europeanexperience

[europeanexperience]

[europeanexperience]

Wednesday, July 24th, 2019

It’s hard to believe our trip is coming to an end, but man was it totally worth it. 5 countries and 9 cities within 18 days was a whirlwind. We checked out of our Zürich Hostel at 7:30 this morning to catch our 8:00 train to Frankfurt, which was a 4 hour ride. We enjoyed our last travel with the Eurail pass and arrived in Frankfurt with 94 degree weather. As the day progressed, it reached a whopping 104 degrees today. Europe is definitely going through it’s second heatwave of the summer. It was very hot and humid today as we arrived to our same Airbnb we booked when we came two and a half weeks ago.

We checked in and then it was off to explore some more of Germany’s Financial Capital. We ate lunch under an umbrella along the Mane River and then walked to the Iron Bridge to Romer, the central square in the city with all of the historic buildings. We got gelato, went in some souvenir shops and a church, and then we went to MyZeil Mall, where Zach and Shaina did a ton of shopping. I was all set, so I actually went back to the Airbnb and went for a run at 7:00pm when the weather started to cool. I went for a 6 mile run along the river, which had awesome biking/running paths.

I returned back to the Airbnb and the three of us went to dinner one last time in Europe. We ate at an Asian Restaurant of all places and had really refreshing raspberry lemonade with fried noodles and crispy chicken. It was actually a really, really good meal. Then, it was back to the Airbnb to pack up for tomorrow’s early flight to Dublin and then home!

[europeanexperience]

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2019

Talk about a hot and muggy night. With six people in our room and two fans and no AC, it heated up quick. We slept in until 9:00am and ate the breakfast at the hostel, which consisted of jelly and toast with cereal. Basic, but enough to fuel me for today. We were on the road by 11:00am to walk down to Lake Zürich. We walked for over a mile, and when we found the Chinese Gardens, Zach and Shaina spent an hour photographing while I spent the hour swimming across the pathway. The lake reminds me a lot of our family’s lake house in upstate New York due to the fact that the water is crystal clear and super deep. The water was really refreshing and ducks were swimming right by me. I even jumped off the pier a few times and thoroughly enjoyed the sun.

Next, we walked back down the lakeside as I dried off so we could grab lunch. As stated before, Switzerland is SUPER expensive. We weren’t about to pay $26.00 for a Club Sandwich, so we went to Coop, a department/grocery store and we got fresh fruit and sandwiches that were relatively cheap. Zach and I both got a ‘Bretzel,’ a large pretzel cut in half and we had cream cheese inside. Definitely different, but we enjoyed it.

Afterwords, we walked to the most famous attraction in Zürich, Grossmünster, which is a church with a double steeple. It was pretty unique; we climbed to the top, which had the highest view in the city, and got some great aerial shots from above. Next, we were off to St. Peter Pfarrhaus, which is another church with a huge clock face. We ventured around the most famous street in Zürich, Bahnhofstrasse, which is also the most expensive street in all of Europe. A LOT of high end shops were on every street corner.

We stopped at a Swiss Chocolatier and bought some for home and then did some minor souvenir shopping. Then it was off to dinner at Cafe Felix, which was very expensive, but that’s how it is everywhere, so there is nothing we can do about it. I had a $29 Chicken Fajita, which was really good, but definitely not worth the price. Ha. We returned to the hostel afterwords and began packing up to return to Germany tomorrow. One more full day to go in Europe! Enjoying every moment, but also ready for a break and to be home.

[europeanexperience]

Monday, July 22nd, 2019

Thankful we were leaving our hostel only after one day of sleeping, for it was very hard to sleep with numerous noises outside, no air conditioning, and cramped spacing. Thankfully, they allowed us to store our luggage there for free during the day as we explored Switzerland’s capital city of Bern. It is a very small city, which I really appreciated because it wasn’t busy, hardly any tourists, and you felt like you were in a local town. Some places were hard to communicate in because Switzerland had four official languages; Italian, German, French, and Portuguese.

We began our day by eating at a local bakery right around the corner from our Hostel called Le Cafe Bread. Our hostel was kind enough to provide us with free transportation cards for the day, so we took advantage of that in taking a bus down to the famous ‘Bear Pit’ that Bern is very well known for. We saw three brown bears hanging out in the pit, playing in the pool, and itching their backs against the wall. It was pretty neat.

Next up, we took a walk on the hiking trail along the Aare River, which is a very fast-moving, deep, and crystal clear glacial river from the Swiss Alps. What I truly loved about Bern is that one side of the river is the city and the other side is completely natural and used for recreation, so we actually sat on the steps next to the incline we descended down on to cool off since it was 90 degrees today and super sunny. What was really unique about sitting on the river side is we saw a lot of people being carried down the river with their waterproof bags floating next to them. And when I mean a lot, we saw over 25 people having the current carry them down the river. It was a free mode of transportation for them and it was swift enough, it got you to your destination quickly. Ha.

