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.