Day 11 - Berlin

Today was the last full day we are to have had in Berlin...  You know, sometimes I don't know what tense to write these things because I can be writing a day later, but I still want to act like it happened that day.  Anyway, if my tenses are messed up, that's why.  Alrighty.  Now that we have squared that away.  Last full day in Berlin... it started off much like the other days.  It was pretty chill for the most part, but we did wake up fairly early.  Stephanie was watching their friends little boy for the morning, so we woke up on the couches pretty early.  Don't think I am upset about it though.  Sleeping in is a luxury when backpacking, and we had already done that enough.

For breakfast we made some great stuff.  Steph brought home potatoes, eggs, bread for toast, and bacon.  I helped her in the kitchen (one of my passions), and we made a pretty tasty little breakfast.  Hash browns, cheesy eggs with fresh tomato, bacon, and toast with apricot jelly was on the menu.  Everyone enjoyed it, and the 2 vegetarians (Josh and Stephanie) enjoyed the meal without the bacon.  You know, as a quick side note... I am really impressed with the whole veg lifestyle.  I will definitely not be participating any time soon, but it is really impressive.

After breakfast we headed down the the post office to grab my computer.  Luckily we didn't read the slip that was left at the door, which mentioned that the post office is closed at noon on wednesdays.  We had already been heading that way for about 30min (it's an hour each way), so needless to say, we were all a little frustrated... So, what do you do with that frustration?  Eat gelato!  We went to Stephanie's favorite place in Berlin and grabbed some fresh gelato to calm our nerves.

After the wild goose chase and gelato we headed back to get ready for the Germany v. Turkey game.  The fact that Berlin is the largest city in Germany, paired with the fact that Berlin also houses the largest Turkish population outside of Turkey in the world, made this a really big event.  We attended of course.  Not the game.  We went to this huge gathering where thousands of people were watching on multiple projector screens.  It was a crazy scene.  I mean, it gives me chills just thinking about it.  It's what I am all about.  I love the sport and the competition so much... so it was great to be there for the game.

Germany won 3-2!  It was a great game.  They scored at the last minute to win, and everybody went insane.  It really was a perfect ending to the game.  After we left the streets were crazy.  Flares, singing, shaking cars in the street, etc.  Absolutely nuts!  I will post video soon, but I actually got on top of a car with some other random German guy in the middle of this crowd of thousands.  It was intense.  Like I said, I will post video when I can figure out this stupid camera.  Dinner was late night pizza for me and falafel for Josh.  After staying up and telling Stephanie how much we were going to miss her and her we got to bed.  I think it was after 3, but I am not certain... Overall, a great last day in Berlin!

Day 10 - Berlin

Originally we thought we would be in Berlin for only 1 day. There are a few factors that we didn't see before arriving here though. The main issue is the fact that my computer still hasn't arrived... Ok, this is super weird. Literally just as I was typing that, the computer arrived. I am not joking. WEIRD! Ok, other factors for an extended stay include a free place to stay, amazingly cool people to hang out with, and the Germany-Turkey game tomorrow night!

Today was a pretty chill day for the most part. We stayed last night at one of Stephanie's good friend's place. We slept in for a change, and then made our way over to her place which is in the same cool neighborhood. Since Stephanie didn't get off work until 3 or so, the majority of our morning / early afternoon was filled with pastries for breakfast, catching up on emails, blogs, etc and watching episodes of season 3 of The Office. I am pretty obsessed with that show, so it was a great afternoon. Once Stephanie got back, we took off to grab a cup of coffee at an awesome little place called Bonanza (www.bonanzacoffee.de)

The reason I liked this place so much is because they have a very similar vision as ours. They spent about 3-4 years just researching, practicing, and training before opening up. Our timeline for Green Door Coffee is much faster than that, but they seem to have the same goal, at least coffeewise... To make a truly great cup of coffee! Our vision, of course, stretches even farther than that. We also desire to create a community and culture that adapts to our vision of being a green, organic, and sustainable business... So, it was a great little place with an even better flat white. Please take a minute to check out their website. You will see a picture of them working on the machine we are most likely going to use (Synesso).

What else, what else, what else..... next, we moved on Mauerpark. This is a really unique place that is covered in graffiti. It's hard to explain without actually seeing it, but the park is right next to some remains of the Berlin Wall (Mauer = Wall). You should take a minute and wiki Mauerpark. It's a really cool place where graffiti is quite the art form.