Afterwords, we walked over to the City Park, which is a really cool engineering feat because they use the river to create a ‘Lazy River’ off to the side for citizens to go swimming, bathing, and lazy tubing. Ha. We stopped to get fresh watermelon before ascending the hill to the golden-domed Parliament Building, where their government is headquartered. We snapped some shots with it and the Swiss Bank Headquarters before walking down the cobblestone road to Berber Münster, the only church in town. We paid $5.00 Frans to climb 295 stairs to the top, which is the tallest building in the city. It provided great aerial views of the winding Aare River and the city itself.

Then, it was off to souvenir shop and find a place for dinner. We settled for The Spaghetti Factory and had a delicious meal of Gnocchi. We wanted to finish off the night with some gelato and found the perfect place; it was homemade from Swiss cows. I settled for Banana and Coconut after looking over all of the salivating options. I was thirsty afterwords, so instead of buying a water bottle, Bern is really innovative and have public drinking fountains in the middle of the streets; you simply walk out to the fountain and fill up a water bottle, drink form cupping your hands, or splashing your face to cool off.

We returned to the hostel to grab our luggage and head off to the train station. We made it with ten minutes to spare, boarded the train and found our seats, and then the conductor came on and said something in a foreign language. Everyone immediately was scrambling and getting off the train. Thankfully, a guy behind us overheard us talking in English and translated that the train was filling with smoke and needed to vacate. We got off the train and heard sirens in the distance; the fire company came and firefighters came down to our train. Although we never saw any fire, they cancelled our train and had to catch the next one 30 minutes later. Thankfully, it is a direct 56 minute train ride to Zürich, so we didn’t have to worry about missing a connection, but geez, with our luck these last two days, we couldn’t help but laugh.

We arrived in Zürich on a smokeless train at 9:30pm and made our way to our hostel. We have three other roommates; Ping from Malaysia and Andy and Alice, both from Auckland, New Zealand. They are all around our age and are super fun already. Hoping to hang out with them tomorrow and explore Zürich!

[europeanexperience]

Sunday, July 21st, 2019

If we had to choose a day to laugh about this whole trip, today would be that day. Today we thought we would be going from one extreme to the next; from 30 C degree heat in Milan to 5 C degree weather in Zermatt, but we arrived in Zermatt, Switzerland at 11:00am to learn that on Sundays, the slope closes at 1:00pm, not 4:30pm as we had researched. Who does that?! Not to mention, the cost JUST to ride the 1-hour slope up was $110.00 Franc per person. Uh, no. Our ski pass and rental was not included, so we were actually thankful skiing would not work out because we weren’t about to pay $300 to ski for 2 hours.

Our day started by boarding our train from Milano Centrale at 7:30am and rode through a picturesque valley between the alps. I’ve never rode a train with three tracks; two regular on the outside and one in the middle with gears to help the train up and down hills. The train went up and down quite a few inclines before arriving in the high-end, touristy town of Zermatt. After arriving, we went to the Tourist Desk in the train station to first learn of our dilemma with the slopes closing just after we arrived. We got some recommendations from the office and it was suggested we take an underground funicular up one of the many mountains in the valley for $17.50 one way to hike the ‘5 Lakes Loop Trail,’ which is what it translated to in English. We took up the offer and began our ascent.

Arriving at the top of Sunnegga, we knew we made the right choice to hike even though we were disappointed about our skiing we were planning on doing today. The weather was superb and made for great hiking weather. I’ve never been on such a cool hiking trail. Definitely my favorite of all time as we explored 4 of the 5 ‘lakes’ which are actually small glacial ponds, along with waterfalls, gophers, and some minor rock climbing. There was hardly anyone else on the trails too, which made you feel like you were really with nature compared to the rest of our trip which has been all cities.

We spent over three hours hiking and were planning on taking Kickbikes down the mountain, which are basically bikes without pedals and a seat-more like a scooter combined with a bike-but as we arrived at the top in Berguard (This is after hiking for 3 hours), we only found TONS of sheep and goats. Ha. Not a single person in sight, and for a Sunday at 5:30pm, I guess we shouldn’t have been shocked the entire area was vacated. No cable cars to take us down the mountain, no kickbikes to ride down. Zach peered in the dark office and we realized we were stuck and in for a wild adventure. We had no idea how to get down off the mountain since plans A and B fell through, so we resorted to a map, found a trail that would take us back a different way to Sunnegga, and started running. Why? Because the last funicular off the mountain left at 6:00pm to go back to Zermatt. It was 5:30pm. The trail we took is supposed to take 1:10 walking, and we SPRINTED down the mountain. A Chinese couple was so confused because they were planning on taking the cable car from Berguard too, to find out it had already closed. We had a marathon down the mountain all rushing to try to make it to Sunnegga on time. I didn’t think it was possible, but it was worth a shot. With Shaina rotating her ankle and getting a black and blue thumb, we ran into the car and literally made it as the doors closed (Not joking). We were laughing the entire way down, because if we would have missed this funicular, it was another 2:10 down the mountain hiking and our train left at 8:15. If we would have missed the funicular, we would have also missed our train and would have had to spend the night in Zermatt. We were laughing about the whole situation once we knew we were alright on time, finished some quick souvenir shopping, and it was on the train from Zermatt to Visp. We had to transfer trains in Visp for Bern and off we went.

