HomeSICK

Okay, well it's likely not homesickness because I don't think I've ever seen a homesick camper vomit as much as Janelle did today. We don't know what it is from, but it is fierce. I will omit the details, but Janelle has come down with either food poisoning, the flu, or a short-term virus. This is an entirely solo post because my partner in crime is sleeping it off, or trying to at least. We have gotten all the necessary medications, as well as heart-warming generosity from Swiss women at a coffee shop who provided us with a damp towel, water, salt water, dry bread, and permission to lay on their couch for a few hours. Don't worry Tina, your girl is in good hands and is feeling much better!

We biked around Lake Lucerne for a bit before slowly making it back to the hostel. I biked around a bit more solo afterward to snap a few pictures of the quaint, yet tourist-laden town. I could have produced a delightful post of more touring, photo snapping, and adventures with symphonies of cowbells (which did happen!), but this is a better reflection of the day.

We caught our train to Lucerne without any troubles, and were only scolded twice for putting our shoes on the seat before we smartened up and took off the shoes. Apparently socks are allowed - little do they know these are in dire need of a washing! Two hours and a spectacular train ride later we made it to Interlaken. We are staying at the "first established private hostel" Balmers, which is unfortunately not right next to the train station. Janelle was a champ and powered on all the way to the hostel.

The rest of our plans are up in the air, but we are in Interlaken for 3 nights. It will be a nice break from the trains, and hopefully a chance to stretch our legs up the mountains. We are playing it by ear, as well as avoiding the bar. Interlaken is nestled between two lakes amid gorgeous mountains. The views are stunning (and will only get better and we hike higher up) and will be amazing to wake up to tomorrow morning!

Taking a page from my friend Matt's blog, here is a short list of a few of my favourite awful things to put a fun spin on the post:

1. Food poisoning - That feeling of complete body ache, nausea, and hunger from not eating for days. You thought that bite of sandwich, cheese, leftover meatloaf, or raw chicken was worth it, but your reasoning is being completely pummeled by your stomach. Never again will you try to pull a fast one. Your gut is punching with a strength and aggression that only steroid users know. You cry "Uncle", and then for your mom, but he shows no mercy. Your stomach won't even let you take a break for water. Food poisoning is a unscheduled opponent that has never lost a fight. Awful!

2. Smacking - The awful noise that your lips and mouth can make, but never should. Did your mother never teach you to chew with your mouth closed? Here's a quick lesson: It is not polite to share how much you are enjoying your food by replacing "mmm" with loud, vulgar sounds. If you are under 3 you can get away with this and I won't hold it against you because you are probably still cute when you do it. If you are over three and have control of your lips please keep their sound effects to a minimum, regardless of when/where/what/how much you are eating. Awful!

3. Being sick without your mom. There's nothing like the rub of your mom's hand on your back and the perfect chicken noodle soup she can conjure up to make you feel better. When you're without the comfort of her blankets, cool facecloths, and flat ginger ale, your sickness suddenly explodes by a power of 3. Drugs are no comparison for the power of mom medicine, and when you're without it you will likely become more dehydrated from all the tears you've cried. Awful!

So here's signing off from Interlaken, still with an optimistic attitude and some good training for my medical days ahead! We will be back in fighting force in no time at all!

Heather

Dobry den (“doh-bree den”) from Prague!

We have endured a few more soggy days, but the architecture of the city remains just as stunning when painted with raindrops. The best piece of advice we received was to “look up”. The centrum of the town is the largest single area that is preserved by UNESCO, which essentially means it is a very important part of history worth preserving. We imagine one of the hardest parts to maintain would be the cobblestone found everywhere. Not ideal for walking in heels or riding a bike without a proper sports bra.

We arrived early afternoon and checked into our hostel, Mosaic House, with ease, and while our accommodation was a 26 bed female dorm, we were enamoured by the huge bathrooms, mirrors, and hair dryers!

The Astronomical Clock!

Using our handy map from the concierge we navigated our way around the crooked streets to Old Town Square. With umbrellas and camera in hand, we admired the Astronomical Clock, which has a fascinating story. There are 365 names on the clock (one for each day of the year), so each Czech citizen celebrates not only their birthday but also their “name day.” Likely just a second excuse to go to the bar, not that you need to as drinking in public is entirely commonplace! We ventured up the winding staircase to get a view from the top of the entire city. Not bad in spite of the foggy skies.

We muddled around the square before heading to our meeting point for our EPIC Bike Tour. We changed into leggings for the bike ride and fuelled up with a pre-tour pilsner. When in Prague! We were the only two indomitable (or pre-paid) people on the tour in the rain. Our guide (a friendly guy from California) gave us the option of doing the Classic Tour or Panoramic Tour. We naturally opted for the one with more hills, biking and less history. What a great choice! Since it was just the two of us we were able to chat the entire time and learned a ton about the city. We pedalled our way up to the Prague Castle, which is no longer enclosed by a moat or turreted walls, but holds the Guinness World Record for the largest “castle” in the world. Through Letenske Sady Park we saw incredible views of the city and the Metronome, (where interestingly there once was a giant inflatable statue of Michael Jackson). Other sites we took in during the bike tour included the Charles Bridge, the John Lennon wall, a bridge with lovers’ locks, the Pissing Men, and a cool podium that magically amplified your voice in the castle.

