As Scott Davis, Mark’s wise father, warned us before we left on our first trip from London, your destination is only a small part of what makes an experience like our three-week tour through Europe so incredible; more important is the people you travel with and the memories you create together. I’ve already written about each of the places we’ve visited, but here’s a short post about some of the stories and events that kept us laughing along the way:
First, Josh and I made the decision early on that we weren’t going to shave during this trip. It’s not the we couldn’t bring razors; Fink Mark brought his along with (almost) no problems. We just don’t like to shave and this was a good excuse not to. As part of the experience, we took “beard pictures” every day to track the progress of our facial growth. Then at the end we shaved our beards into a variety of goofylooks. Here’s an album with all of the pictures, and below is a fun video.
I wrote about it briefy in the Prague post, but one of the funniest moments of the trip was when we found Chuck Todd, Chief White House Correspondent for NBC News, having a beer in the Old Town Square. After tossing around ideas about what we should do — they ranged from the simple, go and introduce ourselves and ask for a picture, to the insane, take the glass he was drinking from and use it to clone our own Chuck Todd — but we settled on the idea of following him throughout the city. I’ll take the time here to stop for a disclaimer: Mr. Todd, if you or your staff happen to find this blog, I assure you that we are not crazy… we were just having a good time. We’d all seen enough movies and TV shows to be able to execute a good tail. We took pictures and filmed several videos along the way.
But there wasn’t always a celebrity to stalk. Most of the time we just created the fun ourselves. We had a continuous brainstorming session to come up with ideas for a TV game show we invented called ‘Who Knows More’. For example, who knows more about Shephard’s Pie: a shephard or a dessert pie maker? Who knows more about flowers: Rose McGowan or Evangelline Lilly? This kept us busy for days. We also played a ton of cards, made fun of each other a lot, joked about the Sagrada family and the multiple kidnapping plots against them, stole glasses, discussed glasses we wanted to steal, yelled at each other when we thought the circumstances weren’t approprpriate to steal glasses, and, most importantly of all, came up with an idea for the most successful restaurant franchise since McDonald’s. The trademark is still pending on that last one, but we’re planning on creating promotional videos this summer so stay tuned for details.
I guess what I’m saying is that the trip was quite a bonding experience. By the time I arrived back in London I’d grown unaccustomed to the idea of privacy; catching up on three-weeks of missed TV was fun, but it seemed weird not to have anyone around to laugh with. So to all of my travel companions (in alphabetical order: Becky, Brittany, Deepa, Josh, Mark, Olga, and Stephanie), plus all the randos and freaks we met along the way, thank you for making this trip such an incredible experience!
First, a brief moment of celebration: I just finished my paper for Salvation & The City, which leaves me with 2 papers (less than 5,000 words) to write in a little more than a month. Life is good.
Okay, Barcelona!
On the way from Wroclaw our very lovely flight attendant directed Josh and I to the best seats on the airplane — in the first aisle — which gave us the opportunity to be the first off the plane. We weren’t in a particular rush, but we were very excited to reveal our current outfits, which, if you’ll remember, contained our entire wardrobes after we realized we’d overpacked the bag in Poland. Olga laughed for the entire (long) ride into Barcelona. By the time we arrived in our, ummm, unique hostel, we were extremely hungry, so we did what any stupid group of tourists looking to jump into the Spanish experience would do, we found the nearest (overpriced) tapas restaurant. A not insignificant amount of money garnered us an amount of food suitable only for ants or children’s tea parties, so we did what any stupid group of Americans would do next… we finished our meal at the McDonald’s next door. Yummy.
The next morning we began an ambitious tour of Barcelona: we saw one of Gaudi’s nearby buildings, took a walk down Las Ramblas, and, really, just tried to outrun the incoming rain clouds. We got stuck in a hail storm, but luckily we were only a few blocks away from a cool bar we’d heard about, a bar with, ironically, a rain forest theme. Olga and I split a pitcher of sangria, which earned us a strange afternoon buzz; I think it’s the right way to see Barcelona!
