Video

Just wanted to have one last post with a video slide show that we created.

Cool Berlin and Tourist filled Prague

So we actually visited these cities in the order of Prague and then Berlin, however we uploaded the pictures backwards and well don't really feel like having to change them all so here we go...







Berlin was very interesting. It was the most American feeling city that we have visited on this trip. What I mean by that is that everything there is now so modern since it was all destroyed during the war. You will notice that we have included many pictures of the Berlin Wall, and that is because it was just really cool to see. The eastside gallery is the longest preserved section of the wall that artists from all over the world came to after the fall and decorated it with different paintings. It was really beautiful and we spent a good deal of time walking up and down the strip. On the other side of town was a museum and memorial for those who died attempting to cross the wall. Probably the highlight of Berlin was the second night there when we discovered that Toy Story 3 was playing in 3D at the Sony Center. Dan had been tormented by posters of this the whole trip, and was so happy to finally find it playing in English, it was amazing! We also went to the Jewish Museum where we tried our first Kosher Gummies... way better than normal gummies btw. The museum was really cool as it went through the entire history of the Jewish culture.







PS- Our guide book was right that Berlin is a crazy party city... on our second night, our entire hostel was out until 4 AM, it was crazy.





















Onto one of the bigger disappointments of the trip... Prague. So going into our trip to Vienna, Budapest, and Prague, we both thought that Prague would probably be the coolest. It probably would have been had it not been such a tourist trap! While the city was beautiful, it was just packed with tourists and people trying to take tourists money. Rather sad really. However, with that said, we did enjoy most of our time in Prague. On our only night there, we went to a concert in a church and listened to pieces written by Bach and Mozart. It was really pretty, and Dan was actually able to stay awake through this one (unlike the organ recital in Bergen). We also had the opportunity to visit our first Jewish Synagogues of the trip in which Dan had to wear a kippah to enter. One of them was the oldest Synagogue in Europe, while the other was much more modern, but quite colorful as seen in the picture.

Motzart's House and Awesomely Cheap Food Prices- Vienna and Budapest

Vienna is one of those cities that makes you jealous of the people who actually live there. It is beautiful, cultured and REAL, as opposed to some tourist traps... Following a night train from Venice, we began our day in Vienna by changing in the hostel bathroom and set out to se the sights. That's when we were surprised. There aren't really all that many "sights"in Vienna, but just really cool things to do that many locals do as well. Coffee shops, bookstores, etc. Admittedly, we did seek out the renouned Viennese Natoinal Gallery and the Palace rose garden, the dom church, as well as the REALLY cool clock that has different significant figures pass by it with different tunes to mark different hours in the day. There was also the massive State Hall Library with a trillion books and an exhibit of early manuscripts- Erica was in heaven. One of the cooler things we did was go to the Viennese Music Museum, but I type "museum" loosely. It was really more of a Pacific Science Centre dedicated just to the current music scene and musical history. At the museum, there was one type of, like, video game area that allowed you to simulate being a conductor for the Viennese Philharmonic Orchestra... you would wave a type of remote baton at a video screen showing the Real Orchestra (videotaped) and according to how you conducted the orchestra would speed up or slow down. You were supposed to conduct them properly, but if you went to fast or slow, they would stop and insult you. Dan has proved himself to be a world-class conductor, while Erica proved herself to be "a criminal to music." :) We also went out for beers one night, but instead came back with a massive bar of Toblerone...

However, Dan made up for that in Budapest when he ordered a liter of good beer for only the equivalent of 3 euros. Food is ridiculously cheap and delicious in Budapest!!

It is SUCH a beautiful city that has withstood SO much war as we saw in the Museum of Terror, dedicated to the victims of the Nazi and Soviet regimes. SO probably the coolest thing about Budapest is the currency. Dan went to the ATM and pulled out a 20, 000 Kt bill. It was so much fun. We also saw a cool castle and explored an underground labyrinth, that was used by resistance movements during the war.

ps- back to food we also tried the local cuisine fried goat cheese, which was awesome, oh and the waffle cones were good too... ;)

Trials through Slovakia

Dan and Erica:

This post is not to complain, but to illustrate to the full extent our journez last night. All components are necessary... :)

Erica:

Okay. Let´s establish first that night trains simply just suck. No sleep equals no energy, grumpiness and a lack of motivation for the following day/ new city. So, last night was our last true night train for the trip from Budapest through Slovakia to Prague. Now, we made our reservations for this train ride the last time we were in Munich because we are awesome and on top of things.

This night train ride began with discovery that we would be sleeping in a compartment the seeming size of a smart car with 7 other people... lets just say we weren§t ëxactly thrilled. Oh and the bathroom was a third world country. Night trains are by rule, as established, uncomfortable- this was simply laughable. However, despite this, we did find space for our backpacks and figured that if we both tried to stay awake for long enough we would eventually pass out from sheer exhaustion.

