!!!

So, we continued down the river, passing by the Eggenberg Brewery.  It's a local brewery of Cesky Krumlov.  Then we floated along into the gypsy land where gypsies had their gypsy huts.  Honestly at some points I thought I was on the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland and was waiting for the gypsies to come out yelling and dancing like the native people on the Jungle Cruise.  hahaha. 

So we made stops a long the way where there were millions of spiders in the grass.

At one stop we found a toasted frog.

At that same spot I had gotten an allergic reaction to the grass or something and my feet were stinging and I had these nasty welts all over.

Continued down the river.

Saw an inner tube.

Saw a bridge with a long rope swinging from it.

Hit a tree and spiders fell in our raft.

Passed under another bridge who's wall wall COVERED. . . COVERED in brown flies.  It looked like the bridge had scales on it.  SOOO GROOSSS.

Then we passed by some locals living on the river.

Passed a fishermen.

Passed some kids who tried to throw rocks at us.

Went over our last weir and disturbed more brown flies on that weir and covered ourselves and our raft in a cloud of brown wings.

And finally we ended, and I fell in the river. . .

So that was the river adventure in a nut shell. . . finally I can move onto re-capping other things.

Real World Cesky Krumlov 2

So, Cesky Krumlov is really just a small tourist town with not a whole lot of programed activities to do.  In the time that we were in Cesky Krumlov, the vast majority of the time was left for us to explore the town, and relax.

Therefore, I didn't do much "school work" in Krumlov.  One day, we went on a hike up to the oldest tower in the CZ.  The destination was called Klet.  The reason I say the destination was Klet is because I forgot if it was just the name of the tower, or if it was in fact the name of the entire mountain/ area.

Anyway, we embarked from the city centre, walking up through residential streets the outskirts of the town.  It was actually kind of interesting seeing the individual homes of some of CZ's residents.  In the small towns, their homes are much set up much like houses in California.  People seemed to have their own home and front and back yards.  I wish I had took a picture of one of the streets. . . Eventually we walked onto a maintenance road/ trail much like the trails in San Gabriel Mountains.

The trail led us up into the meadows and eventually the forest where the road began to deteriorate and eventually we were walking up a steep grade on a normal dirt trail.  But the most interesting thing on the trail was that the trees seemed to be a lot different than those back home.  The forest it self did not seem all that natural.  The color of the trees were fantastic; the leaves were all bright green and brilliant.  But that wasn't what was bothering me.  Let me show you some pictures so you can form your own opinion of the forests.

So I don't know if you noticed but there is something missing from this forest.  There is absolutely no understory!  And notice how all the Trees are so straight and clean on the bottom?  It's because this forest is highly maintained and planted by loggers.  It's weird.  We'd be walking along and patches of the forest would just be cut to the floor.  Other sections which were being prepared for logging had all the lower branches cut off and pretty much, there was a forest of telephone poles with a few branches up to keep the tree growing. 

It was a really weird experience walking through that forest because, you knew that it wasn't natural, you knew it wasn't the wilderness, it seemed rather phony.  Now that I think about it, I don't remember seeing any sign of wildlife except for a few ravens.

This being said, I guess it's better than clear cutting large sections of forest at a time which I remember seeing on my trip to Canada years ago.  But, for those who argue that a highly maintained forest is an adequate substitute for a more natural wild forest, I would have to highly disagree.  Yes, you probably will sustain the amount of trees and be able to produce more lumber, but it was very apparent walking through the forest that there was little no no other signs of a viable ecosystem.  Everything except for trees seemed to have been eradicated or eliminated from the forest.  Just something to think about...

Anyway we reached the top and this is what we saw.

Unfortunately the Klet Tower was under renovation so we could not get to the top of it and see the fantastic panoramic view of Cesky Krumlov.  One funny remark that my friend said was that the Czechs have got it all right, American hikers hike to get to some random peak or valley, but the Czechs, they hike to get a beer.  hahaha  and he was right.  After this long hike to the peak, they had a chalet which served beer and food.  It's almost laughable about how many pubs and random beer gardens there are in the CZ.  Even at the parks in Prague we found many beer gardens along the way to the top of a hill.

