Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Prague

We are now in Potsdam, Germany, a small town outside of Berlin. We have been able to see 3 of Europe's most beautiful and influential cities. And looking back on the three we have both agreed that our favorite city so far has been Prague. Although Budapest was absolutely gorgeous, it was a bit too big and busy for us. The architecture was incredible and unlike any other place I have been. It was like taking a trip back in time but still being surrounded by the modern world. But where many other people love that, we felt it was a bit stressful. Not to mention the weather was a bit on the warm side for my comfort levels. Prague on the other hand was much smaller. The buildings and the architecture though, was just as incredible as Budapest. Maybe because Prague was smaller, there was a much more light and happy feeling in the city and in the people. We had a similar schedule of exploring the Czech Republic as we did in Hungary...

DAY 1

We arrived in Prague in the evening and spent spent the rest of the evening searching out some food. We walked into the main city center, which was called Old Town Square and got some dinner and people watched. We sat down at a little restaurant in Old Town Square and ordered some dinner to split, like we normally do, and it came out about a quarter of the size we were expecting at a high price we were not expecting. So, we made some mental notes to be more careful about where we choose food from, went back the hostel and made some peanut butter and jelly rice cakes.

DAY 2

We decided right off the bat to rent bikes to see the city because you can cover so much more ground on two wheels than on two feet. We are not into bus tours and walking tours are too long, so we got a map of Prague and found our own bike route around the city. We rode from Old Town Square up to the Prague Castle, which was a rather hard bike ride on a fixed gear beach cruiser. Those bikes are HEAVY! But like normal, Becca blew me out of the water and was waiting at the top of the hill fully recovered by the time I came huffing and puffing up it. We locked up the bikes and explored the castle by standing oddly close to some tours to hear what they were saying. The city was absolutely gorgeous! We fell in love with the Prague vibes and the loving feeling. That night we did one of our favorite things and went to a jazz club and watched a Czech Jazz band play. They were incredible.

DAY 3

Just like in Budapest, we felt we had had enough of the bustling city and decided we wanted to explore a bit more of the Czech Republic. So we took a bus about an hour and a half to a small town called Jichin (pronounced Jee-cheen). It was a small town a single street for all of the towns needs. From there we rented bikes and jumped on a trail that took us from the small town and wound us into the rural fields and forests of the Czech Republic. It was absolutely incredible. The scenery was unlike anything I had seen before. We spent the whole day riding the fields on our bikes. We came across a Czech prison and turned around and rode away as quickly as our legs could peddle. There was a sculpture outside of these 10 foot high walls that were lined with barbed wire. The sculpture was an extremely gruesome and violent depiction of a prisoner being captured and at that moment Becca and I were able to put two and two together and realized we were outside a prison and literally didnt say another word before booking it out the direction we had come. But, after that we made it to some open fields and were able to breathe in some fresh Czech air. It was amazing!

DAY 4

We again spent a day getting everything organized for the places we were planning on traveling after. I did a nice run down the Danube in the city and Becca took the day for her hip to recover. We walked into Weencelaus Square which is the main square in Prague (and we just found out, was the sight of many huge riots at the end of the World War through until the fall of the Berlin Wall). We explored the city again, trying to find some of the important buildings we had missed before. Then, that night, while we were trying to find something for dinner, Becca decided we should try some of the famous Prague ham. So we went into Old Town Square again, and it turned out that it was the opening night of the Prague Jazz Festival. So we sat on the Old Town Statue in the center of the square, ate ham and listened to some amazing avant garde jazz. We enjoyed it so much.

DAY 5

When we had gone to Jichin the first time we had asked for some suggested hiking trails... but it turned out we had missed the only bus to get us there. So we decided we would get up early and make the morning journey to Jichin again and from there catch another small bus to a region called Chesky Raj. There are hundreds of miles of hiking trails in the Chesky Raj, the most famous of which is called Prachovsky Skally. The hike follows several different and in our typical fashion, we threw the maps our the window and wound our way through the trails. Prachovsky Skally is made up of towering rocks that you can climb up and down, wind through and explore. At the top of the rocks you can oversee all of the Czech Republic. We could see all of the fields we rode our bikes a couple days before. From the bottom you looked straight up walls of rock and trees. It was incredible and it was so much fun to hike and be in nature again. It made me so excited to get back to the mountains of Colorado and Forest Park in Portland!! That night we again made the trip back to Prague in time to catch the Jazz Festival. This time we were charmed by a two person spanish band. They were mesmerizing and drew the crowd to silence with their music. It was so simple, the woman, Silvia Perez sang in a natural spanish voice while her other band member played a new instrument that was like a steel drum but upside down. The two were fabulous and caught the full attention of everyone who was in the square that night. If you get a chance download their album called LLAMA. It was amazing.

