We made it to Munich...finally

This should be my shortest blog of the trip so far. That's because we've done the least stuff in the last two days. And I'm totally OK with that.

First off, let me just say that our bed and breakfast ended up being amazing. The people weren't weird, but just genuinely nice people who enjoyed what they did. It was such a laid back environment and you couldn't beat the food (breakfast and dinner) that we got for barely any money. On the second day we had to pay for dinner, but it was only 2.50 Euro for a heaping bowl of rigattoni and salad. I'll take it. Lorenzo (the owner) was great and Rachael and Caroline were some of the nicest people we've met so far. If you ever go to Florence, stay there if you can. You won't regret it. Of course, you might end up stripping a couple of times like Thomas did, but it's all in good fun. Just don't volunteer to put on the David apron or buy David boxers. They will take pictures.

Anyway, on our last day we decided to take it easy. We had to catch a train at 9 p.m., so after laying around in the morning we decided to walk to Piazza Michaelangelo, where there's a big replica of the David statue that overlooks the entire city. It was an amazing view. You can't beat the countryside around Florence. Beautiful mountains just circle the city. And it was much nicer seeing the city from above.

We didn't really have any other plans, so we ended up staying up there from 1 p.m. to about 7 p.m. and got totally sunburnt. It was great. We wound our way back to the hostel and found a great little restaurant to eat at before we got our bags and went to the train station. We still haven't exactly figured out the European eating schedule. It was about 8 p.m. when we got to the restaurant and we were the only ones there. They eat late in Italy!!

Our train was an hour late, but that was the least of our problems last night. We found our couchettes in a six person room and were just sitting around talking at first. It felt great then. But when we climbed up to our top bunks, we realized the temperature at the top of the room was literally about 20 degrees hotter than the bottom. We were sweating like crazy and there was nothing we could do about it. We tried everything, but it didn't work. Finally, about 2 a.m. it started to cool down, but I didn't get any sleep before then. Then, of course, our room got searched by police. I don't know if they did it to every room, but it did not help my sleeping any. When we got to Zurich, I had only gotten about three hours. I made up for the rest on the train from Zurich to Munich.

When we got here, we decided to walk over to the big park in the city. It's a cool place, but one of the best parts is the little "surfer wave" they have in the river. Basically it's an endless wave created by the current going over a huge obstacle at the river bottom. People just take turn surfing it all day. It was awesome to watch. Then we found a beer garden in the middle of the park where we had a couple of liters and ate a great German dinner (sausage, of course).

After that we wandered back to our hostel and we're getting ready to pass out. Not enough sleep last night.

Tomorrow we're planning on taking our final NewEurope free tour (we're praying for an Australian tour guide...we need to go 4 for 4) and will probably just piddle around after that. We booked our train to Frankfurt on Sunday afternoon, so all our transportation should be taken care of!!

Only a couple more days til we're back in the states!

I'll try to update this before Monday, but if not, I'll be back with pictures, final posts and stuff I forgot about this coming week when I have more time on the internet.

Cheers!

Pictures!

OK, last post of the night. But apparently my computer has started to like me enough to allow me to put some pictures on Facebook. So now there are pictures from Berlin on there. I couldn't get anymore up because it took forever and I'm about to pass out, but they might go up soon. Either way, enjoy!

P.S. the first picture is the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled the baby over the railing. Awesome.

Good night!

Apparently UNC loves me

So thanks to a tip from my lovely girlfriend, I found out that the UNC-Chapel Hill website has a picture of me for their header. If it doesn't come up the first time, just keep refreshing it. It's a great picture of me marching down South Rd. during Fall Fest. I'm rocking my aviators and Terrass is in the background. It's pretty sweet. I wonder how long it will stay up there. My 15 minutes of fame??? We'll see. I guess my university does care about me some.

Firenze!

So HostelBookers.com made our traveling decisions for us. Nowhere in Cinque Terra was open on Tuesday, so we decided to settle for Florence. Well I guess settling might be the wrong word....

Anyway, before we left we decided to go see the Duomo in Milan, one of the only free things that our handy travel books told us was worth seeing. And it was. It's absolutely massive and it's gothic architecture is breathtaking. It reminded me of one of those sandcastles that you build by dripping the wet sand in a pile. So many spires and gargoyles were all over it. You could walk inside (only if you were dressed appropriately...somehow my shorts and a collared shirt worked) and see how massive it really is. The ceiling seems miles above you and it had beautiful stained glass windows.

