Cold, wet and windy pretty much sums it up!

After the great weather at Oktoberfest, we were about due for some October gloom. Upon our late arrival in Berlin, we worked our way to the hostel we had booked... which was a 30-45 trip from the city center. It was quite an interesting experience trying to find it on the first night as it was back in a forest about 300 meters. We were a little nervous and felt like we were on the Blair Witch project, but once we found it, we actually liked the location! It turns out the President of Germany lived just outside the forest, so we knew it must be a nice part of town! After a nice, long night of much-needed sleep, we decided to make a trip up to Sachsenhausen Concentration camp, which was only a little ways outside the city. This was our first trip to a concentration camp and, we have to admit, it was a bit eery. It was a rather quiet day, so there was almost no one else in the camp. To see and read about what went on there (and, of course, your imagination takes off) was really eye-opening. It's one of those things that you hear about, but the graphic photos and descriptions brought it to a whole new level. Most of the barracks where everyone stayed were no longer there, but the emptiness almost made it more intimidating. To tour an actual location where such horrific acts took place was definitely a unique experience. One of the most heart-wrenching parts about the entire camp was the message that prisoners saw as they passed through the gate of the camp, Arbeit Macht Frei (work will set you free). The fact of the matter is that approx 100,000 Jews, homosexuals, communists, gypsies and intellectuals were methodically exterminated here. Not many made it out alive. This was definitely an unbelievable experience. It got us thinking a lot about how the world works and how different things were at that time. We were so interested in this that we ended up visiting the Jewish History Museum in Berlin the following day. The holocaust era was of particular interest to us, and it was also an eye-opening experience to see some of the photos and read some of the stories posted there. As soon as we finished at the Jewish Museum, we wandered downtown to find the longest stretch of the Berlin Wall that is still standing (which is about 1km long). Along our way, we came across a temporary exhibition called 'The Topography of Terror'. It was a lone fence line covered with information on the corruption of the Gestapo and information on the Holocaust and World War II. It was along side where the old Gestapo Headquarters was before it was torn down. The more we saw and the more we read, we couldn't believe how someone with such radical ideas could come into power. After checking out this exhibition and walking around the construction of the new museum going up in the area, we stumbled upon the strip of the Berlin Wall that we were looking for. We checked it out for a few minutes and then noticed that there were bricks in the streets throughout Berlin, marking where the wall once stood. This was pretty awesome to see, especially because you could not ever tell the difference now between what was Eastern vs Western Germany only 20 years ago. It was just one, big, new city. Definitely a wonderful visit for us to see so much history.

After our learning experiences in Berlin, we were off to visit the everchanging Eastern Europe. Our first stop was Prague in the Czech Republic. We were pretty excited to visit Prague because we had heard about how great it was from fellow travellers... and we were not disappointed. We stayed in a hostel that was located right in the historical center of the town, very close to the St Charles Bridge. Our location could not have been any better! The views of the Prague Castle across the river were impressive, but the views from the castle down into the city were even better. Our second night in town, we met a group of really nice Australians (3 sisters and one of their boyfriends). They told us they were going on a pub crawl that night, so we decided to join in on the action. We had a pretty good time throughout, but the highlight was definitely the last stop... which was a 5 story club in which each floor had a different theme and different music. We couldn't believe how packed it was! It was pretty impressive. After sleeping in the next morning, we went for a nice walk around town, where we visited the John Lennon wall. It was a pretty neat graffiti wall, where everyone goes and puts up Beatles quotes, pictures, peace signs, etc. It sounds like the wall changes from day to day, and it is covered with things to look at. The most interesting thing we learned about the wall was that 20 years ago (when the Czech Republic was still a communist country), the civilians were not allowed to express themselves like this. When someone would go to draw on the wall, a police man was there to arrest them as soon as they were done. The beauty of it now is that it's accepted and it's really a cool thing to see. The rest of our day was pretty mellow, and we hung out with our new Australian friends, had a home-cooked dinner, and played some cards with them. They taught us a fun Australian card game (which is sort of like Uno) and then we played poker - using toothpicks as our chips. Poker, as always, lasted several hours and came down to me and Mike in the end! Let's just say we were tired so we both went all in just to get it over with... and Mike won (but I clearly had more 'chips', so I probably would have won if we had kept on playing). Haha. During our last day in Prague, we went to the Old Town Square and watched the astronomical clock tower turn 11. There was a funny little skeleton that came out dancing (and he emptied an hour glass) and then a guy who played a bugle at the top of the tower... kinda neat. We grabbed a snack in the square (some peasant potatoes and a sausage - awesome!) and then we hit up a local Salvador Dali exhibition that was going on... his artwork is insane! Funny enough, our favorite restaurant in Prague was an Italian type restaurant... and sadly enough, we ate their twice while we were in town. They had the BEST bruschetta and really good pizza too. We did try some local dishes too, including some sausage in a beer broth/sauce (really tasty) and a steak platter that came with a spicy black bean sauce (also great). It was nice to get off the Euro, because everything instantly became sooo much less expensive! Our next stop, Vienna.

