Russia Update!

Hi Family and Friends!

Just wanted to update everyone that Maria and I are safely in Russia! My visa worked out fine, now we are staying with her Grandmother, who lives in St Petersburg. Just wanted to let you know (in case anyone is following the news in Moscow/worried) there are fires in Moscow and it is very smoky. Today the US government issued a travel warning telling US tourists not to go to Moscow right now, so though we planned on going we are not going to go any more, instead we will stay in St Petersburg. But ya, everything is great, it is a beautiful city along the river and I have my own personal translator and tour guide!

Prague

Famous clocktower of Prague! You have to buy a book to know how to use it!



The Dancing House from Prague


Jewish Prague:
Prague has a Jewish section with old synagogues and a cemetery. Though many Jewish places were destroyed by the Nazis, interestingly this one was saved thanks to Hitler, who planned on preserving this as a museum of "the exterminated race". Pretty sick I know. Anyway, there are 5 museums and it was interesting to see, and a really nice break from the 5 million churches I have seen.

Names of holocaust victims. I found "Bernstein"

Cemetery from the 17th century!


Old synagogue.

The Jewish synagogue was built by people who had studied with Moorish architecture. It looked really cool!



Pretty view from Prague

One of our awesome dinners that we make! Delicious, cheap and (usually) healthy! Here we have our typical cucumber, tomato and mozzarella salad with pesto pasta, melon and wine!


We saw this cool Church on our day trip to Karlovy Vary, 2 hours outside of Prague. It was a spa town, and there were hot springs that we drank from. Its supposed to have healing powers, but it tasted gross!


Me rubbing the dog, its supposed to bring you luck!


View of Prague


A note on hostels!

Not all hostels are created equal! In fact, hostels can be amazingly fun, cute and cozy, or impersonal and industrial. While all hostels we have stayed in have been (relatively) comfortable, clean and safe they vary in privacy, the bathroom situation, location and friendliness of people and staff. A lot of times the cost does not correlate with the quality, the Paris hostel was expensive but impersonal and not very nice while the Prague one was very cute and very cheap. We started off finding hostels through HI (hosteling international) but actually those hostels tended to be large, impersonal and expensive. While you are guaranteed a bed, clean sheets and clean bathrooms, the hostels are very large and just cover the basics. Now we use hostelworld (website). Using the reviews we chose cute hostels that fit our needs. In addition to free sheets, we look for hostels with free internet and a kitchen. We have been very lucky and all our hostels have been fine, but it definitely makes a difference of you have a good hostel! The Spain ones were pretty good, a lot of times they organized outings!

Strasburg

Day trip from Paris- right on the French German border

Paris

More photos soon!!!

Sarlat

After pays basque Maria and I went to Sarlat, a cute French medieval village! We went kayaking down the river, which was soo fun!




Bordeaux, quick stop for Maria to show me around where she studies abroad!

France Photos!

Life is good by the beach!

The châteaux that we biked to! magnifique!

Beautiful view while biking!

Their house, the dad is an architect and he designed it! We have been staying here for almost a week!

The harbor by their house! So cute!

Roch; Franc and Diane, our host family in France! Roch stayed with us for 2 weeks in SB! Hes 18 and as you can see likes to joke around.

View of St John de Luz

Delicious dinner that they made for us in Cap Ferret! Oysters are the specialty of the region. While they are not the favorite of me and Maria, we tried them and they were very good!

Still relaxing in France!

Hey all!

We are still chilling in Southern France with the awesome family we are staying with! Yesterday we went to 2 different beaches and then took a boat to cross the boarder to Spain for drinks and tappas! Not a bad life!

Haha nothing much new, just relaxing and going to the beach and speaking French! `

If you have not received a post card you should have, but send me your address just in case!