We left there and caught our train for Florence. We were dozing most of the way, which almost made the trip a disaster. Florence wasn't the last stop for the train, so we really had to pay attention. I happened to open my eyes one time when the train stopped only to see a sign for "Firenze" outside. We had to run over about 20 people to get off the train and barely made it before the doors closed. But make it we did.

The information for the hostel told us to take the 25 bus to Via Bolognese, which would stop right it front of it. Sounded simple. About 20 minutes later we're flying up some mountainside about 10 km outside of the city. I guess we missed our stop. But we did get to see some beautiful countryside. This area is really mountainous and has little towns and homes scattered all over the place. Pretty good area to get lost in.

On the way back down we finally found our hostel. The place looked interesting online, but with the price and amenities we couldn't pass it up. Free internet, free breakfast, free drinks (wine and gin and tonic) and free dinner every other day. Sign me up. When we go in, there are three people at the top of the stairs yelling "Hello!" at us. A little strange, but whatever. "Reception" was a little room with a couch and a small TV where a few random people were hanging out. Attached to it was a kitchen with some crazy Italian guy named Lorenzo cooking. Turns out he's the owner. We learn this as he offers us drinks and a heaping plate of delicious pasta. The people working were all in their 20s, two from England and one from Kosovo. Salih (Kosovo) has been here for about two years while the girls from England were only supposed to stay three nights and ended up working here for three months. An interesting group to say the least.

But everyone seemed genuinely nice, so our initial hesitation faded away. Then we found out where we would be sleeping. Apparently they overbooked, so for half the normal price we were given the pull out sofa in the reception room. The same place that everyone hangs out at and where breakfast is served. Oh well, I like cheap. It was only a little awkward when I slept in boxers and had to get up and get dressed in front of about five people eating breakfast....

We took some time today to enjoy the city. We walked past the Duomo, which was not as impressive as the one in Milan but nice nonetheless, and saw the golden Doors to Paradise (or something like that). Then we went to see Michaelangelo's David first. The line for it was terribly long and it cost 10 Euros, but I thought it was worth it. I don't know if I'll be in Florence again, so you have to splurge sometimes. The sculpture is larger than life. So detailed and perfectly crafted. It was just amazing to walk around it and look at it from all angles. They don't allow picture taking in the museum, but I snuck a couple of shots before finally getting caught. I figure if they made me pay 10 friggin' Euro I should at least get a picture!

After that we just ended up wandering around the city for a while. Parts of it are really touristy and crowded. Everyone and their mother has a scooter and they're not afraid to try and hit you. And the streets and sidewalks are really skinny and crowded. A little hectic, but overall a nice city.

We're back at the hostel resting up now before dinner. We wanted to take a wine tour, but they were all too expensive and too high class for us, so I think we're just going to wander around and see some more of the sights tomorrow and maybe enjoy some wine at a cafe before we head out.

Speaking of which, we should have all of our transportation figured out for the rest of the trip. We're taking a night train from Florence to Zurich on Thursday night, then catching a train from there to Munich, which should get us in Germany by sometime around 1 p.m. on Friday. It's a long train ride, but we had to avoid Austria because our Eurail isn't valid there and we'd have to pay for that part of the trip. We're staying in Munich for two nights, then moving to Frankfurt on Sunday to make sure we get our plane back to the States.

I can't believe it's almost over! I've had a great time, but I'm starting to get worn out. I look forward to some relaxing times. Oh, and I have a craving for sweet tea, Bojangles and barbeque. Mmmm.... I shouldn't be thinking about food though when I have delicious Italian all around me.

All right, I think that's all for now. I should have free internet in Munich, but I probably won't get to it until Friday night, so I'll let you know how things went then!

Cheers!

Paris: Memoir of a failure

When we were on the train leaving Paris today, I could only think one thing: I'm so done with this place. Sure, Paris is beautiful and full of history and a must-see for any European traveler. But you know how people say that the French people hate Americans? Well I'm going to take that one step further: the country, it's land and it's atmosphere hate Americans.

