Rogers girls' adventures: Part 5 (Berlin)

I honestly can not believe the final city has come and gone already. When I got back into Madrid, I spent almost 24 hours straight in my apartment, drinking gallons of water, watching episodes of The Office to veg out, and taking care of e-mails/picture uploads/blog posts/etc. I also tried to push any thought of exercise out of my brain. After days and days of walking and MWS work-outs, I think my body deserves one or two days to rejuvenate :) 

But that is not the exciting adventure you clicked on this link to read about. Let me tell you about Berlin...

When we first got to Berlin, we checked into our ho(s)tel. (Pronounce it like hotel but with an 's' in it... it's my way of making it sound fancier.) We stayed in the hotel part of PLUS Berlin, a hostel that has pretty much everything you can think of: electronic key cards, a 4+ person reception desk, a bar/restaurant, a huge outdoor courtyard with rabbits and parakeets, an indoor pool, art exhibitions, etc. Mom and I read about it in a New York Times article that one of her co-workers passed along. It was certainly a nice hostel, but I think I built it up a little too much in my mind to have it live up to the expectations. Nevertheless, it was really cool.

After dropping off our stuff, we left the hostel and went for a walk around some of the main sites in the city. First, we hit up Parliment. We didn't know what it was at that point, but it looked important, so we tried to go in. Okay, I tried to go in. This is the second time I almost walked into somewhere I didn't belong. The first time was in Prague, when I was distracted with conversions of Euros to Czech Korunas in my head and almost walked into a men's bathroom. I was literally a step away from passing through the door frame. The first guy that passed me turned around with a very confused look. It wasn't until I almost walked through the door when I realized that a second guy was coming out of the same door and I didn't belong in there. Ali's shouts of "Amber!" were lost to my ears.

Anyway, we found out you had to make a reservation several days in advance to go into the Parliment building, so we didn't make it. The guy at the door looked seriously disappointed for us, but I don't think any of us were that phased by it.

Parliment

Next, we headed to Brandenburg gate, a monument that used to be a very obvious sign of the division between East Berlin and West Berlin because it was just inside the wall in East Berlin. However, since the wall was torn down in 1989, it has served as a sign of unity within the city.

Right near the Brandenburg gate is the Holocaust Memorial. The memorial is almost an entire block of concrete blocks of all different heights. Thus, when you are walking through, you end up being surrounded by them, with some rising feet above your head. It is a cool monument because it is interactive, but it also has some controversy surrounding it. You can read about it in this BBC article.

 At the edge of the Holocaust Memorial. The concrete boxes reminded me of coffins, though I don't think that was the intention.

Then we headed over to a section of the Berlin Wall, where we saw an exhibit on Hitler. It was a very interesting exhibit, but by the end of the day, I was definitely suffering from information overload.

 

Part of the Berlin Wall

  One of my favorite quotes from the exhibit: "...This course of action against the Jews is so unchristian that every Christian, not just every priest, should speak out against it. The present poses far more pressing problems for the higher Church authorities... especially since... we have no reason to give the government course to turn Jew-baiting into Jesuit-baiting..."

I liked this quote because it reminded me of a poem that I used with my 1IB (11th grade) students when talking about racism this year.

First they came for the communists,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,

and there was no one left to speak for me.

-  Martin Niemöller, a German pastor and theologian who spoke out against Hitler

After leaving the Berlin Wall, we walked to Checkpoint Charlie, the point where vehicles passed from West Berlin into East Berlin.

 

A replica of the original sign

Ali and I had quite the time trying to get a picture of the checkpoint area because there were so many tourists in the way. Finally, Mom stepped in and tried to get in the way of all of their pictures so that they would give up and then she could quickly move out of ours. It wasn't too successful, but it was entertaining.

  Laughing at the guy who had just walked into the picture

Tuesday morning, we got up to attend yoga (Relaxing class, weird closing visualization: "Think about a time when something really bad happened to you... talk to yourself about it..."), which was offered for free on Tuesdays at the hostel (Remember: pronounce it like hotel with an 's'). After working up an appetite, we headed off for breakfast in a historical garden, which I had found by doing some research on food blogs the night before.

How cute!

Mom, enjoying her coffee in a garden in West Berlin

For the majority of the afternoon on Tuesday, we walked around the shopping streets, checking out the European fashions, gaping at prices of things that one of us could have made, buying gifts, and making a few small additions to our own wardrobes. Then, after a long hard day (wink wink) of carrying around packages, we stopped to try our first currywurst at Curry 36 (another place I had read about on a food blog).

