Munich

On the morning of August 12, Mikaela and I left Zurich for Munich. It was a 4 hour train ride, which felt like nothing compared to our 12 hour journey from Budapest to Zurich!
We decided to share my large backpack so we would have less to carry between the two of us. We had a pretty good system of carrying things: I usually carried the backpack and she carried everything else (ie. purses and food).

The backpack was wonderfully small compared to what I was used to!
We arrived at our hotel and left right away to start touring the city. We first went to see the Finanz-garten, right next to the Prinz Carl-Palais.


Has anyone yet noticed that we are matching? I bought those jeans at H&M when I was in Madrid, and when Mikaela arrived she really liked them, so we went to the H&M in Zurich so she could buy a pair too. The matching black shirts can not be explained….we just thought it would be fun!
From there we walked to the Odeonsplatz.

We had a great time just walking through all the downtown streets. There are so many shops and restaurants! The whole downtown core was packed with tourists, especially outside the Neues Rathaus (The New Town Hall) at Marienplatz. It was built in the late 1800s and has a very unique clock tower where small figures of people and knights move. At 5pm a huge crowd formed in the square and everyone was waiting for the small figures´ knights tournament to start.

That evening we decided to join a pub crawl, where we would be taken with a group to a number of different bars to try out different types of beer and drinks. We had read about it online, and thought it sounded fun!
To make the occasion a little more festive we decided to wear the new ridiculous pants we bought in Zurich.
We met lots of people, but most were from the US, which was strange for me since I had met hardly any Americans my whole trip! I have been meeting lots of British, Irish, Australian and fellow Canadian English-speakers, but almost no Americans.
We went to the world´s most famous beer hall The Hofbrauhaus. We quickly learned that the Germans drink beer out of 1 liter tankards, which are roughly the size of my head.
Our pants were a big hit, and our new friend Lexie (from Washington) was really jealous that she didn´t have a pair!
The following day we went to check out the surfers in the English Garden. The English Garden is a large park with an area of 3.7 sq km, and at the southern entrance there is a permanent wave where the local surfers ride.

The rest of the English Garden is very beautiful as well.


We actually came across a few nudists while walking through the park!! They were lounging on the grass in the nude. I have come to learn how relaxed the Europeans are with nudity… much more relaxed than Canadians!
We only realized later that day that we missed the best part of the English Garden…. The Beer Gardens!! Beer Gardens are outdoor areas with lots of tables where they serve beer and sometimes food. Traditionally, many many years ago (I wish I remembered the dates…)  they were areas outside of the city center, directly above the beer storage areas.  Since the beer gardens did not have to pay transportation costs to get the beer into the city center (contrary to the downtown taverns, who paid substantial transportation costs), they could charge cheaper rates for beer and the taverns downtown could not compete with these prices. Because of this the government made a law stating that the beer gardens could only serve beer, and no food. If people wanted to eat at the beer gardens then they were allowed to bring their own food and eat at the tables. This, of course, has changed over the years, and now beer gardens serve both beer and food.
From the English Garden we went to the the Grand Residenz, dating back to the 14th century. The palace complex was the former residence of the Bavarian kings, but it now houses many museums.


