Day 21: Berlin
As I said in Day 20, we took a night train from Munich to Berlin. It was a 7-8 hour journey. Who would have guessed that the two cities would be that far apart! I didn’t think Germany was that large a country. The US is much bigger than all of Eastern Europe but I guess it has some sizable nations. Anyways, back to the night train. Reservations on the website we booked them from were a lot a bit expensive, so we decided to do the reclining seats.
“Oh boy,” you say, “reclining seats sound like fantastic fun!” But let me tell you otherwise. They did at least recline, which is more than I can say for the seats I am in now (on the day train from Berlin to Köln (Cologne)), but they are awkward to actually sleep in. Why? Because what’s the first thing you want to do when you try to sleep? Rest your head, that’s what. The seats did have a curved headrest… like an attempt had been made for ergonomics, but it doesn’t really work because you’ve got no side support, and then your head goes lolling off the side and your neck gets strained. So I tried using the window as stabilization. That sort of worked. I did eventually fall asleep, but woke up many many times throughout the night. Either my body needed repositioned, or my neck hurt, or the train jostled. I mean, it was a cheap seat through the night which saved us a day’s travel, but I expected better for something like that. If I had to do it again, I would get the couchette, because they are loads more spacious and comfortable, and even though they are small, you can lay down and stretch out.
We finally arrived at the Hauptbahnhof (Hbf) in downtown Berlin. From there we had to make our way to the hostel, which happened to be in the outskirts of nowhere. We took the S-Bahn train from HBF to Ostkreuz, and the ring train to Langsberger Allee. Luckily we got to ride the S-bahn for free because it’s run by same train company as some of the other inter city lines and they accept the Eurail pass. We arrived at the Landsberger Allee station and we could see the Generator Hostel right from there. It’s a massive blue and white building with 8 floors, 270 rooms, and 900 beds.
A little bit about the place. It was overrun by 12-16 year olds who must’ve been with either paretns, teachers or other adult chaperones. And as we all know, kids of that age group are incredibly annoying. We once got on the elevator to find that someone had hit all the floor buttons, meaning the elevator stopped at each floor on our way down. We finally got out and walked the rest of the way down. Luckily, it seems they put the large groups of little buggers on lower floors. We were all the way on the 7th floor (8th floor for us Americans) and we didn’t have anyone running around. There was no kitchen, as you could assume by the 900 some people it would have to accommodate, but they did have a restaurant/bar. That’s where we got our free and plentiful breakfast each morning.
We got there around 8:30am; too early to check in yet. We sat down and ate some of our food we brought. Since we hadn’t checked in yet, we couldn’t partake of the free breakfast. Nutella hotdogs, chips and peanuts made an awfully scrumptious meal >_> And after that we stored our packs in their luggage room and headed out with the free maps they provided. There was a free 3.5 hour walking tour which we wanted to do. We decided to take the S-bahn toward the meaning place instead of waiting for the hostel pickup but we actually rain into the group on one of the platforms.
We finally made it to Pariser Platz where they were sorting out the tour groups. This was definitely the largest crowd we’d seen. There were probably 100-150 people there. They separated people going on paid tours and those going on the free tour. We were eventually put into a group with Dave and around 30 other people. We first talked about Pariser Platz, which houses the hotel Michael Jackson dangled his baby from (Obama has also stayed there), and several embassies, including the United States! That was the first time I’ve seen American soil in three weeks. Right on the Parizer Platz is the Brandenbuger Tor (Gate). It was erected several centuries ago, modified by Napoleon, and it even survived World War II, which is impressive because 90% of Berlin was bombed.
Along the tour we also talked about the Victory tower in Tiergarten. We walked left to the Holocaust Memorial which was also impressive. It’s a grid of 2711 (or something) concrete blocks which rise to different heights and lean at all sorts of angles. You can sit on them or also walk through the grid, but you are not allowed to step, walk or stand on them or smoke in the area. We saw people both walking across and smoking in the area. People can be so ignorant. We did walk through and take some pictures. It was impressive to walk into the monument, go to where the towers stood over you and feel immersed. The ground was hilly in there, which was interesting. The momument is there for the people of Berlin to keep in mind every day.
Next, we walked along to an inconspicuous area. Here, the guide told us, under the ground, lie the bunker in which Hitler lived during the last few weeks he was alive. He married Eva Braun and two days later they killed themselves. Guards then burned most of their bodies while the battle for Berlin raged around. His teeth survived though and were used to identify that he was indeed dead and not hanging out in Mexico with Tupac, Elvis or Amelia Erhart. The area today is, fittingly, a parking lot. There is no memorial to Hitler, and owners take their dogs there daily to relieve themselves 
The bunker is sealed off and flooded, so no Neo-Nazis can come pay twisted homage to Adolf.
We then walked to the former Luftwaffe HQ building and later the center for Eastern Berlin government and a Russian intelligence agency. The building is gargantuan! 2000 offices sit inside. Today it’s the tax building. The movie Valkyrie was filmed there. On one of the sides is a mural of what communism was supposed to be, and in front is a picture of a revolution which took place there. Onward again, we walked to a section of the Berlin Wall and the guide talked about it. Throughout the city is a strip of two bricks which mark where the wall used to run. Quite a few times in my and Chuck’s visit we crossed between East and West Berlin which was impossible just 20 years ago. That’s crazy to think. And we walked to Checkpoint Charlie, which is one of the most famour Wall crossing areas. Right after that we took a 30 minute break to grab some food and rest.
Then we saw the Konzerthaus, Deutscher Dom, Franz Dom and a Catholic church which a Prussiam ruler had built. Then we saw Bebelplatz, which is a popular and historical Platz. One of the many things to occur here was the Nazi book burning. Right across the street is Humboldt University where the likes of Max Planck went to school. Right next to that is a monument which has changed names several times. It’s now called the Memorial to the Victims of War and Tyrrany. Inside is a statue of two huddled figures, one holding the smaller other. The room is quite large, and has a circular opening in the roof which casts light onto the statue. It gives you a sense of the isolation Jews in particular felt in WWII and even though the figures are downcast with heads bowed to the floor, the opening above suggests that even in their plight, light and perhaps hope is looking to shine on them.