When the weather cleared we walked through the gothic quarter, where Josh and I, characteristically, found a spectacular slice of pizza at a place called La Foccaceria. Later in the day we visited the most famous building in Barcelona: La Sagrada Familia, a church started by Gaudi but still unfinished. It turns out La Sagrada Familia means The Sacred Family (which makes sense), but we had fun pretending that the Sagradas were just a really, really rich family who, due to their extreme wealth, were often targeted in kidnapping plots. Walking around Barcelona looking for such evildoers turned into a fun game. The church, though, was beyond incredible. I don’t claim to be an architecture expert, but I know something special when I see it; the building just has this incredibly unique feel to it, from the color of the stone to the style of the Christian statues. I can’t imagine how amazing it will be when it’s finally finished.
That night we tried to rectify the previous night’s dinner mistake by visiting Fres Co., a Spanish buffet-chain in the style of Josh’s beloved Sweet Tomatoes. While we no longer had a problem with the quantity of our food — Josh and Mark verified at least three times with the staff that the buffet was all you can eat — we all realized that quantity meant nothing if all of the food sucked.
We awoke the next morning to a loud but lovely banging on our door: Stephanie had arrived. She was unreasonably chirpy considering how early she’d left for her flight, but we were glad to have her. We all remarked at how funny it was that after traveling through Europe without any language skills whatsoever the moment Stephanie arrived we all became completely silent and relied on her Spanish entirely.
With Stephanie as our guide, we started the morning at Park Guell, again built by Gaudi. The park was incrediblycool, but the views of Barelona were even more impressive.
After grabbing lunch from our new favorite market, we continued down Las Ramblas to the waterfront. Next, again with the storm clouds brewing, we found our way up a nearby hill to visit Barcelona’s 1992 Olympic Village. Immedietely, it seemed, we were drenched in rain, so we ran into the only building we could see, the Miramar hotel, which, unfortunately, was far too nice for us to even pretend to fit in. We were directed towards a bar that was supposedly next door, but we wound up waiting out the storm under the awning of an abandoned snack stand. For dinner we finally found the right balance between cost, quantity, and deliciousness at a random German bar/grill. I enjoyed it so much that I bought a souvenir beer mug, thereby completing my collection of beer glasses from each of the countries we visited on this trip! Hurrah!
The final day in Barcelona is kind of a blur, and you’ll shortly understand why. We’d been searching the city for churros since our arrival, but they seemed to be undergoing some type of churro shortage crisis. There were guys who made churros during the day and sold them at night, and guys who supposedly did the opposite, but even with very kind people willing to draw us the locations of other churro restaurants on our map, we didn’t succeed in tracking them down until the final day. We also made an ill-fated attempt at finding the beach.
The memorable event from that final day in Barcelona was my departure. After three weeks of travel we were incredibly proud of ourselves for averting disasters that could have loomed at many turns. In fact, in our last days in Barcelona we patted ourselves on the back so frequently that we earned ourselves, or me, a curse. I don’t know how to tell this story fairly, so I’ll start off by saying that I deserve most, if not all of, the blame for the events that unfolded. To make a long story short, I went to the wrong airport, missed my flight, and had to spend €200 euro (more than I’d spent on all of my other travel combined) on a new ticket to London. To make a long story long, here are the details:
First, Ryanair listed my departure airport as Barcelona-Reus, kind of a misnomer because the airport is in Reus, 125km from Barcelona. Ryanair only listed one other airport in Barcelona, Girona (our arrival airport), and all of us somehow got it in our heads that not only was Reus the only other airport in Barcelona, but that it was significantly closer than Girona. We were wrong on both counts, but when Stephanie arrived thinking she’d flown into Reus and was flying out of Reus and that the trip from Reus to Barcelona was short and easy, it all seemed to fit. So that last day in Barcelona when I left with Stephanie to go to the airport, I had no idea I was going to the wrong place. I was so far away, in fact, that even with Stephanie’s Spanish, employees at the REAL Barcelona airport couldn’t believe I was leaving on a flight out of Reus. I made an ill-fated attempt to get to the right airport but quickly realized it was a lost cause.
