It’s early morning, I walk David as far as the bankomat (ATM) so I can get cash to pay for my hostel and he continues on his way to the bus station and Riga. It’s really a shame, too. I kept joking with him during our crazy day that I was going to be completely stranded when he left since I didn’t speak ANY of the local languages. I had no idea how right I was.

So anyway, near Vilnius is a little resort town called Trakai. It’s in the middle of several lakes and there’s a castle on an island.

Castle and boat...

The Lithuanians go there for summer holiday and it’s fairly inexpensive to get to from Vilnius, so off I go. I catch a bus and plan on just wandering by myself, seeing the castle, then heading back, where I’ve got my own 18:30 bus to Riga to catch. I should know better by now.

I get to Trakai, head into the Tourist Information office and grab a walking tour map and head in the direction of the castle. At one point I stop to read what my guide says and I notice a girl, who had been taking pictures, is leaning over my shoulder and looking at my map. Of course, I shift slightly so she can have a better view and we start talking about the route to the castle. Well… we sort of start talking. She’s Russian, from Moscow, and only speaks Russian. Then I meet her two

Natasha, Dimitri and Svetlana

friends, who also only speak Russian. This is the first time of the day I wish David had stuck around. Figure that every time I say something like “we tried to communicate” or “I wasn’t quite sure what she said” I was wishing David were with me. The reason for this day long wistfulness was that I ended up spending the whole day with Svetlana, Natasha and Dimitri, who were all on a day break from acrobatic school! We did a lot of gesturing and pointing and talking slowly and going back and forth and somehow we managed to communicate all day long. Svetlana and I were the photographers in the group (not that the other two didn’t have cameras, but we were the ones

Almost falling in

who always had them out – especially Svetlana) and we were trying to find all sorts of interesting angles and different looks for things. She and I kept looking at each other’s screens, seeing how the shots had come out.

As we approached the castle, they got stopped by a guy who led sailing boat tours around the island. It was obviously more than I could afford by myself, but with the four of us pitching in, it wasn’t that bad so we went on a boat ride and got even more cool shots.

Me on the boat

Me and Svetlana

Then, inside the castle itself, they had mock-ups of cages and stocks and various other tortures. Naturally, we got pictures.

Back in Vilnius, we all decided to have dinner before they took off in their train and I went to Riga. Originally, we were going to go to a crepe place but for reasons unknown to me, we ended up at McDonald’s. While sitting outside eating

Me in the stocks

(Svetlana refused and got bananas) Natasha got very angry about America’s incursion into all things foreign, specifically McDonald’s (which, I found out from Imbi, is called Mackers in Australia). She was quite irate, which was actually kinda fun. Natasha had decided early on that she couldn’t be bothered trying to work it out, so she taught me a few Russian words and spoke to me in rapid fire Russian. I’m sure if I had stayed with them for two more days, I would be fluent – out of necessity if nothing else!

The McDonald's controversy

Afterwards, goodbyes were said, emails exchanged and I got on my bus for Riga. The bus driver was on a bit of a power trip and decided unlocking the bathroom was just something he couldn’t be bothered to do, so I spent 4 ½ hours needing to pee! The one stop we had, I didn’t have the money for the pay toilet. I finally went in Riga, before I left the bus station, and headed off to find my hostel.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention last night I did my laundry in the sink! I borrowed some washing powder from Imbi and then soaked and scrubbed my unmentionables. This of course meant that this morning as I was running around to try and make my bus I left all my undies drying on the rod.

I did make the bus, though, so that’s good. It was about an hour to Bratislava, which is the capital of Slovakia, former country partner with the Czech Republic (the split in 1993). It’s a small place, whose skyline is dominated by a 95 meter tower called the UFO. Naturally I had to go up to the observation deck. I figured I’d do this first thing (after arranging to take a tour later in the afternoon). It was great. Quite a neat little place. There’s a restaurant and bar inside and then you can take an extra few flights up to the observation deck which is outside. It was incredibly windy and I figured I’d have a coke light and just enjoy the view for a bit. Then I found out about the free wifi. So I was able to log in and upload a blog entry, all while feeling the tower shake from the wind (and the large trucks, since it’s built over a freeway).

Me at the castle

Bratislava itself was okay. It was a nice a little city (in fact, their motto is “A Big

I just like this one

Little City” – Reno may have some copyright complaints) but I didn’t want to spend more than the day I was there. I did wander in to this weird little children’s interactive circus museum. I still have no idea what it actually was, but It was amusing. I took pictures (I know… Jaq taking pictures, how odd!)

The other thing which bears mentioning about Bratislava, though, is their dedication to public art. I don’t know if you’ve seen those weird compilations which are flying around the internet of odd statues around the globe, but a number of them are in Bratislava (although I did see one in Berlin). I’ll bet you can’t guess what I did when I saw all these really cool statues!

(did you guess right?)

Tomorrow is my last day in Vienna. I’m gonna get to that one museum I wanted to go to and then I’m taking an overnight bus to Krakow. But I’ll probably stop at McDonald’s and upload these last few entries and keep everyone up to date.

By the way, thanks for worrying. Makes a guy feel loved.

