Let me start off by saying that Germany is by far one of my favorite places I’ve ever been to. As I’ve grown accustomed to Spain’s lack of concern for schedules, disorderly, untimely manner, it was a nice break to be in Germany where everything is on-time, according to schedule, orderly, and everything is done according to rule and line. Also, Germans are incredibly nice and helpful, aaaand incredibly humble and modest. After getting off a metro line, us four girls would pull out a map, and immediately we had 3 people ask us “do you need help finding something?”, or “can I help point you in the right direction somewhere?”. This was common in every single city we visited. It was great, even in the touristy cities, locals always seemed to find us and offer their help. Also, we attempted to learn the phrase “do you speak English” in German (Sprechen Sie Englisch). I would say 9 times out of 10 the response would be “yes, a little”. We would proceed explaining a complicated question about how to get from one area to another yadda yadda…and the person we asked would always understand perfectly well, and respond in perfect English. “A little English”. Wow. Very humble people. Well here is the tale of three cities . Munich. Bamberg. Berlin.
We began our journey by sleeping in the airport for our early morning flight to Munich. Once in Munich, we dropped off our luggage at our hostel and went exploring!
MUNICH- a few things we did:
Englischer garden. One of the world’s largest urban parks. Complete with a nude area, running track, stream, and a huge beer garden in the center: famous during Oktoberfest.
Pub-Crawl. I don’t know the next time I’ll be in Germany so I couldn’t pass up the chance to do a pub crawl in the city famous for Oktoberfest! Our pub crawl guides led us to some of the largest beer gardens in the city, had us try the Pope’s favorite beer (he has it sent to him in Italy.. and they say if it’s the Pope’s favorite beer, it must be God’s favorite beer), learned some crazy German drinking songs, also learned the importance of “Prost!” in Germany (the equivalence of our Cheers), and were taught some silly German traditions… including how men with crushes on women will still, to this day, plant a maypole in her yard. If she dances around it, it means she likes him. If her family leaves beer by the maypole, it means get lost. Strange tradition.
(Megan and me with our "small" beers)
We also did a walking tour of the city. We saw some of the historic locations where Hitler had brought the Nazi party to power and had tried to lead a march to Berlin to overthrow the government. He was met by police force who shot fire at Hitler, his 600 SS officers, and the 3,000 followers. Hitler’s body guard leapt on top of Hitler and took 11 bullets, saving Hitler. Three SS officers were killed. The march was not successful, although later when the Nazi regime had taken power they constructed a memorial in the wall of the street where the 3 SS officers were killed. The memorial was always guarded by SS officers and citizens were required to do the Nazi salute to it when walking by, or their name would be recorded on a list. The second time their name was on the list, they could be executed. Citizens began finding new routes to avoid walking past the memorial and saluting, although SS guards soon caught on and began executing them as well. Today, the SS officer memorial is gone, and there is a new memorial of golden bricks on the side street where citizens began walking to avoid the salute. This was just one of the hundreds of small tributes that are within the city for those who were killed during WWII.
Famous beer hall. We learned in one of Munich’s largest beer halls that back in the day, bathrooms were never installed, only “vomitoriums” (if you can imagine what that was for). As women weren’t allowed into the beer halls, and as men didn’t want to lose their seats in the incredibly packed and popular beer hall, they had drains built under each table. I’m sure you can imagine the point of them. Apparently the wealthier men would bring canes to help direct their pee to the drain. At the end of the night, the women working at the beer hall would dump the empty kegs (now filled with water) into the beer hall, “cleansing” it and pushing all the leftover liquids into the street. GROSS STORY. Our tour guide taught us a lot of these little-known facts about Munich.
Hostel experience. This was our first time staying in a large room in a hostel (to save money). It was a 12 person room, so 6 bunk beds. The hostel was amazing complete with kitchen, bar/restaurant, complimentary all you can eat breakfast, WiFi internet, large bathrooms, big living room areas, and some of the nicest desk-workers I’ve ever met. You could say it was more like a hotel, but you share rooms with lots of guests. Our first night in Munich we learned there was a soccer game: Manchester vs. Munich and it was in Munich. A few of our roommates were visiting from Manchester to watch the game. Well…Manchester lost and us four girls spent the night listening to a rage of 4 English guys come home yelling and falling all over the place. We also heard an orchestra of snoring all night, a huge THUD from one of them falling off the top bunk (which has a railing) in his sleep, and just a whole lot of shenanigans. It was an interesting first shared room hostel experience. They apologized the next day and explained their adventures.. which were quite hilarious.
