Berlin in a Day

We strategically arrived in Berlin very early in the morning and grabbed a bite to eat at the hostel before meeting up with the free Berlin tour we had looked up in Munich. 

Our walking tour was put on by New Berlin Tours, which comes highly recommended.  Our particular tour started at the Brandenburg gate and was led by a cheery Irishman named Barry, who we came to love very much and who did an absolutely fantastic job leading us through the city on this cold drizzly day.

Our tour took us around Berlin highlighting important places and points of interest in the history of the city both in relation to Nazi power and World War II as well as its later importance in the communist race and obviously leading up to and finishing with the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Barry showed us the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, The Holocaust Memorial, and dozens of other museums, monuments and memorials.  Barry entertained us with a half hour or so rendition of the story of the fall of the Berlin wall from the steps of the [protestant church at the end].  In addition, he gave us a very interesting visual of what it would have been like to try and cross the Berlin Wall from East Berlin to West Berlin including dozens of booby traps, armed watchmen, snipers and electric fences. 

One thing I found extremely interesting was the similarity of stories between the walking tour we received in Munich and the one here.  Both guides spoke of a terrorist attack on a building in their respective city by the communists that led to the beginning of Nazi power and eventually World War II.  When we were in Munich, we were informed that the Commy’s set some old building on fire which led to Hitler being given power to imprison anyone.  When we were in Berlin, we were informed that the Commy’s set some old building on fire which led to Hitler being given power to imprison anyone. We asked Barry what he thought about this and naturally, he said the guy in Munich was lying.  I guess I could Wikipedia it, but I’m lazy.  So if anyone figures out which story is correct, let me know.

After our walking around, we did what we are famous for on this trip.  We ate dinner at the hostel, started drinking, and never left.  We started with the most amazing cheeseburger I think I’ve ever had.  It had 100 things on it that I can’t remember: avocado, fried egg, beets, god knows what else.  We ended up playing a combo game of quarters and “I have never” and drank way too much Jaeger and that was that. 

Munich: The Third Reich and Dachau

Originally, I was going to only write one post about our 2.5 days in Munich, but since yesterday’s was 100% about booze, I decided I would separate the drunk part of our trip from the sober part because Munich does have a lot to offer besides beer.

Though, the first thing you should do is go to the Hofbrauhaus when you get to Munich.

The SECOND thing you should do is go see the city.

I’m a big fan of walking tours – especially cheap/free ones.  Today we had planned to go on two.  The first of which was a Third Reich Tour around downtown Munich and the other was a tour to Dachau which is a town about 30 minutes outside of Munich and is home to the first Nazi Concentration Camp.

The Third Reich Tour was amazing. We met up with our guide who was from the states and who walked us all around Munich telling us the story of Hilter’s rise to power starting at the beginning. We learned all about the Nazi Party, Hitler’s first political speech at the Hofbrauhaus, the Nazi headquarters building, the struggle between the Nazi’s and the Communists for power in Germany and the similarities between the rise of the Nazi party and current events.

Turns out, when Hitler declared “war” against the communists, he did so by blaming a terrorist attack on them and getting the people to believe that communists were all terrorists. In doing this, he instated a law that any person could be arrested if they were believed to be a potential terrorist and for no other reason.  These terrorist prisoners were all sent to Dachau, which was setup as a holding ground for political terrorists, but turned into the first concentration camp.  Some of this just sounds way to similar to some things going on in the world right now.

In addition to all the history, we learned about how the Nazi party and it’s reputation has impacted present day Germany.  It is still illegal to do the “Hail Hitler” salute and if you are caught doing it (for any reason, no matter who you are and how much you’ve had to drink) you will go to jail, and your fine is 1 month’s salary of whatever you make. Cuh-razy!