Our last stop before heading back to the hotel to pick up our stuff was the Sendlinger Tor, one of the 4 original gates to the city.
We checked out of our hotel earlier that day and had left our backpack there so we could continue to explore the city without worrying about it. A reoccurring theme of my trip has been my extreme backpack weight problems. Since Mikaela and I left most of our stuff in Budapest and were only traveling for a few days before returning to Budapest, I figured we wouldn´t have the same weight problems as I had been previously experiencing. I was wrong!!
We bought a few beer-related souvenirs, which happened to be extremely heavy, and our backpack grew exponentially into a monstrous object that could only be dragged along the floor!  The trip from the hotel (by taxi) to the train station was extremely difficult!! We each took one side of the backpack and carried it, taking breaks every few steps. It was awful! All the other backpackers laughed as we dragged, pulled, or limped along with the pack. We were finally able to shove it inside a locker and left it there for the rest of the night (our train left at midnight).
We spent the evening doing a Bavarian Beer and Food tour which included a tour of the Beer and Oktoberfest Museum, beer sampling, and a very large dinner of traditional Bavarian food.
The Beer and Oktoberfest Museum was really interesting, and we learned the origins of the famous Oktoberfest festival. ¨Oktoberfest¨ as it is known today was not always like this. In October 1810 the Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese were married, and held a 2 week marriage celebration, filled with horse races and other games. The people had such a great time that the following year they asked the King if they could celebrate the 1st year anniversary of their marriage with another 2 week horse race and celebration. This continued year after year, and since these days, Oktoberfest has grown to become the Largest People´s Fair in the World!
Actually, it is not called Oktoberfest by the Bavarians and Germans, it is called ¨the meadows¨, and it primarily runs in September, running only a few days in October. To calculate the dates of the festival each year you take the 1st weekend of October, and then work backwards 2 weeks: this is the start of the festival. 
To get an idea of how large the festival is, there are generally about 6 million visitors, consuming almost 7 million liters of beer and 80 thousand liters of wine.
At the museum we also learned about beer brewing in Munich, which started 3000 years ago. Germany is world renown for their production of beer, and they take it very seriously here. Also, Bavarians are one of the world´s greatest consumers of beer, drinking about 240 liters annually per person.
At the museum we also had a chance to sample a number of different beers, all produced in different ways. We also had a taste of the traditional pretzels, covered in large chunks of salt. This is a very traditional snack at Oktoberfest for two reasons, a) the large amount of salt keep you thirsty, so you will continue to buy more beer, and b) the salt helps you retain water, so you use the toilet less often!
From there we went to the Hofbraukeller, an old restaurant and beer hall, where we were served a huge plate of traditional Bavarian food: Weisswurst, dumplings, roast pork, etc. It was delicious!!
From there we headed back to the train station for our overnight train to Budapest. We had a great stay in Munich, lots of fun, lots of beer and an overwhelming amount of delicious food!

Budapest and Zurich

On August 9th Mikaela arrived in Budapest from Toronto. My cousins Lilla and Jolan came with me to the airport to pick her up. They brought us to the train station to get Mikaela´s train pass validated, and reserve seats on the train for our Zurich and Munich trip we were leaving for the following morning.
We said goodbye to Lilla and Jolan, and then Mikaela and I headed to the apartment we were staying in. After a quick nap, we set off to explore a bit of the city. I was the tour guide and I brought her over to the Buda side (we were staying in Pest). Buda and Pest are separated by the Danube River; Buda is very hilly, and had a lot of vegetation, trees and parks, while Pest is almost completely flat, has a lot more commercial developments and does not have too much vegetation. 
We started off at the bottom of the Gellert Hill, and saw the Gellert Monument.
We then walked along the river to the bottom of the Castle Hill, and finally climbed up the hill to see the Royal Palace and Matyas Church.
The gates around the Royal Palace:
View of the city:
View of Parliament:
While we were on the hill I thought I would introduce Mikaela to Hungarian Fruit soup. It´s delicious and is made with different types of fruit (apples, berries, etc), and it is eaten cold. The one we ordered was berry soup, and it came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle of the soup. Yummy!!
We then walked over to Matyas Church. It has an interesting history: originally built in the 13-15 centuries, but was modified by the Turks in 1541 when they turned it into a Mosque, then reconstructed in the late 1800s into a Neo-Gothic church, and then it was partially destroyed by World War II. Unfortunately they were doing construction on the church when we visited it.


   The following morning we woke up at 4:30am to set off for our very long journey to Zurich, Switzerland. I had unpacked my entire massive backpack in Budapest, and repacked only what I needed for the next few days. Mikaela and I decided to only bring the one backpack and share the space.
We took a 3 hour train to Vienna, had a 40 minute stop-over, and then took an 8 hour train to Zurich. The 3 hour train wasn´t so bad, but the 8 hour train was a killer! I spent the whole trip either reading my book, using my computer, or looking out the window at the beautiful scenery. We traveled through the mountains and it was so beautiful to see how green and lush all the vegetation was, as well as all the very cute towns. It was almost impossible to get a decent photo of the beauty of the mountains, but I did manage to get one of one of the many fields of wind turbines (they were everywhere!!).

