Germany

Cousin Jeff arrived in Prague on Thursday morning. It was a beautiful day in Prague. It was a little overcast, but overall a good day to see the city. Jeff is currently an MP for the US Army stationed in Germany as a dog-handler and he needed to be back to work early Monday morning (We are talking 4am early), so we had to make the most with the time we had. We began the day with the daily routine…crepes and coffee. It was almost noon by the time we had finished, so we headed into the Malastrana via the Metro so that we could walk across the famous Charles Bridge and then see the rest of the Old Town. Luckily for us, Jeff had already visited Prague four times before, so our tour was a quick one. After saying our goodbyes to Nico, (who was being a very good student and going back to do some work) Jeff and I took off to find some authentic Czech food. We stumbled across a small hut in Old Town that served tradition Czech sausages fresh from a wooden fire. We headed for a local beer hall to enjoy a fresh glass of Czech pivo (beer). After getting caught up we headed back to the apartment to meet back up with Nico to go to dinner. We went to dinner at a small restaurant and ate a delicious meal. We dropped Nico off at home because she was tired. Jeff and I walked to a club near the Charles Bridge. We realized this club was for a younger crowd and we felt a little out of place, so we got a cab promptly. We told the cabbie who didn’t speak any English “Club appropriate for over 21”. He nodded showing us he understood and proceeded to take us to Vyserhrad (for those of you that don’t live here, that is quite far from the center and not necessarily somewhere you would go to a club for). We went into the “club” he took us to. We both got a sketchy vibe when we sat down and realized there was no one in there other than a few women. A woman came up to us quickly after we looked a little worried and she said “4000 czk for drink, striptease, and sex”… Jeff and I were stunned to say the least…Whawhawha? “NO!” we said and stood up to leave. “Ok… 2800 czk?” We couldn’ believe he was trying to bargain. “NO!” we repeated and left. What was the cabbie thinking bringing us here… we were not looking for this by any means and he knew it. That is why he was still outside when we came out 3 minutes later. We were so frustrated at this point that we told him to take us to the metro station near our house. When we arrived he charged us 150 czk. We only had a 20-euro bill, which is equivalent to 600 czk. He said he would only give us back 150 czk. We declined and he went over to talk to another cabbie. Another person came up behind him in a car and he was on a one-way road. He had to keep going and Jeff and I were not going to run after him since he had taken us to the wrong place in the first place. So we ran home, hoping he wasn’t going to come looking for us. Lets just say this night was very interesting and leave it at that.

The Next day we decided to start on a new adventure away from Prague. We heard that Germany was beautiful and we decided to head towards Munich. The drive through the Prague countryside was beautiful, but when we hit the German Autobahn…it was hard to see out the window because of how fast Jeff was driving. Lets just say we made great time after entering Germany. One of the important stops on this trip was to visit the first Nazi concentration camps of Dachau. I cannot express what it is like to walk through such a place where so many people have died. I had never really experienced anything like it before in my life. It is a very reflective place and the pictures almost certainly do not express its significance. It was also strange that the whole area around Dachau was developed.

That night we ate in Munich and had some traditional German cuisine. We could not find a hotel cheap enough, so we ended up driving the two hours North to Bamberg. One of Jeff’s co-worker’s lives off base and so it was possible to crash at his place. The next day we found out that the next stop on our journey, The Eagle’s Nest (aka Hitler’s Chateau at the base of the Alps) was closed for the season and would not be open until next April. So the next stop on our list was the Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle that Walt Disney based his Disney Castle design off of. We drove south of Munich and headed straight into the Alps. The pictures are very representative of the beauty. We climbed above the bridge that everyone normally takes their pictures from just to be a little adventurous. After all, we were with Cousin Jeff. We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside, which was heavily decorated with gold and jewels. I got to snap a few shots out the windows to see their views. The ones with the mountains and the lake are the pictures I am talking about. After the tour, we went into the little town next to the Castles and ate another very authentic German restaurant. The potato fries in Germany are amazing!

We chilled in Bamberg on Sunday and had a glorious Thanksgiving Dinner and saw the Bamberg Base. We got our train tickets and bus tickets ready for the next day because all the busses were full on Sunday. We said our goodbyes to Jeff at 4:15am on Monday morning and hung out at the house until we had to leave around 2:00pm. We had all our stuff ready to go and we go to open the door. Push down on the handle and no click. Push down and again and no click. Pulling furiously at the door while pushing on the handle and nothing. We were locked in! We miss our bus that we were supposed to have caught and immediately call Jeff. Luckily, another co-worker had taken the day off from work and he was also given a spare set of keys. He offered to drive us to the Bahnhof (train station) so that we would catch our train to Munich and then our bus from Munich to Prague. All in all it was a great trip. We will certainly try to go back to Germany before we leave Europe.

Thanks for Reading! Stay Classy Ya’ll!

-Jack