Germany and Prague

okay, so it has been quite an adventure thus far. last you all read we were just arriving in berlin...

berlin was a very interesting city with a lot of history. first thing to note, how so many of the tourist attractions revolve around one of the saddest points in history. it was almost depressing to wake up and say, oh, i cant wait to see the holocaust memorial and the berlin wall! so much tragedy is tied to this city, and the weather and buildings suited it. many of the buildings are concrete and very plain. the city itself looks harsh and i couldnt help but sense a haunting feeling. regardless, as tourists we definitely gave in and explored all the attractions. starting with parliament...we waited in a very very long line and took the elevator to the top. the dome is fantastic and here, we enjoyed a panoramic view of all of berlin. the glass and mirrored structure inside were phenomenal and several pictures were taken. continuing with our budget plan, we decided to walk the city. we walked through the main square and gazed in awe of the brandenberg gate. mandy thoroughly enjoyed petting every horse we walked by. next, we saw checkpoint charlie and the berlin wall. okay, why dont people ever talk about the second berlin wall? maybe mandy and i are alone in our ignorance, but i think most americans are not aware of the fact that two walls were built parallel to one anther. in between the two walls is where most people were shot and left to die. hence the great struggle people had in climbing the wall. you cross one only to realize you need to scale another. :( we also made our way to the holocaust memorial, well stumbled upon it actually. quite interesting for a memorial. it is made up of large tomb-like structures, varying in sizes. the museum was closed the day we were there, so i am not sure if this is accurate...but it reminded me of caskets stacked on top of one another, varying in length and height. next we saw the university and museum island. none of the museums were of particular interest to us, but germany did not fail us. the architecture and attention to detail on the buildings was incredible. i am sure, it would not seize to amaze my father. ;)

okay, so now for the fun part. berlin was not all tears and sadness...but actually quite fun too! we by chance arrived on the day of a huge cycling race, sooooo we enjoyed our first brat and german beer amongst the locals. the lange weiner was long indeed and quite delicious! we grabbed another beer, headed for the park, and then satisfied our sweet tooth with a banana and nutella crepe. yummmm yummmm! we also had our first encounter with a very rude german who refused to speak english or be helpful. we needed to make a train reservation and made our way back to our second home: the central train station. here, we met a woman who should have been helpful and instead laughed and snickered with her friend. No bueno for mandy and i. she finally booked our train ticket, but mandy was definitely put off by her attitude and lack of respect. i couldnt help but feel a tad guilty, since we, as americans, dont know another language and just assume everyone will be accommodating. oh well. hmm what else, happened in berlin? oh yes! okay so we discovered, yet again, that nothing is served cold! BUT we managed to find 1 euro beers at a supermarket, awesome! bought a bottle opener, realized europeans dont bag groceries or give you bags, had our first death by battery for our camera, shared 2 currywursts, and hopped on a train to prague...

by now, we knew how the train worked sooooo we bought a bottle of wine, poured it into our handy dandy nordstrom eco friendly bottles and were off! (green really is the new gorgeous..or at least a way for us to save 2 euro every time we want cold water) on the train, we met Dominic. an elder english man, living in berlin, and working as an english teacher. at first, he was not too friendly but then we all had a beer together and the lively older gentleman was a real treat. he gave us some friendly tips and after about 3 hours into our ride, stanley showed up. stanley was a young czech who worked at a hotel in prague. he commuted to work and dominic was determined to set us up with him. too precious. needless, to say after a bottle of wine and a beer, plus a day in the sun and little food, we were a bit tipsy getting off the train. but dominic was quick to guide us and we arrived at our stop: namasti republicky. awesome name! it has followed us all the way to italy :) once arriving at namasti republicky (go on say it out loud, so fun hahaha) we found a nice (did i mention very gooooood looking?) italian to show us the very looooooooong way to our hostel. we made it and sadly said farewell and quickly got dressed to go out. yes, we did not pass out immediately (maybe we are getting better at the whole travel, drink, eat little, walk way to much in one day, and still have energy to party!) we left the hostel to go visit stanley and he was so cute and awkward. but he was friendly enough and pointed us in a direction for a jazz club. too bad it was closed! soooo mandy and i were left to find a party on our own. no worries, we did. we joined in on a pub crawl that had already started, and being the only two girls we were definitely welcomed! we danced, drank some frugal, 2 beers, and didnt pay for a thing! success! we also met devin and kenneth, by day aka k-dolla by night! hahaha goooooood times. but after our very long day and night, we got walked to our door and said adios! little did we know, our night was not over...back at our room we met our 2 canadian roommates whom we chatted with for some time before passing out...significant because they enter our amazing story the next night...