Mikaela has relatives in Zurich, and she had arranged for us to stay with them, but we didn´t quite know what they looked like, they didn´t know exactly what time our train was arriving, and they didn´t speak English. So we were a little nervous when arriving in Zurich!
Luckily when we arrived one of them was waiting for us on the platform, and the other was waiting for us at the exit, and we managed to make a very smooth connection with them! I quickly learned how similar Italian was with Spanish, and by using bits of Spanish and English we were able to communicate with them decently well!
They took us to their beautiful home just outsize Zurich and fed us a very tasty and extremely large Italian dinner.
The following morning Mikaela and I set out to explore Zurich. Zurich is a beautiful and very cute city with the Limmat River running through the center. We spent all day walking along the water and through the streets. 


  We took a long walk on the Banhofstrasse, a very exclusive (and extremely expensive) shopping street. As we walked along we saw endless Swiss Banks and luxury watch stores.  Most of the banks and luxury stores have door bells with a video camera which you must ring in order to enter. We also made sure to make a stop at the Sprungli Cafe, a famous cafe known for their specialty Swiss Chocolates.
Along the water we saw the Blumenuhr Burkliplatz, a large flower clock with a 70kg radio-controlled clock and casting enclosure.
Below is a photo of us with the Romanesque Grossmunster church (completed in 1220) in the background.
We wanted to get the full Swiss experience, and decided to have a Fondue lunch! It was delicious… but very very filling!! We had to keep brushing off our inappropriate waiter who kept making jokes about how since I was an electrical engineer he would get an electric shock if he touched me, and it would be stronger depending where he touched. We were a little amused, but not too impressed.
We had a very adventurous afternoon. Mikaela had been talking for a while about getting her nose pierced, and thought maybe she would do it during the trip if we found a safe and clean piercing studio. Today was the day she wanted to get it done.
I promised her I would go with her, hold her hand, and keep her calm during the whole process. We also agreed that if we got there and we got a bad feeling about it or thought maybe it wasn´t sanitary we would leave immediately and give up on the idea.
When we arrived at the piercing studio we had to wait for about 20 minutes. We spent almost the entire 20 minutes squealing and screaming with nervousness/excitement.  I thought I would be able to stay calm and calm her down, but we both ended up getting extremely hyper. I am a very excitable person, and so the more nervous she got, the more nervous I got! Also, we tend to get extra hyper when together.
I get really faint at the sight of needles and blood, and have been known to faint when either of those are present. And she was scared she might faint because of the shock and pain of the piercing. We warned the man doing the piercing of the possibility of us both passing out during or after the piercing (this made him pretty nervous).
We were holding hands and I was trying to say calming things to her, while looking at the wall so I wouldn´t have to see the needle or blood. He looked pretty nervous, and was scared that she would move during the process, freak out or faint.
He ended up separating us and tried to calm her down alone, which was probably a very good idea.  He told her  to stay perfectly still and to take a deep breath and then he put the needle through her nose.
Once it was over we were all much more calm (including the piercing man).
As we were leaving the piercing place the lady at the front desk was kind of giggling at us asking why we were so scared about the whole process. We asked her if people didn´t normally get nervous about piercings, and she responded telling us that yes they do get nervous, but they don´t usually scream and squeal! Especially not the accompanying friend (ie. me).
We spent the rest of our time in Zurich doing some shopping. I had been noticing these very (unattractive) low-crotched pants throughout my travels in Europe. Apparently they are pretty high fashion (even though I still have yet to figure out why). We found some at this ridiculously hideous store and thought we´d buy them for fun.
  To get back to Mikaela´s family´s house we had to take a train to the small town of Aarau. While waiting at the Zurich train station we both really needed to use the bathroom. I had been used to paying for using the bathroom; all throughout Europe I have seen fees of around 0.50 to 0.75 Euros. When we got to the bathrooms the fee was 2 Swiss Franks each (which is equivalent to about $2 Canadian!!). Two whole dollars to go pee?? We had been trying to use up all our Swiss Franks, so we counted up all our leftover money and only had 3.25 Franks… not enough for the two of us to use the bathroom!!
We wobbled to the platform and decided we would run to the bathroom the second we got on the train.  When the train finally came we both raced to the bathroom and flushed the toilet. We saw a sign saying ¨Please do not use the toilet when train is stopped at stations¨, and only realized the significance of the sign once we watched the flushing mechanism. When you ¨flush¨ the toilet, a hole opens, and all the contents in the toilet are dropped onto the tracks. We laughed at the thought that as we were pulling away from the station in the train, we had left a little part of us on the tracks for everyone in the train station to see.
We had a great time in Zurich, and slept really well that night knowing that the following morning we were getting on a train for Munich, Germany!