A sundial of some sort.

Real World Cesky Krumlov

So, after Prague, we headed to the small but very interesting town of Cesky Krumlov.  It's a very old town basically frozen "architecturally" in the Renaissance period.  The historical part of the town is actually a UNESCO world heritage site, and all facades and such of the buildings in the town must be keep it's historical integrity.

The historical part of the city is really tiny.  You can walk from one end to the other in about 7-10  minutes.  But that doesn't mean it's not full of surprises.  I think what I liked most about going at this time was that there were so few tourists in the town.  It was VERY peaceful.  Such a drastic change from Prague.

9 of us stayed at Hostel Postel, which I scoped out and booked.  Funny name, but such an awesome place to stay.  For about 14 dollars a night we got to stay at a family owned hostel which had it's own little pub!  AMAZING!  hahaha.  The owners were a young couple probably in their mid to early 30's whose family had originally owned the property.  They were so nice  to us and made our stay in Cesky very comfortable.  

The second night we were there the lady drove some of us to TESCO to buy supplies for a BBQ!  SO NICE!  Her husband then came after work I assume and started up the grill for us.  I cannot get over how nice they were.  After we had cooked some great BBQ chicken, Kolbassa, potatoes and veggies, the owners came back with their children and opened up their tiny pub for us and gave us beers as their gift to us!  Once again, so nice.  

So we ended up giving them a gift certificate to one of the restaurants in town the day we left.  SO!  if you ever go to Cesky Krumlov, young or old, go to Hostel Postel!  Great place!

Oh, and their little girl's name was Lala!  hahahahah! So cute! and she would say hello and good bye in English.

Ah. . . Ok, now that I've finally been able to express my sincere appreciation for the family that runs Hostel Postel, I guess I can begin to talk about what we actually did in Cesky Krumlov.

On. . . the first morning, sorry, I've forgotten the days, we headed up to the Castle of Cesky Krumlov to get a tour of the interior.  Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures so, I guess I'll link other pictures from the web.

cesky_krumlov_let.jpg  This is the basic layout of the town.

But anyway it's an amazing castle which had seen so many changes through it's many numerous occupations from different royal families.  Of which, the Rosenbergs were the most influential.

Of all the rooms, the masquerade hall was by far my favorite. 

http://www.castle.ckrumlov.cz/docs/en/zamek_3nadvori_maskar.xml?style=printable

The entire hall has it's original paintings of comical masqueraders dressed in all sorts of strange costumes.

This is me at the fountain in the castle gardens

This is the old fountain in the old town square.  It was built during the Gothic period, and the figures on the fountain were supposed to reflect or honor those who died in the Black Plague.

Old Town Square

Narrow Midieval street

Great view of the castle.

This is at a random artist's house. . . 

I forgot to mention that Cesky Krumlov is and was influenced greatly by the Vltava River which separates the town from the castle.  The dynamic of the river and the way it snakes through the town is quite interesting.  It marvelously cut out the rock outcrop on which the castle was built upon.  At certain points it almost looks like castle came out of the rock formations.

Ok,  So this is not all of Krumlov, but enough for now.

Vienna? What happened to Cesky Krumlov?

ACK!

So, I've been offline for quite a while and I'm very sorry for that.  

Because I cannot really keep up with all the things we do here in Europe I have decided to update this blog in a non chronological order.  So, today is April 30th, the last day of April, and we've been in Vienna for a total of three days now!

Yes, so Vienna!  Our main purpose for coming to Vienna was to attend an international landscape architecture conference at the university of . . . I forgot. . .  hahaha.  But it is a small university in the some what suburbs of Vienna.  