The bike tour was followed by a traditional Czech meal – chicken stuffed potato pancakes with a side of cabbage and pint of pilsner. Not our standard fare but enjoyed and followed with dessert of pancakes and “forest fruit,” or field berries as we refer to them. After dinner we changed back into our drinking pants and strapped on our wristbands that permitted us to an hour of free drinks at the Pub Crawl company’s bar. We made more friends with travellers from the Netherlands, France and Italy, and played a game (21 or Monkey) we recently learned in Berlin. We will definitely be bringing back the rules we remember to Canada! While we were happy with the amount of free drinks we took advantage of, we were definitely not the winners of the drink-your-face-off competition. Oh to be young and reckless again! We travelled with the large group to two other bars before retiring to our hostel. A solid night out and sound sleep sealed our first night in Prague.

Much better!

The second morning we grabbed breakfast from Bohemia Bagel, and, armed with our umbrellas once more, we set out to do some more discoveries. We visited the Jewish Cemetery and Spanish Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter. The Jewish Cemetery was used from 1439 to 1787 and is the oldest Jewish Cemetery in Europe. During Nazi rule all cemeteries, save for this one, were destroyed as Hitler wanted it left intact so he could build a Jewish museum in Prague after he had succeeded in his mission. There are over 12,000 tombstones and many more persons buried there.

We hopped on board another free tour around the city and took in more history, raindrops, and photographs. A walk across the Charles Bridge was a must! What a beautiful city with incredible architecture!

To finish off our night we made lightweight-rower-sized Greek salads (we had to push through to finish them) in Ziploc bags, and picked up some chocolate ice cream for dessert. Divine!

GOOD NEWS JUST IN. Munich’s forecast does not include rain! We will have to have a round of drinks for that! Until next time, stay classy San Diego!

Amsterdam Adventures: only 40 Euro???

If there is one word to sum up Amsterdam it would be “cool”. The locals dress very casually, which was perfect for us in our worn-in clothes. The weather was quite cool, so it makes sense that scarves, layers, and baggy clothing was the uniform of the masses.

It was a great experience, and we definitely took it all in. We waited to check into our hostel by doing a bit of retail therapy for the colder weather. When we were able to check in to the hostel we were shocked by the state of disarray. Luckily the hostel was yet to be cleaned, because this was quite impressive. There were bottles beyond bottles, next to sheets in shambles. We would like to give a very thankful shout out to the cleaning staff at the hostel for doing such a great job of rectifying the late night events of travelers the night before.

We ventured through the streets of Amsterdam to find a canal boat cruise, and then leisurely enjoyed a Heineken before boarding the cruise. The cruise was enjoyable but a little too slow paced for our liking. The highly packed houses were beautiful, the houseboats wonderfully weathered, and the many bridges were charming. Everywhere you looked there were bicycles. Locked up in jumbles and heaps along every street possible. There is an old joke in Amsterdam that if you shout “that’s my bike!” at a group of cyclists driving past, roughly 5 of them will hop off and run away leaving “their” bike behind.

After the boat tour we continued to explore the city, walked through the red light district (not nearly as glamorous feeling as later in the night). We grabbed some dinner from the main street, bypassing the omnipresent dutch fries and mayo, and grabbed falafels yet again. We then toured the Sex Museum before heading back to the hostel for 7-8pm happy hour drinks. Two-for-one Heinekens? Yes please! Another round, OK! The rest of the night was QUITE the adventure featuring two new American friends, another view of the workingwomen of Amsterdam, and a trip to the infamous Sailor bar (Kev you would have loved it!). It’s probably a good thing we were only in Amsterdam for one night as we don’t quite know how we could top that experience.

This morning (Heather surprisingly cleaner than expected and not as hungover as Janelle) we toured the house of Anne Frank after waiting for 1.5 hours in line.  Well Janelle waited for the first half of the time while Heather searched for the near-to-impossible to find bathrooms in the city. Good thing she carried change with her because I think half of our budget has gone to liquid purchases and bathroom fares. Our patience was at our finest, and the time we spent was entirely worth it. What a remarkable piece of our history.  The rooms were larger than Heather imagined, but we could not imagine not being able to ever leave.  It was a deeply touching experience.

The line-up for Anne Frank huis

Missing my car, bb!

After Anne Frank we rented bikes and toured around the city. We went to Albert Cuyp market and wandered around before sitting down for lunch. Two large open-faced sandwiches nourished us and gave us the energy to hop back on our bikes (no helmets in Amsterdam), and ride around Vondelpark. This was much less chaotic and nerve-wracking than the cobblestone, pedestrian covered streets along the river. We managed to return the bikes in one piece without any accidents to report!

yummmmmmm!

We said farewell to Amsterdam with postcards, pictures, 2 American Air Marshall pins from Philly, a glass from the sailor bar and a tiny wooden shoe key chain (Tina – a substitute for ones for Janelle’s feet, as they would be too heavy to carry) as memories of our adventure. We then headed to the train station an hour prior to our scheduled departure as cutting it so close last time was a little too stressful for our liking. We took a 12 hour overnight train with sleeper cars and essentially slept for most of the journey. We met some friendly kiwis in our couchette and chatted for as long as we could keep our eyes open (about 2 hours until we passed out at 7pm and were awakened by the steward at 5am when we were to arrive in Berlin – I guess we were tired!). It was a fun experience, minus the loud snores of our couchette-mates that kept Heather up for half of the night. She still can’t believe how it never woke Janelle up.  

Our early arrival in Berlin (5:45am) meant that while we could drop our luggage off at the hostel but could not hang out there until after 8:00am. We searched for some coffee and food (settled for Dunkin' Donuts..we know we know) and had a bit of time to regroup and plan our stay here.

We are now strapping on our running shoes and hitting the bike lanes for some self-guided tours of the city! Love and miss everyone already, but we still aren’t ready to come home!

Love from Berlin,

Janelle and Heather.