Berlin to Budapest

I left Berlin on August 6 and took a 13 hour overnight train to Budapest. At this point in my journey, I had accumulated so much stuff that I was carrying around 4 bags: my large backpack, a smaller backpack, a very large purse and a plastic shopping bag full of stuff that wouldn´t fit anywhere else!
The train ride was much more comfortable than my previous overnight train rides because I had decided to get a private sleeping room (instead of the sleeping dorm I shared with 3 strangers last time).
  At about 5am I was woken up by the train conductor because we had reached Slovakia. I have a global rail pass, which basically entitles me to unlimited travel in the 21 countries in Europe that participate in the rail pass. But for some strange reason, Slovakia is not one of these countries. The conductor told me that even though I had a room and a reservation and a pass, and I had already been sitting on the train for 10 hours, I would still have to pay for the 230km we were traveling in Slovakia. He offered me a deal, he told me for 15 Euros he wouldn´t issue me a train ticket for the 230kms, but he would ¨forget¨ that I had no ticket, and I could continue my journey in peace. I took the deal, and went back to sleep.
I arrived in Budapest later that morning and found my dad´s friend waiting for me at the train station. He gave me the keys and took me to the apartment I would be staying in.
Since I had spent 2 summers living in Budapest, I didn´t need to do any of the ¨touristy¨ things. I could just enjoy myself, hang out with family, and have fun! So that is exactly what I did!!
I had dinner with my brother:
And then I went out on the town with my cousins Lilla and Jolan.
  I spent the next day resting and relaxing, and later in the afternoon I went with Lilla for some Thai massages. Since I had been carrying my backpack around for the past 7 weeks, my back was aching pretty badly!
The massages were wonderful! Actually they were pretty different than the massages I was used to in Toronto. We were brought to a room with beds on the floor, with a curtain between us (we opened the curtain of course, so we could have our massages next to each other). We were instructed to change into these very large, baggy and comfortable pants (which seemed strange to me, as you don´t generally wear clothing for the massages at home!). Once the massage started I totally understood why we were wearing pants (but no top)!
The massage consisted of stretching and deep massages. It involved our whole body, and our bodies were moved, stretched, twisted and pulled in many different ways (which I could imagine would be pretty awkward if we were pants-less). The Thai ladies used their whole bodies for the massage too, using their feet, legs, arms and hands, and at one point actually sat on us and put their whole weight into us to help with the massage.
The massage was wonderful and relaxing, and exactly what I needed for my aching back!
We went out for a really good dinner later that night.

It was another great night out! It was a really good break from the constant trains and touring! I now have to get myself ready to start traveling again, as Mikaela is arriving at the airport in Budapest in about 2 hours, and we will set off tomorrow morning (August 10) to Zurich, Switzerland, and then Munich, Germany, before coming back to Budapest on Friday (August 14) for the Budapest Sziget festival (a week long music festival in Budapest).

