Day #24 Dresden, Germany - Day #25 Cologne, Germany - Day #26 - Rotterdam, Netherlands

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Day - #24 - Prague to Dresden, Germany

We took the train back from Prague into Dresden, Germany in hopes that the car will still be where we parked it 2 days earlier. Germany is a lot like France in that English is a tough language to speak there. German and French are such large languages around the world there is no real pressure for these people to speak English, nor really should there be. When we are in The Netherlands, or Slovakia, or Czech Republic these languages are not as widely spoken and as such there is a real need for these people to know English in order to communicate. In reality who is going to learn Slovak just to go and visit Bratislava, it would be nice, but not likely. This language barrier really worked to our advantage in Germany. I recieved some advice from a local in France that when ever we are lost or dont know what we are doing, "just keep speaking English" and people will realize we are dumb North Americans. Once they start to have pity for us being so stupid for not speaking their language they will help us out. "Just keep speaking English" has really been the slogan for this trip. We did find our car in Dresden and we were expecting a very large bill for 2 days of parking right at the train station. However, we were much to stupid to understand hw the parking system worked. There were tickets, and valadations, and voodoo rituals. Essentially after some parking officials came out and could not communicate with us they let us go for free, I think just to get rid of us....score. However, what goes around comes around and we would pay that money back and then some in Cologne.

Dresden is a very controversial city when it comes to WWII history. Dresden was heavily bombed by the British and American forces near the end of the war. The reason that it is so controversial is that Dresden became a haven for refugees from other war torn places in Germany and the city population exploded to over a million near the times of the bombings. The bombs dropped were very destructive and destroyed more than 90% of the city, including the ancient city. Many women and children died (numbers between 25,000 and 250,000, depending who you listen to) and was considered cruel even by war time standards. What remained from Dresden was restored and is a very beautiful old town. The cathedral is very interesting and we were lucky enough to come in during the mass. It was a peaceful and pretty town. Our hotel was a beatiful old house that backed on to a huge nature reserve. We had a private breakfast room and the food was fantastic.

Our Assessment of Dresden, Germany

Kyle - "A must see for war time geeks, and a generally beautiful city" 7/10

Syd the Squid "The best place to stay at would be where we stayed, ask me one day cause I cant 'member the spellin'" 7/10

Day 25 - Cologne, Germany

This is essentially the final leg of the Euro trip 2012 for us and most of the day was spent driving so we could get the car back to Rotterdam. The drive was about 6.5 hours and really wasnt particularly beautiful. There were some interesting places here and there. The most interesting part of the drive were the famous German Autobahns. They are stupid crazy. There are many sections of the highway where there are no speed limits. I spent most of my time in the far right slow lane going about 140 km/hr. I occasionally moved to the center lane when I needed to pass some old granny doing 90. However, people in the fast lane were frequently going 200+, it was so fast. They were blowing the doors of my Twingo. I did get the car up to 152 going downhill but was unable to get it any faster.

My first impression of Cologne was of a nice quiet little town close to the Border with Belgium and The Netherlands. However my impression of this town would soon change. In short my car was towed for being illegally parked, however, it was so unfair. The parking area would have been fine 51 weeks out of the year, however, on this particular weekend they were having a street festival. I parked the car at 430 in teh afternoon, paid for parking until 7 when parking becomes free and would expect to pick my car up at 9 in the morning before I had to pay for parking again. When I showed up at 845 this morning... no car. I looked around again for why the car wasnt there and nothing. There were not any no parking signs at all where I parked. However, at the end of the street there was a sign that said there is no parking on this street because of a street festival. It was 1 block away from my car and I walked to my hotel using the other end of the street with no sign. It is total crap and so unfair, but what was I going to do? I am in Germany, I cant communicate with them, and they are not going to losten anyways and I needed to go. My hotel manager was nice enough to track down my car and after a $30 cab ride to the impound lots, a $140 ticket from the crappy city of Cologne, and $170 towing charge I recieve the Twingo back. I believe I might have been able to purchase the car for cheaper than that. I tried toexplain the situation to the impound lot, he was nice but just kind of laughed me off. He gave me a number to call to get a reprieve on my fine but the tow and the cab are not negotiable.

Other than that Cologne is nice. The Cathedral is unique with 2 spires instead of the usual 1. The rest of the old town seemed pretty cool as well although we did not spend much time there. We spend a bit of time in a quite market district close to the hotel, where my car was towed.

Our assessment of Cologne

Kyle - 1.4/10 - "Stay away, they will screw you. But I am sure you will have more fun than I."

Sydney - 6.5/10 - " Dont get towed"

Day #26 - Cologne to Rotterdam, Netherlands

A shorter 2.5 hour drive out of Cologne to get to Rotterdam. Other than pulling my car out of storage it has been a pretty chill day. We are back in Rotterdam to drop off our rental car. As we have already spent some time here on our trip we just hung out in the hotel area today. There is this disgusting but great fast food restaurant here called Smullers. The serve hot food out of vending machines and also do an array of french fries. Soooo good, but so bad.

Tomorrow we will catch out flight from Amsterdam to London and try to battle the Olympic crowds. Lets see how stupid that was 😊

Sorry no pics, camera troubles.

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