Day 31 to 41

We apologise for the long wait for an update on the blog -  I admit we have been rather busy.

Day 30: Wednesday 20^th July

So, today marks 1 month since we left. This month has gone so quickly. To be honest,  I’m still sometimes in shock about what we’ve done on our trip and where we have been – Greece, Greek Islands, Italy – It is still completely surreal.

Alright, so back to what we’ve been up today… to make you all feel better… it’s bloody freezing here and rainy. It’s about 18 C◦ max - Huge disappointment.

The city of Munich itself is actually really lovely. Our hostel is practically in the centre of the city so we can walk everywhere which is a huge bonus. So, as it was raining, we had to do all the sights that were inside. We started with the Jewish Museum which focuses on current Jewish life within Munich as well as Jewish pop culture.

The second place we went to was the Bavarian Beer Café. Shock horror, none of us (Kate nor Katherine) had a beer, but we did wonder around the historical section upstairs – well a beer hall which in fact was where Hitler held speeches.

Kate and Katherine at the table 

That night we played cards in our hostel’s bar whilst having a few cocktails. When our bar got boring, we ended up going next door to another hostel and hung around in their bar.

We met many people and a group of people invited us to play KOB with them – which is known to Americans as Ring of Fire

Photo of the group 

We met a bunch of 17 yr old Americans who had waaaay too much to drink. They were terribly entertaining and were trying very hard to impress us. They left, and then a bunch of aussies came and joined us at our table.

Day 31: Thursday 21^st July

The weather was much nicer today so we wondered around the centre of Munich. We got lunch from the traditional food markets which had such an amazing range of food and nick nacks. We managed to find little wooden animals that were rather bizarre.

Photo of kate and me and ducks 

Photo of Katherine and the echidna 

That afternoon we went of a free tour around Munich. Kate had been on several before and said they were rather good. I would have to agree as rather than having a ‘set price’, they are paid by the tips we give them – hence the tour has to be interesting. We saw the new and old town halls, many churches and other important local sights. We learnt that before WWII the people of Munich took photos of all the buildings and so after WWII, when all the buildings had been destroyed by the bombings, they could re-build the city to be exactly the same. As well, the Bavarian cities all have a May Pole in the centre (the larger the town/city, the larger the pole). If another group steals a town’s pole, the town who owns the pole must throw the other group a party!

Photo of the may pole 

That night we started at the Wombat’s bar (the other hostel), where there was Karaoke occurring and then moved onto a 90’s club which was just around the corner. The club had 90’s music – go figure. Katherine describes it as the ‘BEST BAR EVER!’ Only problem was that the drinks were ridiculously expensive.

We then moved onto another club which had electro music. This one was amazing, I thought. It consisted of several rooms all joined by stairs and corridors, all of which were sound proof.

Photo of Kate and I 

We stayed there for ages, just dancing and meeting people from all around the world. All of which were highly entertaining to watch speak English whilst slightly intoxicated. Both clubs were really close to the hostel which meant that we could walk just around the corner to get home.

Day 32: Friday 22^nd July

Another train day! Today, we caught a train from Munich to Berlin. Really this day is of no particular importance as nothing that interesting was done.

During the evening, we chilled in the hostel’s bar and met people on a Contiki tour which was pretty cool and then met some English guys who were on a stag night. The English blokes challenged us to a dance off and we won… duh.

But really that was all that was interesting that occurred on this day.

Day 33: Saturday 23^rd July

Today was almost as interesting as the day before. We basically just wondered about the area the hostel was in and explored around the area. The area itself was pretty far out of the centre of Berlin which was a bit frustrating… but it did mean that food prices and basically everything was a lot cheaper than the centre which was helpful.

We did some basic shopping for the essentials and bought some really nice food for lunch and dinner. As we’d been craving some Asian food, we got some really nice noodles and chicken for lunch and then I had this amazing German kebab for dinner.

Kate in the Store 

I will admit it wasn’t a very busy day. But we were completely shattered from traveling and so basically relaxed so we could go out the next night!

Day 34: Sunday 24^th July

Okay, so today was much more interesting. We did a free walking tour around the centre of Berlin which was absolutely fascinating. Berlin has such an amazing history which is so overrun with destruction and pain which is awful but terribly interesting to learn about.

We had an actor named John as our tour guide… who to be honest, was just as interesting to watch as all the sights as he was very expressive and kept jumping around and flicking his leg. We saw a lot of memorials, Brandenburg Bridge, King Frederick’s Plaza, remaining bits of the Berlin Wall, Check Point Charlie and the Museum Island. It was terribly interesting to learn that a lot of the Nazi buildings and such have been torn down and even Hitler’s bunker which is still there is all shut off as the German’s don’t want any where that could possibly be used to positively remember the Nazi’s and the things they did.

Brandenburg Gate 

Jewish War Memorial 

That night we went on a pub crawl around Berlin. Well it was more a bar and club crawl but it was still really fun. We went to 3 bars and then finished off at a club which was absolutely enormous. The bars were good, but they were just filled with people on the pub crawl (there was about 50 of us) and then the club was filled with tourists and locals which was really nice. It had two rooms, one with old school kind of music and one with current dance hits I suppose and Katherine, Kate and I basically spent our time there switching between the two rooms and hitting that dance floor!

