Bonjour Paris!

Day #1 in Paris, Day #7 traveling

My early morning view

Today, I had a flight from Vienna to Paris at 6:10 am.  This meant an EARLY 4:30 am cab ride to the airport because Vienna doesn't seem to have public transportation during the wee hours of the morning.  Although the flight was early and I was tired and a bit cranky, I checked watching a sunrise from a plane off my bucket list! The view was spectacular, and made better by the blanket of clouds we were flying over that reflected the beautiful colors of the sunrise.

My early flight allowed me to maximize my first day in Paris.  I couldn't check into my hostel until 4 pm, so I dropped my bags off and started sight seeing with my go-to first day sightseeing guide...the city's free tour!  For more on my love affair with free tours, see my blog about the one I did in Prague back in October.

St. Michael's monument

The free tour started out in St. Michael's plaza, where a gigantic statue of St. Michael sits in the middle of an intersections.  Not only is it gigantic, he's crushing Lucifer's head and casting him into Hell.  It's a pretty awesome statue.

We progressed towards a view of Notre Dame.  It was constructed 850 years ago and serves as the seat of the Archdiocese of Paris.  In Notre Dame, Napoleon invited all the European royalty and the guest of honor, Pope Pius VII, to his coronation in the cathedral.   He knelt before the Pope, and after a longwinded speech from His Holiness, Napoleon became impatient.  He seized the crown from the pope's hands and crowned himself.  The only King of France to crown himself.  After the coronation, Napoleon used this as a bargaining chip in debates "Even the pope wasn't good enough to crown me, only God himself."  (Or at least this is the tale my tour guide told us!)

The drunk party goers

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a favorite of my childhood, was written by a Frenchman who was horrified that the French had allowed the cathedral to fall into extreme disrepair.  So he wrote the book to bring awareness of the cathedral to the forefront of the city's mind.  It worked and and the Parisians saved Notre Dame from being demolished.

From Notre Dame we saw the San Chapelle, it was built by Napolean to house Christ's Crown of Thorns and the nails from his Cross.  Since then, it was moved to Notre Dame.  The Chapel is 75% stained glass and I'm planning on going inside tomorrow.

King Henry VII

We moved from the San Chapelle to the Seine where we walked for a little bit along the river.  We saw the "New Bridge", which is actually the oldest bridge in Paris.  When it was built by King Henry VII, it was the first stone bridge in Paris...hence the name New Bridge.  To celebrate the opening of the bridge, King Henry threw a huge costume party with all of his friends and allowed them to drink all the Royal wine collection.  The drunk guests were upset when the wine was gone, so he opened up the champagne collection.  With everyone stumbling around out of their minds, he had the fantastic idea to have the royal artists draw all the people in their costumes.  The morning after, not remembering the night, King Henry had a whole stack of photos to help him figure out the night and decided to memorialize the night by adding the face of each guest to the bridge, making it the "first wall post where he tagged a bunch of drunk friends."

The Louvre!

King Henry VII was an incredibly popular king in France, but also the subject of a ton of assassination attempts. The 24th assassination was successful. The statue of King Henry shows that he died of "unnatural causes".   It's only true on most equestrian statues in Western Europe.  If the horse has two feet raised, then the person riding it died of unnatural causes.  All four feet on the ground means they died of natural causes.  And if the horse is rearing up on its hind legs, its rider died heroically in battle.

The Institute of French was the next stop.  It's where very special people decide important aspects of the French language...like whether an I-Pod should be feminine or masculine (took them 5 months!).  They also ban English words from the French dictionary and create French words to replace them.  This is actually news in France, as my friend, Pierre, told me that the Institute just banned the word "hashtag".

St. Joan of Arc

The tour ended with a view of the Eiffel Tower...my first! The tour guide said the Tower brings in 48 million euros from tourists, but it only has an eight million euro profit because the light show costs 40 million euro a year.  I also saw an obelisk that Napolean stole from Egypt.  It's over 3000 years old.  The Frenchmen in charge of putting it up in the center of the square were so proud that they figured it out without damaging the monument, they put the directions in gold on the base of the obelisk.

