Deutsch-land (pictures!)

Hopefully I spelled Deutsch right.

Germany is a crazy, but extremely interesting place. I still am not a big fan of any language that makes you sound as if you have something stuck in your throat, but the country, is extremely intriguing and has a ton to offer.

Walking around, I'll admit that it was hard not to think of this country's horrible low-points. Being an American, mostly everything I've ever seen or read that had to do with Germany had to do with the Nazi's and WWII. Walking around and seeing older Germans, it made me wonder what they had seen and experienced. The last country I traveled to was Poland, where I visited Auschwitz, so it was weird walking around the country that occupied Hitler and his followers for years. I know the current German generation had about as little to do with these things as I did with mistreating Native-Americans, but you can tell that the vibe is still in the air. Around every corner, there are reminders of WWII, or the communist era. German's aren't forgetting about these things anytime soon.

I noticed that wayyyy more German's speak English that Czech's, and that they are much, much more polite. People were very helpful, and we had no problem getting directions or help. I definitely enjoyed being surrounded by the German people for 5 days, they were actually very pleasant people.

My roommate Joe and I took a bus to Dresden, where we arrived at about 3 in the morning. My introduction to Germany was in the middle of a cold and dreary night. Walking through the city to our Hostel, we probably saw about 4 people. This was a bit eerie, but actually quite peaceful. Dresden is a quiet city, with kind of a relaxed and subdued feeling to it. This was the city that was bombed to smithereens by U.S. troops, (Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse 5 was set here) and you can really tell. Only a few buildings look old and everything had kind of a modern look to it.

Our hostel was really cool. You'll just have to look at the pictures below to understand...it was very cozy, and all the rooms had fun themes. We saved ourselves some money by cooking some rice and chicken that we picked up from a local grocery store in the little guest kitchen. After a day of walking around Dresden, we went to this Bar/Club that these two Irish guys showed us. It was there that I met this Italian girl named Martina, and her friends. We talked about how awesome California is (everyone is always a little impressed when I tell them I'm from Cali...) and I how I need to make it to Italy. After a while of getting to know this girl, her and her friends had to leave, because they had a plane to catch early in the morning. Joe and I were disappointed that they couldn't stick around, but after a satisfying day of traveling and sightseeing, we were ready to head back to the hostel and call it a night.

The next day we realized that we had to deal with the problem of getting to Berlin. We thought we were going to have an easy time getting a train or bus to Berlin, and that it wouldn't be too expensive. This guy and girl that worked at the hostel told us we should try a different approach: Hitchhiking. I'm not joking. Joe and I looked at each other, thought about it, and said: "Why not!?!?" Guy and girl behind the desk at the hostel told us just the place to do it, and that it should take no more than 30 minutes to be picked up. The assured us it was safe and that people do it all the time...so Joe and I felt confident about it. Cardboard signs (with Berlin written on them) in hand, Joe and I walked to our thumbing zone. We kept getting more and more excited about the idea and thought it would be such a cool story to say that we hitchhiked on the autobahn. After about 30 minutes of tons and tons of cars passing us, we started to get a little discouraged. Were we doing this wrong? I mean how hard can it be? We tried everything. Switching signs. Switching positions on the street. Laying down the signs and using just our thumbs (that is a universal signal for hitchhiking right???) Finally, one guy pulled over. Giddy, we ran over to him. He rolls down his window, and I realize that this is the fastest I have ever judged someone. Is this guy safe? Is he going to blow my head off with a sawed off shotgun? Has he done this before? He told us he was going to some city called "Hollen" or something like that, and we told him we were trying to get to Berlin. Here was the problem: He didn't know where Berlin (a city of 3 million people) was! Are you kidding me! We were only 2 hours away! This is like someone being in Orange county and not knowing where Los Angeles is! Joe and I passed, because that was just too weird for us. Sadly, he was the only guy who stopped for us, so we accepted defeat after about an hour, and walked to the train station. We ended up paying about 50 bucks for a train, which is a little steep, but at least the train was really nice. We also met this really nice girl Chelsea, a Canadian, on the train. She is living in Hamburg and is a full time Dancer with some pretty prestigious dancing company. So that was cool. It was nice meeting a stranger who knew English well. We probably talked with her the whole way, and we parted with each other's contact info. (Facebook is having quite the interesting role in my travels...)