We walked across a bridge reminiscent of ones in France and we could see the TV Tower in the distance. Our next stop was the Berliner Dom, a huge church built in 1905 but made to look much older with its Baroque-like architecture. The garden in the front is beautiful and has a nice fountain to boot! Right across the street is an empty area where a bustling, important building once stood. It was voted the ugliest building in Berlin 6 years running. The plan is to build another place like it sometime in the future. Under some trees to the left of the Dom we ended the tour. Dave was a fantastic, entertaining and education guide and I hope anyone else who takes the tour can get him as their guide!
On our own now, we walked back past Humboldt university. We made our way to the Reichstag building, which Dave had mentioned on the tour but we didn’t get to go in it. We walked around, trying to find an entrance, and found it on what we thought to be the back side. it was actually opening on a park. They had a really interesting fade from concrete walkway to grass, which I have pictures of. The Reichstag is actually the home of the Bundestag (German Parliament) and was never used by the Third Reich. The name Reichstag somehow stuck. It is a large building with an old-style facade, but the interior is modern. We waited in line to be able to go to the top. In the middle is a huge glass dome. Inside It’s a walkway where you can listen to the free audio guide to learn about the Bundestag and building and get a great view of Berlin. It also has some crazy structure of mirrors on the middle which focus sunlight and direct it into the building to reduce the amount of artificial light needed to light the main room when the Bundestag is in session. Very cool! The audio guide was great at pointing out sights in the distance as well as some other epic looking governmental buildings right by on the River Spree.
After seeing the Reichstag, we headed back to the hostel. We checked in, got settled, and then went to eat at some Turkish place around the corner. Seriously, Turkish food is all over here. We had some Döner which was really awkward to eat since it was packed full of food and was in the middle of some break container. We managed. In the process I incidentally blew a bee into the sauce on it, which got on the bees wings and meant it couldn’t fly. I then killed said bee in a napkin because I figured if it could get away it would be pissed and probably sting me. After all that fun we came back and eventually went to sleep. This night our roommates were some people from Argentina. I slept with earplugs in because it is much more restful that way. Sounds or other people in the room don’t wake you!
Day 20: Munich
Just like yesterday, we woke up at 8:30. Today we had a significantly smaller breakfast consisting of Nutella on some buttermilk biscuits and the last of our Crusti Croc chips. I must mention that Crusti Crocs are the off-brand CrunChips with which we became familiar in France!
A little about last night first! One of our roommates was escorted by security back to our room. I can only hazard a guess that he was drinking by himself at the bar downstairs and got kicked out. When he came in he mumbled a lot, something about him being Korean and our other roommates Taiwanese, and other random garble-gook. I was surprised he could even speak English while that wasted. Whenever he laid down on the bed he would moan a lot, which got to be really annoying. Every two minutes he would then get up, fumble around with something (and managing to knock a lot of stuff around). He’d lost his room key, so whenever he left the room we had to let him back in. He eventually passed out after a lot more moaning and stumbling around.
Then in the middle of the night, he woke us up with his violent vomiting. Luckily there was a sink in the room or else it could have been quite awful. He did this 3 or 4 times. Really gross. He was either a total light weight, or stupid, or (my guess) both. This morning he woke up, apparently still quite drunk. He fumbled around some more, moaned a lot more (so annoying), and even offered to buy my apple juice off me. I should have taken the money, and could have probably gotten 5 Euro out of him for it but I really wanted the juice and didn’t quite feel like messing with a drunk guy. So yeah, that was the worst experience we’ve had with roommates. I guess it could have been a lot worse. Still, the moaning and vomiting were pretty gross. Now, on to the rest of the day!
We again met downstairs with a tour guide, this time to do the Dachau concentration camp tour. As I heard someone say, we were very fortunate to have the choice to go. It was 15 euro, which included the tour and all transportation to and from. It is about 30 minutes train and 10 minutes bus to get to the memorial site.
We had the same guide, Adam, today as we did yesterday, actually. We started off in a visitor center where we checked out the restrooms before the 3 hour long tour began. Once we made sure everyone was accounted for, Adam gave us a rundown of some simple rules and how it would all go.
We began with an overview of the start of the Dachau camp. This was the first concentration camp to open its gates. It began even before Hitler became Fuhrer. We also saw where the first prisoners arrived and the famous “Arbeit macht frei” (”Work will set you free”) gate. We also saw where the camp commandant (who was literally insane, how appropriate) lived. Then we walked to the roll call area. It was a huge, empty, gravel-filled area. On the right were the buildings where they processed new arrivals. Processing included stripping them of all possessions, shaving their heads, and removing all human rights. On the left we saw the remains of the barracks. There were a total of 30 barracks areas but only two buildings are left standing. One we didn’t really mention, but the other was a reconstruction (or so I think).
Along with the barracks we saw torture devices, areas where prisoners were locked up for months at a time (some in complete darkness for 4 solid months), and the work areas. Surprisingly, there were actually hundreds of work, concentration, and death camps all across the Reich. I’ve really only heard of the large ones like Auschwitz, but there were many many smaller ones. And actually the graphic only showed one where 200 registered prisoners were kept. After some time people like Jews and Gypsies were kept in the camps but not recorded officially. Anything could, and likely did, happen to them.
The entire experience was very surreal and somber. Especially when we saw the memorials built by the different faith communities who had members in the camp. After that we saw the crematoriums and gas chambers. It was a nice, sunny day today and very hard to imagine that not so many years ago, on a day very like today, the air would have been filled with the soot of human corpses who had first been processed, worked ragged, gassed in the chambers, and then burnt. The guide did a very good job of presenting facts. Understandably, some personal lean showed, but this is still a very moving, harrowing topic. I find it amazing that our guide does this tour every 2 days.
