My last day in Berlin was spent largely at the zoo. We tried to get to the Third Reich tour but missed it by a little over five minutes, and the zoo, being right there, was the logical choice. And it turned out to be a good one at that. We had pretty much seen all of Berlin that we were wanting to see, and so the alternative was just to hang out as the Berliners do, in a park with some beer, so I think it was a good choice.
The zoo had a really good collection of wild birds and some pandas, bears, monkeys, leopards, and various other animals. The monkeys were misbehaved and tossed various items - thankfully no feces - the bears were also misbehaved in other ways, it seems that there's something in the air here in Berlin. The people are also misbehaved. For the evening, we went out to find a club, after what could easily have been the world's worst, saltiest nachos. It being a Sunday night, however, the club was not meant to be. We ran into three Berlin girls sitting outside and they ended up taking us around to find a place, winding up eventually at the bar and then they at their place eating pasta and chatting. It wasn't what we'd had in mind for the night, but it was a great time.
We got back around sunrise, said goodbye to Simon, and the Mike and I caught a few hours before heading off to Copenhagen. The ride there was pretty interesting. The train actually drives on to a ferry, which I found really cool, and the ferry ried was great. Nice German beer, sunshine, a boat ride, all good. Coming next time, Copenhagen, the untold story: Contiki meet ups, expensive food, and laughter!
So I did wind up on a fat tire bike tour. Which, I should say, at 17 Euros, was overpirced and overrated. That said, it was fun to drive a bike around and catch a little bit of history from our guide, but after talking to Mike tonight, who went out with his friend from New Zealand, it sounds like he learned most of the historical stuff I did without paying 17 Euros. I think a lot of it depends on the people that you tour with though, and my group appeared to have suffered massive heart attacks the night prior and be neither dead nor ready to be alive once again. Which, in truth, is probably generous of me.
We went by the Neptune fountain, saw the library without books and the location of Hitler's first book burning, the East German traffic signal guys (red man, green man), the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the last remaining guard tower, Reichstaag, the Soviet monument, and a whole unch of other stuff. Berlin is pretty much a sea of construction, and many of the buildings are still riddled with bullet holes and shell marks, which is interesting given that 1945 was 60 years ago. Berlin is $45 billion in debt though, so I suppose I understand why it's taking some time for them to get things back up to speed. Not to mention that their population is slowly falling.
After the tour, I went to see Canada defeat Brazil in the world volleyball championships going on, and strolled around a little more. I met up with Mike and his friend Simon later that evening and we hung around, saw a movie, and went to a beer garden. A good evening all around. The next day, Mike & I went to check out Museum Island, which is in really bad shape. One of the museums is still completely without its exterior finish thanks to some intense WW2 battling. Others are REALLY pock marked with shell blasts, rifle bullets, and shrapnel damage, sometimes whole pieces of stone are gone. It must've been quite intense here. We checked out the German National Gallery, which focused on WW2 and post-WW2, and was quite interesting.
Mike & Simon went to a concert they had tickets for already and so I was left to my own devices that afternoon. My intent was to his the Zoologischer Gardens but the rain and thunder put a stop to that, so I headed back to the hostel. En route, I heard some singing I thought I'd check out. I walked over, wearing my Dynamite Dean shirt, and encountered a group of 20-some Englishmen on a dual-stag party who, immediately after I passed, started singing in unison, "Dy-na-MITE! DY-NA-mite!" I took a bow and conducted them a little before they insisted I stop for a beer and put on one of their shirts. Who am I to argue? So I hung around with them in the afternoon, drinking and being merry and trying to learn as many of their songs as I could. I went back to the hostel with the intent of going on this pub crawl, but I was too tired and wound up just sleeping the night off pretty much.
Today, I'm going to check out the Zoologoischer Gardens and I may go on a Third Reich tour or maybe just explore. This city is strange, just when I think I've got it figured it out, it changes on me like some sort of quantum game. And then tomorrow off to Copenhagen on the train. My Scandinavian tour starts on the 28th, I hope I have a good group to travel with up there. Still not sure what I'm going to do after that tour. Maybe more of Eastern Europe, maybe a little more Sweden, maybe fly to Italy or Greece. I'd like to get myself to Corfu for a few days, and I'd like to be in Greece at least for a bit of the summer, so I don't know. As usual, one day at a time.
