Munich: Bicep Curls in the Biergarten

Very entertaining street band!

Yesterday was a solid workout day. We did the early morning run and bootcamp and then worked out our arms and livers at the infamous Hofbrauhaus Biergarten. A litre of beer? Sure, we'll take two! A second round...? when in Munich!

We're getting ahead of ourselves, so we'll back it up a bit and take things from the top of our arrival in Munich.

We checked into our hostel, Wombats, which is located wonderfully close to the train station and has a very fun vibe to it. We changed into shorts (woo!) and hit the streets of Munich to get a lay of the land. Stumbled upon an animated street band, some protesters, and some impressive buildings before sitting down for dinner. We thought we'd get some fresh air by sitting on the patio at a Sausalitos Mexican restaurant, but we were mistaken. We miss the non-smoking bylaws back home when it comes to enjoying a nice sit-down meal. The food was okay, but nothing to rival our specialty peanut butter and banana sandwiches. We couldn't say no to the happy hour, so set the standard high for the size of drinks we were ordering that night.

We then helped our meal digest by getting some retail therapy. We made just enough room for a small drink at the hostel, followed by several larger ones at the Biergarten. We made some new Aussie friends with the guys next to us at our table, and taught them a lesson in Dutch dice drinking games. These Aussies were a lot of fun and we able to keep up with our sarcasm and wit. They coached us through an arm-wrestle (Heather won for those who placed bets!) and confirmed our choice of traveling solo rather than with Contiki Tours as they were. We are happy to be able to do as we please and have the freedom to change plans, or miss a train if necessary (not that we intend of doing that any time soon! We learned our lesson earlier) Needless to say it was a fun night and we impressed? ourselves with the litres of beer consumed.

This morning we woke to find two fellow Queen's alumni in our hostel room! We had breakfast with Ashley and Shane and swapped stories of travels and outrageous hostel roommates. They had an appetite to visit biergartens for the day, and as Heather hadn't the slightest, we set out for some sightseeing. We trekked up the 906 bazillion stairs to the top of Altar Peter to get a spectacular view of the city and surrounding area. Then we grabbed some food and planned to have a nice picnic lunch at Englischergarten. The park is nude friendly so it took a bit of searching and avoiding to find a place to enjoy our meal. A beautiful afternoon in the sun with our books - life doesn't get much better than this! Then again, we could have done without the naked old men. 

Yay sun!

An MJ Memorial

Tonight we are hanging with the Queen's crew in our hostel (we just discovered two more Queen's alumni are in our hostel) and might have to show Munich our mad board game skills.
Tomorrow we are off to Lucerne, Switzerland and can't wait to breathe in some fresh alpine air! 


Auf Wiedersehen!

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.