Anyway, so two of my classmates and I were supposed to go to a special workshop with Mark Trieb, a world renowned and respected landscape theorist.  But, by the time we got into Vienna, and figured out our hostel situation, it was pretty much already 2 o'clock, and the work shop started at 2 o'clock.  Go figure.  So we hop on the metro system and head over to the university.  We get to the university alright.  It took us about 20 min.  But when we got there we had no idea where to go.  There were no signs, not indicators of which building to to go to or where on the campus the landscape architecture dept. was.  So we wandered and asked people for help.

People at the university, actually the majority of the people in Vienna, speak English, but they just couldn't help us find the work shop.  So we eventually gave up and got some drinks at the outdoor cafe across the street.  We weren't really hurt because we didn't really feel like paying the 40 euros it was going to cost us to go to the workshop.

Ok tangent time.  So, this conference was supposed to be covered with our student fees.  Remember what I told you about our student fees?  Golden Lane ring a bell?  Anyway so our proff. told us the day before that we would have to drop the 40 euro, no bueno.  I wasn't really feeling paying the extra 40.  

Anyway so the next day we get to the conference for registration, and they inform us that we need to pay 80 euro. . . what?  weren't we supposed to have this already pre paid?  I guess not. It turns out that we have to pay the 80 euro because our dept. back at poly wasn't going to pay for the whole thing.  So, we pay the 80. Whatever, it's not that much for what we're getting.  But then TODAY!  The director of the conference told our proff. that the money from our dept. never came through and that we'd have to pay another 80 euro.  WHAT?  HOLD UP! another 80 euro.  That brings the total t 160 eruo!  outrageous!  that's about... 210 dollars!  =0

But our prof didn't say anything and swiped her card paying about 1600 dollars for the rest of the fee.  Now, rumor has it that she knew that the money wasn't going to come through from our dept.  but she didn't want to say anything because if she did, a lot of us wouldn't have wanted to go to the conference.  wow... talk about weird...

so, we don't know if we should pay her or not.  there are a lot of mixed feelings amongst the group.

So, money issues aside, the conference has been very interesting.  

We've spent 12 hours a day in lectures listening to drs, intelectuals, theorists, and professionals talk about landscape architecture in a wide range of aspects from theory to actual implementation.  It's been a good experience being exposed and learning a lot more about landscape architecture.  It has really made me re-evaluate my position as a landscape architect and I believe I have become more aware of the contemporary issues involving our profession.  It has also made me re-think grad school as an option somewhere down the road. 

Anyway.  More drama.  So we're pretty much the only undergrad students at the conference.  I mean not many students are going to pay 160 euro to go to a conference. So already the big wigs think we're bratty, which to some extent, the have a reason to.  So, the first morning, Mark Trieb, the Berkeley theorist, rags on us for missing out on his workshop saying, if he could find the room than a bunch of Cal Poly students could too.  Bad way to start off the morning.

And then our prof gets into a conversation with another professional and literally tells him that she thought his project was out of line and had no reason being built in it's current context. =0  so he walked away from her and we had already made many enemies by 8:30 am. 

hahaha

So, the rest of  the day was alright, listening to lecture after lecture of a lot of things I didn't fully understand. And there were arguments and debates and people measuring each other up to see who's theoretical **** was bigger than the others.  Quite an interesting show.  But you know what.  When ever we had a coffee break, it seemed that the put it all aside and would talk to each other once again.  Meh, I don't get it.

But the really fun part about last night was that we got to go to a cocktail party at the Vienna City Hall!  AMAZING!  It was fantastic!  The hors d'oeuvers looked amazing (I didn't eat any)  and the wine and beer tasted great.  Yes the wine and beer. . .

So,  There is all this smoozing going on so we students agree that we should get into the mix and I talked to two professors who presented some controversial work about their speech that day.  That night was fun.  Never had I ever thought I would be in the Vienna City Hall talking to such educated people about landscape architecture.  It was fun.

 

And so today was much of the same stuff.  And it's been so exhausting.  I'm glad I'm able to actually find time to get online once again and update this blog!

Myah Myah. . .

So it's quite warm in Prague. They've been saying it's the warmest Spring Prague has had in over 100 years. . . Global warming? Maybe? oh it's mid 70's btw.

