Berlin!

So Maya and I got a Mitzfahr to Berlin (where we pay some gas money to get a ride from a random person) for the weekend of the Love Parade. The Love Parade is the biggest techno concert thingy in the world that was started cause people thought it'd be cool and then within 10 years of it happening turned into a 1.5 million person event that takes up the entire Tier Garten in Berlin (this massive 2 mile by 3/4 mile park in the middle of Berlin). So now they get about 40 different floats that consist of a huge semi truck with their own sounds system that cruise up and down the main road that goes through the Tier Garten. It's a day long parade that finishes with a show on 4 different stages that surround the Victory Column.
So we headed out in a big blue bus (kinda like the old church buses) with 5 other Germans off to Berlin. Unfortunately the ride was kinda annoying cause it happened to be the same weekend that all of Germany's schools got out. So everyone was starting up summer trips and the roads were terrible! We got there about 3-4 hours late, but thankfully were able to take a taxi easily to Maya's friend's place where we were staying for the night. Maya knew these people from something (obviously), that I don't quite remember, and they were gone for that night, so we had a good night's rest in their comfy beds. The next day, we had to find stuff to do until about 3 when the parade started. So we first found this restaurant that my Germany guide said had good breakfast. And, wow, was my guide right! We had some amazing food (and service) and got our first glipse of some extremely oddly dressed people (all prepared for the Love Parade).
We then decided to head to the Charlottesburg Schloss, which is probably the coolest looking castle close within the city. Here's some pics from it....

So Amy, another intern from Frankfurt, was also going to be in town for the Love Parade with her friend Eleanor, so we headed back towards the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) as we thought they might be getting in soon. We wandered around there for awhile and saw some cool stuff..... This was a cool looking monument for something to do with WWII. Neither mine nor Maya's German was good enough to figure out what it was all about.
We then planned on meeting Amy and Eleanor at Potsdammer Platz, which is right off of the Tiergarten, once they got there. Maya and I realized we were pretty thirsty so once we got there, we sat down at a nice restaurant in the Sony center and had a beer. The Sony center is this huge complex that kinda looks like a gigantic circus tent type thing from the outside and then on the inside looks like the inside of a typical American skyscraper (or at least the ones that I think are the coolest looking inside and thus should be typical), with a huge open area on the bottom and then shops and offices rising up on the sides. Except with the Sony center, it was all open air in the middle, so it gave it a cool feel. So we enjoyed our (amazingly good!) beers and enjoyed the view. It's kinda cool with Berlin, because there's a lot of really old buildings, which you usually see in pictures of Berlin, but then there's also a lot of new, cool-looking architecturally buildings as well (the Sony Center, not pictured below, those are just some nice looking modern Berlin buildings, was constructed to try and fill up one of the massive holes in the city that resulted once the wall came down).
But they're all just scattered around and there's no actual sky-line of Berlin. So it's kinda a mixmatch of old and new buildings all thrown together. But amazingly, it looks really cool!
So we decided that Amy and Eleanor were going to be really late (which we later found out that it was actually my phone's fault cause it wasn't picking up their calls :(, so we decided to go ahead and head to the Parade. We made it there and for the next 5 hours or so we danced away with tons of people, many of which had hilariously absurd outfits. Amy and Eleanor ended up finding us eventually, and we continued to have a great time with them, following whichever float for awhile and then swtiching to different floats whenever we'd pass one that sounded cooler than the one we were currently following. It was pretty great! Tons of techno, tons of people, and tons of fun!
