Berlin - Round 2 - Day 2

I had made plans with my friends from the night before to meet up near the biggest shopping area in Berlin, Potsdamer Platz, and they said they would help me get my gift buying done, especially help with picking out something for Kayleigh as I find it harder and harder to know what would make a nice gift for her now that she's no longer into all the things she was as a young girl.  It was so interesting to walk into the new shopping malls that exist in what was East Berlin, because they are just like the big malls in America. That didn't really exist back when the wall was up.  Back then there was really only one big shopping store and that was visited by pretty much every girl in school on a weekly basis.  That was one of the biggest changes I noticed the first time I'd gone back to Berlin after the wall came down and it still catches me a little off guard to see it now.  Berlin used to be nothing but little Boutiques and Mom and Pop type stores all over town where you had to do your shopping.  I don't know if the malls make it better, but as a guy, it's sure easier to only have to go one place to find everything you need. I'm not exactly a fan of shopping.

It turned out that having their help made the whole experience of shopping a lot more fun though and we went from store to store looking for things people had asked me to buy for them while I was there.  We took a break for lunch and went to this cool pizza and pasta place that isn't like anything we have back home.  You are giving a smart card and then you stand in lines depending on what you want and it's kind of the Benihana version of Italian food. You tell a chef what you want and then make it right there in front of you using nothing but fresh ingredients.  Including picking spices right off the plant to toss into the mix as they cook your lunch.  After your place your order, you get the item added to your smart card, so you can pick and choose lunch, drinks, soup, dessert, etc until you are done and then you check out and pay on the way out the door.  I thought it was a cool concept and people seemed to really love it.

After lunch it was back on the hunt for gifts including a trip to the Riter Sport chocolate store there.  It's like M&M world in Las Vegas... with every kind of chocolate you can imagine, including flavors and chocolate bars I have never seen in the States.  One really cool thing you can do there is you can also custom make your own chocolate bar.  It's set up kind of like Cold Stone Creamery.... you have items you can pick from and you choose if you want Milk or Dark Chocolate, and then pick three ingredients to add to the bar and they create it for you while you wait.  It was pretty cool so of course I had to make two of them to take home.

Now with all of that done, we just walked around looking for things I could take pictures of and talked. Christmas season is in full bloom right now and we decided to wander over to what most people say is the best Christmas Market in Berlin (Weihnachtsmarkt).  It really was a little more posh than a few of the other ones I'd seen set up already and they sold so much cool stuff in there.  It's really too bad I don't live in Berlin as I would have stocked up on so much great Christmas Stuff.  I can see why everyone loves going every year and adding to their Christmas Decorations, while grabbing food and drinks and listening to live music.

I'd been trying to meet up with two other friends before I left Berlin but hadn't had any luck in getting in touch with either, but luckily while we were sitting having a drink, my friend Bobby saw a photo on Facebook and happened to be nearby with a car and since he knew the two friends I was with, he called one of their cell phones to get in touch with me. Finally!  He happened to have a car with him and said he would come pick me up from the Christmas Market so we could hang out for the rest of the evening and go to a club across town that he thought I'd enjoy.  Along the way he called one of my oldest Friends that still lives in Berlin and we caught him at home and got him to come meet us at the club.  It was a GREAT way to end the trip and I'd have been so bummed to leave Berlin without having gotten to see either of them.

So even though the trip was coming to an end so much faster than I wanted, I couldn't have asked for a better last two days in the city hanging out with friends and sharing lots of laughs and conversation. There were two bands that played that night and they were both pretty good..... when they finished up, I had to say my goodbyes to Roy and then Bobby gave me a ride back to the hotel.  It's still the greatest city I've ever lived in and I'm so lucky to have friends that still live there that make the visits that much better. Until next time Berlin!

Time to re-pack my bags and squeeze in everything somehow, then it's up early for a VERY long trip back home.  Good thing I get to enjoy a 33 hour day tomorrow. It's going to take most of it to get back home.

Berlin - Round 2 - Day 1

Well today was another travel day but this time not nearly as long a trip as I took leaving town.  Total travel time today was just under 6 hours between 3 trains.  The timing was pretty good so that I didn't have to wait more than 20 minutes between any two trains and then taking the ICE trains the the biggest part of the trip, the countryside flew by.  There were large portions of the trip where I looked up and saw we were doing close to 250 km/h which if I'm still doing my math right, it close to 60 mph.  ;-)

It's a beautiful day here today... high clouds and lots of sunshine, but a little on the cold side.  I really can't complain about how lucky I've been with the weather on this trip. It's hard to believe that coming to Europe in November would get me almost perfect fall weather, with the one day of rain and maybe two nights that were a little on the cold side.