Talk about a day we’ll never forget. Now that it is all over with, we can look back and see how lucky we truly were after what was beginning to be a disappointing day in not being able to go skiing. It turned out to be the best day so far this trip. The hiking, the views, the experience was totally worth it. We love Switzerland!

[europeanexperience]

Saturday, July 20th, 2019

It is hard to believe today is our only full day here in Milan (Milano), Italy. We were early to rise since we had 08:00 reservations to the most visited tourist attraction in Milano; The Milano Duomo, which is a Roman Catholic Church. We made our way down our seven story apartment and rode the Metro into the City Centre, otherwise it would have taken 40 minutes to walk. We arrived to a quiet plaza, with plenty of pigeons. It was the calm before the storm for visitors. We were very fortunate we had the early reservation, for there were only about 100 people inside-It was great.

Once inside the Milano Duomo, we first ventured to the stained glass windows and around the alter to view the engineering marvel that is currently undergoing restoration. We then used our ticket to venture into the archeological preserve, which was recently discovered in the 1960s. We went underneath the church and plaza and found the foundation of buildings and a fountain dating back to before the 1300s still preserved. It was really unique.

Then it was off to climbing 327 steps to the top of the Milano Duomo Rooftop. We ascended into the narrow brick stairwell and climbed as our heartbeats increased. Once at the top, the physical exertion was totally worth it. We were walking on the granite rooftop as we made our way to the front of the cathedral to get some amazing views of the city and plaza in front of the Milano Duomo.

After our descent, it was time to souvenir shop in Milano’s famous shopping district, San Babila. We not only saw expensive Maseratis, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis, but truly found out how small the world is. Zach, Shaina, and I decided to go inside a VERY expensive shopping centre called La Rinascente Milano, which had so many expensive brand stores, a lot of them I had never even heard of. We decided to start on floor one and work our way up. As we ascended to the seventh floor, which was the highest, we noticed a lot of restaurants and decided to check out the menus for lunch. As I came up to one of the restaurants, I noticed a guy who looked a lot like one of my student athletes from Iroquois. I did a double take to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, but I then noticed Leo, Max’s brother. As I got closer, I stood behind Leo with my arms out and mouth dropped wide open. What are the chances of randomly finding two of your high school athletes you coach in Milan, Italy? 0% in my opinion. Haha. We were so caught-off guard and excited to see each other overseas! It was the highlight of my day.

After pure happenstance, we continued shopping all afternoon and may have splurged at Ray Ban since they are made here in Italy and I got a VAT Tax Refund...whoops! Otherwise, we spent about 6 hours shopping and eating pizza for lunch, then we made our way back to the Airbnb. During shopping today I was no only amazed at the amount of people simply not even look at the price tag before they bought, but how many people had their dogs with them in the stores walking around-Definitely something you wouldn’t find in the states! Haha.

We were craving more local food as we were walking to dinner for some local pasta. I order gnocchi and spaghetti Mariana- totally worth every bite with fresh Italian bread and olive oil. To finish our night in Milano, we had to hit up some gelato. Off to Zermatt, Switzerland to ski in the Swiss Alps!

[europeanexperience]

Friday, July 19th, 2019

Our final day in Munich (München) was a short one as our train departed at 1:35pm, so we made the most of it with an early rise to go explore Englishcher Garten, the recreational park I ran through yesterday. We walked and found another new church (no surprise there for Munich) and Zach wanted to go inside. We snapped photos of the yellow church in the plaza directly below it, Odeonplatz. We then walked though an archway to Hofgarten, a garden with Dianatempel in the center, where we also got some shots. Then, we made our way over to Englishcher Garten, where we walked along the banks of Eisbach River and came across another crew of surfers taking advantage of the surf in the river. I was still stunned. To see surfers in the middle of a land-locked city simply amazed me. Ha.

Following watching the surfers, it was back to walking back to our Airbnb, where we had to check out by 11:00am. We just made it, grabbed our backpacks, and walked to Augustiner-Keller Biergarten, a recommendation from my Aunt Debora to go eat for lunch. Her recommendation didn’t disappoint again. I ordered Chicken and Biscuits with Potato Salad and finished the meal with Apple Strudel. We finished our meal just in time to depart to the train station to catch our train to Milan, Italy (Milano).

On the tracks, we had great window seats to observe the Swiss Alps as we passed through the country of Austria before arriving in Italy. We had to change trains in Verona en route to Milano; all in all, we spent over six and a half hours on trains today, so we were able to rest up in preparation for tomorrow in Milano.

[europeanexperience]

Thursday, July 18th, 2019

Today it was an early wake so we had ample time to explore Germany’s third largest city of 1.6 million people in Munich. Shaina slept in, Zach went to get his haircut, and I went for a 6 mile run through Englishcher Garten to explore the city and its vast recreational space. I saw a ton of people working out here compared to Berlin; there is even a fast moving river through the park where surfers can go on the rip curl to practice surfing, which I found very bizarre for Germany. All in all, I was very impressed with the Englishcher Garten and it felt great to be running in 80 degree weather with shorts and a tang top.