All of a sudden, though, we all realized that we were absolutely starving, so we started wandering off to try and find some food. We wandered for a good hour, and finally ran into an all you can eat buffet for about 6 Euro. Great deal! And even better food :) So we feasted away for a good hour at least and then started to head back to the finale of the Parade.
We thought that we'd make it for a good portion of the finale as we thought that their "schedule" wouldn't actually matter and that they'd be partying the entire night. Unfortunately we started heading towards the Victory Column around 10:15 (the thing supposedly ended at 11:15)......
and we then spent the next 45 minutes pushing our way through half a mile of crowds to find that they actually ended early! It was funny though, cause we were sure that they couldn't be done, so we stuck around close to the front of the stage for about 20 minutes while everyone was leaving around us. Once we decided it was, unfortunately, definitely over, we followed the crowds to the Brandenburger Tor, hoping that we might run into an after party. After walking for a good 45 min to the Tor, we took a quick break, and our crew started to realize that we were all pretty beat. Amy and Eleanor hadn't slept the night before, so we decided to head back to our beds for the night. Amy, Eleanor , and I were heading to a hostel for the night (Maya's friends were back for that night and they didn't have extra room for us), and being that Berlin is huge, it ended up taking us about 3 hours to arrive at our hostel. I still can't quite figure out how it took that long, but once we got there we collapsed until check out time the next day.
We enjoyed a good breakfast at the hostel and then started figuring out what to do for the day. It was kinda complicated, cause Amy and Eleanor were thinking about using a Schoneswochenende ticket to get home on the trains. This was a wonderfully cheap option, but meant that it would take Amy 9 hours to get back to Frankfurt (Eleanor lived closer), so we were trying to see if they could join us on our Mitzfahr back to save some time. But we couldn't get ahold of the Mitzfahr driver. So while we were trying to get all this figured out, we trecked around in the former East Berlin and eventually headed over to the Zoological Garden area. Amy and Eleanor ended up deciding that they'd just take the train back, so we said our farewells before 12. Then I had the day to myself! Maya was seeing her friends the entire day (and they were basically just going to be catching up the entire time, so no reason for me to join), so I headed out to see the sights of Berlin. I got some good sightseeing in.....
and then headed over to Krutzburg (the Turkish area of Berlin) for their famed 1Euro Donner (staple Turkish food in Germany). After looking for an entire 30 seconds I found a 1Euro20 Donner stand and enjoyed some Donner goodness.
Then, it was back to meet Maya and head back to Frankfurt. We met up with our ride (with a different driver this time....) and unfortunately had a similar experience of terrible traffic on the way back.
However, I can't complain too much, though, because I could actually ride around in the countryside of Germany forever and just enjoy myself from the view. German countryside is lovely! The area we went through was entirely beautifully-green rolling hills with charming towns tucked away in the valleys and castles perched on top of each prominent hill, as well as the occasional river a couple of hundred meters below our gigantic highway bridges. So I actually enjoyed the overly long ride home, but didn't enjoy the fact that my train wasn't running anymore by the time we got back. But I had a decent enough 45 minute walk from the train station back to my place at 2 in the morning.
So this is actually my last night at my dorms (back to the hostel for the last week!), so I won't have good internet from here on out, so unfortunately I won't be able to blog my last adventures until I get back to the States. But don't worry, Luxembourg, Marburg, Frankfurt clubbing, Copenhagen, and Budapest will come soon!

