Pragueo againo

This morning we woke up and ate breakfast. That happens most mornings actually so I didn't really know why I wrote that. Probably trying to pad out this pretty uneventful day.

We went to look at inside the castle cathedral:

It was quite cathedraley as you can see. After grabby a sneaky hot-dog for the road we went to have a look through the old-new synagogue. We were a bit surprised that it was quite simple and understated. It is one of the last synagogues left where the people sit around the outside of the room. We had to wear funny hats while we were there. I hope I am not going to hell for calling them funny hats, but they were.

After all of the religious stuff we were feeling a bit peckish and parched so we hunted some beer and also ordered a tankard of chilly sausages! Soooo damn good. I hope this food-photo thing is not becoming a habit of mine:

We wandered back to the house via the old town square again and I took this photo of some dudes statue. I really should remember who the hell he was (important I am guessing) because it was covered in our walking tour but I can't. Maybe I will google it when I read this again. If google still exists when I read this again, hmmmmm.

We got home and had a bit of a rest before going to dinner. We planned on going back to U Sadu but Adam got bored of walking and suggested a place we were walking past. Turns out it was bloody amazing. I got a thing off the list of stuff the Czech girl that is looking after Mum and Dads hostel recommended: braised beef with dumplings and a creamy sauce. Yum. For dessert we had a strudel thing. The waiter said it was cream on the inside instead of apple but it was more like cheese. Kinda weird texture but it was damn tasty. I ended up eating two as one felt somewhat rejected. The waiter was one of the best I have ever had as well so we left him a nice tip. We had to go and look at the babies climbing the tower again for some reason before heading home for a few fantastic rounds of spies. I have concluded spies is most fun playing with beginner players because 1) you don't know how they react to things and 2) they are highly unpredictable when learning the game.

Hopefully there weren't too many mistakes in this because I couldn't be bothered proofing it. We are getting up (relatively) early tomorrow to Terezin.

Prague 4

Saturday 29th September

Just realised that it will be difficult to know what day I was where when I look back through my blog posts, as some of them I have posted days after they were written. Hopefully I can backtrack from this date and figure stuff out. Unlikely though.

Today was pretty much a write-off. Last night just before we went to bed we noticed there was no water but we thought it must surely be back on today. Then when we got up (relatively early at about 9:30am I might add) we still had no water for showers. Mike and I spent a while debating what the problem could be and concluded that we weren't capable of fixing the problem, even if we could work out what it was. Then we heard people talking outside and went to investigate. Apparently there was water pissing out of some guys apartment and there were a lot of other people without water (possibly the whole building). Unfortunately the guy was away. Luckily there were some people in the building that spoke better Czech than us to sort the problem out. I think in the end a locksmith, the police (to authorise entry) and a plumber came round. We thought it was best to wait to make sure it was sorted and by the time we had water again it was about 1pm. We needed to meet Mikes uncle at the square close to our house at 3pm so we decided to go and see a synagogue. When we got there we found them all closed. Some religious thing I think, how rude.

So we headed back home as slowly as we could to wait for Mikes Uncle. We were also hoping to get amazing hot dogs but the bastard was closed (again). After waiting for them for a while we learnt that they were going to take the metro instead of a taxi so that would take longer. Then we learnt the metro wasn't going so they were on a tram so that would take longer. Meanwhile police started showing up at the square. Then some police ponies showed up (ohhhhhhhh PONIES!). Then some rough looking dudes showed up with scarves. Then more police. Then more guys. Shit was about to get real. We were thinking there might be some sort of fire fight but it seemed unlikely as the guys were wearing scarves with Futbal on them so were much more likely just fans, not armed czech mafia. After waiting quite some time we found Mikes uncle and headed back to the house at about 4:30pm. We ate some cheese and drank some beer and then heard crowds roaring. We could only assume it was from the square, but why they were all gathering there we couldn't fathom. We went to dinner at the Italian restaurant and found the square covered in rubbish. Obviously something had gone down but probably a good thing we weren't there.