After I returned, we prepared for our day and spent a lot of time walking around ‘Old Town’ Munich (München). We explored Alter Botanischer Garten and Karlsplatz (Karl’s Plaza) before walking down Neuhauser Strabe, which is a popular pedestrian road for tourists. We stopped in St. Michael’s Church, Frauenkirche, and St. Peter’s Church to name a few. If Munich is known for anything besides Hofbrauhaus, it is definitely the number of churches. There is practically 3 on every street corner, and I’m not joking. We also went to New Town Hall and climbed up the gothic tower to get panoramic views of the city. We also went to the top of St. Peter’s Church for some other stellar views of the city from above. My Aunt Deborah messages me and gave me a ton of tips of places to eat at and venues to explore. We followed her recommendations and went to Schmalznude Cafe Frischhut for breakfast (basically lunch by the time we got there) for their local, famous ‘auszgone,’ which did not disappoint. This fresh bakery makes their own deep-fried Batavian pastries right in front of you and it was super delicious.

Afterwords, we walked over to Vikutalienmarkt Market to visit local vendors with slices and crafts. A lot of them did not speak English whatsoever. Thankfully, a local customer was ordering behind me for a sandwich and she helped me determine which one had salami in it, even though she didn’t know the word for it in English. Ha. We also had local fruit smoothies and it hit the spot.

Following lunch, we hopped on a metro to Olympiazenteum, a District where BMW is headquartered as well as the 1972 Munich Olympics. We saved enough time to visit both. We started at ‘BMW Welt’ a huge dealership with a plethora of cars we toured and sat it. It was unbelievable to see the magnitude of vehicles available and their styles. The purchasing process was quite unique because you could test drive the car from inside the dealership. Next, it was across the street to Olympic Park, where the 1972 Summer Olympics took place. We first walked to Olympiastützpunkt Bayern, which is the major stadium where the track and field events took place. We paid an entrance fee and were able to walk around the entire stadium to snap some awesome shots and explore the 65,000 capacity stadium. Then, it was off to the Olympiaturm, a major 251m tower in the complex. We took the 7m/s elevator to the top of the open-air tower to see the Swiss Alps in the backdrop of the Munich skyline, which was really cool.

Next, we dashed off to the metro line again to venture to ‘Old Town’ and visited the original Hofbrauhaus, dating back to 1589. Although we arrived for a late dinner at 21:30, they were still serving food, and of course, their famous litre of beer. Zach and I ordered a litre, as well as their famous Batavian pretzels. Dinner consisted of mashed potatoes with beef goulash, which did not disappointed. We hit up some souvenir shopping inside the restaurant before walking back to the Airbnb after a 17mile day. We are certainly exhausted. Off for another day in Munich tomorrow!

[europeanexperience]

Wednesday, July 17th, 2019

We had our alarms set this morning to make the most of our last day in Germany’s capital of Berlin. We awoke at 7:15 to walk to the Berlin Wall Memorial, which is the only other location (besides the Topography of Terror) where the original wall remains. It was eerie walking past it in the early hours of the cold morning. There is certainly a lot of history here and we enjoyed reading about what happened here a mere 30 years ago.

Following our stop to the Berlin Memorial, we returned from our walk to the Airbnb to pack up and head to the train station. We walked 20 minutes to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (HBF) Central Station to drop off our luggage as we Tetris-styled all three of our backpacks in the largest locker possible. Then, it was off to the above ground rail down to the East Side Art, an area where part of the Berlin Wall was moved on purpose so people could express themselves and their art. The trendy district was very unique; one side of the wall (east side) was covered in graffiti, while the opposite side of the wall (west side) was decorated in elaborate murals. The sun was shining down and it finally got warm out, which made it perfect for photos.

We walked for over half a mile along the part of the wall that had been relocated and took in all of the expressive art. We are assuming that every ten years they cover the wall in white paint and allow new artists to creatively decorate it. The last time it was revamped was in 2009, so it is due for a fresh coat. We then continued walking along the Spree River to Oberbaumbrüke Bridge, which is a famous architectural bridge before walking to ‘The Molecule Man.’ We aren’t quite sure what the significance is of it, but boy is it MASSIVE! Just look at the kayakers at the bottom of the photo in comparison to its magnitude.

Following our long walk, we stopped to eat along the Spree River at a restaurant called ‘Eat Side,’ which has a buffet style menu. We all got salad and you were able to choose whatever you wanted and they charged you 1,17€ per 100 grams, so it is similar to frozen yogurt. Ha. We then walked back up the river and checked out the Mercedes Benz Arena, where the Berlin Bears professional hockey team plays, which I was surprised they even had one!

Afterwords, we walked back along the East Side Art Berlin Wall on the westside, where we observed tons of colorful murals; two of which are very popular-The two men kissing and the taxi cab coming out of the wall, so we made sure to grab photos at those locations. Then, it was back on the elevated rail to Berlin HBF to pick up our luggage and take a REM Train to our train station in Berlin Südkreuz, which was 9 minutes away by train. That train station was not very easy to communicate in, for as soon as we left Berlin City Centre, all we heard was German and not a lot of locals outside the city speak English, but we were able to order a quick bite to eat before we boarded our train en route to Munich.

