We gonna party like it's your birthday

Now that I think about it, Berlin was probably one of my favorite places I visited on my whirl-wind tour of Europe.  Arriving in Germany felt very strange, but by the end of my stay in Berlin a lot of my skepticisms and stigmas of Germany had disappeared.  Germany is extremely apologetic of its Nazi and Berlin is a tribute to this with many Holocaust memorials and the overall feeling of moving forward past its communist and Nazi history.

Anyway, now to what I actually did in Berlin.  Berlin is SO cool.  Because of all the bombings in went through during WWII, it is a completely new and modern city and the buildings are AWESOME (especially the main train station, SO COOL).  We took a train to Berlin from Prague which was a great experience because we hand an entire compartment (yes, it's like Harry Potter and there are compartments) and stretched out to take a lovely nap.  We spent our first day walking around the city and just getting the vibe of Berlin.  We went to a Shul that was destroyed during WWII, which actually had a really interesting exhibit about Jews in Germany pre-Nazi time and stopped at Berlin's Museum Island (self-explanatory what it is).  We saw the Reichstag (molto bello!).  What's cool about the Reichstag is you can see through the ceiling of the main hall where Berlin's parliament meets because the idea is government should be open and transparent to the people.  Unfortunately you needed a reservation and we didn't get to go in.  So instead we spent some time hanging out in the sun on the gorgeous open field in front of it, during which Miriam wrapped her scarf around her head to keep her from blowing all over the place, and looked like a married Orthodox woman (mazel tov!)  Afterwards, we headed to the East Side Gallery, which is a giant section of the Berlin Wall that is covered in all different paintings representing peace, freedom, and tolerance.

East Side Gallery

Lookin fine

Reichstag

That night, Miriam and I went on a pub crawl to celebrate my 21st birthday (Ah.  Weird.  I'm old), despite the fact we were about to fall over from exhaustion.  We started at this awesome bar that was outside and sort of looked like an abandoned junk yard but swap out the junk for Christmas lights and cool sculptures.  The pub crawl was lots of fun, and we met some Estonian and Israeli (yay, I missed Israelis) guys and then once it hit midnight and I took my first "legal" shot, we left and went to bed, because we are lame.  Yay for turning 21!

We spent the day of my birthday on the Free New Europe tour of Berlin (seriously, they should be me for all the good things I'm saying about them) and it was awesome!!! We saw the Jewish Holocaust monument, which was interesting and consisted of a lot of large stone blocks...

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

We also saw a lot of war buildings, including the old Nazi airforce headquarters.  While leaning against this building listening to my tour guide tell us about it, I realized that simply by the act of me leaning against the building Hitler lost and would do some not so nice things upon seeing me do this.  We also stood on the ground over where Hitler killed himself.  Essentially I spent my birthday learning about Nazis and Communism, which was really interesting despite the depressing-ness factor.  After the tour we went to the Topography of Terror museum, which explains the inner workings of the Nazi party, and is actually really cool and really well done.  We finished off the day with a lovely birthday dinner, and then preceded to pass out because we were EXHAUSTED and to wake up early for our flight back to Italy!  

It was awesome traveling throughout Europe for spring break, but I was also so happy to return to Florence, mainly because I missed Italian food, but also I could not have been more exhausted after seeing 4 incredible cities in 10 days.  Lesson learned: traveling=tiring.  

Ciao ciao!

La Vie Boheme

So, I am officially a horrible blogger because I am about 5 weeks behind and am leaving Europe in exactly 11 days (AHHHHHH).  Miriam and I leave for Amsterdam tomorrow, and then I have a lovely week in Florence before heading home :)  I've been mentally blogging, so that sort of counts.  Anyway, I'm going to pick up where I left off so here's a little bit about my adventures in Prague (which is located in what was Bohemia, hence the title of this post).

Prague was nothing like I expected it to be.  People kept telling me how gorgeous it is, but I basically thought nothing of it.  However, Prague is actually incredibly gorgeous and picturesque.  Seriously, Prague IS Epcot and what every one pictures a European city to look like, hence why they shot EuroTrip there.

Prague is also where we discovered Free New Europe tours, which are exactly what they sounds like and they are AWESOME.  They tell you so much about the city and the guides are amazing (they even do tours in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv). So, in the morning after seeing the famous astrological clock, we headed out on one of their tours of Prague and it was AWESOME.  We saw everything there was to see in Prague, AND stopped at Bohemia Bagels for...BAGELS!!! Although, they were not the same as home it was still good to have a bagel for the first time in 3 months.  I didn't know much about the history of Prague before, but I got rundown in about 2 hours.  After the tour, Miriam and I went to the Jewish quarter to see all the different synagogues there, including the oldest active synagogue in Europe. We also saw the Holocaust Memorial there which includes thousands of names written all over the walls of the shul, and an exhibit of children's art made in a nearby ghetto that there teacher was able to save during the war.  Afterwards, we went to the communism museum and then headed to relax before dinner.  Dinner was really cool.  My friend who studied in Prague last year told us about this rooftop restaurant that had an INCREDIBLE view of Prague from the main square, so we headed over there for dinner and had a romantic rooftop dinner for two.  I also tried Austrian beer, which was delicious, and that's saying a lot, because I don't generally call beer delicious.

The next day I did a little exploring of some more churches and shuls and then Miriam and I went on a tour of the Prague Castle.  The views from the castle were beautiful and the castle is HUGEEEEE.  We also saw a church where the monks used to brew beer, as well as an old jail the Nazis and Communists used to torture people in...good times.  After the tour we saw the John Lennon wall and Charles Bridge.  Then we got dinner, napped, and went to Prague's 5 story club, which was actually a joke.  It was pretty much filled with a bunch of teenagers and had a floor called "black music".  It was an experience to say the least.  We left on the earlier side because we had an early train (yes, train, not plane) to Berlin!!

I forgot...Prague is also home to the fried cheese sandwich which is DELICIOUS.  It's like a flat mozzarella stick stuck between bread and you're supposed to put mayonnaise on it, but I used ketchup because clearly I don't eat mayonnaise.  However, the fried-cheese-sandwich-lady felt the need to very abrasively point out where the mayonnaise/ketchup was.  Czech people aren't quite as nice as Italians.

People taking pictures of the Astrological Clock...way more exciting than the actual clock.

View from our romantic dinner.