Songs

I like it – Enrique Iglesias ft. Pitbull

Vienna – The Fray

Vienna – Billy Joel

I got a hang over – Taio Cruz

Holiday Road - Lyndsay Buckingham

Day 24-25

Woke up, boarded coach, headed for Amsterdam. We headed out with our group and Dangerous where we got a quick walking tour of the red light district. We saw fat alley and skinny alley, boob in the ground, and had time to experience a coffee shop before our ‘Dutch culture show’.

Woke up and boarded the coach where our driver took us to a cheese and clog farm. He told us about this history of cheese and about how it is made. Next he took us into his clog shop where he demonstrated how clogs are made out of a block of Poplar wood. We had some time to sample their yummy cheese, dance in their rather uncomfortable clogs, and pet their cute kittens in the souvenir shop. After loading up on Dutch souvenirs, out bus driver took us back into Amsterdam. We saw the Anne Frank house, although we did not go inside. We walked along the winding canals

Day 23

All day walking tour, saw everything in Berlin about WWII and the berlin Wall, holocaust memorial, hitler’s bunker, Michael Jackson hotel/balcony, Brandenburg Gate, Alexanderplatz, Humboldt University and book burning memorial, TV tower (tallest building in Germany), oldest building in Berlin, Reichstag, ampelmann, Checkpoit Charlie. After tour went to top of TV tower. Headed back to hotel EXHAUSTED. Joined aussie friends for dinner and beer, went to bed early-ish.

Day 22

We woke up early today to board the coach and head for Berlin. On the way, we made a stop in Dresden, where we admired the architecture and had a yummy lunch. In contrast to most of the other cities we have visited on our tour, the cathedrals and all other buildings were completed in the 80s. We were reminded that as WWII was winding down, the Allies made the ‘questionable’ decision to bomb Dresden, thus destroying almost everything inside. The rebuilding efforts were finally finished around 1980. We had enough time in Dresden to stroll through the main cathedral after lunch, which was noticeably new and different from all the cathedrals we have seen thus far. We then hopped back on the coach to finish the last leg of our journey to Berlin. Before going to the hotel we stopped at the longest strip of the Berlin Wall that is still standing today. We took some great pictures, and if you ever go there you should look for the ‘MM + AH’ that we wrote on the wall! After arriving at our hotel, we set our bags down and got ready for dinner and another walking/pub-crawl tour. Our walking tour, ‘Eye Spy Berlin’, took us around all the memorable sites of the Berlin Wall as well as memorials dedicated to escape attempts from East to West Berlin. We also saw a large portion of the ‘Death Strip’ on this tour, which is the gap between the two parallel walls that was patrolled with dogs and soldiers at all times. We couldn’t believe that all of the stories we heard about citizens being gunned down there, and families escaping through tunnels, had all occurred only 50 years ago. After the walking tour, the local guide took us to a few bars where we took advantage of bargain-priced beer and free jager-bombs. We once again had the opportunity to shake our bon-bons (as if we haven’t done that enough yet..!) before taxiing our way back to the hotel.

Day 21

Today we just had a canal cruise scheduled with our group, then the rest of the day was free time to explore. We woke up with enough time to grab coffee in the old town square and see the astronomical coo-coo clock go off at noon. As the bells chime, a little wooden bird comes out of a door and softly sounds ‘kawww…’ before it goes back inside. Then a trumpeter plays a tune from the top of the tower and waves to the audience. When it was built it must’ve been quite an impressive display, but it was pretty funny how hundreds of people still gather today to see the fairly anticlimactic display. Nonetheless, we met with our group and headed for our lunch cruise. As we walked onto the boat, they handed us a tray of small shots and said, ‘please take’. They obviously did not know what we were up to the night before. We thought it might be a sip of wine or something sweet like that, but it turned out to be very intense liquor. They later explained it was what the people of this culture drank before meals to facilitate digestion. Yuck! We were fed an amazing meal on the cruise with ham, pork, steak, potatoes (in many different forms), soup, and vegetables. As we ate, a local guide pointed out all the historical places of interest. We learned how the ‘locks’ work in rivers: when the water levels vary as a boat cruises down the canal, it stops in a chamber which can increase (or decrease) the water level so the boat can continue on. It usually is necessary where a small waterfall occurs in the middle of the river. After the cruise, we strolled along the maze of cobbled streets and gothic architecture while doing a little souvenir shopping. Later, we grabbed a nice dinner near the old town square before heading to a black light show. The show was spectacular! Its hard to describe what it was exactly, but it was a bit of an optical illusion show with dancers wearing costumes that illuminated in different ways based on how they moved. We enjoyed the show, and by the end we were pretty tired from such a long day. We headed back to the hotel, grabbing a banana and Nutella crêpe on the way. Matt was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

