Berlin Day 3: Flow the Flow

Thinking about all we saw in Berlin.

An extra benefit to the tour was being able to scout out places that we wanted to come back to, so we decided to head back to Museum Island. We started at the Old National Gallery, which was supposed to contain impressionist and expressionist paintings. There were actually not that many of either, but instead a lot of portraits and landscapes by German painters.

Hanna staring at her new favorite painting.

There was one impressionist section which had a few Monet’s and Hanna found one of her new favorite paintings. She found it surprising that it was Renoir, since she doesn’t usually like his stuff, but she gazed at it for quite a while. There was also what we assumed was a copy of Rodin’s famous The Thinker, but after listening to the audioguide we found out it was actually the original. It was much smaller than the famous larger sculpture, which was in reality a copy of the smaller one. We almost walked right by it.

This museum had an attendant in pretty much every room (more than the Louvre), and we were surprised when one of them suddenly burst out in song. She was a tiny blonde woman who sang in an operatic tone. I guess it was supposed to add to the ambience of the room, but after about five minutes she would stop singing and say something quickly in German. She continued to repeat this cycle the entire time we were on the floor. It was very strange.

After that we went to the German Historical Museum, which made me very excited and made Hanna want to hang herself. It featured the permanent collection, basically explaining German history from 500 B.C. to present times (Hanna looked at the old clothes while I read the information, everybody wins), but more interestingly it featured the first exhibition on Hitler ever in Germany.

It may seem surprising, but I guess they’re careful to keep their distance from the Fuhrer. Surprisingly the exhibition wasn’t just about how evil Hitler was. It focused on how the state of Germany after WWI and the German people allowed Hitler to rise to power and carry out his heinous regime. It contained lots of old memorabilia such as uniforms, posters, and buttons, and was incredibly interesting. Once again, Berlin was a much different experience than any of the other cities.

Yum.

Outside the museum we found a stand selling delicious sausages, potatoes, and mushrooms so we picked some up and headed to Alexanderplatz (kind of like a shopping district). We hung out in the mall, picked up some smoothies, people-watched, and got some food to take home for dinner.

Even though our time there was more of the historical/depressing variety, I’ve heard that Berlin is actually a great city for nightlife. Take for example the advertisement in our discount book for the club, Matrix:

Matrix parties—that’s your life—every day ecstasy—all together—life is the Matrix—you mix it every day, see the flow, feel the flow, flow the flow—right in your heart. Parties on up to 6 floors.

It’s stop #1 on our next trip to Berlin.

 

Berlin Day 2: Not Exactly Sunshine and Rainbows

Hanna at the Holocaust Memorial.

Hanna and I aren’t normally ones for guided tours, but a combination of good reviews and a lack of time in the city made the “Berlin Insider’s Tour” particularly attractive. It was a walking tour of Berlin and, with the discounts we received for buying 48-hour transport tickets, it only cost us 8 euro each. We met outside the McDonald’s in West Berlin (that wasn’t part of the tour) and bought our tickets for the “Famous Walk,” which basically hit all the historical hotspots in the city.

We bought our tickets at about 9:45 for a 10:00 tour, and the lady who sold us the tickets and seemed to be in charge said, “Ok you’ll be with Kenny.” She paused for a second then turned to one of the other guides and said, “Where is Kenny?”

Turns out Kenny had just gotten back from “holiday” in Egypt and hadn’t gotten a chance to look at the schedule. The guides made some phone calls and finally we were told to follow Pilar to the train station. She was a guide for one of the Spanish tours, but she would be taking us on the train so that we could meet up with our guide, Heidi, at the East Berlin meeting point. We got there and met up with about 15 other people going on the “Famous Walk”, but no Heidi. About 10 minutes passed and suddenly a frazzled, dark haired woman who looked like she just woke up came running from the train (Hanna was speculating from the name “Heidi” that she would be a drop-dead gorgeous blonde…I saw her smile when the real Heidi emerged).

She didn’t pull any punches and told us that she had, in fact, woken up about 10 minutes ago. She fumbled around with her words for the first couple minutes, but other than that her lack of preparedness was hardly noticeable.

We started off at Hackescher Market where, in the late 1800s, 50 Jewish families were invited to live. Our tour guide noted the unprecedented openness of this move at the time and proceeded to tell us that Germany was much friendlier to Jews than England or France at the time. Things changed a little.

This one's authentic.

Next we went to Museum Island, where the outside is still literally covered in bullet-holes. This prompted Heidi to tell us that “if there aren’t bullet-holes in it, it’s not original.” Apparently the Battle for Berlin took a huge toll, as 70-80% of the entire city was flattened during the war.

