The last few days

Cason and I are currently in Paris. After tonight, our eurotrip will be complete as we both leave tomorrow morning. What a wild and amazing time it has been! We came from Amsterdam, which while known to be the drug/sex/rock and roll capitol of Europe, was in fact, outside of the centrum, one of the most beautiful charming cities I have ever visited. We spent most of our time at museums and exploring interesting neighborhoods. The "9 streets" area in the Canal Ring West was by far my favorite where each building was a different bright color and funky boutiques and cafes spilled out onto the street in every direction you looked. One boutique was this leather store that made wallets, bags, and the most beautiful mens and women's shoes I've ever seen.

From shoe stores to stroopwaffles (which made up a large portion of my diet in amsterdam), we had a good time in Amsterdam.

We were blessed with amazing weather in Paris after what seemed like october weather in Berlin and Amsterdam, and went to the huge Paris Pride parade yesterday to enjoy the afternoon. With our final day, we went to Istitut du Monde Arab before Cason leaves for Lebanon tomorrow morning and enjoyed each others company in the beautiful city of Paris before we part ways for our respective gap years.

more Berlin!

That night, we went to a Berlin Pride street festival full of crepes, music, currywurst, and an exceptionally high amount of leather. The next day, Cason's dad flew into Berlin and we met him for lunch and a trip to a flea market selling millions of nicnacs. We discovered that German junk looks very similar to American junk. Later that afternoon, Cason and I explored Fstein, a student neighborhood with millions of cute cafes and interesting boutiques. We went to this organic burger place that used all local ingredients called Frittiersalon and had the BEST burger outside of louis lunch imaginable. I got the texas burger which came with a fried egg on top and it blew me away. To top off the amazing meal, Let's Go highly recommended an organic vegan ice cream stop around the corner from the burger place so we made our way in that direction. The vegan Chocolate Soy ice cream was AMAZING. I had a cone with that and passionfruit and while I know those flavors sound pretty disgusting today, it was delicious and I would recommend it to everyone.

The next few days, we explored other parts of Berlin, saw the East Side Gallery, the book burning monument, the DDR museum, spent more time with the Crane family, and got a tour of the American Embassy in Berlin!

one portion of the East Side Gallery 

We also made some great friends at Helter Skelter who we did everything with in Berlin as though we had come to travel together. Our last night in Berlin was one of the guy's birthdays, so instead of going out to eat we went to the supermarket and bought ingredients and made a vegetarian feast to celebrate a birthday and also to bid Cason and I adieu as we left for Amsterdam.

Berlin

We arrived in Berlin Friday night and found our way through the Mitte to our hostel, Helter Skelter. Our first day in Berlin was museum crazy. We saw the Pergamon (which we got into for free!), the Topography of Terror,  Checkpoint Charlie, the Monument to the murdered jews in europe, the homosexual memorial, and even managed to squeeze in a night visit to the Hamburger Banhof. Each museum/memorial was amazing and so informative. I lucked out traveling with Cason because he has studied all of the art we saw at the Pergamon and was my personal tour guide through the beautiful arabic exhibitions. Our roles switched at the Hamburger Banhof when I took Cason on a tour of Berlin's equivalent to MoMA.

Richard Long's exhibition "Berlin Circle"

prague

After a late night train from vienna, we arrived in prague around midnight and made our way through public transportation to hostel chili, our home for the next three days. Unfortunately, our street in Czech did not have a single vowel, so I have no idea how it is pronounced besides for "psssttspspppssrss." Prague is a beautiful city! We spent hours wandering on the narrow winding streets leading off to secret treasures of cafes and beautiful views. On one day, we trekked out 45 minutes (it doesnt take more than 20 minutes to get from A to B in the center of Prague) to go to this tiny cafe, cafe Slagr, that was a local hangout that served pragues best pastries.

Totally worth the hike! We also lucked out in Prague because the Choate trip visiting Europe overlapped in Prague so we got a free tour guide and tickets to the Castle district.

Bratislava, Wien, and Salzberg

After leaving pesh, we went on to Wien with a pitstop in bratislava. We spent about an hour walking around the town before getting on another train to Austria. Even though bratislava is more west than budapest, it seems a hundred years behind the times. Once we got to vienna, we explored the naschmarket, went to the Haus der Musik, and met up with Tessa to explore the museum and park district with. Yesterday we took a day trip to Salzberg where every sign post, hotel, and street has something in the name that has to do with Motzart. Unfortunately most of the city was closed because yesterday was a national holiday that from what we could tell by walking around and asking people has something to do with catholicism and wearing lederhosen. Today I went the the Heldenplatz to see the palace and go to the national library where there are archives of  great grandfather Hugo Kauder. Even though I never met him, seeing the pictures, letters, and manuscripts that he wrote and was a part of made me nostalgic and especially sad to have missed the Hugo Kauder competition last week in New Haven. While I waited for some manuscripts to arrive at one of the libraries, I went full out tourist and had an original Sacher Torte at the Sacher Hotel which will probably keep me full for another two days. I am sad to leave wien tonight! there was so much more art and music I wish i could have seen during our short stay here.

off to praha we go!

Budapest

Day two in Budapest! Cason and I are having a rad time exploring this city. We got to our hostel in pest yesterday around one and dealt with some logistics (phone, money, printing itineraries) and spent the day exploring pest and getting to know the metro system. We hopped around some of the really interesting bruin pubs last night before our jetlag gave out. Our high hopes for waking up early this morning and going to the baths were dashed when we slept through our 915 alarm and woke up around 1130. We spent the day in Buda walking around the old city and getting lost after taking the wrong bus (so much for getting to know the metro system) before making our way back to the hostel. Hungarian food tonight at a late night barbeque then tomorrow we will finally get to the baths before leaving early saturday morning for  a pit stop in bratislava on the way to vienna.

more to come!

Eurotrip

Cason and I are leaving for our Eurotrip June 7th. We will be going to Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris over the course of 20 days. We still have a few days before we leave and quite a bit to do (like graduate!) but we are really excited for our trip and to keep everyone updated through this blog.