There's something undeniably intimidating about being awoken from sleep to the insistant knock of a police officer from another country. That was the pleasant good morning we had as a Czech border agent asked to see and stamp our passports.
Our night train deposited us into Prague (aka Praha) at around 10:30am. After exchanging money, restocking some supplies and checking into our pension, we headed out onto the town.
Prague is awesome! Wikipedia describes it as "Prague is widely considered to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe" and from what we've seen, that statement is dead on.
Everywhere you walk in the downtown area you're surrounded with a mixture of understated elegance and outright extravagence in building facades and statues. The people appear to be universally friendly, if not a little curious, of tourists and the area is easy to manage despite the alphabet difference. Amidst getting beer in the thick of the Old Square, we spent several hours exploring the Jewish Quarter, the Old Quarter, Charles Bridge, and the general vicinity on the east side of the river.
Tomorrow we will be exploring the castle area and then catching an 8pm night train to Munich!
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
What country are we in?
That was the question that we and a new freind Charles asked as we got off a train in Duisburg, Germany, en route from Amsterdam to Prague.
Damn it, another strange keyboard, this one different even from the last. It appears that the letters are configured in a completely different and random fashion, just so they are distinct from countries.
Yesterday we took the train in from Paris to the town of Bayeux in northwestern France. This town was largely undestroyed during the war and as a result, has a 1000 year old church to show for itself. Our Normandy tour took us to the artificial concrete pier at Arromanches, the D-Day war musuem, the American cemetary, Omaha Beach, and Point du Hoc. Just amazing stuff.
The beach shows no traces of the hell that was unleashed there years ago, but it doesn´t take much imagination to trace a line across a green ridgeline over the incredibly massive expanse of the beach and think of 87 machine guns laying down coordinated fire. At Point du Hoc, the French had the foresight to leave the area as it was in 1944, 30 ft craters and collapsed sections of concrete the size of small cars.
This morning we took the train from Paris to Amsterdam and spent the day there. It wasn´t much time, but we took in the city as best we could. Pot smoke - check. Getting knocked at through windows in the red light district - check. Drinking beer at a sidewalk cafe- check. Of course there was some other inconsequential stuff like seeing the Anne Frank house and hanging out in Dam Square, etc. , but come on, hookers!
We´ve been killing a few hours in this town drinking beer and looking at each others´pictures, but our train should be arriving shortly. It will be our first experience with train sleeping and tomorrow will be a new day in Prague.
PS: for those of you who left comments that did not get published, my apologies. This computer is set to be in German, and while that lets me make cool stuff like Ö°ÄÜÜ, it makes me unable to understand some of the words like Approve Comments. Sorry!
Damn it, another strange keyboard, this one different even from the last. It appears that the letters are configured in a completely different and random fashion, just so they are distinct from countries.
Yesterday we took the train in from Paris to the town of Bayeux in northwestern France. This town was largely undestroyed during the war and as a result, has a 1000 year old church to show for itself. Our Normandy tour took us to the artificial concrete pier at Arromanches, the D-Day war musuem, the American cemetary, Omaha Beach, and Point du Hoc. Just amazing stuff.
The beach shows no traces of the hell that was unleashed there years ago, but it doesn´t take much imagination to trace a line across a green ridgeline over the incredibly massive expanse of the beach and think of 87 machine guns laying down coordinated fire. At Point du Hoc, the French had the foresight to leave the area as it was in 1944, 30 ft craters and collapsed sections of concrete the size of small cars.
This morning we took the train from Paris to Amsterdam and spent the day there. It wasn´t much time, but we took in the city as best we could. Pot smoke - check. Getting knocked at through windows in the red light district - check. Drinking beer at a sidewalk cafe- check. Of course there was some other inconsequential stuff like seeing the Anne Frank house and hanging out in Dam Square, etc. , but come on, hookers!
We´ve been killing a few hours in this town drinking beer and looking at each others´pictures, but our train should be arriving shortly. It will be our first experience with train sleeping and tomorrow will be a new day in Prague.
PS: for those of you who left comments that did not get published, my apologies. This computer is set to be in German, and while that lets me make cool stuff like Ö°ÄÜÜ, it makes me unable to understand some of the words like Approve Comments. Sorry!