Eiffel Tower!

After the tour, I met up with my friend Pierre.  We both had internships in Washington D.C. last summer and I played the role of a tour guide in DC so today he showed me around a little.  We visited his school's chaplaincy, much like an American university's Newman Center.  Then we walked around Paris some, I saw the mayor's residence and a beautiful French carousel.  And then had cheesecake and tea at a cafe in the Jewish quarter...which happened to have Polish owners.  Cheesecake labeled "Sernik" was the give away.  The owners even spoke Polish to me!

Carousel with Notre Dame
in the background

Since in DC, I invited Pierre to the diocese's young adult group, he suggested I join the chaplaincy for Mass and dinner tonight.  It was really cool to see young French people in a worship setting!  There's hope in France...there must be hope for the world!  Probably the best part of the day was being able to talk with Pierre about the church and politics in France and the U.S, especially because he is helping out with the French movement against gay marriage.  There are many parallels in terms of youth movements of the Catholic Church in the U.S. and France.  Young people are demanding more traditional, faithful churches and services.  And it's always great to talk about faith with a friend.

A Sunset in Vienna...The Perfect Farewell!

Day #2 in Vienna, Day #6 traveling

The front of the palace

After the long day walking and 3 ½ hours standing at the opera last night, I let myself sleep until I woke up.  I was hoping to sleep until 9 or 10, but that didn’t work out and I rolled out of bed around 8.  After a quick breakfast, I hit the road to the Hapsburg summer palace, Schönbrunn. 

During the time of Empress Elizabeth, Schönbrunn was outside of the city walls.  Today, it’s a 10 minute tram ride from my apartment. Originally a mansion built in 1469, Schönbrunn was transformed into a palace in the 17^th century. The palace has over 1400 rooms, but the tour only takes you through 44 of them.  I liked Schönbrunn a lot more than the Imperial Apartments in the castle inside the city.  The Rucco style of the furniture and décor felt more fitting for a royal family.  Inside the palace, pictures weren’t allowed.  However, the ball room was so beautiful, I snuck a photo or two.

I wish I could go to a ball here.

As a summer residence, Schönbrunn is renowned for its Baroque-style gardens.  Since it’s winter time, the gardens weren’t that spectacular, but I could see the promise in them.  Along with the gardens, Schönbrunn is home to the oldest zoo in the world.  Fr. Libor strongly suggested visiting it because the animals are kept in a more realistic setting than in normal modern zoos.  For example, the giraffes, lions and elephants are all in the same pen.  Unfortunately the entrance ticket was 15 euro, so I decided to pass.

The gate to Belvedere

After the palace, I went to Belvedere.  Belvedere is actually a complex with two palaces (upper and lower) along with the normal palace necessities, i.e. gardens, livery, treasury, etc.  The palaces house expensive art collections now, but since it was a beautiful day and I was getting low on euro, I decided to pass on the expensive admission ticket and just walk around the palace grounds for fun.  While I was walking around, I ran into some Peruvian guys I met at the opera last night.

The Upper Palace in Belvedere

The major walking part of my tour started after Belvedere.  I took the metro to the Vienna University.  Next to the university is a Neo-Gothic Votivkriche.  The Votivkirche was finished in 1879 and was built to commemorate the failed assassination attempt on Emperor Franz Joseph I.  The Hapsburgs were always the targets of assassination attempts.  Emporess Elizabeth died when an anarchist stabbed her in the heart in Geneva.  And, if you know history of the World Wars, the first one started when the heir to the Hapsburg throne was assassinated.  The Hapsburgs were really great targets because they symbolized a powerful dynasty, and an assassination sent a strong political message.

