Our journey began on 4/3 at 3am, after I had about two hours of sleep. I was frantically ditching shirts as the taxi arrived because I KNEW I had overpacked. And I discovered that I was very right-my bag was pretty heavy at first and I think I didn’t even wear a shirt or two. We flew out of Stansted airport where Ryan Air was SO very helpful about what line to be in…not. Ryan got searched and relieved of all his toiletries. We didn’t have our gate yet so we stopped by Boots and Starbucks for supplies and then waited at the gate. Erin was smart and got priority boarding so we got an exit room with more leg room. The flight was only an hour though, and I slept through basically the whole thing. We got money as soon as we deplaned and took a bus to Hamburg. It was crowded so we ended up standing the whole 45 minutes. Good thing it was only 9 euro. We left our luggage at the train station and started walking in search of lunch. One thing I’ve learned from my travels? Never judge a city by its train station. They’re usually pretty sketchy, and this doesn’t reflect on the city as a whole! We learned this quickly when we walked out in the wrong direction and discovered we were surrounded by sex shops and the like. We figured out that the center of town was the OTHER way and quickly got out of there. We got some Italian for brunch and walked around and saw lots of towers, the Rathaus (town hall), and canals and bridges. We went to the museum which had sections on naval history, the Holocaust, culture, fashion, music, and trains. We definitely needed lots of coffee to keep up going after that early flight! We also took a little nap in the grass outside the museum-it was a perfect day for it. We went to what the map said was the largest fair in Northern Germany and had fun checking out the rides and eating Bratwurst! There was also this Renaissance-fair like area that had this hardcore bagpipe band. We caught some of them on a youtube video, and thus started a tradition of recording street music wherever we went. We then got on the train, where we discovered our tickets were first class-score! Erin had won these passes on a Facebook contest. We found a hostel for two nights and figured out the underground system to get there. We ended up having our own room.
The next day in Berlin we took a 3 ½ hour free walking tour. The guides just work off tips, and ours was a guy named George. When we were organizing for our walk, I saw one of the guys in my Art in London class and said hey. Small world! We saw so much in those few hours and learned a whole lot about the city’s fascinating history. Afterwards we HAD to get Haagen Dazs because they had free wifi. Then we did things in reverse and got some Mexican food. We made some German friends in the lobby who I tried to converse with in my broken German and then we checked out the scene in Orianienburger strasse.
On the 5th we left our bags at the train station and went to the Ancient History museums at Museumsinsel. We got to see the Ishtar gate! After that, it was time to head off to Prague. We got there and Erin randomly found her roommate at the McDonalds at the train station! We then successfully navigated our way to the hostel on the subway and tram systems. The hostel we stayed at was probably one of our favorites because it was really new and clean and had free wifi and a comfortable lounge area. The guy at reception was really nice and wanted to know about California since he wants to move to LA. We named him Joaquin Pattinson since he looked like a Joaquin Phoenix/Robert Pattinson lovechild. He told us about a club to go to…I’ll just say I REALLY felt like I was in the Czech Republic when I was there. We had a married couple and two American girls as roommates in our dorm. The girls had just met on the train.
The next day we had breakfast at the hostel, which was pretty good. We met a woman at breakfast that was anxious to leave Prague because she had an ex-boyfriend that she tried to visit and all sorts of drama ensued. We saw her again on the subway later. We took the tram and subway into town again and took a long walk through the Old Town Square, Old Jewish Cemetery, Charles Bridge, and the palace and cathedral on the hill. We stopped to go inside the Old Jewish Cemetery museum. The cemetery itself has graves going back to the 1300s and is really interesting looking with headstones going every which way because of all the layers of graves. The cathedral had beautiful stained glass windows. After we were all done with the palace grounds, we stopped to sit up on top of the hill and could see how far we walked and were quite impressed with ourselves. We were also able to eat at a restaurant right along the river and the weather was perfect for it. We had a funny moment when we were walking past a shop and one of the employees was yelling out from the door about sales etc. He takes one look at us and goes “You must be from California!” What it is about us?! How could he tell?!
The next morning we continued our trend of meeting nice people at the hostel breakfast by chatting with an Australian guy. We left our bags at the train station and headed to the National Gallery only to find that it’s close on the first Tuesday of every month for a “sanitary day”. Of course. So we just strolled down their more modern business district and had lunch on the main square. There was lots going on and they had a big market because it was close to Easter. We went up one of the towers and got lots of great shots of the city. We grabbed some gelato and ran into Erin’s roommate again. We wandered a bit more and hit up a grocery store for supplies before parking it in a Starbucks to use their wireless again. We got caught in one of our few rainstorms of the trip before having a pretty fancy dinner. Then we got on our first sleeper train and had a lot of fun trying to make the beds into seats and vice versa. The set up was pretty much three bunk beds on one side, and a sink and closet area on the other side.
