Day 24 - Berlin Tour

We awoke in Berlin with no plans but soon decided to take the Sandeman's walking tour.  This is the same tour company we used in London, Dublin and Amsterdam and my goal is to take their tour in every city where it's offered.

Berlin is an interesting city with lots of history.  Unfortunately wars have washed away most of the historical buildings and places.  During WWII it is estimated that 90% of the city was destroyed.  The remaining historical artifcats are the statues on most every building.  Hitler had them removed from their various locations and placed them in bunkers to ensure that they would survive the war.

The tour started at the Bradenburg Gate, which overlooks the American embassy and used to mark the enterance into Berlin  This was also the sight of Reagan's "Tear down this wall" speech.  

A few blocks away is the Holocaust Memorial.  It is intentionally vague to the point where the number of concrete pilars have no significance.

More inspiring than the look of the Holocaust Memorial is its location.  It sits just 2 blocks from Hitler's bunker.  The bunker has not been restored and is currently flooded with a parking lot on top of it.  It really shows how German's feel about Hitler's contribution to their country.


From Hitler's bunker it was a short walk to one of the three remaining sections of the Berlin wall.  In the ultimate act of irony a fence has been placed around the wall to protect it.

Humboldt University was the next stop on the tour.  The University, which has existed since 1810, has had many famous professors and alumni.  Albert Einstein was once a teacher while Karl Marx and the Brothers Grimm were once students.  In the foreground of the picture you can see the square where the Nazi's burned more than 20,000 books less than a month after Hitler took office. 

As you may have gathered by now this wasn't the happiest tour we have taken.  Luckily there were some less serious sights.  Below is Museum Island where pretty much every German museum is located.  This building is one of the few to survive the war. 

It wasn't all serious...

 After the tour we walked through an open-air market before eating a nice healthy dinner at McDonalds.  We were both still behind on sleep so we took it easy last night.

The current plan is to head to Prague tomorrow before continuing on to either Austria or Switzerland.

Scott

Days 22 & 23 - Amsterdam and Berlin

Our second day in Amsterdam started with a trip to the Sex Museum.  For 4 Euro we were treated to pictures from the last century and life size pimp mannequins.  Let's just say it was stretch for this place to be called a museum.  I have pictures from this place but they are not going online. 

Of course we were hungry after the museum and we ran into the best vending machine in the world:

One Euro for a nice, hot vending-machine burger

After deciding we didn't want to be sick, we ate some real food and went to meet up with our walking tour.  The tour was 3 hours of walking around amsterdam and learning about the city.  Some highlights are below.

This monument was placed anonymously in from of the church in the middle of the red light district.  Why is there a church in the red light district?  Because the district was there first and sailors needed a place to repent for the sins they committed while they were there. 

On the tour we learned of a game Dutch locals like to play called throw the bike in the canal.  Bikes are everywhere in Amsterdam and drunk locals decide to randomly throw them in the water.  Last year 25,000 bikes were pulled out of the canal.  The game reached new heights when a smartcar was thrown in this year. 

The street we were standing on used to be a canal but like many it has been filled in to make travel around the city easier.  The building above is the place where shipments were recieved in medieval times.

The guy in the photo was our guide and he is standing in front of De Dampkring.  This coffee shop has become the most famous in Amsterdam since Brad Pitt and George Clooney were filmed there as part of Ocean's Twelve.  I have no idea who that lady is in the picture but I'm guessing she got a better picture.  

The tour ended with a lunch of classic dutch food: Stampot with rookworst.  I have no idea what it was but it was delicious.  The lunch also happened to be at a theater that has live comedy shows every night so we decided to buy tickets.  It was nice to stop doing the touristy thing for a while and take in a show around some dutch locals.  The US-based comedians were hysterical and made fun of both the Netherlands and the US. 

Not too much (that I want to write about) happened after the show.  Amsterdam has been my favorite place on the trip so far and its too bad it gets it's reputation only from its interesting laws.

Day 23

We checked out of our hostel and headed for the train station with no destination in mind.  Here we said goodbye to Mickey as he got on a train to the airport to fly back to the US.  After he had left Adrian and I realized we needed to go somewhere.  We studied a map and ended up booking  ticket to Berlin.  The train arrived at 10:00 pm and we didn't have a place to stay but luckily Adrian found us a hostel.  We are planning on being in Berlin for at least the next 2 full days. 

Scott

Days 19 - 21, Perpignan to Paris to Amsterdam

Apparently I thought we were in some place called Perignon at the end of my last post.  It turns out I had no idea where we were and the name of the city was Perpignan.  We woke up there our 19th day in Europe and decided to go to the beach a local had told us about.  We spent a relaxing day on the beach and went back for the second night in our hotel with an awesome name.