Welp, back on the Euro for a few days. In Vienna, we stayed at a hostel that was a little bit off the beaten path, but it was a really big, cool place with a nice common area (AKA bar) to hang out in and mingle. We bunked up with 2 Romanians here, who were quite nice. They were doing a study abroad program in Budapest and were just visiting Vienna for the weekend. It worked out great for us because Budapest was our next stop, so they gave us lots of information and even a map. Before arriving in Vienna, I had randomly thought about seeing a performance while in Europe. I thought to myself... a play would be cool, although we really wouldn't understand anything... and opera would be cool, but it's really not our thing... and then I remembered that I once saw the show STOMP in San Francisco and absolutely loved it. I decided to see when the upcoming shows would be, and what do you know? They were performing in Vienna when we were in town!! STOMP is a really cool show where the performers use different household items to create rhythym and music. They can use anything from a broom, to a garbage can, to a piece of garden hose. What they can do is really pretty impressive. Once I found out they'd be in Vienna, I had to convince Mike to go and see it. It took a little while, but we went and he loved it too! It had been 10 years since I had seen it last and I'd say it's only gotten better since the last time I saw it... highly recommended! Unfortunately, we both started feeling a bit under the weather and so for dinner that night we enjoyed some great mulligatawny soup (a Curry based soup that was AMAZING - another place we went back to for seconds!). The weather was pretty terrible the next day, which allowed us to relax and get some rest as we were sick anyway. On our last day in Vienna, we decided we needed to get some sightseeing done so that we could actually experience some of Vienna, so we made a stop at the Schloss Schonbrunn, a pretty awesome palace built for the Hapsburg's when they ruled. The landscaping was unreal and even climbed up the hill, past a fountain, and up to a large statue. Along one side, there was a pretty cool labyrinth/maze that we had fun walking through. The best part was that there was a platform in the center that you could climb up once you found it, so Mike and I decided to start in opposite directions and we raced to see who could get up to the top first. We ran into each other a few times and laughed as we crossed paths, but then there was about 5 minutes where we didn't run into each other at all. I was thinking 'dang', because I wasn't getting any closer to the platform. I also kept walking by the same groundskeeper who was trimming the bushes; we would both smile and laugh a little and I would go on my way again, completely lost. Eventually, I saw Mike's smiling face walking up the staircase and I realized I had officially lost the race! It was much more fun than we had expected. This was a nice way to wrap up our visit in Vienna, and we were off to see Budapest in Hungary!

Unfortunately, we hit some really bad weather in Budapest. The temp was in the 30s, the winds were running 30-40mph, and it was raining most of the time! We were still a bit under the weather and with it cold and rainy outside we didn't want to do much of anything! That said, we still loved Budapest! So it must be really awesome with good weather. The city was once two entities split by the Danube River - Buda and Pest - Buda being the older, hilly part of the city and Pest being the flat, newer part. We stayed and spent most of our time in Pest, it's where the most is going on. In Buda, however, you have the magnificent Buda Castle, which can be seen from across the Danube River in Pest. We walked up to the Buda Castle and the Matthias Church for amazing views of Pest! We also enjoyed a few hours checking out the Grand Market Hall, which is an open air market, much like the ones we saw in Spain. They had all kinds of souvenirs... Mike considered getting this funky old-school pilots hat (you know, the one that the pilots would wear goggles with, with flaps over your ears). Luckily, he was convinced that he didn't really need it. We shared a yummy Hungarian goulash upstairs in the market and we then headed to find the thermal baths we had heard about. Along our way, we checked out Heroes' Square, which is really neat. It's a big open square, right at the end of the Andrassy Utica (the main shopping street in town), and it's got a large monument called the Millenium Monument, which commemorates the nation's most prominent leaders. And finally, we arrived to the Turkish Thermal Baths! Just what we needed to sooth our sickly bodies! haha. Specifically, we went to the Szechenyi Baths, one of the largest in Europe. There were many indoor baths (which were basically like hot tubs but a lot larger) of varying temperatures, and then there were the outdoor baths (which were like huge pools). With the chilly weather outside, you feel like your toes just might fall off on your way out to the water. The first pool we went into felt awesome! Nice, warm water and there was a whirlpool in the center. After relaxing in that pool for a while, we thought that we'd try the 2 others, thinking that maybe they'd be even warmer. We hopped out of the first pool and put one foot in the next pool... and... it was freezing cold!!!! We quickly ran back to the first pool and got warmed up again before making another attempt at the further pool. We made conversation with a few guys from the East Coast (who started a dating consulting business and now have a radio show - kinda random) and they told us that the farthest pool was the warmest...so we made our way down there (actually we ran), enjoyed the hot water for a bit and then decided to head inside. All in all, it was a pretty cool thing to try, especially after visiting the Roman Baths in Bath, England because this place had sort of the same feel to it. After spending a few hours at the baths, we headed home to shower up and grab dinner. Our Australian friends from Prague had told us of this buffet place they said was great - so we decided that we'd give it a try. It was called Trofea Grill, and their business card logo had an elk's head on it, so Mike was pretty excited to try it out. I know what you're probably thinking, a buffet? That's usually the worst food in any given city... but not in this case. This was an all you can eat, all you can drink buffet for $22. I had wine while Mike enjoyed some beer, and we both loved the food! Don't get me wrong, not everything was good, but they had duck breast with plum sauce, fresh raw meats that you could get cooked to order, good soups, and about 1million desserts. In the end, we even ordered cappucinos to enjoy which were also included in the price. All in all, it was a great deal! That pretty much sums up our mellow stay in Budapest, and now we were ready to spend a week island hopping in Croatia... but we had a long road to get there!