Quick tangent: One of my favorite quotes from this trip so far happened while we were failing to hitchhike. It went something like this:

"We're eating rice and now we're hitchhiking.... What is this?!? Into the Wild?!?!?"

If you haven't read the book or seen the movie, then you won't really get it, but I found it humorous.

We arrived in Berlin in the evening, and we were immediately intimidated. The city is huge! There are tons of people everywhere! Plus, the public transit was on strike, so almost everyone was out walking around. This made for a pretty cool introduction to the city, but needless to say, I was taken aback. I thought Dresden looked modern (remember I'm comparing these cities to Prague, which is a city that has a much older feel/look to it), but man Berlin is so much more modern/contemporary. You'll get the idea when you see some of the pictures I took. There aren't many buildings that have a renaissance or gothic look to them in Berlin, that's for sure. However, on the flip side, some of the architecture in Berlin is very impressive and very cool.

We made it to our first Hostel in Berlin, Heart of Gold, which was themed after The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. A sweet hostel with tons of people and a very energetic vibe. I'm really glad we got to stay there. Walking around Dresden, Joe and I stumbled upon the German parliament building, The Reichstag, which has this really cool orb-looking sphere on top that you can go up and walk around in. (Again, check the pictures...) We also saw the Jewish memorial, which really can't be explained. It's a ton of rectangular stones (over 2,000) lined up in rows. No one really knows what it symbolizes, but it is still extremely powerful.

The thing that really defines Berlin is its night life. There are tons clubs, pubs, bars, etc. Joe and I went on this "Pub Crawl" through this great touring company. About 75 college-aged students from all over showed up, including about 35 girls from Ireland. (!!!) It costed 12 euro's for the whole night, but they took us to four different bars/pubs all over the city and gave us a few free drinks here and there and we got special deals at all of the bars. It was a great way to see the nightlife throughout Berlin. This was where I met an Irish girl, who quickly introduced me to all her friends. Good times.

My highlight, hands down, was our tour of the city on Monday, which was our last day. This company called newEurope tours gives free tours throughout major European cities. Our tourguide, named Per (pronounced like "Pear") was from London, and was probably the greatest tour guide I've ever had in my life. When I'm casting people for movies in the future, I want this guy to play a major role in one of my movies. He's just one of those people that is incredibly wise, charismatic, energetic and loves his job. He showed us the Brandenberg gate, (most famous symbol in Berlin), the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Hitler's bunker, the Jewish Memorial, and various other sights. The tour finished with our group of about 30 sitting on the grass in front of this church on a sunny day, with Per standing over us telling us his amazing story about how exactly the Berlin wall fell. It was amazing. I wish I would have recorded it. Between his amazing vocabulary, storytelling abilities and overall knowledge on the subject, it made for a spectacular little speech/story/tale/whatever you want to call it. Needless to say we tipped him heavily for his fantastic four hour tour.

After wandering around Berlin waiting for our bus to come at 11:55 pm, we finally were on our way back to Prague. After about a 5 hour bus ride (which was playing "Must Love Dogs" dubbed over In Czech and was about 95 degrees) we finally made it home.

Another tangent: On our bus ride to Dresden, Mr. and Mrs. Smith was being played. I have been wanting to see this movie for a while because I love Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is alright, and I figured, hey, this is the guy who Directed The Bourne Identity so it's got to have something going for it right? Wrong! This movie sucked! The screenplay was absolutely terrible, and this movie was completely and utterly stereotypical "Hollywood." Sex! Explosions! Gunfights! This does not equal a good movie. I was disappointed in Brad Pitt for being in a movie like this...but anyways...

I only have one more week until my next travels begin! A week from today I will be leaving for....Milan, Italy! The original plan was to go to Bulgaria and Istanbul, but because we waited too long to get our tickets, we were forced to back out due to the extreme costs of traveling. At one point we were looking at taking a train for 40 hours! Long story short, we nixed that idea and decided on Italy. I will be spending about 4 days in Milan, taking a day trip to Naples, then going to Rome for another 5 days. Viva Italia!

I better wrap this up, considering most of the people I know who read this probably gave up on this blog about 6 paragraphs ago...haha (I still love you guys). Anyways, here are the picture links:

Set I

Set II

Set III

Enjoy!