Freud's former practice

From the memorial, I walked towards Bergasse, the neighborhood of Sigmund Freud’s former home and practice.  After a bit of searching, I did find his house…it was hard to miss with the giant FREUD sign on the street.  From Freud’s home, I wandered through the streets of the 9^th district of Vienna.  There are a ton of different small shops, cafes, and bars and it was very endearing.  However, it was also fairly expensive, I saw some places offering coffees for 6 or 7 euro!

Perhaps the most picturesque part of my day was in the most unexpected place.  The guide I was following suggested a walk along the Danube canal.  It mentioned outdoor bars, bikers, and a lot of other warm weather activities.   There was a brief mention of graffiti, so that piqued my interest.  If you go to Vienna, you HAVE to go see the canal!  The art work along the canal is absolutely beautiful.  The sun had finally come out and so it illuminated the graffiti and the colors reflected nicely into the water below. 

Graffiti along the Danube Canal

I walked across the canal to search for Viktor Frankl’s home.  Frankl is the author of “Man’s Search for Meaning.”  The book details his experience as a prisoner in Auschwitz during the Holocaust.  Before being arrested, Frankl worked in Vienna as a psychologist.  During his imprisonment, he continued working with fellow prisoners.  Phame, the director of the CMU Honors Program, requires this book in the Introduction to Honors course that I mentored in.  I’ve read it three times and graded 150 papers about it!  Frankl answers some important questions about life, especially how to motivate other people to want to live.

A guy adding his mark to the canal

From Frankl’s house, I went to St. Charles’s church.  It’s an outstanding Baroque style church.  I was a bit put off that I had to pay to go inside, but I bit the bullet because it was highly recommended by Fr. Libor.  The cool thing in the church was a lift (included in the ticket price) that takes you to stairs that lead to the top of the church’s dome.  I question the decision to implement this “panoramic” view in the church because the view isn’t that good (impossible to take pictures through the glass) and I think the monstrous metal contraptions necessary to stabilize the lift and stairs to take away from the beauty of the church and altar.

The oldest church in Vienna,
circa 740

Trying to get a better panoramic view of the city, I went back to St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the city center to climb to the top of the south tower there.  There aren’t any lifts in this tower!  I walked up over 330 stairs to a height of 67 meters.  Again, I was slightly disappointed by the dirty glass covering the windows that prevent a really great photo.  But, I did enjoy the beginnings of a beautiful sunset from the top…just no pictures for you to see!

After all this walking, I had a little bit more to do!  I went souvenir shopping and got a few postcards to mail back home. Then, I made it back to the hostel around 18, made dinner, and wrote my blog!  Tomorrow, I have to take a taxi at 4:30 AM to the airport to head out to Paris!  I’m really excited for France because I have quite a few friends there that I’ll be meeting up with. 

St. Charles's church

Thanks for reading today!  Danke

Stairs to Frankl's house

The inside of St. Charles's
See the scaffolding interfering
with the church's beauty?

The sunset over Vienna...a perfect goodbye!

A Day Fit For an Imperial Princess...aka ME!

One small wing of the castle

Day #1 in Vienna, Day #5 traveling

My night in Budapest I spent two hours chatting with a brother and sister from the UK and a guy from Australia.  Turned out, the Australian was arriving in Vienna the same day as me and so we made plans to meet back up at the hostel and do some sightseeing together.  So my first day in Vienna was great because I had someone to talk to the whole time!

We started walking towards the center of the city because that’s where the Hapsburg castle is located.  And I really wanted to see the library and imperial apartments.  The complex is HUGE!  We actually stumbled upon it by accident, but there are a million buildings (like 400 rooms in 18 different wings).  There were some cool parts, like a butterfly house and some not so cool parts like a paper museum.  After walking around the building a bit, we found the main location of the Austrian National Library, handily named something like Bibliotek. 

Inside the library 

Ceiling inside the national library

So many books!!