Luckily, our train has WiFi. I’m currently traveling 124 miles per hour in the German countryside for a 4 hour ride to Munich, our last German City to hit up on our trip, then it will be off to Italy and Switzerland. All and all, I’m glad we stopped in Berlin, but have absolutely no intention to return. Definitely wasn’t one of my favorite cities. The people were rude and kept to themselves and were not friendly in any way. The weather also wasn’t very favorable, but I enjoyed all of the history we learned about-Berlin certainly had its fair share of problems. Hoping Munich will change my impression of Germany after Cologne and Frankfurt as well as Berlin now. Belgium is by far my favorite thus far. Over and out until Munich!

[europeanexperience]

Tuesday, July 16th, 2019

It has never felt so good to sleep in today. None of us set an alarm and we didn’t awake until a little after 10:30. We definitely needed it after all of the restless days going from place to place. Zach and Shaina were lounging around until after 12:00, so I decided to go for a run to Tiergarten, which is basically Berlin’s Grand Central Park. Miraculously, I only saw two others running, which I thought was quite strange considering the blue skies and sunny weather we finally had today. A couple biking behind me were impressed with my pace and complimented me as they passed by and were from across Lake Erie in Canada somewhere-again, small world. Ha. Tiergarten was an awesome park and I really enjoyed it, where I even saw the Victory Column and Brandenburger Gate.

Coming back from running, we walked 35 minutes to a central location where we first snapped some photos of the Reichstag Building, which is basically the Capitol building for Germany before going to eat lunch at a bombin fruit smoothie shack inside the Berlin Mall. I had a grilled chicken Caesar wrap with a Mango/Orange/Strawberry fresh fruit smoothie. It really hit the spot to begin our day and give us the energy we needed for all of our walking. We started our walk and then Shaina realized she left her cell phone, camera, and camera bag in the food court at the mall, so we raced back to thankfully find it still there.

We begin our route by first visiting the Topography of Terrors, where you can see only one of two places left that has remnants of the Berlin Wall still standing in the original location. We explored the wall and walked around, then entered the free museum to see the eerie photos of concentration camps, and Hitler’s reign in the 1930s and 1940s. The museum was put together really well and had great details, but the photos really put into perspective how horrible that time period was in Germany.

Following visiting the Topography of Terrors, we walked along where the wall used to be placed down to ‘Charlie Checkpoint,’ which was a gate the United States secures during the wall’s standing to snap some photographs before walking up to Hitler’s Bunker. There was only one sign in the middle of the grass/asphalt parking lot that stayed beneath the ground here still lies Hitler’s bunker. You could tell Germany wanted to rid the memories of those years by simply paving a parking lot and sealing the bunker off. We say the bushes where Hitler lit he and his wife on fire to commit suicide and captured some shots before moving onto the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. There were more than 2,700 large marble blocks in varying heights to remember the 6million plus lives lost. It was another eerie location to be as we walked down the 13 alleys that separate all of the marble, tall slabs.

Finally, we made our way up to Bradenburger Gate, which is a national symbol that shows the location of victory of when the wall was torn down between East and West Germany as well as welcoming people back into Europe from the Soviet Union. We also visited Pariser Platz, which is a plaza in front of the Bradenburger Gate.

To end our day, we walked over a mile through Tiergarten on wooded trails in the middle of the city to see the Soviet War Memorial and then made our way up to the famous Victory Column, which is in the middle of a massive traffic circle in Tiergarten. We paid 2.50€ and climbed to the top and got some amazing views of the city at sunset. It was well worth it.

We finished our evening by taking a metro back to Chausseestrafbe for dinner at 10:00 at night. We ate at Armit; a very posh Indian restaurant, and boy did the food not disappoint. I ordered a Mango Juice smoothie with Chicken Satiz, which was basically chicken curry with vegetables and it was out of this world. Well worth it. We finished up by walking back to our Airbnb to prepare for another day in Berlin tomorrow.

[europeanexperience]

Monday, July 15th, 2019

Hoping to escape the wrath of cold temperatures and rain, we awoke at 4am this morning to walk through the Red Light District to Amsterdam Central Station to board our train straight to Berlin. We were supposed to transfer trains in Hannover, Germany, but we missed our connecting train by being 15 minutes into the station, so we stayed on our train we were originally on, which was going to Berlin in the first place. No idea why Eurail booked our trains that way, but 7:10 hours later, it worked out and we arrived in Germany’s capital city to more rain and cold temperatures.

We walked 20 minutes to our Airbnb, where we met Eddy who showed us our apartment before we took an hour to breathe/shower before we began exploring the city. We ventured around Mitte (City District we are staying in) and opted for a Thai Restaurant in Germany of all places. The food was really good and gave us some much needed energy to walk the cobblestone streets.

