Berlin & Prague, Czech Rep.

Only the third week into the program and we our already leaving for our first field study trip to Berlin and Prague. It was setup so that we leave Monday, for berlin until Thursday then the rest of the time in Prague.  So Monday morning rolls around and I had to be up around 5am and get down to the Hauptbahnhof in freiburg to catch the train that leaves at 6:30am. We all make it, except one kid actually did miss, I was terrified to miss. He had to pay his own way and figure out how to meet us in Berlin on his own. The train ride was about 6 hours long, nothing special at all, the scenery going north in Germany is just like looking out of the window in Lancaster. We finally get to Berlin and we are split into two groups. Im not sure if I like the split or not, because for the rest of the week the other groups stays in different hotels, goes to different events and you don’t see them at all. But it turned out well, got to bond with some other kids. So now there are about 20 of us in my group and we get of the train and walk to our hostel, which had a pretty good location. It was nothing like what you would stereotype a hostel as. Sure it had a few less connivances, but it was basically just a hotel for college kids. My room had a shower, sink, and a bathroom right outside of the door. I was sharing it was three others, Reijer, Matt from Long Island and Jack from Oregon.

We get all checked in our rooms then had time to go out and get lunch. The four of us from my room go back down around the train station where we had seen a lot of restaurants. We ended up going to Brot shop, which would be equivalent of a cheesesteak shop in philly. Had a good Brot, bread roll and pommes frites which are French fries. Then we had to meet back up at the hostel, because we were all going out as a whole for a guided tour through Berlin. Our tour guide was a guy from Minnesota, he said he went to study abroad in berlin and then never ended up leaving, but he was good though and really knew he stuff. We started out at the Reichstag and the minute we started it started to pour! I mean I had an umbrella and it didn’t even matter. It stopped raining hard, but was only a precursor to what would be rain every day except for one in berlin. So the tour was good and we got to see all the big sites, Reichstag, Bundestag, Brandenburg gate, communist East German stuff, Holocaust monument and bullet holes in building from WWII. After the tour we had the rest of the night free and we went out on the town. It was me, reijer, jack, linds, kelly and kaela, who go to San Diego U, and this is who I hung out with for the rest of the trip. We took the subway a few stops downtown after a local said to go there and we found a restaurant and sat outside. Before this I hadn’t been around jack, kaela or kelly much, but we all had a great time, laughs all night. The food at that place was unbelievable, I had a bit of everyones and it was all good. Then we got some ice cream which is always abundant in Europe. We got back to the hostel and downstairs is a lounge and then a bar restaurant thing on the other side. So we decided to grab a beer and talked with some kids from Ireland and Scotland.

The next day we got a free breakfast at the hostel which was a good little buffet and then we were out to go to our first meeting which is why we go on these trips. So we get our suits on, however I forgot my dress shirt, but jack hooked it up with a button up and sweater vest under my suit top, looked fine….and I didn’t have to buy a new shirt.  Of course it was raining again and we walked down to meet with a representative of the Green Party from the Bundestag. The more I learn about the EU the more I am skeptical about it. It certainly works well in some ways but has huge flaws as well.  But I digress. The we grabbed lunch and we had to go the Stasi museum for a german class project. The Stasi were secret police in East Germany during the communist rule that made it their job to know everything about everyone of their citizens. Great history, but I hate to say it the museum was extremely boring. After this was more free time and which the same group we went to the Potsdamer Platz which is like Berlin’s time square. Where we went to eat was in this enclosed circle pavilion thing, it where all the huge movie premiers are and parties. We just got some Kaffee und Eis because it was to expensive. But overall Berlin is nothing like what I would have imagined. It has like 5million residents and I heard it was the NYC of germany, but it wasn’t at all. Very spread out, not many high rises and it seemed Philadelphia is bigger. I know a lot of that is due to it getting destroyed in the war though.  The history is the best part though, it was crazy to see the buildings that you see on the history channel, stood where Hitlers bunker was, the berlin wall and all that.  We had one more meeting late that night with some germans who lived in East Berlin during the cold war. It was interesting and then a singer/songwriter who was jailed for his songs of protest preformed for us which was awesome.

After this I had quite an interesting night. It was already after 10 so me and reijer met some of our buddies from the other group and went to a local bar for a quick beer. Then we headed down into center city. Our friend Chris, from California, is one of those kids who talks to everyone. So we met these two girls from Hamburg and Chris invited the with us, they were cool though. Then we met up with about 10 other kids from our program and hit a better bar. Nobody ever stays together long and we end up splitting up. So its me, reijer, the two Chris’s and the two german girls. The tram lines had stopped running at this point, so we got a cab and went to this club that was pretty far. Not my thing at all the go to discos, but hey probably won’t be in berlin again. So it was a good club, 90% dudes and id thought it would be all wild but the germans dance similar to a middle school dance. Haha. Met some guys from Belgium who thought I was Australian..never got that one before, but at least everyone dosent think im American. Me and Reijer decide to leave, well we were waiting for the trams to start running again at 4am. We were real lost but actually ended up running into more Belgian kids who were actually stay in our same hostel. They spoke Dutch so Riejer could talk to them, they talked the whole way back annnnnd I didn’t understand a thing. Overall an interesting night.

