Deutschland

we are actually in poland now, but have spent all our time (expect for today) in germany since we last wrote.
germany was great, although our bad weather streak has been continuing!

we first went to munich for one day and stayed in a great hostel that was really, really close to Marienplatz, which is really the center of town, so we were very close to everything! the star of marienplatz is the Glockenspiel which is this stupid clock that has these little puppets that come out a few times a day and is about the dumbest thing you've ever seen. but, for some reason its the highlight of the square and tons of people stand there and video tape it and clap and cheer.... very strange.

anyways, since we only had one day in munich and we wanted to see as much as we could in the shortest amount of time, we randomly decided to take a bike tour. it was a completely free tour - you just tip at the end if you had fun - so we thought, 'why not?'

well, now i dont know why we have been walking, and walking, and walking miles and miles everyday!! it was so much fun, the guide knew all his munich history and was funny too and i really feel like we saw every notable building (and more - not just buildings) within biking distance and all within about 4 hours! it was a great time, plus we werent as completely exhausted as we are most days. also, very random, there were only 30 people on the tour and there were 2 boys from UF and 2 boys from FSU. so, 6 (including us) out of the 30 were from FL schools. we thought it was pretty funny.

highlights of the tour included the english garden (a huge nudist garden in the middle of the city, with lots of senior citizen nudists), the chinese beer garden (the 2nd largest beer garden in the world, and where we stopped for lunch), and the 'river surfers' (there's a river that runs through the english garden and as the water pours out from under a bridge it creates a perpetual wave and a lot of young guys gather there in their wetsuits with their surfboards and basically surf back and forth along the river until they fall, and the next guy jumps in. its really neat -but hard to describe- and i think people are there surfing everyday).

after the tour we still had a night to spend in munich, so we (very uncharacteristically) decided to take a beer tour. we went around, with our guide and 3 other guys on the tour from chicago and s. carolina, and went first to a bar for a beer (everywhere brews their own specific beer), then another bar for beer "tasting" (as in, "i taste a hint of banana") and had a very german dinner (lots of sausage) as well as a step by step tour of how that bar/restaurant brewed their beer, and then a final stop at one of the most famous (probably the most famous) beer halls in munich. it was actually a lot of fun.

the next morning we traveled to berlin by train and arrived late that night. our hostel was really very nice, but also really, really in the woods! i mean, we had to hike about 5 - 10 mins to even get out of the forest and to a paved road!!

our first day (one of two) we decided to take another bike tour. we went all over berlin (and to another beer garden for lunch) and as much as we liked the munich bike tour, this one was even 10 x better! maybe its just because berlin has so much more interesting and recent history, but it was a great tour. we also had another great, very intelligent guide (and he was from tampa!). we learned more about ww2 and the cold war in those 5 hours than we ever did in all our years of school, or at least we understood it a whole lot more.

afterward, we went to potsdamer platz to the big new movie theater that shows original language films to watch a movie in english. the only thing that was any different from american theaters is that 1) they assign you exact seats, and better seats cost more and 2) during the previews a commercial came on for this specific brand of ice cream bars that they sell EVERYWHERE and ALL over europe, and all the sudden at the end of the commercial, the lights come up, and the screen goes dark and 2 employees walked around selling the ice cream bars. it was so funny. a few people bought them, and then they left, the lights went off, and the previews continued.

our second day in berlin we (surprise) took another bike tour! i know, we are very lazy now and don't want to walk anywhere. we went with the same company on a more in-depth tour (longer and smaller - only 5 people) all about WW2 and the 3rd reich.
afterward, we went to the 'topography of terror,' a free, open-air museum also all about the Nazi regime, and then to the museum located at checkpoint charlie.

last night we took a night train from berlin to krakow, poland. today we took our 4th bike tour in 4 days!!!! ahhh, its getting out of hand! and are about to go out to dinner, as we are thoroughly enjoying their uber-cheap currency (they haven't switched to the eruo yet and one of their 'ztoty' is equal to 4 euro!)

Tomorrow we day trip to Auschwitz.