End of the World Cup and Chillin in Frankfurt

So after my trip to Gelsenkirchen, the last week of the world cup was upon us. Which seemed crazy as the last 3 weeks had seemed to completely revolve around this. So on Tuesday we all got together and headed to the river (right in the middle of all the action), decked out in our Germany gear to watch what we thought would be an easy Germany win over Italy.

It was actually a pretty slow game as no one scored for the entire first 90 minutes. Then it went into overtime and all Germany had to do was get the game to go into 11 meter shots as their goalee was definitely better than the Italian goalee. Then, with 2 minutes left before the end of the overtime, Italy scored. And then scored again. Ouch. So since we had assumed that Germany was in for the final, it was a pretty shocking result. Some of my friends said that soccer was now dead to them. Others simply sat there in disbelief. Then others were too drunk to realize what was going on and starting dancing on the chairs to the loud music they played to try and cover up the tragedy that had just occured. I headed home and took a picture of Frankfurt's largest skyscraper that they had put up a sweet WM poster onto just in case they took it down now that Germany was out.
It was also Doug's last night with us as he was going back early for a family emergency. So we had our sad good-byes and were glad for all the good times we had with him.

After deciding that the world hadn't actually ended, some of us met up for the France/Portugal game the next night at "Sam's," an American bar with good ol' 1/2 lb. burgers. Yumm. And we watched as Portugal proved that they really only had one decent player on their team, whom, that night, couldn't quite seem to get anything done. So France easily won and we had our line up of Germany/Portugal for 3rd/4th and France/Italy for 1st/2nd.
Meanwhile, in my non-soccer life, I was working on the same nanotech assignment at work, but actually had some other stuff to do, too. My boss wanted me to check out their analytical lab, so I spent about half of my week doing titrations and similar stuff. But it was actually kinda cool as Zimmer has really nice, automated equipment for all of this. So unlike the labs back at the U where you had to prepare the samples, labor over the machine to make everything run right, and then actually have to think and calculate the results, all you had to do here is take the sample, put it in the slot, type a couple of things in the computer, and then watch it go. So it wasn't too bad and was kinda nice for a change of pace.
That weekend, Kim was working at Frankfurt's "Museum Festival" where all the museums opened their doors for those who cared and also sponsored tons of bands, clubs, and food on the river for those who didn't. So Friday night we wandered down to the river, found Kim, got some free drinks from her boss Mario (man that guy rocks) and danced to some sweet group called Hotel Ost which played music that reminded me of the wedding scene in Fiddler on the Roof. I didn't quite try the bottle dance they did in the movie, but we found some way to grove (or just watched the funny Germans try and dance to the slightly odd music) and enjoyed ourselves.
Then on Saturday, it was time for German's last game which we decided we might as well watch even though it was not for 1st or 2nd place :( But we headed back to Sam's (actually randomly this time) to watch Germany's easy dominance over Portugal. And we got to watch Germany's Neanderthal looking older goalee play who was pretty cool. After the satisfactory victory we headed back over to the festival. This time we decided to skip the interesting world music they had on Kim's side of the river and instead head to the bumping other side of the river. So after grabbing some food and drink, we danced the night away with a bunch of Frankfurters. Here's a pic of Michelle and Chris Stucko (who I don't think I ever introduced. Which I should clarify really quick, there's now a bunch of people that I've been hanging out with. Still mostly people in my similar program. Well, maybe all. We have hung out with some Germans though!)
The next day, Amy had a great idea and suggested going hiking around on some of the trails that surround Frankfurt. So we started out the day playing frisbee in a park and getting free Red Bulls (it was kinda like a dream. Really cute girls come out of nowhere and ask if you'd like a free Red Bull. After staring for a couple seconds I managed a "sure" and then next I got a free Red Bull.) We then headed up and around Frankfurt and enjoyed the greener side of Frankfurt area.
Here's a pic of this crazy tree we found.
And then a bunch of trees that weren't quite as alive as that last one.
After spending a couple quality hours trekking around, we headed back into the city to find a place to watch the WM final.
It was a really good game. I thought that France had it won after they got the first goal. But then Italy came back and got one, too. And then with only minutes left until the overtime was done and 11 meter kicks began, some Portugal jerk insulted Zidane's (probably France's best player) mother and sister in the same breath. Naturally then, like any good Frenchman would do, Zidane smashed the guy's stomach with his head and fists. I thought he should have gotten style points for the takeout, but the refs decided a red card was more in line. Then in the 11 meter kicks that followed minutes later, France didn't have one of their best players anymore and thus lost in penalty kicks. Kinda sad. By the way I was cheering for France. Just in case you didn't figure that one out.
So we then headed back to catch the end of the Museum Festival which mainly consisted of some decent fireworks.After that, it was slowly making our way back to our trains through the sea of crazy Italians.But eh, I guess after winning the WM they're allowed to be a bit crazy.
So then, the weekend was over as well as the WM, and we were all really confused. For the last month it was basically given what we would do during the week nights. Go to a bar, get some beers, watch the game. But now this easy plan would no longer work. So we started out the week watching "Over the Hedge", which is actually an amazingly funny movie.
Then later on in the week we decided to head to Odeon which is an awesome club that has student nights on Thursday nights with a 3 Euro cover, half price drinks until 12, and then after the half price drinks are over, a free buffet! And not just your typical throw some crap together free buffet, but a really nice one (and actually, we had gone their the week before, too. Sorry I forget things sometime). So we pre-partied with some 1.60 Euro good ol Aldi wine and then enjoyed a great night of techno, other dance stuff and free food. That was Kim's last night with us as she was heading over to Greece for some island hoping and then down to Uganda to work for an NGO before heading back to the States. Unfortunately I was pretty out of it when we quickly said goodbyes from the back of the cab, but we had a more formal farewell later.
Oh, and that week at work was about the same as the last. Nothing new to report.
But the following weekend was something sweet that I will report soon. Love Parade in Berlin :) Largest techno concert in the world......