I am very glad we did the tour with a human guide. There were people there listening to audio guides, but we had our questions answered and got much more in depth than I think any audio device could. I took pictures throughout the tour, and when I have some time, I will upload them so you can see some of what we toured. But you really have to see it yourself to experience it. And then, I only experienced a fraction of what it was really like. This tour really makes me want to research more into concentration camps and WWII in general. History only repeats itself unless we educate ourselves and for something like the Holocaust to repeat itself would be absolutely insane.
Well, after the tour ended we walked toward the bus which would take us to the train station but the bus driver was a douche and wouldn’t let our group on because we were “too large” even though there was plenty of room on the bus. We ended up hoofing it back to the train terminal. We missed the original train we were supposed to take, so we had to take another, slower one. We did make it back though.
We again went to the Lidl to get some food for tomorrow. After that we went to the Augustiner-Braustuberl beer hall for dinner. Chuck got a Maß Bier (full liter of beer) with the meal. The mug was enormous! We both got the Brew master’s special which was a fantastic eclectic meal of great Bavarian dishes! For desert we got some Apfelstrudel (if you can’t guess this, I’m not telling!) which was equally fantastic! I really just wanted to eat another one.
Now we’re checking internet. Turns out the place we stay in Berlin doesn’t have free wifi, or so it looks from the internet descriptions. So we might not have wifi for the next several days. We’re getting ready to head to the train station because we have an overnight train to Berlin. We are doing the super-cheap option of reclining chairs. I don’t even think that Chuck and I get to sit together, which sucks. We’ll see though!
How that I’ve given you an update on what we were up to, I want a report on how you faithful readers are doing! What’s up?! I’ll post again as soon as I have some internet!
Day 19: Munich
Guess what we did first! We woke up. That’s right. We aroused from slumber, first off. Then we showered and put on our clothes. After those mundane daily rituals we ate our NUTELLA! We had bought some little rolls which we turned into Nutella hotdogs. It was a very healthy breakfast. They are part of this complete breakfast! We also included the Crusti Crocs paprika chips we got. Don’t worry: Crusti Crocs is a brand, not related to the abominable shoes, and paprika is just BBQ flavor.
Then we hustled down stairs to meet for the free walking tour of Munich. It looked pretty good from the brochure, so we decided to do it. Free tours are pretty much always worth it! It ended up not being the same route they advertised, but was still pretty good. We saw the over-rated, under-whelming Glockenspiel, some churches, the old and new town halls, the overpriced Viktualienmarkt, and the US embassy. The embassy was a joke by the guide as a reference to Starbucks… and Chuck definitely didn’t get it. He asked, “Where’s the Embassy, I want to see it!” I then explained to him that it was just a joke. Silly Charles! We also saw the new Jewish Synagogue and museums, a Biergarten, Hofbrauhaus, and the Residenz.
Afterward we followed the guide to a little restaurant where you got bottomless stew for 7 Euro. I ate 4 bowls. It was really good, Bavarian stew! Afterward I was extremely full… almost to the point of explosion. Luckily, I didn’t puke like after I ate the Mucho Macho Burrito in Columbus! The record was 7 bowls. I have no idea how that is possible. Perhaps if I had prepared I could have done it.
While still crazy full, Charles and I walked to the Deutches Museum. It was a science and technology museum. We learned about muscle, water and steam power. Also saw tons of steam and internal combustion engines. They also had helicopters, airplanes, jets, turbines and ramjet engines. We didn’t have much time there before it closed, but it was definitely cool. Wish we had more a chance to check it out. Once we were let out by the last few people in the place we walked to the Englishen Garten.
The Englishen Garten is actually bigger than Central Park in New York! It was enormous. We walked for quite a while and actually saw only a small fraction of the entire place. We did walk to one of the Biergartens there. It was pretty neat. It’s really different to see places with no open-container laws and younger drinking ages than America. It’s not quite as big a deal to drink beer, and while you do see some people drunk and stumbling around, they aren’t as common as in America. I think America needs to follow suit.
After the Biergarten, we made our way back through downtown Munich and back to our hostel. I ended up uploading some photos to Facebook, since I hadn’t done so in quite a while. Chuck read more of Steven King’s “The Stand.” I am rather impressed because it’s a 1100+ page book and he’s a good deal through it since starting it at the beginning of our trip!
Facebook allows you to upload up to 200 images per album, but actually sucks when uploading that many pictures at once. Although it could be a byproduct of low wifi strength as well, I’m going to blame Facebook. The java applet could definitely be improved to avoid failing the loading of all the images. Oh well, that’s a programmer’s rant and I’ll spare you any more! Then we slept.
Day 18: Munich
The rooms in Hostel Ruthensteiner are quite large. They have a good number of outlets (which you’re lucky to find in any room, actually) and even reading lights on each of the bed. The downsides: poor wifi reception from the access point across the street and the single shower/bathroom for 8 people. We’ve not run into the issue before, but here we had to wait for the shower. 4 people needing to use one shower is quite inconvenient. I wish they would have had at least two showers. Chuck had to wait at least 30 minutes for this girl to shower before he could take his. As soon as he opened the door, I shot in there because not only did we have to check out at 10am, but we had to catch a train at 10:20. Time was of the essence, so the others could suck it up and wait. At least the floors didn’t get as gross as they did at the Alessandro Downtown hostel in Rome. That was seriously nasty. I’m not quite sure what my most/least favorite hostels have been but we’ll wait until the end of the trip before I make that decision.