Next we headed across the street to the museum (called “Museum”) and a huge protestant church that looked Catholic. Across the green was where the old Palace used to stand. As we walked over to it, Heidi showed us a picture of Hitler walking on the exact same path as us surrounded by thousands of Nazi supporters. That was the first of many times on the tour that we got some serious goosebumps.

The old Palace was demolished by the Soviets after WWII and replaced by a more efficient communist building, which was in turn demolished by the new German government after the wall came down. Currently it is a big empty space, but is in the process of being re-built. She mentioned that the people got to vote on what would go there and that people in Berlin vote on absolutely every government decision. Not only that, but the Parliament building is open from 8 am to midnight and the public is free to hang around as long as they like. Obviously the current German government wants everything to be transparent and clear to the people. It makes you wonder if, because of all the horrible things that happened in the past, Germany could become the new paradigm of modern democracy. I guess time will tell, but apparently they’re doing pretty well.

That was a recurring theme on the tour. So much of Berlin is still being renovated nearly 70 years after the end of the war. We would pass things and Heidi would actually say things like, “That statue just went up yesterday” or “the roof of that building will be finished next week.”

We saw tons of things that will have to be relayed in person, and I’m so glad that we did the tour. It was very informative and added a lot of detail to a city full of stories and history. Appropriate for the subject matter, this was by far our coldest, dreariest day of the trip. We used all the layers we had in our backpacks and were still shivering at times. Remarkably, there was a girl from Hawaii who was wearing flip-flops for the entire four-hour tour. I swear I’m not kidding. Her little toes were as red as Currywurst.

Currywurst is the worst.

Speaking of currywurst, we got some for lunch after the tour. It’s a local specialty and was referred to by Heidi as “wartime food” which usually means it’s terrible. Hanna bravely ordered it for her entrée while I just got the “tapas-sized” version. The sausage itself wasn’t bad but it was covered in a “special sauce” that was basically curry-flavored ketchup. Hanna managed to put aside her hatred of condiments and get through most of it, but I can’t imagine she enjoyed it too much.

Afterwards we went to the Topography of Terror, which is a museum next to one of the few remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall. It is in an open-air museum in what used to be the basement of the SS building where the interrogations (aka torture) were held. It was quite extensive and we actually couldn’t get through it all before it got dark.

After that we went to the Haus dam Checkpoint Charlie Museum which was located, appropriately enough, right next to Checkpoint Charlie (the old passport station between East and West Berlin). The museum gave history about the Wall, but was mostly about all the ways in which people attempted (sometimes successfully) to get over, under, around, or through the Wall.

There were tons of stories: cars modified to fit people where the engine should have been, homemade airplanes, two families that came together to make what was, at the time, Europe’s biggest hot air balloon with no prior knowledge of the subject.

It was all amazing and truly unbelievable, but our favorite story had to be this one:  a man and his wife were separated, the man in the West and the woman in the East. The man started dating a girl in the West that looked a lot like his wife. He then traveled with her to the East (as West Berliners were legally able to do). While in the East, he arranged a meeting with his wife, ditched his “girlfriend”, and took her passport. His wife then used it for safe passage back to the West.

The guy was later caught and sentenced to 7 months in jail, which I’m sure he was more than willing to serve given the fact that his wife was now safely in the West. Hanna remarked about how often these stories of remarkable escape are tied to love.

 

Berlin Day 1: “Open the Door and I’ll Tell You”

In front of the Brandenburg Gate.

We left Nuremberg, hoping to find a place where Hanna could get some of their famous gingerbread on the way to the train station. Luckily enough, there was a stand selling it in the station on the way to our train and, not only that, but they were giving away free samples. Hanna tried some and noted the differences between it and our gingerbread (theirs was more like a cake and covered in chocolate whereas ours is hard). She liked it, but wasn’t impressed enough to take home a 6-pack so she decided not to buy any.

We boarded the 12:33 to Berlin, had a rather uneventful 4 ½ hour trip, and disembarked in Berlin. We quickly found the tourist information booth where we bought our transport tickets and asked how to get to our hotel. The guy told us to “go across the street to the yellow building and get the bus from there.”

We crossed the street to find no yellow building, but rather a series of about 6 bus stops within a three-block radius. We found one that looked like the right one, waited there for about 20 minutes, and watched as the bus we were trying to board turned down the street right in front of us. Quickly we ran to try to catch it, but it was too late. Turns out there was another bus stop behind the corner on a dark street where absolutely no cars went. Who knew?

Finally, we boarded the right bus and we got to our hostel. It wasn’t in the nicest of areas, but nobody seemed to be dangerous. On the walk there we scoped out dinner options and settled on “Sudhaus.” It looked like a brew-pub type place so we figured it would be standard bar food.