Mainz, Gelsenkirchen, Bonn, Bingen, ect.

The week after Kiel was a fun one filled with random outings and, amazingly, interesting things to do at work :) The Friday before Kiel, my boss, Brigitta, mentioned something about having me start looking into the potential applications of nanotechnology on PET (the polymer they design production plants for) production/use. So on Monday, she gave me a couple huge books from nanotech. conferences and had someone show me how to access patent literature. My job for the rest of the week was then to sort through all the information available and find information applicable to my new assignment. And this is actually a little bit like my grad studies will start out, as 1. it's nanotech stuff, which is usually intruiging, and 2. when I start my grad studies, I'll probably have to delve into all the available literature on a certain nanotech. area before I can start focusing my research. So since they finally found something good for me to do, I started really getting into it and enjoying myself at work (why they didn't give this assignment to me at the beginning, I don't know)! And actually the resources available at the company were not that vast, so I was able to utilize my U of M ID to get a better application where I can look into the scientific papers available on this topic. So work that week was good.
Outside of work was really good, too! On Monday night, Mainz, a city about half an hour away from Frankfurt where Mike works, was having their main festival of the summer. Mike had found some random guy from couchsurfing.com that lived in Mainz and had been talking to him, so he offered to let us bbq at his place. Ends up he had an amazing flat that directly overlooked the festival (he was in the US army and had a significant housing stipend). So we had the best view in town and enjoyed some good food and better beer. Eventually Jan and a lot of other random people showed up, and we all had a great time. Here's a pic of the Mainz cathedral from the roof of this guy's apartment.....
And here's another pic of the festival area....The only bad part about that night was that I was giving Michelle a piggy back ride back to the train station, and out of nowhere a curb appeared and we went down and I ripped my jeans. But actually at many department stores, that added rip in the jeans would increase the value of them by maybe $15, so I guess it was alright.
The next interesting thing was on Thursday, we headed out to Mario's (Kim's boss's) place about 45 minutes north of Frankfurt close to the "mountains" for a bbq. He has an amazingly nice place, imagine that!, and he has a great garden/green area that is perfect for bbq's. So we relaxed with his friends (who are basically just an older version of us. They are all between 30 and 40, but always hang out, have bbq's, most have boyfriends and girlfriends and all seem like they're always going to be thoroughly enjoying life), and I enjoyed eating some great food for about 2 hours straight. Here's a pic from that night.....
We then had ambitious plans of heading out to a club after that, but were so satisfied and relaxed that we just watched Ferris Buler's Day Off back at Chris's (another one of the interns that started a little later than most of us) place.
Then that Friday was Germany's big game versus Argentina. We found an Irish bar and watched an amazing game. I was cheering for Argentina, and was slightly distraught as the game ended up being decided when, about halfway through the game, the Argentinian goalee was injured which meant that after the 30 minute overtime, which still found the teams tied at 1:1, the subsequent 11 meter kicks were amazingly easy for Germany as they shot against a pathetic 2nd string Argentinian goalee compared to Argentina's attempts against Germany's main goalee, Lehman, who is amazing. However, my spirits were high by the end of the night as all of Frankfurt, and probably all of Germany, was a party because of the win.
The next day, me, Maya, and Julia (two interns working in Wiesbaden that I met at the far back Steuben-Schurtz bbq and then talked to more the night at Mainz) headed up to Gelsenkirchen where the England/Portugal game was going to be played. We figured that it would be worth it to head up there for the atmosphere and were not dissappointed! It was a 4 hour journey on the slow, but extremely cheap!, regional trains, and once we got there, we didn't stop hearing singing and yelling Englishmen until we left. Right when we got out of the train station, there were signs saying English, go here, so we followed them out to the public viewing area that was a good 2 miles away. The route led us through some really pretty parts of Gelsenkirchen and it was great because there were beer stands about every 500 meters along the way so that the English would be able to make it to the viewing area in their natural state (we actually stole one of the signs for Maya that said "Beer Station: 200 meters" as she thought that was hillarious). We then watched the first half of the game under the blazing sun in the middle of hoards of Englishmen..... Unfortunately, since we were taking the cheap trains to get there, our schedule was very tight unless we wanted to spend 7 hours at some random German towns on the way back and arrive in Frankfurt around 6 in the morning, so we left the game early :(, and didn't actually watch England's eventual loss (which might have been good as I can only imagine how 30,000 English soccer hooligans would act after a loss), but headed back on our train towards Frankfurt.
We then thought that it was really sad that we had spent this entire day traveling around Germany and had only seen one of Germany's many great cities, so we looked into our travel guides and decided that we should stop at Bonn. Like I had said before, our train schedule was pretty tight unless we wanted to have 7 hours of lay-overs in random cities, but we thought we might be smarter as our travel guides said that there were trains every hour from Bonn to Frankfurt. So we hopped off our train at Bonn and quickly checked the train schedules to find that with our cheap tickets that we had, we couldn't take any of the ICE trains that headed from Bonn to Frankfurt, which were actually the only trains that went straight from Bonn to Frankfurt. Shoot. So, we figured out what our new schedule would have to be and found that we would be having about 2 hours in Bonn and then about 5 hours in some random town called Bingen, and then get back to Frankfurt around 7 in the morning.
So we decided to make the best of it and headed out into Bonn. We found out that Bonn was where Beethoven lived, and took a couple pics of stuff....
(the first pic is Beethoven, the second I think may not be)
We then hopped on our train and headed towards Bingen. We saw a cathedral and a castle once we got off the train and figured that would be a good start for things to see during our 5 hour layover.
We stopped at a Donner restaurant on our way there, and then eventually made it over to the castle. There was a little courtyard in front of the castle that was really pretty, so we took some pics that included some random guy that was twirling a flaming batton. We then talked to the flaming batton guy, and he said he was really bored and asked if we'd like a tour of the castle. We took him up on his offer and headed up the hill to the castle and had a nice tour. Ends up that this guy was a paramedic that did the graveyard shift but had the night off. He consequently couldn't sleep and was looking for things to do. He then offered us some beers and a tour of the rest of Bingen. We gratefully accepted and spent the rest of the night/morning following him around and seeing what there was to see including some club that was still going strong at 3:30 in the morning (and that we learned was the reason that this random small town had the third largest number of drug trafficking police in Germany), two rivers, and some crazies that were hanging out at the train station at 4 in the morning. We eventually hopped on our train at 5ish and headed back towards Frankfurt. We made big plans for the rest of the day as we had purchased another Schoneswochende ticket which would allow us to travel on any regional train for the day but instead ended up sleeping most of the day (Sunday) away.

