Berlin and Prague

Sorry for not writing for a while, but we've been busy!
After our tour of the concentration camp we went on an Berlin bike tour. Our guide was great and super funny! The next day, Brendan went on a Third Reich bike tour and I went on a Raw Berlin tour. My tour showed the night clubs and street art parts of Berlin. It was okay, but not really my thing. Brendan then went to the zoo and I went shopping (and bought a book)! On our last day, we walked to a shopping district (we both bought a pair of Birkenstocks) and Brendan visited the Natural History museum while I read in the park. The next day, we headed onto the 6 hour train to Prague!

We accidentally got off a stop too early, so we had to catch a subway into the main station right off the bat. To further complicate things, when we had looked up the directions the night before it apparently showed us the night bus directions and not the day bus that we needed. We walked all around the train station trying to ask people how to get to our hotel. It was super frustrating. Finally, someone told us how to get there! The directions were a little off though, and we ended up walking for a while with our big backpacks. When we got to the hotel and asked to check in, they sent us across the parking lot to the sister hotel. This other hotel was absolutely terrible. The room had 2 cots and thats about it. Since we had booked through Hotwire and told we would be staying in the nice, big hotel we went to complain. They told us that Hotwire tries to do this with a lot of guests, and that we could pay 20 euros a night to upgrade and then send the receipt back to hotwire for a reimbursement. After all the hassle, we finally made it to our lovely room! It has two bathrooms, a king sized bed, a mini fridge and lots of space! The biggest room we've had so far (including the hostels that fit 10 people in them).
Today, we went on a Prague bus tour which briefly showed us all the major sites. Tomorrow we will be taking a closer look at some of the stops that interested us most!

Miss everyone at home!

Tour of Sachsenhausen

Hello everyone!

Brendan here! Today we went on a guided tour of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial and Museum. In the morning, we picked up some Subway sandwiches from around the corner of the hotel. It is very interesting to see what different ingredients they have in each city compared to the ones we have in Canada. After that, we walked to Berlin HBF where we bought a 3-day Welcome Pass. This includes access to all modes of transportation and discounts to pretty much everything in the city. After getting lost for a little while and not knowing which train we needed to take we finally made it to the meeting spot for the tour. With a fairly large group and a good guide we took the train to the Concentration Camp. This particular camp was one of the very first to be set up when Hitler came to power in 1933. A lot of it has been demolished due to things such as rotting wood after its abandonment after the war. There are some reconstructed barracks and the original gates, hospital, kitchen, and most of the walls. It was very creepy to see the operating tables where dead prisoners were operated on and the old torture devices. There were also parts of the 4 crematoriums that they used and the storage rooms where bodies were kept. It was very depressing and eye opening to think about and see all the horrible things that happened right where we walked.

On a happier note, we plan to spend the rest of our night at a park with some snacks and enjoy the Berlin evening. 

Miss you lots,

Brendan and Sam

Our Terrible Train Ride and First Day in Berlin

Yesterday, after checking out of our hotel at 12pm we headed down to Amsterdam Central station to catch our train that was meant to arrive at 5:45pm. It was a long, hot wait in the station, but the train managed to arrive and depart relatively on time. Unfortunately, around 7pm, the train came to a stop in the middle of nowhere with the conductor claiming that there was a problem with the electricity and that he would keep us informed. Brendan and I were in a room with beds that we were sharing with a mother and her young daughter. Tragically, the air conditioning in the room was not working and the window was not to be rolled down so the tiny room reached extremely hot temperatures (I thought Brendan may faint). After about 2 hours of being stuck, we started moving again! To our dismay, we stopped about 10 minutes later at the next train station. Although we were still trapped on the train, the terminal at least had free wifi so I could order a book off amazon (Cuckoo’s Calling) and send out some emails.  We finally got rolling again about an hour later and it was smooth sailing until morning! The train cooled down drastically and I managed to sleep a bit (Brendan slept like a log as always).

Once we arrived at Berlin HBF, we walked to our hotel that is located about two blocks away from the station. Our room is pretty tiny and has no fridge, but is still much nicer than our hostels. After a quick nap, I went and walked around the neighbourhood for a bit, then Brendan and I walked back to the train station where we purchased a reservation for our train to Prague and bought some groceries (fruit and ramen noodles basically).

Tomorrow, we are planning on going on a tour of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial and the day after that we will be doing an ‘all-in-one city bike tour’. We are still undecided about our other two days!

Just as a warning… wifi is not free at this hotel and we only have access to it in the hotel lobby so there may not be much communication with all those at home, but don’t fret! Miss you all lots!