We arrived at our hostel to find a group of about 6,000 German teenagers hanging out downstairs. They were drinking beers, playing ping pong, using the computers, but most of all they were talking very loudly. Considering that Hanna and I always look for the hostel with the lowest “Fun” rating, we were quite alarmed by the amount of “fun” people seemed to be having. “Fun” for them means long, sleepless nights for us.

Hoping for the best, we checked in then went to drop our stuff off in the room before heading back to the Sudhaus for dinner. Turns out that it’s right next to a squash court facility and we didn’t see one person in there that didn’t have a squash racket. Besides that the place seemed alright, other than the fact that there was one waitress. Let me clarify, actually. She seemed to be the only person working in the entire restaurant. There were two floors—a bar on the first and the restaurant upstairs. This poor woman had to serve the drinks to the 6 or 7 people at the bar, seat people for dinner, take orders, bring drinks from the bar upstairs to the customers at the restaurant, and bring the food from the upstairs kitchen to the diners. There was a light that would go on outside the kitchen from time to time, and she would quickly run in after. This led us to believe that she was cooking the food as well.

The food was average and it took about three hours, literally, but we tipped liberally considering the demanding conditions.

When we got back to the hostel, we used the free wireless in the lobby to check some emails and post some articles. Hanna used the pay phone to call and wish her mother a happy birthday (she had to do it quickly since her money kept running out). We headed up to bed at around 11:30, where we would have one of the strangest experiences of our lives.

It was around midnight, and I was just about to get into the shower. Hanna was in bed and we had some music playing softly in the background. Suddenly, we heard a knock on the door.

“Yes?”

“It’s reception. Can you please open the door?” said a male voice.

“Why?”

“Open the door and I’ll tell you.”

Even if we hadn’t adopted the “trust no one” mentality for this trip, there’s no way we would have opened the door. It sounded like a line from a bad horror movie where you scream at the television “Don’t open the door you moron!”

So we both immediately screamed “No! Tell us what you want!”

At that point we heard our door beep and the handle start to turn. This asshole actually opened our door and started to walk in! Since I was up I ran to push the door closed and said, “Woah! What are you doing!” Hanna was screaming similar things from the bed, but they were edited to maintain her dainty, lady-like façade.

Through the crack in the door he said, “I would like to tell you that now is the time for you to turn your music down.”

What!? All this because he wanted us to turn the music down. I made the obvious statement: “You could have just told us that through the door. You didn’t have to barge in here!”

To which he replied, “Yes, but that wouldn’t be very polite.”

Apparently Germans have a much different set of manners than we do. We closed the door, turned down the music, and Gerry-rigged our door closed using the two desk chairs and the open bathroom door.

 

Nuremberg Day 2: A Castle, Some Beer, and Three German Architecture Students

German friends.

We started off our day in Nuremberg by heading back to the Old Town. Quickly we realized that we picked the wrong day to visit. It was a Sunday and therefore pretty much everything in the town was closed. We found a little café for breakfast and after that checked out this sculpture depicting the circle of love. It starts with two people falling in love and ends with the woman and man, both depicted as skeletons, strangling each other…with lots of stuff in between.

Hope ours doesn't end like this.

After that we headed to the old church (closed) and saw that the famous fountain outside was covered by some kind of house. The Nuremberg tourism department was kind enough to leave us with a life-sized black and white photo of what the fountain is supposed to look like…so it’s basically like we saw the real thing.

Just like the real thing.

We continued walking past the Christmas shop (closed, which elicited Hanna’s most endearing puppy-dog face), and onto a different fountain that we could actually see. It is called Beautiful Fountain (those Germans really get to the point quickly) and it was pretty nice, despite the juvenile delinquent attempting to scale it as his parents watched with pride (probably American).

Finally we went up to the castle, which was very cool. The castle in Prague was mostly renovated, but the one in Nuremberg actually looked like it belonged in the Middle Ages. We checked out some old horse equipment, weapons, and armor in the museum then lined up for the guided tour.

The tour was entirely in German, but since we had a few English speakers (Hanna and I were the only ones who raised our hands when she asked if anyone didn’t understand German but more mysteriously appeared once the tour started…cowards), she agreed to go over the highlights with us after she was done with the German explanation.

This was extremely kind of her considering English was her fourth language. She told us that every guide has to know two languages besides German, but hers were Italian and French, so she apologized profusely for her mangled English. Of course she spoke much better English than most of my tenth-grade students last year, but we couldn’t help but think we were missing out.

Hilarious...if you speak German.