On the 8th we arrived in Krakow. We all had a bad night’s sleep because of the bumpy ride. We had a hard time figuring out where to get our tickets to Vienna (the next stop), managed to mess up the locker and pay twice, and Ryan somehow lost his tour ticket but they believed him and gave him another. We had time to get a big buffet breakfast before heading out on our tour. It was about a 1 ½ hour bus from Krakow to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. We had a tour guide that showed us around the camps as well as inside the buildings. It’s hard to put into words the kind of things you feel when you’re there but I’ll try with a few impressions that I got. When the guide would state the facts and numbers about Auschwitz I would sometimes uncontrollably get the chills. When she would state how many people died in Auschwitz I just uncontrollably felt the gravity of the fact that this happened HERE. That this WAS the Holocaust since Auschwitz killed the most people. Seeing the original furnaces that they used to burn the bodies and the actual firing wall where executions took place was really hard. Another moment took my breath away-when you first walk into one room, you see a small display case of shoes. Then, unsuspectingly, you round the corner and see this whole massive ROOM of shoes. THEN, the tour guide told us that this was the amount of shoes of the people they killed in Auschwitz in ONE WEEK. I couldn’t believe it. The amount of people became very real when you could see a representation of it. The second half of the tour was at Buchenwald, which is just a few minutes away. There, most of the barracks are gone because they were wood instead of brick. All that was left was smokestacks as far as the eye could see. That camp really helped to visualize just how many people were at the camp at one time. The guide showed us the blown up gas chamber there that is still just a pile of rubble and probably looks very much like it did right after it was exploded. Another thing that surprised me was that the camps were open to visitors just two years after the war ended. There is also a large monument to all those killed there as well. You could see the train tracks that led through the camp and we were told that they extended the tracks straight to the gas chambers so that they could kill people faster. That kind of cold, calculated way of thinking how they could kill more efficiently was absolutely frightening and chilling. Overall, not a happy stop but I think really important to see.
When we got back to Krakow, I had to have pirogues…too bad it was in a mall. We then walked around the city center, wall, and park. We were pretty worn out after our long day and bad night of sleep so we hung out at a café before it was time for our train to Vienna. We were awoken when the train crossed the border into Austria by “*knockknockknock* AUSTRIAN POLICE! PASSPORTS!” When the border police guy saw our passports he was all “California! Arnold Schwarzenegger is a good president of California!” It was quite hilarious. I stupidly didn’t shower the night before and neither our night train to Vienna nor the train station had showers so we were pretty grubby. We really backpacked it and just sucked it up and washed our hair in the sink to tide us over! We took the U Bahn to the city center and came out right under the big cathedral. We got some breakfast and then headed to the Natural History Museum, which was a lot of fun. By the time we were done with that and took a nap in the park, the art museum was open so we checked that out. Then I was satisfied with lunch because I finally got wienerschnitzel (breaded veal cutlet) and sacher torte (rich chocolate cake). We walked around the city some more and ended up in a park where we saw a little kid get hit by a bike! A kid around age 13 or so was riding his bike where he wasn’t supposed to and smacked into this probably 2 or 3 year old who promptly started crying. We were all kind of in shock but couldn’t do anything. The 13 year old looked like he felt SO bad. After that we just kept walking around the city center and all the Mozart-themed tourist traps and street performers. The weather was great again so we ended up by a fountain in a park. We were a little shocked when we got to the train to find we were in a car with SIX beds, no sink or closet. Luckily we were with three very nice Columbian girls but it was pretty cramped!
Once we were in Venice we were so glad to get a hostel and SHOWER right away. Venice is a great city for just walking around and getting lost, so we did just that. I was so excited for the Italian food and it didn’t disappoint! We must have been exhausted after all the night trains and we took around a 3-4 hour nap! We went to Santa Margherita square and met some American military guys who were really excited to find some other young Americans. Somehow, we ended up playing beer pong in Venice! I don’t know how we get ourselves into these things…
The next day was the 11th and we went to the main San Marco square again and inside the Basilica. Then we trekked on over to the Guggenheim exhibit which had really nice grounds as well. We went to a recommended restaurant for dinner that had nice food but we got a really pissy waitress who wouldn’t bring our bill after like a half hour and asking twice. We had to resort to asking another waitress! Too bad that kinda spoiled the evening for us. For the rest of the trip the service was fine though.
The next day was Easter so I went to San Marco for mass, all in Italian of course. But it’s a Catholic mass, so I got the gist. It was amazing to go to mass in such a huge, beautiful basilica. It was surprisingly uncrowded so everyone must have assumed that everyone else was going there for Easter and avoided it. After I got back, we checked out and headed to Florence. There weren’t many hostels available (we were booking as we went) but we ended up at this villa kind of outside the city. It was really pretty! It was a little difficult to get to though because public transportation was closed on Easter. Besides getting to airports, it was the only taxi we took the entire time, I think, so it wasn’t so bad. We ended up staying at the Villa that night and ate a kinda cafeteria-style dinner and sat our on the porch and read.
The next day we made friends with a guy named Andreas. He’s 19, from New Mexico, and taking a year off between high school and going to college at Emory. He came with us as we did our usual touristy stuff all day. We went to the center and checked out the Duomo, baptistery, and famous golden doors. Déjà vu! We walked over the Ponte Vecchio a couple of times and went to the Uffizi where they have The Birth of Venus. We kept moving throughout the day and just grabbed pizza and kebabs and hung out back at the Villa.
