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.