Berlin

After Prague we made our way back to Germany to experience all that Berlin had to offer. We were anticipating three very full days - tons of sights to take in during the day, and tons of nightlife to take in during the night. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Berlin has to be one of the coolest cities. The whole Berlin Wall thing is still so evident (we stayed in East Berlin, and it was a world of difference compared to the West). Lots of history that I never actually knew about, but it gave me a newfound appreciation for it all. As always, we did a free bike tour (haha we are so cheap!) and our guide was really cool. Told us all we needed to know about the history of Berlin in about 4 hours. More on that later.

We stayed in this crazy hostel called the Generator - 900 beds, not a big deal. This place was unbelievably huge. We were in a dorm with four Italians, one German and one Romanian (and a partridge in a pear tree). The minute we got to Berlin, we literally had dinner and were approached about a pub crawl - of course we jumped all over that. Met some very cool people along the way, and reunited with some of the boys we met in Interlaken (and saw again in Prague!). Events included free shots everywhere, 1 EUR shots of Jaeger (trouble...) and yours truly not spending a single dime all night - absolute mayhem. We ended up at this pretty cool club called Matrix, and stumbled home eventually.

The next morning I was missing my partner in crime (haha longggg story), so I decided to trek out with this guy Nick from Australia, who was also staying in the hostel. Did that cool bike tour again, and met some very cool people from Cali. By the time I got home, I found Bernard (yes!) and we then proceeded to meet up with Nick, this guy Adam from London and this cool chica Tatiana from Brazil. After searching for this one club for awhile, we ended up at this lounge with one of the best DJs I've heard in a long time, wish I could've gotten some audio on it. Anyone who can mix Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake and still keep people on the dance floor is in my good books. Add another sunrise to my list of accomplishments after this night (oh dear).

On the last day we had in Berlin, we took in some pretty crazy sights. Checkpoint Charlie told stories of ridiculous escape attempts over the wall and the history behind it all. I then checked out this museum (I know, who goes to museums) that had a lookout onto the next block, which had an entire section of the Berlin wall preserved, death strip and all. It was all very surreal thinking that this object kept people separated for so long - I can't imagine the fact that anyone actually traversed the whole thing. It was a perfect pre-cursor for the East Side Gallery, which is a section of the wall decorated by artists and graffiti artists alike. Some very cool interpretations going on there.

Another night out in Berlin and all of a sudden we were leaving for Krakow the next morning.

Berlin: a true test of a backpacker's ability to get ripped and still get up at a reasonable time to see the sights the next day. Good lord.