Day 6 Germany

The sixth day was good. We went downstairs for a light breakfast, and then we were off on the Walking tour. We went to the New Town Hall where we saw the Glockinspiel which I thought was pretty cool. Then we went to the huge Munich Cathedral which was really big. It has the largest two towers in all of Munich. Then we walked by the Opera and learned about Hitler leading a revolution. We learned how the Nazi party was able to manipulate so many different people. We saw the old palace of the King. We really didn't see much but our tour guide told us a bunch of stories. It was kind of cool. Afterwards we went by the Haufbrauhaus again, heard all about it and I got a quick liter of beer from the place across the street because the Haufbrauhaus was so busy. Then we walked to St. Peter's church which was really pretty before heading to one last Biergarten. It was a good tour and I learned a lot. But we were hungry after the tour was over so we went to the Haufbrauhaus, I got a liter of beer and four wiener sausages. Paige got Pork knuckle and Kevin got a wurst platter. It all looked good and mine tasted pretty good. Kevin got a pretzel for us all to split and it was amazing. I've never had a pretzel that good. My sausages were tasty and the beer was so good, I got another liter. Then we went to the English Gardens and I got another liter at the Chinese Beer garden and that wasn't as good as my last two. Then we went back to the hostels where two people we met came over and hung out at the hostel bar with us. It was a good night. 

Day 5 Germany

The fifth day was tough. I had stayed out until close to 1 AM the night before and I was tired but I woke up at 6 AM and went on a nice little jog, then I showered, and then we turned in our keys and we were off for the train station. We had some trouble getting to the train station because it turns out the trams in Dresden are a little more difficult then what we immediately believed. We were quite confused and essentially decided to just walk to the station. It wasn't that bad of a walk, except it was kind of hot so we did sweat a good amount. Then when we arrived we got some food and some drinks and just hung out waiting for our train to arrive. It took its sweet time and was actually a little late but we made it to Munich after a grueling 6 hour train ride that included one transfer that I didn't think we were going to make. The train was fine, actually it was the nicest one we had been on yet. We got some food from the restaurant car and we had a good old time. Paige pretty much read and slept the whole time and I talked to Kevin and slept the whole time. I also kind of wrote this blog. Bavaria is a pretty cool place to ride through although I didn't take many pictures because a lot of them didn't turn out so well. It was hard because the light reflecting off the windows always left marks on the pictures. But it was nice to see. Soon we were in Munich. The first thing we did was check in to our hostel which was really nice and then Paige and I got some Burger King which was even nicer. Then we headed to the grocery store to pick up some waters and then we were off to the Beer Challenge. I know what you guys are thinking: what is the Beer Challenge? Well my friends it is simply a pub crawl where we got 2 free beers and one shot of Jaegermeister. Except we didn't crawl from Pub to Pub. We crawled from Beer Hall to Beer Hall. We first talked about beer and how it was so important to the people of Munich and how to toast and everything. We also got a beer to walk with on the way to the beer hall, because it's legal to drink beer in public in Germany. That was really nice. The first beer we went to was the Pauliner, there I got a nice half-liter of their best liquid gold. I drank it down and then we were off to the Haufbrauhaus (the largest and most famous beer hall in the world). There none of us got a drink because it was so crowded we couldn't get a seat. Then we went to the next place which was actually a beer garden or Biergarten. It is the largest Biergarten in the world, known as Augustiner-Keller. It was huge and awesome. I made some new friends, got a liter of their finest beer, got a huge pretzel and went to town. It was good, like really good. After wards we headed to a hostel bar, which actually sounds weird but we got some Jaegermeister, and a few beers to end the night. All in all it was a pretty good night. 

