Prague and Berlin

Day 15: Tuesday, May 27

Morning view of Prague

Prague is beautiful. It might be my new favorite city; at least it was on Tuesday. The buildings are old and impressive, and I love the narrow cobblestone streets. It has some interesting history in World War II; it was occupied by the Nazis but it was one of Hitler’s favorite cities so it hardly got bombed at all and most of the old buildings are well preserved. Haha funny story that might not be true: On top of some cool building that is now the home of the Prague Symphony there are about 8 statues of famous composers. The Nazis found out that Mendelssohn, one of the statues, was Jewish, so of course they had to take the statue down. The two guys who were sent to do the deed got to the roof, looked at each other and said, “Do you know what Mendelssohn looks like?” and instead of asking somebody who would actually know, they decided that they would figure out who he was by measuring each statue’s nose and finding the largest one. It wasn’t Mendelssohn; it was Wagner, Hitler’s favorite composer. Those guys probably didn’t make it very far in Nazi careers.

That story comes from our cute British tour guide who looks like Amy Adams; we took a free walking tour of the city that was totally worth it. Seriously guys, I love Prague. It is super beautiful.

Old thing in the main square

Prague Castle from Charles' Bridge

After the tour was finished we wandered around the in the sunshine, and then the overcast clouds, and then the pouring rain. I really think I've never seen rain fall that hard before. We were soaked within minutes and decided to tough it out and go back to the hostel, in hindsight maybe not a great decision considering our shoes were wet for three days afterwards. Once we got cleaned up we headed back out to send some postcards, eat dinner (a pretty delicious Asian buffet), and go to a concert.

Man, are we classy people. We went to a really wonderful classical concert with a very talented organ and string quartet. They played some Mozart, Pachelbel, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and more in a beautiful concert hall (I think it was actually a church) with painted ceilings and ornate carvings. Apparently Mozart himself performed there, which is pretty darn awesome. See, classy. :)

Then we went on a lovely walk around Prague Castle, which is the oldest biggest castle complex in Europe or the world or something. We got some nice panorama pictures of the city, photobombed some people’s wedding pictures, and went back to our hotel to chill out on the computer. I expected to have greater problems with internet access while traveling. Nope, it’s pretty available.

Cathedral in Castle complex

Day 16: Wednesday, May 28

This time we made sure to check the train times to Berlin in order to make the earliest one possible; they leave every two hours at 8:30, 10:30, etc. We wake up at 8:45. At 10:05 we get in a taxi to go the train station. Traffic is bad. We get to the station at 10:35. I’m telling you, this is a theme.

Then we have a rather uneventful 5 hour (well it was supposed to be 5 hours) train ride to Berlin. The train goes through Munich; it took 7 hours to go from Munich to Prague, and 2 ½ hours to go from Prague to Munich. We are mildly disgruntled.

We get to Berlin at about 6pm. We need to catch a night train to Copenhagen at about 12:30am, so we have six hours to see all of Berlin in the pouring rain. Unfortunately we had to be selective about which sites we would see: the giant Parliament building, the Branderburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, and a freaking awesome Blue Man Group concert. Yeah you heard that right. We talked to a tourist information place that sells event tickets and found out that a concert was going on at 9pm that we could totally go to. It was so cool! Way better than obscure German band last week. Also much more expensive. But totally worth it. How many people can say they went to a Blue Man Group concert in Berlin? Probably all of the people who have seen a Blue Man Group concert in Berlin.

Brandemburg Gate

Checkpoint Charlie (and McDonald's!)

Blue Man Group!

We also stopped by the fanciest McDonald’s I’ve ever seen and got some really delicious hot chocolate. Seriously, I felt underdressed in a McDonald’s.

Then we hung out in a cold train station (also a really awesome train station, seriously Berlin Hbf looks like Hogwarts)(except in modern train station form) for two hours since our night train to Copenhagen was late, and managed to get on the train on time in the right cabin. I actually really like night trains, I think they’re super exciting. It always feels like there’s going to be a murder or something. (Rereading that I realize it sounds really macabre but it’s supposed to be an Agatha Christie reference.)