For example, when we got to the well house, which contained an extremely deep well, she gave a 15-minute explanation in German and at one point everyone in the room erupted in laughter. When she was done she turned to the English speakers and said, “The well is 35 meters deep.” Either the Germans have a very different sense of humor or she left something out.

After that we went to a place called Hutt ‘N, which served food and famous Nuremberg beer. We waited for about 10 minutes before being seated in the same booth as three Germans. After a few minutes of very awkward silence one of them, an Indian-looking man, asked us where we were from.

From there the conversation flourished as we discussed everything from American politics to David Hasselhoff (seriously). All of them (two men and a woman) were old buddies from architecture school. The Indian one (Navin) is now a zoo-keeper in Munich (he showed us pictures of his elephants on his phone), the other man (Nico) works as an architect in Stuttgardt, and the woman (Steffi) is an architect in Nuremberg. They seemed genuinely interested to talk to us, disposing of the myth that Germans are unfriendly. I guess the myth-busting went both ways since Steffi remarked at one point, “You know I generally think Americans are assholes, but every one I meet is actually very kind.” Thanks?

We looked down at our watches and realized that about 4 hours had elapsed along with countless beers and five glasses of pear-flavored schnapps. The two men had to catch a train so we took that as our cue to exit. It was cool to talk to people from the country we were visiting to get a different perspective.

Since it had been a while since we had actually eaten (we had some sausages, sauerkraut, and potato salad between beers), we picked up some food from an Italian take-out place before heading home. There we watched the MTV European Music Awards (which we had been seeing advertisements for since Rome), and I drank about four gallons of water.

The show was ironic because out of all the people who appeared on stage and/or were nominated for awards, I’d say one (a British rapper/singer named Plan B) were actually from Europe. The show was hosted by Evan Longoria and took place in Madrid, which prompted Eva to come out at one point dressed as a piece of ham (I wish I was kidding). She shouted out “JAMON IBERICO!” and the crowd went nuts. Having tasted our fair share of jamon iberico in Spain, Hanna and I had trouble figuring out why people were cheering.

 

Nuremberg Day 1: Denzel Washington and Miley Cyrus

Not too different from America.

After a good trip to Prague, we set our sights on Nuremberg. When we planned the trip, we knew we wanted to see a city in Germany besides Berlin, but we weren’t sure which one. Hanna had already been to Munich and Hamburg was pretty far out of the way, so we consulted our handy travel books.

After looking through a couple of cities, we arrived at the heading for Nuremberg: Beer, Gingerbread, and Toys. Needless to say we looked no further.

The train from Prague was relatively uneventful. We got another sleeper car, although it wasn’t as nice as the Austrian OBB. It was kind of weird when three police officers in full riot gear (shinguards, batons, plastic shields) boarded our train, but after a cursory glance in our cabin we never heard from them again. When we got into Germany we got a visit from the passport control officers (the nicest yet) who seemed quite impressed when they looked through Hanna’s passport. She balked when they asked, “Where is Dobova?” but I quickly remembered that we got our passports stamped in Slovenia even though we didn’t get off the train. “Aaaaah, Slovenia!” they replied in unison. They smiled and handed our passports back.

We arrived in Nuremberg (or Nurnberg as it is called in Germany) at around 17:00, only to find the train station filled with people dressed in red with scarves and jerseys on. Most of them were drinking so I figured that they were either on their way to or on their way back from a soccer game. Sure enough we asked the lady at the tourist office and she said there was a game earlier that day. We were trying to guess whether they won or lost and we concluded that since nobody was rioting they probably lost.

After a 10 minute walk in the rain, we checked into our hotel and headed across the street to the Aldtstadt, or Old Town, to look for something to eat. Pretty much everything was closed, so we decided to go with a reliable shwarma stand in what seemed to be a Muslim part of town. It was predictably good, and we headed back to the hotel to eat and plan our route for the following day.

In the hotel we were treated to some spectacular German programming. First we saw a special about sex scandals, sex tapes, revealing clothing, etc. on German MTV. It seemed pretty standard until, in the span of about a minute, we saw full-frontal male nudity and several female breasts. That was our first indication that German television was slightly less reserved than its American counterpart.

Our second indication came when we stumbled upon “Das Super Talent,” basically the German version of “America’s Got Talent.” First there was a pole dancer (who remarkably kept her bathing suit on throughout her routine) and she was followed by a crazy-haired middle-aged white man from Zimbabwe who proceeded to perform a strip show. His grand finale was when he, standing completely naked, took a firecracker, shoved it up his rear end, and lit it on fire. When it went off he ran around the stage singing something. The best part was that he actually got a vote to move on to the next round.

