This morning was the first time I’ve had a chance to do all the tour book stuff that I found interesting. It would be a long day of it since it’s my only day here to do it. I started out by walking down to Alexanderplatz. There I saw the world clock (a 3-D cylindrical clock that shows the approximate time in each time zone around the world) and the outside of the Fernsehturm (TV tower). I went inside the TV tower to go to the top. I was able to get a ticket but had about 45 minutes until my [View Full Entry]

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I awoke this morning and looked out the window to the left of my bed at the cloudy skies and rain pelting the window. I slowly made my way downstairs to breakfast. Shortly I was joined by Jeff, who I had met the night before, and Catherine, an Aussie from Sydney who was leaving Berlin soon. We talked a lot about our travel plans, favorite places and advice. Jeff and I agreed to meet up for a tour I was planning to do this afternoon called Red Berlin. But first I had to take care of something. I have accumulated quite [View Full Entry]

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In college, I took a German Civilization course that I didn’t enjoy or find particularly interesting. I had taken a similar course on France a few semesters before and loved it. The French Civ course covered a mix of history, culture and current events in a fun yet very informative manner - it worked since I remembered a lot of the history when touring Paris. Expecting a similar and maybe even better experience, I was sorely disappointed in the German Civ course. All I remembered from it was the professor preaching “Modernity! Yes! Berlin! Yes!” in the front of the classr [View Full Entry]

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After yesterday’s ambitious day of touring, I toned it down a bit today. This morning, I started over the Charles Bridge towards the New Town area, where I would do most of my touring. My first stop was at the Old Town Square. This area has a few different tourist sights as well as the customary food, jewelry and souvenir stands, restaurants, cafes and tourist shops. When I arrived, it was about a quarter to ten, which meant the bells would be chiming and the turn of the hour spectacle would be taking place at Old Town Hall. Over the coming [View Full Entry]

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This morning I went for a training run (I finally didn’t slack off). I started out by going over the Charles Bridge and running what I thought was a semi-planned route around the city. It felt strange because my typically sound sense of direction seemed off. After a few miles I tried to get my bearings and was totally lost. I kept running. Eventually I came upon this huge tower. It was a TV tower. I was completely in the opposite direction from where I thought I was. That’s strange. I don’t remember crossing another bridge to get here. With my [View Full Entry]

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Today was another travel day. I left Cesky Krumlov this morning, anticipating another stay at the garage-like station in Cesky Budejovice where I had to make a transfer again. But no need - this transfer was at the main station. The main station had such frivolities as multiple tracks, an enclosed area, food sales and workers (actually it was quite normal). What a huge difference. While I was there, I went into one of the nearby stores to find a replacement jacket. I figured with food as cheap as it is here, maybe I could find a cheap jacket. Wrong. 5,700 [View Full Entry]

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Is this the real life; Is this just fantasy - Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody Well, I took the opening lyrics completely out of context but doing so lends them nicely to my life over the past five months. Plus I really wanted to work in the song given my location. That was my weak attempt. I woke up this morning and went for a very short run to loosen up my legs. It gave me a nice overview of the small town and where the major spots are in relation to one another. After getting cleaned up and grabbing a small breakfast [View Full Entry]

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Usually my entries are plain on travel days - I left such and such a place to go here. I arrived. That’s it. Well, I won’t do that here. I dedicate this entry to Salzburg and the amazing time I had there. When I left on this trip, I had highly doubted that any spot I would visit would ever come close to beating some of the cities in Italy I visited two years ago. I had enjoyed that trip immensely; probably some of it was due to it being my first trip abroad. But it’s still tough to beat Italy [View Full Entry]

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This morning I embarked on my final tour in Salzburg - the salt mine tour. Salzburg rose in size and stature to a city-state hundreds of years ago when salt was discovered deep below the earth’s surface. Salzburg and its main river were even named based upon the salt extraction and trade. The salt deposits were the result of a salt lake having evaporated and then covered by land over thousands of years. The salt mine tour took us through the extraction process. The trip down was with a host of people going on the Eagle’s Nest tour I did the [View Full Entry]

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Today I took my Sound of Music tour. I arrived early and took the time before the tour started to walk around Mirabell Gardens. I had been there before but the area is so beautiful and the flower arrangements were constantly changing that it deserved another look. The beginning of the tour had to be a bit disappointing for anyone who hadn’t done a walking tour of the city. It was in a small van with the driver merely pointing out some of the city sights from the movie as we drove around. I had already seen most of these on [View Full Entry]

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