We first stopped at The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Unknown Concentration Camp Victim (photo with woman holding a baby) before walking next door to the Berlin (Humboldt) University Square (Bebelplatz). Then we ventured to a really unique plaza called Gendarmenmarkt, where we walked into the Concert (Konzerthaus) Hall and the German Dome and French Dome, which balance each other on both sides of the Concert Hall.

Afterwords, we trekked to Muesumsinsel, in island smack-dab in City Centre and in the middle of the Spree River, where we climbed to the top of the Berliner Dome, which was profoundly damaged during World War II and was rebuild. We also walked to Altes Museum on the island to snap some shos. While walking, Berlin makes a really big deal about their pedestrian crosswalks, which feature ‘Ampelmann,’ which was the same symbol used in communist Germany and still survives today.

We finished the day grabbing a quick bite to eat at Spreegold Store and ordered Açaí bowls, which were decent, but definitely not the best. We also got the famed ‘Berliner Currywurst,’ which is sausage covered in curry sauce and curry powder. Definitely something to try while you’re here and it was quite decent! We finally then walked across the street to the Berlin Fernsehturm, which is a 316m communication tower right in City Centre. It reminded me a lot of the CN Tower in Toronto, but it is almost 175m shorter. We took the 6m/s elevator to the top after dusk and the view was quite spectacular. It was a fantastic way to end the night until we begin exploring tomorrow.

[europeanexperience]

Sunday, July 14th, 2019

We finally had another morning to sleep in, and boy did we take advantage of it-we have been exploring so much, our bodies definitely needed a rest. After we ate our complimentary breakfast at our hostel, we ventured out into the brick streets of Amsterdam in our raincoats. As the steady, cold rain fell, we crossed canals in a maze to find Anne Frank’s House. It was quite difficult to determine her actual house because it is now a modern museum, which made it decipher if the museum was next to her house, or that it actually was her house. We inquired about tickets to enter, even though we were already aware that when we booked our hostel in May and looked into experiences, the museum was already sold out two months in advance. Apparently it is that popular, but we were satisfied with photos outside.

We continued to walk the brick streets as the rain fell to venture into souvenir shops and then to Amsterdam Central Station, where we took a free ferry across the Amster River (3 minutes) to A’DAM Lookout. It was amazing to see how jam packed the ferry was as local people rode their bikes onto and off of the ferry to commute to the north side of the river. Arriving in North Amsterdam, we took the elevator to the 24th floor observation deck of A’DAM Lookout to not only capture stunning views of the city, but to also swing on the tallest swing in all of Europe, which swings off of the side of the building! An adrenaline rush for sure.

Descending the building, we took a short 15 minute walk to Van der Pekplein, a quaint, quiet neighborhood where the iconic ‘I AMsterdam’ sign is located. They recently moved it the past week away from the touristy areas, so it was awesome that we were able to capture a picture of just us three on the sign with no one around.

Returning from Van der Pekplein and dodging bicycles, we took the free ferry back to Amsterdam across the Amster River, where we boarded a canal cruise ferry. We spent the next hour with about 50 others on a long, slender ferry as our captain navigated the narrow canals. We felt like we were back in Venice. It was nice and relaxing as we explored the city of 800,000 people.

Disembarking from the ferry, we decided to walk the main drag to souvenir shop until we found a market for dinner. Unfortunately the market was closed, so we found a restaurant nearby that served bitterballs, a Dutch staple. I had to try a ball of fried mashed potatoes and it was certainly quite interesting in texture. Crunchy and crispy on the outside and literally mashed potatoes inside. Ha.

Following dinner, we walked to Bloemenmarkt (Flower Market) to finish our last minute shopping before turning in for the night. We are off to Berlin, Germany tomorrow on a 6 and a half hour train ride. Cannot. Wait.

Looking back at Amsterdam, I am glad we made the stop here, but two days was definitely enough for me. Between the cold, rainy days, numerous ‘coffee shops’, and Red Light District, I could never live here. It is also a very dirty city with garbage everywhere, but I did enjoy walking the brick-layered streets with the numerous bicycles, which made it very unique.

[europeanexperience]

Saturday, July 13th, 2019

Wow. We arrived around midnight last night in the capital of Holland, Amsterdam. We started walking down the street from the train station to our hostel and we came across the Red Light District; and since it was a Friday night, it was very busy. An eye opening experience for me for sure, not to mention all of the ‘coffee shops’ that are along every street corner.

Arriving to our Hostel, we were exhausted and went to bed after meeting our roommates in our 6-bedroom room; Sardeep from New Delhi, India, and Marcus from Stockholm, Sweden. Sardeep was anxious to hear where in the states we lived, and when we said Pennsylvania and Ohio, he was very curious where in Pennsylvania. Turns out, his family owns a logging company in India and they come to the states for wood. He recently returned from BRADFORD, PA of all places in timbering a forest there. Talk about a small world.

This morning we ate breakfast at the hostel’s free continental breakfast before hitting the streets to explore the city established in 1625. A lot of canals, which they name Amsterdam ‘The Venice of the North,’ because of all of them. One thing I really like about the city is that there are hardly any cars...EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE rides a bike. I witnessed my first bicycle accident today at an intersection and it was quite entertaining. Thankfully no one was hurt, but two bikes collided going in perpendicular directions and they both fell in the middle of the brick pathway.

