Amsterdam

Ciao Tutti,

We arrived in Amsterdam at 5:00 AM and walked to our hostel from the bus.  We immediately fell back asleep and woke up for our tour at 11:00 AM.  

Amsterdam is a beautiful city – something I did not expect as all I had heard about Amsterdam involved marijuana and the Red Light District.  It has so much character and history.  The city started as a trading port and immediately grew.  The Red Light District was a product of its environment – a bunch of sailors only in town for a day or two.  I just absolutely loved walking around the city looking around.  It has so much character.  The government made it illegal for people to tear down the facades to their houses; you can only renovate the inside of your house.  The product of this is a beautiful city.

Something else I learned on our tour was that people pay taxes on the width of their houses, so the houses are very narrow.  I even saw a house that was only one meter wide!

That is a "Coffee Shop" next to a Police Station.  While I did not smoke, I could definitely appreciate the humor!

A very interesting thing to have in front of a Catholic Church.  While we were looking at it, a police officer came by and said he loved this statue.

These are called "Pee Shields" to keep men from urinating against a building.

Our Bus2Alps Tour Group

After our tour, some of us went to the Anne Frank House.  Unfortunately for me, it involved climbing ladders so I had to wait for my group to go through and then we met up and went back to the hostel.

That night, I took a tour of the Red Light District of Amsterdam.  This was very interesting as I learned a lot about the history of the industry as well as the Red Light District today.  In the year 2000, prostitution was legalized in Amsterdam and is now a fully taxable industry.  The girls rent out their windows for €75 to €150 a night and pay taxes. 

I was surprised to learn that Amsterdam is trying to improve its reputation.  The government is buying windows from the Red Light District and allowing upcoming designers to display their clothes in the windows.  They bought back something like 61 windows for €51 million.  There are also movements to make it illegal for tourists to smoke weed.  I don’t see this happening as the marijuana industry pumped €4 billion of revenue into the Netherlands last year alone.  That would be a huge blow to the Amsterdam tourist industry.

On Wednesday morning, I ate a really good waffle covered with chocolate icing and sprinkles.

After my Breakfast of Champions, I took a canal cruise around Amsterdam and had a blast.  I saw one of the main ports of Amsterdam and our boat even went out onto the sea. 

The smallest house in Amsterdam.  One meter wide!

 

After the cruise, it started to pour, so I went back to my hostel and hung out in the bar with a few of our trip-mates.  It only rained for about an hour, so after it stopped raining I bought my souvenirs and walked around Amsterdam for a bit.

That night I went with a few people to a pancake place called “De Carousel.”  It was so cool.  It was basically a restaurant that revolves around a merry-go-round.  The pancakes were phenemonal.  I had “The Carousel” which consisted of one pancake with cherries, strawberries, bananas, kiwi, melons, pineapples, vanilla and strawberry ice cream, powdered sugar, and whipped cream.  It was way too good. 

We left for Paris at 9:00 AM the following morning.

Ciao,

Mike

Berlin

Hi All,

All in all, I had a great time in Berlin, but was a bit disappointed.  The main reason I was disappointed was because we only had one day in Berlin and that was on Monday – the day when all the museums are closed.  This meant that other than walking around the city and taking a walking tour, there was no way to gain any further insight into the city’s rich history.  I definitely want to go back at some point (not on a Monday) to delve deeper into the storied history of Berlin.

That being said, I still had a great time in Berlin.  Given that we only had one and a half days in Berlin, I definitely did not have time to relax.  We arrived at the hostel at around 3:30 PM on Sunday night.  The hostel was in a great location, so I walked around until it got dark on Sunday night exploring the sights and sounds of the city that once divided and reunited the world.   I saw the TV Tower, the place that the Stasi Officers did most of their spying from, and many other beautiful buildings.  I also had Dunkin Donuts again - the restaurant I miss the most from back home.

After it got dark, I went back to the hostel to meet up with the rest of my group.  About half of them went on a pub crawl that explored the alternative side of Berlin that Berliners love so much, but I went with the other half of the group to get sushi.  It was my first time ever having sushi because I don’t like fish, so I cheated and got a spicy chicken sushi.  It was really, really good.  They gave us so much sushi that we could not finish it!

On Monday, we started the day off with a tour of Berlin.  We walked past the TV tower again and then saw Museum Island where most of the museums of Berlin are located.  As I mentioned earlier, all but one were closed.  The only one that was open was an art museum and I am saving what little attention span I have for art for the Louvre in Paris.  After Museum Island, we saw the Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny which is very general on purpose.  The Germans did not want to exclude anyone (including Nazi Soldiers) from this monument.  Underneath the monument, there is the tomb of an unknown concentration camp victim and the tomb of an unknown soldier.  Every foreign diplomat stops there when they are visiting Berlin.  We also saw the University where Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin, and Albert Einstein studied.  The plaza in front of the university was the site of an infamous book burning after Hitler came to power where he and his propaganda ministers oversaw the burning of books by Jewish and homosexual authors.  After this, we walked to Checkpoint Charlie which was so cool.  This was the crossroads of the East and West for a significant part of the Cold War.  Then, we stopped to try a piece of traditional German street food – Currywurst.  Then, we saw a piece of the Berlin Wall and learned some of the history behind it.  It was constructed during a period of 57 hours.  After this, we went to a piece of grass in a parking lot which was the spot where Hitler’s bunker was.  They have absolutely no sign or anything to commemorate it.  I was very happy to see this because they do not want to attract any Neo-Nazi followers.  After this, we saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which was really eerie.  Walking through it, I felt lost, claustrophobic, and alone – three traits they felt in the concentration camps.  The tour ended at one of the oldest and most famous sites of Berlin - Brandenburg Gate.

