Germany: Munich

Originally, I intended for this blog post to cover the 460 kilometers I drove today (285 miles). Driving that kind of distance can be dull. It can be painful. It can be tiring. I remember when I was in my early 20's driving down to LA (Disneyland, Long Beach or Orange) was HARD. I would keep myself busy to try and help the time pass, but the only thing you can really do to "keep busy" is eat, drink soda or smoke. Which is what I did. Every half hour, I'd allow myself one thing (a cigarette, snickers, coke) but 1) That's just stupid and 2) See 1. 

Now that I'm a grown up, I am mentally able to drive for long distances without getting bored or distracted. I don't check my phone, don't smoke at all anymore, don't eat and rarely drink water while driving. I just sort of settle into it. In Germany, in particular, staying focused on traffic is a MUST. Speeds are upwards of 140kph (80mph) in the SLOW LANE. But it varies and can drop down to 60kph in a moment. And if there is an accident 140 can turn into 0 very quickly. 

For the most part, my drive today (from 9:30am-2:30pm, with breaks for petrol and lunch) was smooth sailing. I loved the German scenery. Forests and farms alternating with the occasional small town view. The roads I took from Dresden to Munich stayed away from towns for nearly the whole trip. Here are some of my views. (Note: I would take my camera in my right hand when traffic was predictable and blindly take photos, not looking at the camera or aiming, keeping my focus on the road. These are the good photos.)

Plenty of space between cars to feel comfortable at high speeds

Look at that color. Gorgeous.

That yellow is a field of two foot tall stems with small yellow flowers on top.

I am convinced that these forests are so plentiful, Europe should thank Germany for its Oxygen.

Getting passed with great speed while I cruise at 140kph (80mph) in the "slow lane"

Ausfahrt means Exit in German...not "Aussie Fart" (p.s. it never gets old)

To mix up the view...windmills

Cute, small town surrounded by beautiful grasses, flowers and trees. 

What the?! In 400m, don't go 80 and get over to the lane where they can't go 50. 

These brown signs are very common and seem to say something about what's in the town you're about to pass, or maybe just something cool about Germany.

I tried 4 times to catch this sign. This is the best I got. It was one of those, "My life is awesome" moments where I just happen to be driving through Nurenberg to Munich. What? How did that happen?

More driving. It looked like this for 5 hours people. You try staring at this and not get bored.

Ok, one story about driving and then onto my evening in Munich.

It was 1pm and I had 1 hour left according to my handy, dandy GPS. I had already stopped once to get fuel and to use the restroom. I really didn't want to stop again, but I was getting hungry and didn't want to feel weak at any point while pushing through. I opted to stop at a Burger King, but when I pulled off the road to the Autohof (I think the translation here is car courtyard, but basically it's where everybody should stop to eat or pee, etc) the parking lot was FULL of cars and big rig trucks and dudes everywhere, so I just drove through and back onto the highway. There was another stop 500m ahead with a KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, gas station. I knew they'd have parking if they had all that. So, I stopped, parked, stood in line for a burger and onion rings (disappointing), ate and got back on the highway. As you may recall from that last photo, there was "no" traffic. Plenty of space to be going 140kph. Well, now traffic was going about 20kph. Steadily moving, but very slowly. It was strange. But not 1km up the road, the reason presented itself. There was a massive accident where someone ran up the back of someone else. The front end of the car was flattened. Someone had put out flares and road signs (I think all Germans carry this in their cars). Everyone seemed to be out of the damaged cars, standing on the side of the road. I thanked God for the lunch break, saving me from the accident and drove on to Munich.

I checked into my super cute hotel. The desk clerk was so helpful and nice. He carried my luggage up to my room and gave me recommendations of where to go to dinner, with extra excitement when talking about the Beer Garden up the street. It's not just a normal Beer Garden, he said, it's the biggest in the world with seating for 8,000. Sold. When dinner time rolled around, I took a 10 minute walk up the street to the Hirschgarten. This is what I saw on my walk and at dinner.

There is a huge palace (Schloss Nymphenburg) up the street from my hotel and this beer garden area used to be the hunting grounds for the residence of the palace. Now they have a special area for deer to live peacefully. 

Deer are my favorite animals.

So cute!

Ok, last picture of deer, I promise.

Big Beer Garden. Lots of seating.

The menu for the restaurant

My waiter wore lederhosen! Leather shorts.

Kässpatzen! German noodles, Swiss cheese, fried onions. So good.

Keep Driveway Clear!

Adorable neighborhood

Caution! And exit at a walking pace? Is google translate messing with me?

A bumper sticker I saw that reminded me of the fairy godmother. I don't know what it's for though.

Well, I had a lovely walk, an even better dinner and I bought a chocolate for dessert. And I don't know what's in it. Surprise for me!

Good morning from Dresden

I'm not sure what it is about me exactly, but a friend recently described it this way, "You seem to attract conversations." This morning at breakfast was no exception. I even had one headphone in, listening to a show on my iPhone. A very tall, older gentleman popped his head into the breakfast room. I noticed him because he had to duck to get into the room. He had a bald top and lot of fluffy white hair in that horseshoe men get around his head. He immediately looked friendly. It was in the eyes. He left the room. 