After dinner we went back to play some cards and drink some more beer. I didn't lose so badly at "chase the lady" this time and then we went to bed (before midnight I might add).

So that is how you kill a day in Prague. Go to a closed synagogue and wait for someone to turn up. How the hell I wrote so much on such an uneventful day I have no idea. I am truly sorry for all of the drivel you have just read.

Prague the Third

This morning the first thing on the agenda was "Chocolate for Breakfast" according to the "use-it" map for Prague. Despite it being about 1pm it was still breakfast for us for intensive purposes and it was very good advice. I ordered a hot chocolate with ice cream and a "large chocolate cake". I don't normally take photos of food but these were pretty good:

I also didn't take any other photos today so I had to put these in. The hot chocolate was a bit like hot chocolate dairy food but more chocolatey. Seemed like eating it with a spoon was the appropriate method though. Mickey was weird and ordered a hot chocolate with a cabbage leaf thing but I have to admit the cabbage thing was pretty damn good.

We then went to hunt the museum of communism. We wandered to where we thought it was and found a massive building covered in scaffolding. We suspected that Prague did not want us to learn anything while we were here. We went to a nearby information center and found that we needed to go through an archway to get to a courtyard where the museum is. We found it from there and it was quite good. Again, it helps that I know nothing about communism or what happened in Czechoslovakia after WWII. I think I learnt things about stuff.

We were hoping to go to Terezin tomorrow (a "transitional" camp the Nazis used to take people to before they were taken to Auschwitz) so we went searching for bus routes and such. It turned out to be quite tricky (it also didn't help that we couldn't pronounce Terezin) but we got some info. For dinner we went to get hot dogs (recommended by the use-it map) but to no avail, he had closed for the day. Instead we got pizza and headed back to the flat.

In the evening we played some "chase the lady" (cards) and I discovered I am pretty shit at it.

Before we went to bed we figured out that we did not have enough time to go to Terezin on Saturday so flagged that idea.

Prague Day 2

We were intending to go and hop on the 11am walking tour but when we woke up at 9am it was pissing down. I can conclude from this that it is not possible to accurately forecast the weather anywhere. I would have thought continental Europe would have been OK, but no.

At about 11:30 the rain had all cleared up so plan B was actioned: go and see the Prague museum then go to the 3pm walking tour. We wandered down the road only to find that it was closed due to renovations. Dukes. Across the road was another museum so we tried to get into that but there was a conference on there. Double dukes. Now we had a couple of hours to kill before the 3pm walking tour. So off to meander aimlessly we went. We went out and over the tourist bridge (Charles Bridge) where there were far too many people trying to sell charactitures. That killed about 20min. Somehow we whittled away the time which seemed to only include walking around in circles and a coffee with some tasty apple strudle slice thing.

At 3pm while we were waiting for the tour to start I took a photo of all the people waiting for the clock to do its thing. 

During the walking tour the guide said a couple of things about the clock and, as I suspected, it was a bit more impressive than it appeared. It is a 24 hour clock and also tells the astronomical time (star sign stuff). The mechanisim is completely mechanical and is still mostly original from 600 years ago. All of the wee guys represent something or someone and the dudes that pass by the windows are the 12 apostles.

The walking tour was really good (as usual) and showed us around the Jewish quarter and lots of other bits of the city. The main thing I took away from the tour was that Czechs really enjoy throwing people out of windows (called defenestration). Unfortunately I had judged the weather conditions poorly and only worn shorts and a T-shirt so I was a luttle but (little bit) cold but I decided it would be good to acclimatise to the weather in Vancouver anyway. We went up to the Prague Castle (which has the largest castle grounds in the world) and got some really cool views of the city:

The entrance to the castle grounds was pretty imposing with one dude clubbing the hell out of another dude and some other dude knifing another dude. Basically just dudes killing other dudes. I think that is more intimidating than sculptures of lions which everyone else seems to use.

In the gardens we found this which was kinda strange. From one side it looked like a guy taking a leak but when we came round the front of it we saw that it was a guy forcefully holding a lions mouth open to make water come out of it. I have never seen water jet from a lions mouth so I don't think this would work in real life.