We headed to the Westbahnhof to catch our train to München (Munich) and it arrived a little bit late, but all was well. We got on and took seats right off the bat. We were a bit worried because there were a ton of people on the platform and even with our Eurail pass, seats aren’t guaranteed on non-reserved trains. The next train to München from Wien wouldn’t be for another 4 hours. The sights on the train were actually quite nice! We got to see some fields, mountains and wind-powered generators. I am actually writing this first part on the train right now! The rest of the day will certainly be included later. I just wanted to make sure I used the 4 hours on the train for a good use. There’s no wifi, but I can write the posts in a text file and post them later. Turns out there are power plugs on the train, but I didn’t notice it until we were almost to Munich. The Asus EeePC 1000HE that I have has been awesome on this journey. It is nice and compact and has spectacular battery power. I’ve been using it for 2 hours or so and it still has 64% battery left. That’s including me copying photos from Chuck’s camera memory card, perusing my photos to rejog my memory and writing all this text. It’s not so great for watching video on YouTube because the processor is not high-performing, but it serves the purpose of portable internet machine quite well!
Don’t forget, Railjet has Premium, First-class and Economy sections as well as delicious snacks in the center car. We hear such similar propaganda after every stop… It’s quite annoying!
We’re riding a Railjet train again. This is the one I mentioned the other day coming from Innsbruck to Vienna. These are our favorite trains! It’s got comfortable seats, nice mesh storage, and several screens in each car which display the speed, location and stop information. The cars are very modern, have AC, and good amount of space for backpacks. Booking it through the countryside at 200km/h is impressive! I really wish America had a rail system like Europe. Granted America far exceeds all of Europe in size… still, it would make sense in terms of fossil fuel consumption. Although we’d still have to spend all the energy to build and maintain it… whatever, I’m stopping now! Going to read some for the rest of the train ride. I’ll complete this post later!
Rest of the day:
The first part of this post ended in first person, because I was writing it at the time. Well, two days have elapsed and I am only now just writing the ending. I’ve been busy and tired… that’s my excuse.
We got in to Munich around 2pm. By the time we found the Euro Youth Hotel (where we stayed), checked in and got settled, it was pushing 3pm. After looking at our travel books, we found most things in Munich close at 5pm… so we didn’t really have time to go do anything, sadly. We instead went to the Lidl store, which is basically an ALDI. We picked up some Nutella, chips, bread and I also got some apple juice. For some reason, peanut butter is incredibly difficult to find around Europe. And when you do find it, it’s insanely expensive! Nutella was the next best thing, I suppose.
After we dropped this stuff off in our room, we headed out for a little bit. We walked south a bit and then past a university. We ended up seeing a church spire and headed toward it. It turned out to be St. Paul’s church. We snapped some pictures but quickly ventured back to the hostel because bad weather moved in. It started to rain and we didn’t want a repeat of our first day in Vienna!
The hostel has a bar on the first floor, so we checked out the happy hour. We had some drinks while trying to figure out cricket. That sport is so utterly cryptic that even after watching it for some hours over various occasions, I cannot figure out what is going on, what’s the point of anything is. Oh well, I guess I’ll just look it up on Wikipedia soon.
We also met some people. Talked to a few guys from Denmark, a girl from Canada, a girl from the Czech Republic, and a few others. We later got a kebab from around the corner, and it was delicious! It seems that turkish restaurants are all over the place. They’re sort of like taco shops in Ohio. After the Kebab, we talked with Romana (the girl from Czech) for quite a while before heading to bed. And that was our first day in Munich! Pretty good for not being able to see any sights.
Day 17: Vienna
As I said in the last post, we woke up early to go see Schönbrunn Schloß (Palace). It wasn’t too far a walk, but it wasn’t very clearly marked where it would be. It was even off the city map the hostel gave us. We eventually found it after crossing through a park.
The building itself was large! The color a bit ugly, but nevertheless impressive. We walked in to see if we could check out the interior, but you had to pay an obscene amount of money for “Tours” or “Passes”. Nicole and Jeremy didn’t have long to stay and the gardens were free so we did those instead! I am glad we did! Again, rooms are rooms. Oh, royalty slept in that bed, eh? I could show you the bed I sleep in for 15 Euro too! I’m definitely well-known, I promise.
If the building was large, the gardens were mammoth, huge, titanic, gargantuan! I have no idea how many acres the gardens, pathways, fountains, and other buildings encompassed other than just “a lot.” We took our time walking to the Obelisk fountain, Neptune’s fountain, and some other ones before heading up a hill to this other building. I am still not quite sure what its purpose was, but it was cool. Maybe for banquets back in the day? It had huge, Austrian coats-of-arms statues on it. There was also a second level to it, which of course you had to pay to visit. We could see over a nice portion of Vienna just from where we stood on the first level, so we didn’t go up. The view was really impressive though! You could see the palace (now a bit smaller) along with the gardens with the rest of western Vienna as a backdrop. It was a great vista with the city, clouds and mountains to be seen!
After seeing that it was about time to head back because Jeremy and Nicole had to leave. We walked back and along the way picked up a tasty danish treat for “take away” (how they say “to-go”) at a Bäckeri and walked back to the hostel. Then we said to Jeremy and Nicole, and they left for the airport to continue the next part of their journey.
We also ate a few sandwiches we made of the stuff we bought the other day at the Spar. The garden at the hostel is really fantastic! It was quite, nicely decorated, and a protected from any winds that might arise. Very pretty! Then we napped for several hours in our beds.
Chuck woke me up and we decided to head out to see some paid sights. We even used the public transportation this time, because they were on the completely opposite side of the city. It still took us nearly 45 minutes to make it over there, but it was probably still a good deal faster than walking. We took the metro as well as the tram to get to KunstHausWien. It’s this ecclectic building with art exhibits. The building is actually very cool because the person who built it was artistic and environmentalist. There are plants all over: the electric lines are covered in vines, trees grow along stairwells, the roofs are actually covered with soil and plants instead of tar or shingles. They only had one exhibit at the time, because they were in the process of switching the second exhibit, but it was okay because we got there around 5:30 and they closed at 7:00.
