We met two nice Australian ladies on the tour. They were staying at the same hostel and walked back with us. Somehow they put up with our ridiculous conversations all the way back to the hostel. I think this was about the time Denton started taking credit for navigating us in the right direction, especially when he was completely wrong. It was funny.
Berlin was really incredible. Standing in the place where such hatred and terrible acts occurred was terrifying. We stood where 20,000 books were burned in one night, where hundreds threw their children over walls in order to find a better life, where those who opposed Hitler were taped being slowly hung by their necks by piano strings, and where a top SS officer put 5 of his children under the age of 14 to death. Haunting.
After a long, long walk we made it back to the hostel where we met up with Troy's friend from Wash U. Johnny Minder. Introduced to us as Minder. By this time Denton and Troy had been up around 35 hours. We got off our feet for two hours or so, but did our best to keep those two awake. As we were about to go to dinner, there was a knock on our door. We invited the Australian ladies to dinner with us, but did not expect to ever see them again after "guy talk" on the long 7-10 kilometer walk back to the hostel after the tour. At the same time, we are studs...?
(Important site where Michael Jackson held Blanket out over the balcony)
We walked around for a while until we found a great German food restaurant. They had a special on Oktoberfest Spaten liter beers. Minder and Troy ordered a different kind of beer and Denton was unsure about a beer, but went with the special anyway. Troy, Denton, and I were served liter beers (even though Troy didn't order that), and Minder got a half liter. Denton immediately began calling Minder Mindy because of his "small" beer. Troy happily accepted his liter and the rest of the night was history. We were only told our table was too loud 4 times, so the night was a great success.
The Denton alarm went off super early the next day. I expressed my feelings for the early Denton alarm before making my way to the shower and getting ready. We set out on the metro subway. The subway in metro is notorious for people not buying tickets. We accidentally didn't buy them about 1/4 of the time. We meant to get off at the train station, but basically just walked onto a random subway without checking anything and our plans quickly changed to see the Olympic Stadium. It was incredible. We saw old pictures of the famous Olympics where Jesse Owens took care of business. His name is all over the wall with all of the winners. Well worth the trip out there.
We then went to the Berliner Dom. It was magnificent. As soon as we made our way to the middle of the cathedral the massive organ began playing. Indescribable experience. We then climbed to the top of the dome to see incredible views of Berlin. Mindy jumped up on the ledge and asked me to take a picture of him. I kind-of-to-totally freaked and told him to get down. Adventurous guy.
After the Berliner Dom I got a haircut from a lady that didn't speak English, fun times! Also, we had dinner and learned to never order Nachos in Berlin.
After dinner we met up for a pub crawl. The pub crawl took us to some off the beaten path bars including a goth bar and an oldies dance club. The goth bar was a bit intense, but overall a memorable experience. Plus Mindy found a special friend. Needless to say the pub crawl went late and we over slept the next morning. Troy and Denton made a dash to get our rental car before the place closed at noon, while Mindy and I packed up their and our bags in order to make the noon checkout. Somehow this all worked out.
We met up with Jimmy and headed for Prague. We had a Garmin GPS, but word to the wise, GPS doesn't work all that well in the Czech Republic.
I didn't drive, but being on the Autobahn was a lot of fun. It was more interesting when Denton was taught how to drive stick in 2 minutes and against the wishes of all the souls in the car went onto the onramp. Luckily Denton is a pro and did great.
So there are stories during a trip where you think to yourself should I tell this or would everyone just be happier not knowing. If you would like to know what happened to us after dark in the middle of nowhere Czech Republic when the GPS doesn't have a clue a highway is shut down due to construction...well ask me and maybe I'll tell. We met some characters and to put it nicely I thought all five of us were going on to the greatest adventure of all as Peter Pan put it.
Moving on...We got into Prague at around 11 PM and checked into our hostel. Luckily for us we were upgraded because the water in our original hostel was not working. We had a five person suite all to ourselves. As soon as certain people had their first encounter with a buday, we ventured out to see the city. We went to the five story club and it was pretty crazy. We decided going to high school in Prague is a lot different than our experience. The place was mostly high school seniors. Each floor was a different theme and it was madness in there. We had a good time, but were pretty worn out from the events of the evening and called it an "early" night.
The next morning we got up and barely made the free walking tour. It was great. If you are ever in a foreign city drop by a hostel and pick up a brochure for a free walking tour. You learn as much as you would on another tour, get exercise, and you only need to tip $5-10 for what is normally $25-30. Prague is one of the only cities in Europe untouched by the war...well, except for an accidental allied bombing.
I will have to leave it here due to time issues. I need to go out and see Copenhagen. I'll update Prague, Dresden, Munich, and Budapest in the next few days. Keep checking back!
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