We made a quick stop at home (to get warmer clothes) before going to check out the climbing baby TV tower. Yup, you heard right, there are statues of babies climbing the TV tower. Yes, it is as disturbing as it sounds. Unfortunately it was too dark to take a photo but I'm sure if you google "climbing baby tower" you will find it. We went up the tower to have a look out over the city at night which was OK. Kinda getting sick of looking out over cities from towers. After the tower we went to a restaurant called "U Sadu" where the kitchen is open until 2am. We got kicked off the outside seating part and had to go down into the basement which was a bit shit as you are still allowed to smoke in bars here. We sat in the very smokey room but fortunately our meals were very tasty. I had chicken and pork medallions with matured cheese on top and baked potatoes with garlic sauce for 205 CZK (about $12 NZD). For dessert we had milk cheese and honey ice cream which came in wee ceramic pots which Emma will keep and make delicious desserts in when she gets back to Kiwiland. I think we got shafted on the bill again (we had them try to add an extra beer at another place). Only about 200 CZK though so not a worry but we will be extra vigilant next time. Hopefully honest mistakes. We also found quite a good beer called "Kozel" and has a sweet picture of a goat drinking a beer. Quite cheap for only 29 CZK for 500ml.

Prague Day 1

Had a good sleep in today. I think Micky P and Emma are used to pretty relaxed mornings so that suits me fine. We have go a whole week here so should have enough time to do everything we want (famous last words). We planned to go and check out the Jewish quarter today but got sidetracked pretty early on with a tasty hotdog. It was 60 Czech Kronar, whatever the hell that is in normal money. I think it is cheap. Emma bought some ham and potato cabbage thing that seemed quite expensive in comparison but it was pretty good also. We then went for a wander and came across this clock:

Which does stuff on the hour. It also tells the astronomical time which I have always wanted to know. The actual doing stuff part was pretty tacky. A whole lot of wee figurines dance around and shit. Kinda weird. Maybe there is a story behind it all. We went to an information center to find out about free walking tours. Maybe they will tell us about the crazy little figures that dance on the clock.

We then continued our wander and saw the metronome up on the hill so decided to check it out. See a picture below:

The view from up on the hill was pretty good, but the metronome itself was a bit strange. The power cable to it was festooned with shoes which was a nice touch. It was really noisy and didn't look very elegant but is probably a big step up from what was there before: a statue of Stalin.

To find out more about walking tours we headed off (on a very roundabout way I might add) to the use it shop. Along the way I took this photo:

Which is pretty much exactly the same as one I have seen on the internet before in one of those "top ten wacky shit" things. Hilarious that I never knew that it was in Prague until we stumbled across it. We got our walking tour information and headed to a pub for a well deserved (yeah right) beer. Flag the Jewish quarter, there is beer to be drunk! I think it was 28 Ckr for 500ml which converts to 1.75 NZD. Not bad beer either. At another pub we got a plate of "chips" which, as it turns out, is very thinly cut potato that have been deep fried. Very tasty. On the way home I had one of my more enjoyable supermarket experiences while we tried to figure out what the hell everything was. I think we came away with what we needed... A lot of random beers apparently.

Munich Some More

Today was another classic post-Oktoberfest day. I did manage to get to the Deutsche Museum though, which has gotta be the best technology museum I have ever been to. Heaps of stuff that has cutaways so you can see how it works. Quite a few interactive exhibits too which was good. Highlights were: an entire U-1 submarine, a massive part of a plane, a ship, lots of nano-technology exhibits and of course the electrical engineering section. So cool to see so much electrical engineering bits and pieces with parts cutaway from them in one place. Super-conducting cable:

Old substation from Berlin complete with trenches and cutaway cable joints:

Generator cross-section:

