Family Trip!!!
Bucharest:
My parents and Michelle flew into Bucharest and I met them there.
We stayed in a really lovely hotel.
Day one, we walked around Bucharest and saw the outside of lots of buildings. It was Christmas and therefore everything was closed. It was my parents first time in Europe and it was so nice to see how excited they were about the old buildings and the beauty of the country.
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One of the three synagogues in Bucharest -
in front is a Holocaust memorial |
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| Another view of the synagogue |
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| The Parliament - one of the largest buildings in the world |
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| In front of the Cathedral behind our hotel |
Day 2: Because everything was closed we decided to book a tour of two castles in nearby Bran and Sinia and visit Brasov. Our tour guide was wonderful! He was very knowledgable and was a fabulous driver! We saw Pelish castle in Sinia and a really ornate and beautiful monastery. We also saw Dracula's castle in Bran and ate moma liga (a traditional Romanian food that my mother wanted to try because her grandfather used to make it) along the way.
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| Pelish Castle |
Varna:
After Bucharest we took a car service to Varna. I booked my parents a room at the Grand Hotel Dimiyat and Michelle and I stayed in my apartment. The hotel is amazing and has one of the best views of Varna from their glass elevator.
Friday we walked along the sea, explored the center of Varna, did some shopping and went to the open market.
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| Me and Michelle by the sea |
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| My parents in front of the Christmas market |
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| Picking up vegetables for shabbat dinner |
Friday night I made shabbat dinner in my apartment - which was really nice.
Saturday we did more walking and Saturday night went out with some of my friends to a traditional Bulgarian restaurant. My parents loved my friends - and they also danced the hora with the best of them!!!
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| They played a song just for my parents |
Istanbul:
Next, we had to get to Istanbul because that is where my parents and Michelle were flying back to America from.
A few weeks before my parents arrival Rachel and Ari (my other sister and her husband) decided to meet us in Istanbul with the kids.
It was so great!!! The kids are so cute and it was fun traveling with them.
(unfortunately these children are not allowed to have their photographs online - basically because they are too damn cute)
We hit all the highlights: Blue Masque, Hagia Sofia, The Palace, The Grand Bazar and The Spice Market
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| Palace |
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| Cistern |
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| Medusa - there is a sideways and upside down Medusa on a column |
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| Inside Hagia Sofia |
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| The Spice Market |
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| Me and Rachel in front of the Blue Masque |
Berlin:
After my family left I didn't have much time to get sad.
Immediately after they left I took an overnight bus to Sofia and then that afternoon took a flight with Katy to Berlin.
Berlin was great! It was really eye opening. There are some of the most amazing monuments and memorials I ever seen in honor of the Holocaust. People were really open and honest about their history and it was overall a really positive experience.
We stayed in a really cool hostel a little off from the center. We stayed in the same place as some other fulbrighters so hung out with them as well.
The first day, Katy, Sara (another fulbrighter) and I did the most amazing free walking tour and went to a really beautiful art museum in museum island.
Our tour guide was a Brit studying for his PhD in history in Berlin. He was really knowledgable and thoughtful! We loved him - small crushes/ high crushes!
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| The day begins! We are cold but happy! |
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| Sara in the art museum |
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| Our beautiful tour guide - smart, handsome, athletic (look how he is standing) |
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| On our way to a bar at the end of the day! |
Day 2:
Katy got a nose piercing and I got a new stud put in
We went to the art fair and we went on a huge snow slide
We ended the day with the topography of terror museum. The Museum is housed in the old headquarters of the SS and chronicles all of the devastating history from the end of WWI up until liberation after the Holochaust. It is a really heavy and thoughtful museum.
Day 3:
Our third day in Berlin - we walked around to two of the large synagogues, went to the Jewish Museum (one of the best I have ever been to) and the gay museum.
The Jewish museum was amazingly done. The architecture was built to fit the message of the museum and every element was purposeful and thoughtful.
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| Outside of Jewish Museum |
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| This was a tree of life to write something you liked about the museum |
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| This was a tree of life to write something you wish would be part of life |
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| Gay Museum |
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| The metro in the area is rainbow!!!! |
Our final day in Berlin we did a tour of Sachsenhausen, a concentration right outside Berlin.
It was an extraordinarily cold day and we were all so physically uncomfortable - but this only made it more devastating to think about the prisoners. Sachsenhausen mostly held higher ranking prisoners but of course killed countless Jews, Gypsies and Gay people there. They also had ovens - although the main purpose of the camps was to work the prisoners to death.
Back to Reality:
Some highlights since I've been back.
I went to Pobiti Kamani - or petrified forest.
It is a 7 km stone forest outside Varna. The stones are natural forming and have sand inside from when the sea went out that far.
- in order to get there we had to take a bus to this village 2 km away. The village was really tiny and very interesting to see.
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| How cool? |
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| Bobi giving the injured dog water and his second sandwich |
This past weekend I went to Veliko Turnovo - an ancient city in Bulgaria and the old capital.
It snowed so we didn't get to see that much but we went to Tsarvets - a fortress which was super cool and actually really fun to trek through the snow to see.
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| At the top - infront of the church at the top |
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| View from a lookout point (for shooting people) |
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| Gorgeous! |
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| sooo cold!!!! |
