Berlin, the city with way too much history

While I knew I could never make it to all the historical sites in Berlin in two days, I did my best. Basically, each of my days was devoted to a war: WWII on Monday and the Cold War on Tuesday. This meant a walking tour with a premier WWII historian (that my father and uncle would have drooled over) on Monday, which was both incredibly informative and very tiring. We covered all the major spots, including the location of Hitler's bunker, and some more out of the way things, like the office in which Operation Valkerie was planned and executed. One of the most interesting things about Berlin is that you can tell if the building pre-dates the bombing of the city because they all have bullet holes in them. Afterward, I wandered some of the non-entry city sites like the Reichstag (which is now similar to the White House's entrance policies, you have to request admission in advance to go inside or up in the dome) and the Victory Column in the Tiergarten.

Tuesday, I made up my own tour of the Cold War sites. I returned to the Topography of Terror, a museum on the former site of the Gestapo, SS, and SD headquarters that also happens to have one of the longest remaining stretches of the wall in the city. From there, I went to Checkpoint Charlie, which is the former entrance/exit point of the American sector in West Berlin. Finally, I hopped on the S-Bahn and went to the Memorial to the Wall in Northwest Berlin. While the whole thing was cool, the best part was an artist's reconstruction of what the "Death Strip" (i.e., the area between the wall on the East side and the wall on the West side) probably looked like. They're working on an extension of the memorial - which is also an outdoor museum in its own right - that looks like it should be done soon. The major Wall site that I missed was the East Side Gallery, which is a 1.3km strip of wall left in southeast Berlin that has had paintings added to it by artists after the Wall "came down" in 1989. Luckily, we drove by it on the way out of the city this morning, so I got to see it nonetheless.

Oh, and before I went on my Cold War spree, I went to Museuminsel (Museum Island) and visited two museums. The second one, the Neues Museum, holds the famous bust of Nefertiti...no big deal.

The bus arrived relatively early into Prague this afternoon, 2pm, which is good because I'm only here until tomorrow morning. But I'll leave that for the next entry.

Amsterdam in the rain

My second day in Amsterdam was mostly about a countryside bike tour. Unfortunately, no one told the weather I was planning to spend 4 hours on a bike; instead of raining heavily and then clearing (like it had the day before), it spit rain almost all day. But the tour runs rain or shine - and apparently it rains about 270 days a year in Holland so it goes on in the rain all the time - so I dressed up in a bright red poncho and rode through Amsterdam to a nearby suburb, Amstelveen. On the way, we saw one of only 8 remaining windmills in the Amsterdam area (out of thousands), visited a small farm that makes gouda cheese and wooden clogs, and rode back through the area below sea-level (called a poulder) that is created by a dike. Other than the fact that it wouldn't stop raining on us and my hands got quite cold, I really enjoyed it. Obviously, I'm thrilled to have purchased some authentic Amsterdam gouda (and am trying my hardest not to break it open until I get back to the States); it was also really cool to get outside the city and see the countryside. Mostly, I'm just seeing the European countryside through the window of a bus - when I'm awake that is - so it was good to see it in person.

After a short nap, I spent the evening wandering some of the areas of Amsterdam I had missed thus far. I found a small restaurant in one of the major shopping districts and had a savory pancake for dinner. I don't know if this is true everywhere in the country, but pancakes seem to be the Netherlands' answer for crepes.

I'm currently in Berlin and will try to update about my adventures here tomorrow. I do want to mention, however, one of the most interesting highway rest stops I have ever seen. About 2 hours outside of Berlin, we stopped at a plaza that used to be a checkpoint between East and West Germany. Many of the buildings were left standing, and there is a free museum dedicated to explaining what went on there. It was all in German, but I got my hands on an English copy of the guide after wandering the place. The strangest thing was a lookout bridge with an officer's eyes that said something like "See you." All in all, kind of creepy but also the kind of thing you might only find at a rest stop in Germany.

And so it begins...

My European adventure began with 4 countries in 2 days. I arrived in London Wednesday morning at 10:30am (local time). After navigating the Underground to the King's Cross/St. Pancras Station, I took a 16:02 Eurostar through the Chunnel to Paris - all without going outside because it was raining and I wanted nothing to do with it. So, that was two countries on the 22nd. I was in Paris for all of 13 hours before I hopped on the BusAbout bus (my major form of transportation for this trip) and headed off to Amsterdam via Bruges, Belgium; that makes two additional countries for the 23rd. Thus, I hit 4 countries in total in my first 2 days.

Although I didn't stay in Belgium, I did get to experience real Belgian fries. Basically, this meant a heaping portion that fell out of the container they were meant to stay in and a huge blob of mayonnaise on top of that. Delicious, but not exactly good for me. Overall, the bus ride wasn't too painful; EU law requires bus drivers to stop driving every 2-3 hours, so we had fairly frequent stops to stretch our legs. My body still has absolutely no idea what time it is because I didn't sleep much on the plane to London and then passed out on the Eurostar, so my response to a moving vehicle was to fall asleep almost immediately. I finally got a somewhat normal night's sleep last night, so I'm hoping I'm back on a regular schedule now.

Today was my first chance to be a tourist, and I took full advantage of it despite the downpour 15 minutes after I left the hostel. First, I went to the Anne Frank Huis, which is the actual house in which the Frank family was hidden. It was a really fascinating place; having read her diary in 8th grade, it really brings a lot of what she taked about to life. You have to climb some really steep staircases (like most are in Amsterdam) but you get to see the secret living space of the Frank's highlighted by quotes from Anne's diary. After that, I took the tram (the major mode of transportation in Amsterdam) back toward my hostel and went to the Van Gogh museum. I waited in a much longer line to get in, but it was well worth it. The museum is well laid out, with lots of interesting text to accompany Van Gogh's works. I also enjoyed that it was not soley his work; they also have works of those predecessors that inspired him as well as the contemporaries he worked with that influenced his style (i.e., Gaugin, Seurat, Pissaro, and Toulousse-Latrec). Finally, I headed to the old Heineken brewery for the "Heineken Experience." Basically, it's a - mostly - self-guided tour of the brewing process, followed by some sampling of the wares. Overall, lots of fun, though I'm quite ready for a nap.

Most of my fears about this trip no longer exist after today. Though I was a bit confused by the Tram lines at first and don't speak a word of Dutch, I managed to get around just fine. Finding hostels is always the most difficult part because they are often on small sidestreets that are unmarked on maps. I eventually found both, however, though I did get a little lost in the process. Anyway, I'll stop rambling on now; time for a nap perhaps?