I decided to stay in Prague for one more day, and I went with Jussi (Finland) and Michelle & Rochelle (sisters from Edmonton) to Kutna Hora. It's a small town about an hour away by train and was the site of a silver mine and also some cathedral decorated with human bones. We arrived there a little late because of the train scheduling and didn't get much time there because the girls had a flight to catch and all our tickets were on one piece of paper. However, we walked to the bone catherdral and saw it and it was quite intriguing. There was a chandelier made of skulls, tibias, femurs, and other assorted bones, a family crest, and all sorts of weird stuff. Apparently, the graveyard was quite presitigious but had gotten too full, so this was their solution.
We were all kind of famished, and so after walking the remaining 2km from the cathedral to the town proper (the train station was a further km away) we grabbed a cheap pizza and a few beers. Time went by rather quickly unfortunately, and our plan to check out the old silver mine had to be dropped. It turned out that it hadn't been used for a hundred years, so I guess I wouldn't have been able to sell them on Startco anyway. Anyone doing this should make sure they have enough time to really visit.
Anyway, the girls left for the airport, and Jussi and I took the tram to the river so I could catch some sunset photos. Which I quickly discovered I have little aptitude for. I could either get a silhouette of the Prague castle with the nice sky or the floodlit castle with the sky way over exposed/white. So I have some Photoshop work to do when I get back, I guess. We stood on St. Charles bridge and got a few more pictures and listened to the buskers, and suddenly there were fireworks going off behind us. Yet another place I know nothing about photography. I selected the largest apeture so I could get a quick shutter time, but I wonder now if this is backwards. I was tempted to ask some of the more expert looking photographers on the bridge.
We walked back to the hostel and stopped to see the Astronomical clock in the old square ring in 11:00 but, along with about 100 others, we were disappointed to discover it wasn't up to the task at that hour. I left for Berlin this morning and was able to modify my 19 successfully to a 23 on my pass (which I hadn't used that day (the 19th) as you may recall) and made it here uneventfully. Sort of...
I got off at the "main" train station, which, apparently, is not downtown. I found a post and attempted to mail my dad's beer with the grumpy non-English speaking woman, only to discover that I can't send fragile stuff to Canada from here either, so I packed it with a bit of paper, crossed my fingers, and sent it anyway. Maybe my dad will like the shards of glass and clothes soaked in German beer, who knows... then I discovered that the hostel I'd reserved was in Munich and not Berlin somehow, which I feel confident was not my mistake but who knows. In any case, no hostel and nothing available that I could bok or find on the net. So I went towards the downtown station and met a guy, Mike, from New Zealand who had word-of-mouth about a hostel, so I followed him there. It was full, but the guy referred us to another hostel....
Alcatraz. The place lives up to its name. Graffiti all over the place, completely bereft of human life (at time of arrival), communal showers that are semi-private at best, and so on. But cheap. And it's not really that bad (yet) but we like to make jokes about how it really is appropriately named. Especially when we discovered the reason the hostels are all booked is a big gay pride parade is on this weekend, as told to us by the gay front desk clerk (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Anyway, we quickly fled the hostel and checked out Alexander Plaza. Berlin is a strange city, sometimes beautiful, other times very much Soviet still. You'll be walking through a sketchy looking area where the buildings are pretty much slabs and there are still holes in the wall from some gunfight in WW2 and encounter this beautiful little park with tonnes of people hanging around enjoying the evening. Or a fake beach bar on the river that I'm trying to think of a way to develop back home. And then into a zone of heavy construction. And back to some nice church. Strange.
So I'm not sure what to think, but hopefully tomorrow will tell. I'm probably going to take a Fat Tire Bike Tour because I've heard really good things about them in other cities and I kind of want to go biking again anyway. Berlin seems a good place for it. Maybe it's not a good idea, because I can't seem to keep enough water in my system with all this walking and warm weather. Speaking of which, apparently Saskatoon is having some really crazy weather and Dan sent me photos of this awesome looking thunderstorm over downtown (save to your computer or view in new window to see full-size image). Sounds like the water levels are really high too, amazing how fast that turned around from two years ago.