Berlin

My 7 hour train ride from Amsterdam to Berlin on August 3rd was extremely uneventful, as was my ride from the train station to my hotel. I was so tired from the trip that I didn´t do anything interesting that night! I actually fell asleep at 6:30pm and slept until morning!! My weekend in Amsterdam and my train ride completely tired me out!
The following day I set out to explore Berlin! I started with a city bus tour that covered the major tourist sites in the city.
Berlin is a city that I didn´t have much background knowledge of when visiting it. My parents visited it last year and tried to describe it to me, but hearing about it is different than seeing it for myself. Berlin is a very interesting city that was very badly destroyed during World War II, and then completely divided in half by the Berlin Wall.
I will give a very simplified and concise history of The Wall, and I will try my best to give as accurate information as I can, given my limited knowledge of this very complex history. The Berlin Wall, constructed on August 13, 1961, separated West Germany from East Germany, and it cut right through the middle of Berlin, separating the two sides. West Germany (and West Berlin) were free, and were close allies with the American, British and French, while East Germany (and East Berlin) was not free and were strictly controlled by the Soviet Union.
The wall and separation between West and East Berlin happened overnight, and a temporary ¨wall¨ of barbed wire was put through the city (until the real wall was able to be built). If you woke up on the wrong side of the wall then you were stuck. Boarder guards were ordered to shoot and kill anyone who tried to pass from one side to the other. Families, friends and loved ones who lived in different sides of the wall were torn apart. Houses that were on the boarder had their windows sealed shut so people could not escape through the windows.
The Berlin Wall stood for almost 30 years and was finally torn down on November 9, 1989, and the East was finally free.
Here are some of the remains of the wall:

Me with some of the remains of the wall. It was completed covered in paintings on the West side (but not the East side, as you were at risk of being shot and killed if you got too close to the wall).

I then went into the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. Checkpoint Charlie was a famous crossing point between East and West Germany.

The museum houses collections of photographs and objects showing the progression of the wall, and the numerous escape attempts. During the almost 30 years of the wall, more than 5000 people were able to successfully escape from East Berlin to West Berlin. They chose very inventive ways of escaping, for example through reconstructed cars with small compartments (large enough for 1 body), by using hot air balloons, another man constructed a small submarine and used it to drag himself along the Baltic sea, some people hid themselves in loudspeakers, or hollowed out surf boards, and many people built tunnels. It was very interesting but also extremely sad to see the measures that people had to go through in order to see their families. Some people were separated from their families for years and years, and some never saw their families again.

After that, I went to see the Jewish Museum. It was a very interesting museum, and it showed the story of Jewish people, and the history of the millions of Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust. (It seemed that I was visiting one sad thing after another!)
The building was designed by Daniel Libeskind, and was designed to have many long empty hallways and areas, in a sort of zig zag design. The emptiness was designed to symbolize the void left after the Jews were removed from Germany and Europe.

I found it very sad to walk through the museum and read about the stories of families who had been taken into concentration camps, or had to escape. There were many photos, and personal objects of Jews who had been murdered or taken. It was just so sad.
After the Jewish museum I continued on my bus tour and saw some major city sites.
Berlin Parliament:
Some other nice areas of Berlin:

The Schloss Charlottenburg (The Charlottenburg Palace):
After that I made my way over to the KaDeWe, a very expensive luxury department store, very similar to Harrods in London. I needed a little cheering up after seeing such sadness and destruction earlier that day. I had so much fun walking through the Tiffany, Omega, Tag, Gucci, Fendi etc. areas of the store!! The best part was the top two floors, which are the luxury food food sections. They had different seated areas where you could sit and eat, so I had some sushi!! I also got a little carried away in the chocolate department… so delicious!!
The following day I decided to walk the route of the tour bus, since I felt I didn´t get a full feel of the city by just sitting on a bus. It was a long walk (it takes 2 hours by bus), but it gave me a chance to explore the city in more detail.
Some of the highlights of the walk are shown below.
The Brandenburg Gate, which was modeled after the Propylaia of the Acropolis (in Athens), completed in 1791.

While I was there I found a set of street performers that were really good!


From there I walked to the Jewish Memorial (also known as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe or the Holocaust Memorial). There are 2711 blocks of concrete arranged on a sloping area, in a grid pattern. When walked through, it gives a sort of uneasy and confused feeling because of the sloping and the uneven heights of the blocks, this was done on purpose.
From there I went over to Berliner Dom, Berlin´s famous Protestant cathedral, completed in 1750.

I spent the rest of the day walking around the Museum Island (an island in Berlin that contains numerous museums), and the Hackescher Market area.
All in all it was a really great stay in Berlin! Berlin is a very interesting city with so much history, and I am so happy I was able to visit it and learn about it´s interesting past!