Thursday, August 18, 2011

Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic & Austria – Aug 4 to 18

Another very delayed entry. Always on the move and not having any down time is my excuse and I’m sticking to it. J The last 2 weeks I’ve had a blast. Now in the groove of busabout, I'm thoroughly enjoying it... not that I wasn't at the beginning. I'm meeting some awesome people along the way! Where do I start? I’ll try to keep it brief. L

Aug 4: Arrive in Amsterdam late afternoon; I arrange to meet up with Naomi whom I met in 2009 in Montreal. Being an Amsterdam local, she picked me up from the Hostel and we headed to a locals bar for a few drinks.
 
Aug 5: A couple of us from Busabout headed on a bike tour of Amsterdam. Navigating the vehicles on the road was simple enough; it was the cyclists that were the challenging part. The Dutch certainly like their push bikes... approximately 2.2 bikes per person living in Amsterdam. Bike tour was amazing! We travelled through the city as well as making our way through the countryside past traditional windmills and to a cheese farm – YUMMO! After 24km our rear ends were a little tender. Off to the park in the evening for a boozy picnic, boy I hope we don’t see any unexpected shows (it's a very liberal city and the guide tells us that it’s legal and very common to be walking through the park and seeing people going at it... yikes!).


Aug 6: Up early to head to the Anne Frank museum before the hoards arrive, lucky!! When we left at 10.30, the line was hundreds deep. The house and museum was very good, I had goose pimples and I was almost Moved to tears a few times– a must do when in Amsterdam. Hurrying back to the hostel to collect my things, I was off to meet up with Naomi again for her birthday celebrations and to stay with her for 2 nights. We head back into the city for the street parties for Gay Pride. A great afternoon dancing and drinking on the streets. The only issue we had was the lack of bathrooms! There are men plastic urinals on every corner but the women are not catered to at all. The businesses along the canal make some decent money by renting their bathrooms for 4Euro! The street parties stopped on the most part by torrential rain but there were many that soldiered through it! Off to spend the evening at a Carnival. By the time we got home it was 3am... a VERY long day!



Aug 8: Back to the hostel, the hike up the steep narrow stairs is a killer! At least this time I’m only on the 2nd floor. I was supposed to go with others to check out the red light district but opted for some quiet time in the hostel (if there is such a thing) and work on my blog and organising photos.

Aug 9: On the bus to Berlin, still can’t believe I’ve lost Mia’s toy! I don’t know how I’m going to break it to her. The bus ride was a long one, but very enjoyable! Got to know Anna, a Kiwi travelling with her brother James and his partner Fiona. (As I’m writing this, a week after we met, we’re two peas in a pod and we’ll be meeting up at the beginning of September again. We’ll be travelling together for the last 4 weeks of our trip). A great introduction to Berlin was a dinner with our new friends... Karina & Paula who I met in Amsterdam, Jo (from Melbourne) and the NZ Trio. A little pricier than we had planned but we had a great night.

Aug 10: The walking tour of Berlin was amazing! Very history heavy, but you expect that! We walked around the city for the best part of 4 hours taking in the sights and the brutal recent history; Death Strip, Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust Memorial, Hitler’s Bunker, Check Point Charlie, Berlin Wall, Museum Island. I must admit my knowledge of the turbulent history was limited... Not now though. After the tour, we were all a little brain dead and numb from all the information.


Taking the long way back to the hostel, a quick shower to get ready for the pub crawl. All I can say is... OUCH! Anna, Jo & I had a blast – more to do about the company than anything else, but the shots and drinks we had at each at each location made the evening very entertaining indeed... including making friends with two police officers who would’ve been very close to retirement! Don’t worry... anything untoward – we were just lost. They were having great difficulty understanding us, maybe because the spoke very little English or we were just talking too quickly... and the laughing probably didn’t help! They were trying very hard to help us... they were chuckling at our antics... I remember saying to them ‘you love us, don’t you!’ I’m still not sure whether they understood us, but I think we made their night – AND finally we got home!

Aug 11: A quick breakfast with the others to discuss the fun events of last night. Although James & Fi didn’t come along on the pub crawl, they still had some stories. The ‘Events of Room 211 on Aug11’ – Poor James & another person in the 10 bed dorm were taken on a wild ride! The two American women in question who were enjoying their male company a little too much for a couple of hours in the wee hours of the morning, looked like they wished the earth to open up and swallow them whole the next time James & gang saw them! All sleep deprived and Anna & I feeling worse for wear, we hit the pavement to find the section of wall that has been covered in street art. I really feel sorry for Fi & James, Anna & I trailing at every point along the way... if we weren’t laughing about the events of the night before then we were complaining in a childish manner ‘Are we there yet’.
When we arrived, it was completely worth the walk that seemed never to end. We returned to Checkpoint Charlie to read all the boards then by the time we meandered through the streets, stopping along the way at interesting shops we returned to the Hostel at dinner time. A cheap and cheerful meal and then it was time again to pack our bags ready for our next stop.

Aug 12: A good trip to Dresden where Jo left us then we continued onto Prague. We checked into our respective rooms and met for dinner – a unique Mexican restaurant nearby with the most amazing Czech dumplings and sauerkraut I’ve ever tasted.