Day 4 Germany

The fourth day I woke up and went on a nice run early in the morning. Then I took a shower and we walked to a cafe for some breakfast. It was interesting. Afterwards we walked to large opera house and took in the view for a little bit. Then we walked right next door to the Zwinger Palace. It was a huge beautiful palace that we enjoyed walking around. Now it 3 different museums all in one. We paid for a combined ticket and got to see all three. We first saw the porcelain museum which was filled with thousands of priceless pieces of porcelain, all hand done and bought by the various Kings of Saxony. This was Paige's favorite, then we saw the museum of physical and mathematical instruments, which was mainly clocks, globes and other odd devices. This was Kevin's favorite. Lastly we went to the last museum, the Old Master's picture gallery. This was my favorite and there were tons of beautiful paintings. Whether they were landscapes, portraits or biblical paintings, they were all great looking. I really enjoyed it. 

After the Zwinger, we went to lunch at a nice Italian restaurant. The waiter only spoke German and Italian, so I got to break out my Italian. It felt really good because I feel like Americans get looked down on for not knowing any other languages. Since I know little German, it's nice to break out the Italian every once in a while. I got spaghetti carbonara, paige got a salad with mushrooms and Kevin got the gnocchi. Everyone liked their food. Afterwards we went to a gelateria and got some gelato which everyone liked. We finished out gelato and headed to Dresden Castle. Once there our combined ticket let us get into every exhibit except one. Some of them were really weird but by far the best one was the exhibit on Medieval weaponry of Dresden. It was awesome but they didn't really let us take any pictures! It was terrible! Cool that I got to see it, not cool that I didn't get to take pictures. After the weapons exhibit we went to see the New Green Vault which was like an exhibit on a bunch of treasures in Dresden. It was pretty cool. I liked it. We saw the Dresden diamond which was like 41 carats. It was cool. Afterwards we got some beer, and walked the terrace and then watched the river. It was really pretty. Then we went to a beer hall for dinner and I got a bratwurst that was really good. Then we headed to a different beer garden for more beer and it was really good. We had like 2 liters there and I loved it. Afterwards we chilled at a cafe until it got late and then we called it a night. 

Day 3 Germany

The third day was a little crazy. I woke up a little hungover, and decided to get McDonald's for breakfast to make myself feel better. I got the McDonald's at the train station as we waited for our train which was going to Dresden. The train did not work out the way we needed it to. We got on the right train although we did not get reservations and pretty much all of the compartments were reserved. So we kind of either stood or sat in the hallway until we found a compartment that was only half full and we sat down in it. We stayed there until the end of the train ride. We talked to these two Australians about our journey and everything we had seen. They told us where they had been and where they were going. We reached Dresden and then switched trains and got to Newtown Dresden. Dresden is set up so that the Old town is on one side of the river where all of the historical sights and the New town is on the other where all of the bars and hostels were. It was a great set up and although we had a little bit of trouble finding our hostel, we learned how to use the tram and we got there. The wifi was super spotty so we didn't really get to do much there. The first thing we did was go to this place called Pfund's Molkerie. It's actually a dairy store that is supposedly the Guinness world record holder for being the most beautiful dairy store. Anyway people come there to do sightseeing and we saw it and we're not that impressed. We spent like 5 minutes in it and Paige didn't even buy any cheese even though she said she really wanted some cheese. She just said it was too expensive. So we kept going. 

The first place we went was to the old town Frauenkirche. The Church of our Lady. We walked through the church was pretty and it was pretty much Brand new. It was removed in the Second World War and was completely destroyed. The pile of rubble was used as a peace memorial. After East Germany fell, the people of Dresden wanted their church back, so from all private donations, they rebuilt the church. It was finished in like 2007. It looked good and Paige and I got to take an elevator to the top of the dome and look out over the city of Dresden. After the tower we went down to a Beer Garden and for ourselves a few beers. Then we left and walked to a cafe in the new town. While in the new town, Kev ordered a milkshake which was so weird. It was like milk, and whip cream and milk was like sweetened and it was all room temperature. It was weird. I got another beer and Paige got wine. Then we went to this weird burger restaurant where they messed up my order but the burger was pretty good. After that we went up and went to bed. 