What a day! This was probably the best day I’ve had so far, mostly because of the company. Last night I met these two other travelers – Jenni and Jim. Jim is a rock singer from England and Jenni is an agro-economy major from Finland. We ran into each other in the lobby of the hotel and struck up a conversation. Then Jenni’s friend Marcus, a Swede studying economics whom she was waiting for, turned up and the four of us had a bit of a chat. They decided to join me on my excursion outside city limits to visit Kutna Hora and the famous Ossuary there.

As you’ll recall, I was also supposed to go with Tracey from my tour the day before. Well, I never met up with her at the metro station so it was just the four of us on the trip. Things started off on the wrong foot because Tracey had the slip of paper we had gotten the day before which told us train times and the name of the city we were going to. All I could remember was the that the train was supposed to leave for wherever it was at 9:47. Thankfully, Jenni had her trusty Lonely Planet guide to Prague (checked out from her public library) tucked away in her bag. The day excursion to visit Kutna Hora was listed so we could go to the ticket agent and point and hope to get our idea across. This was a good thing since the ticket agent didn’t speak any of the several languages Marcus or Jenni spoke (between them they spoke Swedish although Marcus is also fluent in German and French, Jenni in Finnish and they both speak excellent English, which is good because that’s the only thing Jim and I speak). We finally arranged for our ticket, but of course, it was printed in Czech so no one could read or understand it. And while the ticket had our destination listed as Kutna Hora, none of the trains on the board were listed as actually GOING to Kutna Hora so again, we were in a bit of a quandary (for those who have never travelled by train, there’s a big board which lists the train number, destination, departure time and track number – you will often see people standing around, looking at the big board, just waiting for their train to be listed so they can run to the right track). While there was a train listed as leaving at 9:47, it was going somewhere different and we couldn’t figure out our train number. Finally, we decided to just go to that train and ask someone working if it was right.

We arrived just as they were making a last boarding call, the train agent, who, honestly, looked and acted as if she missed the old communist regime (back when people knew their place and the trains ran on time, Comrade) gave us dirty looks and yelled at us to get on, that yes indeed this was the right train. We jumped on board as it started rolling away and tried to find seats. We took up residence in an 8 person compartment which was only occupied by one other person (who didn’t speak any English) and we were on our way.

Arriving in Kutna Hora, we headed off towards the church where the ossuary was located. It was about a kilometer from the station. We decided to walk because, well, that’s what you do. We stopped at a little café for a sandwich (Jim and I had neglected breakfast at the hostel) before moving on. When we got to the church, we had to walk through the cemetery which was adjacent first. Jenni was a little skeptical, not being a cemetery kind of girl. But we made it to the entrance just fine. Once inside, though, things were a different matter. See, this place had somehow become known as a good place to bury victims of the plague so eventually, the cemetery started to get full to overflowing. No one quite knew what to do with the corpses so a monk figured he’d do arts and crafts and started to make flowers out of the bones. The ultimate project was completed around 1870 and now there are the remains of over 40,000 people used as decoration inside this little church. I hope these pictures do it justice because it was awe-inspiring. Obviously, none of us had seen anything like it and immediately, we all knew the trip from Prague had been worth it. But now, as long as we were already in Kutna Hora, we figured we’d head off into town and see the sights (the ossuary is about 2.5km from the old town center). Off we went, walking (because even though we’d been offered a ride for 30kp – about $2 – we figured it wasn’t that far to walk) and talking and generally following signs which seemed to point to the town center.

Would have been better off if we’d had a map. As it was, we just wandered, trying to keep our bearings by always heading towards the spires of a certain church. We found out later, this wasn’t a church that was even open! We also realized later that we did, in fact, have a map! It was inside the ever-present Lonely Planet.

We finally made it to the town center square where we stopped for a beverage and to rest our feet. Thanks to Jenni’s phone, which has a pedometer, we knew we had already walked about 6km. The main information center was just across the way, with a replica of an alchemist’s lab in the basement. Of course we had to see that! (for those wondering, an alchemist is someone who tried to find the Philosopher’s Stone and turn lead into gold). It was okay, but not great. We also discovered the train schedule for our return (that’s right, we didn’t know the return schedule when we left Prague!). Discovering we had about two hours to kill, we headed off to find more old things to take pictures of. And they were everywhere! No matter where you turned, there was some statue or fountain or stone work which looked ancient and we took pictures of all of it (no, I’m not posting them all here). There were also these green signs with pictures of the various monuments and arrows, so we tried to find as many as we could, playing a sort of artifact scavenger hunt, but since most of it was written in Czech, we could only guess if we got the right thing (The Stone Fountain, for example, wasn’t a fountain at all and the Plague Column I don’t believe actually existed).

By the time we made it back to the train station we had walked a total of 15km and we were all dead tired. And hungry. We figured we’d come back to the hostel, refresh, then meet up for dinner (we did stop at the McDonald’s at the station to get something to tide us over until a full meal could be had later on).

Dinner was in the Old Square in Prague. Jim had found a nice place, with traditional Czech food, the night before so we decided to try it out. Unfortunately, as we realized quickly, since the place was right in the heart of tourist central, the prices were inflated and the square was filled with a giant TV screen and thousands of people watching the Euro 08 match of the evening (Sweden v Russia – Russia won 3-0 Sorry, Marcus). We ended up at a nice place around the corner with the nicest rude waiter any of us had ever encountered. It was late when we got there and by the time we were finished eating, the staff all wanted to go home, so our waiter was slamming the bill down, demanding payment (in a nice way) and ended our night there with a firm “Thank you – GOOD NIGHT.” We left. We could take a hint!

