Berlin to Prague, the miraculous journey

First of all, I'll wrap up our time in Berrrrrrlin.

Friday June 13 (Friday the 13th, ahhh)

Well rained in the morning and was freezing in general, so that put a bit of a kink in our plans. But we solved that by getting on a tour bus that told us all about everything and let us hop on and off, but most importantly, allowed us to not freeze to death. The tour guide would say everything in German and then repeat it in English, which I imagine would be quite a task since he was also having to keep up with the bus' pace. We eventually hopped off and went to the Natural History Museum. P.S. People stare a lot here. I know they think I'm a famous super model and all, but geez. Anyway, the Nat Hist Museum had some pretty neat stuff including the largest fully assembled dinosaur skeleton. After that, we went to Checkpoint Charlie, which was a former access point between East and West Germany. That place had some pretty incredible stories about the lengths people would go to in their escape attempts to the West. They would build special compartments in cars, ride down ropes from windows, or just try to bust through in a big truck. After that, we found a restaurant run by Sicilians that was right across the street. The EuroCup is going on right now, so every night there is at least one soccer game on, and the Italians were no exception. Although it was run by Sicilians, this place had great weinerschnitzle (thin fried veal = good), so we were being semi-authentic German tourists!

Saturday June 14
The weather was slightly better this day, so we set out for our "outdoor adventures". This including FINALLY finding the Berlin wall. It is more difficult than you think. Yeah not really, we're just not too perceptive. The large part of the wall that we visited is called Eastside Gallery (because it's painted on the east side). At some point, people decided that if the wall was going to be there and they weren't going to be allowed to cross to the other side, they might as well decorate it and express themselves that way.

After the wall (which was across the street from the train station we had visited every day we'd been in Berlin), we went to the Zoo. Since we had gone to the Natural History Museum the day before and seen tons of stuffed animals, it made sense to go see the live ones. It was pretty cool...lions, tigers, bears, oh my. There were some cute monkeys and we got to see feeding time for all the big cats. There was also a panda and some polar bears, but there were also falsely advertised seals as we could NOT find them.

Mary and I then tricked Rebecca into letting us go to Dunkin Donuts (again) by telling her we wanted to go check out an area called Postdamer Platz, which had stores, the Sony Center (which really didn't have anything in it that we could tell), and Legoland (which I had to restrain myself from going into). While at Dunkin, with all the other Americans, we got some good people watching in while we defrosted.

We then did a little more wandering/shopping near the broken tooth church (from the first day) and then happened upon a pretty busy restaurant so we decided to have dinner. Again, a soccer game was on, so there were people all around carrying/wearing flags, hats, super hero spandex outfits...the works. I was able to get bratwurst, sourkraut, and great mashed potatoes for dinner, so I was in heaven. Rebecca thought I ordered potato soup with a wiener, so she just told the waitress that she just wanted the same thing. We realized this about 15 mins later when I said I was excited about the sourkraut. Hahaha tricks. After the soccer game, the best band in the world started playing. They were all middle aged men in matching white suits who would play a mix of oldies (mumbling much of the words which made it 5000 times better) and some German drinking songs. There were some boyfriend alerts dancing in the front, but we soon realized that they liked dancing with each other more than anyone else.

Friday June 15

We woke up bright and early to head to the train station to catch our 10:46 train to Prague. This was written at 10:54 AM that day:
By no small miracle, we are on the train to Prague. It was scheduled to leave at 10:46. So, we get to the train station at 10:15, get some sandwiches for the ride (which should last until about 3:15), and mosey toward the trains. We're looking and looking and not seeing anything about Prague or our train number. Hm... So we find someone and they tell us we are at the wrong train station. Awesome. Why wouldn't the lady who sold us the tickets from that train station mention that it left from a different one? Probably because she assumed we read German. Danke, train lady. So we hop (with our 50 lbs of luggage and backpacks and slightly panicking selves) on a train (without a ticket) and ride to the station that our train is leaving from...in 12 minutes. Four stops and 9 minutes later, we arrive at the station. We spread out to figure out the track number like a well oiled sorority machine. Rebecca finds the chart, I get the track number, we holler for Mary and take off. We're dragging our luggage down the stairs, dodging, ducking, dipping, diving, and dodging others, and 3 mins later we find what might be our train. Quick sign reading and a leap of faith later and we're flinging ourselves on the train just as they come on the loudspeaker saying to stand clear of the door. We are now sitting in some spacious seats, 2 to a person since the train isn't full, and we're treating ourselves to a much needed reward. Mary is playing solitaire on the computer, Rebecca is knee deep in the minute by minute train schedule, and I'm eating gummy bears and staring out the window. All is right with the world. We also realized that Czech is a very difficult language and they don't use Euros. If the train experience is any kind of sign of things to come, this should be good!

