Lots of Places

From Cologne I took a relatively quick bus to Hamburg, where I had found a hostel to stay in for a few days. I arrived at around 6:00pm, and after dropping my bags off and taking a second to collect myself, I headed out to a pizza place that I had found online. What I expected to be the run of the mill pizza ended up being one of the best pizzas I have ever eaten, so if you ever find yourself in Hamburg, definitely go check out Pizza Blande. Anyways, after dinner I decided to take the scenic route back through the nearby red light district. While I was walking, I got practically cornered by some overly aggressive prostitutes, and after I managed to get away I figured that I had seen enough for the night, and beelined back to my hostel.

I didn't really have anything in mind for what I wanted to do while in Hamburg, so the next morning, after buying some cheese and bread, I headed out for a long walk. I ended up in the city center, and roamed around the streets checking out some stores and enjoying the sights. Hamburg is a port city, so I spent a while sitting at some benches enjoying the view of the ocean. After several hours of a mixture of walking and sitting, I headed back to the hostel to make dinner and call it a night.

The next day was Sunday, which meant that there wasn't a lot happening in the city (everything is either closed or on abbreviated hours on Sunday's in Europe). I decided to take a short walk in a nearby park, and then call it an early day to give myself time to plan out the next few days of my trip. I knew that my next stop would be Berlin, and in hopes of saving some money, I wanted to try to replace my stay at a hostel with Couchsurfing, a community based app that offers travelers places to crash for a few nights.

I was lucky enough to come in contact with a guy named Mario, a programmer who was currently living in Berlin. I was planning to stay in Berlin from August 1st through the night of the 4th, and Mario said he could host me for all but the first night. Luckily, there was a cheap hostel literally 20 feet away from Mario's apartment, so I booked a one night stay there until Mario would be available.

I got to Berlin on the afternoon of the 1st, and quickly headed out for a nice meal at a small little French restaurant a few minutes walk from the hostel. Afterwards, I walked around the neighborhood, enjoying the fantastic sunset over the river. Once it got dark, I headed back to my hostel to call it a night.

Mario informed me the next morning that he would be out of the house for work until around dinner time, so I had all day to explore Berlin before meeting up with him. I didn't know exactly what do to, so I spent most of my day walking around the city. Unlike most of the other cities I had been to, Berlin is huge. Most cities have one definite central location, and the further you walk from the center the more residential it becomes. Berlin, on the other hand, was big enough that there isn't one definitive center. The whole time I was walking I kept thinking I had found the center, only to walk further and find another busy area.

After several miles of walking and sightseeing, I decided to head back towards Mario's place a little early to get out of the rain. After a quick exchange of pleasantries and a cup of coffee, Mario informed me that he still had to work for a while, so he didn't have any time to show me around that night. Instead, he suggested I used Couchsurfing 'hangouts' to find some people to go out with for the night. I had nothing better to do, so I decided to give it a try.

I ended up meeting up with two guys, Ninji and Pjotr. Ninji was originally from China, but moved to the USA to go to college at Dartmouth, and then moved to Berlin to teach Dartmouth study abroad students German. Pjotr had lived in Amsterdam his whole life, and had managed to get a week or two off from his summer job to do some impromptu traveling. We met at a bar that Ninji had suggested since it was surrounded by a lot of nice nightlife. After a quick drink, we headed to another bar that was one of Ninji's favorites.

This bar was actually a wine bar with one of the most interesting business plans I had ever heard of. The idea was that you paid €2 ($2.20) at the door for a glass, and then you have unlimited access to self-serve wine after that. Once you leave, you return the glass and pay what you think is a reasonable price. I have no idea how a business like that could stay open for long, but I love the idea. Unfortunately, the bar was so busy (on a Monday night!) that they had run out of glasses, so we couldn't get in.

We headed back out down a street that was littered with bars, and decided to make a stop at a döner place for a quick bite to eat. Döner is basically a lamb kebab, and is popular German drunk food since it is cheap, quick, and delicious. After our meal, we headed to a bar that Pjotr had heard of.

The bar was rasta themed, and was on the shore of the river. After buying our drinks, we found a nice place to sit near the river, and chatted for a while before deciding to call it a night. Ninji was busy the next few days, but Pjotr and I had nothing really planned, so we exchanged contact info so we could hang out the next day.

The following morning I got in contact with Pjotr to see what we should do for the day. He wanted to go visit some museums, but first had to find a new place to sleep for the night, since he had only booked one night at the hostel he was at. We agreed to meet up around 4:00, and until then I was just going to walk around and explore more. I found a few cool things to see, and eventually found a cool modern art museum that Pjotr sounded interested in. Unfortunately, by the time he was ready to meet up, the museum was about to close, so instead we ditched the museum idea and decided to go out for some drinks.

Pjotr had met a group of about 10 people through Couchsurfing hangouts and we met them at a restaurant that could seat all of us. After a round of drinks and cheesy ice breakers, we headed out of the restaurant for our next destination. Most of the group wanted to go to a big meet up event which would host around 50 couchsurfers, but Pjotr, one guy who's name I can't remember, and I decided to split paths and go to a jazz bar that our new friend knew of.