So the trip ended on a low note (a very low note), but otherwise it was an absolutely incredible experience. I’ll try and post a summary of the whole trip (with some additional pictures and stories) in the coming days.
Josh and I had been looking forward to the Poland leg of our trip since the planning days, and for some reason that seemed entirely unclear the morning we left Budapest, we’d been especially excited for our 6am bus ride. Awake at 4:45am to leave for the station, we struggled throughout the beautiful trip through the Slovakian countryside to stay awake. Aside from the early departure, the bus was incredibly nice with a stewardess who served free (warm) drinks, a bathroom in which we were told passengers were only allowed to “make #1″, and TV screens throughout that played dubbed versions of Mamma Mia and Music & Lyrics. I thought the decision to play two musicals odd — they dub everything but the songs — but they helped keep me awake, so thank you Orangeways.
By the time we arrived in Krakow, Josh and I were a mess. We were so out of it we left the bus station confused as to whether we were in the right place at all. Our day was made all the more pleasant when a Polish woman attempted to sexually assault us (specifically Josh) outside of the station. Being made a fool of by Polish people actually turned into a theme of the trip in Krakow. The next day a bunch of kids dumped water on us from a nearby window to the delight of their friends at street level. A day later, after leaving Auschwitz, a group of laughing girls ran up to us and (in Polish) asked to take a picture with us. Josh and I agreed, but we’re still confused.
The rest of that first day is kind of a blur (aside from the spectacular pierogis we ate at a market in Krakow’s beautiful, and huge, town square). We tried to do some sightseeing, but we were just too exhausted. The day was saved, though, when our hostel unveiled a DVD collection that included LOST Season 3. We’d sworn off new episodes for the trip, but on a lazy Easter Sunday (and, as it would turn out, throughout our time in Krakow) there was nothing more perfect than those DVDs.
After a great night’s sleep, we left the hostel the next morning to pickup our first Krakow bagel (supposedly a specialty) and head to Auschwitz. Well, it being Monday and the day after Easter, we soon learned that the bagel place was closed and the regular buses to the concentration camp weren’t running. Don’t worry, though, it still turned out to be an incredibly Jewish day. We found bagel substitutes on the street and explored the city on our own, visiting Oskar Schindler’s factory and following the Jewish heritage walk past more than a handful of synagogues and a couple Jewish cemeteries. It being an incredibly small world, we wound up bumping into Harris Kaplan, an old friend from Miami with whom I war Bar Mitzvahed with in Israel, later that night.
The highlight from the night, however, was the lengths to which we went in order to stealtakecarry off find a beautiful Polish beer glass called Zywiec. We noticed that our hostel had several glasses sitting in the kitchen cabinet, but Josh and I live by a higher moral code than that — ironically, our one roommate didn’t… Josh awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of him shattering one of those exact glasses. So we schlepped (sorry, I started the Jewish theme and now I can’t stop) all the way across Krakow to our hostel’s sister establishment, The Pub & Garden, ordered a drink from their bar and brought it back as a souvenir. I’m staring at the glass on my bookshelf now, and it’s a beauty!
The next morning, even though we only had a few hours before our train to Wroclaw, we took the 1.5 hour bus ride to Auschwitz. I’m so glad we went, but having visited Sachenhausen in Berlin, I was also a little disappointed. Visiting Auschwitz is obviously an incredibly emotional experience — I can now say that I’ve been to the worst place on earth — so I was really bothered by how commercialized the entire museum was. There are gift stores and bookshops everywhere, entry is free but they charge you to see a fifteen-minute (and not all that informative) movie, and the actual exibits are constructed in a way so that it’s almost impossible to visit without taking a guided tour when I think (and Sachenhausen confirmed this) that the best way to explore a concentration camp is independently. Just my two cents, whatever.