DAY 6

We packed our bags and made our way to Berlin. The trip was not fun as we were sitting in coach and there was not much room, but it was only 5 hours and so it was not too bad.

More about Berlin coming at the end of the week. Hope that paints a good picture of Prague for you... I HIGHLY SUGGEST GOING, if you ever get the chance. It is an incredible city.

I miss you all and cant wait to talk more. All my love!!

Prost!!

Cheers

Dani

Saturday, July 14, 2012

lessons learned from traveling heavy...


Traveling is amazing… but this travel experience is not the usual “travel light” experience that most people do when they are training across Europe. In fact, this is essentially a move back from Russia to the US and making some stops as we make our way across…. But that makes for some FUNNY stories.

Let me first say that I am so thankful that Becca has agreed to help me move back because I could not manage all of my bags and luggage if I were by myself. But even with her help we have made some pretty funny and stupid mistakes!

You remember in the last post I wrote that I had to get from the airport in Budapest to the hostel by myself with all of my bags… well let me just remind you what all I have… I have two big luggage bags full of mostly warm jackets and boots that helped me survive the Russian winter. I have my backpacking backpack full of the summer clothes that I am using here and then my baby guitar. That is 4 bags that get heavy real quick. So, Becca and I are doing our best to keep our expenses low but still make it home with all of these bags. In order to do so we have decided we will train across Europe so that we don’t have to check bags and we will use public transportation (unless it’s impossible).

When we arrived at the Budapest train station to travel to Prague we were greeted by what seemed to be a helpful gentleman who worked for the train station and wanted to show us to an open cab on the train. He told us the train was completely full and we weren’t going to find a seat, so he took our bags and showed us to an open cab. We sat down to get comfy in our cabin very thankful that we had found a seat. He continued to look at us, slightly leaning his head into our space. We had gotten the guitar out to play when he interrupted and said… “Money? I help, you pay…” We had used all of our Forint (Hungarian money) and all we had was big bills of Euros that I had gotten in Russia. He was pressuring us and we felt like we should pay him something and in the pressure of the moment ended up giving him 20 Euros. That’s the equivalent of one night stay in a nice hotel… We felt dumb. And maybe like beating ourselves to a pulp…. But we are hoping he is still drinking nice cognac with those Euros. Lesson learned…

After that we settled into our comfy corner of the cabin and enjoyed the 7 hour train ride with the stinky, loud and slightly rude Czech women. Near the end of our train ride a large group of musicians, perhaps a traveling band, or a summer camp, hopped on the train. They had all of their instruments blocking the halls of the train. We were relaxing, looking out the window of our train when Becca saw our stop approaching. Not realizing it had come so quickly, we had to quickly gather our things to get out the train before it took off again. Frantically we threw our backpacks on our shoulders and tried to get the 50 lbs bags from the overhead space. 50 lbs is a little bit heavier when you also have a 20 lbs backpack on your back and it came crashing down on my face.

Becca, in the mean time was already out in the hall with the other bag and her backpack trying to lift it up and OVER the drum set, trumpet, tuba, guitar and keyboard that was blocking her way.  Instead of trying to get a better angle on the lift, so as to not throw out her back or new hip she tried to do an upright row (for those of you who are in her nature’s fitness or Sunday bootcamps) over the instruments. The band stopped playing and thought it was funny to watch her struggle and opted not to help, AT ALL. In all of her frustration and after about 20 attempts of the upright row she finally kicked the drum set out of the way and made it to the open doors. 

Somehow, after smashing my face with my bag, and watching her failed attempts, I learned to do more of a bicep curl than an upright row to get passed the instruments and made a quicker escape than Becca.

Finally making it to the open doors we realized that there was probably no rush after all because there was a HUGE line of people waiting to get on. Lesson learned, don’t rush… it makes you look stupid, and kick things.