I already talked about our run-in with the French police. It just got worse from there.

On Saturday we decided to take yet another NewEurope free tour. They've been good so far, so we figured it would be the best way to quickly see the city. We had to move to a new hostel because we couldn't get a second night at St. Christopher's -- the best hostel we've had so far -- so we got a train to the opposite side of the city.

We should have known better with a place called "Aloha," but it was cheap and available. It was a piece of trash. The people at the desk were disagreeable, the place was falling apart and our door didn't have a lock on it. It looked like a closet beside the stairwell. But we were going to be gone most of the day so we just left our stuff and moved on.

The tour was great. We were really hoping our streak of Australian tour guides would keep going, but Sam didn't seem to fit the description. Then she told us she was from Melbourne and Thomas and I yelled and high-fived. She looked at us a little weird. Now we're three for three.

We walked around and saw all the big sites: Notre Dame, Louvre, walked by the river, saw big pretty buildings and, of course, the Arc de Triumph and the Eiffel Tower. Oh, and McDonalds. We went there for our break and I'm sad to say that it's one of the most substantial meals I've had all trip. What happens when you travel on a budget....We didn't really get to go close to the Arc and the Eiffel, so Thomas and I decided to get a closer look.

The Arc is huge and surrounded by the worlds worst traffic circle. It's like 12 lanes of traffic and there's supposed to be a wreck every 30 minutes. I wouldn't drive there for anything. We took the underground tunnel to get under it, but decided not to go up because it was pretty expensive, like everything else in Paris. We walked about 20 minutes to get over to the Eiffel Tower. It was weird seeing it in person. It's a lot bigger than I expected. But it's right around this beautiful area in the city. Being cheap travelers, we decided that it would be a better idea to walk up the tower to the second level for 3 Euro instead of taking the elevator for nine. Seven hundred stairs later, I'm not so sure it was a good idea. But the view was miraculous. You could see the city stretching all the way out to the horizon. We didn't get to go all the way to the top (you have to take the elevator) but we got a great view anyway.

After the stairs, we were pretty exhausted, but we needed to get to the train station to book our train to Florence. About halfway to the train station I realize I don't have my Eurail pass. So we go back to the hostel. When we finally get to the train station -- somewhere around 10:30 -- the ticket booths are closed. No way to get tickets. We just wasted three hours and four Metro tickets. Awesome.

When we get back to the hostel and finally decide to go to bed, we find that two guys have taken our beds. Luckily these two Spanish girls next door had free beds so we were able to get some sleep. The next morning we went to the train station again to book our train. We wanted to take a night train that night (Sunday night) so that we could spend all of Monday in Florence. We were informed that there was no such train. In fact, there was no train to Florence period. Great. Milan? Yes, but no night train. Only one that leaves at seven in the morning. So we took that. We just wanted to get to Italy.

But we still needed a place to stay that night, so we ran over to an internet cafe and booked St. Christopher's again. And, wouldn't you know it, we got the exact same room. So we decided to make the most of our day and visit the Catacombs.

The Catacombs are exactly what they sound like: windy passages deep under the earth that used to be used as a graveyard and a religious area. At first we were just wandering through dark tunnels and I was beginning to wonder if we were going to see anything else. Then, suddenly, we walked into the main part of the Catacombs. All around us, stacked in neat little piles and formations, are thousands of human bones and skulls. It went on like this for a while. A little unsettling, but interesting nonetheless.

We finally crawled out of the hole and decided to go to Roland Garros, where the French Open final was being played. It was about two hours into the match, but I was hoping they would be showing it on a screen outside and had some souvenir stands so I could get some official French Open stuff. But, of course, I was wrong on both counts. We walked around the entire thing and there were no souvenirs, no screens, no nothing. We heard when Federer won and I got a picture of one of the outer courts, but that's it. And to make matters worse, it started pouring down rain as we walked to the metro.

In our last attempt to do something for the day, we tried to make it to the Pablo Picasso museum. I love his work and all the museums are free on Sunday. Win-win, right? Wrong. Of course we show up and it was closed. Four more metro tickets wasted.