Before heading home, though, Jenni wanted to see the Rock Cafe. Not to be confused with the Hard Rock Café which had only opened the day before (and then just the gift shop and bar, the restaurant is gonna take another few weeks). No, the Rock Café is a local venue and Jenni has a dream of opening her own someday so she likes to check out the clubs in other cities. No problem. We found the place (again, the map issues meant a few wrong turns, but not as many as in Kutna Hora), went inside just in time to see the evening’s band packing up. But now, we were very close to where The Dancing Building was located. This is a modern construction designed in part by Frank Ghery and I wanted to see it. As we were walking there, however, we passed the 20km for the day point, which signified a drink, so we stopped in at a bar before seeing the building.

And then home again… back to the hostel for a night cap and time for Jim to change his plans. He was going to leave Prague on Thursday but decided to stay an extra night so we could all hang out again. Then he and I are going to take the train together on Friday into Munich, Jenni is going to fly home to Helsinki (I’m gonna visit her on my trip up the Baltics) and Marcus is staying until Sunday so he can catch up on anything we missed.

Today started a little rough, but I made it out the door and down to the Old Towne square in time for my tour. Unfortunately, my tour never showed up. Thankfully, there were several other tours going so I picked one at random and away we went. This one was nice as there were only four people in the tour including myself and the tour guide was a Prague native who was very enthusiastic, if a bit scattered at times.

We set off after watching the Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square ring in the hour. The pictures are the clock and the various figures. I’d taken video of the event, but it didn’t come out, so you don’t get to see it. After that, we headed up the hill to the Prague Palace, the oldest working palace in Europe. When we got up to the top though, I came to a realization – what I’d been taking pictures of, thinking it was the palace, was not. Sure the Palace was up there, but the big impressive thing, I should have known, was the Cathedral of St. Vitus. And it is impressive! Even more than the architecture and stained glass and all that, it’s impressive because it houses the remains of five different saints, including St Vitus. St Wenceslas is also there, as are three others. We got the story of St. John of something who was a priest and refused to give up the queen’s confession to the king so the king had him thrown from the Charles Bridge. Before he hit the water, though, five stars encircled his head and he was whisked up top heaven. Now, there’s a statue of him on the Charles Bridge and you can rub one side of it and make a wish and if you don’t tell anyone what the wish is, it will come true. Yes, that’s me rubbing and no, I won’t tell you what I wished for. (I did take a picture of the wishing plaque by itself so if you want to wish and rub the computer screen, I won’t say anything and neither will St. John).

Oh yeah, as you enter the palace, there are two guards standing sentry on either side of the gate. Like the British ones in front of Buckingham Palace, these guys aren’t allowed to smile or talk or move or anything. They do this for an hour at a time. Every hour, though, there is the changing of the guard.

Saw a few more sites, heard about some more churches, then headed down to the Jewish Quarter… the original ghetto. Got the background on Jews in Prague, found out the six synagogues which remain in the old Jewish Quarter are now all part of the Jewish museum, which is the most visited museum in Prague and got the story about Rabbi Loew, who created the Golem to protect the Jews of Prague and is buried here in one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Europe.

After our tour ended, Tracy, a south African living in Edinburgh, and I grabbed a bite to eat then headed off to the Museum of Instruments of Torture! Three floors of racks, manacles, spikes and chastity belts was pretty interesting. We both decided we didn’t understand how human beings could actually come up with this stuff. But then again, a lot of the commentary mentioned these instruments were used in Germany so really, in World War II, they were just refining what they had been doing for centuries. Sadly, they didn’t allow photographs – and with that many torture devices around, I wasn’t going to risk it.

As we headed back to the Old Town Square, we stopped in a shop I had been in last night. I bought more art. I know! But it’s cool art. Need to find frames when I get back.

Tomorrow there’s a couple of people from the hostel and me and Tracy and we’re all gonna take a day trip to see a church made out of human bones. After that, I might do the night time ghost tour.

Hope you’re all having fun without me. I miss each and every one of you reading this. Some of you more than others. And yes, that means you.

PS: They have hockey here!

For me, night in Prague started as morning in Dresden. Still wasn’t feeling it when I left this morning. The guy in my room was odd and as I was leaving, he started talking politics and it felt like it was gonna get a bit anti-Semitic so I just walked away. I had about three hours to kill before my train left so I just wandered for a bit, had some breakfast then got my big bag and headed for the station. Got there with time to spare so I sat and filled out a few post cards and listened to my book on tape.

The train was uneventful, but crowded and I ended up sitting next to a Norwegian who teaches the language to Hungarians and Czechs. We had a little chat and I caught a bit of a nap and by then, we were in Prague.

I must admit, stepping off the platform, I thought I was going into a third world country. It was run down and kinda scary looking. Add to that it was pissing down rain and I mis-read the sign to the hostel and I was not off to a good start. But I finally found the place, the girl behind the desk was Canadian (from Winnipeg no less) so she spoke English and I started to feel better. I went to my room, which is rather nice, up two flights of spiral steps and I put my room key into the slot on the wall to make sure the electricity worked. It did. I picked a bed (I grabbed the one next to an outlet so I could type while reclining), dropped my bag off and decided to wander around.

