I feel like I left a lot out of my Berlin post, but rather than keep editing that monstrosity, I’ll just post the random points here.

-I met several cool people. Joseph, an Australian, I met in the bar the first night, and again on the walking tour. Cool guy, with a razor sharp wit. Living in Dublin and working there for a while, in Berlin on vacation. Also, several other Aussies. There are more Aussies in Europe than Americans I think. And Japanese. Tons of Japanese there. And for some reason, they couldn’t work any of the locks in the hostel. Maybe the keys turned the opposite way from what they were used to? It was kind of funny to watch them try, it’d take them about 3 minutes to open any locked door. It’d be interesting to know what was so different…
-Everyone spoke perfect English. It was maddening, I couldn’t get in a word of German. As soon as I opened my mouth (and I like to think my accent is pretty good), they immediately knew I was American and started speaking perfect English to me.
-Unfortunately, I didn’t get to sample any of Berlin’s infamous nightlife. I was tight on funds, and paying €10 cover to get into a place and pay for overpriced drinks isn’t gonna stretch that money too much. Besides, clubs sketch me out, and I had tons of stuff I wanted to do during the days, not spend the days sleeping off a hangover. And not too many clubs are likely to let in a lone guy in jeans with unkempt hair.
-I really can’t recommend Brewer’s Berlin Tours enough. This tour rocked. The guy was funny, witty, knew everything, and the tour was cheap, to boot. I was very impressed. But what should I expect? The guy has been leading foot tours of Berlin since before the wall came down, and worked for the British embassy in Berlin for a long time. Be warned though, it ran on longer than the advertised 7-8 hours–we were out there for 10. Worth every minute though.
-Berlin is surprisingly cheap. Especially for a city. Pleasant surprise…
-I wasn’t impressed with the Berlin subway system, despite the good things I had heard about it. It was slow, there weren’t enough lines, and it was impossible to change lines. It took 20 minutes to get somewhere that you could walk to in 20 minutes. And expensive–single tickets cost €2.10. London and Paris have it whipped, though Rome is lightyears behind.
-There were lots of good international restaurants, especially Thai or Vietnamese restaurants. I ate in this one that was incredible, and cost me €5 for an entree. And they had this wonderful sweet and sour sauce that was unlike anything I’d ever had…
-The Döners in Berlin were different. Different kind of bread, more of a focaccia and less of a pita. And the Sharfsoße was curry based, not chili and garlic based. I’m not sure which I like more…
-Both the American and British embassies were guarded like fortresses, especially the American. They had massive concrete roadblocks blocking every road near it, with guardhouses and police all over, not to mention a serious wall surrounding the embassy proper. And this is right in the middle of Berlin. The British embassy was a little more classily protected, with these cool retracting roadblock posts in the street that would sink into the ground to let a car through if need be. But whoa, you’d think this was Saigon, 1975. They were building a new American embassy right next to the Brandenburg gate, complete with 18 inch thick reinforced concrete walls.

That’s it for now–I’m off to bed so I can catch a train to Nürnberg tomorrow morning to see the Christmas market and such…

Thursday morning, I got up early and caught a high speed ICE train to Berlin. Even on such a fast train (155mph at times), it still takes about 6 hours for the journey. This doesn’t bother me too much though–I’d much rather spend time on a train than in a car or airplane. Trains are much more comfortable, have more to look at out the window, are much less of a hassle, and you can get up and walk around. I really wish we had a good train infrastructure in the US. Anyways, I got to Berlin at about 2PM, caught the subway to my hostel, and checked in.

I stayed in The Circus hostel, and was quite impressed. Very comfortable, clean, and relaxed, and often felt more like a hotel than a hostel. Unfortunately, being winter in Germany, it was already getting dark out, but I headed down to the Brandenburg Gate to have a poke around. I got a few good pictures, and then walked down the street to the Reichstag. The Reichstag was very impressive, and much larger than I had imagined, but unfortunately due to the low light (at 4:30 in the afternoon, it was pitch black), I couldn’t get any pictures, so I headed back to the hostel to find somewhere to eat. They pointed me to a very good and very cheap Thai restaurant, and I was very pleased.

