Munich, Germany

Heading to Munich Germany we met Carolyn, one of Carmens friends at the train station. Her sister is living in Munich and we had a place to stay for a few days, which was great! We headed home and got some more much needed sleep. In the morning, or afternoon ish. We got up and did some exploring around Munich. We headed toward a square and had a bit of food and enjoyed the pleasant day. We kept walking and we got kind of thirsty, I eagerly suggested the HaufBrauHaus, the famous beer hall in Munich. I could tell the girls were not as excited as I was, but still the idea appealed to them. We wanered around the town and finally found it, it was in fact a hall filled with people drinking beer. Just as I had imagined a beer hall to be. I ordered a plate of schnitzel with potato salad, my favorite, and of course the obligitory 1 liter beer in a stein. About a hundred years ago when my dad went to Germany he had visited the very same place I was at. On his book shelf at home he might have a stein stolen from the HaufBrau. I of course needing to follow in my fathers footsteps decided that this stein was mine! As a group effort we smuggled it into a purse and headed out quickly. Very happy with my stein.

The next day we woke up and headed to see two castles in Germany. One of which was called Neuschwanstein, the other, well i forget at the moment, but it was pretty as well. We had a nice train ride through bavaria and hiked up a hill to the castle, we did not go inside because, well it costs money and im cheap. It was very impressive from the outside, and the view from a nearby trail was well worth the extra hike. The other castle had fewer tourists around it which made viewing it much better.

These were really cool fountains that i ran though. The tops of them spin around. and like the dufus I am I hit my shoulder on one of the pilars and scraped myself up pretty badThis is the castle that insipred the castle in DisneylandAll in all I had a great time at the castles. We headed back to Munich and ended up at Augustiner, another beer garden not too far away from where we were staying. We got some great food, sauerkraut and saussage and of course more of the giant beers in the steins. Oh and who could forget the giant pretzel.The next day Carmen and I went to a park and had a picnic lunch, I saw that the beer was very cheap and got one, I forgot the bottle opener and had no metalic objects with me, so trying to use a coin I scraped my hand pretty bad. I have discovered that in Germany they have a beer called Radler which is Beer and Lemonade mixed together. It is very good, probably the best beer in the world. The park we were at was actually a beautiful park where people for whatever reason have found that they can get naked and sunbathe. There is no big lake around, just a small creek flowing through and a hoard of naked people in the middle. We stayed along the outskirts and wound up at another Beer Garden! It was outside and filled with people. They were playing traditional music and the men were wearing leiderhosen. I got a Radler and a pretzel, while Carmen enjoyed her Coke. People were playing music from inside this ... thing

 

That night we left for Prague, Czech Republic via train.

Hamburg, Germany

Arriving at Hamburg in the morning we strolled around town doing what we do in every town, running through it to see as much of it we can see. Since we liked the boat tour of Copenhagen so much we decided to go on one in Hamburg. The only one that was available during the time of day we wanted to go was a tour in German. We got on and found that it was pretty fun, but not as pretty as the one in Denmark. So I ended up dozing off a bit.

Since we were in Hamburg, we of course needed to get a hamburger! It was very good, one of the better ones Ive had. We had it along with sauerkraut and fries.

Beer Bike, people sit on bar stools and pedal while they drink and the car gs while one sober person steers it

 

Carmen has a friend who lives close to Hamburg that was kind enough to stop by the town and walk with us through a park and see some of the major sights. He was very friendly and easy to get along with. He even accompanied us to our couch surfers for the evening. Jullian was having his birthday gathering that night and we were among the guest list of his friends. We sat at their house involved with many separate conversations and playing games. At about 3.00am they asked if we wanted to see the Red Light district of Hamburg. Apparently it was very famous. When in Rome… or I guess Hamburg… we set out for the dirty part of town. It was still filled with people, police, trash, prostitutes and of course KFC. I remarked that it looked a lot like Las Vegas’s ugly little sister. There were bright lights everywhere and a lot of commotion. We walked back to their house and got some much needed sleep.

In the afternoon our hosts made us some amazing food. I forget what it was called but man it was good. It was a sort of pasta dish. After dining we headed out of their flat for the train station and then Munich, Germany.

Copenhagen, Denmark

The train ride to Denmark was very nice. The train was one of the nicest I had been on. I used the opportunity to sew my sock back together. I had worn a hole in the toe. Copenhagen is on an island and the train actally had to go on a ferry! I had no idea you could put a train on a boat. When the boat docked the train got off just as fast as it got on, and we continued down the track toward Copenhagen. When the train was on the boat all the passengers needed to go above to the deck of the ferry. We didnt know this and I had left Carmen on the train to sleep, once I found out about this little rule, I ran back on the train to find her missing and a few Germans escorting people off the train. Turning back around the the exit I got yelled at, HEY! AUS! As I was heading for the exit I got a little peaved by them yelling at me and kept walking away from them while they were yelling at me in German. I had just woken up and wasnt about to head down toward the yelling. Once they saw I was in fact getting off, the smiled at me and realized they were jerk pants.

Copenhagen was beautiful! The city was filled with brightly colored buildings along the waterfront. We meanered through the city streets trying to find a place to eat. We ran into a shop selling fairly cheap sandwiches, donner Kebap style. After food we headed toward the water and jumped on a boat doing tours through the channels. This was really cool! Seeing Copenhagen from the boat perspective was beautiful. We got to see the main sights of Copenhagen in about an hour including the famous Mermaid whos head apparently had been sawed off a few times.