So this past week, we had a bunch of Serbians living with us in the hotel. A bunch of rowdy, adolescent, Serbian, Handball, playing boys. Annoying kids...

Ok story time. So one of the girls in our group was using one of the two computers downstairs to you know, check email and look up things on facebook. So she's sitting there minding her business, with a bunch of the Serbians in the lobby doing what they do (which pretty much is just being creepy and annoying). So her roomate went down to the lobby to use the computers to, and saw that the girl who was using the computer (Kristen)'s profile on facebook, was not only open on her computer, but open on the other computer the Serbian boy was using too.

So Sarah, the roomate, says, "Kristen? Why is your profile on his computer too?" And to that they both look at the Serbian boy, and he says, "Add to friend?" AHAHAHA!

That little creep was looking up Kristen while she was on her own facebook!

so creepy.

Anyway now they're gone and the hotel is quite once again.

SO! Recapping the...6th.

We went to Strahov Monastary which near Petrin Hill and leads down towards the castle grounds. Anyway, we started there, went into a super old library with old books and highly decorated rooms. They also had creepy preserved birds and animals and glued on google-y eyes on them which made them even more creepy.

So after that we headed down to the castle where we explored the courtyards, took in the views, and sketch some more.


Crazy blocks huh?


HAH Just Kidding! Actually it's a technique they call sgraffito. They actually etch the facade of the building so it exposes the dark underside to create the illusion that the structure is made of 3d blocks. But really. It's pretty much 2D
Me standing awkwardly in front of Prague Castle
Professor Louise Shiller telling us something important.

On the castle grounds is a wonderful cathedral called St. Vitus. We were there are a magical time of the day. The rose window, which is the stained glass window that is ususally on the top of the face of the cathedral, was emitting a orange and purple glow onto the collumns of the cathedral!



It was spectacular. St. Vitus is my favorite Cathedral/ Church thus far. It just has a real magical, but not scary feel to it.

After that, we continued through the grounds, mapping out in our sketch books the series of spaces we were traveling through. Eventually we came to a part called the golden alley. Here there was a gate with guards telling us we had to pay to enter. And so the entire class was like, meh, we don't need to see it. Why should we pay for that. But our professor insisted that we see and proceeded to drop 100 dollars of our student fees for the 16 of us to walk down this alley. . . look at the pictures. . .



I guess using me as a scale doesn't really add to the drama of how short these doors are since i'm short. hahaha
Jeofferey could not stop laughing. He could not believe we spent so much money to walk down this tiny alley. Yes it was interesting to look at, because of the tiny stores and dramatic change of scale, but really for 100 dollars? I don't know about that.

Any hoo I don't remember what we did after that. . . oh nm yes I do. A couple of us who lagged behind ended up eating dinner at this pizza place with our professor. It was fun, and it was interesting to hear our professor loosen her tounge and talk about our department and strange things you wouldn't think an older professor would talk about. And that then concluded the day.
I leave you with a picture of this beautiful city.

PEACE, LOVE, OBAMA

Wooo making progress on these entries, 3 in one night! So OBAMA DAY! WOOO! We all woke up at like... 530 to get to Prague Castle so we could get a good spot to see/ hear Obama Speak for the first time since being president in Europe.

The trams that morning were packed. It sucks being short. I got smashed into the tram with my face in at least 4 armpits. Thank goodness it was the beginning of the day so there was no B.O. BUT someone did rip a major fart when we were on the tram and it reeeked soooo bad! hahahaha

And when we got near the castle we rushed out of the tram because it was just so horrible. We then sort or sped walked to get into line to enter the castle grounds. They started letting people in at 7 o'clock and we had to get checked by security which in my opinion i thought was really lax for having the president of the United States coming out to talk. So because we woke up so early we did get really good spots. The only thing that sucked was that I'm short, and everyone around me was tall. So as you will see from my pictures... it was really hard to see anything. hahahaha. oh well.