Currywurst

According to Wikipedia, a currywurst "is a fast food dish of German origin consisting of steamed, then fried pork sausage (German: Wurst) cut into slices and seasoned with curry ketchup, regularly consisting of ketchup or tomato paste blended with generous amounts of curry powder, or a ready-made ketchup-based sauce seasoned with curry and other spices." 

It was tasty, but a third of a currywurst didn't consist of dinner. So, after we dropped off our bags at our hostel, we headed to a restaurant to fill up on some Berlin cuisine.

A very tender meatball with mushrooms and potatoes

Apple strudel, accompanied by the best vanilla ice cream EVER

Then, to get our historical sights in for the day, I dragged Mom and Ali around to see a few of the monuments all lit up.

 The Berlin Cathedral

We took a stroll through Museum Island to some musicians playing classical music. When we doubled back at the end of this hall, we saw an adorable young couple attempting to learn to dance...

For our last day, we headed off to the center of town to meet up with the Street Art Tour and Workshop, led by Alternative Berlin Tours. I would recommend this to everyone going to Berlin! We learned a great deal about graffiti, the mentality behind it, and why it is so popular in Berlin. 

The first thing that we learned was that the founder of graffiti, "Cornbread" comes from good ol' Philadelphia, PA. Represent.

The father of graffiti in Berlin, however, is Creepo. He was part of the crew 'CBS', or 'Can't Be Stopped.'

 Creepo's signature fists, which represent fighting the power. Only urban legends exist to explain the freshness of the paint, since Creepo stopped doing graffiti years ago.

We also learned about graffiti methods:

A 'heaven spot' is the spot on top of a wall. Graffiti artists paint these sections by hanging off the edge, or having a friend hold them by the ankles as they paint. Of course, there's a danger of falling, which gives another meaning to the term 'heaven spot'.

One method of painting is by using a fire hydrant filled with paint and water to hit places on the wall that you wouldn't be able to reach otherwise. This is difficult to control, and normally ends with the graffiti artists covered with paint. Thus, they need a change of clothes to get away without being questioned. 'Just' is the crew known for using this innovative method in Berlin.

A heaven spot and a fire hydrant piece

We also saw a lot of really great street art, which is legal art, often painted on firewalls. This one was was probably my favorite, because the artist insisted on seeing the space at different times of the day before he started painting. At night time, the shadow of the flag flying at the nearby car dealership falls right in the hand of the astronaut, making it look he is staking the flag into the ground.

The whole thing is painted by hand... if you look closely, you can see the grid lines!

My favorite graffiti artist whose work we saw was Life, who is part of the crew 'Über Fresh'. His works are daring and stylish... this one was done by repelling off the side of the building, a skill that urban legend claims he taught himself.

Classy graffiti!

Apparently when Life does works like these, he repels wearing an orange vest. Our guide said that something about the orange vest makes them seem more official and nobody second guesses the legality of what the person is doing. Another time, when 'Just' got caught doing a fire hydrant piece,  the police caught him. Somehow, however, he convinced them that he was doing a Nike campaign and was going to write 'Just do it.' He got away.

Another way of 'tagging' the city is more Mom's speed... watch out, Hershey!

A cowl knitted onto a pole

Here's a look at a few more pieces of street art... 

This piece was done by ROA, who always uses animals that were indigenous to the area before the urban sprawl. After he was legally commissioned to do the piece, he got permission from all of the illegal graffiti artists on the wall to paint over.

The artist of the blue piece doesn't use any traditional painting tools... he uses leaves and sticks, whatever he can find on site.

This piece was done by Klub7, a crew that now does ads for Nike.

This is one of 5 controversial pieces done by Blu in Berlin.

After seeing all the graffiti, we got a chance to try it on our own in an abandoned bread factory.

 Old spray cans

Mom, Ali, and I with our works of art!

Although our tour was over, we were still in an artsy mood. So, we headed over to the East Gallery, the largest portion (1.3 km) of the Berlin Wall that still remains. It has 105 different paintings on it, done by artists from all over the world.

As you can see, some non-commissioned artists have also added their marks to the wall.