the second day in prague was no bueno, weather wise. it was over cast and foggy and wet. but that did not hold me and mandy back! we ventured all over the city, took some horrible pictures of one another and attempted to take pictures of the historic spots: including, the charles bridge, castle, and old town. we enjoyed our first hot meal in a while, which was also a traditional czech dish: duck, pork, biscuits, gravy, goulash, and something that reminded us of polenta hahaha oh! and the best part! the two appetizers: asparagus with ham and cheese and spinach on top of a potatoe cake...scumptiously delicious! so with full tummies, we zig zagged our way back to the hostel. but along the way we found the infamous coo coo clock, in the city square...let me just tell you all, mandy and i waited for 20 minutes in the rain and this had to be the lamest coo coo clock we have ever seen!!!! the next day, we happen to pass it at the top of an hour and ended up taking pictures of the tourists because we couldnt believe just how many people go to see it!!! unbelievable! okay, so back to night number 2 in prague...enter the aussies: (crazy) carl, ben, and the two norwegians: martha and martine. ben and carl were unbelievably hilarious and can drink more than anyone i know! (meghan, you would truly love these two characters, especially ben. i can only hope you two meet one day lol) story time! carl actually slept with a prostitute from the red light district in amsterdam for 30 euros! (he got a discount because he is young...pshhhhh!) crazy carl comes out when he is drunk and even carl doesnt like crazy carl. the night we met carl, he found himself a sugardaddy who paid for his drinks all night. luckily, for carl, crazy carl did not go home with him haha! there are a lot of stories these characters brought to our lives but you will just have to ask us when we get back. as for the norwegians, we are definitely planning on visiting them on a eurotrip number 2! most interesting things we learned about norwegians: they only eat out-at most-5 times a year, they dont eat breakfast, they only drink out of bottled water no matter where they travel, and they dont have any interest in visiting america.

the next day, mandy and i explored some more and i bought a jacket (because i unfortunately forgot one). the day passed quickly and we bought some drinks and partied with our roommates and hopped on our first overnight train...to vienna...

amsterdam and germany

okay...the adventure has begun, and as promised mandy and i are going to blog our journey throughout europe. [and by mandy and i, i really mean just me]

it all began on june 16th after a sleepless night. we stayed up packing and chatting and double checking to make sure we had everything: including, way too many cosmetics. after all, we need to make sure we don't smell european ;) we arrived at the airport thanks to a lovely sister of mine, who selflessly woke up at 4am! upon waiting in line, we realized the first thing we forgot...a watch. this actually turned out not to be a problem because there are clocks everywhere in europe! okay so after a flight from san jose to atlanta, lay over, flight from atlanta to gatwick (london), layover, flight to amsterdam, we were ready to...sleeeeeeeep. lame, we know. but while in london we met 3 guys: leandro the bartender who doesn't serve cold beer (booooo) ian the scottishman who lives in cypress, and lionel the frenchman who lives in cypress and loves my accent. psh, i don't have an accent! hahaha oh and how can i forget the lovely flight attendant whose husband is a pilot for easyjet whom made us walk from the north terminal to the south terminal and then the south terminal to the north terminal in london all because she was a stubborn arse! Thanks to the wonderful information guy, we proved that beezy wrong! at this point, we came to our second conclusion...we definitely should have practiced walking with our backpacks. they are heavy!!!!!!