Day 20

We had so much fun in Munich, we wish we could have stayed more than just one night! But after a few days in the Czech Republic, we would be returning to Germany. We boarded the coach and we were off to Prague! Neither of us knew very much about this country, and so we appreciated all of the history and info that our tour guide provided us during the drive. It was a long drive, but we ended up getting to Prague much earlier than expected. Upon arrival, we had enough time to go see the Prague Castle and its surrounding grounds before dinner at our hotel. The castle with its gothic architecture was STUNNING and very beautiful at night. It is located at the top of a hill, and so the venture also gave us a great view of the city on such a clear night. Once we got enough pictures, we headed back to freshen up for dinner and the much-anticipated “Drunken Monkey Pub Crawl.” Contiki hired a local bar that they’ve never used before to organize a pub-crawl for our group. It turns out that the two guys that owned the first bar we went to and organized the pub-crawl were from Iowa and college graduates of UNLV. Upon graduation, they moved to Prague and opened up their own bar and are now living the dream. They were really cool guys, and we ever decide to pick up our bags and move to Prague, we definitely know where to turn to first for a job! Their pub was Americanized, with beer pong and flip cup tables set up for us to play. And better yet, they had the Packers vs. Giants game on the big screen, so we got to see the Packers get pounded. We taught all of the Aussies how to play beer pong and took advantage of the happy-hour-all-you-can-drink that they offered to us. After the Drunken Monkey, they took us to a few more bars where we enjoyed live music and bon-bon-shaking. It was a fabulous night and the perfect introduction into Prague.

DAY 19

Today started off early, around 6am. We boarded to coach to drive to Munich, making a somber stop at the Mauthausen concentration camp. We walked through the barracks, the crematorium, and the burial sites of the prisoners of this camp. We watched a movie on the coach of the specific historical events that took place in the area we had just walked through. Words can’t really describe the feeling you get when walking through a place like this, but all of us were speechless for most of the morning. Conversation picked up once we stopped for lunch in Austria’s lake district, surrounded by the beautiful view of the mountains by the water.

Ein Prosit, Ein Prosit, der Gemutlichkeit! These are the lyrics to our German drinking song we learned for our night in Munich. After dropping our bags off at the hotel, we headed to town where Dangerous gave us another short walking tour during which he pointed out the Marienplatz and the Glockenspiel. Although it was interesting, we were all excited to get to the Hofbrauhaus beer hall. After all, we had to leave Munich in the morning! We had so much fun at the beer hall. We enjoyed glasses of beer, served by the liter, along with crispy pork knuckle and dumplings for dinner. We had a fantastic time with our awesome group, swinging our glasses from side to side singing our drinking song.

DAY 18

Our Contiki tour guide, Dan (or Dangerous, as we call him), took us into the city and gave us a short walking tour. He took us to all the historical buildings and explained some of the Viennese history to us. We got lucky enough to see some of the show horses walk by, which Dan said he had never seen before. In Vienna, they teach these horses to ‘dance’. They are trained to jump up and down and perform tricks that horses don’t usually do. We thought we’d invite them to a football game to do the Jump Around with the Badgers, but they were busy with their trainers. Our walking tour ended when we arrived at the Swarovski Crystal store. We saw a 100,000 Euro ‘Waterfall chandelier” (That’s $130,000!) which was featured in Ocean’s 11. We saw a lot of really cool original crystal jewelry items, but most of it was too expensive for our budget. Audrey was still able to find some souvenirs, of course. After the Swarovsky tour, we had free time for the rest of the day. We did a little shopping before grabbing lunch. This was the first day on the tour where it was cold and snowing, but we enjoyed the snow, as it was one of the first snowfalls we’d seen this year. You can imagine how fascinated the Aussies were since most of them had never seen it snow, and it is summer for them at home right now. We decided to warm up a bit by going into the Shmetterling Haus, a butterfly house, where we watched some drunken butterflies fly around. (They feed their butterflies fermented bananas). After that, it was time to meet up with the group for our Schnapps Museum tour! A man in the Fischer family invented the Schnapps recipe in 1895 and he has never shared his secret. The recipe has been passed down to his son, and his son’s son. The great grandson gave us our tour. Of the 15 factories they once had, we were in the only one that survived the bombings of WWII. He explained to us everything about the Schanpps from their sparkling wine to their Absinthe. After his little history lesson, we headed to their bar to sample our choice their 20 different types of Schnapps. We were each allowed 3 shots, but who was keeping count? ;) After warming up in the Schanpps factory, we headed back to the hotel and took it easy. We grabbed some schnitzel for dinner before heading to bed.

