April ??????? A whole connection of Reflection. Linguistic Mystic.

Time and time again I would hear the phrase " what an eye opener the experience can be, what a perception change". I came to kind tire of it, I mean, I "know" in the sense of accepting other peoples statements, computing them in my mind and figuring "yes, this must indeed be true, I mean, I'm going across the world". But yeah, it really is, what a trip.

Even this plane ride back seems an insignificant price, despite my severe amounts of travel anxiety that I've had my whole life. These past couple years I've really pushed my limits and not only overcome a fear, but breath it in, accept it and allow it to completely pass through me and watch it as it leaves.

Being in a different country(s) was amazing. Despite my loathing of some, I don't regret a single event, occasion, other than the fact that I wish I did even MORE. The trip itself wasn't the kind of relaxing sensation that one usually invokes in their mind then they brood over the word "vacation". In fact, it was probably a much more stressful experience than my normal, somewhat mundane, everyday life. But in the end, it allowed me to grow into more of a person, and I'm grateful for it. Gosh, just by rereading this paragraph, and despite how much I used to resent it, I'm starting to sound like my parents. Luckily, they can take it.

So now I'm amusing the mind by watching a variety of films, that the plane has willingly thrown at the customers, to placate them. Normally I wouldn't convert to such witchery, but it was the new james bond movie, which I had not had a chance to see. For a gun blasting, hot babe loving spy flick, it was quite enjoyable.

Despite how much fun it is to ramble about my life, this will probably be the end of this whole blog experience, other than the random possible thought for my hobbies, such as brewing to keep myself remembering the various techniques I use. I hope people have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed (sometimes not enjoyed, these things can be really a giant chore, but I kept forcing myself to finish it) writing.

Well, by the time this is up, I'll be back in Saint Cloud. So if you feel like hanging out, or just plain old pestering me, feel free. Tchues.

Done. And tired.

Tourism Central - April 18th

Urrg.. must.. wake and make trains. With constant mental reminders of the woes of yesterday Ted and I set out early to make sure we didn't fail quite so horribly.

Even the vending machines in Belgium give you beer. My kind of place!

With the train rides made, we can at last set out to the big city, the numbero uno destination for all travelers throughout the world. Paris. I hope it lives up to the high standards it has (possibly pretentiously) set for itself. Should be an interesting final hurrah.

Well, it would be if we had the foresight to actually write down the directions to our already reserved place of stay. Whoops. Such is life. As a result of this we were forced to wander around aimlessly (In the rain no less, but at least it has been our only rainy day throughout the entire trip) until giving into stopping into another hotel to see if we could purchase an hour or so of wireless. Normally we would have tried to find a McDonald's (they all have wifi usually) or some sort of internet cafe, but the neighborhood was completely barren of these outposts of modern times. At this point we were pretty hungry too, so we took a quick stop at a local bakery and had some true french croissants and chocolate filled ones (not exactly filled, just a tiny bit inside which makes them more of a lunch object than a sugar filled nightmare).

The place we managed to stop in was pretty much the most lavish hotel I have ever seen in my life. It was flocking with elderly and middle aged Americans who were more than happy to part with about seven hundred and fifty euro a night (the big suits were 5k :-O ). Geesh, I don't know how anyone could empathize with that kind of decadence. As there weren't a whole lot of other hotels in the area, we decided to stick here and harass the already busy clerks at their desks.

The pleasant and kind young lady at the desk quickly turned into a sour wench when she discovered we were indeed not staying at this establishment. She tried to look up the location for us, but had no luck. I couldn't understand this at ALL. So many times we have had people search for us, and they have a great deal of difficulty finding anything. We were able to finally get an hour of wireless for 7E (yikes). We were willing to pay it so we didn't spend our only day in the big city wandering around like fools.

At last, we managed to find our hotel ( a mere several blocks away ) and were able to check in and get our room so we could drop off all our baggage.. in 20 minutes. We stopped at a local bakery and had a sandwich and some (french word here). Now we could do things!