Dachau was amazing as well.  There’s not really a lot I can say about concentration camps other than, you need to go to one. Walking around this place, the bunkers, the maintenance halls, the torture rooms, gas chambers and extensive open yard space really made you feel a bit eerie. Each room brought more stories of prisoners being forced to stand for hours in one spot, being tortured and beaten by guards and living on the smallest of small rations.  And the most shocking part of the whole thing for me, was that Dachau was actually used as a “model” concentration camp and was the one that was always filmed and photographed to send propaganda that the camps were really not that bad.  We saw radiators in each torture chamber and when journalists came to see the camp, these were always turned on and happy plump looking prisoners put into the cells they contained.  And although I had heard stories of gas chambers and mass executions hundreds of times in school, seeing them for my own eyes was just.  Unbelievable.

It was absolutely incredible.

Trying to Keep Up With You...

These blog entries are all starting to sound the same.

Today I got drunk in Dublin. Today I got drunk in Galway. Today I got drunk in Munich.

Damn you Brian, Emily and Diana for ruining my liver and my life for the past 2 weeks. (As a side note and for proof that I’m not doing this alone and that it is as bad as it sounds, read Diana’s post from her Liver’s perspective).

Anyway. We got drunk in Munich. Surprise.

After arriving, we drew a map of town and where we were going to walk to.  What we should have made the last stop but made the first was to go to the Hoffbrauhaus and have a beer. HA. A beer. Ya right, because we’re so good at having just UN beer and than leaving. Naturally, we got there at about 2 and stayed all night. We ended up eating dinner there (an entire pig’s leg, but we didn’t know what it was when it came to our table). We took our picture with men in Lederhosen and watched a different old man snort tobacco.  We had a conversation with a waiter who spent 30 minutes trying to tell us where he was from (including a map drawn on a napkin) and when we finally figured out it was Iraq, he responded, "no! no! it's not Iraq, it's blahsdflkjsiweldk which is NOW PART of Iraq. We are so happy your people are there to bring peace blah blah blah." So... you're from Iraq. Then we walked home arm in arm singing REM’s Losing My Religion and I’m not sure how we didn’t get arrested.

So then, rather than calling it a night at 9 PM or whatever time we got home. Brian and I decide to drink more at the hostel and when about 5 kids got stuck in the hostel elevator for an hour (which has a clear glass door) we decided it would be fun to take our beers out and drink in front of them and talk to them. I also vaguely remember a joke being made about Germany and gas chambers but even though the voice sounded like a girl, I’m sure it was Brian who said it.

To make the night even better, once we DO go to sleep, Brian is snoring like a jackhammer (which the rest of us are completely used to at this point) but apparently the 3 Asian girls sleeping in our room were not and they made a complaint to the hostel staff.  So I am awoken (awakened, woked up) by a very large overly German German man with long blonde hair and a Bruno accent, screaming at Brian telling him off in German.  After about 5 minutes of negotiation in terribly broken English (and Asians speaking German to Fabio) the man gives the girls ear plugs and finally leaves.

HAHA. God it was funny.

But seriously. Why stay in a coed mixed dorm hostel for €12/night if you don’t expect to be kept up all night by snoring men and drunks. Who stays in hostels and doesn’t bring their own earplugs?

Pretzel anyone?

Leaving my Dignity in Ireland

Rough freaking day.

This was not the day to be productive or even alive on only two hours of sleep.  My “to-do” list was about a mile long and I had absolutely no desire to tick off even one of them. I had to basically pack up my entire life for the past couple of months, ship some of it to Spain, some of it back to the states and the rest of it packed up in a bag to take with me for the next week and a half of traveling. Oh and I had to do laundry. And I had to clean. And I had to get us all on a bus by 4 PM.

HA.

Ya right.

Of course we missed our bus. But I blame it on Brian and Emily because they were sleeping and not motivating me to get shiz done. In addition, this was the windiest day of my life. I literally got knocked over at one point and I couldn’t hear myself think – not fun.

Fortunately, the guy at the bus station wasn’t too upset by us missing our pre-paid bus and let us on downtown instead of at the GMIT campus which was where I bought the tickets from. The bus ride was basically just an extension of our incredible day before and was 100% spent gossiping about the day/night before and how we were going to make sure we continued to live it for the next 10 days.

We arrived in Cork still in bad form, so we had a couple of beers and passed out, ready to catch our 5 AM (or some other ungodly hour) flight to Munich. 

Peace out Ireland. See you on the flipside.

Slan.