Just about the time we left Mauerpark, I was feeling the caffine from the coffee kicking in. I am not sure if I mentioned this, but they made an amazing flat white. For those of you that aren't super familiar, a flat white is the New Zealand / Australian version of espresso and milk. It has proportionally less milk than a latte, which I think makes it a little better. Ok... enough of the coffee talk, because I am sure there will be more in the future.

The final stop for the night was an incredible Vietnamese restaurant called Monsieur Vuong's. We ate here with everyone (7 of us total). I can't really put in to words how great this place was, but it was by far the best meal we have had... yes, even better than the peanuts I had for dinner on the train to Berlin. You basically have 2 options which change daily. Last night was either pork with rice noodles or chicken with rice. I did chicken, and was not disappointed. Josh did the same dish, but they did tofu for him. A few of us paired that with some white wine, and it was pretty dang perfect. Alright... after dinner we came back to the apartment for a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit (which I totally dominated) and then hit the sack. Josh and I are now staying on Stephanie's newly acquired couches (newly acquired meaning earlier in the day). I had the small couch. Apparently I am short... who knew. Bedtime = 2:30.

Day 9 - Berlin

I didn't talk at all about the night train in my last post, so I will do that real quick. We opted to take a sleeper car, which basically means we pay a little bit more (even with a Eurail Pass) but we both got full beds in a separate area on the train. The space isn't big at all. It had just enough room for a sink, 2 beds, and a little bit of floor space to move around. The beds are actually stacked and the room fits up to 3 people. We, however, got the place to ourselves because the 3rd bed hadn't been booked, so it was a little more spacious and a lot less awkward than it could have been.

After an 10 hour ride that was only supposed to be 8, we arrived in Berlin. Of course Josh and I hadn't contacted Stephanie in enough time to grab directions, so once we got to the train station, we had to wing it. Immediately the internet cafe was the next stop. I got an hour and had recieved an email from Stephanie saying that she would come meet us. We arrived late, though, so I had to email her back and wait for her response. Luckily she has a blackberry (because what church planter doesn't have a blackberry), so it was a quick process.

We took a quick tram over to where she and her team were helping a family pack up for a move back to the States. We were happy to help them for an hour or so, and then we headed off to lunch, which the family was happy to provide for us. We ate at this great Indian restaurant. I had chicken with peanut sauce and josh had fish curry. Both were exceptional. It was probably the first really good, hearty meal I have had since arriving. After lunch, we headed back to Stephanie's place to drop off our stuff, and turned right around to go back out for a walking tour of the city...

Who was our tour guide you might ask? I will tell you. One Stephanie Johnson. you might ask, is she also a tour guide? Well, at this point I guess you could say that, considering she gives about one tour per week (this is according to her obviously). Honestly, her tour was really amazing. We went on a walking tour in Amsterdam and this was just as informative and definitely more entertaining. Some interesting highlights include... waving at all tour buses no matter what, extremely loud human siren sounds (I will post video soon), and a group picture with a statue of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. We also some some cool historically significant sites such as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews and the Reichstag.

After the amazing tour, we showered up, grabbed a bite at an awesome pizza place which had a signature with fresh mozzarella which is one of my favorite things, and headed out for a night on the town. I guess I should explain who we is real quick. Stephanie always has visitors and right now she has several guests from the states whom we are hanging out with. They are all girls and include various friends, family and coworkers... Ok, we went first to a beer garden (the oldest in Berlin) and grabbed a quick beer before they closed. Next, we stopped at a more trendy bar where we grabbed some cocktails. This would be the point in the night where Josh hit a glass of beer which broke and somehow cut one of my knuckles while also soaking April, one of the girls we were out with. It was a funny moment, though, and the bleeding stopped soon enough. After drinks, we grabbed a quick bite at a local late night food place (honestly not sure what I ate, but it included some sort of hanging cooked meat, lettuce, tomato, and some white sauce. It reminded me of a gyro. Maybe it was a gyro. Who knows. 3:00am or so was bedtime. Another day in Berlin awaits tomorrow... which is actually today because I am writing it the next afternoon.

Day 8 - Brussels

For those of you that think Brussels is the greatest city ever, please be prepared to move on to the next section of this blog. I am not going to sit here and bash it, but honestly, it kinda sucked. I am willing to say that maybe I had a bad experience or maybe it's just the fact that I don't enjoy walking through piles of trash... one or the other.