I’ve gotten into this pattern, such as it is, that when I first get into town, after checking in, I take a look around, see what’s where and just generally breathe in the atmosphere. This time, I was settled around 4:15-4:20 so there was still plenty of light and time before retiring for the evening. I grabbed a map and started walking. The Hostel is a bit of a walk from the center of town (not far on the tram though) and after walking for a bit, I hopped on said tram to finish my journey. I missed the stop I was intending to get off at, so I jumped ship at the next one and knew if I kept heading towards the river, I’d be okay. See Prague is divided by a river (a lot of these European cities seem to be that way – coming from Vegas the thought of founding a city near a good supply of water is such a foreign concept to me). So I’ve got a general idea where the river is and I head that way. Now, I’m also hungry. Then I see a sign for McDonalds. I know, I know…you’re in Prague, biggest city in the Czech Republic, probably home to some great restaurants or at least some decent local cuisine, why would you even pay attention to McDonalds? Well I’ll tell you. But it starts with the refrigerator story.

See, a long time ago, when I was in college in Salt Lake City, my friend Lorin Nelson and I were at the zoo watching a sea lion show. As is my wont, I asked Lorin how many gallons of water he thought might have been in the tank. Lorin asked me how many refrigerators would fit in the tank.

Yes, I was as confused as you are now. Naturally, I asked him why? What did that have to do with anything. Lorin responded that his father had once built a 100 gallon aquarium out of an old refrigerator, so if we knew how many refrigerators would fit, all we’d have to do is multiply that number by 100 and we’d know how many gallons in the sea lion tank.

While not the most practical method, nevertheless it is interesting. If you have a common thing which you know and understand, you can then use that to measure everything else against it. So it is with McDonald’s. And not just the food, although it is interesting how different countries do burgers in different ways. No, it’s also a monetary thing. Prague is not on the Euro (at least not completely, most shops have both listed, but it’s not an exchange rate thing) they are on the Kronur. So… if I go to McDonald’s and see how much a Big Mac Meal is in local currency, I can judge, roughly, how much that is in American dollars and whether or not it’s expensive. So that’s what I did and yes it was.

Once I’d eaten, I mailed the post cards I’d written and just started strolling the cobblestone streets. I figured I was heading the right direction when I started passing souvenir shops…and more souvenir shops. Then there were some souvenir shops. It wouldn’t have been so bad except 90% of them sold the same stuff, and 90% of that stuff was Venice Beach-style t-shirts. Yes, I saw a Kurt Cobain shirt here!

Earlier, I had passed an information center and had stopped in to ask where the post office was (very friendly lady told me and guess what? Open until 7pm!). While there, I picked up tourist info flyers, like the kind I love to get from Motel lobbies. There was one for the Black Light Theatre, which looked interesting. I only mention this because as I’m skedaddling along what do I happen to see? Oh yes, the Black Light Theatre. And the show on at the moment? “Aspects of Alice,” an interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. I immediately queue up to buy a ticket!

Now I have an hour to kill before the show starts so I decide, maybe if I can find a souvenir shop I might take a look. I actually find one selling some cool Kafka and Golem paraphernalia and buy a couple of postcards, then I see a sign for The Godot Gallery. I figure I have a few minutes… So I go in and the art is fantastic! I’m not gonna say I made any purchases, but if I did, they were probably worth it.

Then I went to the play. It was an odd construction, kinda like Cirque light, with black art techniques. There was really no story-line and I’m still not sure what it had to do with Alice in Wonderland, but it was very cool. Wasn’t very long, either, an hour twenty-seven minutes with a ten minute intermission. Still… worth it!

On the way back to the Hostel, the rain had stopped and there was a rainbow over the city. I hopped a tram, missed my stop, walked back, and then headed to the basement bar here to hop on line and watch Germany defeat Austria 1 nil.

And now, some random pictures… (the first one was teh first thing I saw upon leaving the hostel and the sign post? well that’s for Troy. Tomorrow’s entry should have more specific shots since I’ll know more of what I’m looking at.

So Dresden…

Nice place, but everything is in German so while I could appreciate the architecture and art, I had a difficult time putting a lot of it into historical context. Mostly I took a bus tour (with English narration on headphones) and snapped a lot of pictures. And then, when I went to look at The Blue Wonder, the oldest steel bridge in the area, it started to drizzle… and then it started to pour. It was coming down incredibly hard! I had to go out in it in order to catch my bus and by that time I was cold and wet (and hysterical – thank you Gene Wilder) and decided to come back home.

Just wasn’t as drawn into Dresden like I was Berlin. There were certainly some fairy-tale houses and some nice castles, but I think I was expecting more war stories and damage from the bombings and instead, it’s a charming little town. Tomorrow I’m off to Prague.

So anyway, here are some pictures… I think there are some nice ones in this batch.