In two more minutes, he came back and sat next to me with a hand cupping his mouth saying "Guten morgen" in a jokingly loud way. Pretending to shout so that I would hear him over my headphone. I took it out and offered to share my carafe of coffee with him, explaining that I only speak English. He said, "Then this shall not be a problem communicating." We spent the next ten minutes having a good ol' chat.

We talked about where I'm from. I've been saying "California" to people when they ask, because my accent is clearly American and everyone knows California. If I say Australia, obviously they know where that is, but it doesn't make sense when hearing me speak. The nice man asked me what brought me to Germany. I said, "I have family in Arnsberg, so I thought I would drive around Germany first before seeing them." He said, "Pope not included." From my quizzical expression, he knew I'd never heard that one. "There is a saying," he said, "Americans want to travel through Europe in three days, Pope included." I laughed and said, "Well, I've been traveling around Europe for nearly two months. I even went to the Vatican. Pope definitely not included."

He then said, "The exchange rate should be good for you." So, I said, "I've been living in Australia, so not really." He expressed to me that the Euro is a foolish concept, giving the example of The Emperor's New Clothes. "It is amazing that only a few people seem to recognize that it doesn't work. It is Step 3 before Step 1." He went on to explain that different countries have different economic policies and cultures, and by making them all use the same currency, this will not make them all work the same, or think about money in the same way. This is so obvious now with the German/Greece situation (He did not mention this. This is my example). I asked him if he thinks Germany will revert to to the Deutschmark. "It is the smart thing to do." I thanked him for sharing his thoughts with me. It was the moment that Dresden (and maybe Germany) was emotionally saved for me. I'd been feeling grumpy and put off by so many little things. It was hard to go from Ireland (the friendliest, most accommodating country) to Germany (where no signs or directions are in English. If you're lost, you're lost. Done.). But this wonderful man reached out to me and brought me out of my little funk. It was quite nice. 

He ended our talk with this. He said, "America is in support of the Euro because it weakens Europe and therefore increases the value of the US Dollar." It was such a simple statement, but I cannot find fault with it. 

We wished each other a good day and I asked him where he was from. "Very close to Dortmund," which could be said for Arnsberg (where I'm going). I said, "Maybe I will see you again." He laughed, "There are only 7 billion people in the world. It could happen." I'm going to keep an eye out for him...just in case.

Germany: Dresden

If you've come here looking for a chipper blog, try again tomorrow. 

Having said that, I'll do my best not to be a total poop, but today wasn't my favorite. I will still pull out some positives...maybe tomorrow (I'm posting this unfinished).

This morning, I checked out of my hotel and asked the dude at reception, the easiest way to the Berlin Schönefeld airport. This is not the main airport in Berlin, but it's the one I'd flown into from Dublin, so I picked it when pre-booking and pre-paying for a rental car. He said there was a regional train from the Zoo train station. The zoo was a 5 minute walk from my hotel (surprise, surprise). The train station was another 5 minutes up the street, but this was not communicated very clearly and led to a small bit of confusion. Meanwhile, because it's morning and chilly out and I'm walking at a brisk pace, my lungs are rejecting everything about this. I had to stop more than once to hack and wheeze and regain some oxygen. Once I found the train station, I found the information booth and asked an employee if he spoke English. "Nein" he was kidding. Schadenfreude. It's the German version of sarcasm, I think. He told me that due to construction, I would not be able to take one train, but would have to transfer. Honestly, he gave me such good directions that only had trouble finding the platforms because they are in no order that makes any sense. Still, it was a pretty smooth go. And it only cost me 3.30 Euro rather than the 40 Euro it'd taken when I took a taxi. (It's always easier GOING to the airport). 

What I noticed while on the train was that the city of (East) Berlin has a lot of buildings that look like prisons. Or public housing. Which makes sense, honestly, considering it was Communist for such a long time. 

Also, I heard an American man complaining to his wife about getting a fine for not validating a train ticket prior to getting on the train. He was upset that the officer didn't speak better English, so he could argue his way out of the ticket. This is a typical American sentiment, which I frankly agree with...in America. But the customer is not always right in Germany (or Australia for that matter). I had read up on how to take public transportation and even linked to it in one of these blogs. On the site, it clearly said to validate your ticket or you will be fined 40 Euro. They do not care if you are a tourist. The rules are the rules in Germany. 

<To be updated...>

• Early for rental car. No cars available. 
• Got a sandwich, came back 20min later, had a car.
• GPS to English
• Car was not full of fuel, the "service" light is on
• Went to Dresden, found myself in a beautiful plaza
• Couldn't find parking
• for a while
• it sucked
• Saw cool stuff
• Ate potatoes
• Left

<enter good stuff here and captions>

Germany: Berlin free walking tour

I went on a free walking tour of Berlin today, thanks to the recommendation of my friend Mel. I highly recommend this, if you are capable of walking for about 3 hours. Berlin is a super flat city and there is A LOT of cool stuff to see in a pretty small area, so that made the walking pretty easy. 