Alright, so we woke up around 9:00, just in time to grab the 2 pieces of bread, 1 slice of american chesse, and corn flakes that were provided for us. I am not complaining, so please don't think that. I am super thankful for any free food, and this breakfast was no different. So, filled with carbs for the day, we started walking... and walking... and finally decided we would take the Metro system which was free since nobody ever checks. So, equipped with our map, trusty compass compass (which we use all the time by the way), and a never ending metro pass we found ourselves in city center about 3 hours after we left the Hostel. Not an efficient morning. Anyway, once we got there it was time for a few more carbs, so we grabbed Belgian waffles. They started at about 3.5 Euros and went up from there. It's funny because we are both sitting there just calculating what kind of effect adding strawberries or chocolate will have on our bottom line. I decided that chocolate was worth the investment. Josh decided that it wasn't.

Next we wandered around the city. Pretty ordinary. We found a park that we thought would be super cool. It was right next to the Royal Palace. We thought, awesome, a cool big park. We can just chill here... maybe read or journal or something... The minute we got in there, piles of trash everywhere. In fact, the first fountain we got to was literally filled with trash. So, we left and headed off to other parts of the city. Among the sites were a cool square like the one in St. Mark's in Venice, a little statue of a peeing boy, and a really cool indoor mall.

After the super exciting fun day we headed back to the hostel, grabbed our belongings, waited 3 more hours, and grabbed the night train which would take us to Berlin, where our fabulous tour guide and friend Stephanie, would make us move furniture 45 minutes after we arrived...

Day 7 - Amsterdam / Brussels

Alright, I am writing day 7, 8 and 9 posts right now, from Stephanie Johnson's place in Berlin. I will do my best to keep current from this point forward, but trust me, I have been trying. Ok, a quick note about something that is going on that I haven't addressed. Before I left, I was debating on whether to take my computer (a brand new macbook I got before I left) and at the last minute I decided not to bring it. Well, the minute I showed up in London without it, Josh wasn't too happy about it. In typical Josh form he was super cool about it, though. I knew right away that I had made a mistake, as I too was regreting it. I mean, it's pretty obvious that it's hard to blog randomly from random places without a computer. Ok, so the point? My computer is on the way. It is being Mailed to Berlin. So, we wait until it shows up. Originally we were only supposed to be here 2 days, but it might stretch out farther now.

Alright, Day 7... Meetingpoint Hostel in central Amsterdam was not the best sleeping environment. For example, I woke up for the first time at some point in the middle of the night to a horribly smelly guy wandering in late. His stench was a mix of BO, weed, and alcohol. Then, just when it smells bad enough, the dude decides to let out a horribly loud fart... please keep in mind that this dude was 3 or 4 feet from my face. I know that's super gross, but it's just an example of the night of sleep I got. So, I woke up, and Josh and I put our stuff in the luggage storage and took off to a free walking tour of the city. The dude that took us on the tour was really awesome. He is a student that goes to the university of Amsterdam and is one of the bunch of tour guides they have. Alright, so it was a super informative tour and was probably one of the cooler things we did in Amsterdam. It was quite a walk (about 4 hours), but totally worth it.

Ok, so after the walk, we were pretty tired and decided to just take it easy. We spent some time walking around a bit more, went and grabbed our bags, and took a train to Brussels around 6:00...

8:45... we arrived in Brussels and were lucky enough to have a pretty quick and painless transit system that took us only a few blocks from Van Gogh Hostel. I realize now that I spelled Van Gogh wrong in the previous blog. I don't really care too much, but for those people like David who care about grammar, I am sorry. Alright, so we arrive at the hostel, which was super nice. It was clean and we finally were able to sit and chill with some cool people. We met some folks from Philly, a girl from Columbia, and a few others. We all stayed up until late playing pool and sampling Belgian beers.

2:30am... bedtime.

In Berlin - New posts soon!

I will be posting for the last few days later on tonight. An update though... Brussels is really dirty, the Y and Z are switched on the German keyboard, and I am now in Berlin. More coming very soon...

A Quick Note from Brussels...

I knew there would be a day when I would have trouble finding a place to post and that time has come. I am sitting in a random internet place in a sketchy area in Brussels right now and the keyboards here are way different so its taking me a while to even type this. I will post Day 7 and 8 when I can find a normal keyboard. Stay with me daily readers... I will be back on track later today or early tomorrow.Wow, that just took 15 minutes.