Playing Catch Up

Alright, I know I've been lazy but I'll   try to catch up. I'll do my best with details and whatnot, but it's a bit difficult and  mostly I just want to let ya'll know what I've been up to in my wanderings.

Munich Biergarten

I made it to Munich no problem and met up with Alexa and her friend Hannah, who's studying there. As it happened, Hannah's mom and aunt were also visiting, so we all ended up hanging out together.  It was really fun to have a mom around for a change, or at least one that speaks english! They kind of took me in and adopted me for a couple days and let me hang out with them, which was a lot of fun. The first day Hannah took us all to a beer garden (biergarten) where Alexa and I had no choice  but to give in and try German food (after successfully avoiding Polish food). It wasn't bad though, I've actually had a fair amount since then. What surprised me the most was the HUGE beers everyone drank, namely a liter at a time. That's a lot of beer. Like a lot. The next day Alexa left, but I went with Hannah and her family to Dachau, which I wasn't expecting to do. It was interesting, of course, and I can't believe I saw 3 concentration camps in about a week. After Dachau

Starnberg Lake

we took their rented car out to Starnberg lake for lunch, which was beautiful. Actually, the whole time I was in Munich the weather was awesome. My last day there I was on my own, and on Hannah's suggestion hopped on a train (yay eurail pass) to the mountains, a town called Garmesh Perkinascher (or something similar), which was also lovely and nice. The mountains were beautiful! I would have stayed longer but I wanted to make it back in time to see the Neue Pinakotech, which I'm glad I did, I found some amazing Monet, Sisley and Van Gogh's in there.

The mountains near Munich

The next morning the plan was to get to Frankfurt and fly from there to Scotland. I got to Frankfurt alright, but as it turns out, frankfurt has two airports and one is REALLY far away. I had lots of time but not enough to get that far. Disaster. I was stranded in Frankfurt with no plan and nowhere to go. After a couple frantic (and expensive) phone calls home, I got to the train station and figured out that my train options for the night were Brussels or Amsterdam. So, off I went to Amsterdam.
I got there and got to the hostel around 9, and wasn't really planning on doing much since it'd been a pretty difficult day, but as I unpacked, a couple other people staying in the room came in and invited me out. I figured, why not, it's not like I had anything else going on. That ended up being a lot of fun, and it was really nice to have some people to hang out with for the next couple of days. I also realized I actually knew one person living in Amsterdam, a friend of a friend I had met over winter break, so I got in touch with her and got to meet up for coffee, which was nice. I also made it to the Van Gogh museum, the Anne Frank house, and the Rijksueseum. All of them were really cool, and I'm glad I got to go. I think the Anne Frank house was my favorite, it was amazing to see it after reading and studying her for so many years in school and whatnot. The museum was really well done, too, which is always nice. In general I've found that I like going to Museums and walking around cities on my own, and meeting people to hang out with and talk to at night. Traveling alone has had it's ups and downs, but overall I think it's been way more fun. Just being able to meet people it great, and amazingly easy. It's funny how quickly travelers can get attached to one another, though. I guess since none of us have anyone else, for a short time it's like we're suddenly best friends and family. It's odd to think that I only knew some of those people for 3 days or so!
But anyways, my plan was to try and continue with my planned route and get to London and Paris, but once it became clear to me that it was definately not going to be worth all the trouble, I decided to follow a few of the people I'd met to Berlin. Everyone seemed to be moving in the same direction, which I guess makes sense because it's a much more logical route than my zigzagging!
So, once again, I hoped on a train and got to Berlin. Berlin has definitely been one of my favorite cities, dare I say, even up there with Portland and San Francisco. I also ended up staying for five nights, which is by far the longest I've been in one city, and it's been nice. I've had lots of German food and seen LOTS of street art and graffiti. There's an artists sqaut right by my hostel which is really cool to walk through, and I ended up buying a silk screened shirt and a couple post cards from one of the artists. The whole building is graffitied to death and outside they have a sculpture garden too. I also got to go to the East Side Gallery today, which is the part of the Berlin wall that's all painted. SO COOL. 'Nuff said.

East Side Gallery

Artist's Squat near my hostel

I also did take a walking tour of the city, which was great for seeing all the monuments and whatnot. I even saw the parking lot where Hitler's bunker once was, and where he committed suicide. I think my favorite part of the tour was the monument for the jews of the holocaust. It's really well done, and inspired by the Jewish cemetery in Prague, which I'd been to so that was cool too. Just in general, Berlin has such a cool atmosphere. I think I'm coming back in a few weeks with Julia, so I'm excited for that. I can't wait to see Julia tomorrow too, it's going to be fun to have a travel buddy! Like I said, traveling alone is a lot of fun, but I know Julia and I are going to have a great time. First stop, Madrid!

