The Berlin Wall is Falling Down (in 1989)... - Steve's song.

Written 26^th June 2012

After we crossed the boarder into Germany we drove to a town called Dresden where we stopped to get breakfast/morning tea/lunch/afternoon tea. We had chinese. Dresden had some lovely architecture but we didn't stop for a proper look as we were dying to get to some countryside. 

We drove on to Meissin where we ate an ice cream and found a campsite for the night. It was a nice relaxing little place. The lady there was lovely too and stoked to have a couple of Kiwis camping at her place. 

The next day we had a slow start and eventually headed off in the direction of Berlin. 

We arrived in the late afternoon and by some miracle navigated our way to the campsite we had chosen using a gray unsaved map only containing a marker point and our location, and an actual map. How we actually found it I do not know. The man at that campsite was not a barrel of monkeys I can assure you. He was a rather dour, stern person who spoke in a clipped German accent. The kind of guy that you would cast as a villain if you were making a movie. The campsite on the other hand was quite nice – we were right next to a river which was a rather good view. After setting up camp we decided to venture into the city and visit some of the spots that our guide book recommended. We headed to Checkpoint Charlie (where people used to be able to cross from East to West Berlin or vice versa). 

We got tea there and went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum which was okay but was a bit of a rip off for 12.50 Euros. There was tonnes of information and stuff but it was difficult to know what was the important stuff to read. My eyes got sore from reading walls for two hours and both Steve and I came out a little more confused and overwhelmed than before. The most interesting thing I read in there was an account of how some people escaped from East Berlin. There were two sisters who look very alike and they were married to two men who looked very alike. One couple had been stranded on the East Berlin side. So the two from the West side drove over to the East side and then gave their papers and car to the ones from the East side and the East side couple got through the boarder using their papers. Then a few hours later the West side couple reported their car and papers stolen. They were allowed to go back to the West side and everyone lived happily ever after. When the car was discovered abandoned later on the East side authorities even apologised to the West side couple! After that we went to look at the biggest stretch left of the Berlin Wall – The East Side Gallery. It has all been painted and looks really cool. 

Then we headed back to bed.

The next morning we went to visit the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. (After battling traffic for two and a half hours!) 

It was very somber and had a very good information center that you could go to for free. It was laid out very well and the information was interesting and upsetting to read. It was so so sad. It was hard not to cry in there. The letters they had that you could read were the most touching. This one was written by a young girl (I think of about 12) to her father and reads; 

31st July 1942

Dear Father! I am saying goodbye to you before I die. We would love to live, but they won't let us and we will die. I am so scared of this death, because the small children are thrown alive into the pit. Goodbye forever. I kiss you tenderly. 

Yours, J.

After that we walked around a bit, Steve ate a hot dog in the tiniest bun imaginable, 

we saw the Brandenburg Gate, and we stood on the Berlin Wall (or where it used to go anyway – there is a line of bricks following the path where it used to go). 

Next we headed back out of Berlin and up North a bit to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was horrible there. 

The air seemed heavy with sorrow and the remnants of fear, pain, and death felt as if it was imbedded into the ground of the place. It was interesting to see, and the exhibitions and things were also good. But it was really such a dreadful place. All the people that were murdered there! It is so hard to put into words. I felt like crying the entire time I was there but knew if I started I wouldn't be able to stop (and I'm not a quite cryer) – great racking sobs would have been echoing around the place. It was better to hold it in and just the odd tear escaped. We stayed there until the place closed and both of us were just shocked by what we had seen and read. I have been to two other concentration camps before but they never cease to have a profound affect on me. We felt like we would have nightmares for weeks. I mean how could any one do those things. The worst place was the medical part – in infirmary – where they did nasty experiments on some of the Jews. When I was in there I felt faint. I feel a bit faint now just writing about it! One “doctor” cut open peoples legs and inserted flesh from dead people which then of course went septic and then they died. Yuck! Revolting! I wish I never read about that! And they even made a brothel with some of the women Jews from another camp and then when one got pregnant she was shot. Anyway – too many horrible things to mention and I won't go on as you will just be too grossed out and probably chunder on your computer or phone.

We drove back to Berlin, glad to be heading away from the Concentration Camp. We cooked dinner and then had a read. 