And so.. we strode down the Champs el 'eses. The first section of this well known famous road of france was smothered with lavish parks in which the french could salute themselves at how lavish it was. The second area, was basically a gigantic strip mall. Many big names (Mcdonalds, Disney, Adidas) had claimed their own little portion of this highly expensive road to say "look at me!".

At last, we had finally reached the end of this long and busy (12 lanes of busy) stretch to the focal point at the end, the Arc De Triumph. The thing to remember here, is it really isn't the only "Arc De Triumph". Every single battle/war that the French felt was a great victory resulted in the construction of one of these, but this one, just happens to be the biggest and arguably the best. So the parisians have dubbed this monument as THE Arc De Triumph. Anyways, we took a quick look around at it.

Really? They actually won something? :O!


These French guys were trying to play golf, using the tomb of the unknown soldier as the first hole. This old guy was not pleased at all. It's funny how you can tell exactly what someone is saying when they're just THAT angry, regardless of the language.

Don't forget the underside, it's ornate too!

Afterwards we went back down to the river (name?) and checked out one of the most overrated structures in history, the Eiffel Tower. I deemed it worthy to glance at from the other side of the river, but that was as far as I decreed we should go.

pshhh it's not that big..

Our next destination was the big cathedral, the Notre Dam. Well, it is big, but don't let the name mislead you into thinking it is the biggest. It's more of the most famous because of its history (being "gothic" aka "barbaric" and almost destroyed) and the fact that it's the most well rounded (think of 4/5 on all categories, as other cathedrals might have a 5/5 in one, but a 2/5 in another). The lines were long, but they moved quickly. Along the way we were asked "do you speak english" (always say "non" "nyet" "nein" as they just want to strike you up for money) and if we wanted an umbrella for 5E (it was still raining, but just a very very slight drizzle). Ahh the tourist trap hazards. At any rate, we found our way inside, checked around it and then left.

Here's the back of it, i think this shot looks much better than: the low lighted interior "no flashes!" <-- Our country mates took them anyway, of course and the front, coated with a writhing mass of people. Now, I like history, and Museums are pretty fun, but we were running low on time. I really did want to see what was proclaimed "the biggest and best museum in the world" so we went at a brisk pace to the Louvre. Only having about an hour, we set out to look at the various areas with gusto. I was surprised at how much empty space there was, but I suppose it made sense since the building used to be a gigantic palace for the king. It was kind of irritating, as you had to walk all over the place to see something that you would think could have been easily fit into something much smaller. I was also baffled at the fact that a lot of the pieces had no descriptions at all, so everyone was forced to get one of those exceptionally irritating (and expensive) ear devices just to learn the history of an object. At any rate, I got to see a lot of cool art and such in the few hours I was there. I hold the art of the world in the palm of my hand!

I even got a picture of a hot babe, she's not very photogenic though


I can has mummification.. nom nom nom

We set out for my last european meal, to a local (and recommended by our hotel clerk) crepe eatery. What's crepe? Why a "pancake" with anything you well please inside. They're pretty good.

Crepes makes me strong! "The Popeye"

Desert Crepes make me large... mmmm

As I had a day full of traveling on the morrow starting at a very early time, we said our farewells to the big city and let our minds wander into that mental state which allows rest.

Woe betide yee (April 17th)

Overall, we had been pretty train lucky throughout the trip. No real mishaps. This time however, we turned our potential "non train day" into a very much so "train day". Crap.

This pizza in the station was @)(%$&)!@$&)$U TASTY! I mean, it says it!

It all began with a mistake, of course. A mistake on me? A mistake on ted for listening to me? A mistake on the Dutch for the one time we really needed it, failing on their so-called sign zealotry. At any rate, I thought a stop that was indeed our stop, wasn't due to the complete lack of signs that said it was, and a sign that was in the exact same format as other city signs , saying something completely different. Argh.

At any rate, It's given me yet another typing session to get caught up with my blogging shenanigans.

Like I was saying, we're at last finally on our way to Antwerp. From there we'll be staying in the quaint little town of Gent, where I hope will be a place of checking out some of the local colors of red, dark, and light... beer of course! Local breweries ho!... errr..