So, being back in Berlin there were a few things I wanted to see and do… the first being to get my camera fixed! There’s no way I can undertake a trip like this without a camera. So I hit a store called Saturn, which is the German equivalent of Circuit City and asked if they could fix mine. Not exactly. It could probably be fixed, but not there. They’d have to send it off to the factory. They did, however, have the exact same model in stock so I picked up another one (I really like this camera). The advantage here was that I now have a European charger and an extra battery. Disadvantage, of course, is I have an extra box with the old camera which I’m gonna need to send back to Olympus when I get home and then sell one of these camera’s on E-bay. Oh well.

From Saturn, Bec, the Australian tourist, and I went to the TV Tower. It’s one of the tallest structures in Europe with an observation deck and a rotating restaurant. It really dominates the skyline. Built in the 60s or 70s it was a huge piece of propaganda for the East Germans. They wanted to show off their technology. To do this, though, they had the Swedes help them. The Swedes did something rather ironic in the construction, however – See, when the communists came to power in the divided city, they had all the crosses cut down off all the churches. What they didn’t count on is what’s become known as “The Pope’s Revenge” on the ball of the tower. When the sunlight hits it, the prismatic facing splits the bean into a perfect cross, shining down over Berlin!

While I was up there, I mapped out a little tour for myself. Bec and I went to Alxenderplatz, a square where parts of The Bourne Identity were shot, said good-bye, and then we each headed our separate ways. I made my way down to the New Synagogue, a rebuilt temple from the 1860s which was destroyed in the bombings (it was saved during krystralnacht by the local police chief who defied the Nazi thugs and has since been memorialized within the Berlin Jewish community). Now, the temple houses a permanent exhibit on the history of Jews in Berlin and a rotating exhibit hall with other events. Security to get in was the tightest I had yet encountered. There are two armed guards outside the front door (I later found out they are there 24 hours a day) and an airlock style entry system. Someone inside buzzes you in, then once the outside door is closed, an inside one can open. After this, you have an airport style screening of bags and metal objects.

The permanent display wasn’t bad, but I was mostly interested in the reconstruction of the building and the Jewish population before 1933. I wanted to know where these people came from before they were sent away. The father of music in the Jewish service was from this synagogue and there was a whole display case devoted to him and his work, including a sheet of German stamps from when he was honored in that way. Finishing up on the ground floor, I headed upstairs to the cupola, a huge, gold filigreed dome. Again, spectacular views but not a lot to see on the inside. It could probably have been another exhibition space (or maybe it will be on the future).

From there I took a LONG walk down past Brandenburg Tor to the Reichstag. On the way, I revisited some of the sights I had seen on my Famous Walk tour so I could further appreciate them when I didn’t have any time pressure on. The Reichstag also had security, very similar to the Synagogue, but that’s understandable considering this IS the main government offices. As far as visiting it goes, there’s really on ly one place to go once you’re inside, and that’s up. On the roof of the building is a massive glass dome which houses a double spiral walkway for climbing up and down. From within, you can see most of the center of town. Now, just to put things into an historical context, the Reichstag caught fire in 1933 and led directly to Hitler’s consolidation of power. The fire itself was blamed on the communists, but popular theory holds the Nazis did it.

It had been a long day by that point so I headed back to the hostel, figured out my new room situation (there had been a screw up in regards to my reservation because of the delay in Paris – and ultimately I never did get charged for my last two night’s stay), did some laundry and went to bed early.

Friday morning, bright and early, it was gray and drizzly outside. This is what Berlin was supposed to look like! I headed out to see if my buddy Kenny was leading the Third Reich tour. He wasn’t, but I decided to take it anyway. This time my guide was Mike, who had studied twentieth century European History at university (he was a Kiwi by birth) and so he knew his stuff. Our tour ended up running an hour and a half over because there was always more information for him to impart. There were a few places of overlap but for the most part it was all new. We started by going inside this bombed out church I’d been staring at for days. The inside was gorgeous. If I’d realized I would have gone inside sooner. These pictures just don’t do it justice. The church itself was bombed during the attack on Berlin at the end of the war (when the Russians dropped more bombs in 16 days than Berlin had gotten in all the previous bombings the rest of the war – which was no small amount to begin with). The decision was made to keep it as it was as a shrine to the 60,000 Berliners who died as well as a reminder to the children of Berlin to not start anymore wars.

From there we saw the memorial to the Russian dead in the Battle of Berlin (built from the recycled stone taken from Hitler’s Chancellery) and a brand new memorial to the mentally ill and physically handicapped who had been shipped off and executed. There is a push on now to remember ALL those who died in the Holocaust so memorials are being built for the Gypsies, homosexuals, Catholics, etc… A lot of this tour was looking at bombed out buildings or photographs of buildings and listening to stories. We did go to the office where the resistance movement within the government itself started. This is the story being portrayed in the upcoming movie “Valkyrie” starring Tom Cruise. No one in Germany is particularly happy about since scientology is considered a cult over here. Last Sunday, at Potsdam Palace, there was a memorial tombstone for the gentleman whom Cruise will be portraying. The office, by the way, is now the resistance museum and is quite interesting. I actually picked up a book on it while I was there.

After the tour, I went to the memorial for the Jewish dead. It’s in two parts, the first being the above ground city block covered in over 2700 specially made concrete blocks meant to symbolize the pebbles placed on the gravestone. The second part is underneath (again, a rather stringent security check – I found out that even after all this, just under 3% of the population still votes for the extreme right. Raising your hand in a “heil Hitler” salute or displaying a swastika are grounds for up to 10 months in jail). It is a look at the families the Nazis destroyed and how the camps were set up as well as a historical time-line of Nazi Germany. There was one room with nothing but excerpts of letters from people about their situations. It was so very quite in there.