The library did not disappoint.  It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve visited.  I really can’t imagine sitting in there and reading a book, which is okay because some of the books are from the 14^th century and can’t really be read normally.  The Austrians are undergoing a project to digitize all of the books, which sounds like an incredibly difficult task because I’m sure we just saw a fraction of the national library.  There was also a guy with a video camera taking shots of the library and a woman reading one of the books with white gloves on, I figured he was doing a documentary or something.

City Hall

We found the ticket office to the Imperial Apartments on the opposite side of the castle.  However, there was only one English tour for the day and for three dollars extra, I prefer to listen to a real person talk vs. an audio guide.  So we bought tickets and went on our merry way for the next two hours of sightseeing (and lunch!).  Lunch was going to be at a popular schnitzel restaurant that our hostel recommended, but it was rather full and we didn’t want to wait around.  So we found a different restaurant and I ate pizza for my first real meal in Austria.

Austrian Congress

After lunch, we wandered around a little bit more and saw the Austrian Congress, a rather large, imposing building that looks across the road to the castle.  Next to Congress is a picturesque gothic-style cathedral.  Except, it’s not a cathedral at all but city hall! 

Unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures during the tour of the Hapsburg apartments, but I have to admit it was kind of strange.  Everything was very similar to other castles and palaces I have visited, except that this one was filled with modern conveniences.  For example, Empress Elizabeth had a bath with indoor plumbing including hot water.  She was the first one in the castle to have her own flushable toilet also.

St. Stephen's Cathedral

Inside the cathedral

Elizabeth was an interesting character, she loved Emperor Franz Joseph, but didn’t want him to be an emperor.  She longed for a normal life and thus shirked many of the duties of an empress.  For a late 19^th and early 20^th century woman, Elizabeth was incredibly well-traveled.  She went as far as London and Greece.  She was also incredibly in shape.  Every day, she did a workout program to keep her slender 5’8” and 105 pounds figure.  Her apartments have the workout equipment she used to use.  Her hair was the second most important feature of her beauty.  Elizabeth was incredibly proud of her ankle length, thick, brown hair.  It took 2-3 hours EVERY DAY for her hairdresser to put it up.  To make use of that time, Elizabeth learned different languages including Greek and Hungarian.

Mozart's house in Vienna

The Hapsburg empire was demolished after WWI.  The remaining royal family was exiled and they now live around the world including the U.S., Germany, and Australia.  The castle grounds always belonged to the state, so the Hapsburgs were forced to forfeit those holdings; however, if they acknowledged the legitimacy of the new government, they were allowed to keep their royal fortunes.  So I imagine that the ones who no longer live in Austria live quite comfortably.

When we were done in the apartments, we walked towards the international market.  I was expecting a hustling and bustling marketplace, but this was pretty disappointing (perhaps because of all the wind and rain).  The food there was very overpriced, so we decided to go elsewhere.

Old meets new in Vienna's City Center

Before dinner, we walked around the city center and saw St. Stephen’s Cathedral.  It was strange opening hours, but I was still able to sneak a peak of the alter and was pretty impressed.  After St. Stephen’s we walked to wear Mozart lived when he moved to Vienna.  Unfortunately, I won’t have time to go to Salzburg, Mozart’s birthplace, so I wanted to get a little bit of music history into my trip. 

Opera House

After dinner, we headed towards the Opera House.  For four euro, we got to stand in the back of the theater and watch a modern Cinderella opera.  I went mostly to see the building, so I was pleasantly surprised when the opera was actually good.  At times, it was a bit strange and very non-traditional for opera.  It was a very well-done performance though, probably because it was the 30^thish time it was performed!

One of the halls of the Opera House

Around 11 pm, I arrived back in the hostel (13 hours after leaving) and crashed and burned.  Tomorrow I have a less busy day because I saw almost everything I wanted to see today.  I also don’t want to be exhausted when I get to Paris because I’ll be hanging out with some Parisian friends I made in Washington D.C. this summer!