To Drink or Not to Drink: St. Paddy's Day 2010

 

I’ve heard plenty of mixed reviews about spending St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland.  Though it is a national holiday where most Irish are given the day off from work and school, I’ve still heard that it is more of an American holiday than an Irish one.  This was certainly confirmed when I arrived in Galway and spoke of the friends who were coming to visit me for the special day.  Mr G rolled his eyes and said he, himself, had never been to any of the St. Patrick’s Day festivities.  Hmm… Well.

I narrowed out staying the day in Dublin after I had heard that Dublin is just a collection of Aussies and American’s in town for the holiday.  I didn’t really fancy the idea of spending this day with anyone other than Irish people.  So I spent the couple of months I was in Galway making plans and scoping out details of what was going on in hopes that I could give my American visitors a good time.  Like happens with most of my plans, once we started drinking, there was no way we were following anything I had put together previously.

Originally, we were headed to the parade that was heading up Quay Street and Shop Street in Galway.  Originally, we were going to head from there, straight to the bars and the plan was to be sufficiently pissed by 3 PM.  From there, we would pop around from pub to pub in our Irish regalia causing a general ruckus.  Ya. No. None of that happened.

We woke up at noon; the parade was at 12:30.  Scratch that idea.  Rather than head into the pub immediately, we decided we would walk up to the corner store and buy some pre-game drinks and lunch.  We then sat down at the kitchen table with Mr. G and drank mimosas, Guinness and cider while chatting about God knows what.  After a couple hours, Mr. G disappeared and we decided we should make our faces seen since there was no point in spending the whole day drinking with ourselves.

The only part of my plan that did actually occur was going to see my friend Matt at the Salt House.  I had promised him that I would bring in my lot with our feather boas and dirty up his bar as much as possible.  After putting on his fake Irish beard hat, there wasn’t much left to do here though, so we headed in town for our pub crawl.

I won’t pretend to remember what happened at this point.  All I know is that we went into Sonny’s for ONE pint before heading to the next bar, but we never left.  In true drunken bullet point style, I will now recount the pieces of the night that I do remember:

• Tequila shots (at least 4 or 5)
• Running into a friend from Inishmore
• Making some new friends (where have you been the whole time I’ve been in Galway?!)
• One of new friends stealing Brian’s St. Paddy’s Day Hat and him replying “That man has my hat. Go get my hat.”

That’s it. Almost 10 hours of my life and that is most of what I remember. The rest I can’t disclose because I don’t want to embarrass Emily. But let’s just say that when the two of us arrived home on our own VERY early in the morning and found we were locked out of my house, we had PLENTY to talk about as we sat down the street for breakfast.

For those of you haters who say that St. Paddy’s Day is not fun in Ireland – I beg to differ. The only way you can NOT have a good time is if you suck because it’s difficult to make any holiday dedicated to drinking not be fun. 

And that’s my two cents.

A Long Day of Rest Before St. Patrick's Day

Even though we went home early, we were dead this morning. Absolutely dead. To avoid paying €25/day to park near the hostel, we had driven the car down near the hospital and parked in a neighborhood, about a 30 minute walk away from our hostel.  Brian and I walked this morning to get the car to come back and pick up Diana with all the bags.  Problem is, traffic was terrible. And on top of that, what I remember to be a 30 minute walk, was actually a little over an hour. So when we left our hostel at 8 to be back by 9:30 and at the airport by 10 to pick Emily up, we were WAY off. Fortunately, I got a message from Em saying that her plane was delayed and that she wouldn’t be in until closer to noon.  Since we actually left the hostel at 8:30, didn’t get to the car until 9:45 and then took an entire hour plus to get back to pick up the luggage (not leaving the hostel until 11:15) it was a damn good thing.

Regardless, we walked into the airport RIGHT when Emily was coming out of the gate and she was none the wiser (until I told her – which I should have lied and said we were waiting for hours).

Back in the car. We’re off to Galway.

