Berlin

So it's been crazy last few days in Berlin. It was such a fun and interesting history. We originally planned on staying five days in Berlin, but ended up staying a couple extra nights. It was such a great place to just wander for hours. There was always something to see or do. Many a days were spent looking at the tourist spots then  spending a few hours sitting in a cafe people watching and trying local and other German beers.

While normally our posts have pictures, Callie did a terrible job of manning the camera and would either leave it back at the hostel or forget to charge the battery. So no pictures of Berlin, sorry!

One evening we went on a bike tour to hit some of the bigger tourist spots in Berlin. We biked along part of the Berlin Wall and the saw the building that housed Hitler's  bunker. Half way through our tour, we stopped at a nice beer garden and made friends with some girls from Norway. Since Amanda took up the rear of the tour and made sure everyone stayed together, she was given a little piece of the Berlin Wall. 

On a different adventure, we walked past the location of the massive book burning during the Nazi reign. It was quite interesting and the square that it was in (it's now a university square) was incredibly beautiful. We also came upon another square that's home to the German Protestant church and the almost identical French Catholic church. They are now museums.

Seven days later, after seeing what feels like the entire city of Berlin, we are now in Prague for a few days. Prague is insanely gorgeous and filled with beautiful churches and towers. Hopefully we'll be a little bit better about taking pictures.

HAMBURG(er)

We had two full days in Hamburg, and spent most of the first day exploring the city Centre that was right outside of our hostel. There were so many cafes and shops down a two mile road. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and the two of us had a blast wandering around the little side streets. 

The second day, we decided it would be a good idea to see some of the highlights of Hamburg, so we walked down to the Harbor. It was a lovely half hour walk and we sat by the water for a while just soaking in the sun. 

From the Harbor we spotted a bell tower and decided to go off the main path and find it! Turned out to be a beautiful church with tons of history. And below it was a krypt. Johann Sebastian Bach ' s son was actually buried there!

The inside of St. Michael's Church. 

Down below in the krypts. Here we learned the history of this church. Quite fascinating, the church burnt down not once but twice and has continued to go through new renovations since the 1980's.

After walking down in the krypts, we decided to walk the 10 stories up to the bell tower. What a climb! 

Clearly worth the climb!

Amanda insisted on taking the lift down. But you can see why!

Tomorrow we leave in the late afternoon for a train to Berlin. We will be there for five days! So excited!!

Quick Stop

After leaving Ireland we hit our first of many stops in Germany,  Hannover!  It was a beautiful city, but there was not too much to do. There was supposedly the Red Thread, which is a painted line on the ground that takes you fro, one touristy destination to the next. We followed the line and there was nothing along this three mile loop around the city. We think it's the best tourist con and a giant practical joke the entire city is in on. Oh well! Still a very pretty city! And everyone was very nice.

Labeled a museum on the Red Thread. 

Actually a government building not open to the public....

We stumbled along a very beautiful courtyard along the Thread.

It was neither labeled nor on the map...c'est la vie

Whiskey and Beer

Today is our booze day! We decided to hit the Guinness Museum and the Jameson Distillery today! What a day! 

After four hours milling around learning about the history of Guinness, we learned how to pour the perfect draft. And even got certificates for it! We are officially certified Guinness pourers! What a fine thing to add to our resumes! Then we got a 360 view of Dublin from the top of the Guinness Museum. 

We made a friend at the pub crawl who tagged along.

Callie's chin is not too bad

Next, we headed off to the old Jameson distillary! We got there with only five spots left for the tours for the day! What great timing! Amanda's competitive nature got Callie to be selected as a whiskey taster! Callie got a certificate for it and everything! Another skill to add to her list!

We are off to Germany on the 18th! Amanda is so excited to be in a country she's never been in before and Callie can't wait to go back to such a beautiful place!

Bike Tour of Dublin

We went on a very beautiful bike tour of Dublin. It is such a beautiful city and I'm sorry to say that we can't stay and see more of it. This was the perfect way to get to see a lot of the sites without having to walk. It was so much fun that we didn't even remember to take photos of us during it! We have one of us at a reflection pool in a park. It was so much fun, until the very end. Callie's back tire got a nice little love tap by a cabbie and she ate it. She now has a beautiful chin scrape that will be immortalized in our pictures for the next couple of weeks. She is fine though! Nothing a little photo shop and neosporin can't fix! Thank God she was wearing a helmet!

WAX MUSEUM

After getting lost (we got REALLY bad directions) trying to find the Hugh Lane art museum (which ended up being closed), we spotted signage to a wax museum and we were instantly hooked! Luckily, it was a GORGEOUS day outside and we had time to walk about looking for it. It was well worth the wandering!

Selfies with a druid and a traditional Irish swordsman

 killed by a Viking

receiving her diploma

conversing with a guy dying from famine.

 Gunned down a bit.

MY PRECIOUS

 Killed by Freddy Kruger!

Picking the nose of a giant

What a fun family!

 EVERYBODY WAS KUNG FU FIGHTING!

We had a lot of fun. Sometimes it pays off to get a little lost!

The Train to Dublin

We spent WAY too much time in the tiny town of Belfast and were super excited to be off to Dublin! To get here we took a train, which was a very nice, two hour ride. We made some Canadian friends and got some great advice on other places to travel! Switzerland is now on our list :)

The first night in we went on a pub crawl to meet new people and make new friends.

All of Belfast

Day 1:
Black Taxi Tour. We took a cab ride around Belfast. Our cabbie told us a lot of interesting stories about their not so distant history. We learned about the Protestant vs Catholic fights during the troubles. There were a lot of interesting people and very, very sad stories. We saw a lot of murals and memorials honoring those whom had passed.

King William III

The Black Cab that took us around

Day 2-3:

Amanda fell very ill. She stayed in bed for two days and Callie took care of her and got to read Mila 18 for a few days. 

Day 4:

Making a come back from her sick days, we decided to have an easy afternoon stroll.  We found ourselves walking through a beautiful Botanic Gardens that lead to a very interesting museum.

The museum, while not as good as HMNS, still held a lot of interesting artifacts. And you could touch some of them! It was a very fascinating, relaxing day. Which was perfect for weaning Amanda back into tourist mode.

 Day 4: Walking around Belfast we realized that there was going to be a festival. The Orange March. When we first arrived we heard very mixed reviews about the safety of participating in the festival. And after the Black Cab Tour we decided this was going to be a weekend we should stay indoors for. But it was still cool to see them building up giant blocks to burn for the bonfires around the city.

                   

Day 5:

With the festival quickly approaching we decided to squeeze in one more museum. The Titanic Museum! We ended up getting lost in the city for three hours trying to find it though. Thank God we had each other, a map, and a new friend. Eventually we found our way, but it put quite a damper on our excitement for the museum. At the end we got ice cream and the correct way was a short twenty minute walk back to our hostel!