The plan tonight when I got to Berlin was to get to my hotel and get checked in as quickly as I could, and then grab my camera gear and head across town to meet a couple of friends for dinner.  I figured after dinner I could take my time working my way back to the hotel and stop and take photos of some of the bigger tourist spots at night, which hopefully a lot fewer people in them that there were back at the beginning of my trip.  We decided to meet in the East part of Berlin and have dinner at a really nice quiet Restaurant.  They started off telling me that we were going to speak German most of the night since I understand most everything W being said... and then I could just answer in English when I couldn't think of the words I needed (which turned out to be a big portion of the time).  It was cool to sit and have them spend most of the night sharing stories in German though and only once in a while having to stop to explain something they said.  The most interesting part of the night came when the subject of the Wall came up.  For some reason I never realized that they were both born and raised in East Berlin during the days of the wall, and their story of what that was like was fascinating to me.  We talked politics, health care, jobs, pretty much a whole range of things that kept the conversation super interesting... just hearing their views of America and Americans was very cool to me.

The conversation was so interesting that We ended up closing the restaurant down, and as we walked tot he train to head our separate ways, found we'd just missed the last train which caused a bit of a dilemma on how I was going to get back to the hotel.  Just about the time we were trying to figure it out, a couple came walking up and needed to head my way ....  we decided to share a cab as they lived about half way back to my hotel... and the guy told me to jump in with them, he'd pay for his part of the trip and then I could pay the taxi the rest of the way.  It was another reminder at just how nice people can really be.  The taxi ride was interesting as he was from Spain and she was from New York which made for interesting stories on the drive.   Once again, it was a great day with an adventure within my adventure.

Tomorrow is my last day in Berlin and it's going to be bittersweet.

Heidelberg - Day 2

I woke up this morning and looked outside and was surprised to see how foggy it was today.  I decided to head out for Heidelberg Castle first thing as it was a pretty nice little walk from the hotel.   One thing about traveling like this is you tend for kind of forget what day of the week it is, must less what date it is... and I'd somehow gotten my days mixed up thinking it was now Monday, until I heard all the Church bells start going off all over the city.

That is one of my favorite childhood memories... waking up to the Church bells at my Grandmother's house.  It's not the same as hearing the bells at maybe one church in town in America...  kind of hard to really describe it until you hear it.

As I walked and had all those memories from my childhood flood through me, I saw that the sun was cutting through the fog so my timing seemed to be perfect with getting up to the Castle.

The last little portion of the walk to the castle was up some fairly steep steps as most castles in Germany are built high up on the hillsides overlooking the city below.  This one was no different. It did give some great glimpses of the town below and makes you try to imagine what life was like back in the day.

Heidelberg Castle itself is mostly ruins now having been destroyed in the 17h and 18th centuries by wars and fires. It's still a very impressive structure, with the main courtyard buildings having been rebuilt over the years.  The castle covers a lot of ground and you can walk around the outside of it without having to pay any kind of fee.  There is a small fee to enter the castle and walk through the courtyard, and to walk through a few of the buildings within.

The view inside the castle is actually very impressive and bigger than it even appears from outside.  You can walk into a few of the buildings here, and through some archways to the back of the castle for a view overlooking the old town below.  By the time I got to that part of the castle though, the fog had moved in again and made the city below virtually impossible to see.

One thing I didn't expect to see where was a place to eat inside the Castle but there is a small and very nice little restaurant inside.  Of course, I had to great lunch there... I mean, how often can you tell friends that you actually ate lunch or dinner inside of an honest to goodness castle?  The room was really nice too.

After eating lunch I walked around the Castle one more time hoping that the fog would break so I could get some better shots of the city below but no such luck.  This looked like it was pretty much hear to stay.

I headed back down the hill and into the old section of the city, walked across the bridge, looked around at the set up for their Winter Fest and then make the long walk back to the hotel.  All in all it was a fun day and another good long walk.  Since there wasn't too much else I wanted to do, I thought I'd make a bit of an early day of it, and go through photos from the day, posting some of my favorites to Facebook.

Tomorrow marks the last leg of my trip...  I'm heading back to Berlin for another 40 hours before finally having to call an end to this trip and heading back home.  I'm going to try to make the most of my last few hours in Berlin and walk and see as much as possible.... so calling it an early night tonight might be a smart move.

Heidelberg - Day 1

Yesterday was just a travel day for me which mostly involved waiting around train stations and sitting on trains all day.  One good thing about it was that I gave my aching feet a bit of a rest and I finally got a chance to go through some photos from my days in Bruges that I hadn't even looked at yet.

The first part of my trip out of Bruges was on one of the high-speed ICE trains that run through Germany.  This things are fast and quiet.... and such a great way to travel.  I think at one point I noticed we were going 168 km/h.    I think that's like 32 miles an hour or something.   ;-)

The nice thing about riding 1st class on the trains here is that you tend to end up with cabins all to yourself on a lot of these trains if you're not traveling during tourist season. That gave me time to spread out a little, turn on some music and work on editing a few photos.  I had a few hours between cities before I would have to change trains so it was good timing.