Day Trip to Neuschwanstein castle:
2 hours of a train ride there was so worth it to see the original castle that Disney has based their Magical Kingdom Disney castle off of. This castle is nestled into the foothills of the Swiss Alps in beautiful Bavaria, Germany. The king who built it hired an artist to design it, not an architect. He wanted it to look perfect in pictures, as it does. Here’s some of our pictures!
(view of the castle while standing on a bridge between the gap of some mountains)
(view of the nearby lake andAlps from inside the castle)
(Go Cougs below the Castle)
(This is the postcard I bought. It's also the view if you hike up to the top of a nearby mountain! We didn't exactly have our hiking equiptment handy, so we settled for the postcard. Beautiful view though!)
Bamberg, Germany:
Bamberg, Germany is one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites because it was one of the few towns to not get damaged during the many wars of its time, especially WWII. It also is famous for its gorgeous Bavarian architecture, 1000 year old church, and the city hall which is placed in the middle of a river.
Student travelers alike have all heard of couchsurfing.com. It’s a website of a community of people who want to learn more about other cultures, other people, and want to share something that they have with other people. They do this by letting people stay in their homes for free while traveling, and in return, they are able to stay at others homes for free when they travel. Sure, it sounds a little sketchy. I thought so too. Although, after much research, we realized it’s very safe. Every person has to contribute money to the site, be verified with an address and as an actual person, have references, and every person who has every stayed with you or traveled with you will write a review explaining their experiences as either positive or negative, so you know if the person is a great host or not by reading these reviews. So we decided to dive in and found a sweet woman willing to let 4 people stay at her place. Her profile had impeccable reviews and her pictures showed that she had horses. After conversing with her for several weeks, we were actually quite excited to meet her and see her city!
We were picked up by Roswitha and her boyfriend at the train station. They brought us to their favorite diner to eat and drink typical “Bamberg Beer”, brewed in the same building. Roswitha brought us to her home where there were two large beds for us 4 girls to share. She let us stay in her home alone as she stayed with her boyfriend a few houses over. In the morning, they both picked us up to bring us to her boyfriends’ place for a perfect breakfast. Her boyfriend, Christian, took us girls on a complete tour of the city while Roswitha was doing a 10 mile run with her horse. Here are my favorite parts:
(Typical German Currywurst sausage with fries)
(City Hall in the middle of the river)
(this church celebrated it's 1,000th birthday 3 years ago!)
That afternoon, Roswitha and Christian hung out with us at the stables behind Christian’s house where we were given the opportunity to ride Roswitha’s horse Lilly. Lilly, like her owner, is incredibly nice and is actually trained to work with the handicapped. We had so much fun! Roswitha and Christian also let us watch movies at their place (movies that we learned a lot from like The Cove.. I totally recommend it), took us to the castle and church overlooking the city on Good Friday, had us eat typical Good Friday dinners at the café that is part of the church, and got us food for our 7 hour train journey to Berlin. All in all, I learned many things from them. They not only taught me a lot about German culture, Bamberg in general, horses, and food, but I also learned a lot about Dolphins, technology, and above all… the generosity of Germans and how hospitality and generosity can go a long way in life. These were two of the nicest and most interesting people I have ever met and I am so thankful I got the opportunity to meet them. It has given me an incredible perspective of couchsurfing.com and I hope that in my future travels I meet people just as incredible through the site.
(Me riding Lilly with Roswitha guiding)
(And Lilly does tricks... kind of!)
Berlin- a city rebuilt:
We took 7 ½ hours of train rides to get to the city. Aaaand ohh Berlin. Where to start? Berlin is a city with a lot of ancient history, although much of it has been erased as the bombs of WWII have destructed tons of the ancient buildings. Many have been restored to the best of their ability, although much of the city is still, to this day, in ruins from the scars of war. The new thriving culture is alternative, artsy, and very unique.
Hostel: Our hostel was up the creaky stairs behind a graffiti filled door. At first, we were skeptical, although as we approached the floor of our hostel, our anxiety was relieved by a huge sign that said ALOHA HOSTEL, covered in lei’s, and we were kindly greeted by the owner, a young Brazilian who was living in the hostel with his girlfriend. We were immediately upgraded from a 10 person room to a 4 person room, just because the 4 person was empty. The hostel was COVERERED in bright paint, flowers, neon pillows, and was just an overall fun environment. There was free internet and computers to use and pancakes and a full breakfast out for us every morning. The owners were great! They not only were able to answer all of our questions and help us find things, but they also liked hanging out with the guests in the living room or by going out with them at night. We met a lot of really cool people at the hostel, especially our new Finnish friends!