We did a ton of exploring today as we walked from our hostel to the Heineken Brewery, which was well worth the 19 Euros. I love Guinness and the Guinness Factory, but Heineken blew them out of the water with their experience today. We walked throughout the factory at our own pace, wasn’t rushed, and had time to capture a lot of fun candid photos of the whole ordeal. I would definitely go back and I highly recommend it-It even included 2 pints of Heineken at the end of the tour as well!

We then left the factory to walk along the canals and bikeways to find Bloemenmarkt, which is a floral market on the side of a canal. They had A TON of famous Holland tulip bulbs and flowers for sale as well as other plants that are grown in The Netherlands. We continued walking to ‘de Dam’ plaza, which is located in the center of town and snapped some stellar photos there too.

Then, we booked our tickets to the Van Gogh Museum, which has the largest collection of his work in the world (obvious since he was born and raised in The Netherlands). We spent over 2 hours in the museum checking out his work since the tickets were sold out for the whole day until the last two hours, which puts into perspective how busy and popular this museum is. We then left to walk to Rijksmuseum, which is a world famous art/history museum in Amsterdam, but we did not have enough time to enter, but capture some great photos from the outside.

We walked back to our hostel for the evening to refresh and relax before exploring Amsterdam’s nightlife on a Saturday night. Tons of people were out walking around, but nothing much exciting was taking place surprisingly. We are off to bed for a busy day tomorrow visiting the Anne Frank House, going to a canal boat ride, and riding bikes throughout the dense city.

[europeanexperience]

Friday, July 12th, 2019

It was hard waking up today knowing it was our last day in Brussels. We definitely didn’t do enough research in our planning, for we wished we had a another whole day to explore not only the capital of Belgium, but the capital of Europe. The European Union is headquartered here, as well as all of the governmental offices, which makes it a very bustling city-definitely one of my all-time favorites, behind Dublin of course.

We began our day packing up to leave our Airbnb early this morning and take our backpacks to the train station, where we stored them in a locker so we wouldn’t have to lug them around all day, which saved our backs. We then hopped on the metro using our 24-hour pass to head to Schuman, a district where all of the European Union buildings are headquartered as well as the Triumphal Arch, where we snapped some pictures before walking through Parc du Cinquantenaire. Then, we hopped back on the metro en route to Parc de Bruxelles, where we stopped to visit Palais de Bruxelles and Palais de Coudenberg before it began down pouring. We ran to The Waffle Factory, the top rated restaurant for waffles, where we waited about 30mins in line just to order, but it was certainly worth it. I ordered an Oriente waffle sandwich as well as a banana waffle for desert and it did not disappoint.

What did disappoint was all of the hype to visit the three ‘pissing’ statues around town; one of a boy peeing, a girl peeing, and a dog peeing. We didn’t understand the fascination to this trifecta, for the statues were super small and everyone was crowding around them to get their pictures, which was our next stop after eating lunch. They were also situated in a triangle, about 15minutes walking distance apart, around the center of the city. We then worked out way to Grand Place again, where the concert was last night, to take some daytime photos of the immaculate gold buildings. We also stopped to see the starting line of the Tour de France, where we got some photos of the bicycle arch, but still don’t know why the race starts in Belgium (which started less than a week ago here!) We also did some souvenir shopping, as well as sampling a ton of Belgium chocolates. (We even ordered sort serve vanilla ice cream with Belgium chocolate drizzled on top and in the cone!) Haha. We ate dinner outside again in the plaza, where I ordered the Belgium staple of potted beef roast with French fries and mayonnaise. It was quite good fuel for the body after our long 8mile walking hike around town today.

We finished up walking another mile through some middle eastern neighborhoods to reach the train station, where we departed this evening for Amsterdam, Netherlands. This is not a goodbye Brussels, but rather a see you again soon.

[europeanexperience]

Thursday, July 11th, 2019

Today started off with Shaina catching an earlier train than us due to the Eurail seats being filled on our train from Cologne, Germany to Brussels, Belgium. We left the Airbnb an hour early to walk Shaina to the train station, where she boarded and left Zach and I to wait an hour for our train. Fortunate for Shaina, her train didn’t break down like Zach and I’s did, which left us in Léige, Belgium for over two hours until they could back the train up and put us on a new track. When all was said and done, our hour and a half train ride turned into four hours. Not the way we wanted to start our trip to Brussels, where we already had a jam-packed schedule.

Finally arriving after 13:00, Zach and I walked to our Airbnb to meet Shaina. The first notice I took was how diverse Brussels is compared to any European City I have ever been to. The majority of citizens were African American or Middle Eastern. It’s also very interesting to note Belgium recognizes three official languages; German, French, and Dutch, so trying to get by speaking has been a challenge, but we point and nod our heads and they understand. Ha. Some do speak English, which has helped us out, but there is no benefit to reading road signs, metro stops, etc, which are all in Dutch.

