MPD

Thursday morning, I woke up in time to have breakfast, which ended up being four dry pieces of toast. I really wouldn’t recommend this hotel to anyone. After breakfast, I started my journey to Brussels, which was pretty eventful overall… Just lots of crying babies on a crowded train. Read the rest of this entry »

Right now, I am traveling from Amsterdam to Brussels, and to be honest, I’m sort of glad to be leaving.  Amsterdam really wasn’t very fun.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it really wasn’t a fun and happening place. Read the rest of this entry »

On the way to Berlin, I met two Korean girls, Younghee and Eunhee, because none of us were sure about which train to board. The two of them are sisters who live together in Seoul, and now they are travelling through Europe for a few weeks. Neither one speaks English perfectly, but Younghee lived in Canada for a year, so she does alright and helps Eunhee out if she has trouble.

They were not planning on coming to Berlin until Sunday, but because the B&B in Praha had so many unreasonable rules (about noise, hours, internet, etc.) they decided to leave a day early. Thus, when we arrived, the first item on the agenda was finding a hostel. As luck would have it, the hostel at which I am staying had an extra twin room available, so they decided to stay there. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m currently on the train from Prague to Berlin and have a chance to write in my journal.  In Prague, I stayed with my friend, David, at his family’s house.  The first two days, I saw the sights by myself, but Thursday and Friday were holidays, so David didn’t have to work, and we went out together.

On Tuesday, David recommended seeing the castle and cathedral area, so I started there.  The architecture in Prague is interesting because the influences were different and later than in the other cities I’ve seen so far.  The height of Prague’s power was in the 9-14th centuries, plus, the Renaissance arrived later than in Italy, so there are some great examples of really late gothic.  For example, the entrance to the castle is the largest Gothic hall built without inner supporting pillars.  Even without ornate ceiling or wall frescoes, it was pretty astounding.For a while, they held jousting contests inside. Read the rest of this entry »

Of course, not all went well… Even though I didn’t need a reservation in Munich, in Nurnberg, I did. Then, I had to get off the train and a get a reservation for the 5:40 train. Nurnberg sounds like it might be an interesting place to stop for a few hours, but because it was a Monday, all the tourist sights were closed. I could still see the walk of human rights (concrete pillars, each with one statement in German engraved), and see a big wall with guard towers. I think it must have been around a Jewish ghetto or something at one time. Now, it just encompasses shopping and museums. Read the rest of this entry »

Soon after I wrote my last entry, I decided to get lunch in the dining car (actually a pretty tasty plate of currywurst), and when I came back I started talking with the man across the table. he was from Lichtenstein, but worked managing hotels in other cities. He has been to Washington DC and New Mexico/Arizon. Mostly, though, we talked about travelling in Europe, the differences in Eastern Europe, how to learn languages, etc. Apparently, he visited Prague four days after the Berlin Wall fell. Before he left, he had to go through an intensive process to get a visa, etc but by the time he got there, it wasn’t necessary anymore. He exchanged 20 German Marks and couldn’t find ways to get rid of the money. Unfortunately, it’s not quite like that anymore. Instead, he says now Russians and Eastern Europeans are coming West and buying Swiss companies. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I’ll be traveling.  Grindelwald to Interlaken to Bern to Zurich to Stottgard to Munich to Prague.  I sure am glad that trains have so much more room than airplanes…  This morning, I woke up at 6:05 with two other men in my room.  I quickly changed, grabbed my stuff, left the key at the desk, and started my frantic climb to Grindelwald.  I wanted to be there by 6:30, and I knew that I had taken 15 minutes on my timed run the day before with no pack.  I made it, but I was breathing pretty hard as I boarded the train. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I travelled alone again; this time to Gendelwald in the Swiss Alps.  Because Gemma and Nancy needed to take Todd’s only key to him in Amsterdam, I also had to get up at 5:30 to leave…  This meant we said goodbye until September while extremely tired.

This was also the first time I experienced the real utility of the Eurail pass.  Unlike Italy, in Switzerland, Eurail pass holders need no reservations, so I could just hop on and off trains as I pleased.  I went from Lausanne to Bern to Interlaken, stopped for an hour to walk around and admire the scenery and write in my journal, then finally continued up to Grindelwald. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, Gemma and I woke up, ate breakfast, checked out, and headed off to Milan. Milan is about halfway between Florence and Geneva, our next real destination. We tried to stop at the pastry shop with connoli in the morning, but they sadly weren’t open yet.

By the time we made it to Milan, we were exhausted. Luckily, the hotel was very nice. They even gave us free internet and three beds, so I could push two of them together and have an extra large sleeping area. Read the rest of this entry »

In my last entry, I forgot to mention two events that happened between returning to Florence and seeing the Killers. First, Gemma and I saw a grocery store very soon after getting off the bus, so we stopped in to see if we should get dinner. Unfortunately, since we had no kitchen, we wouldn’t be able to cook anything. However, the family that ran the store had already seen us, and offered to make us fresh paninis. We couldn’t say no, because they were so nice. So, we picked out the bread, meat, cheese, and tomatoes that we wanted and they put together the largest sandwiches I have ever seen. Each one was a half a loaf of break cut in half for the top and bottom. They were so big that we had to take off the tops to eat the paninis. I ended up eating my top slice for breakfast the next day. Read the rest of this entry »