After that I needed a bit of a break, so I tracked down the bus terminal and bought my ticket for Dresden then went in search of the famed Aquadome I’d heard so much about. I found it, a 75 foot high aquarium, suspended in the middle of a Radisson hotel atrium with an elevator running through the middle of it. Unfortunately, it was closed. So I had dinner at a nearby restaurant and watched the Italy/Romania game on TV.

Saturday morning I woke up early, packed my bags, checked out of the hostel and went to find Kenny. He was leading another Famous Walking Tour so we made plans to meet up later in the afternoon and I decided enough of history – no more dead things today… today, I’m all about the living. So I went to the zoo! Instead of writing about it, I’m just gonna show you my day at the zoo…

(I’m gonna make a movie tomorrow that’s gonna go here)

Okay, that’s not exactly true. After the zoo, which is the world famous Bahnof zoo and where Knut, the baby polar bear lives, I went back to the Aquadome and went through the Sealife aquarium. As an aquarium, it wasn’t bad, but there was an octopus exhibit and a hall of mirrors with aquariums around every other turn. I got lost a few times and had to double back. The zoo itself was nice, and seemed bigger than it actually was. I wandered it without a map (I know, very unusual for me, but hey, isn’t that what this trip is all about?) and found most everything I think. It’s not as big as San Diego (but then, what is?) but it is set up along similar lines (but thankfully not similar hills).

Upon leaving the animals, I met up with Kenny for a drink before catching my bus to Dresden, which is where I’m writing this entry. So now I’m caught up. Maybe I can start actually working on my own stuff now, huh?

And at some point, I’m probably gonna do a post of pictures of things which don’t really have a place but were cool and I snapped them.

First things first… how could I forget that Kenny, my tour guide for the walking tour, is also a Marillion fan! He’s originally from Scotland and we’re just chatting away and then I say I’m a fan of This Scottish singer named Fish at which point he starts quoting Marillion at me. Me! He’s quoting Marillion at me! The conversation continues and he’s a writer, MFA from a university in Scotland and has been working on his novel for a few years. Needless to say, I could have a friend for life here.

Something else I’m wondering about… am I not being introspective enough? I mean it seems to me I’m just delivering a travelogue, a running guide to my fun-filled days. Yet there’s a lot of stuff I’m thinking about during these days, about the society and culture I’m wandering through and I don’t know if that’s coming out or not. So anyway, if you want to know more about what I’m thinking, just let me know.

Now, getting back to what happened on Monday… On the tour I met and talked with a number of people. You already met Kenny the guide and Miki the Jew. Then there was Bec the Aussie and Elsie the Token Black Girl. Elsie became my photo buddy on the tour itself. See, one of the problems with travelling alone is that you never end up in any pictures because there’s no one to take them of you unless you ask. Si since Elsie and I were both on our own, we took pictures of each other. Elsie is from Ghana, originally, but has lived in America for over 10 years and was in Berlin for just a week while her father was attending a conference. So during the tour, she complains a bit about wanting to see Paris while she’s over here. Me being me, I jump in with “let’s go!” So she comes out after the tour (all told, there were 9 of us that went out for drinks after the tour) and we continue talking about going to Paris. Since we’re not that far from Berlin Hauptbahnhof (the central train station) we walk over and check the times of the overnight train. It’s an 11 hour trip, leaves at 9:30pm and gets into Gare du Nord in Paris around 8:30am. Then there’s a return train which leaves Paris at 8:45pm the following night. We figure we can go to Paris, spend around 10 hours there, then hightail it back to Berlin. Two nights sleeping on the train and BAM, we’ve seen Paris! So we agree to meet at the train station at 8:45 that night and away we’ll go.

We meet up, buy our tickets, and ask about the return. Our ticket agent recommends waiting until we get to Paris as the return will be less expensive from there. No worries (although this WILL come back to bite us in the ass). We get on the train, in a compartment with six seats and two other people, and we’re on our way. The ride there is uneventful and we hit French soil running (kinda like the invasion of Normandy). Grabbing a quick bite to eat, we also grab maps and make a plan: Notre Dame first, then the Louvre and the Eiffel Tour. Of course, our first hitch comes while we’re in line for Notre Dame when someone in line points out that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays (for those playing the home game, it’s now Tuesday, June 10^th). No problem, we think and enter the cathedral.

It’s stunning. It’s huge and beautiful and still an active church. It’s not as crammed as Westminster Abbey, which is incredible in its own way. Instead, there’s a sparseness which is refreshing. This isn’t to say there’s not a lot to see, there is, but it’s not as in your face as other well known churches I’ve been in. When we were inside, there was a choir group of young girls singing on the altar and the acoustics were spectacular. We wandered around for a while, Elsie, a catholic, took a moment to say a prayer, and then we went outside again. Yes, the inside was cool, but what about the hunchback? What about the gargoyles? What were those people lined up against the side wall for?