We gave up and went back to the hostel to get dinner and pass out. For dinner I had a Croque Madame, which I had heard about from someone we met in Frankfurt. It's basically a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top. Delicious! I'm definitely trying that at home. After our long day, Thomas and I decided to drown away our sorrows with some nice cheap wine from the corner market. It improved our spirits. That is, until the next morning.

I wake up and it's really light outside. "Crap," I think, "there's no way it's 6:30." That's when Thomas set his alarm for so that we could get to the train. Sure enough, I look at my watch and it's 9 a.m. Awesome. I roll over and eventually here Thomas wake up and say the same thing. Paris just must hate us.

We roll out of bed and head to the train station around 11. The woman there says our tickets are no good, so we have to reserve two different ones (not expensive, thanks to Eurail) for 2 p.m. Not wanting to miss another train, we sat around the train station for three hours, feeling awful. I began to feel better once we got on the train. I put my headphones in and dozed. When I looked out one time, we were in the middle of a beautiful mountain range. Snow-capped peaks and clouds and fog covering the tips of the mountains with little towns nestled in the valleys. It was stunning. After studying a map for a while I realize it's the Alps that we're going through. I could get used to this part of France.

We finally roll up to Milan at about 9:30, find our hostel, which is an actual hotel this time, and get some gelato to make ourselves feel better. We're trying to learn from our mistakes and have the whole rest of the week mapped out, assuming that trains work in our favor. Tomorrow we're going to go see a couple of things in Milan, then go to the train station and try to get a train either to Florence or Cinquaterra, which is a group of five towns (thus the name) on the coast that is supposed to be amazing! Whereever we go, we're going to stay there for two nights. Then Thursday, we're going to come back to Milan and try to find a connection to Munich, where we will stay Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Sunday night we'll be back in Frankfurt so that we can catch our plane the next day.

I hope it will all work like this, but I've come to expect some bumps in the road. I hope I'll be getting internet sometime soon so that I can update again. And as for pictures, my computer doesn't like me to upload things, so I guess they're just going to have to wait until I get home. Then Facebook will blow up with the amount of pictures I've taken!! Sorry for the delay, but there's nothing I can do!

Here's to a good last week! Ciao!

"Are you getting somewhere? Or did you get lost in Amsterdam?"

So let me start by apologizing for my last blog post. For some reason Amsterdam had me in a really bad mood for the first few days so I wasn't exactly in the best state of mind to write about our trip. Luckily, our third day was much better than the rest and at least left me with a good taste in my mouth. 

We decided to get a cabin outside of the city, thanks to a tip from our good Frankfurt friend Christina. It was almost 45 minutes outside of town on the train and in the middle of the Amsterdam Bos, which basically means forest. It was beautiful out there. We had a little chalet to ourselves (the first night we haven't had roomates all trip). After we checked in in the morning, we went back to the city to rent bikes. 

If you didn't know, Amsterdam is the bike capital of the world. Seriously. Bikes are everywhere and there are even bike lanes everywhere, complete with stop lights just for the peddlers. We got the bike for about three ours and started tooling around the city. It went back and forth from being tons of fun to absolutely terrifying. Intersections were the scariest things ever. Cars, people, trains and other bikes are all over the place. And of course they all know what they're doing, while we are just hoping not to crash or get run over. 

We finally got down to Vondelpark and rode there (no traffic!) and took a little break to sit by the lake. I definitely like the park side of Amsterdam much more than the city. We then went over to Museumplein, a cool little park with the Van Gogh Museum and Rijkmuseum. It also has this massive statue that reads "I amsterdam." Of course we had to take pictures with that. 

For dinner, we decided to go cheap and buy food at the grocery store. We got meat, cheese, bread, a massive sausage (Thomas' idea, which he came to regret) and a bottle of wine for just over 10 Euro. Pretty good deal if you ask me. We took this all back to the cabin and had a nice little dinner in our chalet. We realize that we haven't been eating full meals all trip, so if we ever get anything more than a snack we're pretty happy. 

Our last night in Amsterdam was pretty relaxing and was exactly what I needed. 

The next day we had a train from Amsterdam to Bruges, a little medieval city in the northern part of Belgium. Let's be honest: the only reason we cared about going to Belgium was the beer. And it was totally worth it. 