After returning to Krakow we picked up some food and left for the train station — we’d already purchased our tickets the day before. When our train pulled across the platform we noticed 1) how crowded the train already was (so crowded, in fact, that we saw people passing babies and luggage out windows) and 2) that our tickets didn’t include seat numbers. Somehow we wound up getting seats, though, albeit in a dark, hot, and crowded cabin.
Now, in order to read the rest of this post you’re going to need a lesson in Polish pronunciation. Josh and I had been galavanting around Europe refering to our next destination, Wroclaw, as (you’ll have to sound these out) Row-Claw. Turns out, surprise, that’s wrong. After asking at our hostels in Budapest, Krakow, and then just to be safe, Wroclaw for the proper pronunciation, I am now confident enough that I have it down that I’m going to share it with you, my blogging community. Repeat after me: Vrohtz-Suave. Okay, we’re ready to move on.
The rest of this post is going to be pretty unbelievable. It’s well established that we only went to Wroclaw (Vrohtz-Suave) because RyanAir flew cheap flights from Wroclaw to Barcelona, so when I tell you how incredibly beautiful the city actually was, you might think that this is a giant conspiracy by Josh and I to trick people into visiting what, to us began as, the most random city in Europe. Well that is why God (or a scientist somewhere) invented the digital camera.
After Vienna and Barcelona, Wroclaw is easily the most beautiful city we visited. The town center (check out the video below) is incredible, with tall, boldly-painted buildings forming an enormous and idyllic square. We loved it so much we bought awesome t-shirts at the city’s only souvenir store. Wroclaw is filled with parks, rivers, bridges, fountains, and statues (including a series of gnomes hidden throughout the square that we had a blast trying to find). Plus, in our short time there we had two incredible meals, the first at an American steakhouse in the city center (the food was great but the Pepsi was better… plus there was a hilarious moment where a drunk, homelessman’s dog, which happened to have nipples that looked like a cow’s utters, jumped onto Josh) and the second at a traditional Polish restaurant (we split pierogis, potato pancakes, and desert pierogis… yum). Oooh, and I almost forgot; women in Wroclaw are so incredibly good looking that Josh and I coined the phrase ‘Wroclaw beautiful’. What? If I love Wroclaw so much why don’t I marry it? Okay, point taken.
Sadly, with plans to meet up with Mark, Olga, and Stephanie in Barcelona, our time in Polish heaven was short. I’ll try and post an update from our last stop in the next couple days.
I just arrived back in London last night, so it will be hard to write these next few posts without looking ahead (especially with my flying experience last night — that’s a teaser, it means you don’t want to miss that post), but I still want to write about Budapest, Poland, and Barcelona before I start writing about the big picture. I will say that the entire trip was an amazing experience, though I’m happy to finally be back in London. Anyway, Budapest…
After we left Prague (remember loud, ‘Poker Face’ German roommates and stink bomb girls?) we stayed at a series of great hostels, The Goat in Budapest absolutely being one of the best. As Josh was quick to realize, they seemed to operate on one simple principle: the guys who ran the hostel were just incredibly nice and cool. Upon arriving, they immediately gave us some advice on where to eat (delicious) and what to do around Budapest.
One thing even the best hostels can’t prevent: the combined influence of clumsiness, bad luck, poorly-constructed-but-purchased-as-a-last-resort shorts, gravity, and a digital camera. Yep, two days after Stephanie’s camera suffered a similar fate, and in the middle of our trip, I dropped and broke my camera. It was tragic. It’s crazy how closely linked sightseeing and photography had become for me; walking around Budapest (on one of our best free-ish walking tours of the trip) without a camera felt almost like showing up to the SATs without a number two pencil. I’ll save you the drama and pity, though, and fast forward a couple hours. In researching the message my camera flashed every time it failed to take a picture — “LENS ERROR” — I came across one piece of advice that had solved a few people’s problems: bang the camera fairly firmly on a table or desk. After a day of walking around without it, I felt I had nothing to lose and at the very least an outlet for releasing my frustration to gain (assuming banging the camera didn’t work, we’d brainstormed several other ideas, including a sending the camera down the Danube in a burning, miniature canoe). Fortunately, and more than surprisingly, it actually worked. My camera came back to life. And that was the Passover miracle of 2009!