Amsterdam #2

Hello dear friends and family,

Tonight marks our last night in the absolutely gorgeous city of Amsterdam. Brendan and I have adored our visit so very much. This is by far the most beautiful city I have ever laid my eyes on (besides Vancouver of course). There are canals that course throughout the city, blooming flowers of all varieties and the native Amsterdamers (yes, that’s the proper term for an Amsterdam native) are so tourist friendly. On our third day, we bought tickets to a hop on, hop off canal tour. Originally we wanted to see the Anne Frank museum, but we had a bit of later start than intended and decided the line was too long upon our arrival. With our ticket, we had access to as many rides as we wanted around the city canals on these long and flat boats. We visited two street markets that reminded me of the Richmond night markets. The canal had a pre-recorded ‘tour guide’ giving out random facts and information about the sights we were passing as we floated along in the sun. We met a lady from the States that we sailed with to the Hard Rock Café (we wanted dinner and she wanted a shot glass for her collection). It’s interesting briefly meeting new people as we voyage through different cities. 

The next day, we rented bikes to cycle in to town (about 9km).  We saw the Van Gogh museum (which they pronounce ‘Van Hoff’ here) and the Anne Frank house.  I quite enjoy the paintings and style of Van Gogh, whereas Brendan says he prefers more realistic and life-like art. Afterwards, we cycled over to a café that offered us a free drink (beer, pop, tea or coffee) when we showed our Van Gogh ticket. I got an Earl Grey tea and Brendan got a coke (how typical of us). As we were about to depart to the Anne Frank house we FINALLY found a bookstore with more than a few books written in English. Three whole floors of pure joy in which we spent an hour searching for something new to read. I chose the Diary of Anne Frank, 1984 and Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and Brendan chose two fantasy books. We then headed to Anne Frank, which was an utterly gut-wrenching, heart breaking experience. The museum is a walkthrough of the actual house she lived in while she was in hiding during the war. It was quite a different experience than all the other museums we have seen over the course of this trip. Lastly, we headed to the infamous red light district. Since it was a Saturday night, the place was packed! We walked around the streets for about an hour then decided to head home. The ride home was quite the experience because we got lost multiple times on the bikes and couldn’t seem to position ourselves in the right direction. Finally, by about 1am we made it home where we promptly fell asleep.

Today we decided we would embark on a day trip to some of Amsterdam’s surrounding villages. We first headed to Broek in Waterland which is a town that literally consisted of houses, a café, a physio, a lake and a pancake house. It was undeniably stunning though. We ate our lunch by the lake with the locals and then headed to the pancake house where we each got a pancake (they call crepes pancakes here though). Next we caught a bus to a place which we thought was Volendam, but ended up being (basically) the side of highway with a cheese/clog shop. As we were about the hop on another bus, a man in a 70’s, convertible, Volkswagen Beetle (Brendan’s description), pulls up and asks if we would like a ride in his cool car. He took us to Volendam and showed us around the market and gave us a little tour of the town. He was a very nice older man that moved to Amsterdam on his own when he was 16, met his wife at 17 and is now living with her in one of the small villages. In his broken English he told us that he likes to cruise around the villages in his newly restored car on nice sunny days when he’s not working. After walking around the village, Brendan and I bussed back to our hotel. Tomorrow, we will check out at 12 and slowly make our way to the train station. Our train for Berlin leaves at 5:41pm and arrives at around 4:30am. We have beds on this train and there are no transfers so hopefully we sleep right through it!

Hope everyone at home is safe and having fun without us (although it must be hard)!

Cheese and Clog store/town

Lunch in Broek in Waterland at the lake

Lake in Volendam

Amsterdam!

We made it to Amsterdam! Sorry for the lack of writing, but we are just having way too much fun out and about town and I am exhausted by the time we get back. The last few days in Paris were amazing! We ended up seeing the Bastille Day fireworks at the Eiffel Tower which were absolutely insane!! They took up the ENTIRE sky and went non-stop for 40 minutes!! It puts the Vancouver Celebration of Lights to shame. I tried to upload some pictures, but the internet in this hotel is wayyyyy to slow to even load the exporter. The next day we went to a sewer museum, which took us underground to an old London sewer. It was stinky. We went to the army museum, where Brendan looked around for a billion hours and I sat in the courtyard and read my book (Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch). On day 6 we woke up early and went to the Eiffel tower! Finally! We got there at 830 and waited until 9 until it opened. We got up right away!! It was everything I imagined it would be! So magical and cool and pretty. The only downside was that you obviously couldnt see the Eiffel Tower in the Paris city skyline, my favourite part. All in all, Paris was lovely! Truly truly magical and I cant wait to visit again one day! We had to catch a 6:25 am train to Amsterdam the next day, which was quite the ordeal! We were told the metro started at 5:30 and the first train we needed to catch didnt come until about 5:45. We decided to take try and take a taxi instead of the second train, but none of the taxi drivers spoke English and wouldnt take us for some reason! They kept pointing in one direction so we sprinted (with our big backpacks and at 6 in the morning) to where they were pointing and to our surprise our train station was there, just a few blocks down! We sprinted to the train terminal and made it!
We are currently in Amsterdam in a lovely lovely hotel. It has a gym and a sauna and free breakfast that has freshly squeezed juices, dried fruit, granola, pancakes, bacon, pastries and more! Much nicer than the free breakfasts offered at our hostels that were literally just bread and jam. Yesterday, we walked around our hotel to a nice park where we discovered a large windmill! Today, we went into town and walked around the canals. There are so many bikes here! The roads always have a bike path that is at least 4 feet wide and every spare rail has bikes chained to it. We are planning on renting bikes for a day and experiences true Amsterdam life. Tomorrow, we are going to the Anne Frank museum and then buying tickets to a hop on, hop off canal tour. We can jump on any boat within a 24 hour period and create our own little relaxing tour of the city.