Well, at least we got in town I suppose. Arriving at 5, we set out into Ghent to find our hotel. After another half an hour or so of wandering "do you have maps?" "NO!". We finally reached our destination... from the opposite end. Finally circling across the block, we managed to finally get into our hotel room, which was very nice.

Apples influence extends everywhere. iphones and macbooks are the rage in Europe.


idk, it looks nice

After a short break, we set out and explored the local area. Deciding it would be a prudent decision to change the train reserve the following morning (which would force us to wake up at 5) the two of us walked down the canals to the larger train station.

"All trains to Paris are FULL. No change!"
"!*@&"

Ghent had its fair share of big churches, a common sign you're in Europe

And big streets

Walking BACK, hunger was immanent. So the need for food was dire. Seeing as how we had to probably sleep very soon (sigh.) we settled for a local restaurant. Alas... we only settled for 1 beer

that is, one liter of beer.. mmmmmm. Never being much of a light beer fan, I had always kind of scoffed at these brighter relatives of the rich dark beers I preferred. Traveling through europe changed my perception as there were actually decent light beers, no linenkugels, miller, budwiser or coronas in sight. Praise be to the gods.

Due to the misfortune of the train time table, there was a rapid scurry back to the hotel, and a swift need for sleep. See you in 5 hours.

Smalltown, Bigtown, Redtown, Bluetown (April 16th)

We woke up blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah breakfast blah blah. Train blah blah... to Den Haag. No, not to your grandmothers; bringing a picnic basket through the woods (kidding.. unless you agree, of course) but to the capital of this fair land.

The city was big, in the kind of sense that it was similar to one of the big skyscraper cities back 'ome. We walked around some big churches, and checked out the queen's palace. It was all quite nice. Alas, we didn't partake in any herring as we were already completely stuffed on a buffet breakfast, but we at least got to see how it was eaten (dangled high above the head, chin raised and chomping daintily).

2000 room house, "pool" included. Call now!


They turn their churches into restaurants :D


Well, not this one, but there's a lot of churches.

We only spent about an hour or so in the city, but once again we were able absorb the culture around us. Dutch is a really confusing language. With its similar background to english and German, I could always pull out random words, swearing that they were speaking one of the two... every time I looked back, they were still just speaking Dutch. It could be compared to communicating to a really inebriated American, who you could hardly understand.

Fortunately, like all countries that are forced to comply to our "primary" language; we hadn't even encountered a single Dutch citizen who couldn't speak English. Of course, it's not exactly nice to just sit there and assume the fact, so every time we invoked a conversation it started with "Hello, do you speak English?". My only hope is that it was recognized as a friendly gesture, rather than a demand (I've just seen so many people expecting English from everyone, which isn't exactly the nicest thing in the world).

Swinging from one vine to another in the Train jungle, we arrived at the smallish town of Delft. This wasn't exactly my first priority of a city, but Ted was quite interested in seeing it, so rather than breaking apart and spending hours trying to track each other down in the midst of the big city of Amsterdam which we would be going to later, we decided to just head through this city quick. Ted checked out a few churches ( they required some $$$, which I didn't really feel like parting with) and a little while later we were back on our way to the most well known city of the Netherlands.

Delfting

I'm not much of an Art museum guy. I'll see one, but it just seems like such a dreadful waste of time unless it's one of the most amazing museums in the world, and I have a ton of days in the location, so I can spend one just slowly wandering about. As a result of this, Ted and myself have been bypassing pretty much every giant museum we've come across.. there was one in Amsterdam however that I really wanted to check out for my own amusement, because really, where else is there one of it?