It also surprised me how many Australians were about. About every second person we met were Australian!

Day 35: Monday 25^th July

Today we kind of did our own walking tour through the centre of Berlin and visited all the actual memorial centres that we couldn’t the day before. So, for example we went inside the building of the Jewish Memorial when before we could only see the memorial.

We started walking around the centre and just mucking about taking photos and such.

And then, we headed in the direction of the Berlin Wall and it’s memorial. The Memorial was huge and basically had a lot of information about both World Wars and their implication on Germany and Berlin.

Along the wall they then had information about the West and East and how the wall came to come up and why there was a split between the East and West in the first place. So, if you didn’t already know.. after WWII the East (Soviet Union) and the West (Allies) each took a half of Germany and then they decided that they had to split Berlin too and after the people in the West decided they didn’t want to live under a Communist rein they would come over to the East. So in simple terms, the West wanted to stop that so they built a wall.

A gap in the Berlin Wall 

The Jewish Memorial was really moving and I thought very cleverly done. As 6 million of the 11 million people who died during the Holocaust were Jewish and because people find it easier to sympathise, well I think that’s the wrong word… maybe understand, someone’s death on a more personal level, the aim of the Memorial is for people to understand the amount of people who were murdered and as many personal stories as they can via photos, family histories, letters etc.

The memorials were really emotionally taxing and so we had a quiet evening – after dinner we watched some football match between two German teams.

Day 36: Tuesday 26^th July

Today was a seriously informative day. We went to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp built on the outside of Berlin. It was originally built in 1936 by the Nazi’s to hold political prisoners however as World War II continued, it ended up holding all types of prisoners (including the Homosexuals, the Jewish people and important political prisoners).

We caught a train out in the morning and then spent all day in a tour which explained everything about how the prisoners lived and were treated within the camps and what jobs they had. Initially,  the camp was built as a working camp -  so prisoners built the small town around the camp so that the guards had somewhere to live, they tested shoes for the military and built bricks.

The way the prisoners were treated is abominable. They were dehumanized and abused by the community were believed these people were being brought to be ‘fixed’ before coming back out into the community but truthfully, the only way out was through the chimney after being murdered. They were have to stand at attention for at least 6 hours a day and share a single bed with one sometimes two people.

  

I definitely think you should visit the concentration camp. It is a true eye opener to what happened during firstly, the Nazi rein and secondly, what occurred in secret during the Second World War

That evening, we went looking for good German food, however in the end after walking for about an hour, we couldn’t find the restaurant we were told to go to so we got hamburgers.

Day 37: Wednesday 27^th July

We spent the morning around our hostel in Berlin and then finally at about lunch time we caught a two hour train to Hamburg which is a harbour city in the north of Germany. It apparently has one of the largest ports in Europe.

It took most of the afternoon to get to the main station of Hamburg and then catch the train to our hostel. Our hostel is rather nice, it has a guest kitchen which is really handy because it means that we can cook our own food!

Our Room 

That evening, we found a pub that our Lonely Planet Guide (we call it our bible to Europe) recommended and ate traditional German food. Kate and Katherine had a chicken schnitzel and I ate a potato with spinach and cheese.  We finished the meal with a lovely apple strudel!

Day 38: Thursday 28^th July

Katherine, today, was really unwell so she slept in whilst Kate and I went exploring around the centre of town. We did a free tour of Hamburg. We learnt that the city that stands now is most definitely not the original city founded hundreds of years ago. The city itself had been burnt down by the Vikings many a times and by a great fire in the 19^th Century.

Hamburg 

Kate and I

Hamburg is a trading city and it’s architecture is rather bizarre. Apparently, due to all the traveling that occurs as a result of the trading, all the buildings were inspired from all different places from around the world. Hence why it all clashes so much.

We left the tour early so we could go back to our hostel and feed Katherine and then that afternoon we explored the area and went for a bit of a window shop.

The Reeperbahn 

That night we ate a quick dinner and then we went to Reeperbahn which is Germany’s biggest red-light district. The place was swarming with police and they were really lovely – they made sure that everyone was alright. We started off at a bar which had amazing music and then we went to all the smaller bars around that had really good deals on for drinks.

One of our cocktails 

Kate and Katherine

We finished the night in a place called the China Lounge which was a huge club that even had a court yard out the back with couches and tables. After a long night of dancing and meeting people, we got back to our hostel just as the sun was coming up!

Day 39: Friday 29^th July, Day 40: Saturday 30^th July, Day 41: Sunday 31^st July

So, I’m going to combine these three days as we didn’t do anything too interesting as Katherine was really, really unwell.

We said goodbye to Kate on Friday as she was going off to Austria with her friends. Katherine and I decided that we were not to do much over the next couple of days so that Katherine could get better for England.

We spent the days wondering through the markets near our hostel and at our favourite restaurant in Hamburg known as Frank and Fitz – the traditional German food.

So, that was Germany. We had an amazing time and I am seriously considering coming back to visit when I have the chance. There is so much to do in all of the cities; we just didn’t have the time!

Tschüss

Cait and Katherine