But, I should go and lock myself in before the guards catch me. I'll write again from here if I can otherwise from Copenhagen.
I left Strasbourg and Yann's family just before 11:00 the next morning. I almost immediately missed them. Too bad little Frederic didn't end up tagging along in my backpack.
The train ride was uneventful, especially compared to the next train ride I was to take (more on that later) and I arrived in Munich and made my way to the hostel around 4:30 in the afternoon. I got my stuff settled in and got my bearings. Really, I was only here to pick up a rare beer that is impossible to get from Canada for my dad, and so I thought I'd kill the afternoon just hanging around. I found out about an English cinema and went there to check out what was playing and when. It turned out Batman Begins had just started, so I actually went right in and watched it. What a great movie! This is Batman as it was meant to be, and I'm looking forward to more. The theatre was also awesome, Lucasfilm THX certified and like an anechoic chamber with wood panelling and heavy on the class.
From there, I made my way to the Augustina Beer Gardens, to try a little of this fabled beer for myself. I grabbed a litre of it with some spare ribs and sat alone since I'd not met anyone yet. A New Yorker sat beside me and we chatted for a while and all of a sudden I saw someone very familiar walking by. I looked, thought, "Nah! It couldn't be!" I knew she was in Europe but what would the odds be that in this huge continent, in this massive country, in this big city, in the sprawling park, that she'd happen to walk right in front of me. I yelled her name. No reaction. Well, maybe it's not her. But I'd better try once more in case she didn't hear. PAIGE!!!
Turns out I ran into Paige in Munich. What are the odds?! Really. What a rare occurence. She was on a pub crawl that cost 15 Euro but I tagged along with my New York friend for nothing. It was a great time, I met lots of her friends from the BusAbout tour she was on and also got to hang out with Paige quite a bit. Of particular note, she introduced me to an Australian friend of hers who I thought was pretty cool. The three of us hung out most of the night, which got to be quite late, I think I got back into the hostel at 4:30 or something. I met Jen (Australian girl) for lunch the next day and we hung out for awhile, but I think we were both too tired to really do anything except lay on the grass and wish we were still asleep.
I also tried to mail the beer I'd bought for my dad today, but it turns out that the post office doesn't open on Sundays. So the beer and backpack came with me to Prague. The train ride there seemed straightforward enough. Then I got to chatting with three American boys. And it somehow was discovered that my pass didn't cover Czech and I was riding illegally. Oops! So they covered me for the trip to the German border by using their 5 person pass on me, and then after by just showing their tickets and hoping that the conductor didn't count or look too closely. I also avoided being counted once by sitting in a seat he'd already checked and looking busy. Anyway, it went fine but it was tiring to always be on alert and worrying.
Prague is a beautiful city, and I've spent a couple days here. The first thing I did was laundry, and then the post office. I packaged up my dad's beers with some clothes and a box I'd bought and waited in line for about 20 mins. Which wasn't bad at all, the main post office here is so beautiful they don't even allow photos inside. There was also a photography exhibit going on that was quite excellent. Anyway, my turn came and I discovered that I can't send fragile things internationally from Czech, so now I have this box of beer to haul back to Germany.
I've hung around here with a guy from Finland and three Canadians, it's super cheap and, as I said, very beautiful. I've done so much walking and sightseeing, though, that I'm completely exhausted, so I'm going to take it easy tomorrow. There's not really much by way of stories to tell from here, I'm hoping to find some fun tonight. If not, the Czech beer is good enough to be drank alone. Well, maybe not, but it is darned good.
I'm not sure what I'm up to tomorrow, either another night here or off to Berlin. I need a rest is all I know. Scandinavia is coming up quickly too, and I just found out today that John is coming to Greece probably in September, so lots of stuff on the horizon to look forward to, plus Berlin should be a lot of fun. See you in another few days!