The exhibit we did see was Hundertwasser. He’s a modern artist who was fairly accomplished. He not only did paintings but also graphic art, eco-friendly-and-pretty architecture, proposed flag designs for countries, and designed stamps for countries in the UN. Some of his stuff was a bit off the wall, but I connected with quite a bit of his pieces. My favorite was “The Occidental”. I would actually like to see if I could get either a print or one of the 238 real edition versions. All in all, I would recommend this to anyone, particularly those who like modern art.
After the KunstHaus, we walked to the Haus Der Musik (Music House). It was a 5 story exhibit that combined music, technology, science, and history. Some exhibits were of Mozart, Bethovan, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and others were intereactive learning experiences! Some of the exhibits were really cool but a lot of them had the potential to be awesome but came off lackluster because of either really out-dated technology, broken or unresponsive controls, or just lack of cohesive, continuous flow through the exhibit. One of my favorite parts was at the beginning when you hear some spacey sounds and then you find that the speaker is actually this blue piece of plexiglass right in front of you. Touch it and it’s vibrating and creating the sound you hear! Wicked!
We then took the metro toward our hostel and walked to Mozartstube, a restaurant right down the street. Chuck and I both got Wurstknödel mit Sauerkraut (Dumplings filled with meat and set on top of sauerkraut). The dish was huge! One dumpling would have definitely been filling. The price was actually pretty good though! The place itself was definitely interesting. It’s open from 6pm to 6am, and had a lot of antlers and pictures of patrons enjoying themselves on the walls. We didn’t run into any rude waiters there, which was nice, although I did order a Coke, just to make sure that when I did ask for water later that we wouldn’t be harassed. I don’t usually like Sauerkraut but I did manage the meal and it tasted decent enough. I’m still not a fan of it, but I didn’t let the little issue ruin the meal. It was a good Austrian meal! Too bad they didn’t have appel strudel there, or it would have been even more Austrian.
After that we headed back to our hostel and went to sleep. Of course, everyone else in the room was already asleep… well except for the people right next to us. One of whom was click-clicking away on his cell phone. I really wish he would have just left the room if he was going to be emailing/texting/whatever. Oh well, I fell asleep soon enough.
Day 16: Vienna
Slept in a bit since we didn’t have to worry about being up for breakfast (because it wasn’t free). After we showered, Charles and I headed out to see the town. It was warm and a bit hot in the sun but nothing as compared to Rome! The cooler climate is so very very nice!
We first walked down Mariahilfer Straße toward the city. We keep making fun of the Dublin cross-walk noises. The sneeze and boop-boop-boop noise! We’ll do it for you when we get back. It’s quite hilarious. Especially when Vienna has cross-walk noise makers that don’t even seem do be directonal. They just beep whenever you can cross some way. Not sure of the purpose there. Unless maybe each side is delayed a bit so you can tell which way to walk.
Our intital stop was the MuseumQuartier. We walked by and admired the statues, architecture and gardens because we didn’t feel like paying the money to go in. We’re to the point that we’ve seen enough old, famous paintings to last us for the rest of the trip. I would much rather look at the architecture than paintings anyway. One of the buildings had the cutest statue of a little elephant. I definitely took a couple pictures! This same building also had some interesting coat-of-arms-like carvings which I also photographed. Also in front was a pillar light post which had the austrian symbol, a with two heads. This bird looks badass, and is enhanced with awesome by the fact that each head is crowned!
From there we walked to the Hofburb Palace which contains a lot of things like the library and riding school, because it’s been expanded so much over the centuries. It had an impressive number of statues on the front face of the building from many cultures, countries and eras. I took pictures of some of them but not all as there were quite a few. We walked inside the building to see if we could check it out, but you had to pay so we didn’t go in.
We took a stroll through the garden across the street, where we saw some people on Segways with huge all-terrain tires. I really want to try one of them! You could probably take them off some pretty sweet jumps. The park has some nice gardens. The fountains kindly reminded us to not drink the water, as if we wouldn’t already know that from the fact that it was stagnant and gross!
Then we walked across the street to the Parliment building which has an epic statue of a lady with a golden breastplate and helm holding a gol-tipped spear and a small, golden, winged lady in the other. We walked inside to get a drink of water because this day Chuck and I decided to not take our water with us. We were expecting there to be drinking fountains like there were in Rome, but that was a mistake on our part. We ended up drinking out of the restroom sink faucet!
Right up the street from the Parliment building is the Rathaus, which is their city hall. I believe the architecture style is called Baroque and I do have to so I am a fan! It had a nice tower in the middle along with statues, arches, pillars and other decoration extending off to the sides. There was a huge screen set up right in front of it for a film festival, so we couldn’t get a picture of the entire thing, sadly, but we made due. We also got some pictures of the Hofburg Theater from across the street.
Right nearby the Rathaus is the Universität Wein which is the school of Schrödinger, Doppler and Freud! We walked around the main building a lot. It has a nice courtyard with busts of a lot of famous people who’ve attended/taught/researched there. It’s a prestegious place.
A little further north we came across Sigmund Freud park which is directly in front of a church with two grand epic spires and beautiful architecture! It had flying buttresses and everything! And speaking of churches, we then headed to the heart of downtown to see St Stephen’s Church. It, like a lot of the other buildings and churches we’ve seen, was under renovations to remove the grime from the exterior. It’s interesting because instead of just the scafolding going up the sides, they have it wrapped in a picture of what the building looks like underneath.
We did walk inside and got to see, again, some impressive statues, arches, pillars, paitings, carvings, and other christian related artifacts. Unfortunately, you had to pay to walk around the center of the church to get a good view of the alter and that area, so we didn’t get to see it too closely. We’re poor college kids traveling to get an idea of the world, not spend a ton of money on seeing something for 10-15 minutes! There are student discounts, but they take off a minimal amount. The church does have an interesting pattern in the roofing tiles, which I haven’t seen on any other church. Inside is a large pipe organ, which would have been cool to hear played, but it was silent.
By the way, what constitutes the difference between a church, cathedral and bascilica?! They all look rather large and impressive to me.
