Off To See The World

Well, we’ve spent a couple days in Berlin now but we don’t really have any pictures to show for it… mostly because it just doesn’t feel right to be taking a picture at places that are reminders of the dark past. We took a couple pictures of pieces of the wall that can still be found around the city but other than that, there wasn’t much that seemed appropriate to photograph.

Anyway, today, we went to the Jewish Museum. There was a lot of history there and it brought back old memories of my High School Social teacher, Mr. McNally (for those of you who were in my class, you have to remember about the “brown canvas pants”). There was a lot to see and definitely a lot to learn… in a way it was almost shocking learning about the history.
This is the Holocaust Tower. It commemorates the many millions of Holocaust victims.
The next stop was Checkpoint Charlie which was gateway between East and West Berlin. The museum showed many ways that people tried to get to the other side including building small aircrafts and digging tunnels. It was weird to imagine that it wasn’t that long ago that all this happened (I think I would have been in about grade 2). Some of the stories were so tragic and it just makes me appreciate home a lot more.

Tonight, John and I kind of got food coma so we’re back at the hostel again. I think John went to play ping pong with some Aussies or something… speaking of Aussies, one of the pretty girls in the room checked out, only to be replaces with a nice hot Aussie guy 🙂 . I guess everything always equals out. Anyway, tomorrow we are going to either walk through the giant park or go see a concentration camp (we haven’t decided yet). And then we are taking the night train to Munich! Cheers!

Wow, Berlin is pretty damn sweet! Today, we went to the rie….reig…. riestag??? I can’t spell German words. Then we went to a historical museum which is kind of weird seeing all the stuff I heard about in Jr. High. While we were standing in line today, I did get a very new feeling….. out of the hundreds of people in line, I think I was 1 of 3 asians and us asians were maybe 3 of 6 minorities in general… it was quite a different feeling. Everyone here is really nice though so it’s not like I felt scared or anything like that… just different.

Along our walk around today, we saw some people conning (sp?) tourists out of their money. One guy would be getting people to find out which of the 3 boxes the little pea was under while 2 people that worked for him would pretend they were playing and winning money. Luckily, I’ve been warned of such scams (thanks mom) so I didn’t give the 50 Euro to play. We did however see a guy get conned into losing all the money in his wallet and then one of the “civilians” (a guy that actually worked for the main dude) convinced the man to go to the bank to get more money. It was really interesting to see it all in action but I felt bad for the people falling for it… you’d think they’d notice that the people “playing” never left and were always convincing people to play. Good thing we are broke and smart.

Anyway, about the braats… there is a vendor on the side of the street that sells hotdogs for 1€ and John finally got his today… and yes, the braat is twice the length of the bun… I almost fell off the veggie wagon… it smelt SOOOOO good! Actually, now that I think of it, John has had braats for every significant meal that we’ve had… they must be good!

Anyway, I think we are gonna chill tonight… all this traveling is catching up with us.

Well, on our voyage to find the red light district last night, we wandered all the way to who knows where and ended up getting lost. I think we walked like 10kms alone last night. Anyway, all the walking allowed us to get a great nights sleep and then we were off to Berlin today. (BTW – getting used to the keyboards in all these countries is a b!otch)

Now we have checked into an AWESOME hostel in Berlin (Baxpax downtown). It’s brand new and very nice. John’s in heaven because there are a few very pretty girls in our room. Anyway, we are going to check out some of the museums tomorrow. Seems like we have left fry central though (It seemed like there was a french fry stand at every corner in Amsterdam and Brussels). Now we are in Sausage central… and I don’t mean guys :). There are braatwurst vendors selling “hotdogs” where the sausage is twice the length of the bun.

Anyway, John has a cold so we are gonna hit the sack early. Thanks for checkin in!

So it’s been another day in Amsterdam. Today was pretty laid back… we took a boat ride thing down the canals in the city (there are a lot of canals in Amsterdam). After that, we went to see Anne Frank’s house. It was kind of sad and at the same time very interesting to see where they actually hid. I’m thinking we are going to see a lot of horrible images when we go to the museums in Berlin.

Now, we just finished going to Madame Tussaud’s Wax museum. That was really fun. I got a picture sitting down to a romantic dinner with George Clooney and one touching my sweet sweet Lenny Kravitz 🙂 . John got some funny pictures too; there’s one of him kissing Mona Lisa and one of him touching the sweet sweet ass of Beyonce Knowles. At the end of the tour, there was a mould of JLo’s butt, which when John touched it, it farted.
Here is a picture of John and Beyonce, and a picture of me in the Mona Lisa.


Anyway, that’s about it for now. John really wants to go see the heart of the red light district at night so we are going to go back to the place we are staying to drop off our valuables and then come back when it’s dark.

This is our last night in Amsterdam and we will be heading to Berlin in the morning tomorrow and then its off to Munich for Oktoberfest!!!!

For those just tuning in, I guess the list of places got deleted so here’s what’s left of our trip:
– Europe(Germany, Austria, Romania, Greece, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey/Morocco as well)
– Africa (Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania)
– India (Dehli, Agra, Amritsar, Goa, Mumbai, Bangalore, etc…)
– Sri Lanka
– China (Hong Kong, Shanghai (Yellow Mountain/Guilin), Beijing, Xian, Cheng Du, Tibet)
– Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia)
– Australia (Sydney)
– Fiji
– California
Home!!