Now I am on the bus to Prague to catch up with a mate from NZ (Mr Micky P, and his G/F Emma) who have been away for a couple of years. Should be good times. The bus ride is about 6 hours but it turns out they have WiFi so that is cool. It cost 42 euro instead of 65 or so for the train and the down time is always useful to write some bloggy stuff and sort my photos out. Might even get a chance for a wee snooze. I just realised that this is the end of my 2 weeks by myself. Which I cut short by going to see Johannes for Oktoberfest. Win. All in all it was good, but it was pretty hard work. I met some really great people but I guess the question is whether I would have met them if I was with someone else. I think the answer is yes because even when I am with people I know I go and find people I don't, which means that travelling with someone else is always going to be more enjoyable for me than travelling alone. I am sure that I will have to do it again at some stage but I will definately continue to avoid it! I think I gotta convince Gaz to go to Canada so he can do some travelling with me. Hes probably even dumb enough to run places instead of walking just to get there faster!

Oktoberfest the 2nd

Obviously, I was not going to be firing on all cylinders today. I wasn't doing too bad though considering I was drinking for over 12 hours yesterday. I was planning to go to the Deutsche museum but instead was charged with the duty of meeting a couple of Spanish girls that were staying at Johannes' flat too. Laura, Alba (not sure if that's correct spelling), Andi and I went to Oktoberfest at bout 5:30pm. I wore the closest thing I had in my pack to NZ lederhosen:

All of the tents ( I love how they call them tents but they are actually massive temporary buildings made from wood and iron with very little canvas in them) were full so we sat in a biergarten and had an nice sunset over the festival:

Johannes came along after he had finished work too and we managed to get some room at a table inside one of the tents. You really wanna be inside later on as the place just goes absolutely bat-shit crazy. Everyone was up on their tables and having a great time. Again though, not really much to write about other than it was freaking awesome.

Oktoberfest the 1st (for me)

Today (Sunday 23rd) I got up early to go and meet my North American friends outside this place:

at 8am. We waited for an hour and got in for our first masse at Oktoberfest at about 9. Proost!

 

While the rest of the day was absolutely fantastic although there is not really anything to write about. You kinda just sit at a table, drink and talk shit. Occasionally there is some singing and or dancing on tables. The atmosphere was unbe-bloody-leivable.

I am so stoked that I had the opportunity to go. I was very jealous of the lederhosen, but I couldn't really justify shelling out the 200 euro for something I could not even fit in my bag. For lunch I had some delicious Ox that someone else couldn't eat. I wasn't even hungry but good god it was good. Possibly only rivaled by the 1/2 chicken I got a bit later. Beer + Food + Great people = my kind of paradise. Here is my happy face:

We left about 4pm and had a wander round. Photos don't really do the event justice but we'll give it a go anyway:

In the evening we went to the Hofbrauhaus for some cheaper masse. At Oktoberfest they were about 9.40 (and you tip up to 10 euro to avoid coinage) and at the pub they were 7.40 or something.

Unfortunately I stayed up until the trains had stopped so I got a big feed of BK and ran home (as you do). Luckily I headed in the right direction and made it home a-ok. Very good day.

Munich Day 1

We had a bit of a sleep in today. I found out that going to Oktoberfest on day 1 meant lining up at 7am and then fighting and running to get to the front to get a table. That sounded pretty awful so I was happy to just chill out. For lunch we went to the super market to get some weisswurst (white sausage) and cooked that up, yum. We were going to go to the deutshc museum but we were running too late to make it worth while so instead Johannes took me on a bit of a bike tour. I was pretty terrified of riding on the road (without a helmet I might add) but its actually pretty sweet because of all the bike lanes. We rode through the English garden where we saw the wave:

It was pretty cold but there were a few hardy souls in it. It is a man made wave (obviously) in a river that runs through the park.

We rode further into the centre and looked in a ridiculously expensive shop where you could buy a bottle of cognac for 3000 euro or something. Then we went up a bell tower thing and found these dudes playing us a tune:

Below is a picture of the mayors house (I love how they call it a Rat Haus!) which seems a little over the top in my opinion.

On the way home we had a look at this guy:

He is titled "the walking man" which is very misleading as he doesn't move at all. Apparently some flashy insurance company owns him (he is in front of their building). It was kinda weird that he was pretty high up on the list of things to see in Munich. UTFA methinks.