Then we met some nice people who were camped just down from us. April from Ireland and Chris from America. We had a good time chatting away with them for a few hours while Chris build a bonfire from tea lights. When we were going to bed April tried to blow the fire our but the wax has so hot from the combined flames of 30 tea lights that it wouldn't go out. So she kicked it. (She had been drinking.) Onto me! I was wearing jandals and it burnt like crazy. I limped back to the tent and crawled inside. I tried to go to sleep but I couldn't. The molten wax had burnt my foot badly. It was too much. The tears that had been threatening all day due to reading about war crimes finally tumbled out after and candle accident. I decided to go and run it under the cold tap for 15 minutes. By this time it was 1.45am. Steve came with me but abandoned me after several minutes to go back to cosy bed. I stood in the dark outside the toilet block with the hose pouring onto my food for 15 minutes with pictures of Nazis creeping through the bushed in my head. I was glad to get back to the tent. And my foot did feel much better. I was so tired I slipped into sleep easily and didn't have any nightmares at all.

Prague, Czech Republic.

Written 26^th June 2012

We arrived in Prague along with a rather large and persistent raincloud and found our way to our hostel, warily parking on the road outside. (Wary as we had no idea what the parking rules were.) We went inside after some confusion as to where the entrance was and payed for the two nights we had booked. We then asked if we could bring our car in to park in the courtyard (we had chosen this hostel particularly because we wanted to be able to park the car there – knowing how difficult it could be to park in cities in Europe.) We were then informed that it was 20 Euro for 24 hours! This more than doubled the cost of the accommodation. We tried to find our way around it – tried to find a cheeper garage somewhere but it turned out that everywhere else was about the same! I was not in a good mood. We forked out the 20 Euro and parked the car in their garage and then sat around the hostel for the evening as it was still raining cats and dogs outside. The next morning dawned dull and gloomy. We decided anyway to go into town and do the free walking tour which was advertised on a flyer in our hostel. We had a few hours to kill first so we wandered around a bit looking at stuff. The sun decided to come out from behind the clouds and the weather became hot and nice. There was a market that had all sorts for sale. 

One had fox scarf thingies (forgotten the right word) they were so soft and silky I could almost feel the live fox under my hands. I felt so sad that they were all dead. In the same market there were lots of stalls selling berry mixes. 

We were going to get one until we realised they were being sold by the 100g and worked out to be about $10 for a tiny punnet. I was a bit disappointed. We thought Czech Republic would be cheep but it was working out no different to the rest of Europe and Prague seemed more expensive than anywhere! At 1pm we met at the clock for the walking tour. We were told the reason it was a free tour was that it worked on tips. So if you liked the tour you could leave a tip and if you didn't you didn't have to. The tour was quite good. We learnt interesting things about many of the landmarks in Prague.

The clock was particularly interesting. The bloke who built built it made it a celestial clock. On each hour the characters on the side all move and those blue windows at the top open and a whole bunch of saints rotate around. People came from all around to see it because apparently seeing it was good luck. The people who got the clock built didn't want the bloke who built it to make another one. So they had a party to celebrate how cool he was and then at the party they burnt his eyes out! So this poor bloke was blind. So a few days later he leapt into the inner workings of the clock and cursed it so it would't work for 100 years. 100 years later someone was finally found that could fix it and they got it going again.

This is our guide.

 We met two guys on the tour that were staying at our hostel. They were called Steven and Brian and were from Ireland. We ended up hanging out with them for the night which was pretty fun. First we went to watch the soccer at the fan zone and then got some tea where Brian was ripped off by another stall selling stuff by the 100g. After the game had finished we went to go on a pub crawl. The boys all got pissed and I had fun dancing the night away. 

That is Brian on the left and Steven on the right.

Steven had blue shoes so we let him join the blue shoes club.