The Hemp/Marijuana museum was actually pretty interesting. Of course, it primarily was just a bunch of facts that could have just been Googled, but the same could really be said of pretty much any art/sculpture/history museum. It was also pretty neat to see the history behind it, the lack of acceptance and so-on. I'm not really a gigantic druggie advocate or anything, but really, I don't have much of an issue just letting people do what they want provided they don't shoot themselves in the foot, or have a stray bullet glance someone else's.
Pipe types


No... not an episode of Cops... just a legal growing room



Upon exiting, I met Ted waiting outside. As we beseeched the town map, a local netherlander with a camera came up to us. He was curious about what the big deal was with all of the kids coming to europe purely for the netherlands. We ended up talking to him for a while, he was pretty entertaining. Apparently, when he was in the states and mentioned he was indeed a Netherlander, everyone would insist to talk to him about this THC filled wonder, which was something he hadn't ever really thought about back home. So, here he was inquiring to random hashish pilgrims about what the big deal was.

We went to the Anne frank house, and declined paying 20 euro to see a tiny room, but just peeked outside.
This house?

or

This house?




We also just strolled around the canals some more, all the while dodging cars, bikes, mopeds and throngs of people... unfortunately, when we had our map in hand we were approached by the most sketchy looking of characters... It must have been a benevolent fellow, right? I mean look he decided to point out all these interesting things on the map! What an absolute gem! As his wild eyes glanced back and forth at my pockets and he shoved his face into mine, my hands swiftly took burrow inside of them, nestling quite pleasantly next to my wallet. Seeing he'd been foiled, the fellow changed his tune to being a poor "homeless" fellow, just positively stricken by the drastic times. As a reward for his well playted performance, I gave him a whopping .15 euro, Ted, being a bit more of a philanthropist, gave him about .40 . My only regret? That I didn't ask for a picture of him, that would have been a most fun souvenir.

Afterward, we decided to check out some Indonesian to go, which was pretty tasty. It wasn't the most extravagant place, but man, it was good!

I had really wanted to check out one of these fabled "coffee shops" while I was here. Even to just check out a menu, but its not exactly the kind of thing you want to do yourself. Ted, due to medical reasons, didn't want to enter such a place; and I didn't really want to sit around in that kind of situation in a city that was known for pickpockets and cheats (who mark us green tourists as well.. marks) in a potential stupor state where I could be taken advantage of. Sad day.. well, maybe next time I'm in the country I guess... at least I had gotten some sort of "fill" of this interesting tradition at the museum.

With one long parade wave goodbye, we boarded back onto the train, and back into Harrlem blah blah blah sleep blah blah.

This was going on when we got back. Complete with a churro stand of course.

Drugs, Hookers and.... bikes (April 14-15)

Ah... the final hurrah for the long train rides. This one was, of course, from Berlin to Amsterdam. Like other long train rides, it was primarily uneventful aside from a few seat hops when we were in someone's "reserved" seat. The seats we sat in weren't reserved at all, but a flock of elderly folk swore they had reserved them, even though on their receipt they didn't even pay for a reservation. Oh well.

At long last, we arrived at our final hotel in Haarlem, Netherlands. Well, the final hotel in which we would be staying for over one day. Par usual, we lugged our bags to our place of staying, about a km or so from the station. Once we were situated, we set out to get a peek of Amsterdam before it was too late.

Due to our skillful planning... well, OK. I admit it, my planning contribution was pretty much null. So here's the part where I give a slew of kudos and props to Ted who basically single handedly made this trip happen. As a whole he set out most of the days, and plotted out train courses due to his experience overseas, discussing every step with me, but I usually just agreed whole heartedly to his idea. Of course, I threw my two cents in for destination suggestions, where we should stay longer and so on. As a whole Ted's sagely knowledge shined though in the way of train times (to get as much out of the trip as possible) and hotels (managing to weigh out cheap/good deals with the distance from the train station). So, hats off to you buddy!

So now we set out into the city famed throughout the states for its bikes, prostitutes, and legalized marijuana. All of which of course, are quite apparent in the city.

There are literally thousands upon thousands of bicycles scattered everywhere. All of the bike lanes even have their own signal lights. One thing I had not counted on, was the fact that mopeds could go through bicycle lanes.
They like their bikes. Morso than cars. Of course, this also means that the bike riders start driving like automobile drivers, so you still have to watch out, you just don't die when you get hit by them.