Eventually and inevitably the peanut-sized compartment fills up with a Slovak family, who has funnily enough brought a massive shopping bag FILLËD with beer that they seemed to just inhale and were very eager to share.

Time passes. About an hour into Slovakia, a little train conductor on a big power trip rips open the compartment door at nearly 11pm, waking everyone in the compartment and demanding (quite rudely might I add) that we show him our tickets. Something all of us had already done with a different conductor when we first boarded the train- I might add that at that point there was no problem.

Upon looking at our Eurail passes, the Slovak conductor requešsts that Dan step into the hallway with him, because there is a problem. Now, let me explain. Our Eurail pass covers our journeys to and from countries in Western Europe. Though Slovakia is not included in our pass, as stated in our Eurail instruction manual, this does not matter. It does not matter is¨if we travel THROUGH SLovakia as long as are embarkment country and destination are included in are pass. Because both Hungary and the Czech Republic are included, our journey and seat reservations (both which we had already paid for) SHOULD BE VALID.

Dan:

He called me out into the hallway to try and tell me that our passes were invalid in Slovakia and that we would either need to pay him more money for a ticket (which we had techincally already paid for). Erica, having come out of the compartment at this point, was having none of it, and demanded to speak to whoever was above him. After arguing with him (to no avail) for nearly five minutes, we were forced to give in and pay the man the extra money or be kick off the train and stranded in Bratislava in the middle of the night... To complicate matters further, as we had just come from Budapest, we did not have any Euros on us (the conductor seemed very proud to tell us that Slovakia only accepts the Euro... it was actually quite funny) I decided that i would just pay him with our debit card... something we had seen many people do in other countries numerous times throughout this trip. However, in Slovakia, they apparently only take cash, and when I asked if he would let us pay with US dollars, he nearly spit in my face!

He then told me that if we wanted to stay on the train, I would have to get off the train with him in Bratislava and he would escort me to an ATM so that I could pull out some cash. After ten minutes we finally arrived in Bratislava, and the conductor was nowhere to be found! Erica and I quickly coordinated that if I could not get back onto the train in time, that I would catch the next train to Prague and meet her by the lockers in the train station the following day. So I pulled my best Usain Bolt impression and sprinted through the Bratislava train station in search of the ATM myself, which i luckily found in time to be able to get back on the train before it pulled away (at this point, Erica was incredibly nervous that I would be left in Bratislava and she would be forced to travel the rest of the way to Prague by herself).

Before the train pulls away, the conductor, at this time on the platform, sees us both hanging our heads out the window just watching him. He rudely questions, "You have Euros now?" to which we nodded affirmatively with scowls on our faces. Finally after the train started moving again, i sought out the conductor and found him in his cushy little private compartment... no third world country there. I finally paid him at nearlÿ midnight, and everyone in our compartment finally tried to get to sleep for a couple of hours.

Erica:

The adventure continues. After about 45 minutes, at a routine small train stop in Breclav = middle of nowhere. We begin to curiously notice that we do not leave the station for over an hour and a half, but simply seem to travel back and forth at small intervals along the track beside the platform. Then suddenly, everyone in our train car was roused to the windows by a woman screaming her head off at a train conductor on the platform. To our surprise it was the woman who with her family had been in the compartment next door to ours. Now Dan and I, not speaking any Slovak whatsoever, only notice that everyone is getting frustrated and upset around us. I walked down the car and find the one woman who spoke both Slovak and English and she told me that the screaming woman was angry because when the trian car split (a common occurance- ours going half to Berlin and half to Prague) our train car and two others had been LEFT BEHIND BY THE TRAIN. The back and foward motions that we had been feeling was the station moving our three little stranded cars out of the way so that other trains could pass through the station. We were told to sit tight until the next train to Prague could come by and pick up our 3 train cars and consequently all of us. This would result in a 3 hour delay, which was going to apparently cause the enraged woman and her family to miss their flight out of Prague that day. At least it was not a boring night train, but it was so absurd that we thought you should all hear about it.

Dan: Long story short- Slovakia sucks.

Ciao Italia!

Hello everyone! So we concluded our exploration of Italy with the 5 town area known as Cinque Terre and the canal filled city with 444 bridges also known as Venice. Cinque Terre was indescribably beautiful- offerring a nice break from the chaos that was Rome. We stayed in the first town (Riomaggiorre) but decided that the 3rd town Vernazza was our favourite, we already know where we will be staying during our next visit! Our main day there was spent on a 5-6 hour rigorous hike between all of the towns on the coast (see photo below). Honestly there was a point when we asked ourselves, " Can there possibly be anymore stairs?" Dan found the best strawberry gelato in Italy and finally got some color on his pasty chest :). Otherwise we hung out on the huge rocks in the surf sipping Corona and lime...