After our walking tour of the city and lunch at a nearby market, we’d booked a tour of Budapest’s extensive underground caves. I’ll admit that I was less than fully enthusiastic about the idea of crawling on my hands and knees for two-and-a-half hours through incredibly tight spaces, but everyone else was on board and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Definitely a Vujà Dé experience. At one point we came to an unbelievably small hole in the wall that our guide announced was called Winnie the Pooh as she awkwardly forced herself in one way and out the other. She then asked if any of us wanted to try it, and after learning that at the very least I could just sliver out the way I’d come in (and in the interest of continuing to try things I wouldn’t normally do), I, along with Deepa, Josh, and several of our new friends, volunteered. My performance was short of graceful, but I made it through (barely) and that’s what matters.
One of the guys at our hostel said that you never feel more clean than after going to a Turkish bath, so the next morning we went to one of Budapest’s most famous thermal baths. The building (especially the outdoor pool) was incredibly beautiful, but maybe because I was thinking in the “bath” frame instead of the “pool” frame, I couldn’t help but be a little grossed out by the whole thing (the frequent site of men in Speedos didn’t help either). We had a ton of fun, though, especially Stephanie and Becky in their gorgeous rental bathing suits. After that (and a lunch in which I accidentally ordered a sandwich that consisted exclusively of bread and cheese, a fact I found mildly annoying and Josh and Steph found uproariously hilarious) we spent the rest of our day exploring some of Budapest’s natural beauty, including Margaret Island and a nearby hill that gave a breathtaking view of the city. That night we checked out a bar that had come recommended from three different people called Szimpla Kert. It was one of the absolute coolest bars we’ve seen throughout Europe, but already tired and with a 6am bus the next morning, we headed back for the hostel fairly early.
So Budapest was great! Krakow and Wroclaw are next!
Vienna was the city I came to Europe most excited to visit and for the most shallow of reasons: the Billy Joel song, ‘Vienna’, is my favorite song of all time. The point of the song is to slow down and enjoy life because ‘Vienna waits for you,’ and the city is certainly worth waiting for. Aesthetically I found it to be just gorgeous. It looks a lot like Paris, but the architecture is more diverse (color, height, style, etc.), there are a ton more parks and green space, and the city was easily walkable.
We spent most of the first day exploring the city by foot; from Parliament (which we took a tour of) to City Hall, to the main church, to the Palace, it’s a beautiful city to walk around and there is a ton of stuff to see. The main highlight from the day, however, was our trip to the Opera. You line up between 5:30 and 6pm, and you can buy a standing room ticket in any section of the theatre for 3 Euros. We knew there was a dress code (men had to wear pants), but we didn’t realize how seriously employees, and even moreso, patrons took that code. Stephanie was originally not allowed into the theatre because she was wearing shorts over her leggings; so she went into the bathroom, took off her shorts, and was allowed in. Makes a ton of sense, right? By the time Steph had met us upstairs, we were being chewed out by an old Austrian woman for our disrespectful dress; she started by yelling at me for not having a jacket, but eventually realized that all of my friends were just as trashy. I tried to explain that we were traveling through Europe and even though we weren’t the best dressed in the group, we decided to come nonetheless because we were so interested in having this new cultural experience, but Opera Lady — whose name would later replace the title asshole in the card game Presidents and Assholes — didn’t seem to care. She shared her disdain with all of the other guests around us, one of whom took advantage of my American generosity by pretending to be friends with Opera Lady in order to get in front of us in line. Oddly enough, however, once we got upstairs, our enemy and her associates tried to point out to us where the best seats were. Opera etiquette is certainly unique. The opera itself was less memorable than the events that preceded it, but it was a lot of fun and I think we all enjoyed it.