Day 20's 10:30 am train got us into Paris at about 5 pm.  Of course there were no trains to Amsterdam available for us that night.  We made our way to a cheap hostel and raided the local supermarket because all of us were tired of eating out.  Cooking our pizzas in the hostel's toaster oven was an adventure, as was dealing with the "cool" guy who downed 3 bottles of wine by himself after not sleeping the night before. 


The hostel itself was terrible but we did meet some cool Scotish women who showed us something we wouldn't have ever seen: Sacre Couer.

The church and crowded church steps

The church is located at the highest point in Paris and provided an awesome view of the city.  At night the church steps fill up with backpackers and street perfomers.  We spent a few hours there but made it to bed early because we had to be up at 5 am for the train to Amsterdam.

Amsterdam

This city is awesome but not for the reasons you may expect.  The city is designed around rings of canals that get wider the further you are from the city center.  Many streets do not have car access and the boats in the canals are used for a good deal of transportation.  Everyone here also ride bikes because it's so easy get around.  It's hard to describe but this would still be an awesome place even without the other attractions.

Our first stop was the Anne Frank house.  It took us forever to get there beause of all of the crazy things we saw on the way.  For instance there was an entire store dedicated to growing weed and interestingly enough they ship worldwide.  They even had some plants for us to check out.  

The Anne Frank house itself was kind of a dissapointment.  We were able to walk around the entire house and see where she hid but the place had become more of a tourist attraction than a place of remembrance.  I could have gone without the HDTV's and sheetrocked walls.  One interesting thing we noticed is that the hiding spot for the family was huge and for some reason we all thought it would be tiny.  The highlight of the tour was at the end, when we were able to see her actual diaries.  Also there were no cameras allowed so I have no pictures.   


Next was the long walk to the Heineken experience on the other side of town.  Of course the walk there was kind of slow and involved a stop at an Italian restaurant.

All three of us liked this tour better than those of Guiness and Jameson.  We were able to see the actual old brewery and it was very interactive.

The brewing casks

Creepy Poster Guy

After the Heineken experience we made our way home while seeing the city.  Unfortunately we were all very tired from being up at 5 am so we didn't have the energy to go out.  We have one more day here (as Mickey is leaving tommorrow) so hopefully we can get it all done.  Adrian and I haven't figured out where we are heading next.  We may have to throw a dart at a Europe map. 

Days 15-18 - Barcelona and the trip out of Spain

On our final day in Madrid we re-visited our favorite restaurant.  El Museo de Jamon (The Ham Museum) was awesome again, as a full sandwich costs only 1 euro.  Each of us went there on seperate occasions at least 4 times during our stay.

The trip to Barcelona took only 3 hours by train so we had a free night at our new hostel.  We hung out in the lobby for most of it talking with various people from around the world.  We met more Australians (they are everywhere here) and rested up for the upcoming beach day.

After sleeping in we made our way to the beach.  The walk was full of street performers and of course I needed a picture.

 

 The beach itself was awesome.  We had a great time checking out the cultural differences between Spain and America.  The main thing I noticed is that it's perfectly okay for women to be topless at the beach. 

 

Mickey and I ended up swimming all the way to the rocks on the left-hand side of the picture.  

After discovering that absinthe is legal in Spain I decided I needed a temporary tattoo from some guy at the beach. 

An eagle, Go America

This is the worst tasting thing on the planet

 We stayed at the beach until dark and saw some guy building a ridiculous sandcastle with fire and a moat.

Mickey and Adrian decided to go back to the hostel but I went on to a pool party in the hills of Barcelona.  Unfortunately it was too dark for most pictures but it was definitely a fun time. 

The party location

Our last full day in Barcelona was full of sleep, general sightseeing and recovering from exhaustion.  Spain has such a crazy lifestyle and all of us needed time to take it easy.  

The plan for today was to head to Germany but we found out it would take 27 hours of travelling by train.  We decided instead to return to Paris and set out on our way.  Of course the transfer to Paris from Perignon was sold out so we are now stranded here in Southern France.  The trains to Paris are full for the next 2 days.

Our plan now is to spend 2 days here and then head to Amsterdam.  Mickey flies out of there on the 28th so we have to make it up there.  Who knows, maybe Perignon will be fun?

Scott

Days 13 & 14 - Madrid

Unlike the other places we have stopped there wasn't much to see in Madrid.  It is a commercial city that parties late and hard.  The two tourist attractions we have seen are below.  Unfortunately I didnt bring my camera out last night so I don't have pictures of the night life. 

The Plaza Mayor.  Nobody ever really told us what this is, but it has really odd attractions at all times of the day.  If you go at night you can see flamenco dancing but during the day you only get to see this:

The other main sight is the Palacio Real.  This is the royal palace and is steps away from an awesome cathedral. 