The Opera House Ceiling

Bratislava 2.0

Day #3 in Slovakia, Day #4 traveling

The UFO holds up the bridge

Castle or Hrad in Slovakian

My last day in Slovakia was spent in Bratislava again.  This time I had Fr. Libor as my guide and a significantly smaller danger of getting hopelessly lost again in the maze of the old town.  So we took a train in the morning from his hometown to Bratislava.  There were no seats on the train because we are almost its last stop before Bratislava after traveling the entire span of Slovakia in about 5 hours.  Consequently, there were a lot of students on the train studying frantically for their upcoming finals.

Cathedral!

In Bratislava, we started with the castle.  Although it burned down in the 19^th century, the castle was recently rebuilt.  It stands on a hill overlooking the city with a commanding white presence.  The views from the top of the castle hill were really pretty and included the city on one side and the Danube River on the other.  Unfortunately, the museum is closed on Mondays so we couldn’t go inside.

We crossed the highway to the cathedral side.  The castle and old town are separated by a large highway that the communists constructed, cutting Bratislava in half.  So the cathedral’s façade is on the highway.  The inside is quite beautiful and churchy.  Fr. Libor was ordained in this church, which is fitting since his seminary was right next door.  Both of the seminaries I saw in Slovakia were painted pink, which was a little bit strange.

Then we started a walk around the Old Town for a little bit and Fr. Libor told me the appropriate names for all the buildings I had seen on the first day.  In my lack of a map, I had neglected to see any of the churches in Bratislava.  We made a few stops to see different churches around the city because the Catholic faith is an important part of Slovakian history.  It was also incredibly nice to just talk about life with a priest who is familiar with my family life and many of my friends from St. Cyril’s.  

For lunch, I went  for the adventurous choice and had a pork “medallion” dish with some kind of dumpling for the side.  The pork was a normal piece of pork chop served on a strange piece of fried bread with bit of garlic and bacon bits sprinkled on them.  The dumplings were stranger, not dumplings in the sense of anything I’ve ever eaten before in my life.  They were pieces of bread (crouton size) held together with cheese or some other kind of batter.

HOME! aka, embassy

The Blue Church

After lunch, we went to the Blue church. On the way there, we passed by the American embassy…I was mere steps from American soil This might be the most unique church I’ve ever seen in my life because the whole outside of it is BRIGHT blue!  Inside the church, most everything is also painted blue…the door frames, gates, and even the pews.  Fr. Libor said the church is booked over a year in advanced for weddings.  I totally understand why…the amount of blue might sound overwhelming, but it would make very pretty pictures.

Slovakian White House

On the walk back to the train station, we walked past the Slovakian White House.  However, the president doesn’t actually live there permanently, but rather in a village on the outskirts of the city.   Similarly to many European countries, the president doesn’t hold any political power.  The prime minister wields the political clout.  His house is next door to the president’s, but much less noticeable and pretty.  

And just like that, we were back at the train station.  I could never trace our path on a map, and most of the time I probably wouldn’t have been able to get back to the train station (good thing I trust Fr. Libor!).  We collected my bags from the luggage check and bought train tickets.  I bid Fr. Libor adieu and headed towards Vienna.  Again, there was absolutely no passport control.  I had a relaxing evening in Vienna after all the walking in the cold the last 2 ½ days, I am TIRED!  So I figured it was better to be a little lazy today and go hard tomorrow then to be miserable both days.  

Fr. Libor and I outside of the Old City Tower

Exploring Slovakian Countryside (Leopoldov, Nitra, and Trnava)

Altar of the village church

Day 2 Slovakia, Day 3 traveling

 

We woke up on the second day to attend mass in a village church.  Unlike American Catholics who just go to whichever church they prefer, Slovaks belong to a village parish and that’s the church they attend.  Some parishes have more than one church if there are multiple villages that are a large distance from each other because the vast majority of people walk to Mass.  