Then we headed back to the shopping street for Mom to buy some shoes that were a great price compared to the price in the states. And for our last night, we hung out in the hostel (Remember your pronunciation!) restaurant to play some cards before Mom and Ali settled down for their 'nap'. Since we went to bed close to midnight and they got up around 3:00, it really was more of a nap than anything else.

I was sad to say goodbye and as evident from the clouds in the sky the next day, so was Berlin.

It looks like Berlin is about to cry!

I spent my last day having another breakfast in the garden (with little birds that sat on the surrounding chairs and older German couples out for their special Thursday breakfast), making a few last minute purchases, and sending my last postcards. Then I took the train to the airport and made the flight which brought me to a country where the weather is about 30°F hotter. I'm coping by remembering that at least I understand the people.

I'm so thankful for such a wonderful trip and even more thankful that I will soon be home to spend more time with my family! Now it's back to my geography quizzes (I'm trying to learn the names and geography of all the countries in the world) and a lazy afternoon to gear up for Sevilla with Jackie tomorrow! I am so incredibly blessed!

Much love,

Amber

Rogers girls' adventures: Part 4 (Dresden)

From the beginning, we planned on Dresden being our relaxing city. It was a much smaller city in comparison and we expected to be a bit petered out from our adventures in Madrid, Rome, and Prague. What we didn't realize is that our wonderful hosts would make it even more relaxing for us.

I knew from the reviews and description on Airbnb that staying with Juan and Jasmine was our best option for Dresden. While everywhere else up to that point we had stayed in our own apartment, I figured we should take the chance and stay in someone's apartment with them.

When we got to the city on the train, we followed our easiest set of directions yet: Get out of the station and walk straight until you get to the main square and the apartment is on your left. I think even Mom or Ali could have led us with those directions! ;)

Juan and Jasmine helped us with our suitcases, gave us the lowdown on the apartment (including the washer so we could wash our smelly work-out clothes), and gave us a map to get around the city. Then Juan asked if he could make us breakfast and dinner the following day. Having read about his wonderful cooking on airbnb, I quickly (maybe a little too quickly...) accepted the invitation.

But, for our first night, we headed out for dinner nearby. We ate at what seemed like Germany's equivalent of Houlihan's and then got gelato. Then we got back to our room, put in a load of laundry, and had our one and only upset of the trip: Mom's iPhone was missing. We tore apart our room and listened for a clunking in the washing machine. Nothing. We got ready to call it and then remembered that it was on airplane mode. After a few hectic minutes, I suggested going to the restaurant before it closed. Perhaps it had gotten left when we were looking at pictures on it. I changed out of my pajamas and Ali and I took off at a run, trying to remember how we had wandered to the restaurant in the first place. When we arrived just before 12, we were relieved to see people at the bar inside. Panting, we looked at the hostess who, after recognizing us, smiled and said in a thick German accent, "Your phone?"

"YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!"

Delighted, Ali and I ran back in hopes that we could get to Mom before she tried to open the washing machine (my roommate had broken ours when he tried to open it before the cycle was over). But instead of finding her tearing apart the room even further, we found her sitting on the bed with her Kindle, looking rather peaceful. We, on the other hand, were 'glistening' with the lovely sweats we had broken. We handed over the phone and she said, "I was just sitting here praying that we could find it and being thankful that if a lost phone was the worst thing that happened to us on this trip, we could deal quite easily." Well, my friends, we didn't lose the phone and (spoiler alert!) that was the most traumatic moment that occurred on the trip. Not too shabby!

Our second day, we woke up to a mix of sunlight, clanging church bells, and bike race announcers. But shortly after being woken up, we were fed a wonderful breakfast, thanks to Juan and Jasmine. Most people don't take the time to present scrambled eggs with serrano ham in a little food stack and to decorate the plate with drizzles of reduced balsamic.

Then we set out to explore Dresden. Walking around we saw...

Part of the palace

The recently rebuilt church, Frauenkirche

 Many classical musicians: a french horn player, a vocal trio, and a guy playing a grand piano in the square!

I then made Mom and Ali walk to Pfunds Dairy, where I was hoping we could get ice cream. Instead, we got cheese!

 

An assortment of cheeses

Ali's comment: "There is nothing on that plate that looks appetizing to me."

It was good, but not necessarily the best cheese I've ever eaten. Then again, I've eaten a lot of cheese. But the main reason we went there was because it is included in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "Most beautiful dairy shop in the world" (Dresden Tourism website). Who knew that was a category?! You'll have to look at one of the links above because they don't allow pictures to be taken inside. But it was a pretty building!

