We fit all of our stuff into 2 GIANT backpacking backpacks...in retrospect we obviously packed all of the wrong things...but..it's part of the experience...
the packing mess...Here's what we did over the course of 2 weeks:
Amsterdam-- London-- Munich-- Prague-- Berlin
During some of the worst airport closings in history and some of the worst snow Europe has seen in History we somehow managed to have no delays or problems with 5 flights, and 2 six-hour car rides, call us miracle women...
When we arrived to Amsterdam it was cold and rainy so we unpacked our things and grabbed some food before Krissy met us at the hostel. When we woke up in the morning there was about a foot of snow on the ground but regardless of the most of the city's public transportation shutting down we spent the day hopping from museum to museum and luckily because of the weather we didn't have to wait in many lines!!!
Krissy and Me standing in Dam Sq. at the iamsterdam sign
When we arrived to Amsterdam it was cold and rainy so we unpacked our things and grabbed some food before Krissy met us at the hostel. When we woke up in the morning there was about a foot of snow on the ground but regardless of the most of the city's public transportation shutting down we spent the day hopping from museum to museum and luckily because of the weather we didn't have to wait in many lines!!!
Krissy and Me standing in Dam Sq. at the iamsterdam signFor the next few days we walked around in the snow, ate amazing food and explored the museums and culture that seems to be exploding from Amsterdam.
After 4 days Krissy, Bec and I caught flights to London. We did a LOT of shopping, saw everything we came to see and fell in love with London night life.
After 4 days Krissy, Bec and I caught flights to London. We did a LOT of shopping, saw everything we came to see and fell in love with London night life.
trying on hats before high tea at Harrod's
Krissy, Me and Bec in front of Big Ben
After 5 incredible days in London we left Krissy off at the airport to return to the states after 3 months of vigorous travel and Bec and I continued onto Germany.
We spent Christmas in snowy Munich, enjoyed meeting fellow travelers at our hostels and even had Christmas brunch at Hofbrauhaus! (and no Pittsburghers...not the one on the South Side...)
We spent Christmas in snowy Munich, enjoyed meeting fellow travelers at our hostels and even had Christmas brunch at Hofbrauhaus! (and no Pittsburghers...not the one on the South Side...)
Christmas morning menu
Because of the cold weather and the Christmas closings we decided that Munich, although nice, was not our favorite city of the trip so we were more than ready to wake up at the crack of dawn to drive the Audobahn to Prague.
Our little VW rental was only a 5 speed (yes..that's right..I drove stick in Europe...) and we had a little trouble keeping up with the CRAZY German drivers but nevertheless it's still fun to say I've driven the no-speedlimit Audobahn.
We only had 1 day to explore Prague so we got right to it. Having been there when I was 16 on NFTY in Israel's L'dor v'Dor program I thought I might remember a little bit about Prague...but alas..I was wrong...While we did see similar and some of the same sights it was a completely new experience being there on my own 6 years later. Here's an excerpt from an email to my cousin:
"We walked around the old town square, and saw all of the old synagogues and Jewish heritage that has been extremely well preserved there. We also saw the John Lennon Imagine wall, a beautiful tribute to peace. Then we got back in the car and came here to Berlin. There is SO much snow on the ground and it's so cold that we couldn't stay to finish the walking tour outside! We toured the Jewish museum here which is one of the most innovative and creative museums I have ever been to and we saw the main memorial to victims in the Holocaust. Today we'll visit the Berlin wall, and fly to Amsterdam for another day before coming home to Tel Aviv!"
Leaving our mark on the Lennon wall in Prague:
"You can run and you can hide but I'm not leaving less you come with me" -Phil Collins
Our little VW rental was only a 5 speed (yes..that's right..I drove stick in Europe...) and we had a little trouble keeping up with the CRAZY German drivers but nevertheless it's still fun to say I've driven the no-speedlimit Audobahn.
We only had 1 day to explore Prague so we got right to it. Having been there when I was 16 on NFTY in Israel's L'dor v'Dor program I thought I might remember a little bit about Prague...but alas..I was wrong...While we did see similar and some of the same sights it was a completely new experience being there on my own 6 years later. Here's an excerpt from an email to my cousin:
"We walked around the old town square, and saw all of the old synagogues and Jewish heritage that has been extremely well preserved there. We also saw the John Lennon Imagine wall, a beautiful tribute to peace. Then we got back in the car and came here to Berlin. There is SO much snow on the ground and it's so cold that we couldn't stay to finish the walking tour outside! We toured the Jewish museum here which is one of the most innovative and creative museums I have ever been to and we saw the main memorial to victims in the Holocaust. Today we'll visit the Berlin wall, and fly to Amsterdam for another day before coming home to Tel Aviv!"
Leaving our mark on the Lennon wall in Prague:"You can run and you can hide but I'm not leaving less you come with me" -Phil Collins
We woke up early in Prague and searched for the Lennon wall, it was really hard to find but completely worth it. We parked the car and walked through the empty icy streets pretty early in the morning around 7 am and finally found the wall. The pictures are amazing and they'll speak for themselves...It had all kinds of Beatles quotes and quotes about peace, we're so glad we made it. After we made the drive from Prague to Berlin and it was ROUGH. First we got lost in the middle of the Czech Republic because there were signs missing from a detour..NO ONE speaks english and I'm surprised we were able to decipher directions through the czech countryside via hand motions and broken czech. But we finally made it after about 6 hours (including TERRIBLE traffic about an hour outside of Berlin). Our hostel is really cool with a full bar and restaurant in the lobby, very convenient for young people. We repacked our small bag and found parking (theres about a foot of snow on the ground here in Berlin) and we met up with Ariel for dinner and some drinks. We decided to go on a bar crawl and ended up meeting a ton of people and even running into a few people we met in Munich and London...so weird! We didn't finish the Bar crawl because we were just too freezing and headed home to our hostel room that we shared with 6 Asians from Beijing.
In the morning we woke up for a free tour around Berlin...Bec and I lasted about half of the tour before feeling hypothermic and decided to carry on the rest of what we wanted to see on our own. We saw the main town square, The Berlin wall, the holocaust memorial and took a long walk through the Jewish Museum, on of the most innovative and creative museums I have ever been in. We found a hole in the wall vietnamese restaurant where we ordered wayyyy too much food for 10 euros (so much food that our waitress told us..."I think that's too much..")
After our second day in Berlin we caught a flight to Amsterdam for our last day in Europe. The weather was much more temperate in Amsterdam and we spent the last day seeing the sights we missed on the first leg of the trip when Amsterdam was covered in a blizzard.
The trip was incredible. It was fast paced, aggrivating, excting and all kinds of other emotions that make me truly infatuated with travel. We got into Tel Aviv exhausted but excited.
Home at last.
After our second day in Berlin we caught a flight to Amsterdam for our last day in Europe. The weather was much more temperate in Amsterdam and we spent the last day seeing the sights we missed on the first leg of the trip when Amsterdam was covered in a blizzard.
The trip was incredible. It was fast paced, aggrivating, excting and all kinds of other emotions that make me truly infatuated with travel. We got into Tel Aviv exhausted but excited.
Home at last.
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