After arriving, we started our Metro journey to visit Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which reminded me of Arc de Triumph with all of the roads intersecting around the church that gave a 52m panoramic view of the city. I was amazed at how big Brussels is; it is a major city and has a lot more to offer than we expected. We captured some great images from atop the church before accidentally taking the metro in the wrong direction to the Atomium (The atomic science center). We had to catch a metro in the other direction and finally made it there to find out it closed, but we got some amazing photos from the outside, along with my first Belgium waffle. Either I was really hungry, or it was seriously delicious.

Afterwords, we made our way to Congress Column, which was in the capital district of Brussels to see the tomb of the unknown soldier and eternal flame. Then, we continued walking to St. Michael and St. Gudula, which is a prominent church in the city’s skyline. It led us down to Grand Place, where we ate dinner outside and had desert of Belgium Chocolate and then Haagan Daas Belgium Chocolate Ice Cream. We finished the night by spontaneously coming across a free outdoor concert in Grand Place. Everyone young and old was dancing and having a great time listening to classical jazz music. We finally walked back to our Airbnb via Metro for another exciting day in Brussels tomorrow.

[europeanexperience]

Wednesday, July 10th, 2019

To the sound of three cell phone alarms going off this morning, we all turned them off and went back to bed. Ha. Jet lag has been really rough, but an hour later, we woke up and got ready to begin the day. We started off by taking the metro from City Centre all the way to Brühl, Germany, which is 45 minutes outside of Cologne. It was not a tourist town in any way, but rather a quaint local gem. If someone was coming to visit Germany and was looking for recommendations, I would highly recommend the town of Brühl. It is where Brühl Castle is locates and it certainly did not disappoint.

We entered the grand castle with an English speaking tour guide to explore the rooms as we learned of the castle that was heavily damaged during World War II. The blue marble and the flat ceiling that was painted to resemble a dome-shaped ceiling was immaculate. We spent a lot of time in the gardens taking pictures and walking the trails of the hunting forest to explore the vast property on a warm, sunny German day.

Following Brühl Castle, we made our way back into the small quaint town and ate at Markt 20, where we thankfully had an English-speaking waiter to help us with our meal. We ate out on the street and observed all of the passerbyers as they did their daily errands on their bicycles. I think we were the only tourists in the town and it was great-we truly felt apart of the local culture.

We then took the train back to Köln (Cologne) to do some souvenir shopping and by some actual cologne from Cologne before walking up and down Schildergass, which is the busiest shopping street in all of Europe. It reminded me a lot of Grafton Street in Ireland, but much busier with a lot more stores. I scored in finding a local pretzel joint and enjoying the carb-filled German staple that was as big as my face.

We finished up the evening by grabbing some gelato from a shoppe down the street from our Airbnb, where they specialize in making spaghetti ice cream, so of course we had to try it. Ha. It was fantastic and unique. We’re off to Brussels, the capital of Belgium, early tomorrow morning, so stay tuned as we enter another European country.

[europeanexperience]

Monday, July 9th, 2019

Today we were off on another adventure as we departed our Airbnb at 9:00 this morning to catch our one-hour long train ride from Frankfurt to Cologne (Köln), Germany. The weather was similar to yesterday, and I’m really wishing I would have packed more warmer clothes and pants. It barely was above 70 degrees today, with no humidity and cloudy. The sun can certainly be deceiving when it is out, but it is certainly much cooler here in Germany than I expected. If you would look at a map, the majority of Germany is above the latitude line in Pennsylvania, which explains the cooler temperatures and why it is still light out at 10:00pm as I’m writing this blog. Ha!

Reaching Cologne, we immediately went to our Airbnb to drop off our luggage and begin exploring. We headed straight for the building that dominates the Cologne skyline, The Cologne Cathedral, which was heavily damaged during World War II. The Gothic style church reminds me a lot of the Norte Dame Cathedral in Paris we visited last summer in terms of size and magnitude.

After the cathedral, we headed to St. Gereon’s Church In Cologne’s westside. It was okay, but nothing like the Cologne Cathedral, which is where the majority of the tourists were. Afterwords, we stopped at Früh Em Jan von Werth for lunch, which consisted of potato soup, hot tea, and a homemade meatball, which is really a grilled burger with mustard and without a bun. Ha.

Next, we took the underground metro to the Cologne Zoo to go to the Botanical Gardens and snap some shots of the vast landscape before purchasing a one-way ticket across the Rhine River on a cable car. It was an epic experience going 120 feet above the river and above a highway to see the city skyline. The cable car dropped us off at Rhinepark, a leisure park on the riverbank that was hosting Z-Z Top tonight. We heard the live music as we passed, but did not see the band performing.

Finally, we crossed the Love Lock Bridge (I feel every city in Europe has one) to reach City Centre and go out to dinner. We simply opted for pizza and some gelato before turning in for the night. Jet lag has never hit me this hard before. I was practically falling asleep when we sat down in various places as I continue to adjust to the 6 hour time change from PA and 8 hour time change from Belize. Over and out until tomorrow!