Day 2

The second day, I woke up at around 7 and went on a nice run. I saw some beautiful sights right on the side of the river:

This was actually a monument to Karl Marx, I believe:

I really thought some of the architecture was amazing:

This was probably the coolest building I saw:

This was like a Coca-Cola, I don't know if it was a factory or museum or what it was, but it was there:

During my run there were small sections of the Berlin Wall that I saw:

It was really nice. Afterwards I went back and showered and then i went to breakfast. Breakfast in a European Hostel is never amazing but it is usually an all you can eat which I personally love. They typically serve deli meats, cheese, hard boiled eggs, bread, and sometimes even fruit. A lot of Americans do not like this breakfast. I definitely did not at first. Paige does not like it. I personally ate a ton of food and wasn't hungry for the rest of the day. I thought some of it was pretty good too.

Our hostel was kind of in an odd place, there seemed like there were those businesses and the beautiful river right near by and there were parts of the wall left as a memorial. It was pretty cool all together. Although some parts right near my hostel were pretty crappy:

I don't think I've ever seen a place more spray painted then Berlin:

It was kind of dirty and people were literally right on the sidewalk doing illegal drugs, it was crazy. Not the best area I think:

Then we all went to the free Berlin walking tour. It was pretty nice. The tour started at Brandenburg gate and it was really a pretty good tour:

We saw the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby out the window:

Brandenburg gate is actually very large:

Our tour guide Amy reminded me of a friend from school. We saw a lot of impressive things but most of it was just Amy telling us stories because almost everything had been destroyed in WW2. There were some interesting things that happened. The next thing we saw was the Jewish Holocaust memorial:

We were not sure if we were supposed to be smiling for the picture at a place like this;

We saw the headquarters of the SS, and we saw the location of Hitler's bunker:

After the tour we went to a church, that I believe was called St. Mary's Church. It was a pretty church. Afterwards we went upstairs to the top of the dome and looked out with a beautiful view of the city. Then we headed out for a quick lunch. I got lasagna which was pretty good and I couldn't even eat it all because I had already eaten so much with breakfast. Afterwards we went through the Neues museum. We saw all sorts of cool things. There was an Egyptian exhibit, a Greco-Roman exhibit, a cave man exhibit. I thought the whole thing was pretty cool. Afterwards Paige and I went up to the TV tower. The views were amazing at 203 meters up. We saw almost anything we could ever want to see in Berlin. We also got some beers and just sat there, drinking and looking out over the city. After we went down we went back to our hostel to change. Then we went out for a pub crawl. I had a 2 liter boot of beer from Berlin and it was a really awesome time.

To go to Germany

So it's been a long time since I last traveled. Almost a year and the travel bug was biting again. I needed to get out. I needed to go somewhere. The only question was where? By now I've done two study abroad for three months each. The first was in London and the second was in Florence. I've also traveled from the United States to Italy two more times in addition to those study abroad. All together I've spent about 29 weeks in Europe in my life which I feel like is quite a bit. I feel like I know it pretty well. I wanted something new. A place I've never been. I began to look on sky scanner all the time for a flight somewhere. Eventually I decided that I would go back to Europe but to a country I had never been to. I decided on Switzerland. Most of you reading this are probably thinking: "what is he talking about? Switzerland? He's in Germany!" Well at first I worked out all the prices that I would go to Switzerland did a ton of research on how much the flight would cost, how much the hostels would cost and how much the rail pass would cost. I worked it out to the fact that it was a pretty manageable price. After that I began to just think about something else. I'm young with almost no responsibilities. I'm not married, I have no kids, I have no dog, I don't have my own house and I don't even have a big boy job. So why don't I just go. I knew that I would have to buy in advance in order to get a good price and there would be a lot of planning involved but I knew that I could do it. But due to my economic problems I thought it would be a better idea for me to maybe go someplace cheaper than Switzerland because even though the Switzerland trip can be pretty cheap, I could go somewhere for a cheaper price so I decided to look for a nice place to go. I came across Spain but then I didn't know if I would like it or if I could find enough people to go with me so I decided to look into Germany. I worked it out and came up with an itinerary that made the trip look like it would be fun and affordable. The itinerary itself was pretty long (about 13 pages) not only that but I also found put the information on every place we were going (the location, the hours, the entrance price, the closest subway stop, a description of the place, and a picture).  Not only that but also all of the stuff that we had made reservations for (our hostels, our plane tickets). It all turned out to be around 250 pages. I read all the information and did all of the searches, so I probably spent about 75-100 hours on the planning. So it's safe to say that I've been pretty excited for this trip since I've started planning it which was in November. 