After that we found this German talk show hosted by an older German guy with blonde hair. He seemed to be interviewing German celebrities until suddenly, out of nowhere, Denzel Washington came on stage. The host spoke to him in German, which was then translated for him in an earpiece, then Denzel’s response was dubbed into German for television. It was all very strange, but got even weirder when they handed Denzel a piece of paper and he read something in horrible German that ended with “Miley Cyrus!” The camera panned to the stage where Miley proceeded to perform her smash single “Who Owns My Heart (is it love or is it art?)” We were trying to figure out how this random German talk show managed to get Denzel Washington and Miley Cyrus on at the same time. Finally we gave up, realizing that it was much better than any of the other options.

 

Prague Day 2: 10 O’Clock and Thirty Minutes

The transformation is nearly complete.

Our breakfast at the hotel was cut short when the receptionist, not the waitress, came out and told us that “breakfast is served between seven o’clock and thirty minutes and ten o’clock and thirty minutes.” After staring at her confused we realized it was about 10:40. We thought we just couldn’t get any more food after 10:30, not that we had to evacuate the premises. So we stuffed some food into our mouths and headed out for the day.

First up was the Prague Castle, which has been the home of the Czech government for over 1,000 years. It’s absolutely huge and spread out at the top of the hill (obviously a military strategy) and it consists of several parts including St. Vitus’s Cathedral, the Old Royal Palace, and the Royal Gardens. And of course because you’re up so high, you get a great aerial view of Prague.

 

A stroll around the castle.

 

We walked around the whole thing, but were most impressed by the Cathedral. It had some very creepy medieval (gothic) looking structure and inside was stained glass the likes of which we’ve never seen. A few of the windows were made up of very small, intricate tiles placed closely together.

After the castle, we went back into “new town” and saw a Salvador Dali exhibit. It was my first taste of Dali and it was definitely hit-or-miss. Some of the stuff was just a little too much for me, but some of it was cool and interesting. It was definitely a far cry from the Renaissance Art we’d seen at the beginning of the trip.

Outside of the Dali museum was a huge outdoor market that was selling beer, sausages, hot cider, and more of Hanna’s TRDLO’s. We picked up lunch there and sat outside and ate it while we watched a group of 15 year olds drinking beer and taking pictures. Not sure what the drinking age is in Prague, but I’m pretty sure it’s not very strictly enforced.

 

 

Prague ham roasting on the fire.

 

On our way through the town I picked up a new soccer jersey, that of Rosicky, who I had never heard of but I liked the jersey and thought it would be cool to have another player to follow. We stopped at a café that had WiFi so I looked him up, only to find that he was a goalie (boo!) and that he wasn’t even from Prague, he was from Bratislava, Slovakia! Why would a store in Prague have the jersey of one of their hated rivals from Slovakia?

After much confusion I realized that I had typed in “Kosicky” instead of “Rosicky” and when I entered the right name it made a lot more sense. Rosicky is the floppy-haired captain of the Czech national team who plays for Arsenal in the English Premier League. I decided not to “accidentally” leave the jersey in the hotel room after all.

We hung out at the internet café for a while and enjoyed the sights. Prague gets kind of shady at night, with lots of loiterers hanging around looking like drug dealers. Although it was odd and a little disturbing, they never seemed like they wanted to hurt you or steal from you, so we didn’t really fear for our safety. Still, we trusted no one.

We headed back to the hotel after getting a full spread for dinner for about 5 euro (including two more half liters of beer). We ate and then I went down to post some articles using the free WiFi in the lobby. Not sure I like it as much as Vienna, but Prague is definitely at the top of the list. Next stop: Nuremberg.

Prague Day 1: Bridges, Castles, and 800 Pounds of Food

The sky looked cool at night.

We woke up in Vienna and packed while a television program that seemed to be some kind of German American Idol was on in the background. It was somewhat surprising that pretty much every song they sang was in English, and it was quite surprising and impressive that once the contestants started singing, you never would have guessed that they weren’t American. They sang in perfect accents, then when the song was over they went right back to speaking German…something quite difficult to comprehend.

Of course we picked up a new favorite song when one of the contestants, a German Beefcake rapper (which made me wonder why American Idol doesn’t allow rappers) performed his rendition of Kabinenparty. Here is the original below, but the performance on German Idol was much better as it ended with the contestant shirtless surrounded by beach balls and “chicks in bikinis.”

We ate breakfast and boarded the train to Prague, another four and a half hours. This stretch of the trip is quite exciting because Hanna’s going to places she’s never been before, but they journeys are extremely long. For the rest of the trip we won’t have a train ride less than 4 hours.

