BERLIN - Moving on, whoever said that Berlin wasn't nice ought to be shot. Seriously! it's so wacky, eclectic and full of history. And the BEAR! oh i loooooove the Berlin bear. We can find it everywhere, outside shopping centres and inside museums, all custom made to suit the place around it.
Very artsy place, where alot of punk fashion thrives and i must say that it's really nicely done. custom made high top converse shoes, sex education shop that looks like a very tasteful furniture store, 2 huge silver scultures on the river banks, the Appelman (their socialist traffic light worker!)and of course, the graffiti on the Berlin wall. They tore down most of it already, so whatever's remaining of the walls are cordoned off. Pity, i thought i could write my name on it or something.
Of course we did the touristy things as well, visited the Reighstag, the Sony centre, the Brandonburg Gate (our favorite Berlin spot)...
But our highlight of our Berlin experience, and i think what made Berlin so beautiful to us, is our experience on the free walking tour by Sandeman. Our tour guide brought us to where Hitler's body and bunker were burnt (it is now a carpark, no plagues whatsoever, because the government does not want Neo-Nazists to have a monument to commemorate to), the Jewish Memorial made of huge slabs of grey cold stone (the guide made us walk across the whole area of slabs and think about why the artist created it that way. it was so interesting, and i especially liked the fact that Rosh and I really thought about the whole concept and had a great discussion about it), the 2 bricked lines that pointed out where the Wall used to be, Charlie Checkpoint, the Nazi Air Force Headquarters that is the only remaining Nazi building (still the most hated building in Berlin because it's now the Tax Office. HEHEHE. great joke...), to where the burning of books happened outside the oldest university Humboldtz (a famous Jewish writer wrote that "He who burnt books is a prelude to him burning the bodies of people". this was written in 1820, very apt to what would happen in Germany isnt it?) All in all, it was very very educational and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience. So if you are going to Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Paris or London, please join this tour! and remember to tip the guide!
MUNCHEN
Our first stop was to Fussen where we visited the castle that inspired the Sleeping Beauty disney story... Absolutely gorgeous and a breather from city air. Fresh air, lakes, mountains form the backdrop for the castle that Mad King Ludwig built. With our new found friend Russell from America! Met him in the hostel... :P
BMW Museum
Hofbrauhaus with Russell
That night was the BEST night in our whoooole trip. Where we just drank ALOT of very very good beer at the most famour beer hall in Munich ( I LOVE DARK BEER!), had great conversations with French strangers who sat with us, and a very sweet photographer who showed me alot of his photos, and how Russell tried in his drunken state to fend off dirty drunk old men for us... Where we sat there till it closed and had to move to Hard Rock cafe next door just to drink more. That day, I drank 2 litres of beer. from 10am to 2am. LOVED the experience. :D
Walked around the Old town (this is probably my 15th old town) and well, as usual, the usual churches, markets and ice cream stalls... :P no wonder, adrian kept harping on the German beers... cos that's really the best experience of all for us in Germany.
WIEN = VIENNA
Rosh planned it so well... Beer in Germany and on to Culture in Austria. Vienna is so gorgeous, it really isnt surprising Yishan spent her trip cafe hopping and trying cakes from all over the city. Just stopping occasionally to watch the street performances (so much more interesting than the other cities we've been to) where there are mimes, breakdancing and a very very very good pianist who trolleyed her piano to the middle of the street to perform. We were sooooo amazed and she played so well! Stood there for a long long long time... Vienna Boy choir was sooo good as well. Even when we had to stand for 2 hours, it was really worth it. Thanks Rosh for making sure we went! If we could, we would have watched the 2 euro operas, but time was against us. It's ok, when i start earning money, ill watch it with the Austrian High Society and sit on 100 euros seats. :D
We managed to catch the Vienna City Marathon! (And did ALL OF THE ABOVE in just 1 day. from 6am to 12am. Maxed out our daylight...)And guess what? We saw Fengling and Kaixuan! YAYYYY! It was such a great experience screaming and cheering for the top marathoner (top 9 were Kenyans) and the best Austrian runners... :D For 2 hours on the stand, we were really experiencing the Vienna spirit.
PRAGUE
Prague was just pretty. VERY VERY pretty. And cheap too! we found a hostel that had a really fantastic breakfast spread = 4 types of cereal, eggs, 10 kinds of jam, different teas, milk, 2 juices... Clown and Bard. Please frequent them if you want your breakfast and lunch settled. all for 12 euros a night too! The sad thing is i lost some of my sunset photos, i dont know why. :( Hopefully Rosh still has hers... Please go to Prague. You wouldnt regret it... It's just too pretty already.
BUDAPEST
It's a pity the weather wasnt fantastic, so even when everyone told us budapest was a must go, we felt that it was oooooooook. So we decided to make it a Taitai trip! Splurged on a very very nice Bath (you HAVE to go to a Hungarian Bath!), great dinner at St Jupen's Restaurant (Best Cheap eats!)and had a lot of fun and confusion talking to our multilinguist hostel man (he speaks damn good chinese, spanish, french, german, hungarian, punjabi, english and i dunno what other languages he can say) Rosh was so amazed by him. I was just stumped. his chinese is better than mine i think, and he can write Hungary in chinese. Thankfully i could too, or i would just have had to dig a hole and hide in it. :P
SALZBURG
The highlight of our Salzburg experience was that I accidently booked a hostel that was outside of the town, had to take a train out. So it turned out to be a B&B experience in a small village that overlooks the hills and mountains. where the air was so fresh it smelt like Nepal and where we spent our last night in Salzburg drinking wine and laughing like 2 silly crazy girls. The hostess wasnt very friendly though, we think it's because she thinks we're not straight. think about it. EVERYONE who came down for breakfast in the morning were couples. and er, so it's natural to assume that she prob thought we were too... hehehe. Mozart's town of origin. so most tourism spots were geared around where he stayed, his statue etc... It's a pity he died because he was stressed over financial problems. if he had just patented his own Marzipan chocolates, he would be a millionaire. they sold the chocs EVERYWHERE. and pity it rained the next day, so we couldnt catch the sound of music tour. but that meant we saved 30 euros and kept our 2 weeks trip well within 420 euros. -pat on our shoulder-
If you can read to the end of this, well done. :D It's such a long post!
PS: Pardon my english on the blog. Afterall, this IS a blog. :P
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