The next morning, I decided to go on a walking tour of Berlin. I’d heard several good things about Brewer’s Berlin Tours, and that they were an excellent way to get some insight into the tremendous history of Berlin that you can’t find in a guidebook. They were right. The tour was led in our case by the owner of the company, Terry Brewer, a grizzled old British guy who has lived in Berlin since before the wall came down. We all met up in the freezing cold outside, myself dressed in two pairs of pants, three shirts, my wool overcoat, a hat, and gloves, and proceeded to walk around Berlin for 10 hours. Terry was an encyclopedia of knowledge, pointing out tidbits of information about seemingly random buildings as we walked by. He seemed to know everything, and buildings that you normally wouldn’t have take a second look at turned out to have some very important history behind them. The tour was also a good way to get a feel for the city, and see how it was layed out. Most of the standard sights, like the cathedral, Brandenburg Gate, and the museums, were all in the East–in fact, I think I was only in the West a couple of times during my whole visit. Despite this, most of the old Soviet buildings have either been torn down and rebuilt or totally overhauled thanks to the appalling condition the Soviets had left them in, and you oftentimes wouldn’t even know that you were in the old East Berlin. Even 16 years after the wall came down though, the city is still shrouded in a blanket of construction. Everywhere you turn, buildings are covered in scaffolding, draped in construction covering, and watched over by several towering cranes. The joke used to go that you couldn’t get a crane in Europe because they were all in Berlin. Imagine a city that was isolated, neglected, and abused for 50 years, only to suddenly spring into the daylight, and that is Berlin. Despite this, they conserve some of the past, and one can see a few buildings that still show bullet and shrapnel damage from the war–such damage is even visible on the Brandenburg Gate.

Anyways, the next day, I went back to the museums to go inside and spend a bit of time in them. First up was the Egyptian museum. Currently housed in the Altes Museum because it’s normal home is under the shroud of reconstruction, it was an interesting display, but I must say I was somewhat underwhelmed. I think the problem was that the viewing space was possibly smaller than the normal location, and so not as much was on display; regardless, it felt that just as I was starting to get into it, it ended. Not to be phased, I headed down the street into the Pergamon Museum. The Pergamon is a museum in the vein of the British Museum in London. And given that the British Museum is by far the best I have ever seen, I was quite pleased with the Pergamon. While certainly not as large as the British Museum, it was nonetheless impressive. In it are the Ishtar and Miletus Gates, the latter under reconstruction to repair damage sustained in WW2. Also of interest, the Berlin Kore, an ancient Greek sculpture I had to learn about in my Greek Archaeology class and immediately recognized upon seeing, pointing out the details to myself before even the museum recording playing in my ears could say it. An excellent experience, and similar to what I experienced in the British Museum. After this, I went over to the Berlin Cathedral, and after listening to a bit of a choir concert, walked up to the top of the dome and admired the view of Berlin. By this time, it was getting dark, so after quickly walking through one of the Christmas markets, I headed back to the hostel to find some dinner.

The next day, my last final day, was considerably more quiet. I got up early and headed over to the Reichstag with the intention of climbing to the top of the glass dome, but arrived to find a massive line out the front and stretching into the field in front of the building. Everything was like that that day–the tour bus crowds were out in force. You could see them, busses pulling up to sidewalks in front of all the sights, and the tourists disembarking like locusts to swarm all over things, rudely talking loudly, shoving for better camera angles, and generally just being obnoxious. I saw people loudly walking into the War Monument (wearing hats as well), laughing and playing tag in the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and generally doing disrespectful shit. So I headed off to an internet cafe and passed the rest of the day drinking coffee and surfing the internet. A quiet end, but better than dealing with the tourist hordes.

The next day, up early and then back home. Not much to write about there.

