My first stop on our Italian tour was to the breathtakingly beautiful city of Venice. It’s an intricate, small, city with so much history and adventure. I’m lucky to have had my friend as my travel companion who could read a map and navigate around the city with ease. Venice can be a bit like a maze because the canals chop up the streets, meaning you’re always having to turn in some different direction.
Carnaval is a very popular holiday celebrated here in Spain. Spain is home to some of the best celebrations in the world – particularly in Tenerife and Sitges. I did not see either of these carnavals, but I did get to see how the average family in Spain celebrates carnaval in their cities. I saw two different celebrations: Cos Blanc in Salou and Carnaval in Tarragona.
My third and final leg of my Eastern European adventure was to Budapest in Hungary. I was excited, but also a little intimidated to go to Budapest. After becoming someone accustomed to the strange Slavic language, I was not thrown into one of the hardest languages to learn: Hungarian. It is not a Slavic language, but rather a cousin of the Finnish language in the Uralic family. Nevertheless, the city was still beautiful. And what made it even more beautiful …
SNOW!
On New Year’s, I caught a flight from Prague, Czech Republic to Warsaw, Poland. I was not ready for what was about to happen. No one ever warned me that Warsaw in winter is comparable to the ice planet of Hoth – it was about 12°F every day, sometimes colder.
After Christmas 2015, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Prague in the Czech Republic. Prague always seemed like such a mysterious and exotic place to me. We learn about it briefly in history when it was referred to as Bohemia, but we never really know much more about it. In reality, we are exposed to Prague more often than we know. Prague is the backdrop for many movies and TV shows, but it is often disguised as another country. The TV shows Outlander and The Musketeers both recently shot in Prague with the setting in Paris in the 1700s and 1600s, respectively. The most recent version of Casino Royale was also shot in Prague, with the airport and a casino disguised as Miami and the National Museum disguised as James Bond’s hotel in Italy. Sneaky sneaky!
There are honestly so many things to do in London. I was there for six days and there are still so many things I didn’t get to do. But here are somethings I did do that I recommend seeing (that weren’t a part of my Harry Potter, Royal London, or football game posts).
The idea of a monarchy in the 21st century baffles me sometimes, but when it comes to the British monarchy, I just can’t get enough. From the invasion of the Normans in 1066 to the sexy Tudor times, to the present day royals that just seem like your best friends, I have quite the obsession with the Royal Family. That’s why going to London was a dream come true. There is royal history in almost every corner of the city!
For fifteen years now, I have been in love with the Harry Potter series. Harry Potter is actually the reason that I became an Anglophile back in June 2004, coinciding with the release of the third Harry Potter film. Eleven and a half years later, I finally made it to my favorite city and I was chock full of Harry Potter trivia and tidbits.
December 26, or Boxing Day as it is commonly known in the UK, is the day known for shopping, and of course, football. I’m not talking about passing the pigskin around, I’m talking REAL European football. I was lucky enough to get tickets to see my favorite team, Tottenham Hotspur, play at White Hart Lane, in November, and I had been counting down the weeks ever since.
Last week, I got to check off another city that I’ve wanted to go to for some time off my list: Berlin. I found it to be quite an interesting city – the city is over 750 years old, but so much of recent history affects the way the city appears today. I kept thinking about how the Berlin Wall still existed just twenty-five years ago, with reminders all over the city. You walk through the city and see things that were rebuilt because of bombs dropped during WWII. You see DVDs with Nazi flags covering the landmarks of Berlin. It’s crazy to think that less than a century ago, people were actually seeing these things in the city I was visiting. Berlin is a great city, but there are definitely things you should do and shouldn’t do to maximize your enjoyment.