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  Berlin, Germany
Friday, July 10, 2009

This blog entry is titled Berlin, but it's really about our last day in Wurzburg mainly. In the last blog, when I said the room wasn't that smelly, I was clearly lying. We had a ten bed dorm, and unfortunately the room was occupied with five people other than ourselves. A difficult way to just say it was full. The bottom bunks were all taken, as well, so we had to take all the top bunks. Above weird, smelly people. Meri and Alastair had it the worst though, because they slept above spongebob stinky pants, the most disgusting person I've even smelled. I'm not sure what his nationality was, maybe German, but he was clearly from a family that thought it was ok to never use deodorant. And maybe not wipe after they poop. He slept with no shirt on and you could tell a difference in the way the room smelled based on whether his arms were up or down. The only way I got to sleep was by putting my face into my armpit. I, as opposed to Mr. Stinky pants, use deodorant. There was also an old, maybe 50 years old, German woman sleeping below me that had quite a conversation with Meri and Alastair. They had an exciting night.

So we woke up and checked out and decided to go see the sights of Wurzburg. We were again tempted by the free refills and unlimited ice at KFC, so we had that for lunch. Then we made our way through the city to market square, where we saw a variety of items for sale, including granny panties. Katie knows about those. Then we crossed the ancient bridge in the middle of the city and climbed to the heavens to see the fortress. There were hundreds of steps and inclines leading up to it; needless to say, Meri and I brought up the rear. We usually do. We found a sweet hill and earmarked it for some fun rolling later on in the day. The fortress was called Marienburg and it entertained us for about three hours. There were pretty gardens and a lot of passages for us to explore. We found the prison, which was actually a tower. The princes of the castle would lower the prisoners in through a hole in the ceiling, and there were no other exits. Escaping would have been quite challenging. Then we saw a well that was over 100 meters deep, and of course everyone had to spit in it and throw money in to see if we could hear the splash. We couldn't. After a heated group debate, Alastair decided to throw a coaster in to see if we could see it hit the bottom. For the record, I am opposed to littering. But it made a good show, all the same.

We bought postcards, and Meri bought a sweet, nerdy Wurzburg shirt as a souvenir. We are still on the hunt for the perfect beer steins to buy. After we left the fortress (a much cooler word than castle) we again found the hill and took turns rolling down. Probably the most entertaining thing of the day. However, a stinger from some bug got stuck in my shirt and I got stung an hour after we rolled down the hill. Not sure how this happens, but it definitely did. Then we stopped by H&M (yes, there is one in the small town of Wurzburg) and Meri bought a super cool leather jacket. Now her and Alastair really can be the perfectly cute couple. We got grocery store food for an early dinner and went back to the hostel to wait to catch our train.

In that time period we also found out that we have a month of free calls on Skype. Also confused as to how this happened, but I'll take it. Anywhere we have internet access, we have a phone. That will save us some money fo sho. So we caught our train in Wurzburg, changes in Gottengen, and made it to Berlin around 11 p.m. Realized our EuRail passes work for the S-Bahn. Consequently didn't pay for the U-Bahn, which our EuRail passes don't work for, but we didn't get caught. Made it to the hostel, which had a bathroom en suite (Meri, the French speaker, didn't know what that meant.) Another kind of stinky guy in our room, but not that bad. Got kebab food, so good.

If it seems like we eat a lot, it's because we do. I would say it's probably our favorite thing to do on this trip. But really, how can you go on an adventure like this and not sample the local cuisine? So sample we do, thank you very much. Very often. Luckily, we do a lot of walking and carrying heavy bags.

This morning we were planning on taking the free walking tour, about which I've talked at length, but Alastair wasn't feeling quite up to par so we nixed that idea and decided to do it tomorrow. Instead we went to the DDR museum, which shows life as it was during the time that East Germany was communist. I found this very interesting. Not sure if everyone else liked it as much, but I was quite taken. It wasn't a typical museum though, because you could touch all of the stuff and open drawers and look through cabinets and stuff so that was cool. There was also an apartment set up to look like a communist apartment would have. Neat place, only 3.5 euro for students. Go if you're in Berlin.

After that it began to downpour so we went to pick our packs up from the old hostel and go check in to the new hostel. It's a pain changing hostels but it saved us some money. We love saving money. So now we're at our new hostel, which is also very nice with a bathroom ensuite. Feels almost like a hotel, which is a big change from the places we've stayed at in the past. Not sure what we're doing tonight, we might just have to chill and catch up on some rest. The next two nights are overnight trains, so no hostel again till Venice. Meri's not looking forward to not showering, but she'll be alright. She's not hardy, but she's a trooper.

Updates on Berlin adventures tomorrow!

**UPDATE**
Video added to the July 4th entry in Nice. Everyone should watch it. I'm sorry it's crooked.

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