It's a really tiny town (takes less than 30 minutes to walk across it) but it is super touristy. The first thing we did was wash clothes, which was very necessary. It was starting to get ugly. After that we enjoyed a few beers at the hostel bar during happy hour. What is great is that even the cheap beer in Belgium is amazing. 

After a few more drinks, Thomas dove into his sausage. He was like a homeless man on the staircase just chomping away. He ate it again the next day. Then his stomach turned on him. But he still claims it was a good idea. 

Fun sidenote; fries were apparently "invented" in Belgium. No lie. And they have all kinds of little fry stands there. I'm pretty sure all two meals that I ate there were fries. And they love to put mayonaise on there. Lots of it. They gave me a little tub of fries and about two pounds of mayonaise. It was delicious. I was glad that I got the mayo fries here since I missed out on that in Amsterdam. It just kept reminding me of the line from "Pulp Fiction:" 

VINCENT: But you know what they put on french fries in Holland instead of ketchup?
JULES: What?
VINCENT: Mayonnaise.
JULES: Goddamn!
VINCENT: I seen 'em do it. And I don't mean a little bit on the side of the plate, they fuckin' drown 'em in it.

So true. John Travolta doesn't lie. My fries drowned. Many times over. But they were delicious. 

This morning we had to catch our train at about 1 p.m., so we decided to check out a church in town that has Michaelangelo's Madonna and Child in it. It's one of the very few pieces of his that made it out of Italy. The church was absolutely gorgeous and massive. 

We barely made our train to Paris. When we got off to switch trains in Lille Flanders, we saw cops walking up to us. Out of the dozens of travellers who were unloading off of the train we were singled out. He comes up speaking French and I give him my classic "I have no clue what you're saying" look, which I've perfected over the past week and a half. Finally he realizes we speak English and ask for our passports. By this time, three other cops are standing around us looking us over. They look at our passports and start talking to each other. The only word we understand is Americans. I can't quite figure out what the connotation is. "Do you have any knives?" "Uhh, no." "Drugs?" I actually laughed. Why the hell would we have drugs, and if we did, why would we say yes? "Ha...no." Then they let us off. I'm not sure what made him key off on us. I guess I just have bad luck with bored cops when I travel (Texas...). 

Despite that roadblock we made it to Paris unharmed and got to our hostel. We found out that on Friday's after 6 p.m. you can go to the Louvre for FREE! You know how much we love free stuff, so we jumped all over that. I never realized how huge the place is. It has three wings and each one is absolutely massive. And the pyramids outside were awesome. There's so much art in there it's overwhelming. And I don't really know art, so it all started to look the same to me, except for the obviously famous one. Of course, we had to go see the Mona Lisa. I've always heard people say that it is kind of anticlimactic. They're right. It's a pretty small painting behind a glass case. I understand why it's famous and it was amazing to see, but I just expect it to be more grand. 

We wandered around for a little while longer until it closed at 10. We found the metro back, had our ceremonial doner (this one was terrible), and headed back to the hostel, where I'm abusing the free internet. 

As I type, I'm putting pictures on the computer. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get them on Facebook, but we'll see if my computer wants to cooperate. If it does, I might try to add some to the blog posts also. 

Tomorrow we're taking another free walking tour, then who knows what. We do have to change hostels, so I'm not sure if I have free internet or not. I think so, but who knows. 

We're just over half way done! I really can't believe it. It's flown by! 

Cheers

So much going on!

That's why I haven't gotten a chance to update this more! We did eventually make it out to Amsterdam, where we are currently sitting safe and sound after eating dinner. The past few days have been fairly interesting as far as activities go. Our last day in Berlin ended up being a lot better than I expected it to be. We checked out of our third and final hostel and took a train up to the main station to drop of our bags for the day since we would be taking a night train to Amsterdam. We were going to go to the Reichstag, but the lined seemed too long at first. We decided to just go over to the Holocaust Memorial, where there is an information center you can visit beneath the actual memorial. It was free, as were many of the museums there, which was amazing. 

It was a very sobering experience. It showed how the Nazis came to power and the development of the "Final Solution." The design and lighting in each room made the place a little unsettling. One room was very dark with lit up tiles in the floor that had quotes from journals, letters and postcards of the prisoners of concentration camps. Another room was dark with names projected on each wall while a voice recording told their story. The museum told the story of the Holocaust by telling the stories of the individual prisoners who experienced it. That's what made this museum interesting. It made the event personal by telling you the names and about the history and the family of these prisoners. 