The Palace

The Cathedral

Like I said, the tourist attractions were severly lacking.  Fortunately Madrid's night life was very fun and the city provided one of those small world moments that I wouldn't believe in a movie:

In England we had meet a couple Australians on our city tour.  After going to lunch with them we discovered that we were staying at the same hostel.  They were awesome so we hung out each night while we were there.  We parted ways as they went to Lisbon and we went to Paris.  Fast forward to our first full day in Madrid and who do I see at the Dunkin Coffee (Donuts in the real country)?  The Australians.  After 2 stops each, no contact and a week apart we ran into them again.  Naturally we all went out together that night.

When people go out in Madrid, they don't think of going to the club until at least 2 am.  Of course this means that the clubs are open all night and you come home as the sun rises.  I don't know how/why they do it.  This also cuts the day in half, so theres no reason to have anything to see in the city.

We leave tomorrow for Barcelona.  We have been told it's like Madrid but with beaches. 

Me, because I haven't had a picture of a person in this post

Scott

Days 10,11 and 12 - Paris to Bordeaux to Madrid

The second day in Paris was much like the first, filled with rain.  We finally managed to go outside and took the metro to the catacombs but they were closed for the day.  After another metro ride we arrived at the Pere Lachaise Cemetary, the most famous in all of Paris.  The cemetary houses the graves of many famous people.

The grave of the Jim Morrison

The grave of Oscar Wilde

The ironic moment of the day: A real cat hiding from the rain in front of the Rat family

The day ended with a trip to Pizza Hut because we all had cravings for American food.  I learned that when you eat a full medium pizza half-way across the world, you still feel just as awful as in the US.  We called it an early night because we had to be up at 6 am for the train to Bordeaux.

Day 11

The train arrived in Bordeaux at 11 am and we set out to find lodging.  This went horribly wrong as we were in the red light district with all of our luggage.  We tried to change our train bookings to leave instantly but there were no trains to Madrid that night.  After finally making it to the city center we found a room and toured the real city. 

The Opera House

The city was littered with couples with money, so three backpackers looked odd.  Its definitely a place to visit with money.

The vodka redbull ice-cream was awesome.  Hopefully I'll have enough money after the trip to buy an ice-cream maker. 

The cathedral, with the completely necessary gold statue on top

After the city walk it was time for the real reason we stopped in the city: wine-tasting. 

As much as I hate to admit it, the wines were as good as Napa wines.  Of course we were tasting from $250 bottles and somehow we each only spent 25 euro. 

Dinner was good, I did not have the ass cheese

With another train looming we had to call it an early night again.  Bordeaux was well worth the stop.

Day 12

Travel Day.  We were on different trains for 10 hours but made it to Madrid.  We are in an awesome hostel and the music is still blaring as people are getting ready to go out (it's 1 am).  I guess when you don't eat dinner until 10 pm everything gets pushed back.  I plan on going out tomorrow.  There is no need to rush things with at least 2 more days here.

Scott

Day 9 - France

After not waking up until 11, we decided to take a walking tour to see the main sights of Paris at 1.  Unfortunately we never found the tour because the meeting spot was in one of the most crowded places in Paris, Notre Dame.  Since we were on our own we figured we would just start seeing the city and that idea turned into 11 hours of walking.   

Notre Dame was obviously the first place we went, since we were there already. 

After Notre Dame it began to rain so we ate some lunch.  It was still raining after our meal but we walked to the Louvre anyways (about 25 min). 

Like the idiot tourist I am, I was wearing sandals and shorts with no umbrella.  When we walked into the Louvre we were absolutely soaked and cold. 

Adrian, and Ms. Lisa

Seeing the Mona Lisa was first.  If you ever want your personal space volated for 20 minutes as you push your way to the front, you definitely want to see this work of art. 

The Louvre had many great pieces of art but also housed indescribably awful pieces of crap like this "artwork."  More pictures from the Louvre:

The ceilings were amazing

After the Louvre it was on to the Arc de Triomphe.  The walk was was long and more uphill than we anticipated.  It sucked, but it had at least stopped raining.

The Arc

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, under the Arc

Since we hadn't walked enough it was time to go to the Eiffel Tower and take the stairs up.  We were there during the sunset so the Tower was lightup when we left

After the long walk up the stairs it was time to take the Metro home.  When the train stopped at our station we waited for the doors to open but the train just pulled away.  Apparently you have to physically open the doors to the train in Paris, somethng which they don't tell tourists.  At least the ads were interesting; reindeers are attractive.

Paris has been fun, we have today and then we leave tomorrow. 

Scott