Well the rest of the train ride was relaxing. We got off the train and had to make our way to the hotel, which sounds simple since we had already found the hotel on the map. Once we got off the train, we found an ATM. The Czech Republic doesn't use Euros, they use the crown. 15 crowns is about 1 US dollar. So that's fun math. Also, the ATM only spits out 1000's, and people don't like to make change for you, but we'll get to that soon. we headed for the taxi stand, only to find about 7 sketchy old men sitting around in lawn chairs smoking cigarettes without a care in the world. The tour books warned us about taxi drivers trying to cheat you, so we let an American couple approach them before we did to see how it went. They turned town the taxi driver's offer and headed back our way. We asked what went down and they said they'd been to Prague before and that the guy wanted twice what they usually pay so they were just gonna take the Metro. That worked for us, since we're Metro masters, so we go downstairs to the metro station. The most useless map ever is located in that metro stop. It just has the metro stops on the map, no other streets. So we had to use the curve in the river and the location of a bridge to figure out the best stop for us. Then we go to buy tickets in cryptic machines that only take change. We see a drink/newspaper stand so Mary tries to buy a coke to get change. The lady hates Mary's life and refuses by simply repeating "No no no no no". We then remember we saw the happiest place on earth upstairs, McDonalds. Mary soon returns with a coke, apple pie, and 4 crowns short of enough change for 3 one way metro tickets. Rebecca then tries her luck with the evil troll and wins the battle buy buying some "slightly carbonated" water for me. She likes to play tricks, because that was the WORST water in the history of the world. But it got us change, so we get on the metro and off at our stop.


We then begin our hike to the hotel. It looks like only a hop, skip, and a jump from the metro stop, but it was more like a lunge, trip, and a crawl. The cobblestone streets made pulling the rolling suitcases like dragging a kicking and screaming child. We soon lost our will to live, but after going around a few wrong turns (Prague streets are a bit confusing and we have yet to master their coordination with maps), we make it to the hotel. The place is cute and cosy and the home of the smallest elevator ever. Seriously it's only big enough for one person and a suitcase.



Our place has 2 rooms and a bathroom. Rebecca and I share a room that has the same double bed as in Paris, and Mary got the VIP suites with the couch and single "bed". I say "bed" because we think it is a retired masseuse table on wooden pegs that fall off occasionally. So at about 5:30 this morning, Mary switched to the couch and never looked back. The bathroom door makes a horrendous sound when you close it, so we have to warn each other when it's about to happen. This is usually done by screaming.

After a little recovery time from the hike from hell, we hit the town. We head towards Old Town and the river to look around and find food. We happen upon the biggest party of the evening in the Old Town Square...EuroFest. Czech is playing Turkey at 8:45 and there is a huge screen, a band stand, kebabs/hot dog and beer stands everywhere, and pretty much the whole town. So after watching the astronomical clock strike 6:00 (at each hour, the rooster crows on this big clock, then some windows open and the 12 apostles pass by to scare the devil away), we get some food and settle into our spot on the ground with the the rest of the people. We happen to sit next to a Canadian family with 2 cute little boys, one of whom must have been teething or already in the wrong crowd because the mom gave him a sip of beer (should out to Steph and the Canadians everywhere haha). The band soon started and sang mostly songs we couldn't understand but sounded fun, and then some ones we knew (YMCA, yes Rebecca and I stood up and did it). Then there were some really funny people by us who brought masks like Nacho Libre wore in the move, put them on, fake wrestled, danced around, and took pictures of each other. The game started and then everyone was on their feet. We looked around when we did this and realized that the number of people had quadrupled since we had gotten there. It was crazy! Unfortunately, the Czechs didn't win (they were up 2-0 and then lost 3-2 with 2 last minute goals). We got slightly lost (again) on our way home, but made it back just fine.

Today, June 16, we got moving around 9:50 (breakfast ended at 10...yikes!) and enjoyed a slightly less extensive breakfast spread, but still good (fruit, cereal, bread, jellies, cheese, coffee, mysterious beverage we termed yellow water). We then went to Prague Castle. We hiked up quite a few steps to get to it, but luckily we arrived at the front gate just in time for the 12:00 changing of the guard, which we heard was the most impressive one. It consisted of 2 groups of soldiers marching around, some trumpet and drum playing, and a lot of precise movements. Quite impressive. They also have the guys who can't smile or whatever when you stand next to them so I got a picture, of course. We toured the Castle until 5:30. There is an amazing cathedral, a convent, an old palace where there used to be indoor jousting matches, a basilica, a cute little street with shops, and some intense gardens.


The whole castle doesn't look like the traditional castle as it was added onto as time went on and they weren't too concerned with everything matching. While there we had a traditional Czech meal, goulash, which is like a beef stew. I had the goulash menu (aka combo) which came with cabbage soup (amazing) and cheesecake. Mary and Rebecca then had to roll me out of the place.



So now we've finally found an internet cafe, after walking around in the rain asking people, so we have quite a sense of accomplishment and now that I look back on it, we have an internet addiction. Anyway, we're planning some of our future outings. We're looking into a ghost tour, a marionette show, some sort of funny mime show in a blacklight theater, and more goulash.

Some fun signs along the way. This one says that basically you can not do anything.


This one tells us to fall down the stairs in our hotel.



How Rebecca gets around Prague...