We discovered this a little late, as one went screaming by us as we unwittingly tried to take quick jaunt across the bike streets. Now, I couldn't really fathom the point of this. Why would they allow motorized vehicles on a lane that was purely intended for bicycles? It seemed rather contradictory to this whole bike lane scheme, as any motorized bike could easily follow the standard speed limits throughout the city. To be fair, even the cyclers are almost like automobile drivers. They zoom past everyone as well, thinking that they even prioritize over pedestrians who are constantly forced to cross their lane as the sidewalks keep flip flopping to other sides of the roads. Many a time a fist was waved or a slurred curse word was thrown in our direction as we walked the roads along canals.

Ahhh the canals, this is why this city was compared to Venice. Rather than just you know, build the city around water, the Dutch loved these little boat ways so much that they just decided to incorporate them into the city when it was built. It makes it quite lovely, despite the complete lack of extra space for individuals to walk around.

One of the many canals
After crisscrossing a few of these canals, we finally made our way into the notorious red light district. We decided to meander over here first, as we didn't want to get pick pocketed, sold drugs, or attacked by prostitute bouncers in the midst of the night. That meant, of course we weren't able to see this section of town in it's absolute "splendor" but I was OK with that. There were still many ladies of the night out in their various booths, perhaps giving some sort of "early bird special" to their patrons. Whenever we took a side glance at these corpulent (yeah, with the high risk and everything on top of that they're not exactly eye candy... blergh) female forms, they would, of course, coax us to come closer. Alas (for their pockets), their wails were in vain.

I would have a picture here, but not only would the content probably displease some people, my lack of interest of photographing this, and there was the fact that if you try to take a picture of any of these females, their "pimps" would quite swiftly bring retribution. Either in the form of your film being taken, your camera broken, to your face being broken. Needless to say, we avoided these possible outcomes.

There was another thing that was quite apparent in this district, well it was quite apparent throughout the entire city in random intervals. Our noses would randomly catch a quite pungent herbal smell on various drafts. This would of course, be a part of the "coffee shops" that ran rampant throughout the city. Of course, the primary attraction was not the grotesque smell of tobacco, but the milder earthy aroma of the most commonly used illegal drug throughout the world.

Woe. It's late already, and we be o so tired. Especially when we have big plans on the morrow. So with that we headed back from the big city, wallets thankfully intact, and took an early night.

These plans, would be bicycle riding of course! Rather than coast through the city, we decided to rent out some bikes in Haarlem.

Now, for this entire trip, we have had the most fortuitous events as far as the weather situation has been concerned. Every single day it has been rainless, hardly dark, and quite lovely. This biking day was no exception, in fact, it was probably one of the nicest days we've had so far. Excellent stuff.

After waking, breakfast and a quick point in the right direction we went over to the local bike rental. After departing with two bikes for a mere 8 Euro per bike, (+50 dollar deposit in case we fall into a man made canal) we set out towards.... the sea. The Noordsee in fact (think german fish chain). As we headed over, we had to dodge various mopeds as they careened past us. Even other bikers would blast by at almost inhuman speeds... well, Ok to be fair I could have probably cruised my brains out giving in to my desire to surpass all other bi-wheeled "competitors", but Ted preferred a more leisurely expedition to the body of water to bask more thoroughly in the nice weather and countryside, which being the easy going fellow that I am, I willingly accepted.

Eventually, after zooming around confused trying to find our exact destination, we pulled a u turn and we made our way to the great body of water; where we partook in a leisurely expedition down to the beach. Well, after grabbing an immense portion of fried seafood from one of the stands that were scattered throughout this vast beach landscape.

Just think, these little guys grew so hard just to fill my belly. What pals!

Like any remotely masculine man would do, we decided to parade shirtless and try to soak up the sun into our ghostly forms. I suppose it kind of worked, but I'm sure it was a blinding site to the passerby, which there were a lot of, as everyone was just enjoying the beach. There were also lots of cool shells. I'm not really much of a shell collector, but I thought I'd pick them up as it took little to no effort and they were quite interesting... for shells

Bike Trail along the beach

Pasty whiteness glowing in the sunlight

As much as I would have liked to slothfully lay around the beach all day, we decided to get up and bike some more. I didn't have too much of an opinion on where we should go, but Ted had quite a bit of interest in going to the flower fields. After some more mutual travel buddy petty squabbling (this happens), we headed back into Haarlem where we asked our receptionist at the hotel of the best means to get over to see some of these bouquet plazas the Dutch were so famous for.