For dinner we had white asparagus and mashed potato with a sour egg sauce thing and some asparagus ham (apparently that exists!). Compliments go to the chefs Johannes and Louise. Cheers guys.

Munich Again

So I got to Munich no worries and found Johannes' really nice appartment easily too. We had a few beers on the balcony before going to an amazingly cheap Italian restaurant. After that we went to a concert thing after a snowboarding event or some shit. We partied there for bloody ages.

Berlin Day 2

So I had a bit of a lie-in the morning before going to get blue man group tickets for the 9pm show for Kat and I. On the way to get tickets I found these guys:

Kinda funny cos they were dressed up as American soldiers but still looked so damn German for some reason. After I had bought tickets I went to have a look around the Pergamon museum. On the way I found this:

Its just lying! I don't think "Posh" and "Aussie" should be used in the same sentence, let alone as a describing word for the Aussies themselves. Hilarious. I was pretty apprehensive about going to a museum as I seen quite a lot and they are not really my thing but something in my head told me I should go and learn some stuff. I had heard that there was a freize of the gods doing battle and that sounded pretty sweet. I bought the "special exhibition" ticket combo so I could see the Pergamon panorama. I walked up a bunch of stairs to get to a viewing platform thing that you walk around to look at the panorama. When I walked in it was pretty dark and there were some crickets chirping away somewhere. It was pretty massive, and it was drawn to look 3D when you look down on it from the viewing platform. It was OK, nothing really to write home about, it was really too dark to appreciate. Just as I was about to leave the sun came up. The lighting was one of the best parts really, they did a pretty good job of getting the lighting colours right for just before dawn (light blue colouring) and then a brilliant orange glow for dawn before fading to a bright white light. Now It was pretty cool. Now I could see the detail too. I waited until sunset before leaving to go and look at the main museum. The first room I walked into was the freize-battle room. It was incredible:

It took me a minute to understand that this was actually a real thing, created hundreds of years ago. The givaway was the large sections that were missing that made it all the more amazing that they had pieced together so much of it. It was basically a giant jigsaw puzzle. Then I walked into the next room and there was a gigantic gate:

Largest reconstructed gate in the world or some shit. Then the room after that was another gate with a corridor of glazed bricks with lions on them that would run alongside the main entrance path to the gate. They really did pull out all their trump cards first though. They had some good stuff after the first few rooms but it was mostly museum stuff. As far as museums go it was a good one. I also found some interesting looking lions:

Don't know why I took a photo, they just look kinda funny. Apparently they were built to look intimidating but that effect was lost on me. I rushed through another special exhibition (I had been there two hours) but I did take this shot a room with a mirror ceiling that had the Greek gods family tree on it:

I went back to the hostel to meet Kat to go and check out the wall documentation center and memorial:

There we got a better idea of the size of the multiple-wall construction and where the death zone was. There was also a wall with the portraits of all of the people that died trying to get through. We just sat there struggling to come to terms with the fact that this happened in our life times. Even moreso for her at it was happening about 1000km from her house. Crazy shit. But then again I guess there is stuff going on today that is just as bad.

We went back to the hostel to chill out for a bit before going to see the Blue Man Group. I hope Kat wasn't just being polite when she said she enjoyed it, but I thought it was awesome. It was an "international show" so there was English text as well as German. (Lucky, as I remember Rowan saying he wanted to see the Lion King in Germany but it was all in German, which is silly because Lions can't speak German, I'd imagine that they have to learn English at school but I just can't see German as their 3rd language). Heaps of wacky humour and awesome percussion, what more could you want. Quite a lot of audience interaction as well (interactive clowns, interactive clowns) which was cool. A couple of times they got people up on stage and Kat and I were struggling to figure out if they were actors or not. One guy must have been because he had a helmet put on him, covered in blue paint and then swung into a piece of canvas to create art. I don't know who would be keen though to let that happen to them. But another girl had a weird dinner with the blue men where they got up to all sorts of shenanigans. Hard to pick. At one point they got the whole audience up to dance and stuff and we were laughing at the possibility that the entire audience apart from us were actors. I don't think that it would be a plausible business model. The finale was pretty amazing where we passed giant toilet roll paper (unused) from the back of the audience to the stage while there was flashing lights and ultraviolet stuff happening. The curtain call was weird though, I'm not sure if the audience was just a bit shit or they hadn't planned it well enough but it just kinda ended abruptly and the lights came up. Sooooo good though.