I must say, the best (though somewhat morbid) part of the trip however, was finding the location of Hitler’s bunker, the place where he spent his last days before killing himself and being burned. There’s an eery sense about the place, made all the more so because there is nothing marking the spot and no tour book guiding you there–the German government refuses, perhaps rightly so, to put any sort of monument or marker there for fear of it becoming a rallying point for Neo-Nazis. Terry showed us the spot, which I later managed to back up with a bit of Googling. Today, an apartment building and parking lot stands on the spot. Part of the bunker was torn up to build the apartments, but a significant part of it still remains, and you can see the inconspicuous locked steel doors leading down into it. There is a children’s playground right about on the spot that Hitler is supposed to have been burned, making it even more creepy. All the people living there know what they are living over–seems rather creepy to me. I’m not sure I’d like my children playing on the ground where that man was burned. But nonetheless, my curiosity for history made the place supremely interesting to me. It’s not too often you can stand on the ground where the most infamous figure of the last century met his end, with not a soul around to make a noise.

Anyways, make sure to check out the photo gallery. There are tons of photos up from the trip beyond was is shown here.

I’m back from Berlin. A very good time, and a very interesting city. I’ll have a long post coming when I get a bit more time, tomorrow most likely, but in the meantime, pictures are up.

I’ve decided to take advantage of my 5 day weekend and am going to Berlin tomorrow. I catch a high speed ICE train from Stuttgart tomorrow morning, putting me in Berlin at about 14:00. I’m looking forward to this; I’ve been getting a bit stir-crazy in Tübingen, and feel like I need to get into a real city. Besides, with all the history there, I suspect I’ll be quite happy. I’ll be back Monday night.

Also, I added a bit of code that now shows my most recently posted image on the right sidebar. Make sure to check it out anytime you see something new.

I just returned from my travels for the weekend. On Thursday morning, I hopped a train to Ansbach, and then from there a bus through endless green farmfields to Colmberg, a sleepy Franconian farming town just inside Bavaria. You immediately notice the castle sitting on the hillside, surrounded by fields on one side and forests on the other. It’s a most impressive sight–all the moreso because I knew I was staying there for the next two nights.

As I walked up the hill and into the castle, I became more impressed with every passing minute. The place just oozed character, from the 14th century stones to the green moss on the trees. I checked in and walked to my room, continuing to be impressed by the castle as I wound my way up the stairs to my room. After dropping off my bags, I proceeded to explore the castle, trying to see every bit possible. Then, noticing the sun going down, I went out to watch it dip below the sunset from the castle walls. That evening, as I was walking around, and through the restaurant, I heard two people–the only two in the restaurant at that time–speaking the strangest combination of German and British English. I noticed this and started talking to them, asking them why that was. They explained that they were married, and that they both spoke the other’s language, though when speaking, they just sorta mixed it together in whatever jumble it happened to come out in. As we started talking more, they invited me to sit down with them, and treated me to a glass of wine as we continued our conversation. We discovered that we had several things in common–them with relatives in Maine, and a love for Charleston, SC; in fact, they are going to Charleston for Christmas, while my family is coming here. Seemed an odd switch to all of us. They soon invited me to dinner, and insisted on paying, treating me to a wonderful pumpkin soup and venison steak served in a peppercorn sauce. It was a delicious meal, and I enjoyed it all the more having such an interesting conversation with such an interesting–and generous–couple.

The next day, I wandered around the castle some more, this time camera in hand. There was a thick fog and it felt like it was going to rain, but this only added to the atmosphere and made the place seem even more real. I trapsed all around the borders of the castle, then headed back inside to read for a few hours in one of the common areas I had all but claimed as my own. Something about the room really resonated with me; I think it was the combination of the high, dark, exposed wood cielings combined with the furniture and the old bookcases crammed with old books, and the view out the windows into the castle courtyard. I read half of my 900 page novel sitting here over the two days I was at the castle.

The next morning, after thoroughly relaxing and enjoying my time at the castle, I departed, catching the 8:00AM bus to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a notoriously touristic–though gorgeous–medieval German town. Luckily I got myself there early, and enjoyed a couple of hours of quiet, winding cobblestone lanes before someone opened the floodgates and I found myself suddenly crushed between throngs of Japanese tourists running around trying to get pictures of themselves in front of every possible building, fountain, streetsign, and storefront. Tour busses. Anyways, I enjoyed a nice cup of coffee and small lunch, then walked to the town walls and walked around the tops of them for a while, where I found it much quieter and more relaxing. Besides, it’s always interesting to get up close to something like that, and the views it afforded were quite rewarding as well.