Checkpoint Charlie

Curryworst

Berlin Wall

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Brandenburg Gate

Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of German for the Victims of War and Tyrany

I don’t know why, but I was surprised that Berlin was just like any other city.  It had big buildings and very little historical sites.  This was because most of Berlin was destroyed in World War II.

After the tour, half of our tour group decided to do a tour of the “Alternative Side of Berlin”.  I really wanted to take a tour that explored the rise and fall of Hitler and the Third Reich, but it was not being offered.  The Alternative tour was interesting as I was able to gain insight into the world of graffiti and now better understand it.  Now, I don’t think I’ll look at graffiti as just something that dirties up a city any more, but as a form of art.  I also took some really cool pictures.  We went to an old abandoned building that was all graffitied inside and out and saw the East Side Gallery.  The East Side Gallery is a part of the Berlin Wall that world famous artists painted murals of peace after the wall fell in 1989.  They were really cool and some were very risqué. 

East Side Gallery

East Side Gallery

East Side Gallery

East Side Gallery (Yes, this is the risque one.  I have no idea what it means)

East Side Gallery

After our tour, our group met up and went to a traditional German restaurant.  I had the best beef goulash I’ve ever had.  It was so tender!  I also had apple strudel.

Beef Goulash

Apple Strudel

After our meal, we headed back to our hostel to grab our bags for an overnight bus trip to Amsterdam. 

Ciao,

Mike

Praga (Prague): Day 2

Dobry Den!

Prague was amazing.  It was a great surprise as I was not expecting to have such a great time in the city because I knew so little about it.  I am starting to lean more and more towards coming back to Europe next summer to backpack.  There is so much in this world to see and I feel so much more enlightened having spent only two days in Prague!

As promised, here are some pictures of our hostel:

Yesterday, after our hostel’s amazing American style breakfast buffet, our tour guide took us to the Lennon Wall.  While Czechoslovakia was under a communist government, this wall was one of the ways that the Czechs were able to express their displeasure towards the government.  They mainly wrote phrases or drew pictures on the wall to express their hopes for peace.  Many of these were related to songs by The Beatles, hence the wall’s name.  Initially, the police kept painting over the wall saying it was unacceptable, but the owners of the wall told the police that it was fine and asked them to stop painting over it.  It became a symbol of rebellion against the government.  What was written on the wall when I was there was not what was written on there during the communist regime, people are always writing over what people wrote the week before.  My tour guide said she noticed a lot of things that were new from when she was here last week.  It was a very cool concept.

After the Lennon Wall, half our group went to eat at a traditional Czech restaurant.  It was very, very similar to German food and a German restaurant.  I suppose that makes sense given that the Czech Republic is bordered on the north by Germany.  I had beef goulash and potato pancakes.  The food was good, but the atmosphere was even better.  The restaurant was huge and had an older man playing an accordion. 

After lunch, we took a tour of the Prague Castle – the largest castle in the world!  It was not exactly what I expected as it was not just one big building that was the living quarters for the king of Prague, but a whole complex that was open to the people of Prague for things like church services, welfare, or jousting matches.  I was most excited to see the Rose Window in the church.  I had heard so many things about it and it was beautiful!  We also learned about monks that brewed their own beer and about how one of the towers of the castle was built after the others, so it was completely different.  Two are gothic and one was baroque – it looks really weird!  I don’t know what they were thinking.  The castle also had some beautiful, panoramic views of the city!

After the Prague Castle Tour, a few girls who are studying abroad in Siena and I went down to the Saint Charles Bridge to go souvenir shopping.  I found the two souvenirs I am collecting – a Prague shot glass and a book of postcards.   We also took a few pictures of the bridge.

Now that we are on the bus to Germany, I had a bit to reflect on my time in Prague.  A few things really intrigued me:

1. It's beauty.  I was not expecting a former communist state to be so beautiful.  From what I have heard, however, most of Prague was remodeled after communism fell with financial aid from the West.
2. How Westernized Prague was.  I think Prague was more Westernized than a city like Rome.  From the consumer goods industry, I saw far more stores and chain restaurants here than I would expect to find in Italy.  I found a TGI Fridays, Starbucks, McDonalds, Adidas, Target, IKEA, Subway, and many other stores.  I also was able to get Arizona Iced Tea, one of my favorite drinks from home, in my hostel.  I also had a Starbucks Iced Coffee.  My theory behind the amount of Western establishments in Prague is that after the wall fell, all these companies tried to gain entrance into this new market that always had desire for luxury goods, but for the past 40 years they were unable to do so.  It was as close to guaranteed money as you could get!                                                                                                                                                                              
3. Communism.  It is so refreshing to hear first hand from people who lived under it that communism did not, does not, and will not work.  All of the people who were giving the tours were passionate about their hatred for communism and socialism.  This, combined with what is going on right now in Northern Africa, makes me even more proud to be an American.  We helped and are still helping improve the quality of life for people all over the world!

After we crossed into Germany I saw snow for the first time since I left home which was great!  I felt like a kid again!  The views on this drive were gorgeous.  Other than getting pulled over by German police for a passport check and the fact that our DVD player is still not working, the drive was fine.

We are finally Berlin – the city that divided the world and then re-united it!  I can’t wait for the history lesson of a lifetime I am going to get over the next two days.

Ciao,

Mike