After those two disasters we had a meeting… and discussed our traveling tactics. The keys points we discussed were: 1) Just because someone is nice and asks for money… you DON’T have to pay him. Change will work just fine, and if you don’t have that, just say “sorry, we don’t have money.” 2) Don’t rush and don’t expect people to help you. People can wait for you to calmly deal with your heavy luggage. You will probably end up taking more time getting stuck, rushing with the bags, then if you calmly and slowly move the bags. Having had this meeting we walked away feeling a lot better about our traveling tactics and how to deal with my luggage. But that feeling was killed today when we went to board the metro from our hostel to the train station before heading to our next stop, Berlin.

This morning we were riding high because we had planned our expenses perfectly to have no Czech Koruna left so we wouldn’t have to make any exchanges when we got to Berlin. However, it costs 24 koruna, the equivalent of 1 US Dollar, to ride the metro. We had NO change left and because we rode the metro plenty of times with a valid ticket and NO ONE ever checked, we thought we could make it the 3 stops without a ticket. WE WERE WRONG. As we were waiting for metro, with all of our bags the ticket inspector man saw us sticking out like a sore thumb and chose to ask us for our ticket. We told him we had just arrived and didn’t know how it worked and we would go buy a ticket because we had not even gotten on the tram yet. He replied, “No, not ok. You pay penalty, now.” We tried our best to pull our beginner traveler card, but saw no change in his mind. We ended up having to pay his “penalty” of 35 Euro a piece, which was the end of my Euros. After he took our money we watched him walk right past EVERY other person in the station without asking for a ticket. Pretty sweet. Lesson learned, always buy a stupid ticket. At least the Euros went to good purposes…like lessons learned.

So, overall… we have made some stupid mistakes but we have learned some very valuable lessons. And writing this has made us laugh at our stupidity. I must say it has been a while since I have written anything funny and it feels damn good to laugh at life again!

Life is funny…. And travel light!

 I will write about Prague in the next blog, this was an interruption for humors sake.

Goodbye to Prague and hello to Berlin!

Cheers!

Dani

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Let the Adventure Begin


Budapest

I am addicted to my new found freedom. Leaving Russia only one week ago, and after 4 months of little freedom, I have celebrated each day. I landed in stifling hot Budapest, Hungary on July 2nda little after midnight with two big rollie bags full of winter jackets and boots from Russia. I wish so badly I could have just shipped them home or left all of it behind because traveling with that much stuff is difficult. I think I would have just left all of my clothes in Russia if it weren’t for how expensive my winter jackets and boots were. I then had my backpacking backpack with the small amount of clothes I would be wearing over the next month whilst traveling, and lastly, of course, my baby Taylor guitar. So…. I looked like a fool… little me, carrying 4 bags and trying to get to a hostel in the heart of Budapest at 1 AM. 

Becca’s flight was delayed 6 hours from Amsterdam. We had originally planned to meet in the Budapest airport so she could help me with my bags, but those plans we just thrown out the window when her flight got delayed. We really had no way of communicating any new plans considering we didn’t have phone or Internet service and so I left her a note with the airport bus service telling her to meet at the hostel hoping she would somehow come across it. Not knowing when she would get in, if she would get the note or when she would get to the hostel I waited out in front of the hostel until she finally got there a little after 330 AM. And that is how our journey started…

DAY 1

Needless to say, after that late night we tried to sleep in but were rudely interrupted by the outrageous heat of Budapest. When I was in Russia I always felt stupid not understanding the temperature in Celsius degrees. Ximel had to educate me on what was considered warm, hot, cold and freezing. She told me that 30 degrees was considered hot… so it was a lovely surprise to wake up in Budapest to 40+ degrees of heat. Not fully understanding that, which was probably a good thing, Becca and I decided to go for a long walk to explore Budapest.

We walked probably around 7 or 8 miles (Looking back and doing some research, we were stupid for thinking we could walk that far in that heat… it reached 110 F). Ran out of water and realized very quickly that we were going to have to plan our trips around where the closest access to a body of water was. Although the Danube River splits Budapest it, is dirty and no one swam in it. Instead people used the fountains located throughout the city to cool off in. So we joined in the fun!
DAY 2
Realizing our mistakes from day 1 we decided that we couldn’t just walk around Budapest in the heat, we were far too exhausted for another day in 100+ F weather. So, we, rented some bikes and flew all around the city weaving in and out of the bike lanes, crossing the Danube, soaking up the sun, looked at the beautiful architecture, and of course went back for some swimming at the local watering hole.