We arrived in Prague and were harassed at the train station by a homeless-looking woman who kept offering us a place to stay. Not that it wasn’t tempting, but we were having a difficult enough time trying to figure out the Metro ticket machine. Not only did the machine not take euros (only Czech money, the kc), but it only took Czech coins…no bills. We found that out the hard way and had to return to the money exchange a second time (which led to my first, and hopefully my only, temper tantrum of the trip…let’s just say some throwing and kicking of the map of Prague was involved).

We finally got our tickets and took the Metro, then the tram, to our hotel. It was somewhat intimidating when we got to the front desk and announced that we were checking in. The receptionist looked at us sternly, pointed to two chairs next to the front desk and commanded, “Have a seat.”

It turned out that she just wanted us to fill out our information, but she could have done it in a more pleasant manner. The room was nice, especially for the rate (31 euro/night…easily the cheapest of the trip), and we decided to head to the Charles Bridge.

Intimidating.

Turns out the bridge isn’t quite as impressive as we hoped (it’s not even lit up at night), but it was pretty cool. It also gave us the opportunity to snap some artsy and cool shots. We were convinced that there were swarms of bats flying around the bridge (adding to the medieval theme of Prague), but it turns out they were seagulls. I’m sure in 10 years when we tell the story they will be bats once again.

Across the bridge was “old town”, which seems weird because the whole town looks ancient. The “old town” area is at the foot of the castle and full of little streets and old shops. It was very nice and quite romantic at night.

We looked around for a place to eat and noticed that, despite our book’s warning, the meals looked very cheap. We flirted with the idea of eating at a tourist spot along the river, but had our minds changed for us when we passed a tiny bar called “U KOGOURA” on the corner of one of the backstreets. We looked in and saw what seemed to be only Czech customers and there were only a few items on the menu, all Czech specialties, so we figured it would be good. Even the fact that everyone was smoking didn’t deter Hanna, and that’s saying something.

We walked in and experienced the typical needle-scratch moment to which we’ve grown accustomed. After about 5 minutes of nobody greeting us, we saw and empty table and decided to just go for it. That seemed to be the right thing to do, as a couple of minutes later the waitress (who looked like the other waiter/owner’s wife) came and asked us what kind of beer we wanted. You have to love a country where the question isn’t whether or not you want beer, but which kind of beer you want.

I ordered the Budweiser (not what you’re thinking…there’s a Czech version of Budweiser that has been in a battle with the American namesake for years), and Hanna got the Pilsner. Hanna always orders a different beer than me because she knows that she’ll take 3 sips and then I’ll finish it…ah, true love!

The guy brought out the beers in a truly awesome fashion. He would fill them up at the tap so that they were overflowing, carry them to the table as they spilled all over the floor, then drop them on the table with just enough force that a little bit of beer would spill out onto the table. He had it down to a science. It was all the more impressive when he would carry 4 or 5 beers in each hand.

We didn’t have to get far into the menu to see what we wanted: a plate for two featuring basically all of the items on the menu:

• 2 smoked chicken drumsticks
• 3 bacon dumplings
• 2 red pepper sausages
• 3 potato dumplings with smoked meat
• 4 potato pancakes
• 100 grams of Prague Ham (basically smoked ham) with horseradish
• 4 pieces of white bread covered in crispy onions
• 2 free beers (the ones we already ordered were scratched from the bill)
• Pickled onions and red peppers
• Sauerkraut that lined the entire bottom of the platter

Yes, we ate the whole thing.

Even the locals (a group of about 8 guys and one girl came and sat next to us right before our meal came) were impressed. Everything was absolutely delicious, and we finished pretty much everything, including the beers.

The total price for the meal: 540 kc. That seems like a lot, but when you do the conversion it comes out to about 22 euro. We had basically eaten an entire Thanksgiving dinner and a liter of beer for 11 euro apiece. I love Prague.

After dinner we walked back across the bridge into the “new town” and looked around for a while. For dessert, we stopped at a little shop where Hanna got to experience her first TRDLO, a Hungarian specialty that’s basically fluffy dough with caramelized sugar, vanilla, and nuts on the outside. It was quite tasty, as we should have expected.

We returned to the hotel extremely full and extremely happy about our first day in Prague.

Vienna Day 2: Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt

 

 

What a city.

 

As if Vienna couldn’t get any better, the hotel provided us with probably our best breakfast selection yet…included in the price, of course. After that we headed to the Leopold Museum, which contained many works from Klimt, who Hanna likes, and Egon Schiele, who had become my new favorite artist the night before. I’m pretty sure part of the appeal is that his name reminds me of Ghostbusters, but his art’s pretty good too.

