here in the United States. I knew I wasn't afraid and to this day, I'm still not hesitate when it comes to going abroad. This opportunity arose in late September, I had finally applied for my passport at the end of the summer and I was ready to just go. I have family members who have lived in and/or traveled to almost every country in the world and they approached me with the idea of going to Germany (where one of them is originally from). I decided this was my chance to go and there was no looking back! After some back and fourth conversation the trip was finally booked! We'd fly into Frankfurt and start to explore on from there with the potential chance of venturing to another country as well! To save you from a long, obnoxious story there was a little bit of an issue leading up to the trip; my aunt had gotten sick. It wasn't until an hour before my flight out of NY that I knew I was for sure going to Germany (talk about stress!). I ventured from NY to Philly, to Chicago (where I met my family), to Poland, to Frankfurt which was a LONG day of traveling. We arrived to Germany at about 8PM German time which was 6 hours ahead of NY...I was a zombie. We rented a car and I slept until our first stop which was Cologne.
Okay so what did I see? Where did I run? What did I eat? Let me get to all of that.... I am a HUGE sight-seer, I love architecture, I love great views, I love new places so you better bet I made it a point to see everything I needed to in the areas that we ventured to. Remember when I mentioned visiting a second country? During the duration of this trip we actually spent 3 days in the Czech Republic because my Aunt really wanted to see Prague! Many of the structures we saw were cathedrals which were absolutely BEAUTIFUL. The architecture in Europe is absolutely gorgeous and so precise. The European designers pay a lot of attention to detail and let me just tell you the designs are absolutely flawless. We also saw many intricate bridges and interesting structures. For example, in Prague at the top of this...for lack of a better word..hill they have a gigantic metronome that they claim keeps the city balanced. The structure is gigantic and it actually moves! The art in both Germany and Prague either focussed on the human body or on building of religious origin. So where did I run? I will say that it was MUCH easier and slightly more pleasant to run in Prague as compared to Germany but maybe that would have been different if I had visited Berlin. In Germany running was... rather awkward. I had the opportunity to run on a bike path that was directly across the street from my hotel. The path followed the entire perimeter of Nuremberg, and if you ran the entire path it was said to be just about 9 miles (debatable). I never really made it round the entire path, but I did make my way in and out of the city a couple of times. Funny enough almost no one in Germany runs during the day, I can't say I saw a single soul out when I was running, and when I did run past them they CLAPPED at me...was this a congrats for being a crazy individual or were they mocking me? I never truly found out, but when I went out for a few runs in Prague it was drastically different. You'll find most runners out and about around 10am or so, they'll run along side the river/canal/some body of water and they're extremely friendly! It was easy to get my mileage in and I actually met some cool people along the way! I ran up to the metronome on top of Prague's main... hill? To the left you'll see my view from the top. It overlooks the entire city and it's absolutely gorgeous! Sure it was quite the climb in elevation but it was TOTALLY worth it. Okay so now onto the FOOD which is always everyones' favorite part. To be honest, it's slightly difficult being plant-based in Germany because every single dish contains meat.... also they don't really believe in salad..? I found that to be quite blizzard. Nevertheless if you like potatoes you will be GOLDEN because along with meat EVERYTHING INCLUDES POTATOES. I also was "slightly" adventurous and tried potato dumplings with kraut which actually wasn't all that bad... The most interesting thing about German wait service is that they are perfectionists, so every time I explained that I was gluten free 90% of the chefs would create a meal that wasn't even on the menu! Talk about first class service... also German's LOVE Italian food which works out perfectly for me. In Prague things were a lot more Americanized a lot of pasta, we found Thai food, pizza, nothing truly out of the ordinary, oh and they also loved potatoes. Long story short this trip was AMAZING. My first time out of the United States, and certainly not my last (Spain 2018!!). When you visit another country you open your eyes to a totally different culture and way of life. The Germans and Czechs are so eco-friendly, overall happy individuals, walk EVERYWHERE, and are extremely clean. It was a totally different experience compared to visiting another state in the US...and everything is a hell of a lot cheaper. Below I'll have a slideshow of more pictures from my trip, my advice to you all is to travel! Go see another country it'll definitely change your perspective on a couple of things. That's all for now, I hope you all have a lovely and amazing Holiday Season! Until next time... Stay Green, Amanda
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
LifestyleWhat does Amanda do outside of her crazy, insane exercise obsessed life..? I know you're all dying to know. Check out my previous posts!
March 2018
|