Venice is so cool. Previously home to Marco Polo and Cassanova (we saw their houses), it sports hundreds of canals, 444 bridges and consequently you cannot find your way anywhere! Having an itinerary for the day is practically useless because the chances of finding what you are looking for are slim to none. Definitely more than once we have found ourselves going in circles, or at dead ends facing the waterway with no bridge or simply just a crumbling wall. Thus our plan most of the time was just to go in a gerneral direction of something we were trying to get to, or we just wandered around these crazy streets and stumbled upon really cool things like music museums, crazy bookstores and cool churches. Everything is ancient and crazily still standing in this sinking city- our hostel was over 600 years old! We took a gondola ride which was beautiful but crazy expensive!- definitly a splurge, but well worth it... Dan has taken to saying "Gondola?! Gondola?!" everytime we pass one, like the Gondoliers do. We're now off to Vienna, Budapest, and then Prague for the week before heading back to Germany. See you all in 2 weeks! (We can't believe we've been gone 6 already!)

PS- WHY do the Italians like marble so much?? honestly each of us have slipped or tripped on marble stairs AT LEAST once a day. Erica bit it in the hostel (huge surprise there) but only suffered a bruise. Honestly, we're both shocked and thankful that, knowing us, we haven't broken anything... :)

Roman Holiday

Rome was awesome!! It was really crazy how old everthing was, for example we would just be walking down a random street in what we thought was part of the newer city, and stumble upon some random excavation site with ancient ruins. On our first day here we dropped our bags off at our hostel and pretty much just ran straight to the Colosseum and the ancient part of the city. Jon, you were right, we just wanted to take pictures of everything... unfortunately our camera was not up to the task. We learned that the Colosseum in the early years used to sometimes be flooded so they could hold mock naval battles. After the Colosseum we jumped over to Palentine Hill which holds most of the ruins of ancient Rome. We were able to see the house of Augustus, the Roman Forum, and many other cool pieces of architecture that we were amazed still existed after over 2000 years. Maybe the coolest and most impressive structure in Rome was the Pantheon. It was commissioned as a temple to all of the Roman Gods 2000 years ago and still stands fully intact today, which is incredible because of its size and the construction of the dome. It was rather extrordinary. It was funny because when we arrived at our hostel, the owner, Giovanni, who is the funniest little Italian man, told us when we asked about the metro, yelled, "No metro! In Rome you need NO metro! Romans, we walk everywhere!" And that was that. We walked all the way down to the Southern part of Rome so that Erica could pretend that she was Audrey Hepurn in "Roman Holiday" at the Mouth of Truth, which legend has it, will rip your arm off if you have told a lie. She still has both of her arms, as do I. We split our journey into the Vatican into two days, just because it is so massive and there is so much to see, and also because the late July heat really takes it out of you by 1pm. Hence, our excitement in the picture when we had just been handed FREE water. On the first day, we went into St. Peter's Basillica and the mausoleum. On the second day we went to the Vatican museum and into the Sistine Chapel, which was amazing and beautiful. We both agree that it is not quite what we expected- it was not jaw-dropping, but it was more beautiful and we liked it much more than we thought we would. The picture belowis of the Vatican guards whose costumes were designed by Leonardo Di Vinci. We have determined that it was a joke he decided to play on the Vatican by designing those outfits. The picture in front of the fountain is in the main courtyard of the Vatican where citizens wait to watch the smoke and hear the announcement of a new pope. Rome is awsome, hot, but awesome.

A French Beach, and then another French beach- St. Malo and Nice

Following Paris, we headed to the small beach fortress of St. Malo on France's west coast. While there, we took advantage of our opportunity to relax in a small city with great food (thanks Dad)- during which Dan tried his first ever beef tartare and lobster. Though the weather wasn't ideal we didn't let that stop us from enjoying the beach, running around the city's old fortress wall and climbing around on the

islands when tide was out.

We were happily surprised by the local fireworks show

taking place upon our arrival in honor of France's Bastille Day. One of the coolest things about this place is that we seemed to be the only tourists who weren't French and rarely you could find someone who spoke English... it was pretty awesome.

Onto the next French Beach in Nice, as we make our way to Italy.

Today we pretty much just spent the day laying in the sun and swimming in the Mediterranean- hard life right? We have free internet access in our hostel which is why you are receiving this free little post in which there is not that much to write. Pretty much just that we are not beach-starved at the moment in any way.

Post from Italy!