We wanted to start our island hopping in Croatia from Split. This meant we had both a 6 hour train ride from Budapest to Zagreb, Croatia... and then an overnight train to follow. Probably about 14 hours on the train overall... yuck. Toward the end of our stay in Budapest, I started questioning more about where my family was from in Europe. I knew that my Grandpa (dad's dad) was born in Austria-Hungary back when there was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but I wasn't sure exactly where. I started emailing family and doing some research and found that, based on the way land was divided up as the Austro-Hungarian Empire broke up, the town my dad's family was from was actually now in Croatia. A little, tiny town called Hrastovac about 1.5 hours SE of Zagreb, Croatia. I got to thinking and we looked into renting a car so that we could go and visit it. Everything ended up working out perfectly, and this broke up our travels to Split which was great. We followed the directions we had printed out, with only a few struggles, and we definitely saw some interesting things along our drive out into the countryside. For instance, we saw a guy driving his tractor down the road with his PTO running at full blast. We saw brand new homes being built with brick and mortar (amazing to see the difference between this and the homes we are building nowadays in the US). And, we also saw a sedan car driving down the road with about 4 haybails tied to the top of it. Finally, we arrived in the small town of Hrastovac; a town made up of only two streets, intersecting like a T. The most interesting thing for me to see was the memorial that was put up in the cemetery just south of town. They had taken the old gravestones (those of the people who had originally founded the town - including my family), and they had put them all in a chained off area, with a memorial stone to remember where the town has come from. I saw gravestones of both my grandfather's and grandmother's family, which was really a neat experience. We grabbed a few snacks at the market and then we were headed back to Zagreb. We opted for a bus ride to Split at it was much shorter than the overnight train. After about a 4-5 hour ride, we were ready to spend the next few days checking out the coast of Croatia. We spent only one night in Split, and we weren't overly impressed. It was definitely beautiful, but everything was overpriced as it's quite a tourist destination. The coast of Croatia has over 1,000 islands and the easiest way to get in between them is via the ferry line, Jadrolinja (which means the 'water line'). Our first stop - Hvar. Having come at the very end of the tourist season, the island was rather desolate, although very beautiful. We stayed at a nice little pension-type place, where we had a room with a kitchenette. We appreciated this as it gives us the opportunity to take a break from eating out! The first night, we cooked up a yummy stir fry, and the second night a tasty chef salad. We wandered a bit through the village and it's maze-like streets and on our last day, we rented scooters and cruised the island for a good 2 hours, taking in the views of the beautiful surrounding islands and wonderful azure waters! Then, we were off on another ferry to the island of Korcula. Korcula is a quaint, little island with its old town surrounded by water on three sides. It was also the town where Marco Polo was supposedly born. We were only planning to stay one night in Korcula, but we ended up with a great apartment and we really enjoyed the small-town atmosphere, so we decided to stay a second night. We did a little home cooking here too, the first night was spaghetti with meat sauce and the second night was a chicken and mushroom risotto. We were loving the feeling of having a 'home' because we were definitely getting sick of feeling 'homeless'! During the day in Korcula, we enjoyed a nice walk through town and we ended up on top of this awesome stone tower which was converted into a bar. We enjoyed the sunset and the amazing views, and the next morning we were on our way to Dubrovnik on a 6:45am bus ride (the bus rode on the ferry to the mainland). The drive was beautiful, right along the coast.

