Visiting Berlin and Prague was amazing! I don't know how to fit everything into one post, but I'll make sure to hit the high points.

I got to Berlin on Thursday and spent time sight seeing. We hit all the high points on our tour but I must say my favorite parts of Berlin involved eating. After visiting the Holocaust Memorial and museum, Brandenburger Tor and the Berlin wall we explored one of the northern sections of Berlin. It was filled with unique little shops and thrift stores and one of the best Vietnamese restaurants. ever. It was like Com Dunwoody on steroids. Maybe it was the familiarity that made it so good, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Holocaust memorial

Friday we went to the Turkish market and ate these spinach and cheese filled fried-flat-bread-things. So tasty. The market was also really interesting. A mix of hand crafts, fabrics, breads, meats (including chicken livers and hearts. yum.) olives, cheeses and other stands all along one street of the Turkish district.

It has become a bit of a tradition here in Freiburg to have Dönner Donnerstag. In english: Turkish gyro Thursday. It sounds much better in German. Even though we were in Berlin, and it was Friday, we kept up the tradition.

This dönner was different than the traditional, with the addition of roasted veggies, and herb bread. Every bite was a little different and always delicious.

Then we took the late afternoon to Prague for the second leg of our adventure. When we got to the main train station, though we had a little trouble adjusting to the language, we made it through the subway to our street. Well, what we thought was our street. It took about half an hour to really figure out where we were going. We finally got streets Jansky and Janska figured out, and made it to our hostel, but they were overbooked. Though there was a brief panic that the streets of Prague might be our hostel for the night,  they said we had been moved to the suite in the four star hotel up the street. We didn't have any problems after that.

Prague was BEAUTIFUL. Every building was unique and full of history that I still don't fully understand.  We spent a lot of time just wandering through the streets. The Prague Castle is a huge area on a hill overlooking Prague. The main building there is not the castle, its the St. Vitus Cathedral, which can be seen from across the river in the Old Town

 

In every city there is some specialty that can't be found anywhere else and in Prague it was trdelniks. Its dough rapped around a big metal rolling pin that is then baked and doused in nuts and cinnamon sugar. They also make really good telescopes.

After four days in Prague, it was back to Freiburg on the night train. Twelve hours on a train is just about as fun as it sounds. Overall it was a great trip and the perfect start to April. In two days I'll be leaving to go to Cinque Terre, the starting point for our tour through Italy. I'll also check out Rome and Florence, possibly Venice as well.

Arrivederci!