So, after deciding that I was tired of schlepping my luggage around and feeling somewhat tired, I walked back towards the train station, making sure to pass once more by the cathedral to admire at how it had been seemingly built in the air, with the road going underneath it. Four hours later, back in Tübingen; time to start planning a trip for next weekend. As always, make sure to check out the photo gallery for more images.

Tomorrow, I’m going to Burg Colmberg, a castle hotel in a town about 2.5 hours from here. It’s been a rough couple of days, and I need some time to just relax and try to clear my head. Hopefully this will be just the thing. Watch for a post about it when I return, either Friday or Saturday.

Back in Tuebingen after the better part of a week in Chapel Hill. It was a good recharge, and it was great to see everyone. I’m planning on doing a bit more travel later this week, but for now I need to take it easy for a couple of days, as I’ve been travelling for two weeks now.

So, on to Paris. Maggie met me in the Paris-Nord train station after my uneventful trainride from Amsterdam. As I had in Amsterdam, we simply headed back to her place and crashed, being late in the evening. The next morning, we got up, and after buying my Metro ticket and a wonderful chocolate croissant, Maggie went to class and I headed to the Eiffel tower. I walked the grounds for a while, had an espresso in a nearby cafe, and gawked as much at the hordes of Japanese tourists being disgorged from tourbusses as at the Eiffel tower itself. Maggie and I then met back up for a late lunch, then spent a good bit of the afternoon trying to get the internet working on her laptop. She then had class again, and I went with her this time–it was interesting to see what her studio class is like. After that, we cooked dinner with her roommate.

The next morning, Maggie again was in class, so I headed over to the Notre Dame. I wandered around there for a while, touring the excavations underneath and then heading into the cathedral proper. It was impressive and has much history, which I enjoyed, but I must say that the cathedral at Cologne was much more impressive–larger and more detailed. After leaving the cathedral, I ate dinner in a restaurant nearby that my cousin had recommended, and ate a wonderful meal, including one of the best desserts I have ever had–a sort of thin cake topped with a custard and wine jam. Most excellent. I then walked around the island and the Seine for a while, before heading back to the flat to meet Maggie. That evening, we ate dinner in a nice asian place down the street from her, and then headed out downtown for drinks.

The next day, the Louvre. We got there at about 10 and spent 3 or so hours inside, which isn’t nearly enough time for a place so large. It literally defies description is it so massive. Afterwards, we did a bit of shopping for a gift for Lindsay and my parents, and grabbed some lunch. Maggie soon had to go, but I walked around a good bit more myself, heading into a massive church built as a Greek temple, the church of Saint Marie Madaleine, then walking down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomph. After all this, it was getting late and I was knackered from all the walking, so I headed back home. That evening, we ate a delicious dinner at a small cafe, La Belle Histoire, that had again come strongly recommended from my cousin. A very cozy little place, with great food.

So that’s my time in Paris. The next morning, I boarded my train for Tuebingen, and then the day after that, headed to Frankfurt to catch my flight back to the States. I don’t really have much to say about that–really just a lot of hanging around and catching up, but a wonderful time nonetheless.

I’ve decided to break up my writings to prevent one massive post, so we’ll start with the first stop of my trip, Amsterdam. Or, more properly, Cologne. I scheduled my train ride to Amsterdam with a 2 hour stop in Cologne, Germany, so that I could see the massive gothic cathedral there. I had had several people tell me about how incredible it was, and given that it is literally right across the street from the train station, and I had to go through Cologne anyways, I figured I’d seize the opportunity to see it.