The next morning we set off for Germany after a slightly unpleasant start to the day. This is what happened - I was already in a bit of a grumpy mood due to a late night (I never do well on a late night) and when we checked out I asked if it was okay to leave the car in the car park for an hour so we could walk into town and get breakfast and a post card. The lady that was at the front desk was the kind one that had been there when we checked in but also another lady who must have owned the place. She said we could not. I was irritated – we had payed 40 Euro to park there for 48 hours and we had checked in in the afternoon. (You could not check in there until 2 or 3pm.) I said that we had been told the parking was for 24 hour periods. The lady said that no, it finished when you checked out. That the parking would be needed for other guests. I frowned. If the other guests could not check in for at least another 3 hours then what difference would it make I though. But she was adamant. My mood worsened. Stupid woman. I now wanted to get out of Prague more than ever but wanted to get a postcard (I had forgotten to get one the day before) for my collection. So hungry and grumpy we drove on into town and got messed around on the one way roads. Steve stopped the car and suggested I just walk over to the main street and get one. He was pared on a wide foot path though so I new I had to hurry. Walking as fast as I could, jandals snapping and damp hair sticking to my face every chance it got I hurried along eyes searching for a stand of past cards. In every other tourist destination we had been to post cars are ready to poke your eye out nearly every few metres. Not in Prague. When I eventually made it to the main road I was hot, bothered, and sweaty. Post cards were alluding me. I steamed on down the road and eventually made it to a souvenir shop. Hooray! But do you know what! Not a postcard in sight. I wasted a few futile minutes searching the store myself until I finally asked the lady in the shop who said they didn't have any! What kind of souvenir shop is this? I thought! So I hurried on down the road – all the time worrying Steve would have been told to move on, or given a ticket, and then would not be able to find me. Finally on the far corner of the road I spied a news stand with what looked like a postcard stand. I hurried over to it, chose a postcard like lightning and was hurrying away buck up the street before you could say “Prague's a rip off!” I made it back to Steve and was relived to see him still sitting there in the car. To Germany and away!

We tried stopping in a small town in Czech Republic to buy some brunch before we crossed the boarder. We bought some bakery food which was so bad it was inedible. As hungry as we were that food sat next to us for a long while barely touched. Goodbye Czech Republic.

The Romantic Road and the first few days in the Czech Republic.

Written 10th June 2012.

I am sitting in a cafe in a town in the Czeck Republic called Plzen, which is famous for beer. Like the invention of beer. The czeck Rebublic is old like the rest of Europe, but not “quaint, cute, clean, cherished”, old. So far it's more like “nobody's made the effort to take enough care of it” old. In the cafe near me is a man smoking a cigar! A cigar in a cafe! He's not even near the window. We stayed in the grottiest hotel last night. I'm not sure when it was built but it was waaaay back and I'm pretty sure no one has lifted a finger to do a lick of maintenance on the place since then. Or at least since the 1970's (as some of the furniture is that ghastly looking poor attempt at fake wood.) There was a dirty stain on the floor that we were pretty sure was once vomit which was poorly cleaned up. There is a sink in the room but there is one bathroom for the entire floor containing 4 showers. It's like what I imagine a prison shower block looks like. Tiled floor to ceiling with the shower roes sticking out of the wall. No shower curtain. Nothing. If you wanna have a shower people could see your naked butt from the hall when someone opens the door. There's not even mens and ladies. Suffice it to say I did not have a shower this morning. Yesterday when we got here we were going to go do the brewery tour but arrived just too late after getting lost. So after eating tea we headed back to the worst hotel ever and chilled a bit. But we were bored. It it is just plain nasty in that hotel. It looks alright from the outside. But inside just feels a bit cheap and dirty. The floor creaks and is uneven. It felt like you might fall through any step. So we went out. And under the forgiving cover of darkness the town looked a little better. The soft light was shining off glinting bits of trimmings and illuminating buildings in warm hues against the cool dark sky. We wondered around and saw a bum fishing coins out of a fountain. That was pretty funny. I said “There's a man fishing in the fountain!” We both looked over to check our eyes are working right. “Oh,” I said, “He's fishing for coins.” We both laughed. We drank a few drinks in a local bar/cafe and wondered about what people and animals from back home were up to.

This morning I read in bed for a few hours waiting for Steve to wake up - he was having a good sleep and I didn't want to wake him. I am reading The Help which is really good. We are geeking it up for a bit in a WiFi cafe and then heading to Prague. 

I need to skip back a bit though as I have quite a bit to catch up on...

This is Lisa and Peter's good-luck-garden-thingie.

And here is our car with it's N.Z. identification tags so people will stop thinking we are French.

And Lisa and Peter's awesome house!

After leaving Lisa and Peter's where we had the best time ever, (Thanks again for having us Lisa and Peter!) we headed west and met up with our friends Nathan and Lisa who live in Saint Anton and who we met in Mundaka in Spain and then hung out with in Hossegor in France. We had a fun night with them eating and drinking with them and some other fun people (Sabs, Cocksy, and Paul) and stayed the night on their comfy couch. (Thanks for having us too Nathan and Lisa!)

Here is Steve at Saint Anton.

The next morning after saying goodbye we drove to Switzerland for a look. That night we slept the night in a campsite in Germany by the Bodensee.

The rest of this post was written on the 22nd June 2012.

Next morning we headed across to Fussen to have a visit to Neushwanstein Castle which Disney based the Disney castle on.

I think this must be a Kowhai's cousin!

