Well its been awhile. Life has gotten hectic as it seems is pretty much par for the course. I come home at night and usually dont even touch the computer except maybe to check my email once or twice. But I digress and here is part 3 =D
Germany was pretty cool. It wasnt all what I was expecting (not in a bad way though). We started out in Munich. I wish we would have had more time there. We arrived very late because our flight was delayed. The hotel we were staying at was about 40 minutes from the airport via train (it helped that the trains were located in the airport). We arrived around 12:30am, and were exhausted. I just wanted to sleep. I pulled back my covers to find the worst thing, bed bugs. And not just a few. I read a ton of stories about how bad they are and how easy they are to bring home. I went to the front desk but the guy there didnt speak english really and was no help. Mandi’s bed didnt have as many, and it was after 1am by this point so we decided to just bare it. In the morning we talked with the lady who ran the place and she was mortified. She got us a new room at the location closer to the town center (nice upgrade) and she gave us our two nights for free. Couldnt have asked for a nicer person. So we hiked to our new room and left our bags there and headed out to the city.
We checked out the glockenspiel, and walked around. We grabbed a sandwich from a local place and I was in love! It was probably the best sandwich ever! Seriously, I can taste it still just writing this. The bread had a little bit of a sweet flavor to it, and the ingredients rocked. After lunch we hit the Deutches Museum. It was cool but we were still very tired from the night before. Mandi was definately not into it (I liked it because it was more of my stuff, planes, vehicles, boats, war stuff, etc).
Since it was a Monday, there was hardly anything open for us to do. Most tourist things are closed on Mondays apparently we found out. So we headed to the Chinese beer garden in the English Gardens. We had some beer and an awesome pretzel. It was amazing and ginormous. We headed back and took a nap, then headed out to the Hoffbrauhaus. Good Times.
We headed out to Dachau the next morning. It was very well done, and Mandi said they definately have more stuff then when she went there in college. There were a ton of high schoolers there, more on that later though.
The flight to Berlin was good and uneventfull thankfully. Our apartment in Berlin was amazing. It was so awesome its not even funny. It was literally a furnished apartement. We had a mini fridge (score!) and a tv (although all the english shows were dubbed into German). If anyone is going to Berlin, check out 1A apartments. It was a good location and we were close to the train. It was also nice to have a grocery store almost across the street.
Berlin was very different from the rest of Europe. We learned some of the reasons from the walking tour we took, but generally they are very poor. Both as a city and as a people. The city is still rebuilding from the war, it took 15 years for them to remove all the rubble afterwards. The city has a very working class feel to it (especially on the former East Berlin side that we were staying in). I always felt safe, but if you put those streets into the US, it would be considered the ghetto. People were all very nice and Im pretty sure that Las Vegas stole the idea of “the city that never sleeps.” Ive been to Vegas, its got nothing on Berlin. When we left on the last day to hop on a train to the airport, we left around 3:30am and the trains were like 3/4 full still! Insane.
We did the typical tourist stuff in Berlin, hit the Brandenberg Gate, went to the Reichstag, Checkpoint Charlie, had lunch on the river while being served beer =D It was pretty neat. I mentioned earlier that we took a walking tour. We did a Third Reich tour and Im glad we did. A lot of the sites are not marked in any way. Many are gone and just a parking lot or field now. The germans tried to forget about the horrible things that happened. That brings me back to Dachau. On the tour we asked how the German people feel about the war. It was pretty amazing what they have done. At first they just wanted to forget about it, it was too hard to live with. Within the last few decades though, they are really working hard on moving on and making sure it doesnt happen again. For example, its Illegal to display any nazi symbols, its illegal to give the Heil Hitler salute, and its illegal to own Mein Kampf (although I disagree with that one, I understand why). Every student learns extensively about the war and the horrors that were commited. Every student must visit a concentration camp before they can graduate (thats why Dachau was so busy with students). Most of the third reich sites are not marked, and if they are, its a small sign. For example the bunker where Hitler killed himself has a sign about 3′ x 2′ to mark it. If we werent on the tour, we never would have known about it. We were 100 yards from it when we visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews, but never saw it. They are trying to focus on the victims now.
We found out that Obama was going to be speaking while we were there so we went and saw him speak (against my better judgment). He really didnt say too much, but the crazy thing was how many people showed up. It was packed! Something like 200,000 people were there to see a senator from the US. Just goes to show you how interested the rest of the world is in US politics.
We found the joys of Currywurst. It sounds kind of strange, but it is so good. I have a recipe that is supposed to be close, I need to try it =D
The last day we went to Wittenberg which is where Martin Luther founded the Luthern Church. I wasnt much interested in it, but Mandi was. Its a cute little town though.
Germany was really awesome. I would love to go back to Munich and just relax, and also hit some more of the Vienna area. Although I wasnt too keen on Berlin before we went, it ended up being a really nice place to go. There was a lot to do, and it was probably the cheapest place we went in Europe. Highly recommended.