When we left that, we decided to go ahead and head up to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which is about an hour north of the city. We figured that by the time we finished visiting the camp, the Rechstag wouldn't be as busy and we could do that right before heading to the train station. 

The camp was a massive installment right on the edge of a cute little town called Oranienburg. The contrast is kind of strange: we were walking through a regular little neighborhood and bam, suddenly we were at the camp. It was free to walk around but we decided to drop a few Euros to get the radio tour around the area, just so we'd know what was going on. We didn't quite realize what we got ourselves into. 

Each little listening point on the audiotour was extremely long. They put every little ounce of information that they possibly could into each little station. It was way too much! I definitely learned a lot, but even more went straight in one ear and out of the other. Much of the camp was still intact, surprisingly, so you could really see how things might have been back in the '40s. Much like the museum, it was very sobering to hear the stories of the prisoners here and see in person what the conditions must have been like. They had two barracks where the prisoners stayed so that we could walk in and see what kind of conditions the prisoners lived in. These were made for 150, with triple-decker bunk beds for them to sleep in. But as the camp started to get full of prisoners, the officers started shoving as many as 300 people into each barrack. There was no room for them. And they had maybe nine toilets for all the prisoners and a very small washroom. 

It was shocking to see what kind of conditions they were forced into. As we were walking around we saw a dark cloud forming and decided to go ahead and cut out before it started pouring rain on us. We got back to the train station before the rain and managed to avoid it all. When we finally got back to central Berlin, we went over to finally go up in the dome of the Reichstag. To our surprise, at 8 p.m. the line was still just as long as it was at noon when we walked by the first time. So we decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and get in line to go up. It took us about 45 minutes to get through the line but when we got to the top it was totally worth it. From the glass dome you can see all around the city. And, to make the view even more amazing, a small storm was coming through and the sun was setting. It was an amazing mix of purples, oranges, yellows and greys painting the sky. I really hope my pictures are able to show how beautiful it really was. It was a perfect way to end our time in Berlin: getting to see the entire city from above. 

A night train on Sunday brought us to our second country of the trip: Holland. We made it to good 'ole Amsterdam about 10:30 surprisingly rested seeing as how we had to sleep on a little bunk in the train. We found our hostel and got our stuff checked in so that we could explore the city. We ended up walking all the way out to Vondelpark, which is this massive beautiful park on the southwestern edge of the city. People were laying down all over the place, enjoying the beautiful weather. We decided to join them and ended up taking a little nap. It was so nice to lay out there on a nice spring day.

Eventually we left and found a little place to get some food. After enjoying Happy Hour at the hostel, we decided to check out the storied Red Light district. It was everything I could have expected. There were tons of sex shops, peep shows and girls standing in windows with little red lights above them. It's funny how up front it is here. It's completely legal and even a part of the economy. The girls rent the windows for the day/night and even have a union. They fill out tax forms and are an official occupation: some even say the oldest occupation. 

Today we took another free tour with New Europe around the city. It wasn't as good as the one in Berlin, but that's only because Amsterdam doesn't seem to have as much history as Berlin. But the tour guide did the best with what he had. Oh, and our guide was Australian again. Go figure! We toured around and saw some of the nicer canals, the Red Light District (again) and, of course, the Anne Frank house. We haven't gotten to go there yet, but we might try to make that happen tomorrow. One of the best things I learned on the tour was about the bikes in Amsterdam. It's well known that bikes are everywhere here and almost everyone rides them. It's kind of hectic. But what we learned today was that there are over 40,000 bikes thrown into the canals every year. Some accidently fall in, but many Dutch people do it on purpose because it's fun and "good luck." Then, every now and then, they dig through the canals and fish the bikes out to make new ones. Talk about recycling!

OK, I think I've got you all caught up now! I still am having trouble uploading pictures, but I hope I'll be able to make that happen soon. Tomorrow we're going to a hostel in a campground outside of the city, so I might not have internet. But Thursday we go to Bruges, Belgium for one night and I should be able to update there. 

Until then!