Graduation Trip Day 1: Czech Republic

Jeff = red
Josie = black

After we left Vienna that morning, we started for the Czech Republic. The drive through the Czech Republic was beautiful. The trees reminded me of Island Park. It was a very hot day and Josie succumbed to the comfortable A/C in the car and took a little nap on the way. Sleep comes easy for Josie, I don't even think that she realizes that she fell asleep most times. She just drifts away and is a cute sleeper. Whenever she tries to fight it, I know that it will be a losing battle, so I tell her to just lay down and nap.

My plan for the day was to pass through a small town on the way to Prague to see a castle. I have always loved castles (what's not to love) and had seen Hluboka Castle on a calendar that a subcontractor had left at our office. I researched where it was at and found out that it was kind of on the way to Prague.

For the sake of the surprise, it was a good thing Josie was asleep on the way because the castle sits atop of the hill and looms over the countryside below. I found a place to park in the little town and Josie woke up wondering where we were.

I didn't know how to get to the castle from where we were parked, I just knew that it was up the hill from where we were.

I spotted a trail and we followed up the mountain. Every now and again, I could see a speck of the white castle through the thick trees, but Josie--not knowing what to look for--didn't notice.

I had just woken up And it was an uphill climb...AND I'm in suspense...

We zig-zagged up the trail for 10-15 minutes and then came to walking path to the castle. Almost immediately the path was covered with a vine-tunnel. I had Josie close her eyes and when we came out of the tunnel, she saw this....

BOOM. Hluboka Castle.

calendar picture

We walked around and took pictures, of course:

Front patio of the castle.

A three story wrap-around patio with balcony and spiral staircases...why not?

A nice lady from Washington, D.C. took our picture. 

We found out there was a tour, and went in. (Czech money is in Koruna “crowns”). This castle seemed more like a hunting lodge than anything—but the nicest one I’ve ever seen. In the entrance way there were tons of antlers.

Gargantuan door

While we were waiting for our tour to begin, we were sitting in a small courtyard (below). I told Jeff, “Can’t you just imagine them all coming in from a hunt on their horses, with their wagons loaded with dead elk, and they’re all talking about everything that happened and bragging and showing the ladies what they got…” Once we got inside, Jeff found a painting that displayed that EXACT scene :)

Inside was an incredibly intricate, delicate, rich yet rustic hunting lodge. The woodwork was amazing and they had armor and weapons--guns, swords, lances, cannons, little spiky things for the enemy's horses to step on, etc. There was one knife that I've never seen before. The blade split at the end into 3 separate blades. These guys just wanted to hurt each other...

A princess lived there, and she decorated the whole thing--had woodwork redone, had paintings, the most stylish prints on the ceilings, tapestries, etc. Their family went to a ball once in a different country and a fire started there. She went looking for her daughter in the building and was killed in the fire. Another one of the owners/rulers of this castle was shot during one of their hunts. There is tons of interesting history.

Here are some pictures from the Internet:

But this last one was taken by Jeffrey Ryan:)

We got into the Old Time Hotel Jeff got for me (because he knows I love old fashioned things) 

                                 

This hotel turned out to be as advertised: old and cheap. 

After settling in, we turned a few corners from our hotel and saw this cathedral:

After this cathedral, we walked to Wenceslas Square where there was this cool old building. It's the National Museum and has bullet holes in it from past revolutions. The Czech Republic isn’t well kempt like Vienna, but it helps to recognize how old it is.

We walked up and down that street looking for something good to eat. We did tons of walking. Finally, we just decided—as always—on cheap McDonalds. 

From in front of the National Museum looking down Wenceslas Square

On our walk down Wenceslas Square, we passed a modern day torture chamber! These poor people were caught stealing earlier actually paid to have minnows eat the dead skin off of their feet. I had never heard and definitely never seen anything like it. At least it is warm water...

The National Museum

Graduation Trip Day 1: Vienna, Austria

July 25, 2013

The first thing we saw in Vienna:  the town hall. All of the windows have flowers. It was lovely—flower petals covered the ground underneath and they were all red and beautiful.  Jeff had researched a little, and he said that they play free movies there at night sometimes, and so there were tons of rows of chairs and a huge screen in front of the cathedral. 

We passed Austria's parliament building which is really cool.

Next, we went to the Heldenplatz, or the big public square, a few blocks away. The museum there is Hofburg Palace. 

Hitler gave a speech here in front of hundreds of thousands of people. He gave it from the balcony, and you can see the cathedral we saw at the beginning, and a statue of a horse in the middle of the square with people climbing all over it. 

This is where he announced the annexation of Austria and Germany on 15 March 1938. We walked all around where all of these people stood, cheered, and listened.

Here's that same horse and cathedral that you see in the picture above

Tunnel

We walked under a small tunnel into a square where there were some Roman ruins, carriages and horses, old apartments where Josef Hayden lived, and a weird statue guy holding a violin that would play an awesome song when you put coins in the box in front of him.

Roman Ruins

I'm watching the guy on the violin play while everyone else is checking out the coins that have been tossed into the ruins

We were going to go into the Treasury museum, but it would’ve been around $50. We just looked through all the books and pictures that were being sold in the tourist shop There were crown jewels, clothing, the baby bassinette for the “royal highness,” and things like that.

