DPR

Hello all! I just found out that the hotel has Internet in the lobby and we have a few minutes so I'm going to try to quickly update what's been going on. The flight was fine, except the in flight entertainment system only worked for a couple of hours (I watched Salt and Big Bang Theory, but no Eat, Pray Love for me). It was weird because it was dark the entire flight and I'm still having trouble getting adjusted. On the plane I had pork adobo for breakfast with rice and eggs and it was pretty good. After we landed and got our luggage, Uncle Rey (Uncle Mar's nephew) picked us up in their car. The driving is crazy here! There seems to be no dedicated lanes and cars just drive wherever there is an ... read more

Sunday July 5 Breakfast at our hotel here in Praha is amazing—I might even like it better than Berlin. They have pastries, breads, cheeses, cold meats, fruit, the equivalent of some sort of egg salad, ham (the ham is good), an egg noodle dish, coffee, juice…After breakfast, we did a whole lot of nothing. I updated my blog, messed around on the internet, Viv took another nap, and just basically took it easy. We went out for lunch (we’ve been eating so much) in Hradčany (the castle district). We shared a very good chicken noodle soup. Viv had beef goulash with bread dumplings and I had roasted pork. The food here is amazing—I love the idea of serving meals with little potato or bread dumplings so you can soak up all the extra sauce from your ... read more

Friday Poor but Sexy is the slogan for Berlin. Even though the city is 61 billion euros in debt, they continue to build and renovate all over. The Germans have done an amazing job remembering their past and making it known to the world (many museums and memorials are free). They embrace their terrible history and in turn make the facts accessible to all, so as to not forget the past. Real quick i want to mention a little on the public transportation. It's ridiculously easy to use. The S-bahn (above ground train) and the U-bahn were reliable and quick. We bought a City Tour Pass which allowed us to use the trains, trams, and buses for 5 days. Unlike Paris, no one ever really checked our ticket. There was no place to enter the ticket ... read more

Wednesday So today was our first full day in the beautiful Berlin, Germany. We started out the day with breakfast at the hotel. It was AMAZING—on the top floor of our hotel overlooking OliverPlatz, we had cold meats, cheese, variety of bread, yogurts, fruits, juices, eggs, sausages, cereals…after breakfast, we quickly hurried over to our guided tour with Insider Walking Tour. We met at the Zoologischer Garten with our awesome tour guide, Mike. He’s from New Zealand (first thing I thought of was Flight of the Concords, he even showed us the New Zealand Embassy, but he didn’t break into song every few minutes…weird), is married with a four year old daughter (Chloe) and another on the way. He’s a major history buff so it made the tour even better. He showed us around all the ... read more

Monday Today is our last day in Paris. We leave for Berlin tonight at 8:20pm. We checked out of the hotel at 11--they were kind enough to let us leave our luggage at the hotel for the day so we could finish up exploring. We started out by going back to place du terre to get a few souvenirs (which we are already out of room for...try telling that to the girl). We had lunch at the bottom of the Sacre Coeur at Le Ronsard Café. I had a croque monsieur and a warm goat cheese salad, viv had une salade exotique (it had baby shrimps, a whole avocado, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, chicken)…very satisfying. Then we headed over to the Longchamp flagship store near the concord station (I guess this is a big deal). Viv bought ... read more