We went back to the hostel for a quick drink before getting a relatively early night at 1am. Thanks for hanging out Kat!

Berlin Hat Man

No, its not a German drinking game. Its just this wee guy with a sweet hat on the
pedestrian crossing lights:

He is called the Amplemanchen (with an umlout on the second a) and he is some dude that east Germans like. He is supposed to only be on crossing in the east side but Kat and I weren't convinced that that was strictly true. But then again we don't really know where the wall ran either!

Berlin Day 1

This morning I got up kinda early to get a full day of sight seeing in. The first thing I did was got to the Reichstag (The German Parliament building). The lonely planet guide to get there early to line up as it became popular during the day. Then I found out that they now had a registration system where you have to book a time slot and all of the slots were booked until 1pm. So that was pretty crap because I wanted to do a walking tour that started at 11am. So I had a wander around the grounds and took a photo:

while I wondered what I was gonna do for an hour and a half by myself before the walking tour started. Real cool travelling by yourself eh? I decided that I would sign up to the 3pm slot as it was free of charge so I didn't have to show up if I made other plans. When I was waiting in line they started handing cards out to the people waiting and speaking in German, when they got to me they asked if I wanted to go up now, win! It was really good. There was an audio guide thing that told you to stop and look out over the city while it described the various buildings you could see. The actual structure was pretty cool too as it had a chimney thing:

that is used to let excess heat out and a mirror system to reflect light down into the chambers to reduce the need for lighting. This also means that the ceiling is made of glass so you can look down on the politicians doing their thing:

The idea being that the politicians can look up at the people they are working on behalf of.

After that I went to do the walking tour. The first thing we saw was the Brandenburg gate:

Then we walked up the road to check out the Holocaust memorial:

Which I found was very hard to take a photo of. It would probably look cool from one of the buildings around it but none of them would let me up. Again, there are not really words to describe it, "I really liked it" seems like a pretty aweful thing to say but it was a really good memorial (in a bad way). Wandering around inside it was pretty crazy as it got really deep in the middle (all of the stones are about the same level when you look across them but the ground falls away). I was in desperate need of someone to talk to and I hit a few people up but while everyone was polite they didn't seem to want to talk to anyone. I can't fathom why someone would wanna walk around by themselves. Weird. I gave myself a wee pep-talk to stop being so negative (I really probably was starting to go a bit mental). We also went to stand above the bunker where Hitler killed himself. That was a really weird feeling, knowing that such a poingant moment in history happened beneath our feet. There is just a carpark there as well as no one really wants to memorialise the dude, fair enough too. I also found this along the way:

Apparently in Germany they have statues of people killing lions as opposed to statues of  regular lions, and this:

I think collecting pictures of amazing old buildings with scaffolding on them is my new thing. This one is a particularly good example. We ended our tour on "Museum Island" beside this amazing Cathedral:

Where our guide also told us an interesting story about the mayor of East Germany and how he basically got stressed out at a press conference and made some rash statements that started the ball rolling to remove the wall. I tried to remember more but I failed. Should really look it up again sometime.

At the end of the walking tour I saw a tuk tuk advertising the Blue Man Group so I decided to go hunting for them to find out if I could go to a show. I found a ticket office and found there were shows at 6pm and 9pm every day. I decided to wait until tomorrow for two reasons.1: So that then I would go on the pub crawl tonight (to rule out the chance of being hungover travelling to Munich the day before Ocktoberfest) and 2: So that I could hunt some unsuspecting person and recruit them to come to the show with me.