This was on a bridge, as you can see someone put a binky in its mouth

That evening after seeing almost all of Copenhagen we decided that since our train didnt leave until 2 am we would catch a movie. We saw Public Enimies in a very nice theatre pictured above. The seats were assigned, very comfortable but it was so hot in the theatre, at one or two points in the movie we both fell asleep for a bit. The movie was very good. I really enjoyed watching it.

We went back to the train station and waited for our train back to Hamburg, Germany.

Berlin, Germany

 

We arrived in Berlin in the morning via the strange train from Poland. Berlin was beautiful. As I got off the train I realized that my bag lock was stuck again! If you remember from India I had a lock for my bag that I had to bust open with a can opener. Carmen brought me my sisters old lock (identical to the one I was using earlier) after several days it too became stuck. So, being skilled at breaking apart locks with a can opener, I reached into my bag and pulled it out, starting to pry it apart on a bench in Berlin. I was successful at breaking into it and destroying the lock.

I was very impressed by Germany, it was very clreean and organized as I figured it would be. We caught the S – Bahn into town, (S – Bahn stands for Schnell Bahn, or Fast Train). We wandered around for a bit and then found the Berlin Wall.

Their was a historical marker with some information about the wall and the division of Germany, and about the art along the wall. They had hired twenty some artists from other countries to paint on the wall. Some of the spaces were very interesting, some cute and some confusing. My favorites were of course the ones with Batman on them.

and who could forget Mr. Potato Head!

The area where the wall is the longest and has the paintings is called the East Side Gallery

After the wall, we basically explored Berlin for the rest of the day. It was beautiful. We saw the gates at one end of the city, many of the historical buildings and sights. Along our way of exploring we decided to try to get some German food at a local resturant. We were reading a menu in German doing quite well and about to order when the waitress realized we wernt from around these parts.She asked if we  wanted to trysome Berlin food, we said of course and give us whatya got. The drink below is Beer. Green Beer, very tasty with a hint of lemon lime in it. The food we got was a giant piece of pig. I say pig and not pork because it still had the skin and some of the hair on it! She warned us that it would look disgusting but taste… Amazing! She was right on both things.

We could not find any couch surfers that could host us in Berlin, as they were all either out of town or busy with other people. We tried looking for hostels but found that they were about 20 € a head which would have been about the price of a hotel room, very expensive. So, I had a crazy idea, why not take a night train someplace and sleep on the train see the place for a day and then come back to Hamburg Germany. So, the next train to Copenhagen Denmark was our decision, however it was overbooked so we had to wait until the train at 5.17AM, we slept in the train station…

and woke up at 5.15am and then ran to the train, which left right as we got up to it. CRAP! We missed our train! No worries, we got on the one that left about an hour later…

We were then on our way to Denmark!

Warsaw, Poland

Arriving in Warsaw Poland we met up with our couch surfers in the evening. They took us on a drive around the city and showed us some of the monuments and sights to be seen. It was a very nice city. We then went to a very cool cafe where they like to go and sat and ate a bit with our hosts, they are very nice people and we got along great with them. We picked up a bit of Polish and then headed out for a tour of the old town by night. It was very pretty. Old monuments and buildings just seem to look so much prettier at night with the lights hitting them just right.

We meandered through the old town square where there sat a mermaid on a fountain thing. It wasnt a fountain persay it just stayed wet, so it occassionally threw up water around the base. It scared our host pretty bad when he was trying to take a picture next to it.

Fire Dancers

 I think fire dancing was invented when someone accidentally lit their ribon dancer on fire and kept going…

 

That evening we sat around with them at their flat telling  jokes and sharing YouTube videos, such as Powerthirst, Mandles, and Sleepwalking dog.

The next day we caught up on some much needed rest and slept in all day.

Later in the evening on the way to the train station we passed by a park where we played for a bit on a spiderweb thing. Childrens parks in other countries are so cool! They are not safe at all. So far ive seen Pirate Ships, and high rope-like spiderwebs that you could totally fall off of and break your neck.

On our way to the train station we tried to find a geocaching spot for Carmens mom. It was near a hospital, we searched around for a good hour or so in the dark near a creepy hospital building in Poland before giving up and getting to the station…

 

At the train station we had an interesting experience with our train to Berlin. The woman at the ticket counter did not want to help us at all. She was quite rude to our Polish friends and only told them that the train was coming from Russia, and that she didnt know how much it was going to be.

Knowing very little we went down to the platform and awaited a mystery train. A blue train arrives with Cryllic on it and we knew it was ours. A woman dressed in normal clothes guarded the door with a displeased look on her face. Our polish friends tried to communicate with her and after some debating we managed to get on board. It did not seem like they wanted to let us get on the train. We stood in the hallway of the train for a little while while they gave us dirty looks and ushered us around the hallway, back and forth back and forth, they would usher us this way and that and into a small room that looked like a cabin but was actually one of the ladys private cabins. We were very confused about where we were going to stay. At this point we still had no idea how much it was.

Finally we got into a cabin with one other gentelman from Poland who told us it was 50€ for the train. We made our beds and tried to sleep.

Before going to poked my head down to her bunk below and told Carmen (my travel buddy) that I have heard on Russian night trains they gas people and then go through their stuff and take things.

I am assuming that is not true, but who knows. So far Im not missing anything… I think.