Will try to right again soon!
Missing everyone at home and hope everyone is doing well :)

Paris Days 2 and 3

It's been (yet another) two fun-filled days. Yesterday we visited Saint Chapelle. It was this cool old church with lots of stained glass windows. Next, we visited the conciergie, which has probably been my favourite museum in Paris so far. It was an old prison that was the 'last stop' for prisoners about to be executed. It was the prison that Marie- Antoinette spent her last 76ish days! We got to see her prison cell, as well as a bunch of others. After that, we went over to Notre Dame. We went inside the church, but decided to not go up the tower because the line was loooooooong. It looped around the church and down the block and was moving VERY slowly. Unfortunately, our magical museum pass didn't allow us to skip the queue on this one. So we headed to a park near by and ate our lunch while listening to some music being played. Finally, we went down to the crypt which contained the remains of the city that stood before Paris.

Today, we took a day trip out to Versailles. It was absolutely stunning! A massive castle that French royalty (such as Marie-Antoinette) used to live in. We got to walk through all the living quarters and see lots of statues and paintings. One great part was the 'Hall of Mirrors' which was this large room with mirrors on all the walls. These mirrors made the room look even larger. The chandeliers that hung from the wall reflected of the mirrored walls as well. We then rented bikes and pedalled over to the Marie-Antoinette estate. This consisted of little houses that she had built in order to walk around and act as a peasant. The houses were made of marble and there was a lovely lake filled with fish and ducks. Not really peasant life but it was very very beautiful!

Tomorrow is Bastille Day (French National Day and my favourite holiday) here so we are gonna look up some celebrations and hopefully find something that we can participate in!

Paris.... Amazing!!

We arrived in our brand new hostel yesterday, and it is SUCH an improvement from our last one. No bugs in the beds or kitchens, smaller rooms with comfier beds AND the neighbourhood is absolutely wonderful. We are located on Rue Mouffetard near the metro station 'Place Monge'. The street we are on is lined with bakeries, fromageries, and crepe and ice cream places! Brendan and I got put in separate rooms this time. The first night I ended up having the whole room to myself! Definitely a nice change from being in a 10 person dorm. Tonight, I have two girls from Montreal here, but they are currently out so I once again have some peace and quiet!

Today we got up nice and early, leaving the hostel at 8:30 after a breakfast of croissants, jam, cereal and hot chocolate (all included). We headed on the metro over to Musee D'orsay, a really nice art museum. We bought a museum pass that allows us to enter all the museums in Paris at no cost AND we get to skip the line! We bought the unlimited 4 day pass for 52 euros! Brendan said this museum was his favourite part of the day. We got to see lots of statues and some of Van Gogh's work was there which was very cool to see. Next, we headed over to the Louvre (once again skipping the entire line). Walking past all those suckers in the long line in the hot sun made me feel like a celebrity entering a VIP club.
We took some pretty touristy photos here as well:

(Close enough)

The Mona Lisa: We got up right in front of the line which was a cool experience!

My personal favourite part of Louvre: This evil baby from a painting.

After the Louvre we took a walk over to the park to rest our aching feet:

After our lovely park break we walked down the champs elysees and over to the arc de triomphe. Once again, we got to head right to the front of the line and up about a thousand steps. I was happy that I hit the stairmaster hard the week before we left!

View from the top:

Finally, after a long day we headed to the grocery store so we could get some ingredients for a lovely pasta and salad dinner. We also headed out onto our block to get some yummy french pastry desserts. Now to bed because we are visiting 4 more museums tomorrow: Saint Chapelle (a gothic church), La Conciergerie (an old prison), The Crypt (historical ruins) and Notre Dame (Quasimodo).