I didn't really know what to do next so I had a look at my map. I wanted to go to the east side gallery (longest contiguous part of the wall still standing), and also go up the tower. But the gallery was a long way away (approx 1 hour according to google). I wanted to do as much today so that I didn't have to get up early tomorrow after the pub crawl (you may be thinking "why the hell don't you just scrap the crawl?" well I know from experience that people on pub crawls are out to meet people and have a good time so its pretty much just medication for me, without it I might go insane). Then I realised if I was by myself I could always just run. There are not many people I know that hold the same opinion that running is generally the same as walking except you get places faster so this was an advantage of travelling alone, I finally found one! So I set out. I went past the Jewish museum because it apparently had cool architecture or something but it looked boring from the outside (may inside was better). So I ran on. I wasn't really dressed appropriately though in jeans and a T-shirt. I also didn't want to be a sweating mess when I got to the wall as that would just get one of my precious few T-shirts soaked in sweat so I just went at a slow trudge, stopping occasionally to keep my body temperature low. It was all very technical and calculated.

I got to the east side gallery and it was cool. Largest outdoor art exhibition in Europe as well I think.

It was weird to find some interesting graffiti too:

I wonder why the hell that was there. Its not like we had anything like the Berlin wall happen in NZ.

I realised I still had time to go up the Furnsehturm (TV tower) before the pub crawl started. It was easily seen from everywhere so I ran straight towards it and found it no problems. It is 368m tall and was built by The Soviets to prove the Easts dominance in the cold war. Unfortunately the soviets couldn't complete it by themselves and had to get the Swedish in to finish the job. Couple of pics including one of the construction of a replica of a palace that stood in that spot back in the day:

I then went back to the hostel and grabbed some tasty kebab action on my way to the meeting point for the pub crawl. It was a bit of a sausage fest but it was pretty fun. We went to a place called "Matrix" at the end which had about 4 sets of DJ rooms, it was huge. All were playing awful music. I didn't really drink much so that was good. Still had a good time so I think that proves I'm not an alcoholic right? I was successful in the primary goal of talking to people and I was also successful in my secondary goal of finding someone keen to go see the Blue Man Group with me, Kat, a Doctor from Bristol/Bath. Horray!

In Berlin Safe and Sound

The first part of today was kinda surreal, I was dozing off and on all morning and kept thinking about how poorly the day could have gone. I kept stressing out that I would sleep through a connection, I'm still such a muppet. I had a good greasy feed in Brussels between trains so that helped a bit. It was a good day of travel though, I got up to 250km/h! I arrived in Berlin and found the hostel with no hassles. I am staying in a 30 bed dorm for 3 nights so the earplugs might come in handy. I have just spent about two hours updating my blog and I'm pretty tired so I might make a plan for tomorrow and then be a nanna and go to bed. Sorry for the quick succession of blogs which has created a million-word-essay for whoever is reading these as I post them.

Turns Out Yesterday Wasn't That Stressful in Comparison to This Morning

So I needed to be at the train station at 8:55. I set my alarm for 7:30. I woke up to my alarm at 7:30. I turned the alarm off. I went back to sleep (Unintentially obviously). I woke up at 8:35. Shit shit shit. I had absolutely no idea if I could make the train but luckily I had given myself the best chance by pre-packing most of my stuff before going on the pub crawl and going to pick up my train ticket the day before. Apparently all the buses go to the train station so my plan was to run as much as possible and catch a bus if it went past. I thought it would take slightly more than 30min to run it with a pack on and I would still have to navigate using a map so I was pretty screwed. In hindsight I'm actually surprised that I actually attempted it. I started running down the road as a bus was coming along. I had no idea where it was going to stop but I could just about run at the same speed so I did that for about 80m and came across a stop. I hopped on the bus and asked how long it took to get to the train station. The driver said 16-20min. It was 8:40. I considered if I could run faster than a bus through Bruges but decided I might end up doing myself a mischief running with my pack and if I ran there and missed the train I would have been absolutely exhausted and guted. Better to come to terms with missing the train while I was sitting on a bus. For a terrifying moment I realised I only had a 50 euro note in my wallet and the the fare was 2 euro. Luckily I managed to magically produce 2 euro coin from somewhere. I kept asking for updates and the updates were getting closer to the minimum time required to get there on time. I think at some point the bus driver realised that we could make it and hit the Nos button (I didn't actually realise busses had those). We pulled into the station at 8:50 and I found the gate and got on to the train just before the doors closed. I don't feel comfortable writing the expression that went through my head so if you know me well enough you should be able to work it out from the first letters (I'm looking at you 60 year old Blair!). H S F C F G. I'm such a muppet.