After our snack at the dairy, we headed over to Kunsthofpassage, a series of connected courtyards that include decorated buildings, adorable cafés, and cool, artsy shops. It was there that we did our best window shopping of the trip, not because we restrained ourselves from going into the stores, but because even though they were closed, we did a thorough evaluation of each store.

 One of the buildings has used their drains in a rather clever way! Not only does it look cool, but Jasmine said that it makes music too!

Then we wandered back towards the apartment, stopping for ice cream and some people watching along the way. (Who can resist watching the cute little kids playing in the foutain?!) Then, Ali decided (in the city where it seemed like the smallest proportion of people spoke English), to finally pet a dog. She got up off the bench, strutted over to the dog that was with the people a few benches over, and just started petting it. After a few moments, she got up, said "Thank you!" and walked away. The people, with confused looks, just chuckled at her as she walked away. 

 Although Ali was quite content, the dog doesn't look too interested...

After ice cream, we headed back to the apartment, where we skyped (typical Sunday for me) and wrote about our trip while smelling wafts of heaven come out of the kitchen were Juan was cooking. By the time he placed his curry with veal meatballs in front of us, we were drooling. Again, it was beautifully plated and it took everything in me not to go get my camera and add it to the food pictures of the trip. But I restrained because I didn't want to get weird reviews on my airbnb profile :)

Then, after eating our first desert (creme brulee), Juan goes, "Well if you aren't too tired, I think we should go and have a nice view of the castle and of Dresden." I thought we were hiking up a hill somewhere, but within about 4 minutes we had left our plates sitting, grabbed our cameras, and packed ourselves into their car. After driving through the neighboring town, we came up this:

The castle at sunset, completely unedited. This was the first time I wished I owned a tripod...

Then we hopped back in the car, drove down some more winding roads (evading a couple of potholes that you couldn't see but Juan knew were there), and came upon a hill that looked down over Dresden.

A view of the city by night

Needless to say, our hosts went above and beyond. When we returned from our field trip, we had our second dessert (A second desert?! These are my kind of people!), an anis/mango sorbet. By the time we went to bed, we were stuffed.

When we woke up in the morning, Juan had left fresh baked rolls for us and Jasmine was putting out a thorough spread of meats and cheeses and jams. After Ali and I ran, we ate, packed up, and headed back to the train station to grab our bus to Berlin. We were supposed to leave from another station, but Jasmine called and verified that we could get on at the one closest to our house. So another short walk (in a straight line), and we were on our way!

Moral of the story: Dresden was fantastic... if you ever need to take a pit-stop on your travels through Germany, stay with Juan and Jasmine! We highly recommend it!

Much love,
Amber

Rogers girls' adventures: Part 3 (Prague)

First off, let me say that I love Prague. (Sorry, Josh!). Honestly, it's probably one of my favorite cities that I've visited. I hope to "Czech" out more cities in the Czech Republic in the future! (Corny, yes, I know.)

Our travels from Rome to Prague were nowhere near as complicated or as lengthy as the Madrid to Rome journey. It also took place during slightly more regular hours, thus making us eager and ready to enjoy our first day in Prague.

Upon arrival, we sought out food. (Typical.) We quickly found some street vendors and indulged in some sausage and ham. After days of carbohydrates, we decided that we could stand to have a little protein in our bodies. Then, intrigued by the vendor roasting pastries and topping them with cinnamon sugar, we tried trdelnik.

 

 Trdelnik fun fact: This sweet originates from Translyvania (the country most people think I come from when I say that I'm from when I say I'm from Pennsylvania).

After getting a bit of energy in our bodies, we began to wander the streets without a set agenda. This was the first city that I hadn't already visited and it was fun to be exploring with no idea of what to expect. We ended up in the Jewish ghetto, where we made friends with a young woman who was working in a jewelry store. She taught me to say thank you (děkuji), which is even harder than it looks. The "d" sound is much softer than we have in English... after a few attempts, I realized I was making mistakes I couldn't even identify and would need to do some independent studies if I wanted to actually learn Czech.

For dinner, we ate at Lokál, a restaurant suggested both by the guy who rented our apartment to us and a blogger from Prague. It was delicious, and I had beef tartar for the first time ever! I decided it was the place to try it, since I saw 2 other girls near me eating it and the restaurant prided itself on getting fresh meat from a loyal, local butcher.