DAY 17

(Thank you for all of the birthday wishes, everyone! I though of all of you as I was celebrating in Venice/Vienna :) From, Audrey)

Today we woke up and boarded to coach to head to Vienna. It was a relatively long drive, so there was plenty of time to sleep off the hang over. Once arriving at the hotel, we unloaded our bags and got ready for a classy evening. We had dinner in the Mayors house, or provincial building, which looked more like a castle. We were served a Viennese meal of schnitzel with soup and potatoes in a lovely hall of the building. After dinner we headed to the State Opera House where the Vienna orchestra would perform a Mozart and Strauss concert for us. The room for the concert could only seat about 100 people. The orchestra consisted of a pianist, bass player, viola player, two violinists, a cellist, and a flute player. They all dressed up in ‘Mozart-generation’ clothes. So the women wore ballroom dresses while the men wore traditional tuxedos. An opera singer and/or a pair of dancers accompanied the orchestra for a few of their songs. After the performance of Mozart pieces, and before the Strauss concert, we were invited backstage for a complimentary glass of champagne and a chance to meet the musicians. The entire night was SO COOL and was just perfect for Audrey’s birthday. Once arriving back at the hotel, we ventured out to the nearest bar to celebrate for Ms. 21 yet again. We walked into a club and enjoyed shaking our bon-bons. It was early in the night, but there were still a lot of guys in the club who didn’t seem to pay much attention to our group of girls dancing. After looking around a bit and seeing some male couples flirting, we realized we were in a gay bar. We still had a great time there, and took it a lot easier than the night before. We headed back to the hotel around midnight and rested up for the following day.

DAY 16

Our bus driver, Rasto, drove us into town this morning where we were able to hop on a small boat that would take us to the city of Venice (because there are no cars, or even bikes, allowed there). Once arriving there, our local walking tour guide greeted us. She told us about the history of the city while taking us down the small, skinny alleys that they call streets. She was very knowledgeable; she told us about all of the historical monuments and the general history of Venice. Afterwards, we grabbed a cup of coffee before meeting up with our Contiki tour guide to see some of the Venetian culture. First, we saw a glass blowing demonstration. The glass master made a vase and a small horse figurine while we watched in awe. The demonstration was pretty amazing, and we were able to take videos of his technique. We were able to walk through the store, but unfortunately a 200 Euro glass figurine or tea set was a bit out of our budgets. However, Matt did find an affordable birthday present for Audrey: a beautiful crystal necklace in the shape of a heart :) . Our next stop was in a Venetian lace museum/store. A cute little old lady told us about why Venetian lace is such a delicacy, and how the women from the city make the lovely fabric. Other forms of Italian lace are made differently than Venetian lace. Her store was the only place you could buy real Venetian lace today, so we were sure to invest in a couple small souvenirs. Next on our agenda was a gondola ride around the canals. We were able to get a couple bottles of sparkling wine, which we enjoyed as our driver whistled tunes behind us as he paddled the boat standing up. On the ride, we floated past Mozart’s old apartment located right on the canal. It was a great way to see the beautiful city! For the rest of the day, we had free time from the group. We did a little window-shopping and coffee drinking before finding a romantic place to have dinner by the Grand Canal. Ironically, a group of girls from Eden Prairie and Minnetonka High Schools were enjoying dinner right behind us. They were studying abroad there for 4 weeks, and we chatted with them for a bit. It was a lovely dinner by the water, and was a great way to spoil Audrey for her birthday. After dinner, we reconvened with the group to hop back on the boat and go back to the hotel. Once there, everyone was excited to help Audrey celebrate her 21^st as midnight approached. We’ll leave it at this: with 34 people in our group buying Audrey drinks, it’s understandable that Matt piggybacked her home