To answer the last question first, the people were lined up to pay a fee (the main cathedral is free, with donation boxes EVERYWHERE) to climb the towers. Well, we didn’t come this far to back down now (especially since the Louvre was closed and we had extra time on our hands). So we got into line, started talking to the mother and daughter in front of us and, naturally, the daughter knows Elsie’s sister back in Ohio – the small world principle at work. Eventually, we get to the front of the line and head up. And up. And up some more. There are a lot of stairs here. Daylight finally breaks in and we find ourselves on the balcony, on gargoyle row, I’m impressed by the view, certainly, but then I turn and see the most famous gargoyle in the world – the monkey-thing with his head in his hands. For the first time this trip (and not the last, I’m certain) I’m sorry I don’t have my good camera with me. I did take a few pictures and spent a good number of minutes just staring. Gargoyles are just really cool and these are where they all come from. So that’s the second question answered. As for the first, the Hunchback, he’s actually very important to the history of the cathedral itself. The building had fallen into disrepair and was being used for storage and livestock and it wasn’t until Hugo’s book that people began to take an interest again and the preservation and renovation truly began. In the gift shops in the tower (not the church, mind you) there were a number of Victor Hugo items. They know the debt they owe.

But gargoyle row is not the end of it. Nope… there’s more stairs which lead to the top of the tower where the view is of the whole city. At last we get a really nice view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance and we’re able to plan our afternoon. We look down and see the river Seine and the huge, flat barge boats, bristling with seats, which are showing people the sights. We decide to do that and then hit Mr. Eiffel’s creation itself. Getting to a boat tour was an adventure in itself, involving long walks, crossing bridges and braving tour groups of small children. We do all these things and spend an hour resting on the water, gazing in longing as we lazily cruise past the closed Louvre. That’s okay, we’re fine, we have a plan. Off the boat and off to the tower. When we get there, there are ticket booths at the base of all four legs. Elsie looks at me and says, “we’re taking the stairs.” I attempt to argue, but secretly I know she’s right. Even if I was there myself I would take the stairs. I think that’s part of the joy of it, climbing up the legs to the second observation deck (you can’t climb all the way to the top, but more on that in a minute). So, complaining all the way, I follow Elsie up the stairs. About 150 steps in , I notice the stairs are marked every 10^th one. This makes it easy to mark your progress (as can be seen by the following series of pictures).

700 steps later and we’re at the second level. We realized there was a much missed marketing opportunity (and, let’s face it, they didn’t miss much in terms of kitschy souvenirs) in that there were no t-shirts proclaiming “I climbed the Eiffel Tower” or “I made it all the way to 700” something…anything to commemorate the achievement. To get to the top, though, you have to take a second elevator (even those who took an elevator to the 2^nd floor) at an extra charge. And the final push? The jump from 2^nd floor to roof? Another 1000 steps. We weren’t even half way up the thing! So we paid our money and took the ride. WOW! The view is unbelievable! There’s even a room up at the top where Eiffel used to entertain guests and dignitaries (it’s set up in diorama with Thomas Edison presenting Eiffel with an original phonograph). After we filled our eyes and cameras, it was time to head for the train station and our ride home. It had been a good day in Paris.

But since things can’t run smoothly, our train was sold out. There was nothing we could do to get home so we sucked it up, bought tickets for Wednesday and found a cheap hotel near the train station. Since we had some extra time, though, and we booked our ticket again for the overnight train, we had time to see the Louvre.

We only had two things on our agenda for Wednesday – The Louvre and the Arc d’Triumph. I figured we could do the Louvre until we were “arted” out and then move on. Elsie agreed and away we went.

The Louvre is huge! All told, we were there six hours and didn’t even scratch the surface. I could go back a dozen more times and still not see everything I wanted to see. On this trip, though, we started at random and got halfway through the first room before I broke down and ran back to the front to get the audio tour. All of the descriptions were in French and I needed to know what I was looking at! Now, with audio tours slung around our necks, we chose to go on a “guided” tour of the Italian renaissance, which included the Mona Lisa and several of Michelangelo’s sculptures (as well as a lot of other things, but we figured we’d hit the high points). It should go without saying that the art is amazing. So is the building and the layout and everything else. The Mona Lisa is indeed smaller than I thought and honestly, a bit disappointing. I listened to the commentary so I now know why it’s important, but because it’s SO famous the crowd in front of it was worse than the one outside Michael Jackson’s house awaiting news of the verdict. Also, it’s roped off so you can’t even get close enough to actually look at the painting. Yes, we both got pictures with our heads in the foreground and the smiling lady in the frame, but… eh.

My favorite art was the sculptures. I’ve included a few I really liked, including Winged Victory which is my absolute number one, but not the Venus de Milo (which is pronounced with the short “e” sound) because, somewhere in there, I broke my indestructible camera. I was handing it to Elsie to take a picture of me and it dropped, at which point the screen would no longer work. I made her take pictures of me for the rest of the day so hopefully she’ll email them when she gets home. All in all, we did a lot of walking and climbed up and down many more flights of stairs. At this point, if there was one word to describe Paris, “stairs” would be it.