The only glitch I ran into on this trip was when I changed trains in Cologne, there was some construction going on outside of the train station that had most trains delayed by almost an hour.... but as I found almost everywhere on this trip, people were pretty friendly and I ended up talking with a German girl who was waiting for the same train on her way home from her Grandmother's funeral.  When I first talked to her in my bad German about the delay, she said she really didn't speak English, but about 30 minutes later came down to find me and sat and talked and her English was much better than my German.  It was nice to pass the time talking to someone and eventually the train showed up and I said goodbye as I headed down to the 1st class cars.  No sooner did I sit down, than two "kids" came into my car to sit and at first didn't really say anything but then asked if anyone else was sitting in there... I think I surprised them when they realized I was American as well... they got pretty excited as they didn't speak German. One was here as an  exchange student, and the other was her brother who had just gotten to Germany the day before.  They had a lot of questions about my trip, and what they should see while here... and it was fun to chat with them until they got off at the next stop.  It's probably one of the most fun things about traveling by train in Europe.  You tend to meet all kinds of people from all over the place.

The rest of my trip to Heidelberg was quiet as it was a late train and not busy at all. When the train got into town, I was pleasantly surprised to find the hotel literally outside o the train station doors ... just about 100 yards to the right.  That was good because I was pretty tired after traveling all day.

Okay, I guess I rambled on way too much about the train trip... didn't realize I had that much to say about it.   That's it for now!

Bruges - Day 3

I decided to get up a littler earlier today and actually have breakfast for the first time on this entire trip since I didn't really eat dinner the night before.  The woman running the dining room at the hotel is from Australia and kind of gave me a hard time the day before about skipping out on breakfast and reminded me I had already paid for it so I should make sure to come down and eat.  I'm glad I did because I was much hungrier than I realized.  Plus I'd been missing out on lots of great meats and cheeses and breads for breakfast since leaving Berlin.

After breakfast I just took my time getting ready to head out.... loaded my photos from my camera onto the computer and onto a backup hard drive I'd brought with me, and ran through them really quick to see if I had gotten any good photos from the day before.  There are a lot of photos I am sure I'll always like because I was here, but not nearly as many that would make for good "artistic" kind of shots although I do have an idea with some of them that might really make them fit the mood of this city.  I was certainly more in tourist mode the day before and I could see in in my photos.  That's not always a bad thing through.

I decided to start the day by heading over to the museum and checking out the Salvador Dali exhibit even though the only real art by him that I knew was his famous melting clock stuff.  I'd seen some of his other work before but not enough to where I could have picked it out in an art book if it wasn't captioned.  Needless to say, if you've ever seen his paintings, etchings and sculptures before, he is a little out there sexually in his work.  There were some pretty strange and interesting concepts in his work and he had a number of different series that were all pretty cool to see together.  You could really see how his work changed over time and even over the series he would be putting together.  I enjoyed the show a lot, but was disappointed to see that in all the work they had displayed there, the melting clocks were not included.   I was really looking forward to seeing them in person, but maybe some other day.

The Winter Fest started here today and all the little booths were open around the square so I wandered around checking out what they had for sale and enjoying watching all the people that were here today.  The square and streets were a lot busier today for sure... and I'm not sure how much of that had to do with the Christmas Festival starting and how much was just because it as Friday night and the weekend was here.  There were a lot of tourists from England here for the weekend from what I could hear and with the Chunnel now, it's a very easy and cheap trip for them to make.  I was jeaslous thinking about how easy it would be to travel to a new country every weekend now that the trip across the English Channel was about 2 hours now.

After I started to get really cold walking around I thought it would be a good time to jump on the City Bus Tour and take the 45 minute ride around the city to hear what I may have missed and learn some of the history here.  If you've never been to Bruges before, let me just say that this is a tour  you can really skip and not miss anything.  For the money you pay, you can buy a book abound the city and see and learn so much more just walking around.  I was disappointed, but at least I'd warmed up a bit.  I just wandered around pretty aimlessly the rest of the day here, and after looking at my Fitbit realized that my day of leisure still had me walking just over 9 miles.... so much for resting my poor feet.  Since this was my last night in town and I'd seen pretty much everything I wanted to, I headed back to the hotel early to pack my stuff back up since I wanted to try to sleep in tomorrow.  Bruges was very cool and a beautiful old city, but I can see how this is one of those places you would have more fun with if you were with someone special.  There is a romantic feel to the city that you just can't take advantage on by yourself.  LOL

Tomorrow is a travel day ... leaving here and heading to Heidelberg.  I'm going to try to make the best of the day on the train to just relax and catch up on some reading and maybe even watch a movie or two.  It's been weird not watching TV for almost 3 weeks now.