*No comment on this picture

Well, it wasn’t really a big deal but I thought the title would perk some ears. Our train was stopped in Rotterdam due to some kind of problem in Amsterdam. However, the problem was resolved quickly and we were able to catch the train to Amsterdam, which is where I am now.

We are staying with a friend of John’s friend so it’s been nice to know our stuff is safe. So far, we went to a sex museum, wandered into the red light district, and checked out the Heineken Brewery (which was actually quite fun!). We still have another day left so I’m sure we’ll have time to get into some trouble. I’ll try to keep posted.

PS – Hi Mom.. give Fonzworth a big hug and kiss for me!

I guess the only reason we stopped in Brussels was because I was told the Fries are a must-have and we had to try a Belgian waffle. Both were amazing… the fries were great… I love fries… and the waffle… wow… it was to die for… I got my waffle with strawberries and whipped cream… mmmmmm. We didn’t see much else in Brussels other than the outside of some nice churches and the outside of the Palace of something. We caught the train to Amsterdam in the afternoon.

Here is a picture of Fathead enjoying a belgian waffle.

Oh, I thought I should mention, it’s been really nice weather everyday up until this point. On day 2 of Paris, it started out as a very nice and sunny day. We went to Notre Dame and did the 422 steps up into the towers to look at the view of the city. If you every go see Notre Dame, I recommend going to the top of the towers… the view is awesome… but make sure you are in good enough shape to do a lot of steps.

*Michelle, I don’t think you would want to do this because the staircase is so steep and narrow that you HAVE to hold on to the railing… and thousands of people touch that railing everyday… I thought of you as I was going up… haha.

After walking through Notre Dame, we headed for the Pantheon (the one in Paris). It was kind of weird, we were able to see the pendulum, crypt, and artwork but for some reason, they were showing some kind of modern art exhibition in the building as well. It was one piece of work that was kind of like a thick spiderweb made out of pantyhose strung out throughout the building and in some of these pantyhose was a bill ball of sand… or something… its hard to explain… If I can figure out how to upload pictures, I’ll try to post one for this blog entry.

After the Patheon, we went to a big botanical garden that had a little zoo in it. I was quite nice and free so we enjoyed it even more. The plants there seemed so much nicer than what you could find in Edmonton. We didn’t stay long cause it started to drizzle a little… and by the time we reached the subway station, it started to rain.

After getting a little bit lost, we made it back to my aunt’s restaurant to stuff our faces again (for free – mom, I think Aunt is sending you the bill… the big bill…. 🙂 )

In the afternoon, we headed for the train station to catch our train to Brussels.

So we took the Eurostar (rail that goes under the english chanel) to Paris where my Aunt picked John and I up. The first thing to comes to mind about Paris is how scary the roads are!!! There aren’t any lines painted on the roads so people just cram their car wherever it will fit!! AND we thought traffic circles in Edmonton were bad… Paris is just ridiculous… not only the circle by the arc de triumph… but EVERYWHERE, there are intersections with like 9 entrances/exits.

Anyway, my aunt seemed to know what she was doing and we arrived at their restaurant in one piece. John and I stuffed our faces with a big meal and then my aunt gave us tickets for a boat cruise thing for tourists nearby. It was pretty sweet… we got a quick glimpse of the main attractions (Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame…etc) and got to see what Paris looked like at night. They light up the Eiffel Tower in a pretty cool way and every hour there is a mini flashing light show kind of thing.

That night, we tried to book some hostels but all the hostels in Brussels were booked so we ended up deciding to stay in Paris one more night.

I almost forgot to post about John’s foot odor!! haha… on the second day, we discovered that John gives out the most foul, atrocious, deathly foot odor. We both gagged at the smell when he removed his shoes. It was terrible! So one of the nights in europe, we went out and bought some Axe for him to spray his shoes/feet with… and he washed his feet in the sink. To think… I’m in the same clothes for all these days and I still smelt like flowers… and a couple of days in John’s shoes and you could kill a small animal! haha. Anyway, the Axe kind of helped but soon it just smelt like a mixture of Axe and John’s feet.

This is jumping a little bit ahead but we ended up stopping in a pharmacy in Paris and bought shoe deoderizer and foot cream… the problem seems to be taken care of for now…………..

I can’t remember the specific order at this time but here is a list of the things I went to go see…
1. Buckingham Palace – All Hype… it was cool to see but not worth the giant line up, airport-like security (you couldn’t bring water in), and high price tag.

2. Westminster Cathedral (which isn’t the same as Westminster Abbey)

3. Tower of London – Pretty wicked castle thing

4. Tower Bridge (which most people think is London Bridge… London Bridge is kind of a dinky bridge compared to Tower Bridge)

5. Big Ben

6. Pariament Building

7. The British Museum (It’s FREAKIN’ HUGE)

8. Stone Henge

9. Bath (A little city outside of London where there are some ancient Roman Baths. The city is really nice but REALLY expensive)

10. Are you ready for this one? John and I went to the London Theater to see…. The Blue Man Group… haha. I know some of you are thinking how corny that might be but it was actually quite entertaining.

That’s all I can remember… man, there’s going to be a lot to remember on this trip. Anyway, after we mastered the subway system, and finally figured out how to cross the road without being killed, we booked a train for Paris.