Rob’s European Vacation 2009

So this day started off horrible and just got worse.  I woke up and my cold has completely gone to my chest.  Horrible chest congestion and a barking cough…yeah it sucks.  But I’m in Europe and got to make the best of it.

After breakfast I jumped on the S-bahn and headed back to the Hauptanbof.  Once there I went down to the 2nd level (it has four levels of trains going through it!) and discovered that I had just missed a train to Prague by about fifteen minutes.  I now had to wait almost two hours for the next one.  So I made my way to McDonald’s but I was good and didn’t eat anything.  Instead I just hung out and listened to music.  Talk about a boring hour and a half…so I finally got on the train and had my own little 1st class booth.

The train ride was beautiful, through some mountains and into this river valley with castles lining the Elbe river every so often.  Really pretty!  After just four hours I was in the Czech Republic.  My first impression of Prague is…wow and not a good wow.  The city looks kind of run down and dirty.  Now remind you, I’m not staying in the old nicely kept up part..but the newer and Communist era part of town.  I got to the hostel easy enough and it’s actually pretty nice, it looks like it was meant to be apartments because there’s a stove and refrigerator and everything in there.

Anyways after I got settled in, I came downstairs to use the internet and got some bad news from home.  Needless to say I was upset and decided to go down to the Old Square to see some of the sights to get my mind off things.  Well as I came to find out, walking by yourself for 20 minutes leaves lots of time to think about things.  Yeah…

So anyways I took some pictures and walked around a bit.  Since I lost my apetite, I decided to walk up Wencelas Square and back to the hostel.  After I got here I grabbed my laptop and added my pictures to my past posts as promised and wrote this one.  Some Irish girls just threw on Dodgeball so I guess I’ll watch the rest of this and go to bed and try to get better…I hate being sick.

Here’s to 2 more weeks in Europe and to feeling better!!

So after a kind of long trip (6 hours) from Amsterdam to Berlin, I arrived and from the train station you can see the dome of the Reichstag.  Never being to Germany and being soo into history, it was so exciting to see the dome and know that I’m in the heart of Nazi Germany.  I was generally excited to start my trip here.

One mention I should make is that I’ve decided to shorten my journey to Berlin from 3 days to 2 for a couple of reasons.  One is that I may use that extra in either Munich or in Italy and either go see Castle Neuschwanstein with it or see Pompeii.  I’m still trying to get Pompeii in there somehow so that I can have a two night adventure south of Rome and enjoy the Amalfi coast and hit up Pompeii and maybe even Capri.  Anyways…back to Berlin!

So first thing first, I had to get on the S-bahn and find my hostel.  The main train station here is brand new and really nice, it actually reminds me of an airport more than a train station.  I quickly found my line and jumped on the S-bahn to get to my stop.  So my hostel is actually located really close to Alexanderplatz and Karl Marx Strasse which is pretty much the heart of the former East Berlin.  Karl Marx Strasse is this huge boulevard that runs pretty much as far as you can see with these huge apartment block style buildings straight out of Moscow.  You can definitely see the Soviet influence on the buildings as some of them even have hammer and sickles on them!!  It was very cool to walk down there.  After making my way to Alexanderplatz, which is now a huge shopping area (Capitalism 1 Communism 0), I started walking down Under Der Linden, the main street to the Bradenburg Gate.  Now this was not only one of the main areas of East Berlin but also THE main drag for Prussia and later the Third Reich.  Some great museums along the way but I didn’t have enough time to go to them, plus there isn’t any significant art there that I’m looking to see.  About the most notable thing in those is Nefertiti’s bust.  Anyways I continuted down UDL and came upon the Brandeburg Gate.  I’ve seen this gate so many times in old photos with Hitler riding through them and then later battle scarred with the Russian flag flying high on it.  It’s impressive even to this day.  And the great thing is that the sun was setting so I got some great pictures…but those will have to wait since I left my card in the camer.

After taking some pretty pictures of the Gate and admiring the atmosphere (with the guys selling America and Soviet flags and all) I turned right and headed for the Reichstag.  All of central Berlin is pretty accessible by foot, I’d say I’ve traveled all over the city and can easily get from one major site on one side to the other in about an hour with stops in between.  Anyways I got to the Reichstag and again took some gorgeous photos…love the warm color the sun puts out on these buildings.  The building stands tall with its newly retrofitted dome.  The building was practically unused until 1999 when it was redone and Berlin once again became the capital of the newly united Germany.  So the line was long but I patiently waited in there.  After a while I heard some girls just a few people back speaking English and immediately I turned to see if I could tell where they were from.. Being alone I tend to want to make quick friends with anyone who speaks English! lol.  Well they were actually from all over Europe…Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Hungary, etc.  So I made quick friends and we walked up to the top and the dome with the setting sun.  Berlin and the Tiergarten is GORGEOUS at sunset.

So once at the top one of the girls asked me if I had any plans later on because they were all going out to dinner.  I was hungry so I decided to join them.  We went to Hackescher Market area where they have some great outdoor dining places and I had a “traditional German meal” of german sausage, potatoes and kraut.  It was actually really good and a lot of food.  Oh and I had a half of litre of good German beer too.  The meal was done and I said goodbye to my new friends, headed back to the hostel and then headed to bed.  The funny thing is that once I was going to bed, my hostel roommates were leaving to go out..remind you, this is at one thirty in the morning!  Crazy!!

Anyways the day was a good one and the start of what I’m calling, “my fast itinerary”…2 days here and 2 days there till I get to Rome…Till next time!

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