The next day we tried to go to the Academia but they wouldn’t take our bags and there was a long line at the train station to drop off bags that would have made us miss our appointment so we decided to just get on the train. It’s okay though because we went to the Academia last time we were in Florence so I can say I’ve seen The David once in my life. We took two trains to the Cinque Terre. We went straight to Manarola, where our hostel was situated up on the hill. It was a sustainable hostel which means there was organic food, we had to take short showers etc. Our roommates turned out to be our twins! One was from Pittsburgh, and one was from Frederick, Maryland (where Erin, one of my travel mates was from). They kept tossing around names of people they went to high school with. We checked out the town and ate at a (Rick Steves approved) restaurant with them before hanging out at the dock area and watching the sunset. We sat out on the porch and chatted with them and Ryan’s roommate, Edward, who was from Portugal.
The next day we emailed Jamie to make Amsterdam plans and then headed out to check out the other towns. We hiked up the 300 and something steps to Corneglia. Then we went to Monterosso and laid out on the beach. I gathered up the courage to jump in the Mediterranean which was actually not that bad for April! We went to Levanto before heading back to Vernazza where we ran into our friends again and ended up having dinner with them again.
The next day it was rainy so we decided to head straight to Milan where we would catch a train to Amsterdam. We booked a sleeper and this time specified a private sleeper instead of a 6 person “couchette” like we got when we shared with the Colombian girls. We dropped our bags off and then took the Metro to Milan’s city center and just walked around and ate for a couple hours while waiting for our train. We saw their Duomo and walked through the Galleria area. People definitely are better dressed in Milan! We headed off on our 14 hour train trip to meet up with Jamie.
We figured out Amsterdam’s trams after awhile and made it to the hostel. I got an omelet for lunch which made me extremely happy. Erin had a mix-up when paying and somehow lost a 50 euro note, which sucked. And poor Ryan was really sick and couldn’t stop sneezing! So he went back and took a nap while Jamie and I went to the Anne Frank house. It was really amazing to be in the area where she hid-I felt claustrophobic after an hour, I couldn’t imagine never leaving that place for months! They had her original diary there, which was really cool. Ryan still wasn’t feeling well when we got back to the hostel so it became a girls night. We had Chinese for dinner and then kind of wandered around the Red Light District, just taking it all in. You have to see it at least once if you’re in Amsterdam! Prostitution is legal and regulated there, and the girls rent out a window that they stand in as people walk by. It’s really strange and I felt like I was in the locker room and shouldn’t stare. Definitely a unique experience!
The next day Jamie left early and we went out for breakfast near the Anne Frank museum. The canals in Amsterdam are really pretty but of course very different than the kind in Venice. Ryan and I went to the Van Gogh Museum which was really amazing. Van Gogh was one of my first favorite artists and it was amazing to see so many recognizable pieces in person! We had to switch hostels and then we grabbed Mexican for lunch/dinner and everyone split up to do their own thing. I went back down to the area near the museums and wandered back up towards the Spui neighborhood and the main Dam square. Walking around alone on a Saturday evening was kind of an experience since I got talked to by weird people twice.,.one that tried to steal my waffle and one that started singing “Baby you can drive my car”. Yeah. I got back to the hostel and we took Ryan out to see everything, which probably made the poor guy more sick.
The next day we got breakfast at the hostel, checked out, booked our last train, and dropped our bags. We hung out at the Vondelpark until it was time to go. We took two trains…to the wrong airport. We all just knew we were flying out of Dusseldorf but had no idea there were two airports! So we had to take 180 Euro cab ride to the other. Then once we got there, Ryan found out he had booked the wrong flight, one that was for the morning so he had missed it and had to buy another flight. Our trip went really smoothly up until the end! Our flight was pretty quick-technically it was only 10 minutes because of the time change! We took the Stanstead express back to the tube and got home and collapsed.
I got sick basically as we were getting home, and spent pretty much Monday through Thursday in bed. I had a bad fever and then just felt bad, couldn’t eat, had a runny nose and cough. I went to the doctor but it was just a flu pretty much. I felt a lot better by Friday so I went out to the park and enjoyed the weather with some friends. Then yesterday was GSE’s Cambridge trip. It was really cool because some of the students were graduating so we saw them in their robes. We mainly just walked around all the colleges and heard a bit about the history from our organizer, Mike, because he grew up in Cambridge. We saw the “punting” on the river which is kind of like gondola rides where they push the boats with long sticks. We also went into the chapel at Kings and shopped around the markets. All in all, it was a good day. As soon as I got back I passed out for about 6 hours until 1 in the morning! I hung out with people for a couple hours and then went back to bed until 10am, which definitely helped my cough. Today we went out for Spanish food for brunch which was quite tasty. I booked my flight home today for May 22nd, which is basically the latest that I can stay! I can’t believe it’s coming up so fast! I’m going to try to get as much studying done as quickly as possible so I can have some time to enjoy London!
Gold star if you read all that!
