#8 - Czech'd Ourselves Before We Almost Wrecked Ourselves (In Heidelberg)

Our school "spring trip" was to Prague, Czech Republic this year! I was personally very excited about getting to go to Prague, since I'd always been envious of my high school peers: they went to Prague our senior year and all got "Czech Me Out" t-shirts--and I wanted one really badly.

Needless to say, I GOT ONE. 

Besides my cheesy souvenir, Prague was great. It's a really interesting city because it's such a melting pot of different things: culture, architecture, art, people, etc. I spent most of my time in Prague with my World Since 1914 history class, but over the weekend I got to see a tour of the city, the Cathedral at the Prague Castle, Terezin (a Jewish ghetto and prison right outside of Prague), an awful American-made museum on Communism, AND I fought the power here at the Castle to be allowed to go off on my own one afternoon to see the Mucha museum. Alfons Mucha, essentially the father of Art Nouveau, is by far my favorite artist, and it was great to be able to walk through his tiny museum and really take my time, by myself. 

A Mucha stained glass window in the Cathedral.

Photo credit: Nick Heller.

After our organized Prague trip ended on Monday, Rebecca Bradshaw and I headed out to Germany, where we decided to go for our "spring break" of six days. We chose to do this 1) because we both had Eurail, which meant we didn't have to pay for ANY travel for six days, 2) we're both acting students, and Germany's got a great theatre reputation. So we did five cities in six days: Dresden, Berlin, Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Munich. Dresden was my favorite, and Heidelberg probably my least favorite, only because we walked around in the dark for three hours in the pouring rain with our backpacks on trying to find a hostel--and then the hostel a) sucked and b) was expensive. We saw shows in Dresden, Berlin and Munich--the Munich show, at the Kammerspiele, was by far the best. It was an absolutely incredible physical comedy that would be much easier for me to gush about in person, so I will.

The view from the Heidelberg Castle.

All in all, the trip was great. The Germans--though we'd heard from some of our peers that they could be a bit harsh--were incredibly nice the whole trip, and the country is really beautiful. Not to mention, German actors literally get 10-15 minute curtain calls. Like, no joke. Why on earth am I trying to become an actor in the United States?

For my very few Prague and Germany pictures, click here!