Aug 13: A wonderful introduction to the city with a free walking tour... The city really is the fairy tale city I’ve heard it was. It reminded me quite a bit of Prague, but a lot bigger. Main sights included; The Astronomical Clock, Opera House where Mozart played, Old Jewish Quarter, Cemetery, Charles Bridge, Charles University, Wenceslas Square, Powder Tower. One thing I found most disturbing... Hitler loved Prague and planned to retire here, it’s because his love for this town he ordered to leave the Synagogues untouched (most were burnt to the ground on his orders) was because it was his idea that once he managed to eradicate all Jews, he was going to great a museum (not a memorial) in the Synagogues of what he did and how he did it whereby his followers could come to appreciate his ‘great’ work. After the tour (4 hours) we continued wandering the streets and revisited some of the sights. The Astronomical Clock was a huge let down as promised... hundreds of people gather at every hour to see the ‘spectacle’ and afterward, many ‘is that it?’ can be heard muttered from every direction. We parted ways, Fi & James stayed in town for dinner and Anna & I continued wandering. We were waiting to cross a street and we were promptly ushered behind orange tape. Not really sure what was going on, we obeyed. Then within a minute or so, we were ushered back in the other direction... we noticed the camera suspended from a cable high above us and an actor on the corner (we were standing beside him a few minutes earlier and we just thought he was a hottie... ha). We were (by accident) extras in a Czech movie or commercial!

Aug 14: The #1 attraction in Prague, the Castle! I joined the NZ Trio for breaky at their hostel and then we were into town... The castle was very different than others I’ve seen. It’s more of a village perched on the hill within the confines of a wall. Quite spectacular though. We hiked up the 300+ stairs up the tower which gave us a fabulous view of the old city. After a few hours, we found a location for our group dinner. We tested the beer (35cz for 0.5L which is just over 1Euro) and Greek & Czech food that was between 2 and 5Euro, with a bunch of backpackers we couldn’t go wrong. Off to find a tree to have a nap under before meeting the rest of the group. A great dinner!! Such a great bunch of people!

Aug 15: Off to Vienna, stopped at Chesky Kromlov and said bye to most of the group which was a bit sad – but I’ll be meeting back up with the NZ Trio on Sept3 in Rome. On our approach to Vienna, the rain set in... and didn’t stop! Our walking tour was cancelled so instead we went to enjoy a very LARGE schnitzel and beer. Oh my goodness – biggest damn thing I’ve ever seen!

Aug 16: Only 1 night in Vienna unfortunately as I have a deadline to make it to Rome by Sept 22 (happy birthday David). I will be back though as it looks like such a beautiful place, both the city and the countryside. Sitting next to a young Aussie girl, we were chatting about what we were going to see in Munich. I asked her if she was doing the Dachau tour. Her response was ‘My mum told me I have to do it, but I don’t want to. I’m Jewish, but it’s not like it has anything to do with me because my family fled to the US in the early 1900’s’. I could have slapped her, but instead I replied “I don’t have a drop of Jewish blood that I’m aware of, but I feel obligated to educate myself and pay respect to those that were directly impacted”. She didn’t have anything more to say on the subject.
We arrived in Munich in the early afternoon, so to make the most of our time, a few of us decided to do the Bike Tour at 4pm. As it turns out, a great decision! It was perfect weather and it woke us up from our time on the bus. We saw so many of the sites; Nationaltheatre, Residenz, Hofbrauhaus, Glockenspiel Clock, Hofgarten, Theatinerkirche, Enlishcher Gardens (be warned.. in the Nudist Meadow, only the ones you DON’T want to see are in the buff), the Munich Surfers in the canal, Staatskanzlei, Isartor, Friedensengel, Maximilianeum, Lukashirche and inbetween we had a nice beer and a sausage in the Chienisher Turm Biergarten.   
After the tour, I caught up with a friend of Martin & Laura's (Whistler boss) who picked me up from the hostel and took me out to dinner. Its always so lovely to be given a locals perspective to a city. Thanks Udo!

Aug 17: An emotionally exhausting day spent at Dachau Concentration Camp and Memorial 30 minutes out of Munich. Dachau was the first of many concentration camps opened by the Nazi in March 1933. Dachau served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi concentration camps that followed. The displays, images and stories were horrific as you would expect. Over its twelve years as a concentration camp, they recorded the intake of over 206,000 prisoners and almost 32,000 deaths. These numbers do not tell the entire story, however. If the Nazi’s didn’t intend on killing in large numbers, why did they install a gas chamber as part of the ‘new’ crematorium built in 1940?? A spine chilling and disturbing experience, but so very glad I did it. “Do Not Forget”.

After returning to Munich in a very sombre mood, a few of us headed to Augustiner Beer Garden, outside it seats 7000 people – now that is a beer garden! It took us a few hours to finish the 1L of beer! 


Aug 18: Tried to sleep in a little, but quite unsuccessfully. Two nights in a row having others in the dorm that insists on sitting around the table in the bedroom chatting and drinking at 2-3am. I am very much looking forward to my two nights in the Novotel in Athens next week! I headed out to Nymphenburg Palace – quite a spectacular building and the artwork was very impressive throughout the living quarters. Back into town after a few hours (31 today, but in the sun felt much more) we headed to Theresienwiese, the site of Oktoberfest. Still very much under construction but you could already see the ‘tents’ were quite something. They can hold up to 7000 people! 
A very quiet night in the hostel updating photos and the blog before an early bus to Venice tomorrow.

Until next time xoxo

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