We had a good walk up there and then began driving The Romantic Road. It is actually a rout rather than one road but it goes between a whole bunch of really cute old German towns. We stopped the
night in a town called Landsberg am Lech which was a really nice rain washed place. There was a cute as a button castle there which I wished I could make in miniature. We got a campsite a way out of town and then walked through the forrest by the river back to the town. 
On the way we thought we saw a fox! We were puzzling over weather it was or not but both thought it was acting a bit cat-like. When we got closed we discovered it was just a giant as cat!

There was a giant slug on the forrest path too. Look how big it is compared to Steve's foot!

We liked this sign.

And I liked these cute forrest flowers.

When we were nearly to town we spotted something that looked interesting so we turned off the the path and entered a wild animal sanctuary. And we saw more deer! They were so beautiful. I wanted to watch them for ages. Some had the cute Bambi spots. They were a bit skittish like deer are but we could get really close to them. We saw 9 all together.

We continued on to town and saw a Mumma Duck that only had 2 little ducks.

It was on dusk and the town was glowing warmly in it's after rain sogginess.

We discovered this lovely little castle. How cute! I want to make it mini!

We had to walk back in the pitch dark! I was freaking out all the way imagining every episode of C.S.I that I had ever seen coming true on a forrest path! Steve was trying to keep me talking. I had my head lamp but the battery was pretty much dead and only cast the faintest little glow in front of us. I stubbornly kept it on- clinging to even that much light. Boy was I relieved when we got back to camp! 

This is our camp.

We drove into town and got a morning drink. Not a bad view don't you agree?

And I wanted to go and take a photo of the cure castle in the light.

Next we hopped on the Autobahn and it was the open road so Steve got our little car going as fast as he could. In the end he got her up to 178km/h.

Then it was back onto the Romantic Road.

We stopped for a yummy lunch of sandwiches and cakes at Nordlingen (I think...)

Next stop was Dinkelsbuhl - a cute little walled town. 

We just stopped for a short stroll and a it of a look around before continuing on to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

Look at the cute signs they had there!

And schneeballen (snow balls).

It was such a lovely little town with cute as a button buildings. I wanted to make the whole town in miniature!

We got schnitzel for dinner there and then big fat rain drops began plopping down. Next minute there was a storm raging. We ate tea and then went to try some schneeballen in a bar. They were terrible! Sophie had suggested them and were thought they were going to be really good but these ones were just balls of like arrowroot bickies. Dry! We thought we would have to try a different place the following day. So we decided to make a run for it back to our camp site through the pouring rain. But after we got to the church we changed our minds as it really was raining like crazy. We sheltered under the church porch and then so did a tour group. It was a night watchman tour and the tour guide was dressed up as an old school night watchman. So cool! But the whole thing was in German! I got a few points but not much. One old guy was cracking up because he could see we really didn't speak German well. But he nodded at me when I told Steve what I thought a few bits were. He was chuckling the whole time. I really wanted to go on the English tour but we had missed it (it was at 8) and Steve wan't keen to stay another day but I was. Oh well! The rain slowly cleared and the sunset was lovely.

Isn't it pretty!

The next day we had another try at the schneeballen and this time it was yummy! It was covered in chocolate and had sort of nuttellary stuff all inside too.

We also discovered a mega exciting christmas shop - and then another one! I was very good though and only bought 3 things.

After that we walked around the wall.

And then it was time to say goodbye to Rothenburg ob der Tauber which I didn't want to leave. (And was gutted to later discover had a cool miniature museum that I would have loved to visit swell! Gutted.

Next stop was Czech Republic and a little town called Loket. Surprisingly I had to use my German skills here more than anywhere else! No one over about 30 spoke English which was pretty much everyone we came across. I was proud though that I can speak enough German to get by. There was quite a nice castle there on the hill. But it was a sleepy town really. The whole of the Czech Republic that we saw was a bit more run down than the rest of the countries that we had seen so far.

We found a cat friend there too.

The next day we headed to Plzen. Where beer was apparently invented and that is where I started writing this blog post.

The hotel looked okay when we first went inside.

But the room was terrible.

Here is the gross carpet stain!

We went for a walk and saw this funny poster. Not sure what it's advertising!

And here is Steve at the brewery where we missed the tour.

After I wrote the beginning of this post we drove to Prague where we had to pay 20 Euro a day to park at our hostel! (Making it more than twice the price we thought it would be!) The first afternoon we just went for a walk around and had a bit of a gawk.

And I'll tell you about the rest in the next entry! 

xoxo Love Amy.