After Stephensdom, we headed back to the Hostel. Wien is broken up into districts, something like 13 of them. Downtown is I and the others spiral out. It was one heck of a walk from I to where we stayed. We did get to walk along some major streets and see all the stores around. We’re not much into shopping, so we didn’t stop at any of them. I haven’t seen a single Best Buy in Europe. That breaks my heart. But we did get a picture of a McDonalds, keeping up with our goal of photographing one in every country! Believe it or not, there were 3 McDonalds on the street we walked several times to get downtown. I was impressed with the McD’s density in that area. We also saw a BurgerKing and KFC.
Once we got back we ate at SATO’s, which is a Turkish restaurant right around the corner from the hostel. They offered Hostel Ruthensteiner customers a 10% discount, which was nice. We both ordered the Sato Kebab, which is the first Turkish kebab I’ve ever had. It was fantastic! I didn’t even really notice the eggplant in it (not a fan of eggplant). The rice served alongside was quite good.
Chuck and I are still having a hard time getting used to the restaurant ettiquite. Do we seat ourselves? Do you tip in this country/city? What the hell are these dishes? Will they refill our drinks for us? Can I catch their eye so we can ge the check now? Do we pay at the table or a register? Do they pick up the money if we don’t summon them? Is the check separate or together? These are just a few of the things to think about.
In the restaurants so far I’ve been drinking regular, uncarbonated, un-mineralized water. We specify we don’t want the mineral, carbonated water; tap water is just fine. They’ve usually brought us glasses and a jug of it. This place was different. We got the first glass of water, and I asked for a second, no problem. I had also ordered some honey donuts for dessert, and was waiting for them (was he just going to bring them, or do I have to ask for them now) so I asked for another refill on water. He said something about one glass being fine, two okay, but three was too much. Just this time, he said. I guess he didn’t like that we didn’t pay for a drink. I really don’t know why it was a big issue. And to top it off he had either missed or forgotten my order of honey donuts. This was the first time we really ran into a language barrier. He was a Turk who lived in Germany trying to speak some English to us. A bit difficult to communicate effectively. And when they brought us over the bill, we set it out with our cash to pay but they never came by and picked it up. Two or three other sets of people came in, ate, paid and left before they even brought us the check. We must just be inexperienced. I finally got up and gave them the money so we could get the hell out of there. I didn’t like his attitude after the whole water fiasco. (Reminds me of Uncle Steve’s story of not ordering wine while in France)
We just went back to the hostel room after that and talked some with Jeremy and Nicole before heading to bed. We would wake up early the next morning to do some sight-seeing with those two before they had to leave. I did sleep with my earplugs in because the morning before I had been woken up by people being crazy loud and trucks roaring by on our road. I didn’t hear anything that night and it was glorious!
Day 15: Vienna
The night train from Rome to Innsbruck was fine. I talked to one of the other guys and he was from Sweden. He was backpacking as a vacation. The train left late, probably around 8pm, and I read a little bit before just staring out the window for a while. We went through some beautiful terrain! Shortly after that I fell asleep.
We arrived in Innsbruck around 5:45am, I believe, and caught a 6:05 train to Vienna. It was another 5 or so hours on that second train, but it was pretty cool. It was a high speed train which had a screen displaying info about where we were, the stops coming up and the speed. I saw it top out around 200km/h which is approximately 124mph, so we were booking it! I did attempt to sleep a bit more on the train but it didn’t work so well because the seats were not conducive to anything other than sitting.
We finally arrived and made our way to the Hostel Ruthensteiner where we’re staying. We couldn’t check in immediately, so we walked around, found a Spar grocery store and bought some stuff to make sandwiches. For the really exciting stuff: we came back and made and then ate the sandwiches! And then we checked in, and came up and made our beds and then showered. It had been a long time since we last showered: a night and an entire day in the 85* heat/humidity of Rome along with a night train. We were really happy to finally have some a chance to bathe.
By that time it was thunderstorming outside, so Chuck and I waited around for a while. We also talked to some of our roommates. Lucas was from Australia. We have met a lot of Australians over here! Nicole and Jeremy are sister and brother from San Diego. After it stopped raining, Chuck and I decided to head out to see some stuff. We made it a little way toward the downtown when it started raining again. We were able to find a McDonald’s, meaning we came one step closer to our goal of getting a picture of one in every country! We kept going for a while, thinking it would soon stop, but it didn’t. So we finally turned back and by the time we got back we were soaked. Our clothes are now hanging around the room and we’re hoping they will dry quickly.
We ended up falling asleep for a while, which was nice, because we didn’t get great quality sleep on the trains. After that we talked to our roommates some more and Lucas invited us along to a nearby bar called the Travelshack. Nicole, Jeremy, Chuck and I headed over there and met with Lucas and the people he was with. I am not a fan of beer, but they did have decently priced shots. First off I tried a snuffshot, which was a shot combined with some weird wooden contraption. It was pretty fun!
Then Chuck and I ordered some pizza, which was actually pretty good. This was the first time we have gone out to a bar while in Europe, actually. But don’t worry parents, we didn’t overindulge and we were safe! They did have other shots like Rocketfuel, slippery nipple, flaming chambuca. Let me explain the last one a little bit. You put this black licorice flavored liquor in your mouth, tilt your head up and open your mouth. The bar tender lights the stuff in your mouth on fire and them pours cinnamon on the flame which makes this awesome effect before shutting your mouth and having you drink it. It tasted great and you look like a total badass when breathing fire like that!
So we hung out there for the rest of the evening before heading back to our room. That was the half-way point of our trip, actually. It’s all downhill (metaphorically, not physically) from here!
If you’re reading this post, please give me a comment to let me know. You don’t have to comment ever again, or even say anything other than “Reading”. I just want to get a feel for who all I’m reaching with this blog. Hopefully the journey is interesting to read about, but if not, then I need to work on my writing skills! Also, where are you and what are you up to?
Okay, off to take a shower so we can start Day 16!