Monday, May 28, 2007
Bon Jour!
Where to start! We've experienced so much in the last few days, it's hard to know how to summarize, not to mention the fact that french keyboards are apparently not the same as american keyboards.
It was only 2 days ago that arrived in Paris via Brussels, tired from the obvious jet lag but awake from the adrenaline of being dropped into Europe. After some struggle with getting train tickets and the initial shock of a language barrier, we found ourselves standing bewildered outside of Paris train station, shouldering 30 lb packs, in the cold rain, operating on a few hours sleep. WOO!
All the guidebooks talk about how Parisian drivers are some of the most cautious and safe drivers in all the land (please note the implied sarcasm) and as a special welcome gift a friendly motorcycle driver decided to run over MaryBeth's heel as she finished crossing a street (while not apparent from that description, it was without doubt his fault). No fear though, MaryBeth, the trooper that she is, walked it off without any lasting injury.
After finding our hotel and dropping our packs we gathered our bearings and headed off to spend the afternoon in the Palace of Versailles. By seeing this palace we've rendered viewing any other European palaces unnecessary as they're either modeled after Versailles or not worth seeing. Really. Its freakin huge, its freakin the definition of extravagance, and the Sun King was just a little egotistical. A stop on the way home at a sidewalk cafe for some dinner and we settled in for a much needed rest.
Today was Paris In A Day day. We got up early to be 3rd in line at the Louvre (and in doing so ended up in the front row as the initial crowd rushed to the Mona Lisa), and after a few hours there headed out into the city to see the Standard Tourist destinations, Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame, a stroll down Champs-Élysées, and about an hour or so of random wandering through the extremely charming (and narrow) streets. We had off and on rain today, but overall it was a great (but busy) day. We are both very much pleasantly surprised with Paris, despite the French.
Tomorrow we're going to make our way into the French countryside, and try to end up on the beaches of Normandy. We're specifically aiming for Omaha Beach, but without any transportation arranged as of yet, it'll be an adventure.
Until the next post!
It was only 2 days ago that arrived in Paris via Brussels, tired from the obvious jet lag but awake from the adrenaline of being dropped into Europe. After some struggle with getting train tickets and the initial shock of a language barrier, we found ourselves standing bewildered outside of Paris train station, shouldering 30 lb packs, in the cold rain, operating on a few hours sleep. WOO!
All the guidebooks talk about how Parisian drivers are some of the most cautious and safe drivers in all the land (please note the implied sarcasm) and as a special welcome gift a friendly motorcycle driver decided to run over MaryBeth's heel as she finished crossing a street (while not apparent from that description, it was without doubt his fault). No fear though, MaryBeth, the trooper that she is, walked it off without any lasting injury.
After finding our hotel and dropping our packs we gathered our bearings and headed off to spend the afternoon in the Palace of Versailles. By seeing this palace we've rendered viewing any other European palaces unnecessary as they're either modeled after Versailles or not worth seeing. Really. Its freakin huge, its freakin the definition of extravagance, and the Sun King was just a little egotistical. A stop on the way home at a sidewalk cafe for some dinner and we settled in for a much needed rest.
Today was Paris In A Day day. We got up early to be 3rd in line at the Louvre (and in doing so ended up in the front row as the initial crowd rushed to the Mona Lisa), and after a few hours there headed out into the city to see the Standard Tourist destinations, Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame, a stroll down Champs-Élysées, and about an hour or so of random wandering through the extremely charming (and narrow) streets. We had off and on rain today, but overall it was a great (but busy) day. We are both very much pleasantly surprised with Paris, despite the French.
Tomorrow we're going to make our way into the French countryside, and try to end up on the beaches of Normandy. We're specifically aiming for Omaha Beach, but without any transportation arranged as of yet, it'll be an adventure.
Until the next post!
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Blast off
It feels odd to pack a backpack and not include a sleeping bag, stove, bed roll, etc., but nonetheless, everything is crammed in and ready to go. Our flight doesn't leave until 6:05pm, but with transit to JFK and the ungodly 'arrive 3 hours ahead of your departure' thing, we'll be headed out shortly.
The next, and first substantial, post will be from across the Atlantic Ocean.
Until then!
The next, and first substantial, post will be from across the Atlantic Ocean.
Until then!
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