And so, we biked, and we biked, and we biked some more, maybe just a little more.. a smidgen perhaps. At last, we had arrived at these immense fields of greenery. Boy, were they immense... and apparently... everywhere! The smell of them was overwhelming.
Of course, the dutch flower field wouldn't be complete without a windmill in the distance

Upon gazing at these fields, we decided it was about time to head back... by our loose mathematical skills we estimated the whole journey was just a tad over 30 miles. Luckily, we were able to just barely check our bikes back in (the guy was putting everything away for the day, and was on his last several bikes) and regain our deposit.

We then went and had some delicious Indian food, which I foolishly forgot to take a picture of. It was great though..... mmmmmmm... and with that, we just sat around watched some hilarious sounding Dutch TV ( OK actually it was primarily in english with Dutch subs) and fell asleep shortly after the fair (right below us that was obnoxiously loud) had at last died down.

April 13th- Old vs new

Plane rides are horrible, but trains? Well.. I'd exchange a 9 hour plane flight for an 12 hour train ride any time, any day. Despite that, its not the funnest thing sitting here for the majority of ones morning/afternoon, but if nothing else, it gives me an obscene amount of time to type up all of these entries that I have been slacking on. Forgive me if they're all just a bit of a mind spew, but it's kind of rough to spontaneously produce somewhat interesting and thought provoking word plays. It's OK, you can deal, it's my blog anyways.

For the first time, both of us were forced to split up on the train, as a girl who had a seat reserved booted me out of my chair (despite the plethora of openings about her, but hey, maybe she wanted to flirt with Ted... alas she didn't). I got the honor of sitting next to a crotchety old man, who stuck his nose into our little game of moving around "Read the seat, it's reserved!". How very astute!



By mid afternoon, we had arrived in the most historic city of Germany, Berlin. Home of the wall (now destroyed, except for a tiny portion, which we were unable to visit) and the great arc: Brandenburg Gate.



Our hotel had these: efficient power savers which requires you to insert your key card, otherwise no power for you.. they suck when you leave your laptop on and think it's charging while you're gone...

When compared to Munich, the citys are quite different. Where Munich decided to rebuild their old buildings after having them be destroyed, Berlin set out to replace nearly everything with brand new architecture. As a result, it's one of the most modern cities I've seen. It does still manage to retain a great deal of an older European style, but everything is quite fancy.

Well hellooo mr fancypants


With only a few hours to spare, we set off, first searching for a food place as we hadn't had a chance to eat much all day. We stumbled upon a food court cove, which was really the coolest food place ever. Nearly everything was under 5E, and it contained a kababery, Italian, Chinese, Subway and an ice cream shop. I knew Berlin was one of the cheapest big cities to live in, but I didn't know it was that cheap, cool. I decided to have a döner kabab (fatty meat cleaved off a big rotisserie, it wasn't bad, but it did kind of make me think of it as European McDonalds).

Better than a McChicken

Several blocks later, we made a stop at Checkpoint Charlie. Crawling once again with tourists (even being Easter Monday) we snapped a few photos of the area (without paying 1E to be with the fake military people) and set out. Too much to see in too little time!

Charl's checkpoint

The iron curtain looks a bit beat up

Crisscrossing throughout... well I suppose that's a poor choise of words, since they rebuilt new. This was one of the first cities that didn't have quite so many random winding roads. They were much more organized, and it gave the city a little more of a USA feeling to it, although it was still much nicer. They also had the most unique street light system (people with hats!). Apparently even after east Berlin was liberated, the people there wanted those to stay, and so they did!

They even have a themed restaurant

Lets try that again.. as we went straight down the main roads, we were able to see a great many beautiful buildings. Forgive me if I don't go into to much detail on these, I've just seen so many and it has begun to kind bleed together in my brain.



