beaucoup de choses à voir

salut! sorry for the lack of updates.. i've been really busy since break ended and haven't had a chance to upload my pictures and write an entry.

anyway-- break was great. prague was beautiful. i saw so much that i don't really know where to start. we spent the first few days doing tourist-y things. of course, we visited the castle and the cathedral. the line to get into the cathedral was incredibly long on the weekend, so i ended up going back later in the week by myself to see the inside, and i'm glad i did. the stained glass windows were awesome.. really bright colors!

my favorite place in prague was the st charles bridge. its a pedestrian bridge that crosses the river, and there are all sorts of people selling jewelry, photos and paintings. all along the bridge are huge, somewhat creepy statues of jesus and other religious icons. they look really cool though, especially when it snows or when its foggy.

speaking of snow, it snowed while we were there and was cold the entire time. i wasn't too thrilled about the temperatures, but the city looked awesome with white snow.

we stayed in "old prague hostel," which ended up being one of the best parts of the trip. i met a lot of nice people from all over, and went to the pubs with them (and on a pretty wild pub crawl) during the week.

i also took a tour of "underground prague." basically, prague used to flood all the time way back when, so they raised the city streets an entire level so the rooms and stores that were once on the ground floor became basements. this is why almost all of the restaurants and pubs in prague are in cellars.

needless to say, i didn't learn any czech.

after prague, stacy and i split ways and i met clint in toulouse. i really liked it there and want to go back. the streets of the old town look just like the streets in aix, but the city felt more like a real city to me than aix does. clint and i went to some vintage stores, an art museum and ate a lot. we tried some really interesting pastries from a north african or middle eastern patisserie. yummy!

toulouse is called "la ville rose" because most of the buildings are made of pink brick. its really pretty. unfortunately and for some unknown reason, i didn't take any pictures.. but i hope to return and i can take some them. toulouse doesn't have a real youth hostel, so i've got it in my head that i'd like to open one there. c'est un reve!

this weekend i got a ride to montpellier with my host mom. she goes out there every once in a while because her mom lives there. it was a cute city.. again, the old part of the city looked kind of like aix, but was more open and the buildings were mostly white. we visited a bunch of churches and also went to the beach.

en route to montpellier, we stopped in two beautiful little towns. saint mairies de la mer is in the camargue, a region of france near the beach known for white (semi-wild) horses and flamingos. we also went to aigues mortes (dead waters), which is a city completely surrounded by a wall. i think it was built in the 11th century? maybe not. anyway, the city was really cool and the walls were impressive.

finally, on our way home today we stopped in nimes, a town a little bit further north that has a roman arena, another roman building and the pont du gard (aqueducts). we just got lunch and then had to leave, but i definitely plan on returning there for a weekend.


main square, 5 minutes from our hostel


up by the cathedral and the castle. i love the colors!


dancing house


st charles bridge: my favorite part of the city. i like the creepy statues and the castle in the background.


bar crawl with hostel folk