When we got there, we were disappointed to see that the bar was packed way beyond capacity, and although our new friend decided to stay to find a friend that he was supposed to meet up with, Pjotr and I thought it would be better to head off on our own again. We explored a part of Berlin that had some famous clubs, but didn't go into any of them since it was early on a weekday and they are all basically empty. After a few drinks at random bars, we decided to call it a night. We had different plans for the next day, so we said our goodbyes. I might end up seeing him again when I go back to the Netherlands for a music festival at the end of August, since Pjotr generously offered to lend me some of his camping gear for the weekend!

For my last day in Berlin, I decided to go to a couple of the famous memorials that lie within the city. My first stop was the memorial dedicated to the Soviets who lost their lives to free Germany from the Nazis. The memorial was a massive park (that had its own metro stop!), with a beautiful walk up to a huge statue at the end. Walking towards the statue you pass under a cool archway thing, and then walk past several stone blocks that are engraved with Stalin quotes. The statue was a 12 feet tall man, holding a German baby in one hand and a sword in the other while standing on a shattered swastika. While 12 feet isn't too big for a statue, the sculpture towered over you, since it sat atop a 10 foot base which was on top of a small man made hill.

After sitting in the memorial for a while and admiring the view, I headed back to the metro to visit my next stop: The Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. This memorial was right in the middle of the city, taking up about a city block. It consisted of hundreds (maybe thousands?) of grey stone blocks of varying heights. You could walk in between the rows of blocks, and in the middle where the blocks were the highest they reached up to 10-12 feet. I wish I had spent some more time learning about the meaning behind the installment, as I'm sure there was some significance to the heights and number of blocks.

After that I decided to call it a day, and headed back to Mario's place to pack and get ready to leave for Wrocław, Poland. Mario had to head out a little earlier than I wanted to, but since I had no way to drop off the keys without him there, I left with him and camped out at the bus station for a few hours until my bus arrived at midnight.

In Wrocław I was supposed to meet a friend I've known for a few years Goda (who had been studying abroad in her hometown of Lithuania for the summer), as well as a girl who I knew from Pitt Dora (who is originally from Hungary), and Dora's cousin Gergely. Our plan was to stay in Poland for a few days to catch the final two days of the World Junior Ultimate Championships (WJUC).

Both of our busses arrived around 5:00am, and after stopping for breakfast to take some time to figure out where our AirBnB was, we hopped on a tram to our new temporary home. We got to our room around 7:00am, with the first semifinal game between USA Women vs Netherland Women scheduled to start at 11:00. Rather than risking taking a nap that we would probably not wake up from, we decided to get to the fields early, and sleep later. We watched Japan vs. Colombia men's consolation game, then the USA vs. Netherlands semifinal, and finished off the day watching USA vs. Great Britain men's semifinal. Finally, we headed back to our house around 3:00pm for some much needed sleep. We woke up around 9:00pm for a delicious (and super cheap) pizza dinner before calling it a night.

The next day was finals, and both men's and women's division was a USA vs. Canada match up. Women's was first, and USA couldn't quite dig themselves out of a hole they went into early, and lost on double game point, 15-14. The USA men's team made up for the loss, convincingly winning 15-12.

Once the games and awards ceremonies were over, we headed into the old town to do some sight seeing and get some food. We walked around for a little before sitting down for some amazing pirogies (Pittsburgh ain't got nothin' on Poland...sorry) that cost somewhere around $2. Afterwards we did some more sightseeing before going to a bar for some drinks. After some hanging out, we headed back to call it a night.

For our last full day in Poland, we decided to spend it similarly to the day before. We headed into the old town and walked around basically the entire city. We found a small little restaurant and had an amazing meal for something like $10 between the 4 of us. Afterwards we did some more walking around before going to a sports bar in hopes to catch some of the olympics. Unfortunately the remote for the TV was broken, so we were stuck watching soccer highlights while eating mediocre food. Oh well. After that we did a little more sight seeing before finally heading home for the night.

Our bus to Prague was scheduled to leave the following day around 4:00pm, so the next morning we had an early start to take advantage of the little time we had left in Poland. We started the day off with some ridiculously good donuts. We walked around for a while before heading to a "milk bar", which is a popular eating place for locals in Poland. We got a ton of pirogies and beet soup for under $2 a person and gorged ourselves before heading to the bus.

Our bus was supposed to arrive to Prague around 8:30pm, but due to our driver avoiding highways (I have no idea why), we got there closer to 9:15. We had an AirBnB booked outside of the city, about 30 minutes via train. We got a little lost looking for the train station, and ended up getting to our airBnB around 11:00pm. Our host, however, had managed to fall asleep before we got there, so we were locked out of the house. We only had the one night in Prague before heading to Budapest, so we decided our best option was to catch the train back into the city, and hope to find a hostel for the night. We barely managed to catch the last train back into the city, and by the time we found a hostel it was about 1:00am. We were all starving, so after checking in and dropping off our bags, we headed out for a quick döner meal before calling it a night.