Mark was celebrating his 21st birthday at midnight, but because he wasn’t feeling all that well, rather than go out, we hung out at the amazing Wombar in the basement of our hostel. The next morning we awoke to the perfect birthday activity; a trip to Vienna’s more populous cemetery, home to Beethoven and a memorial to Mozart. After that, to underscore the weirdness that’s been this whole trip, we took the train over to an amusement park on the other side of the city. The overly warm weather — which had forced me to buy shorts the day earlier, and more on this in my Budapest posting — inspired Josh, Becky, and I to go on a water ride, but unfortunately, aside from my shoes, we stayed completely dry. The rest of the park was cool, as was Danube Island, which we visited next. To fully imagine this trip, however, you have to know that for Mark’s birthday Josh and I had bought the three of us awesome matching trilby hats, which we wore throughout Vienna. Stay tuned for pictures.
The food in Vienna was great, even though we ate almost exclusively Italian for some reason. The beer, on the other hand, Orankringer, specifically, was pretty awful. Stay away.
After walking around a little more and playing cards in a random park, we left Vienna for Budapest. I’ll post about that in the coming days. Josh and I are currently in Krakow; we arrived via a bus that departed at 6am this morning, though, so that should explain any parts of this post that make no sense. More soon.
First of all, you’ll notice a change in the blog title. Until now, the blog’s been called simply ‘cardboardbear’, but now it has a new title: Vujà Dé. Put simply, Vujà Dé is that feeling you get when you’re walking around a place you never thought you’d be or having an experience you never thought you’d have. It’s the opposite of Déjà Vu and it’s a feeling that’s defined this entire trip.
The last time I was in Prague was years and years ago with my parents and some family friends. The three things I remember from that trip were 1) the KFC and Dunkin Donuts located right around the corner from our hotel (this was in the Belgium years, so it was a big deal)), 2) seeing an opera performed by marionettes, 3) being first introduced to the song ‘Lucky’ by Brittany Spears. This trip was completely different, and just as great.
Meeting up with Stephanie and Becky was incredible. I was so happy to see some more familiar faces, and I’d missed them both a ton! Friday morning we took a walking tour of the city — our tour guide was beautfiful and knowledgeable, but we quickly lost interest and went off on our own. The city is absolutely beautiful and so much fun to walk around. Our hostel is located right near the Old Square and famous astonautical clock (the most disappointing landmark since the Manniken Pis), but we’ve also spent a lot of time on the other side of the Charles Bridge near the Palace. That’s where we saw Barack Obama speak earlier today… but I’m getting ahead of myself. Another highlight was the Petrol Tower, Prague’s response to the Eiffel Tower. Apparently it’s taller than the tower in Paris, but only because it’s situated at the top of the hill. After a long day of walking, our legs were burnt out, so boy were we in for a treat the next day.
I’m not exactly an outdoors person — love the beach and city architecture, but I never understood hiking or camping… if I already have a home, why would I want to sleep in a tent? — but my friends, especially Mark and Josh, really are. So as a day trip we took a 1.5 hour bus ride to a place that I can’t say or spell. We wound up taking a 10 mile hike through a city called Turnov and the surrounding hills. There were some incredible sites, but when we got worried we might not be able to make it back to Prague by bus, we panicked and rushed back along the same path. Not the most relaxing day, but a ton of fun. A real Vu Jà Dé experience. That night we went on a pub crawl to celebrate the beginning of Olga’s 21st birthday. I could right a whole post about what I think of pub crawls, but in the interest of getting off the public computer in this hostel, I’ll skip it. It was a fun (and overall economical) night.