We took lots of pictures and read about the two artists. Schiele was a prodigy, completing some of his best work from age 20-22, but he came to an untimely end when he died of influenza at the age of 28. He died of the flu. What a way to go. During his life he was very tormented, clearly, but there’s something I like about his weird, creepy characters.

The museum also had an exhibition containing the works of Picasso, Warhol, Pollack, Lichtenstein, and Alberto Giacometti (who I had heard of from the book, Provenance, an account of two forgers who faked many of Giacometti’s works). I could see how they could be forged, since the ones they had were basically pencil drawings that were fairly simple.

I was happy to see that they also housed some modern art, so I got to see provocative works like this giant t-shirt covered in red paint (at least I hope it’s red paint) and a giant red box. There was, however, one work that struck a chord with us. It was called “Don’t Trust Anybody,” our motto of the trip.

 

 

Modern Art...gotta love it.

 

After the museum we got some lunch, another solid meal. I got the white sausages with mustard and a pretzel. The pretzel, Hanna and I agreed, was probably the best we’ve ever had. Hanna got the goulash with spicy beef, which was also very good. I also got the pork belly dumplings with sauerkraut, so we got a pretty good sense of Austrian cuisine.

 

Hanna's new, trendy hat from Vienna.

 

After lunch we walked around for a while, looking at old buildings and cathedrals. We finally ended up at St. Stephan’s Cathedral, which was pretty unimpressive, but the square around it was awesome. It was like a clean version of Times Square, with tons of people, stores, and restaurants. Hanna picked up some sort of apple pastry from a tiny patisserie, and she also got a new, trendy hat from one of the three H + M stores in a three-block radius.

We went to an awesome market (kind of like whole foods, but nicer) which had all sorts of international ingredients. We picked up some ham and salami for dinner/lunch the next day, along with some cheese, chips, bread, salad, fruit, and a couple of cheap Austrian beers. Oh yeah, Hanna also got a 6 euro mango! I guess they’re hard to get out there.

On our way home we picked up the CD that we made the night before at Haus Der Musik, which was no problem at all. We returned to the hotel happy and ate our spread of picnic food.

We came to a consensus that we love Vienna and we can’t wait to come back!

Vienna Day 1: Down with OBB

Eh, I've had better.

We decided to get out of Croatia as early as possible, so we planned to take the 7:25 train to Vienna. If we missed it, we would have to wait until 17:20, so we woke up at about 5:45. There’s no way we were spending another day in Croatia.

On the tram a lady wanted to exit and, rather than saying something or tapping Hanna on the shoulder, she grabbed Hanna’s arm and threw it out of the way. This was the last straw. A combination of four days of dirty looks, horrible weather, and unfriendly people finally caused Hanna, the most polite person in the world, to snap.

Fed up!

We got off the tram and a lady walked by staring at us. Hanna, not to be messed with at this point, looked back at her and gnashed her teeth to scare her off. “I hate this place!” she screamed, and we couldn’t have been happier to board the train.

The train, it turns out, was the nicest one yet. We had our own car with six seats (three on one side, three on the other) that folded down to connect into beds. This came in handy for the first 3 hours of the trip (6 total), where we both slept in relative comfort. They were Austrian trains, not Croatian, called OBB, which brought to mind the famous Naughty By Nature Song. We were definitely down with OBB.

Hanna said that they make the train so nice to reward you for living through any period of time in Croatia. I couldn’t disagree.

We finally got to Vienna, bought our 48 hour pass, good for all transport (trains, subway, tram, bus) in the city…not bad for 10 euro. We are getting pretty good at public transportation, so we got on the right metro (called U-Bahn) and found the Hotel Deutchmeister (greatest hotel name yet) pretty easily.

We checked in, and at this point it was only around 14:30, so we relaxed for about an hour before heading into the city.

Hanna saw an advertisement for a museum that featured a painting that she owned, and had long admired, but never knew who made it. Turns out it was Gustav Klimt, an Austrian who had his work on display at the Belvedere Museum, so we headed there.

The museum was very cool, and it was nice to see some art different from the tons of Medieval and Renaissance paintings of Paris and Rome. We saw Hanna’s Klimt painting, “The Kiss”, and I found some weird paintings that I liked by a guy named Egon Scheile.

A beautiful introduction to Vienna.

After that we took the tram to the Opera House, which was beautiful, but more importantly it was right next to the Sacher hotel, which is known for it pastries. It is the origin of the Sacher Torte, which Hanna tells me is quite famous. When we arrived at our destination, the tram stopped but the door didn’t open. As we stood there befuddled, a kind Austrian leaned over and pressed the “open door” button for us and smiled. This is so much better than Croatia!