Some Prague Policemen

So we waited for like 3 hrs because Obama was scheduled to talk at like 10am. In the meantime they were passing out flags and they threw them into the crowd. This was a bit dangerous because they threw them and the soared through the air like mini javelins! hahaha. So when Obama finally came out. I could not see anything... And so I jumped on my friend's shoulders to try and get a photo of Obama speaking, but we were at the exact angle where his fave was entirely covered by the telepromter!

NOOOO MAJOR FAIL!

Make sure you click on this picture and zoom to where Obama's face should be. hahahaha


Green Peace Guy: Be the Change on Climate Change

hahaha But it was still really cool hearing him speak and everyone was soo into it.

Uh... what else did we do... OOOH we went to this place called RADOST FX afterwards for brunch. It's a really cool place to hang out. During the day it's a restaurant/ bar/ lounge and at night it's a club. Anyway, they make some fantastic food! I had one of they're egg scrambles which had spinach, salmon, mushrooms, and cream cheese and it was one of the best meals I have had in Prague. I also had a Sleeping Beauty which was champange and strawberry juice which was also really good. It inspired me to buy strawberry juice at the market. hahaha

After that we headed home and napped until the evening. I don't remember what we did for dinner because... we didn't really eat dinner. . . we drank beer at our hotel and got kolbasa in Wenceslas Square. We ended up in Malastrana again at the oldest bar in prague which was filled with animal skins, and old stuff. . . it was a weird atmosphere and the waiters and such had to wear old tunics and such. And that was the end of that day.

Kutna Hora

Ok, so I forgot to mention what we did last night. We went to this club called Lucerna which was having it's 80's/ 90's video music night. So it was this large underground club which played 80's and 90's music videos on giant screens and everyone danced to it! It was really fun and the music videos made it even more fun. It was just a really friendly atmosphere with a bunch of random people young and old dancing.

We danced to the likes of, Mama Mia, Video Killed the Radio Star, Greese Lightning, and a whole bunch of other stuff. hahaha it was great.

Ok, so now it's April 4th. . . yes I realize that it really is the 16th but I'm desperately trying to catch up!

So on this day, the 4th. We took a day trip to Kutna Hora which is a smaller midevil town which is known for it's Gothic Cathedral, Santa Barbara, and it's Midevil town plan.

So we got picked up in a tour van by our driver named Petra. He drank coffee from a steel thermos and smoked 3 cigarettes before we left our hotel. He was a nice man and was very happy that Obama was in town and speaking the next day. He also loved to talk to you 6 inches from you, spitting his coffee and spewing his smokey breath into your face. Lovely fellow, no joke.

Anyway, apparently as I learned today (the 16th) from our visit to a local architect office, Czechs love their countryside. Prague people actually have country houses which they run to every weekend because they dislike the city so much. Interesting stuff. So because of this... there was tremendous traffic on the 2 lane highway that we had to take. Petra couldn't take it and took us on an adventure through the countryside weaving through small towns and passing by expansive fields of nothing. The nothingness somehow was always broken up by some random giant communist housing project. It was kind of erie seeing massive structures pop out of no where in the middle of vast fields.

anyway, major tangent. We eventually got to Kutna Hora and sketched a perspective of the Santa Barbara Church. It was nice, we spent a while on it, but it was not so nice when Italian tourists would come and bother us saying BELISIMO and getting in our faces while we were trying to sketch. Some of the younger boys actually swarmed some of our girls to take pictures of their boobs while they were sketching... hahahaha so immature.

View of Kutna Hora from Santa Barbara Church.






Anyway, Kutna Hora was alright, I'm not really into the gothic stuff. Or maybe I was just annoyed with our sketching assignment for the day.

At the end of our day we took a detour and found this small church which we have dubbed the bone church because I don't know the name for it. But anyway, the insides of the memorial is entirely decorated with the bones of humans. . . It was actually not scary at all. It was really magnificent work and I thought it was really cool.





We didn't do anything that night because the next day was OBAMA DAY!