Since we only had the one day, we got up early to make the most of all the time we had in Prague. We got some tasty pastries and coffee for breakfast before walking around the city for a while. Prague is much bigger than Wrocław, and all of the building were a lot older since a lot of Poland was destroyed during WWII. We ended up finding a nice viewing point of the city on the top of a hill, so we spent some time up there enjoying the view. After walking around the park at the top of hill for a while, we headed back down towards the city to get some food.

We treated ourselves to some delicious goulash served in bread bowls before lunch, followed by a popular local dessert which could be described as a funnel donut. Afterwards we strolled around for a while before finding a bench near the old town square to sit at to rest our tired legs. We sat for a while before heading out for the final part of the day. We decided to go back to the döner place we had gone to the night before for dinner, and afterwards did a little souvenir and snack shopping before heading to the train station.

Our train to Budapest was a nine hour overnight expedition, departing from Prague at 11:00pm and arriving at around 8:30am. Since we were all tired from the uncomfortable sleep on the train, we planned an easy day at a traditional Hungarian bath house. The bath house consisted of about 20 different pools of varying temperatures. We stayed there for five or six hours before heading to our AirBnB. We did a quick charging of phones before heading out for a nice dinner, taking suggestions from Dora and Geri about what to eat since we were on their home turf. After dinner we headed back to our apartment to watch a little bit of the Olympics before calling it an early night.

The next morning I got up a little earlier than the rest of the group to do some laundry at the nearby laundromat. But, as I was leaving the building, I got trapped in the area in between the stairs to the apartment and the front door. The front door was supposed to be opened with a buzzer, but the button was broken, and the door to the stairs could only be opened from outside the front door, or the buzzer on the other side of the stairs. I tried to contact my group, but they were still fast asleep. I ended up waiting about 30 minutes in the room until a few other residents came down. They also couldn't get the door open, but after a quick phone call someone came to save us.

Once I got back from doing my laundry we headed out to do some sightseeing. Budapest is a fairly big city, so we ended up walking a ton over the day. We went to a nice little family owned restaurant from lunch, and again took suggestions from Dora and Geri since the menu was all in Hungarian. Afterwards we walked some more, enjoying the wonderful architecture that Budapest boasts.

We eventually made our way back to our apartment to rest a little bit before going out that night. Dora had suggested we get a traditional food called lángos, which was basically just a savory version of funnel cake. It came served with sour cream and cheese, and while delicious, it was probably the most unhealthy thing I have eaten during my trip. We decided we wanted get smoothies for dessert in attempt to counteract the lángos, so we went on a bit of an expedition to try to find a store that served smoothies that was still open. After finally finding one after walking around in a circle for a while, we wound up just heading back to our apartment to call it another early night.

The next day was our last day together. Goda had a 24 hour bus ride back to Vilnius, Lithuania at around 3:00pm and Dora and Geri were heading back to their hometown in the eastern part of Hungary at around the same time. Before checking out of our AirBnB we decided to get breakfast at a nearby cat cafe, where we ended up just playing with cats for about an hour. After getting our fill of petting cats, we headed out to do a little souvenir shopping before they had to leave. After buying a bunch of little things, we grabbed a quick döner lunch (we really like döner, OK?) and washed it down with pastries from a neighboring bakery. Afterwards, it was time to say goodbye. My flight to Scotland was scheduled for early the next morning, so I had all day to spent in Budapest before heading to the airport to spend the night.

After saying our goodbyes at the metro, I headed out to the park which was just outside the metro station. I sat a bench for a while as I figured out what I wanted to do. I decided to walk by the island in the middle of the river that cuts Budapest in half. The island was hosting a music festival called "Sziget" (which means in island in Hungarian) that spanned a whopping 8 days. While I knew I wasn't going to actually get into the festival, I thought it'd be cool to see it from afar. Besides, walking along the river meant I get to pass by the amazing parliament building that we had visited the day before. It turned out the island wasn't too exciting to look at from a distance, so instead I found a nearby cafe with wifi, and spent a few hours there to pass the time. 

After a while of sitting in the cafe, I began to get antsy, so I headed back out. I didn't really have anything to do, so after about an hour of aimlessly walking around, I decided to grab a small dinner and grab some groceries before ultimately heading to the airport. Once I arrived to the airport, I discovered to my dismay that I wouldn't be allowed through security until two hours before my flight left at 6:00am the next morning. While past security was rumored to have nice comfortable chairs (which I can now confirm), I was forced to spend my night on the uncomfortable metal chairs that the pre-security side of the airport offered.

The last two weeks have been amazing. I had a ton of fun in Berlin meeting all sorts of people through Couchsurfing, and then getting to travel a little with some friends was a refreshing change of pace. While I wish I could have spent more time in basically all of cities I was in, it is now time to move on to the final leg of my trip. I will be spending the next week in Scotland with Janny, before heading to a little city outside of Amsterdam for the weekend to attend Lowlands music festival. From there I fly back to Tel Aviv where I will spend 2 nights, before ultimately heading back to the states.

It's been a amazing trip so far, and I'm sure these final two weeks will be the perfect way to end this two month adventure.

Thanks for reading,

Ben