We had lunch in the museum café, which I’m only mentioning because they had the best tiramisu EVAR! And then left for the Arc d’Triumph. Remember yesterday when I talked about the Brandenburg gate and how important it was and how impressive? Well it ain’t nothing compared to this monstrosity. You cannot fathom its size until you are standing below it. It is 150 meters high, and almost that many wide. If we had had more time, it is possible to climb the inside and get on the roof, but we were exhausted and it was getting close to time for the train. So back to Gare du Nord and again, we were in a 6 person compartment with two other people, one of whom was a photographer named Barbel (I haven’t looked her up yet, but she was really funny). I fell asleep fairly quickly, but was woken up when the train was stopped to throw off a couple of guys who were traveling without tickets and were accused of stealing stuff.

We were back in Berlin by nine in the morning on Thursday and I was ready to begin my day!

When we last left our intrepid explorer, he was thinking of taking a walking tour of the city on Sunday morning. And honestly, that was his intent when he went out to the McDonald’s to meet the tour group. However, instead of talking the “Original Famous Walk“, I got talked into taking the Potsdam Palace walk. Potsdam, referred to by our tour guide Lauren (that’s her in the big, red hat), is like Disneyland for the royals. In actuality, it was a huge area of land used by the various Prussian monarchs for their palaces. It was something else. Huge gardens and fountains and vineyards, oh my!

The first palace you come to is the biggie, the one the whole area is named for – Sans Souci. Evidently, it’s the one on all the post cards. There’s a long, garden lined walk, which leads up to a huge fountain with Koi in the surrounding pond. Further up from there is the vineyards and orchards, done in a steppe formation so Kaiser Friedrich the second (I think that’s right, there were a lot of them) could ride his horse by and just grab a piece of fruit. Pretty stunning area.

When we got closer, you could see that the palace wasn’t actually built to last. Instead, it was up hastily but it looked good. Now, though, a couple hundred years later, it’s falling apart and needs something like 800 million Euros in order to get it all up to speed.

So we toured around the castle, then hit a few more castles… These people built castles on a whim. The statue of the winged angel is in front of a castle that William Frederick the second had built for his sister, but she thought it was too dark so she never stayed in it.

From there, we headed into the village of Potsdam, which at one time was very chichi (shishi? xixi?). Anyone who was anyone wanted a summer house where the king had his, so there are a lot of huge mansions in the area. Also, the former KGB HQ for Berlin was there.

When that tour was over (and it was a loooong one) a few people from it and I went on a boat cruise down the river which runs through the middle of town (the Spree), followed by a nice Spanish dinner of tapas and paella.
The next day was time to actually take the Famous Walking Tour! Got up and headed down to McDonald’s for the 10am rendezvous and met Kenny, our Scottish tour guide. This was the tour to really introduce the city and it was well worth it! Kenny gave us background on the city itself, we hit a lot of the major tourist sites and learned a fair bit about the war and the divided city. Honestly, Berlin is amazing in what it has contributed to Western culture over the last 160+ years. Not counting the obvious, evil stuff, there’s a university here which has produced 27 Nobel prize winners, where Einstein taught and first presented his Theory of Relativity and where Marx came up with his original ideas of communism when he was a student there! And it’s right across the street from the plaza where the Nazis gathered the works of 350 writers (about 20,000 volumes in all) and burned them. The monument, shown here with one of my infamous shadow self portraits, is a room under the ground, filled with enough empty bookshelves to hold all 20,000 books which are missing. That particular plaza was well chosen since on one side was the University’s library and the other has a world class opera house where Albert Speer hosted an end of war party. They were playing music while the guns of the Russian army could be heard 30 miles away. At the end of the concert (for high ranking Nazi officials and sympathizers) he had little Hitler youth handing out cyanide capsules. Hell of a guy! It’s actually rather interesting, to see the dichotomy of people when trying to promote their city and denounce the bombings which took place and how wrong that was against the atrocities of Hitler and the Nazi regime. For instance, the tour makes a stop at Hitler’s bunker, but takes great pains to point out that now it’s a car park and there’s nothing to memorialize it save a poster showing how it was laid out.

From there, we hit Checkpoint Charlie, which has been demolished and replaced by a smaller version, manned by acting students in military uniforms, there to provide photo ops for all us tourists who want our reality diluted into easily modified digital images. Of course, I ponied up my Euro and got between the “Russian” and “American” and smiled pretty, knowing this wouldn’t have been possible a short number of years ago. In fact, the reality is recent enough my friend Ginger remembers going through the ACTUAL checkpoint with her family.

We went from there to see an actual piece of the wall, still standing. It was a bit intimidating. We learned a bit of history about the wall itself, how and why it went up, all about the kill zone and the importance of the Brandenburg Gate (which was inside the kill zone and a symbol for a divided city, country, continent).

Right around the corner from the Brandenburg Gate is the Reichstags – basically the seat of government. The picture here is the front of the building and Kenny the guide. a few days later I actually went inside, but more on that in a different post.

Finally, on this installment (because I’m getting tired and there’s much more to tell), I need to talk about Miki, a nice English girl, an accountant, who was on the tour with her friend Pete.

Why is it important I mention her? Because she was the only other Jew in the group. I spotted her and asked if she was Jewish, at which point her friend Pete said “How do you guys do that?” It was funny.

In our next installment… Paris!

I have arrived safely in Berlin. There were many adventures along the way. They will be described, along with pictures, shortly. For now, know I am safe in the Berlin train station with directions to my Hostel.