In Bruges 2

So I had found out in Brussels that is was going to be pretty expensive to do all the travel I wanted to do. It was kinda stressing me out trying to decide if I should still go to Berlin or not. But I thought I would follow through with the original plan. First I went to wash my clothes with the tokens I had bought the day before. I found that the hostel was doing all its washing at that time but I couldn't wait because I wanted go and do stuff so that was annoying. Bugger 1. I then went to book train tickets and a hostel, but the wifi was being really flakey. After wasting 30 min trying to book stuff I had a go using the desktop computers. Bugger 2. Didn't really like putting my credit card details in though. Unfortunately the hostel that was recommended to me was fully booked so I tried to book the best rated hostel with available beds. Bugger 3. Then the website threw an error at me saying there were no beds left. Bugger 4. So I booked the next next best thing. Stupid flakey internet. I booked the train ticket and elected to pick it up at the station. So I left the hostel much later than I was hoping. Bugger 5. I had also forgotten to get the booking reference number from my emails so that I could go and pick up my ticket. Bugger 6. I wanted to go up the Belhof and still make it to a brewery for a tour and then get to a walking tour at 2:30pm. Turned out the Belhof only holds 70 people at a time (and I can see why inside) so there was a bit of a wait to get up there. It was a pretty cool view from the top:

They used to store the towns treasure up there and it was really easy to defend because of the tiny staircases (366 narrow steps to the top). At the top was a sweet bell mechanism as well:

I guess all bell towers have them but I've never seen it before.

It gets "programed" with new songs every year by some dude. I then figured I should make a dash for the brewery. I thought I might make it before 1pm (in case they had tours on the hour) but was hoping I could just have a look around by myself like the other one in Brussels. Unfortunately I hit quite a bit of traffic on the way down. I had a bit of a run to get to the brewery only to find I had missed the tour at 1pm by 3min. Bugger 7. The last one was at 4pm and the walking tours are usually 2 hours so that was dumb. Feeling dejected I decided to be productive and pick up my train ticket instead of in the morning in case I was in a hurry. I remembered that my phone was just smart enough to get emails on it with wifi, so I found a bar and bought a beer to make it all better. When I downloaded my emails I found an email saying I had booked the hostel twice and another one once. I sent emails cancelling two of the bookings but lost my deposits on them. Bugger 8. But I got the booking reference for my train and went and picked my tickets up. Now I had to get across Bruges very quickly to get to the walking tour.

I felt really stink and I realised that when things are going well by myself then all is well, but now that things had started to go pants I don't have very good solo coping mechanisms. But now I had booked everything I needed to for the next day but it was all pretty damn expensive (150 euro for train Bruges-Berlin, it will be another 100 to get from Berlin to Munic). But I figured I just needed to get on the tour and have a yarn to a few people. I made it to the walking tour by the skin of my teeth but then left half way through to get to the brewery tour.

The brewery tour was OK, not as good as the one in Brussels as it is pretty much just a mass-produced beer using modern techniques. It had a couple of sweet chillers thought, new:

and old:

Apparently the design was inspired by a woman's body or so the story goes. But the primary goal of the brewery and walking tour was achieved as I met a guy on the walking tour from New York and he was keen to have a beer and show me around New York when I get there. I had also signed up to a beer tasting so I had a quick bite to eat and went to that. It was a bit crap as it was beer tasting for people that didn't really want to "taste" beer (they just wanted to get drunk) but the guy taking it was pretty entertaining. I then went on a pub crawl and only got into bed at about 4am. This was gonna be a pretty crap nights sleep. Mission accomplished though: talked to lots of people. Very stressful day though.