Arriving in Dubrovnik was something we'd been anticipating for a long time now. We had heard about how beautiful it was so we couldn't wait to check it out. We had coordinated with the owner of the hostel we were staying at and he was planning to pick us up at the bus station when we arrived. He mentioned that he'd be wearing a gray nike cap and that's how we would recognize him. After working our way through the people that hourd the touristy areas asking 'You vant vroom?' (translated to 'you want room?'), we saw a guy in a gray nike cap... so we walked up to him and introduced ourselves and he acted like he was expecting us. I tried to confirm his name was the right one, and I got a smile and nod... which I wasn't so sure about. He had a nice car, so I thought, I don't want to offend this guy by asking him too many times if it's actually him. Once we had ridden in the car for a few minutes, I noticed that his English wasn't as great as the reviews had said it was. I started questioning him even more, but tried to keep my cool in the back seat while Mike was trying to chat with the guy in the front. The longer we were in the car, the more confused I was getting... because I was pretty sure that our hostel was only supposed to be about 5 minutes from the bus station and we had been in the car for about 15 minutes. We pulled up to the hostel, he showed us our room, and I was still pretty confident that it wasn't the place I had looked at online. I asked him again, 'This is the S&L Guesthouse?' and he said 'Yes, this is the...Guesthouse....something, something...Boardinghouse'. And I told Mike that I thought we were at the wrong place. When the guy went upstairs for a second, I ran into the computer room and got online to verify the address of the place we were supposed to staying at. I confirmed that this was not the right place, and Mike went upstairs to get our passports back and to tell the guy that we had reservations for another place. The whole thing was a little eery, but it turned out that he had another Michael H from the US coming to stay at his place that night, so we were both just confused. He politely gave us a ride over to the place we had reservations for, which we really appreciated after the miscommunication. When we told the owner of the hostel we were booked at about the mishap, he told us that this has happened before and he wasn't very happy about it. We were glad to have made it safely to our hostel... and the owner's English was, indeed, very good. Lesson here... trust your instincts!

Ante (the owner of the hostel we stayed at) was like our personal tour guide. He took us all around town, and even walked us through the fortress up on the hill and told us all about the recent history of Dubrovnik and it's war with the Serbians. It was so awesome, especially with the rainy weather. It made everything much more enjoyable. Our absolute favorite thing in Dubrovnik was walking around the walls of the old city. It was another one of those walled cities, with only a few exterior entrances, and the walls stood tall above most of the buildings. Dubrovnik is right along the water at the very south of Croatia, and the water is that awesome bright aqua blue. With all of the weather we had, the waves crashing into the walls and rocks around us was really fun to watch as well. We could see how it would be a little more fun and exciting to visit Dubrovnik (and Croatia) during the summer or early fall, because we got no beach time at all! But, seeing as how beautiful it still was, it must be a wonderful place to be at that time! After our cozy stay at this hostel (and a few more home-cooked meals), we were finally heading back to the grind of Western Europe... and it started off strong on a miserable 6-hour ferry ride to Bari, Italy.

You know that bad weather I've been mentioning? Well, it makes a 6 hour ferry ride turn into a 6 hour mistake pretty quickly! Luckily, we knew to take some dramamine because we both tend to get a little motion sickness from time to time. This definitely helped, and we really didn't feel too terrible, but just watching everyone else making the run for the bathroom was enough to make it an experience we never want to have again. We started off sitting in a corner booth with lots of space. It felt almost like a restaurant or a cruise, and we had other booths near us along the walls of the ship. Most of the people were Italian and there were 3 older couples at the table next to us (we're talking 60s or 70s). I went outside to grab some fresh air after a few large swells, and Mike soon came out to meet me. We recollected for about 5 minutes, and then felt good enough to head back in. While we were out there, we felt a few more large swells and I even made a comment that they may have gotten a few more people sick. When we went back in, sure enough, one of the ladies at the table next to us had puked all over the floor right by their table. We decided it was time to move. We tried to avoid those who were feeling more sick than we were, but there were quite a few people lying on the ground, being tended to by their friends. What were they thinking??? Laying on the ground will only make you feel worse! GO OUTSIDE!!! GET SOME FRESH AIR!!! That's what we wanted to yell at about 75% of the people on the boat. Then, there was 1 person who was not only not sea sick, but she was actually reading a book while sitting backwards. I would have thought that was virtually impossible, but I have to admit, it was quite impressive. Finally, we decided to try leaning on the wall to take a nap, because that was the only way to make this ferry ride go away, and it did. While we still felt like it took far longer than 6 hours, we made it to Bari and we survived the ferry ride from hell. HALLELUJAH!!

More to come soon which will include an adventure locating our hotel room in Bari!

Love, Mike and Kristin