DAY 3

Upon returning our bikes to the bike shop we met a nice local Hungarian who gave us some suggestions of places to visit. One of which was just past his hometown, a city called Visegrad (pronounced Vi-sh-ee-grad). We did some google research and found that it was located North of Budapest about 40 KM on a section of the Danube called “The River Bend”. It was a medieval city famous for the Fellegvar Castle that sits on top the hills around the River Bend. It was also on a part of the Danube that was swimmable. So after taking a long hike and walk through the castle we took a dip in the river and watched the sun set. We ate dinner at a restaurant on the water and tried the Hungarian specialty, Goulash Soup. Delicious.

This peaceful and relaxing dinner was followed by a not so peaceful return journey home. We missed the last bus going back to Budapest and we only made it half the way back on a bus before getting lost on about 4 other trains and busses. We ended up off any maps that we had and finally had to just take a taxi back to our hostel at about 1AM. It was an adventure to say the least.

DAY 4

After another late arrival home we decided to take the day to relax and get all of our finances and documents in order. We spent the morning sleeping in, and hidding from the heat in our hostel getting everything organized. Then spent the rest of the day in the fountain cooling off.

DAY 5

For our last day in Hungary we decided to take another day trip. This time we journey south to a city called Tihany. Tihany is a little town located on the north side of Europe’s largest fresh water lake, Lake Balaton. We woke up early to catch the first train out of Budapest to a city called Balatonfured where we got on a bus to get to Tihany. The tiny town of Tihany was located on a hill that over looked the entire lake. It was a beautiful view of the lake from Tihany. We got some coffee at a cafĂ© and walked through the town before making the walk down to the water to swim. The water was shallow and very warm. It felt like we were in the Mediterranean.  We caught the train home at 6 in the afternoon. We got back made a fruit salad for dinner and packed everything up in preparation to leave Hungary.

DAY 6

Today we are leaving Hungary. We are currently sitting on the train from Budapest and heading to Prague, Czech Republic. This train will be going through either the southern part of Slovakia or northern part of Austria depending on our route. When we first got on the train here we had a cabin to ourselves. Becca slept for a while and we were comfortable with our own space. But just about 15 minutes ago we made a stop and 4 older, stinky woman and shoved into our compartment. They had huge bags and little tolerance of our comfort level. So, here we are in the corners of the compartment trying to get comfortable for the remaining few hours of the ride to Prague where we will spend the next 6 days exploring a new city.

The internet connection is having trouble uploading pictures right now, so we will be posting more pictures later today and please see my facebook for more photos!















Cheers!!!

Dani

Sunday, July 1, 2012

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!


It is official… it is midnight… 12:00 AM July 1, 2012 and my time with FC Energy and Voronezh is finished. I am scheduled to be on the first flight out of here in 6 hours to fly to Moscow where I will have a long wait until my next flight at 2:00 PM to fly to Kiev, Ukraine.  I again have a wait, which I will fill by watching the Euro Final, which happens to be in Kiev! Then I will again board one last flight to Budapest, Hungary where I will start another journey.  This journey will be very different though… in fact, it will almost be the exact opposite of what I am leaving now. I am meeting up with my buddy in Budapest and we will make our way across Europe to London in time to watch the Canadian and Cameroon national teams in their Olympic battles! In short…I am beyond excited!

These last few days have been chalked full of mixed emotions… it is hard to even try to explain how I feel. For starters, as you can tell, I am very, VERY excited to be moving onto a new chapter and new journey. But, I feel sad leaving Russia and the friends that I have made. If I just had those two emotions, it would be easy to handle, but the last few days here have been anything but easy. Let me try to explain….

As many of you know we lost our last game against Klubanochka. It was our head coaches 65th birthday and the most important game of the season for us because it was out last chance to hold onto 2nd place and thus a bid into the Champions League. Unfortunately, the football God’s did not want to help us out. In the first half of the previous game against Rossiyanka I went to block a ball and the next thing I knew I was on the ground with our captain, Nastya, asking “Normal?? Doctor?? Doctor??” To which I responded (in English) “Give me a second”, which she took as “No, I don’t need a doctor.” So, she said “Da Vy, da vy” which means, “Let’s go, lets go”. And I, not thinking clearly and as usual, stubbornly, continued to play. This was a stupid decision. Needless to say, it turned out that I suffered a concussion and therefore I was not allowed to play in our last match. To top it off, the headache got pretty bad and I wasn’t even able to attend the last match and instead I had to lay in my room anxiously awaiting (sleeping) the team to come back.  

