We came, we saw, we ausfahrted

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Do you know what the worst thing is about losing your luggage? It's not the lack of clothing (I worked in the same coffee bean t-shirt 5 days a week without washing). It's not even the lack of deodorant (we spend most of our time on cramped, sweaty, people-smelling undergrounds). It's the lack of Q-tips. Do you know how hard it is to go off the Q when you've been hiding a 2-tip a day habit for the last decade? Oh my God, my ears have never been so itchy. You start to go a little crazy with the withdrawals. You start thinking, if I just wrapped a little toilet paper around this paperclip...

Drop the habit kids; before it gets you too.

On another topic, we did eventually get our bags back (today we fly London, have a 2 hour layover and then fly to South Africa, so there's plenty opportunity for them to disappear again). Once we had them and had finally cleaned up, we headed out into Prague which if you recall, I love. Everything about it was amazing so here's what I'll focus on...

We toured Staropramen brewery (The brewery of the second most popular beer in the Czech republic (The country with the highest rate of alcohol consumption in the world)). The tour itself seemed to be little more than a pretense to the beer tasting at the end. "Okay, now we are at the part where your get beer. Please come up and have a cup, then if you want, you may try another cup of a different beer... Okay, who wants another beer... What? You've only had three? This is the beer tasting part... I have to close up now. Please, you take your beer with you... Want an extra one for the road? And shortly after that we found ourselves standing in front of the brewery talking with some American ex-pats living spread throughout Europe. Between the 6 of us there were I think 12 cups of beer (One guy trying to drink one flimsy plastic cup while cradling 3 others in the crook of his elbow.

For the last 2 days we've been in Berlin which is also an incredible city (and only gets more so the longer you stick around looking at it). The first night we didn't get in until late as we were taking the train from Prague. We basically checked into our hostelboat (more on that later... ominous look) before heading up to the lounge for a beer and to watch the game (Brazil v. France. We don't mention it...). It quickly became apparent that Stacey is prone to seasickness and that boat-bound television is not the most reliable (Imagine staring at a frozen, jittering shot of a goal attempt and hearing the screams of fans but not knowing what color shirts those fans are wearing). The decision was made to polish off what we had ordered and head mainland to find some snitzel and a place to watch the game. Like I said, we don't mention it anymore. However, after the loss Stacey, Devan and myself all did our absolute best to rub France's victory in Daniel's face as hard as possible.

Yesterday Daniel elected to fly solo (mysterious eh?) so Stacey, Devan and I went out to take a bike tour put on by the same people who did the Paris Segway deal. It was really cool and a nice change from our incessant walking all the time. Our guide was a red-haired, dredlocked Australian named Randall whose comically-delivered and heavily accented tour is still rattling around in my head. As with in Prague, the tour itself was little more than a pretense to ride across town to a beer garden where we got a little smizzed with our fellow tourists (and of course Randall).

The thing we saw that stuck with me the most (English Student) is the square where the famous book burning was held. There is now a large monument (Steel stack of books) on one end of the square, but more touching than that I feel, is a window laid in the pavement in the middle of the square that looks down into a cavernous, featureless, empty white room wherein everywall is covered with gigantic white bookshelves. All empty. It's pretty powerful.

Next time I'll tell you a little about the pros and cons (heavier on the con side) of staying on a hostelboat.

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Photos

I Love Staropramen
International law dictates that you must have at least one leg bent while drinking beer.

Kickin' it...
Stacey, Devan and Jared Kicking back with Marx and Engels, who were apparently gigantic... and bronze...

Stuffin' our faces in Berlin
This is pretty much all we did in Europe.