No one was kidding when they said it was right across the street from the train station. As you leave your train, you can see the two massive ornate gothic spires jutting up into the skies through the windows in the train station. You come to the main entrance/exit of the train station, and the entire view out the glass front is taken up by a tremendous grey stone monstrosity–the Dom, German for cathedral. You walk across the short square in front of it and up some steps, around to the entrance. You walk through the standard gothic ornately carved entryway and into the cathedral itself. I immediately broke to the right to climb one of the towers, since they closed earlier than the rest of the cathedral, and I was cutting things close. I got it for the 1 euro student price, and proceeded to march for about 20 minutes up a narrow, winding staircase, with stone stairs that had divots worn into them from the tens of thousands of people climbing them over the centuries. The thing that impressed me the most was the detail present–you’d be climbing this staircase and look out some tiny slit window, and see some part of the cathedral that is almost never seen, and certainly wouldn’t have needed to be done in the same detail as the lower parts that are regularly seen… And yet they were just as ornate. I finally came to the top, sweating and out of breath, and was rewarded with an incredible view of Cologne and the rest of the cathedral. After taking it in for about twenty minutes, I headed back down the stairs–harder than going up them–and proceeded to walk around the cathedral proper. Large parts of it were unfortunately closed, but I still greatly enjoyed it. I sat down on a pew, cocked my head upwards, and just took it all in. I was annoyed with all of the people taking flash photographs inside the cathedral–it isn’t going to work anyways in such a cavernous space, and it’s disrespectful, but nothing could take away from the awe that fills you when you see such a structure. I still think St. Peter’s in Rome was more impressive, but after seeing the Notre Dame later, I think the cathedral here in Cologne was much more impressive.

After gaping for a while, I headed back to the train station and got on my train for Amsterdam. It was supposed to be a short hop, but turned into a nightmare–the train broke down, we had to get a new one, then the conductor was late, then there was track construction that slowed us down and sent us halfway around the Netherlands to get to Amsterdam, all of which meaning that we ended up being two hours late. I met my cousin Katie in a bar outside the train station, and after catching up for a while and drinking a beer, we headed back to her place to crash.

The next morning, after waking and eating some breakfast, we headed off to rent me a bike. One of the first things that hits you about Amsterdam is the sheer number of bikes. Everyone goes everywhere on these old cruiser bikes. You’ll see an executive in a suit crusing next to a pothead. We then just started cruising around the town, having a good time. Amsterdam is surprisingly small, and extremely flat, so it’s no problem, and a lot of fun, to just cruise around taking in the sights. As we were riding, Katie pointed out to me points of interest, and explained to me some about Amsterdam. We soon were hungry, and stopped at a cafe for lunch and a beer. Then more cruising, followed by another cafe. We rode a bit more, this time interspersed with some walking, ate dinner in an Italian restaurant, then went to an improv comedy show where we met two of Katie’s friends, a frenchman and a spaniard. Unfortunately, I think much of the show was lost in translation for them, but no matter. We left and went to a jazz club to buy the frenchman a beer since he had paid our tab at the comedy show, refusing to let us pitch in even a euro. We walked into this incredibly cool hole in the wall jazz club, with a rather good group playing on stage. After a beer and some time hanging out, we all headed home to sleep.

The next morning, we essentially did more of the same, riding around Amsterdam some more, complete with a tour of the redlight district. We ate lunch in this very cool pancake house, a place with only 4 tables, up the steepest stairs I have ever climbed. The whole restaurant was one small room–kitchen included–but the food was excellent. The pancakes were almost a sort of crepe, with different toppings on them; mine had cheese, tomatoes, and bacon. We then returned my bike to the rental place, and I headed off to the train station to catch my train to Paris. Unfortunately I didn’t do any of the museums in Amsterdam, including the massive Rijksmuseum, but I still greatly enjoyed myself.

I’m back in Tuebingen from Amsterdam and Paris. Tomorrow morning, I catch a train to Frankfurt then a flight back to the States for a few days.

There will be lots of photos and stories from my trip to come, but for now, check the photo gallery for a couple of quickly thrown together panoramas of the beer garden in Tuebingen, Amsterdam, and the Louvre.

So, tomorrow is the end of the Sprachkurs. We have to give a short presentation; the one that my partner and I are working on is soccer in Germany. It won’t be too hard, and should actually be quite fun, so that’s not really that big of a concern.

Then, directly after that, I head to the train station and jump a train to Amsterdam. I’m staying there for the weekend, then heading to Paris to stay through the rest of the week. Friday, I catch a flight back to the States for a week–I found a crazy cheap ticket, have time to spare, and won’t be able to go again until February. Besides, I’d like to see Lindsay and the Lodge.

Anyways, I’m sure I’ll be posting about all those things, but it’ll probably be a while. Until then…