Let's See...

Since I last updated I've been to Prague and Krakow, Poland. Actually, I'm still in Krakow, until tomorrow when I'm flying to Muncih (eurail pass doesn't work in Poland).
So Prague was nice, but I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. It might have been the cold, rainy weather or the fact that I was gettin sick at the end, but I think it's one of those cities you have to spend more than a couple days in, you know, let it sink in more. I did really like seeing the Spanish Synagogue, though, it was gorgeous. We saw the bridge and the castle, of course, but other that that we didn't do w huge amount of other stuff. Again, partially the weather, but also, there really didn't seem to be as much sight seeing stuff there as in Budapest, or at least as much that we were interested in. And like I said, the last night I wasn't feeling  quite right, and I think I had a fever the next day. Alexa and I took it easy and mostly hung out in the hostel and tried to rest before our night train to Krakow (which turned out to be one of the most uncomfortable trains). Anyways, when we got to Krakow I was still a bit sick and Alexa wasn't feeling perfect either, plus night trains are always exhausting, so we spend the better part of the day sleeping and recovering, but eventually rallied to go see the Jewish area and then market square. They really like Pope John Paul II here, they had poster and things of him everywhere. The next day,  we had made a reservation through the hostel to go see Aushwitz-Berkenau, which was the main reason we came, and the tour was supposed to pick us up at the hostel at noon, but no one came. We asked the hostel and they called the company and apparently there was a glich in the system and the reservation was lost. At first it was looking like we might not get to go at all, and Alexa and I were REALLY REALLY mad, but the manager of the hostel got the company to have another driver come pick us up and take us on a private tour, and the hostel paid the difference! So that worked out, and our tour guide was really nice.
Going to the concentration camps was surreal.  I guess its one of those placed I never really thought I'd actually see. They were so eerily calm, and especially Berkenau, the area itself was beautiful and quiet, and almost pleasant even, which made it all the more creepy. I'm really glad I had a chance to go, although it was so odd to actually be there.

Then today, Alexa had a flight to Munich, but since I didn't know I needed to book till later, the flight she was on had gone up astronomically in price, so I booked a waaaaay cheaper one for the day after and found an airport hotel for the night. This was also an appealing plan because it gave me a chance to recover from being sick in NOT a hostel, and it's pretty relaxing. A bit strange for me to be in a hotel alone, but I suppose I should get used to traveling alone since I'll be doing more of it in London and Paris next week. Anyways, so now I'm here and planning on getting lots of sleep tonight!

Budapest

So as it happens, I have bit of free time at the moment in which I can update for you guys. This is because it is 4am in Prague. We took a night train from Budapest and arrived now. Inconvenient. We made it to the hostel but of course we don't have a room booked till rhis next night, so we're banished to the common room, where there are some other random people speaking spanish. So the plan is to wait a bit, get cleaned up, and, at a reasonable hour, go drink lots of coffee and explore for a couple hours until we can come back and nap. But in the meantime, I shall tell you about Budapest.

Budapest!

Krissy and I had sort of a long time in Budapest because towards the end we met up with Alexa, and so we stayed a day longer than we otherwise would have planned to so that she could see Budapest too.

Langos

The first afternoon that  Krissy and I arrived we just relaxed, found a pretty park and took in the city views and the pretty bridges and river and made our plans for the next day. The next day we woke up and our first stop was the really big synagogue, which is supposedly the second largest in all of Europe. That was cool and really pretty on the inside, and it was nice to get a break from all the churches. Next we headed to the central market, where we ate some hungarian food, this thing  called langos, which is fried dough with stuff on it, we had it with cheese and bacon and tomatoes. After that (and out siesta, which is becoming a habit with us) we went to the House of Terror. No, it's not a haunted house, it's a museum about the dark days of Hungarian history during WWII, and it's in the building that the Arrowcross (the Nazi organization) and later the communist rule was run from, and it had a prison basement with torture chambers and everything. Very sad and haunting, but interesting. When learning about WWII my classes had only really mentioned Hungary in passing, but really a lot went on there. We spent at least 2 hours in there, maybe more.
Later that night we climbed up to one on the monuments overlooking the river and relaxed and enjoyed the lights of city on the water.
Friday we woke up and headed to a the thermal baths, which was relaxing. I never thought I'd end up at a public Hungarian bath house. Later in the day we met up with Alexa and had dinner (goulash this time) before going out to a couple different bars one of the guys working at the hostel recommended (and later he came out with us for a bit too).
This  morning we got up and wandered around Buda castle for a bit, which had cool views, and then got on the train and ended up here in Prague. I hope no one throws me out of a window while I'm here.