Near the end of our little excursion, we finally ran upon the Brandenburg Gate. It's pretty monstrous.
ayiiee, Godzilla


After snapping a few senior pictures, we continued on into the massive park behind it, the Tiergarten. This park is probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest park inside of a major city in central Europe. Of course, inside there was another biergarten, and we spent about an hour and a half enjoying being outside, in what was practically a big forest.



well... and we enjoyed a good beer.... Ted a little more so perhaps? XD



...You can watch the congress from the top

After a bit more meandering about the town, we decreed it was about time for a bit of shut eye, as it would be netherlands time on the morrow.

April 12th- The hills are alive with the sound of..... Mozart

Woo, Easter. As we awoke this morning we were greeted by a treat, a tasty hopping chocolate treat



To add yet another country to my book this day was dedicated to Salzburg, Austria. The birthplace of the arrogant, yet talented, prodigy Mozart, and the filming location of the American sensation, the sound of music which even had its own irritating tour (meh).

The musical master

The horrendous beginning of a horrendous tour, we did not take part.

Salzburg, despite being one of the biggest cities in Austria, has a really small feeling to it. Before we knew it, we had already navigated across the city into the main old town area. This section of town was jam packed like any other European town, with the two houses of Mozart (which we declined to tour, I mean... they're just houses... houses that cost about 20E each just to walk inside of), along with some interesting old churches, and many fusion resteraunts.




Being a fuision-based country, these resteraunts were really Austria's clame to fame in the eatery department. Generally they would serve Austrian food, Indian food and something else (perhaps italian, or even American). They were really awesome. We ended up stopping at one that seemed pretty nice, and coincidentally ended up being a place that Rick Steeves recommended (his picture was shown about five hundred times throughout the building). There we feasted on goulash complemented with a giant bread and egg dumpling.


Fusionriffic


A hearty Austrian meal

Followed by a hearty austrian desert

Along the streets, there were also egg shops. Yes, that's right, a whole shop dedicated to these oval shaped bird embryo cages. They were, of course, painted various colors and had all of the chicken goo drained out of them. These had all sorts of designs including themed ones for holidays/sports/events.

Want a dozen? How about seven hundred dozen?

Speaking of eggs, it was indeed Easter after all. As fitting for the big day of fluffy bunnies and chocolate, big churches were ornately decorated for easter, with flowers all over the alters. Some of these were quite magnificant, mainly being pure white on the inside for the walls, but having extravagent art in between.

I can see the light

and the ceiling



Once again, we were caught in a bit of a time constraint, so we tornadoed through the majoirty of the city. We did get a chance to get a few good looks at the castles on the large hillsides oft the city, and walked up a great ways, the houses in the area were large, fancy and beautiful. It was quite the eye candy.

Poseidon's fountain


What would a european town be without a castle or two

As the clock struck 5, the fairytale ball had ended, the spell was unwoven and we were wisked back onto a train to Münich. Having still a bit of daylight, we decided to take this time to explore around the old town. But first, "woh sind die biergartens bitte?".

Aquiring the mandatory information we needed, we set out into the city to get one last look around as it was our last day here. We took a tram, which was free with our hotel, to the other side of town, and then walked the entire way back, snapping photos all the way. Along the way, we stopped at these recommended places... and... well they weren't beirgartens at all! Just overpriced cafes, what a let down. So we kept going, searching frantically for a nice place to sit and have a half a liter of bitter. We finally settled at... well.. a kababery.

Kababeries are kind of like European fast food, except that they serve a lot of more interesting meals, such as falafel (yum), or meat peeled off a rotisserie (gyro style). Not only did we settle for this meal department, but the restaurant ended up being just across the street from where we began, our hotel next to the main train station. Fortunately, like all places that serve food, we were able to grab some beer and at least sit outside and enjoy the night, listening to the clatter of glasses clicking together, "prost!" and the passerbys.

A liter heavier, we made the long journey back across the street, and promptly collapsed...tomorrow... "ich bein ein berlinner"!