Walking tour of the city:
There was an incredible amount of history and pictures I took during this walking tour and of Berlin in general. So to make it easier, if anyone is interested in checking it out, here’s my facebook album of Berlin with captions under the pictures. It’s easier this way!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=46076&id=1581690006&l=8962579c4f
Alternative “Anti-Pub Crawl”: We saw the flier in the hostel and were sold. This tour took us to some of the funniest and craziest places in Berlin that you would never had heard about otherwise.
-Started out at Yesterday Bar where the décor is as hippy chic as possible. Filled with flower power, peace signs, vintage signs, and anything else that makes you feel like saying, “Peace!”.
-Went to a rock-gothic scary bar. Filled with skeletons, burning barrels of flame, dark rock music, and an interesting crowd. We loved that it was different for us though!
-Next stop: KingKongKlub, a bar filled with stuffed monkeys all over the ceiling, silly dancing Germans, and some interesting music.
-Ping Pong Bar! It was a strange hole in the wall sort of place: a grungy building with no décor. It did however, have a large ping pong table in the middle of its only room. Every person got a paddle and was given the opportunity to try to hit the ball when it was their turn, then you rotate around the table. If you mess up, you’re automatically out. Most of us pub-crawlers were out fast as the local legends of the bar got sneaky and were trying hard to get us out. It was funny to see how 30 people quickly got down to three, when things got real crazy!
-Absinthe bar. Yes, it’s illegal in the US but not in Germany, and this bar had 180 different kinds. You’re supposed to dump a sugar cube into a shot of absinthe, pull it out with a spoon, set it on fire, then wait for a little bit, then dose the sugar with water to extinguish the flame, then immediately drop the sugar cube into the drink and mix. WELL, the German locals all laughed as two of us in the group managed to light the drinks on fire accidently. The drink is meant to be sipped, but half of our group shot them instead, immediately leading them to regret that decision. The 80% alcohol drinks were ridiculously gross, but the bar was fun and funny to say the least.
-Bombed out Train station dance club. So this train station had been bombed in WWII and was never restored to that function. Instead, the entire place has been turned into multiple dance clubs, a skate park, a karate/dance lesson place, a café, an outdoor movie theater, and art and graffiti showcase, and the bomb shelter of the station has been turned into a rock climbing wall. Pretty amazing place overall.
Alternative Graffiti tour of the city: This tour was just as intense and amazing as the walking tour of the city. Check out my facebook album to see all the pictures. The tour lasted about 5 hours but taught us SO much about the new culture of Berlin.
(my favorite graffitti!)
Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin wall: Of course I can't talk about my adventures in Berlin without mentioning these key aspects. The entire city still has remnants of the city divided. Transport tends to run either on the East or the West side. Parts of the wall still remain. East Berlin has different "walk" and "don't walk" pedestrian signs than West Berlin. East Berlin has painful monuments demonstrating moments of when the wall was up. Check out that facebook album for complete photos. Checkpoint Charlie was the main crossing point between the east and west sides of Berlin. Although now, it's just a tiny hut in the road, it once was a massive barrier. To cross from one side to the other would often prove to be very difficult, but there are some amazing stories of people who successfully smuggled their friends or family onto their own side, including a man who built a fake hollowed-out plastic cow and put it in with a cow trailer. He successfully brought many members of his family to the West side this way. 
(True Coug in front of Checkpoint Charlie)
Daytrip to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Once off the train stop closest to the camp, it takes about a 20 minute walk to arrive at the camp. The walk is completely necessary to put someone in the state of mind to see what they are about to, and also to reflect on it on the walk back afterwards. It was an incredibly hurtful and difficult place to be in, but I think it’s something that everyone who goes to Europe should do. Some of the concentration camp is still in original form. Many other parts have been converted into extensive museums illustrating thousands of personal stories from just that concentration camp alone. I only took a few photos because I don’t feel like it’s the kind of thing that a photo can even explain. It’s just something everyone needs to do for themselves in their lifetime if they get the chance. Here is the one of the photos I did take.
(entering the gate with the sign "work will set you free")
It’s hard to explain everything that I saw and experienced in Germany. I want to share it all, but I know this is already an incredibly long blog. BUT, I also think I will leave some things out so that if anyone gets the opportunity to go to Germany, they can experience some of it themselves. I totally recommend it. After four days in Berlin, we flew to Frankfurt for our connecting flight to Spain. While we thought we would have 10 hours to explore Frankfurt, we realized the airport was almost 2 hours away from the city, and our funds were already low, so we decided to camp in the airport all day. At 8 am we arrived in Frankfurt and at 8 pm we flew out of Frankfurt to Alicante, Spain. Once in Alicante, we had to spend the night in the airport AGAIN as the last bus to Murcia had already left. Exhausted, yes. But so worth it. I love Germany! Now I’m back to the grind of school… minus by Dublin trip planned for this weekend ;)