so now we have finally arrived in amsterdam! and we were in search of our hostel, the flying pig uptown. we cant remember how we got from the airport to the train station, but it's safe to say, we did. from the train station we thought it would be a good idea to walk to our hostel. bad idea. sooooo after walking aimlessly in circles, we went to the tourist information desk and bought bus tickets. no strangers to the bus, we hopped on board and made our way to the flying pig. this hostel was awesome! we passed out immediately, after we realized that we would be sharing our room with 6 guys. sweet. hahaha

we woke up and met texas, two aussies, and two guys who slept facing one another in the shape of a heart, precious. then we went back to sleep. waking up early on the 18th, we went and found a shower. freeeeeeezing cold water and very little pressure, it was awful. but the free breakfast-consisiting of orange juice, an apple and a croissant (and lunch, since we took an extra croissant and apple) were nice to have after having not eaten for over 20 hours. so our grand tour of amsterdam began with us trying to find coffee. note to anyone planning on traveling to amsterdam: the city does not wake up until 9am. including coffee shops- and no, i am not referring to hash houses, rather coffffeeeeeeeeeee shops that actually serve coffee. so after paying upwards of 10 dollars for one shot of espresso each we started exploring. we walked all over the city, through the park, went to the van gough museum and sent videos home to our parents (disappointed in not seeing starry night), and hit up the heinekin brewery: awesome!!! created some more videos there, totally embarrassing- they were music videos to a dutch song, need i say more? haha so after a very long day we retired for a siesta. texas thinks all california girls do is sleep. however, we did wake up, met our new roommates: the floridians- justin and jd. we rallied and went bar hopping. coincidentally, our first stop was our coffee stop from that morning and we made friends with 2 guys from denmark. 10 shots of jager for 10 euros: best deal to date. after some indecisiveness we made our way to paradiso, cut in line, and paid 8 euros each to experience our first discoteca: awesome. we danced, drank (but not much because drinks are expensive!) and finally left in the weeeee hours of the morning. again we woke up super early the next morning, packed and peaced out of the flying pig. awkwardness the night before with the flordians caused us to leave extra early! again we got on a bus and headed for the train station.

arriving 10 minutes before our train was to depart, we got our eurorail passes stamped only to discover we needlessly bought global passes when all we needed were select passes. lesson number 3. this particular train ride was jinxed. first, we had to deboard the train after only an hour in order to board another. then our new train was delayed. then the tracks ahead were on fire. mandy and i got off in Klön, completely impromptu. but really we got off because we saw an amazing gothic cathedral! carrying all of our stuff we explored this bustling city. after the cathedral, we found the shopping, but more importantly, the apple store. along our journey in amsterdam, we found an apple store and realized we could use the internet for freeeee! so, again we sent out a couple quick emails and pretended to be interested in the newest iphone. then it was off to the train station. again, we boarded the train and headed to frankfurt. summing up frankfurt: lame. aesthetically, it kind of reminded me of boston, but only when we were along the river. after walking nearly 2 miles to the hostel, we learned our most important lesson. always book hostels in advance. this one was full. the hotel the receptionist recommended was in sketchy town and 75 euros a night. as nightfall was rapidly approaching we bought bus tickets and headed to the next cheapest hotel recommended by our travel books. 60 euros plus breakfast plus it was called the memphis hotel. perfect. it was time to catch some zzzzz's.

the next morning we ate a wonderful breakfast, still no american styled breakfast but i did try my first soft boiled egg! we snagged an extra croissant and two packets of nutella, and did a quick tour of the main square and then hopped on a train to heidelberg. in heidelberg we walked to a castle! yes, our first castle!!! and our main conclusion: we want a castle. why did people ever stop building them? it was beautiful, amazing, picturesque and breathtaking. that took most of our day, so then we halled our butts back to the train station. on this train we met a group of germans (andres, johnny, time, and leno) celebrating a bachelor party, and they were so much fun! we made it back to frankfurt, picked up our bags, bought a bottle of wine, wine opener, and toothpaste and hopped on another train headed for berlin. we quickly fell asleep and arrived in berlin. again, we decided to walk to our hostel and again, passed out. we woke up early, ate breakfast, and are finally documenting our journey :)

quick stories thus far that you can ask us about when we get back: bubbled bikini, alexandra the flight attendant, opening the wine bottle, consistent diet of dutch cheese and bread, bachelor party, jd, justin, wrong adapter, failure of a calling card, toasted straightner, no cord for our camera. yes, that last one is correct. mandy didn't think we were going to upload any pictures until we got back. lame, i know. if we find one, i'll probably buy it but until then...no pictures to share with all of you. :( we miss and love you all and can't wait to continue our european expedition!