The Spanish Riding School was doing a show that afternoon. They were pretty expensive, but we got a shot of the arena. They have their horses do crazy cool jumps and tricks (they had pictures and videos all around). It would’ve been awesome to see. I also wanted to go to a concert here—they were playing Mozart, Vivaldi, etc. But they were expensive, too, and we had so many other free things to see! I do want to see a concert like that another time. We went to one during my first Europe trip for BYU—Idaho. I loved it so much I want to do it again. 

Jeff: After we walked around Vienna in the morning, we walked through the garden above and back to our car. My plan was to leave Vienna a little past noon, so we could make it to our next stop. 

Graduate

July 24, 2013

This week is my last week of school! It’s all about finishing up projects, studying for, and taking tests. On top of that, Jeff has to go to Budapest for the weekend for a tax audit for the company. He showed me the letter they gave him. We'll be staying in a hotel, they have food to munch on, and there's no telling whether we'll be done Saturday or Monday. But we leave today—right in the middle of the week! I’m not quite done with everything; I have to study for two tests and go over a couple of my essays and projects to make sure they’re presentable. Then there are just a few small to-do’s that will finish up each class—evaluations and stuff. Jeff has been pushing me to finish as much as I can because he wants me to go to the audits with him during the day. I don’t see the need for me there, but I wouldn’t want to go alone, either. I spent all day writing essays, but then started packing so everything would be ready when Jeff came home so we could leave immediately.

We left on our way to Budapest at about 5 p.m. I was studying and playing Jewel Mania in increments. After awhile I looked up and asked Jeff where we were. He said he had taken a wrong turn and asked me to get the address for the hotel we’re supposed to stay in on his phone. I went into his email and he showed me which one to open up. It was an audio. Weird. When I pressed play, this is what I heard:

Josie. It has come to my attention

That I might have forgot to mention

That I told a little lie

About where we were going and why.

To Budapest we go not,

But to Vienna—whether you like it or not.

There is no tax audit in reality,

Just more places to go and see.

Please forgive me for this little fib

And choose not to punch me right in the rib.

I know now my credibility is low,

But please believe me when I say you’re the most beautiful girl I know.

I love you and I’m glad you love me,

Stay tuned for days 2 and 3.

He recorded my reaction, but I can't get it to load on here. I kind of cried, but not much at all. I kissed Jeff on the cheek over and over again. He had promised he would get me something if I got A's this semester ;) I was expecting a candy bar. This trip was my graduation present. He had been planning this for over a month.

Here's the "letter from the tax auditors" that he showed me:

Notice the Hungarian names Maceen Tesup (makin' this up) and Enfora Ezirpreyes (in for a surprise).

Needless to say, I studied hard on our drive so I could get those assignments out of the way!


Jeff's version-

A while back, I decided that the last week of July would be a good time for a little trip. We haven't been able to go to the temple since we've been over here, and so I looked into going to the Freiberg Germany Temple as a graduation present for Josie. As I researched the trip, I found out that the main freeway passes 40 miles from Vienna, Austria and passes right through Prague, Czech Republic.

After I found this out, I decided to use two holiday days that I had saved up from Memorial Day and 4th of July and make a big trip out of what I was originally planning as a weekend temple trip.

After I had decided when we would leave and had the hotels booked, I made up a little lie so that it would be a surprise for Josie.

I told her that I had a tax audit in Budapest that weekend from Thursday through possibly the next Monday (so that she would pack church clothes for the temple). It was a believable story because we've been to Budapest almost 20 times and I have meetings with our lawyers and payroll company from time to time.  Just to ensure that there would be no questions, I used a memo from the payroll company and scanned a fictitious letter from them to me about the audit. I made up two names and signed a terrible fake signature. I brought it home to show it to her and she skimmed it and didn't notice anything.  

So after work on a Wednesday, the day Josie graduated, we left for "Budapest." About an hour into our drive, I took a turn towards Austria instead of Budapest and Josie didn't notice as she was playing games on the phone and reading. I had decided beforehand that I would tell her only when she realized that we weren't in Budapest. So I kept it going as long as I could. While she was playing a game on the phone, I had her plug an auxiliary cable into the phone so she could listen to the game over the car speakers.

When we were almost to the Hungary/Austria border, I took a legitimate wrong turn and Josie started asking where we were. I told her to get on my phone and get into my email to find the address of the hotel in Budapest. 

When she got into my email, I told her to open an email that I had sent myself. In the email, there was an audio file that I told her to open. Before she opened the file, she asked what it was and I said that it was a traffic update that I had downloaded. 

She opened the file and then next thing she heard was my voice saying her name over the car speaker system. I wrote a little poem to explain and I think it caught her pretty off guard. My original plan was to write a poem for every day and then have each day's itinerary be a surprise, but I couldn't hold it in any longer and told her where we were going for the next 4 days. 

I videotaped her reaction as I pointed the other phone at her as I drove (who says men can't multitask?!) and it was a fun moment for us.