The drive was fun and uneventful.  The middle of Ireland isn’t exactly the most amazingly beautiful, and in addition we were on a four lane motorway (which I hadn’t seen until then) so there wasn’t much to see.  We pulled off the main road for about an hour to grab some food in Raheen at the Mill and so Emmy could have her first Guinness in Ireland.  We also tried to do some castle chasing, but by the time we got to the castles, Diana and Emily were both asleep. Sad day.

We rolled into Salthill about 5 PM and got ready to go out before taking the car back to the rental hut when it was due at 6 PM.  When I tell you that the doors to the Budget office were locked and I literally had to knock the door to get the guys attention so I could give him the keys and NOT incur another day’s worth of charges – WHEW!

From here, we walked down to the Spanish Arch to grab a pre-diner pint and say hello to my good friend Aidan.  We had dinner at the Front Door and then went pub hopping in hope of finding some good trad session music.  We went to Neachtains, Massimos, Taaffes and finally ended up at Kelly’s for lack of other options.  Naturally, when we left Kelly’s around 3:30, we headed to get late night Cheese and Bacon Fries and home to rest up for the amazingly GIGANTIC St. Patrick’s Day festival we have planned for tomorrow. 

WOO ST. PATRICK’S DAY!!!!!!

What happened to that bottle of Jameson?

After the disaster that was yesterday, I felt I should be classy and take it easy today. So we didn’t start drinking until about 2.

After all, today was a day dedicated to drinking. We had prepaid for a tour of the Old Jameson Distillery as well as the Guinness Storehouse. After a hungover meal at McDonalds (and getting hit on by the embarrassingly attractive Scandanavian McDonalds counter boy) we stumbled our way to the Jameson Distillery for our Whiskey tour! Now, I had actually been on this tour already, but only part of it, and only on accident. When I came here by myself a long time ago, I wandered into the Jameson distillery and started following this group of people not knowing that they were there on a paid tour. Next thing I know, I’m being selected as a whiskey taster and being offered drink after drink by the bartender at the lobby bar. I honestly didn’t know that I had been on a tour I should have paid for, but this time, after about 10 minutes and realizing I’d already done this before, I felt a bit bad.

Regardless, the tour was amazing, even for a second time, and I paid a lot more attention this time. Diana was chosen to be one of the whiskey tasters so at the end of the tour, she got to do a blind taste test of Jameson, Johnny Walker and Jack Daniels. I don’t think she was too fond of the whiskeys, so she let Brian on the Trout finish them off and I think he was quite grateful. We met some really nice people from Canada and sat and chatted with them for a good hour sipping our free whiskey drinks (I picked Jameson and Cranberry juice. YUM!) before departing and making the walk to Guinness.

I knew this would be the highlight of Brian’s day, but I wasn’t sure he knew what to expect. I can’t speak for the kid, but I do think he had a good time, and judging by the amount of money he spent in the gift shop afterwards (including buying a Guinness tin whistle. Legend.) I think he was satisfied. We had our free pint of Guinness up at the bar on the very top floor which has amazing views of the city (and where Diana and I found quite a few nice things to look at inside as well). From here, we did even more walking, down to the Dublin Castle, to the old Viking Memorial which I still can’t figure out what it’s for, to Christchurch Cathedral and to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and park (my favorite in the city!) before heading to a Spar and back to the hostel to make some grub and get some work done.

One amazing thing about traveling with another travel blogger is that they understand (truly understand) when you have to sit down and write something. For me, it was putting the final touches on an article for Boots N All on the Irish language for St. Patrick’s Day. However, as expected, while I sat and wrote, Diana and Brian on the Trout drank an entire bottle of Jameson between the two of them and were, for lack of a better word, absolutely tanked.

I got jealous and needed to join, so we headed back to Temple Bar for some more Irish McLovin. We headed to a bar called Fitzsimmon's on the opposite end of Temple Bar which had a good live band going when we got there and we felt it a good place to sit for a bit. Only. Yet again. We never left. Diana (bless her) got us some friends by asking some random solo (gorgeous) boy at the bar if he would come sit with us because he looked lonely. He did (duh) and then his friends showed up (awesome) and they were amazing company. A French guy, a Spanish guy and a Hungarian girl – perfect. We had such an amazing time and the succession of musical acts playing were really great. I had a run-in with a drive by snogger on the dance floor and after about 5 or 6 tequila shots with Romaine for his birthday, we decided to head home around 3 or 4. Naturally, on the way, we made more friends. A bunch of Irish boys walking down the street heading back to a house party. Brian was riding the trout by this point (aka he had forgotten his own name he was so wasted) and I was thinking of poor Emily who we had to pick up at the airport the next day, so we politely declined and headed back to the hostel – but not before starting a fight in the street (some drunk man came up and started grabbing me and Knight Brian and my new troop of Irish man friends had their way with him – good job boys!).