The Mass was very similar to Mass in Poland in terms of when people sit, stand, and kneel.  I was very surprised again at how I was able to follow along because it was close to Polish words.  After the Mass, Fr. Libor surprised me by introducing me to the organist and cantor, a 14 year old girl!  I never would have guessed she was that young from the organ-playing.   

Mural of Sts. Cyril and Methodius
inside the village church

After Mass, we stopped at a pond to visit with Fr. Libor’s brother who was playing ice hockey.  Seeing as it was my first time out on a frozen pond, I was a bit jumpy whenever I heard the ice creaking.  Fr. Libor thought it was quite amusing and proceeded to tell me how the ice might not be strong enough for the two of us!  Near the pond, a house has a bunch of weird zoo animals like ostriches and sheep.

Leopoldov is home to one of the largest prisons in Slovakia where the most dangerous criminals are held.  Luckily for the innocent citizens of Leopoldov, the modern prison is built inside the walls of a 14^th century fortress and nearly impossible to escape.  It has operated as a prison since the 17^th century, even serving as a place for political prisoners during communism.  Pope John Paul II beatified a priest who died in the prison under communist brutality.  

Prison walls from 14th century

The rest of the time before lunch we spent wandering through the country side.  Leopoldov is a beautiful city nestled in the flat lands of western Slovakia.  One day I hope to visit the Eastern part where you can see the mountains.  More than likely, I’ll see this mountain range on the Polish side, but I’m still planning to make a trip there.  

We walked over farm lands to a second pond that was also frozen over. However since it’s so far away from houses, people don’t use it for skating.  Fr. Libor said when he was a kid they would swim there almost every day.  The last major part of the walk was along the river bank, which was artificially split in two a while back for a water power station.  

The local swimming hole

Lunch was a delicious meal.  We had “Sunday soup”, which was a chicken broth with carrots and noodles.  The main course was a pork dish and rice.  I’m not sure what kind of spices were on the pork, but it was fantastic.  It might also have to do with the fact that I’ve never tasted fresh pork before in my life.

After dinner, the real sightseeing started.  Fr. Libor drove me to Nitra to show me some of the local churches.  He lives on the border of two dioceses, so first he showed me the diocese that he doesn’t belong to.  The cathedral is located on a hill overlooking the city.  It’s a beautiful construction that is reminiscent of a fortress, except there’s only a church not an entire castle fortification.  As beautiful as the church is, it’s unfortunately too small to hold the diocesan ordinations so those are held in other churches in the diocese.

Cathedral on the hill

Nitra also had a pretty interesting museum about the diocese.  There a bunch of different artifacts from bishops over the years, including some rather ornate miters.   The displays all had English translations, which was pretty nice for me, although Fr. Libor translated all the texts that weren’t in English and provided a really great monologue of the history of the Catholic Church in Slovakia.  Archaeologists recently discovered some evidence that Sts. Cyril and Methodius might not have been the first missionaries to the Slovakian region, which would change the history of the Catholic Church in the area.  

When we were done in Nitra, we drove to city #2, Trnava, the seat of Fr. Libor’s diocese (and Fr. Ben, my pastor at St. Cyril’s!).  There are a ton of churches in Trnavaand it’s nicknamed “Little Rome.”  There are many different religious orders operating in the city, which is why there are so many churches in a small area.  We were able to visit many of them, but I think my favorite was the Jesuit Church.  Fr. Libor also showed me the bishop’s palace, which was a gigantic building spanning almost the entire block.  It was kind of surprising to me that the bishop lived in such a large place.

Altar of the Cathedral in Nitra

Upon returning home, Fr. Libor got out a good map of Vienna and helped me figure out how to get from the train station to my hostel.  He was a wealth of sightseeing advice and equipped me with a lengthy list of interesting things to see.  Hopefully I can see almost all of them during my time in Vienna!  I’ll be packing in quite a bit in just two short days.