The torte was disappointing, but I likened it to watching Monty Python. When you watch it now, it seems somewhat stupid or outdated, but that’s only because you’ve seen so many movies since that have copied it and built upon it. The Sacher torte was probably a revelation back in its day, but by now desserts have progressed so far that it seems ordinary. We also got an apple strudel and Hanna got some famous Viennese coffee. I got a hot chocolate with rum, that turned out to contain about 6 shots of rum. We stumbled out of the café and headed towards the Haus Der Musik.

As we quickly found out, Vienna is a very musical city. Beethoven and Mozart did most of their work there, along with countless other composers. The Haus Der Musik was a museum, but along with all the information about old composers, they had three different floors full of interactive games intended to teach you about the way that sound and music actually work.

It was actually pretty fascinating, especially the “prenatal listening room,” which simulated the exact sounds that you hear as a baby in the womb. It was pretty cool and creepy, and we took some video. We also found out that Hanna has much better hearing than I do through a game which kept playing a higher and higher frequency into headphones, and you were supposed to hit the button when you could no longer hear anything. I thought she was cheating because she kept hearing things well after I only heard silence. I tried to trick her by raising the frequency when I told her I was lowering it, but she passed with flying colors. Yet another thing Hanna’s better than me at. Fantastic J

We made a CD of several sounds with our voices over it (it was impossible to speak because there was a delay between when we spoke and when we heard it in our headphones, so the result is what sounds like two old drunks bantering back and forth…very amusing), and went to the gift shop to get it, but it was closed. We told the lady downstairs and she said that we could come back the next day to pick it up. Friendly Austrians.

Earlier we had walked by a restaurant and looked at the menu. While looking, an old man walked by and said, “This one is very nice!” So we decided to give it a shot after we left the museum. Much to our surprise, when we walked inside we were greeted by the very same old man who had given the restaurant his endorsement earlier. Tricky bastard!

The restaurant turned out to be great. It was very small and we were the only diners. The old man was the owner, and he took pride in everything that was brought out. We ordered the traditional Austrian dishes, Weiner Schnitzel and boiled prime rib with horseradish and mustard. They were both delicious, and the old man came over to make sure I was using the horseradish sauce (which was kind of a mix between horseradish and apple sauce) on my meat. He also offered us a salt grinder which contained (according to him) 2 ½ million year old salt from the Austrian mountains. It was very good, but the food was so well seasoned that we had little use for it.

We returned to the hotel exhausted and satisfied. Vienna is definitely one of my favorite cities of the trip, and a place I could see myself living one day. I’m sure the fact that it was our next stop after Croatia didn’t hurt either.

 

Zagreb Day 2: Long lines, flowers, and a Croatian from San Pedro

Me, Hanna, and a Metal Croatian Poet

Because we had gone to sleep at 9:30 the night before, we woke up early (about 7:45) and lounged around for a while. We took the tram into the heart of the city (Zagreb has a “free zone” where you can hop on and off trams without paying…very convenient).

Much more crowded than Halloween.

We pulled up to Ban Jelacica Square and immediately saw a huge line of people. Now when I say huge, I mean HUGE. Like extending for blocks and blocks. We were obviously curious, and decided to go to the front and see what the fuss was about.

The line ended at a bus stop. We looked at the people in the line and noticed that most of them had flowers or candles, and we put two and two together. Turns out the bus was going to the town’s biggest cemetery and people were going to pay their respects. It seems as if that while in America and Canada we celebrate Halloween, Croatians celebrate the day after Halloween…I think it’s called All Souls Day or something like that.

It was cool to be part of a tradition, but we soon realized that it was actually a national holiday. Because of that, everything we wanted to go to was closed. We peeked our head into the huge cathedral next to the bus stop, but there was a mass going on so we didn’t want to intrude. We spent the rest of the day looking at the outside of several buildings and enjoying the view from atop the old town.

We saw the town theater, which featured this cool statue on the outside. We also got to see St. Mark’s Cathedral, which had this strange tiling on the roof that was very unique and interesting.

Interesting, if not a bit pre-schoolish.

Other than that we kind of walked around, avoiding piercing stares and scowls from Croatians, and we picked up some food for dinner (salami, cheese, the usual).

We went to lunch at a restaurant in the square and were waited on by someone who grew up in San Pedro, California (small world). Then we decided to call it a day. We were back at the hostel by 3 pm, bored out of our minds. We booked our hotel in Vienna, watched some music videos, and goofed around on the internet for a while.

It was pretty clear that we had seen all we wanted to see of Croatia. We told the receptionist that we were heading to Vienna and she said, “oooh, romantic” so we were optimistic about our next destination. The receptionist was actually very nice and outgoing, but Hanna’s convinced she wasn’t Croatian.