Kieler Woche

So the week after Prague began with me sleeping until around 10 on Monday morning (we had gotten back fairly late Sunday night) and showing up to work a couple of hours late to find that my boss was gone for the day. Phew. But she was actually gone most of that week, so it ended up being pretty boring. Continuing reading my 1000 page book. Looking up stuff to do on the internet. The highlight of the workweek was when we went out to eat as a group to a traditional Frankfurt restaurant, and my boss (who was back at that point) offered to pay for my meal. Then after some minimal convincing from my coworkers, I ordered the largest plate on the menu, which was good and meaty. And then after the meal, no one seemed to want their peach schnapps shots (that are supposed to aid digestion), so I had about 4 as they all somehow got passed to me, and then subsequently relaxed the rest of my workday away behind my closed door. But the week outside of work was very enjoyable, full of World Cup game watching and frisbee playing.
Then, that Friday our group (Eric, Michelle, Kim, Mike, and Doug) headed out to Kieler Woche (Kiel Week), which is the largest sailing event in the world bringing about 3.5 million people during the week to Kiel, a town of about 300,000. The trip up there was pretty uneventful except that we ran into some drunk Russian that couldn't quite figure out how to operate a seat.....
Once we got to Kiel, we headed out of the train station to find some breakfast, and ran into some Americans. It ended up that these guys were doing this program called Congress Bundestag (or something close to that) where you spend your last year of high school studying in Germany (in their Gymnasium), which Eric and Michelle had both done back in high school, so they had a lot to talk about. Then we checked into our hostel which was amazingly nice! It was basically like a nice apartment with only two rooms for people to stay in and a really nice bathroom, kitchen, and living room.
The first thing on our list at Kiel was to go to the tall boat show where a couple hundred tall boats headed out of Kiel harbor to take a day tour of the Baltic Sea. It was really amazing to see! Here's a couple of my favorite pics....