So… instead of being able to either bring home a victory or fight a losing battle I was forced to stay home and wait for the team’s return. Which turned out to be a sad surprise when the bus pulled up and I heard nothing but footsteps and doors to my teammate’s rooms close. We lost 1-0. They scored in the first 3 minutes and we were unable to get that goal back…unable to get the season back. And, those two events (getting a concussion, and the loss) basically put a damper on the end of the time here with FC Energy.

The next days after the game were no fun. As I was still recovering and trying to get my headache to go away whilst also getting everything ready for a move back across the world, there was little time to say goodbye. Pack, sleep, eat, sleep, talk to the director and president, sleep, pack, unpack, sleep, repack, go to the bank, sleep, finally eat… it was crazy busy and very stressful. BUT, everything (for the most part) got sorted out and here I am… contract officially finished and I have nothing to think about except getting to Budapest.

OOPS… dozed off… I had to sleep and couldn’t finish the blog…

SURPRISE!!! Change of venue…

Now I am sitting in the Moscow airport waiting for my flight to Kiev. With each step away from Voronezh I feel a little less stressed and a little bit freer. I have truly never appreciated freedom like this before. I don’t have to workout, I don’t have to eat at this time, I don’t have to stay at the base, I don’t have to eat only this food… I AM FREE!!!! My entire life has been conducted within the parameters of the structured routine of the student-athlete… no questions asked and no regrets about it. I gave up so many things that I wanted to do because I had something for school and probably something else for soccer… and here I am for the first time in my life without an exact place to go to next except to relax and recover from 4 months of the most difficult thing I have ever been through. Don't get me wrong, I was more than happy to make the sacrifices I have and will continue to make for soccer and for school, but this period of rest is something I have never experienced before, and I intend to enjoy it. 

Like I was saying in the beginning… about the mixture of emotions… now sitting here in the airport, feeling the full extent of my freedom and getting excited about traveling and seeing my buddy, it is hard to feel any sadness about leaving. In all of the craziness I didn’t get to say goodbye to many people whom I wanted to give a proper goodbye to. Many of the girls from Russia took off as quickly as possible, the Cameroons left to meet up with their national team to prepare for the Olympics, our coaches were busy getting all of our documents ready and in the end I felt a very abrupt ending with the people I have spent the last 4 months of my life with… all except 3. Whom I made sure to give proper goodbyes to… Ximel, Tanya and Eurina.

Last night I was able to say goodbye to Tanya and Eurina before heading to bed, a couple long hugs and kisses on the cheeks and holding back some tears. Then this morning at 4:30 Ximel and I parted ways at the tiny Voronezh airport… and that was that.

I cant believe it was just 4 months ago that I was sitting in the Dulles airport cheersing you with a beer and saying goodbye, and here I am sitting on the floor of the Moscow airport cheersing you with a dixie cup of coffee from a vending machine to say goodbye to Russia. What a journey it has been. Even though I say, JUST 4 months ago, I really cant say it went by quickly. That seems like a hell of a long time ago...

I just reread this blog and I think it seems scattered and probably a bit shallow or emotionless… but the truth is that there are actually too many emotions to try to process in writing. I feel happy to be moving forward, sad to be leaving, confused because of the concussion, stressed because of the abrupt ending, relieved I am finally done and so many other things all in one. All I can say is that here I am… finished with my first professional football experience. It wasnt everything I imagined, but it was the experience of a lifetime.  I hope I wont have to go through anything like I did here again. I am proud beyond words for the strength I found in myself to get through it and I believe I am stronger for it. But I am so happy that this period of ferment is finally over and I can move forward to hopefully apply the lessons I have learned to my life and my future.

I will continue to blog if you continue to read and share in my travel experience. I am in the process of making another video for all of you to see… but here is the first part I have put together... it is a compilation  of my experiences in Russia. Let me know your thoughts!!




If you would like to see more pictures you can look on my facebook to see






For the last time….

Nastarovia            (I wish you good health)
Speciba balshoy        (thank you very much/for everything)
Das vi danya,           (formal goodbye)
Paka,                     (informal goodbye)
Da vy!!!!!              (let’s go!!!!)



Cheers!!!

Danielle

and just for good measures…

Zaneela J