This is going to be a long week.

How to go to Dublin and never leave the pub.

I’m starting to get super excited at this point. I have acquired Brian. And now we were on our way to Dublin to pick up Diana of D Travels Round. In two days, we’d be picking up one of my besties from college, Emily and we would be spending the week driving around Ireland partying our little heads off.

We left Belfast early because we needed to be in Dublin before noon to pick up Diana from the airport. Now, this was my first tweet-up, and I maybe didn’t tell Brian that I hadn’t ever, exactly, SEEN, Diana, before this day. So when I had to awkwardly admit at the airport, that I wasn’t 100% sure what she looked like, but that I had facebook stalked her before we left Belfast, so I should have a pretty good idea, I was expecting Brian to turn and run for the hills. But in perfect B Lee fashion, he shrugged his shoulders and said “I looked at her pics on facey too, I’ll help you find her.” Love this kid.

I think excitement is an understatement. When I saw Diana, it was like seeing a long-lost friend. I was dumb founded by how quickly we got along. It’s amazing what twitter can do. This is what the internet is all about. Embrace it. Oh and follow Diana if you’re not already @dtravelsround. Eh and while you’re at it, follow Brian too, because he’s funny (no pressure B Lee) and has great #songoftheday’s @brianonthebass. Plus, if you know his twitter name, later, when Emily and I start calling him Brian on the Bass, then Brian on the Trout, then Brian Rides a Trout, you’ll understand why.

Anyway. Dublin.

Mr G. has spent a lot of time convincing me that the only reason I am so obsessed with Dublin is that it was my first city in Ireland and rather than being obsessed with the city, I’m just obsessed with the country. He was wrong (Sorry, sir). I effing LOVE this city. We pulled in and wandered around looking for our hostel, which turned out to be right on the banks of the Liffey about a 3 step walk to the Temple Bar area. It was super cheap, really nice and just in the most perfect location. I was sad after not being able to book my favorite hostel, the Kinlay house, but I instantly felt relived that the Abbey Court Hostel was a good choice.

It was too early to check into the hostel so we decided to grab a bite to eat next door. We dropped our bags and Brian and I tipped our hats to Diana as she consumed her first (and I think, possibly, last) Guinness in Ireland and as she downed the Jameson shot like a champ with Brian on the Bass. We ate a bit, drank more, and then walked back next door to check into the hostel around 3 PM.

Time for a walk. Let’s go explore this amazing city.

My initial idea was to walk my little Irish virgins around the parts of Dublin we wouldn’t naturally cross when doing our beer/whiskey tour on Monday, so we walked up to the Spire, and then down towards the Temple Bar area. I suggested we have a beer at a pub in Temple Bar before we walk down to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We stopped at the Auld Dubliner, so named because when you come here, you will not leave… ever… and eventually you will become and Auld Dubliner – or at least that’s what I think.

We arrived at the Auld Dubliner at about 3:30 PM. After about 3 hours, we just gave in that we weren’t going to leave and the following is what I recall happening next (the order, may or may not be chronological):

• Welsh boys in Dub for the rugby match buying us beer
• Showing every human who would listen how to stick a coin to the Budweiser beer tap
• Irish boys buying us beer
• Brian hitting on some German girl and her mom
• Walking up to a table of strangers and asking them if I could sit with them
• Diana finding a pilot boyfriend from Ohio (I think?)
• Waking up in the shower, fully clothed, soaking wet
• Mullets. Lots of mullets
• Singing very loudly in the streets

Anyway, word on the street is that I was in bed before 10 PM. Sounds like a productive day.