Then after that we headed back into the heart of Kiel, found a park and had a picnic. Next, it was time to find a place to watch the Germany/Sweden game, so we headed towards the festival areas (there were tons of food stands, gift stands, promotional exhibits, ect., for the festival in this general area of the city) and ended up in a FIFA viewing area. FIFA sponsors quite a few of these types of areas that are great, with lots of space, huge screens, and lots of beverages. Unfortunately, though, when you have a couple million people visiting a town of a couple hundred thousand, things fill up really quickly. So after trying to squeeze through people and ending up smashed up against a bunch of smelly germans, we backtracked and found a motorcycle vendor place that had the game on and wasn't packed full with people. We sat down and started talking American, and the people right beside us noticed and it ended up that one of the guys was from the US studying in Kiel and had actually done that Congress Bundestag thing with Michelle back when she had done it! So they talked during the entire game and then he offered to show us the fun things to do in Kiel that night.
So we headed back to the hostel, freshened up and headed to get some food before meeting up with Michelle's friend, Mike. We passed through the international market square and looked at some cool things and eventually found a beer hall, which I was extremely excited about since they don't have any in Frankfurt and I heard that you have to go to Munich to find one. So we enjoyed liter beers and something similar to turkey legs and watched the Argentina/Mexico game. Kim, Michelle, and Doug actually left before the game was over to meet up with Mike, so Eric, our Mike, and I finished at the beer hall and started wandering around seeing what all was around at the festival. One thing we found was a nanotechnology stand (lol) that was selling amazingly useless stuff and I joked with Mike about how that's what I'd be doing soon. We also had started working on a bottle of cognac and consequently had ourselves a good time. Eventually the girls, Doug, and the other Mike joined up with us at a bar after determining that clubbing in Kiel (their original goal) was not going to be that enjoyable. Mike got some interesting pictures while we were at that bar (which those of you who can and care can see on facebook), and by the time we left the bar, I realized that I had probably taken a couple too many pulls on our cognac bottle, but we all made it home easily enough.
The next day we decided to take it easy and headed up the coast to a nice beach town. We relaxed in the sun and did some swimming in the crisp Baltic waters. Our train was pretty late heading back, so Mike had some time to find a liter bottle of beer that he was pretty proud of....
We made it to our train out of Kiel without too much rush and headed for Frankfurt at 250 kph on one of Germany's ICE trains.
Well, I'm still not caught up at all, but that'll have to do for now, have the France/Portugal game to watch with all the people who aren't too distraught after Germany's tragic loss yesterday :(

