From Russia With Love: Grand Central European Tour

Skating at the Eistraum!! (rough translation: Ice Dream)

Jake in front of the Hofburgtheater, across from the Rathaus.

The Rathaus all light up!

Jake and I just completed our Grand Central European Tour, and true to form, it was a grand adventure indeed! We began with a bus trip from Prague to Vienna. Vienna is nothing less than magnificent. The streets and buildings are exquisite and the city is easily navigable with efficient subways, trams, buses, etc. While sightseeing, we found ice rinks assembled in the park front of the Rathaus (town hall). Jake spotted a sign on a food booth for Lychee Punch. We came back later that night to try the sweet, hot liquid and test out our mad ice-skating skills. It was opening night so admission was free and the skate rentals were 6 euros--not bad! The night was clear and cold--it was quite magical! Later the next day we took the regional train to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, with the plan of taking a night train from there to Krakow, Poland. How to describe Blah-tislava?? Well, we had a good time at the McDonalds talking to a dual Slovak-US citizen. We bought tickets for a sleeper car to Krakow, though never saw a bed. What we thought would be a comfortable seven and half hour trip to Krakow turned into a multiple middle of the night transfers in towns we'd never heard of and sleeping on train benches. The fourth weekend in January in Krakow is considered high-season. All the hostels were full (mainly of Aussies and Spaniards). We found the Mosquito Hostel at 7 am after a nearly sleepless night, who promised beds at 1 pm. We collapsed in the small common room, folded on each other in a small blue couch. We awoke at noon to rooms and slept through the afternoon. We stayed two nights in Krakow and had a wonderful time--it truly is a beautiful Polish city, complete with castles, the largest medieval town square, flocks of pigeons, and muddy sidewalks ;) Getting out of Poland was quite fun! We took a bus with no suspension on local roads halfway across the country. Poor Jake's long legs didn't fit in the seat so he sat more or less sideways for a few hours. All that said, it was the best bus ride of my life. We arrived in a Polish border town, but the last train to Czech Republic had left hours before, so we walked across the border (yeah for EU integration!) and caught a train in Czech for Frydek-Mistek. We feasted at a delicious medieval restaurant. The next day we took the 22 minute train to Frydlant. Jake lived in this area during his exchange in 2004-2005 and it was wonderful to see it. There is a little tea shop and we had tea with cinnamon, white pepper, ginger, cardamom, milk, etc and halva that was so delicious we came back the next day for more! We stayed at Mark Krupa's house (a missionary friend of Jake's). He wasn't there, but was so gracious and let us stay there. It is a local tradition to play pranks in Mark's house, and we heard it was his birthday, so we decided to bake a cake and decorate his kitchen. Baking that cake was quite the experiment. The electric oven, we later found out, has only been used once or twice to heat frozen pizzas.

Recipe for Krupa's Birthday Cake:

Ingredients: chocolate cake mix, vanilla pudding, mango, shredded coconut, powdered sugar

1. Set oven on Broil, and broil for nearly an hour

2. Burn the milk before adding pudding mix, stir until curdled

3. Cut out of season Mango into chunks

4. Open window to air out the kitchen

5. Cut of blackened parts of cake (i.e. the whole top)

6. When removing cake from pan, make sure it resembles a bundt cake (with center missing)

7. Find something in the cupboard to fill the hole, i.e. gummies??

8. Add unripe mango chunks to refrigerated "pudding"

9. Cover top of cake with pudding mixture

10. Mix powdered sugar with a Tbl. of water, add shredded coconut, drizzle glaze over entire cake.