So my friend Kevin Harris and my cousin Paige were the only two people who decided to come with me to Germany. I was kind of surprised. This trip was close to $3,000 cheaper as compared to a trip organized by a travel agency. I thought it was a really good deal and I expected I would have to set a limit on the amount of people that I could take with me. It didn't work out that way. I'm pretty happy traveling with both of my companions. I've traveled with them both before and I knew that they would be good to travel with. 

Paige is my age but she's born in July so she's technically still 21. She got a degree from Franklin and Marshall and she's quite hilarious. I traveled with her once before when we went through Italy together after our high school graduation. My grandfather takes every grandchild on a trip to Italy as a gift for graduating high school. I learned from that trip that Paige is a good traveling partner. 

The other companion traveling with me is my friend Kevin. Kevin is my age and studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. We both studied abroad together in London. I traveled with him to Prague and all around Scotland and know as a fact there are very few people I would rather travel with. This trip will be difficult. We are going to be traveling together for a long time. 

We ordered our plane tickets in November which were so cheap. It was about $660 to fly round trip from Dulles with a final destination of Berlin. This is where the trip first starts to get difficult. We are cheap so we decided to take the cheapest flight which includes a layover... in Moscow. So we have a 9 hour flight which includes us flying over Berlin to get to Moscow. There we have a 4 hour layover and then it's off to Berlin on another 3 hour plane ride. Like I said, it's gonna be a tough trip. 

We also ordered a rail pass (second class, because it's cheaper for 7 days of travel). We ordered that in like March and we booked all of our hostels. We had to pay 12% of the price for the hostels before we left. We also got insurance on our plane tickets. So before we had even gotten to Germany we had spent over $1000 on the trip. 

The trip really started when my friend Kevin showed up. He took a vacation with his grandma to Washington DC which happened to be the week before we left for Germany. So he spent a week seeing some of the coolest things in DC (a lot of which I have never seen) before I picked up from his hotel two days before we left for Germany. We just kind of hung out for those two days. Mainly just sitting inside and watching tv and movies because he had just done a week of sightseeing and was about to do two more (intense) weeks of sightseeing with me so we just chilled. 

The worst part was about 6 days before we left I started to get a little ear infection. That could be disastrous when I about hop on 4 different planes in a two week time period. So 5 days before the trip I went to the doctors and they gave me some pills and some drops and then I waited and it still hadn't cleared up. So the day that I left for Germany, I woke up early and went to Urgent Care and they fixed my ears right up. 

I actually didn't start packing until about 10:30 the night before we had to leave. But I got it all packed by just throwing random stuff together in about 30 mins. I even got a new haircut the day before so I would look good in all my pictures. 

Then the day of the trip was here. I started it by going to Urgent care for my ear. Then coming home, showering and then eating breakfast. After that we got a quick picture and we were off to the airport. 