Day 14: Rome
Pictures
Today was a lot more walking. We slept in until 9am, ate some breakfast, checked out and sort of sat in the lobby for a while. We’d seen most of the major sites in Rome, and weren’t to eager to head into the heat again, so we dilly-daddled around for a while.
We finally decided what sights we wanted to see and set off.
Our first stop was to check out the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II which is in the Ancient City. It is an enormous monument which takes up nearly the entire piazza. It was at least three sets of large stairs to get to the upper walking level, which wasn’t even close to the top of the monument. It overlooked quite a bit of the area. The first level is a monument to the unknown soldiers, and has some very interesting sculptures and fountains… but a lot of the monument was under renovation, so the fountains weren’t working. In the center of the whole thing is a gargantuan statue of Vittorio Emanuele II on horseback. I took a picture (I hope) of the sign stating its dimensions, and I think it was something like 20×10 meters large and all bronze. See, I told you it was huge!
From there we walked to Santa Maria in Cosmedin which was a really old church. The main attraction was the Mouth of Truth. It is a sculpture of a face in the wall and you stick your hand in. If you tell it a lie, it supposedly closes on your hand. We waited in line for it and when it was my turn I walked up and said, “I am an astronaut.” I am happy to say I still have my hand. So much for superstition! After that we walked around the church a little. I was surprised at how old it looked and felt. After that we sat in the shade across the street for a while.
Then we headed up Via del Corso for about a hundred years and got to the Piazza del Popolo. I believe it has one of the oldest obelisks in Rome. Mussolini is said to have enjoyed walks here. The Egyptians and Romans must have gotten along pretty well because there are obelisks all over the place! We sat in the shade there for a bit and then headed up to the gardens nearby. The walk was fantastic and the view was breathtaking! We could see nearly all of Rome! We saw the Emanuele monument from afar, St Peter’s Basilica was prominent and not to mention all the other domes. I don’t think I’ve seen so many domed buildings before in my life. Rome has fantastic architecture! I am a huge fan, especially if it’s aged and worn and epic!
On our way back we passed the Spanish Steps again. And I need to correct my last post; the correct Roman name for the Spanish Steps is Scalinata Trinita del Monti. I was reading another name on the map the last time. Whoops!
After that we headed to the local grocery, Sma, and ate some food. We got some snacks for the night train we have later. Right now we’re using the last of our Wifi in the hostel before headig to the train station. Our night train leaves at 7:10 and arrives at 4:30am in Innsbruck, Austria. From there we take another 5 hour train to Vienna. We had other plans when we originally booked the night train to Innsbruck, because we should have taken the night train straight to Vienna, but alas it was not meant to be!
Sidenote: We have met quite a few grocery chains while over here. Our personal favorite is the German Spar store. We saw them in Dublin on nearly every corner. In Switzerland we ran into a lot of Coop stores. Here in Rome Sma seems to be popular, although we have seen a Spar or two! I hope to see some more Spars in Austria and Germany!
I think today was a little cooler, if not just from the fact that we stayed in the shade a lot more. It beats getting fried by the sun! Although I do need to watch to make sure my nose doesn’t get any more red. Don’t need to end up with blisters… that would be painful!
We should have free Wifi at our next hostel, so I think I’ll be able to upload some pictures there. I’ll also look into uploading the videos I’ve taken. Maybe to Youtube or Vimeo…
Alright, wish us luck on this overnight journey over hundreds of miles. I hope we don’t get stuck with anyone who is annoying or who snores. Kyle out.
Day 13: Rome
Pictures
Today we wanted to go to the Vatican City bright and early to avoid the lines. A few girls told us it was only 30 minutes from where we were staying. Well, we didn’t get out of here quite as early as we thought we would. We did get to eat breakfast, which was good. I think it took us an hour and fifteen minutes or more to walk over to the Vatican. Again, the random, confusing Roman roads don’t help. I guess it is one of the oldest major cities around, so I’ll forgive them.
We made it through security at St. Peter’s Basilica rather quickly, actually. Holy carp, that place is enormous! It is completely done out with enormous statues, gilded everything, stained glass, more statues, carvings, engravings, chiselings, paintings, really really high ceilings and domes. From the outside, it doesn’t really look that large. I mean, the hundreds of columnades and statues of saints and fountains in the front are impressive, but the size and grandeur of the inside is almost overwhelming! They had an entire list of all the deceased Popes and what looked like several alters. There was even a mass going on in one of the side areas. The ceilings are hundreds of feet in the air and the amount of free space is staggering! The entire time I was there, I couldn’t help but wish my mom were with me. She would really appreciate the history and the meaning behind all the building.
From there we walked (for what seemed forever) to get to the Vatican Museums. We saw several old Italian ladies completely sprawled on the ground with a little money cup in front of them. It was interesting because the homeless in Columbus usually always ask you for money instead of trying to look as pathetic as possible.
Sidenote: I can’t believe how many people chew with their mouths open. It is the most annoying thing in the world. I’ve noticed it especially with Asians. The guy behind me is eating an apple and is incredibly annoying! Also, an amazing number of people here in Europe smoke. Never have I seen this many people lighting cigarettes all the time. It’s disgusting. And they don’t seem to have the smoking bans that America has.
We got a discount for the museums with our ISIC (International Student Identity Card) card, which is the first time it’s been of any use whatsoever. We really wanted to see the Sistine Chapel. And they lead you on a maze through paintings, sculptures, tapestries, passageways and bunches of other stuff before you get there. Some of the stuff was neat, but, again, we didn’t do a tour or have an audio guide, so a lot of the significance was lost upon me. I would recommend doing a tour, at least, so you can see what all the history is.
We did get to the Chapel eventually though! And it was impressive! It was painted all over. They painted on the crown molding and shadows of things to make it look 3D. And there in the middle of the ceiling was the famous Michelangelo painting: God reaching for Adam. It’s actually one panel in a series depicting the Genesis story (from what I could see). I wonder what makes that one panel so popular? There were signs all over asking for silence and no photos or video, but there were lots of loud people taking pictures with flashes. A few times a guide would ask for silence, but it didn’t last long. The Sistine Chapel was a very cool sight indeed!