After a long day and night we powered through our tiredness and woke up at 7am to return to the Prague Palace to hear Barack Obama. We were worried that the crowds would be insane, but we wound up getting insanely close to the stage; none of us are sure how it worked out that way. We all wound up waving Czech flags proudly at our President amid a crowd from all over the world. It was a great speech, and something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Barack Obama’s first international public speech!!! Later that day after failing to find a phone card to make my promised call home, I walked by an outdoor bar where I saw a familar face; it was Chuck Todd, chief White House Correspondent for NBC News having a beer with three other people. I got incredibly excited, took a creepy picture, and ran off to find my friends. When Chuck ran off before I could properly introduce myself and ask for a real picture with him, we decided to do the only logical thing: stalk him through the streets of Prauge. There are a ton of pictures and a few videos of this adventure, so I’ll save them for a later post. The rest of the day we’ve been taking it easy for the most part. We went out for a nice dinner for Olga’s birthday, and afterwards visited a cool bar that brews a bunch of interesting beers (including Banana). Josh and I split a sampler, which was great, and I wound up buying a glass. Two glasses so far on this trip… can’t take many more without running out of space .
The hostel itself has been a bit of an adventure. We have a couple really obnoxious roommates; our first night here they woke us up at 4am in the morning by turning on the lights, shouting at each other across the room, and having a farting contest (everyone lost on that one). They’ve been much better each of the past few nights, though, so hopefully the worst is over. There are also a couple girls in the hostel who seem to be running around, setting off stink bombs, and laughing hysterically about it. As Olga said, where’d this hostel find so many freaks? I guess it’s the danger of living cheaply.
Prague’s been great, off to Vienna tomorrow. Hope you’re all doing well!
It’s Wednesday night in Berlin and we’re taking it easy before a travel day tomorrow. We’d thought five days in Berlin might be too much, but it actually turned out to be a great first trip. The city is incredibly interesting, and the extra time gave us the opportunity to experience the city without exhausting ourselves in our first city.
We’ve spent time in Berlin, but we’ve also managed a couple day trips. We took a “free” walking tour of the city with our eccentric and charismatic tourguide, George, who gave us an interesting (albeit, as we picked up later in the week, largely invented) four hour introduction to the city; we checked out a flee-market in the north of the city; and we explored other parts of the city, including the remaining sections of the Berlin Wall and the German Parliament building, on our own. The weather has been perfect the last two days, so on Tuesday we took a trip to Potsdam — an easy, 50-minute journey by metro — which was absolutely beautiful. Today we took two somber trips, one to the Holocaust Museum in Berlin and one to the Sachenhausen Concentration Camp.
Germany, and Berlin specifically, obviously have an incredibly complex history, and it’s been really interesting to see how they deal with that history. I’ve been very impressed.Visiting the concentration camp was incredibly difficult, but I’m glad we did it. A lot of the buildings have been destroyed, but walking around is nonetheless such an emotionally overwhelming experience. The remaining buildings each had exhibits about the camp’s history. The memorial in Berlin is located in the middle of the city — so no businessman, politician, Berliner, or tourist can ignore it — and is both engaging and abstract.
Final Report:
Food: 4/5 — It’s no Italy, but we’ve eaten well here. Street food is plentiful and relatively cheap, and points for the van we found selling rotisserie chicken earlier today.
Beer: 4/5 — Again, it’s no Belgium, but the standard, cheap German beers (especially the different varieties of Berliner) are great. The best part, though, is that public drinking is legal, so you can enjoy a drink walking down the street or riding the metro.
Aesthetics: 3/5 — Berlin is kind of ugly, so all of these points come from Potsdam; the park there is incredible.
We’re off to Prague tomorrow to meet Stephanie and Becky. If we have internet, I’ll try to keep updating throughout the trip. Hope you’re all doing well!
Vujà Dé is that feeling you get when you’re walking around a place you never thought you’d be or having an experience you never thought you’d have. It’s the opposite of déjà vu and it’s a feeling that’s defined this entire study abroad experience. Hence the name of the blog.
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