We got there with plenty of time and even beat the rush for the lines to check our bags. Unfortunately, the night before I had tried to check in to the flight but I was told there was a technical error. So even though Kevin had gotten to check-in (he had booked on the same website as me) I was not able to and neither was Paige. So we went to the airport anyway and we're getting ready to check in then. We were all ready and suddenly Paige and I were unable to be checked in or anything. We were taken over to a manager and she explained the situation in a tough Russian accent that was difficult to understand. Our flight had changed times and the company had failed to give me a new reservation number for the new flight. Paige had a different company but apparently hers had failed to get her a new reservation number either. So we were kind of stuck on the side of the line trying to call our travel agencies and get on to the flight. It was not going well. The first time the lady hung up on me. The second time they kind of hung up on me after I asked them to hold on. I also could not understand the people I was talking to cause I think they had a strong Indian accent. All together it didn't work out too well and I would not recommend faregeek to anyone. So Paige finally gave the phone with the person from the travel company to the manager of the check in table at the airline. The manager berated the travel company and ultimately decided to check us in by calling her boss in Russian. It was awesome.so we got our tickets to the flight. And we only had about an hour to get through security and get on the flight so we hurried through and while we did that I called all of my credit cards and told them that I was headed to Germany and that they should expect foreign charges from there. My dad gave me a card to use for emergencies but it turns out it was an old card but luckily the people at Capital One venture worked with me and I will be able to use my card in Germany and Russia (Yes!). So I got to call everyone. I got to buy some snacks at the airport, I managed to go to the bathroom, call my beautiful girlfriend and get on the plane and everything. It was great. Now I'm on the plane in an aisle seat, with a Russian lady who lives in Florida next to me talking to me every once in a while (which is pleasant). She told me about how Russia is very safe, better than the U.S. to live in and how Russia didn't take over any countries, those countries wanted to be part of Russia. So I was like "cool". Her 24 year old daughter is on her other side and they got into a large, loud argument in Russian. Paige is in front of me and Kevin is behind me and now I've been typing this for almost two hours so it's time for me to watch some of these free movies!

Day 1 Germany

So the first plane ride was pretty uneventful. We hit a lot of turbulence and I managed to watch 3.5 movies before the end of the flight. The first movie I watched was Kingsman, which was pretty good. The second movie on the Kevin Selby watch list was Night at the Museum 3. It was pretty funny and kind of sad but I thought it was a great little movie. Then I watched the first hour of Horrible Bosses 2 before we were cut off and I really have no idea why they cut us off from the movies like a half hour before we land and it kind of drives me crazy. The food wasn't that bad but it definitely wasn't great:

I went to the bathroom on the flight like 3 times but other than that it was a pretty uneventful flight. One of the coolest things about this flight is that they put a camera underneath of the plane and when we were taking off or landing all of our monitors went to that camera so we were all able to see the plane take off and land just like if we were the pilot. It was a little crazy and a little scary, but I really enjoyed it:

Then we landed in Moscow. At first I was a little scared to go through Moscow but it was actually a pretty sick airport. It had at least two TGIFridays and it had a lot of cool stuff. It was just really small. So we went through the airport and found our gate. Paige was excited:

then we decided to hit one of those TGIFridays. The menu was a little difficult to understand but we all got what we wanted:

We were just happy to be there:

I got a big beer and it was pretty good. I also got a type of chicken sandwich and that was pretty good:

We all actually got beers:

I got another beer because we were just sitting there having a good time and I was really really tired: 

So I got an espresso shot. That might not have been a great idea because I couldn't get any sleep after we finished eating:

After we sat in the airport for a little bit we learned that our gate had changed so we went to our new gate and instantly got in line. Paige decided to get some shut-eye while we were waiting. Just you know, sleeping on the floor:

We boarded the plane with no problem and I sat next to Paige. It was only a 3 hour flight but it felt a lot longer. I slept a good amount but every single time the flight attendants would walk by, they world bump into me. So it made it hard to fall asleep. Plus, there was a crying baby on board. So I got a little sleep but not much. Paige got plenty:

I don't think Kevin slept at all:

I was expecting it would take about 2 hours to get through customs and get our stuff but it really only took 25 minutes:

I also expected it would take us close to two hours to get to our hostel and find it. Instead, it took us like 40 minutes. We had plenty of time and we got to our hostel with no problem. We went out to a small German restaurant where we got some beers:

and we tried Curry Wurst. Curry Wurst is really not that great, it actually seemed like it was a hot dog smothered in like a thick ketchup with a little bit of curry sprinkled over top. It really wasn't that amazing. Then we went back to the hostel. The hostel had these huge rabbits and it was kind of cool:

We had a few drinks and met some friends:

Then I finally went to sleep at 1 AM which was crazy.