We then went to the Pantheon, which was on the way to our hostel. It was also enormous! There was a hole in the domed ceiling where the sunlight poured in. It made for a cool effect! There were of course many huge statues and paintings. Very impressive and, in case you didn’t know, there were signs telling you how scared the area was. After the Pantheon we walked to the Trinita dei Monti or the Spanish Steps. There was a fountain in front of them and quite a few people sitting on them. We walked to the top where another obelisk stood. If you couldn’t tell, Romans love fountains and obelisks and statues and crazy roads and scooters!
Yes, it’s true, there are tons of scooters. And during a red light, they all drive to the front of traffic so they are the first ones off the line. I think you’d be killed by aggressive drivers if you tried that in America! That’s not to say the driving is any better of here… there is still a lot of honking. Not to mention there are barely any traffic lines! And how the heck do people know street names? They are found on the sides of buildings, if at all, and they are very very inconviently located to begin with! Anyways!
From there we walked back to the hostel and took a little nappie nap for about 3 hours. Then we woke up, went to the grocery to get some food. We ended up making some pasta, which was way better than the stuff we had last night. Even put some chili peppers in with the tomato sauce which were a nice flavor.
After that we walked out to get some gellato. We’d read in our Europe books that San Crispino was a good place to go, so we went. And I will tell you that it was amazing! We paid 3 Euro for a smallish cup of 2 scoops, but damn was it good! I had a scoop of banana and a scoop of honey. San Crispino was the real deal because they had metal containers for their ice cream and the banana was actually grey colored, which means they use real bananas (who woulda thunkit?). Both the honey and banana tasted like you were eating the real thing and the banana even had bits of banana in it! Delicious stuff, and I’m not even that bit a fan of sweets!
Well, while we were eating we headed over to the Trevi fountain. Again, another fountain, but this one was awesome! It was nearly the size of the whole piazza. I got some pictures, which I will hopefully upload soon. There was a statue of Neptune in the middle with two guys on the side wrestling horses with wings and dragon-like tails. Not sure what that was about, but the water cascading all around was fantastic! I think it is my favorite fountain/statue here. There were quite a few people there. And of course there were street vendors peddling their wares. We haven’t seen any Gypsies here that I can recall. We’ve steered clear of the people trying to give us anything though.
And how we’re sitting in the hostel room again. I’ve been typing up 4 days worth of blogs, because I fell behind. We’re limited to 30 minutes of wifi per person per day, but we saved up yesterdays so we will hopefully have a bit of time to use tomorrow. I am going to take a shower now and then head to bed. Not sure what we’re going to do tomorrow. We’ve got a night train to Innsbruck, Austria at 7:10pm, but I have no idea what we’ll do until that time.
Day 12: Rome
Pictures
They gave us a muffin in the morning for breakfast on the train, which just made me feel ripped off! I wish they would have given us a little bit more! We walked from the Termini train station to the Alessandro Downtown Hostel. We couldn’t check in so we just put our bags into their luggage room and got the essential stuff (cameras and water bottles). From the hostel, we walked toward the Colosseum. We saw the church dedicated to Santa Maria Maggiore. There was an obelisk in front, and actually, there are quite a few obelisks in Rome. We got to the Colosseum and it was big! Waited in line to get tickets to enter, and it didn’t take too long. It was really impressive and large! In its day it could fit 50,000 people. Very few seats actually remain. It was built out of brick, but I guess it had a marble facade over everything. That would have been insane. Where the floor would have been, we could see the tunnels which they used to move props and animals around and before they upgraded things, they could actually flood the entire area and do plays of naval battles there. Part of a wooden floor had been reconstructed to show what it looked like. It would have really been impressive to see a play or gladiator battle there.
From there we walked to Palatino Hill. It is one of Rome’s seven hills. There were huge ruins of palaces, buildings, temples and the Roman Forum. One thing though… it was hot as blazes! Rome reminds me of Florida. Very muggy, which makes even the slightest heat nearly unbearable. As I sit here, I have a think film of gross from the day. We didn’t do it, but I would recommend getting either a guided tour or an audio tour of things. I sort of wish I could have heard the history of the things we were seeing, instead of just looking at them, but maybe next time, right?
It was still really impressive seeing all these ruins which were hundreds or thousands of years old. I can’t even imagine what things were like back then. Probably just as hot! The roads in Rome and Paris feel like they were laid out by drunks! They are not in grids at all and for each american block there might be 6 roads. And 8 way intersections seem like Roman roulette!
After the Roman forum we ended up walking back because it was so freaking hot! We showered for the first time since Interlaken and it was nice. I was unbelievably sweaty from walking around! We then fell asleep for a while, and woke up for the free pasta dinner. It was small plate with a small portion of pasta… barely even quantifiable as free dinner at all! But they did let us get seconds, and then I ate the stuff the girls next to us didn’t finish. So, all in all, even though it was pretty bland, I did get a decent meal.
After eating, Chuck and I took our dirty clothes to a laundromat. We were completely out of clean clothing. I wore my pajama shorts and the jacket I brought and chuck did similar. I felt pretty trashy walking around like that… especially without a shirt! Anyway, we paid 10 euro to wash and dry a large load. Took about an hour, and the guy there even took care of it all. The guy at the hostel desk gave us a little thing for free soap, which was also nice. For that hour we just came back to the hostel and read. We got our clothes back (though some were a bit damp), folded them all up, and then went to sleep.
We went to bed early because we wanted to go to the Vatican City early the next morning. During the night I heard a few of our roommates come back from the pub crawl. I heard one of them crying in the bathroom. I imagine she had too much to drin and was puking. Seeing as the pub crawl costs 20 euro, it seems like a great use of money, right? Luckily, I fell back to sleep quickly.