Bruges - Day 2

My plan when I got up today was to head out fairly early and walk the outer ring canal of the city, taking a look at all the gates that were still in place from the Medieval  Days when the only way in and out of the city was through these gates.  

There is a nice park like area that runs along the canal with nice paths for both walking and biking, and like most of this trip so far, it was a beautiful fall-like day.  As you walk around the old city limits and you look inward, you can almost imagine what life must have been like back then.  It almost has the feel of a city straight out of Game of Thrones, where everything is still cobblestone and you can almost hear the horses and carriages making their way to market.

One thing I hadn't expected to see here were Windmills and as it turns out Bruges has 4 of them along the eastern side of the ring.  That's 3 more Windmills than I saw in Holland while I was there.... and Holland is the country known for them.  Go figure right?

Something else that stood out, is that there wasn't really all that much traffic in the city center, at least not nearly what I would have imagined from the number of buildings and shops here. Traffic wasn't heavy but it was very steady as I began to realized every time I went to take a photo.  As one car / cyclist left the photo another would enter... spaced almost perfectly apart, to the point that I started to wonder if I was on some kind of weird hidden camera show and they were just messing with me to see how long it would take before I would give up waiting and just shoot the photo and move on. LOL

After making my way around the outer ring and checking the maps posted at every tourist attraction I'd seen most of what I could see on the eastern side and then I just began weaving my way back and forth into the city, checking out all the cool churches and buildings I could see.  Some of the streets where pretty narrow and it looked like most of them were one way.  It was almost like walking through a maze which I found a lot of fun, just seeing if I could remember all the twists and turns I was taking as I tried to slowly work my way towards the main square and then back out again in another direction.

It was really interesting to watch the drivers and cyclists doing the same thing and they flew up and down the little alleys.  I funny thing I noticed during the day though, was that the drivers here had a very bad habit of stalling their cars on a regular basis.  I don't think I've ever seen or heard so many cars stall out at stops and then have to b what e restarted.  I wasn't really sure what that was all about?  They all acted like it was a totally normal thing to do though, so I'm thinking they must just use really watered down gas here and the cars just can't idle on it... yeah, that would be my excuse anyway. LOL

All in all, it was just a perfect day for walking and taking in the city, and I began to realize if you only had one day to do it, you could....as long as you didn't also want to take the time to shop and sit in restaurants eating and drinking and people watching.  I'd given myself 2 full days here, and by the end of the day today, I'd seen and taken photos of just about everything I could think of here.

Even though I can't speak the language at all here, when you see things in writing, it's pretty easy to figure out what almost everything says.  It's a weird mixture between German and English and some of it almost looks like it was made up because it's so
close to one of those two with just a little spelling twist.

Okay, enough rambling for today, my feet are actually feeling the miles for the first time on this trip and I think some of that has to do with the cobblestones I walked on for 10+ hours today. I think tomorrow will be a much more laid back day since I'd seen so much today.  There are a few sights I still want to take in, a couple I want to go back and re-shoot, and then I think I might take in a City Bus Tour and go see the Salvador Dali exhibit in the museum here.   Sounds like a pretty mellow day. :)

Bruges - Day 1

Today was a travel day, leaving Amsterdam and heading for Bruges in Belgium. After all the walking I'd been doing in Amsterdam, it was nice to have an excuse to kick my feet up for a few hours and just relax, as the plan was to do a lot more walking in Bruges as well.

I got in to the station after pretty much everything there had shut down so it took a few minutes to look around outside the train station before figuring how which way I had to go to get to my hotel.  No Taxi's were around but I knew it wasn't too far of a walk so away I went, dragging my luggage down narrow cobblestone roads with no one around.... was weird to see the city had pretty much closed up by 8:30 at night, but kind of cool to see all the old buildings with no traffic coming or going.

I found the hotel pretty easy and once again, found myself looking at getting my luggage up a narrow and fairly steep staircase, no elevators of course. The room was really nice though, and maybe one of the nicest of my trip so far. Of course, it did have a few quirks... like the toilet is literally in a closet. Here are some pics just for fun.

Since I'd been sitting most of the day and it was still early, I grabbed my camera and a map from the front desk and decided to see what I could tonight, hopefully getting some good shots of the cool old buildings here, without too many people around.

I headed for main square wanting to see the Bell Tower first and foremost and to try to find the one iconic spot where the most famous photos of Bruges are
taken.  I figured if nothing else, I could find my way there so that I could get back there nice and easy tomorrow when I had the whole day to explore and shoot.

Here are a few more shots from my wanderings tonight...  This is a great city and I love how old and medieval it all feels. I'm really looking forward to getting out again tomorrow to see as much of the city as I could fit in

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