Mom and I had our first Czech beers. We each only drank one though, not quite living up to the apparent norm of the restaurant.

 

Beef tartar with fresh garlic bread (aka I rubbed the garlic clove into this butter fried bread)

I also need to give a SHOUT OUT! to Ali for trying the beef tartar! Mom, on the other hand, refused. We tried to convince her to try the tiniest piece, but it was a no go. Ali and I were both pretty surprised to see Mom absolutely refuse to try a new food.

The second day in Prague, Ali and I decided to enjoy Old Town by doing her MWS workout in the center square. Luckily, at 9 AM, there weren’t too many people. Those who were there, however, got a nice show of Ali and I sprinting along, using street signs, poles of buildings, and sidewalk cracks as markers for the different running distances. They probably also thought that I was the slowest runner on the face of this planet as Ali pulled away from me in the span of a 60 meter sprint. I wanted a sign that said, “I’m not slow, it's just that she runs a 6:00 mile!” Oh well, I wasn’t too worried about impressing the old man who tried to high five us and attempted to use his arms as a start gun for us.

Plus, working out made the trip to Bakeshop afterwards even more delightful. I thoroughly enjoyed my spinach feta pastry and my rhubarb, blueberry tart.

 

Rhubarb and blueberry tart... it tasted like pie!  

After breakfast, we wandered around the Jewish quarter and entered a few of the synagogues. Most of the synagogues we entered are now being used for museum purposes and are quite educational about the development of the Jewish culture within the Czech Republic. One of them, however, was used as a memorial and had walls covered with the names of the Jews that had died in the ghettos and the concentration camps during World War II. It was beautiful, though obviously in a somber way.

My favorite part of the tour through the Jewish quarter was one of the exhibits displaying children’s drawings. The exhibit focused on an artist who had given the children art lessons while they were living in the Jewish ghetto. They studied color patterns and whatnot, but the works that they created depicted the view of the ghetto from a child’s perspective. Many showed the disparity of the situation, from the uncensored viewpoint of a child. Other drawings, however, revealed hope for freedom in the future and included flowers and smiling families walking away from the ghetto, towards home. These drawings reminded me of the book Room (by Emma Donoghue), which I highly recommend. It gives extremely interesting insight into how a parent can influence a child and transform his or her understanding of a desperate situation.

We also entered the Jewish cemetery, where there were 12,000 tombstones over 100,000 bodies. As the brochure reads, “Jews were not allowed to be buried outside the ghetto, so the dead had to be buried on top of one another, up to ten layers deep.”

The tombstones seemed to be piled on top of one another

With Hebrew inscriptions

After our tour of the Jewish quarter, we headed to lunch, and stopped by the “Dancing House” along the way. This building is owned by a Dutch insurance company, and was originally given the name "Fred and Ginger", because it looked like two people dancing.

 Walking past the Dancing house

 

Duck with an onion, feta, arugula salad  

After lunch, we went to the Prague Castle complex. "According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Prague Castle is the largest coherent castle complex in the world, with an area of almost 70,000 m²" (Prague Castle). There, we walked through great halls, entered a small church, and saw the outside of the cathedral. We didn’t get to the inside before it closed, so we just imagined seeing the outside walls from the other side. I’m pretty sure my imagination was pretty accurate.

 

A hall in the Prague castle complex... doesn't it make you think of a gothic style Downton Abbey?

A church

 

The outside of the cathedral

Our feet were pretty tired from walking all over our map, so we headed back towards our apartment to drop off the Christmas ornaments that Mom bought for our first gifts of Christmas. (We'll act surprised.) On our way, we paused to buy a few gifts, check out a church (and accidentally enjoy a brief but pleasant organ concert as someone practiced), and get Mom a Starbucks.

Lastly, we stopped in one of the jewelry stores that sold garnet, which is abundant in Prague. Ali was considering buying a ring as her big souvenir from the trip. One in particular had caught her eye, so we went back (much to the overeager salesman’s delight) to check out the price and consider. (Background knowledge: I had tried on a gold-plated ring with a decent size stone the previous day that was priced at $75.)

Anyway, the conversation went something like this:

Salesman (S): Oh you are back! How wonderful!

Me: Yep, we’re just taking another look…

S: You’ll find something you like. I’ll sell it to you.

Mom: Well, we only buy if you give us a good deal.

S: Oh! I give you a crazy deal. A crazy deal just for you.