Ahhh, Prague

So for the long 4 day weekend, our group decided to go to Prague. Unfortunately, Eric did not join us as he was looking for an apartment in Berlin where he will be studying this fall. But on Wednesday night Kim, Michelle, Doug, Mike, and I headed out from the Frankfurt train station to Prague. We actually had started out the evening watching the Germany game, which they won, and it made the ride interesting because there were some Germans that didn't cease celebrating the entire 9 hour trip to Prague (they even were celebrating once we got off the train in Prague). But at around 8 AM we got into Prague and found our hostel after thankfully not too much wandering. We then found some much needed food at a creperie close to our hostel in a beautiful courtyard.
We then got on our walking shoes and started seeing the city. It didn't take long for us to realize that wherever you go in Prague, it is amazingly beautiful as each of the buildings is a work of art (Mike commented that if just one of these buildings was in Pittsburg, where he's from, it would be one of the main attractions of the city, and here, they're lined up one right after another). It was really tragic to think that had it not been for the WWII bombing raids that literally demolished every city in Germany save a couple due to odd exceptions (I've heard of one so far that was too close to Switzerland to risk bombing it), then the major German cities would probably look close to the same. But we marveled around and came across a building where they were advertising an amazing line-up of classic music that was being played that evening, and Doug and I got tickets for the show. We then headed towards Prague's town square and chilled at an Italian restaurant and enjoyed the view. Probably my favorite part of Prague square was this gigantic, dark statue in the middle to it. It was interesting because in the middle of all of its beauty, the statues on each of the buildings and the large statues found in some places had a very dark and sinister feeling which gave a somewhat sureal feeling as it was juxtaposed with the bright building colors and the busy crowds of tourists.
Here's another example of a dark statue, which I though looked like a Nazgul :)After Prague square, we headed around and saw some Jewish cathedrals (didn't go in as that cost quite a bit). We then made it over to a Bohemian restaurant. It's pretty sweet because in the Czech Republic, they list the weight of the food on the menu, so we decided to go for the biggest bang for your buck and ended up with a couple mounds of meat and veggies to share. Ended up that most everyone got full quick, so I enjoyed cleaning up everyone's plates. Yumm.
After that, we then headed to the Charles bridge. We found a cool palace on the way.
With a cool statue.And here's a pic of the Prague castle (on the hill) from the bridge.Doug and I then headed back to the orchestra place while the others went out with Mike's friend Jan, who interns with Mike, is from Prague, and was there for the weekend. It was interesting, because after going to the orchestra, I found out that if you really want to make a living (probably a small one) from playing an orchestra instrument but aren't good enough to make it into one of the respectable city orchestras back in the US, then come to Prague! While we had been walking around I noticed that there were actually many of these orchestra concerts featuring all of the most well know classical songs, which meant that none of them were probably that special (I'm sure the actual Prague Symphony Orchestra is good) and that Prague is actually a city full of orchestra scams (which seems really odd). But yeah, the concert I went to basically sucked. They played all songs that anyone who listens to classical music knows, and since I recongnized them all, I was also able to recognize how off they had played each of them. But we hadn't waisted too much money, and Doug and I chilled on our hostel room's balcony for the remainder of the evening.
The next day, we started out heading to Prague castle which is up on a hill across the river from the "downtown" of Prague. It was extremely beautiful, and had a sweet cathedral in the middle of it. Here's the entrance to the castle.
And here's the cathedral.
We also saw this eerie wall from on top of the hill.
We then headed down a beautiful path on the hill right beside a city wall that was ornamented with huge yellow umbrellas (which ended up being little touristy stands, but were really pretty from above!). We made it over to a little cafe which was below the palace gardens.And found a sweet tree that had huge leaves!I saw one leaf that was the biggest, and unfortunately when I jumped to grab it, the entire branch came off, so we quickly walked off with everyone's eyes at our backs :-/
We then met up with Jan and his about 10 other friends that had all come to visit for the weekend (I guess he was part of some study program and everyone had met up for a reunion) and had lunch at a restaurant. That night, we went out with Jan and the troops to a couple of bars. The first one was pretty boring, and we started to realize that some of Jan's company was pretty lame. Jan himself is awesome! He's about 6'8", can fit most normal people's heads in his hand, and is really fun. However, we started refering to some of his companions as the manatees as they just kinda just floated around never really doing anything special, and then also due to physical similarities. But then at the second bar, the manatees stayed away, and we enjoyed some absinthe and a bucket of mojito. Then at about 1, the bartender dimmed the lights, cranked the techno (good ol' DJ Tiesto), and then juggled flaming bottles and did a bunch of other sweet fire tricks. After awhile we wandered home in the rain and called it a night.
The next morning, we found a good Italian place for our breakfast, and were amazed at our first actually good service (compared to the annoying, what-the-hell-do-you-want? attitude that most servers had at all other places. We actually found out from Jan that it was because anyone who can't get a job anywhere else becomes a server (its normal not to tip much, otherwise it might be more desirable of a job) and they can have that attitude because of the massive numbers of tourists who only need to eat there once)! So we left a good tip and then did some shopping. Latter that day, we got some wine and watched the Czech game on the big screen on Prague square. After their unfortunate loss, we watched some Czechs sing with a random bum who started dancing for them and then headed to a bar with Jan and the manatees. We soon left to watch the American game on the square and laughed again at how terribly we played.
That night was open-museum night, so we headed to the museum of natural history. It was a nice museum, and it was funny because they actually had a manatee there! Then, that night we found a 80's/90's disco, and had a great time! We found out that Doug was quite a dancer and all enjoyed some classic American music.
The next day was finally Sunday, so we spent the day doing some shopping that everyone had been meaning to do (all I bought was more food, but I did think about getting stuff). We then watched the couple WM games, had more of the cheap but good Czech beer and then headed off that evening back on the train after getting some Indian food.
So I was going to try and get up to the present with this post, but last week, Kieler Woche (Kiel week which we checked out this last weekend) and this week will have to wait.
Hope you enjoyed the reading!