This morning started out a little rough, due to a lousy night's sleep. I had reached the stuffy nose part of this cold. Breathing through both nostrils was a challenge. But I digress.

I had breakfast and got ready earlier than needed, which meant that I got to go back to bed for a little rest. Though lovely, this made getting up and out the door at 10am VERY HARD. I almost gave up but I have this little voice inside my head (planted there by Tony Robbins) that says, "When else are you going to have the chance to do this? DO IT NOW!" So I got up and out. I bought two bus tickets from the train station near my hotel and caught the 10:20am bus. Bus number 100. This was the fullest bus I'd ever been on (until the afternoon ride home). Standing room only. You know that small section in the front of the bus, where there's a line that says, "Do not stand here". There were 6 of us standing there. At one point, I was so smooshed, 4 other people were touching me at once. I counted the number of stops on my hand to make sure I got off at the right place, but 50% of the other passengers did too. Brandenburg Gate.

This was the meeting point of the walking tour. Well, technically, the Starbucks on the corner of Brandenburg Gate. There were over 130 of us going on the tour. We were split into groups of about 30, which turned out to be perfect. My tour guide was a tall Englishman (probably in his 20's) - easy to follow because of his height. He was passionate about the story of Berlin and also hosted other tours (more Nazi/3rd Reich focused). 

Meeting Point

I learned many, many facts and took a handful of notes on my iPhone. First thing, the woman in the statue on top of the gate was stolen and put in the Louvre for a long time. Once it was retaken by Germany and put back in place, they changed her name to Victory - so there will always been Victory in Germany over the French. The square that the Gate is in is known as Paris Square for this reason.

Also in Paris Square is the most expensive hotel in Berlin.
This is the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby from a balcony window.

We walked through the gates and stopped briefly. The first thing we all noticed was the odor of sewage that wafted through us. Our Tour Guide, who I'm going to call Wills (which is his last name, but also he sort of looked and sounded like Prince William), said that Berlin is actually built on top of a swamp. So, the smell is common in Berlin.

Wills - Tour Guide

Around the corner was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. We learned that there are several memorials to each of the groups effected by the holocaust (Jews, Gays, etc). The memorial is stunning. There are 2,711 concrete slabs. Wills said that the tour group asked the artist what it meant and he basically said, "It means whatever you feel when you look at it." Which is a typical artist answer. Here's what I think, after some input from Wills and walking through it again on my own after the tour. The slabs vary is size, the ground on which they're built is like a wave. Wills said it could signify Hitler's rise to power as the outer slabs are very low to the ground, often ignored or tolerated by passers by. I found the taller ones feel imposing. They block the sun. Dominate your view. It's easy to get lost in there. The other thing to note is that they are not symmetrically placed. This might be because this memorial was based on or influenced by the memorial in Prague which is overwhelmed by headstones, which are touching and falling over on each other. There is a museum underneath the memorial, which I did not get a chance to go into, but it focuses on a few individuals. Rather than trying to digest what it meant for 6 Million Jews to die (1/2 the European population of Jews), the museum expresses that each one of those 6 million was a real person, with family and a story of their own. 

This first picture was taken around 11:30am and gives you an idea of how flat (in color and depth) the memorial can look at different times of the day.

The rest of these shots were taken around 3pm where the shadows add gravity to each slab.

Then we walked to a car park where Hitler's bunker had been and part of it is still buried 15m below the surface. This is where Hitler and Eva Braun were married, shortly before their suicides. There is nothing to see at this spot. Anyone involved in genocide is generally cremated and dumped at sea, so no shrine can be made to them and the same goes any site where Hitler could have been remembered. The bunker was destroyed, buried and eventually a car park was built.

And on we went to the Berlin Wall. The section of the wall we saw could be considered an edge of the wall. Not the main bit you might've seen on TV or in films, but still part of the wall none-the-less. Wills told us the history of Germany, how it came to be that Berlin was split. That the wall went up overnight (Aug 13th 1961). First as barbed wire and then four days later as the wall. There were two walls. And the space between them was for the guard tower to keep an eye out for anyone trying to cross from East to West Berlin. They would either be arrested or shot if trying to cross over. There is so much more to this time period that I can't cover here, but I will point out that when the wall went up, whatever side of the wall you were on is where you would live. If your family was on the other side, you wouldn't get to see them again for 28 1/2 years, but at the time it was thought it would be forever. If you slept on one side of the wall, but worked on the other, you lost your job. If you were in love with your fiance who was on the other side of the wall, too bad. 

The tour also covered the Prussian Headquarters, The Ministry of Ministries (an old Nazi building still used today...not by Nazis), Checkpoint Charlie, Jean Dame square, Bebelpatz and much more which I can't begin to summarise. I do hope that if you're ever in Berlin, you give a walking tour a go. It's worth it.  

60% of Berlin was destroyed in WWII. These buildings were rebuilt in the 1980's.
You might notice the sculptures on top are darker than the buildings themselves.
The sculptures are originals, saved from being destroyed and returned.

 

In 1933, the Nazi's burned 20,000 books in this square.

A permanent book sale at Humbolt University.
All proceeds go to charity as an apology for 1933's book burning.