Ali and I meander around the store; Ali takes a closer look at the one that she liked.

S: Which one you like? Let me show it to you. Salesman is already pulling out the entire rack of rings.

Ali: Uhmmmm, this one? She points nervously to the ring with a small garnet stone and petite diamonds around the outside, unaware that they are real diamonds set in white gold.

S: Pretty. Very pretty.

Ali: How much is it?

S: Salesman pulls out his calculator and begins punching in numbers. Well, the normal price is this but with the conversion rate and a very special discount, it would be 965 dollars.

Ali: Ali politely and quickly taking off the ring. Okayyyyyy, thank you.

S: So you buy it?

Ali: Nooooo. I’m a broke college student.

S: Where’s your dad? I’ll talk to him.

Me: No no no. He’s not here. I smile, thinking: Nor would he buy a $965 ring from you on a whim!

Mom: She was going to buy it as a souvenir with money from Christmas.

S: Okay, okay. I give it to you for $750. Just for you.

Ali: No, really. I can’t afford it.

S: How much can you afford?

Ali: You don’t want to know.

S: No really, tell me.

Ali: No really, you don’t want to know.

The scene continued on as the salesman started sweating, trying to figure out how much money Ali had (100€), lowering the price to $350, and attempting to sell her one of the more gaudy, cheaper rings. He was unsuccessful, and as we were leaving he said, “Wow, she’s a good bargainer! She won’t tell me how much money she has!” I think he knew when we walked out the door that there was no hope of us returning.

The last big event for our only full day in Prague, was the beer garden. Or lack of beer garden. I had read about the big, open beer gardens online and was eager to check out how the locals relaxed on a Friday night. As the very handy blog that I had read stated, “When the weather is warm (or at least un-cold), Prague’s beer gardens are the place to while away an afternoon, evening, or possibly even both. Beer gardens are casual affairs with long, simple picnic tables, a food stand or two serving greasy sausages, and — most importantly — an endless supply of freshly pulled Czech beer. Relax with locals of all ages, from the stodgy business guy in a suit to grandpa with his dog to the young punk kids."

The tourist center next to our apartment didn’t seem too keen on helping us get there, saying, “You don’t want to go there. That’s where the locals hang out. Its just a couple of stands with beer and picnic tables.” Wrong, lady. I do want to go. Have you ever heard of people watching? I was determined, so I looked it up on Google Maps and led Mom and Ali across the river and up 256 stairs.

And then we found… not what we were looking for.

There were about 60 people between the age of 18 and 26 drinking out of 2 liter coke bottles, skateboarding, and smoking a very sweet smelling drug. Obviously, we fit right in. There was one beer stand, serving a special locally produced beer: Budweiser. (Sarcasm?). But there were no grandpas with dogs or stodgy business guys. So we took a picture, pretending like we had walked up for the view, and wandered around to the other set of steps in hopes that the beer garden was behind the punk rock fest. Negative. Oh well, better luck next country! 

 

Just hanging out with all the Czech hipsters

Our last day in Prague, Ali and I went for a run and then we had breakfast at Bakeshop. It was a slight repeat from the day before, but it worked so why not? Then we checked out of our apartment (aka we left the apartment with our stuff and shut the door without bringing along the keys), and headed over to the train station to store our bags until our 4:30 PM train. At this point I would like to give Mom credit for lugging her suitcase for 20 minutes over the cobblestones of Prague to save money on a taxi (which we still have not used). We could've used a tram but the tram system was a bit complicated because you can only buy tickets in the metro. Thus, we decided the small distance it would save us wasn’t worth it. In the end, we didn’t use any transportation within Prague… we walked from end to end multiple times without thinking twice about it.

The last day was no exception. We walked from the apartment to the train station and then all the way across the city to the other side of the river to check out the Lennon wall. It’s basically a big wall of graffiti, but it was pretty cool!

 

Close-up

 

  

Wonderful travel buddies!

Then we walked back across the city, had some lunch, and played rummy while we awaited our train. Another successful city!

 

The blog recommended the special for lunch at our last restaurant. However, it was in Czech (and the waiter gave me a pretty rough translation) so I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting. But the pig knee, 2 kinds of sauerkraut, bread dumplings, and potato dumplings were a deliciously filling meal for $7! 

Now we’re in our last country, Germany, and we can’t believe the time is going so quickly! The up-side, though, is that I'll be seeing many of you very soon!

Much love,

Amber