The next day after a few hours of sleep we went down to the Holocaust museum, which was under the monument. It was crazy, then sat out on the monument and talked for a while. Then im not sure what everyone was up to so Reijer and I just walked all over the city because it was the only beautiful day while in Berlin. We had to walk for like 4miles, then we took the subway to Templehof, wasn’t sure what was there but I thought I heard my Dad tell me to check it out. We stumbled upon the old airport there, which was now just used at the city’s beach, it was really nice. Everyone was out flying huge kites, and we laid out by the runway and watched everyone. That night on our way out to grab something to eat we passed the theater down the street and the was a huge red carpet event. It was awesome, just like Hollywood. Tons of people crowded around, the stars showing up, doing interviews with the media. I got a lot of good pictures, so don’t forget to head to my facebook to see them. Anyway got some Turkish pizza, which was awesome and then went back to the hostel. The hostel bar has a huge projector and we watched the Bayern Munich game, lot of people down there and more of our friends joined us..and that was Berlin!

To Prague-

The next day we were up early again, got breakfast quickly, checked out of Berlin and caught the train to Prague, Czech Republic! Train ride was nothing to special yet again until we got into the Czech Republic, I fell asleep a few times listening to my music. It took about 5 hours and then we got into the station in Prague and we had to link a few trains. Traveling in Prague was real stressful the whole time, theres different levels underground, sooo many people and I speak like 3 words of Czech. We get to our hotel outside of town a bit and check in, I was only rooming with Reijer this time. We got briefed to watch everything you own and be super careful, like put your wallets in your front pockets and stuff. Worst city in the world for pick pocketing, they said that had students before that as they were watching somebody cut through their purse with a knife and reached in and stole everything. All while she was wearing the purse! It was defiantly

a little sketchy, everyone had that feel for our stay there. Anyway we had some time to get lunch again quick so me and a few guys went over to this mall which was really nice. We needed to get money out since they don’t use the Euro, they still use Kronos. The currency is worth nothing so I got out a 1000 dollar bill! Haha which is only worth like 50 bucks but still it was cool to roll which thousands. We just got some pizza and pasta for lunch mine was like 130.00 kr for a slice! Ha. Then we headed downtown to meet our tour guide, which is what we will do for each city. Its nice cause then you get an idea of where everything is before you go out by yourself. This tour guide wasn’t as good, and I couldn’t ever hear him or understand him. But it didn’t matter because the city was so incredibly beautiful and massive! Really hard to navigate as well.

Then had free time again so we went out to dinner, food was decent and the service was pretty bad..but overall it was good. Its tuff to figure out if things are cheap or not because the currency difference, the meals are all about 150 to 250 which is only like 7-15Euros. Then we went back to the main strip and went down into this bar had some drinks and watched prague’s soccer team play. Then had the task of figuring out how to get back. Just went to sleep that night because everyone was beat. 

The next day we had our meetings, the first was with the Chief international Editor of Prague’s Business Journal. Then we went across town to the other meeting, which was with the Director and Research Associate of the Institute of European policy. The meetings are good in general, some are a bit dull but for the most part interesting. Then after that I had my academic meeting with IES staff, which everyone has to do at some point on the trip. So it was like 8 of us and they take us for Kaffee und Kuchen and they pay, soo all good. We basically just talked about how we are, how we like everything and how the meetings are. Pretty laid back. I love these trips, I hope they are all like this. It’s basically just a week vacation away from class, and we have 2 and a half more weeks of travel left to do. We have to just go to a few meetings for a couple hours then we can go and do whatever we want in the cities. Anyway after the meeting me and a few kids went up the castle, which we didn’t get to see on the tour. It was so nice, it’s the biggest castle in central Europe and overlooks the whole city. After that we walked down from the castle went to the waterfront and then to the gardens. The gardens were so beautiful and they had peacocks roaming loose all over the place. So after some more sightseeing we went back to the hotel and met back up with that core group, I mentioned earlier that I hang with. We went to this once really nice Czech restaurant. I wanted to get a traditional meal, which I did, and it was sooooo good. Super cheap for what had to be 2 pounds of food easy. Three different types of meat, ham, a roast beef slab, sausage, then potato pancakes and dumplings and bread with sauerkraut.   Then we debated on going out, but didn’t want to get stranded downtown after the trams stopped, because we were told not to use taxis in Prague cause they rip you off. So we hung around the hotel and talked, a nice evening for sure.

Then for our last day we had to check out of rooms at 10am, so we checked our bags into storage had the hotels breakfast, which was so good and then had the whole day free. So again with the same group of kids, we hiked up the mountain overlooking the whole city to Prague’s mini Eiffel tower. We got to the top of the mountain and there was like a whole little festival going on. Kind of reminded me a bit of like the renaissance fair, because of the meat stands and old time bands playing. There were also really nice gardens, so we strolled around them and headed up the Tower. The view was certainly breath taking and you got see how big Prague actually was. Other then that we just went exploring around town more because there was just so much to see. Then we had to meet back at the hotel at 5:30 to take our overnight train home. We get our luggage, take the subways to the main station and as soon as we walk in it says its leaving in 4mins, so were all running down the halls of the station with all our luggage and everybody piles in. We had individual cabins with had six fold out beds, so we went around to different cabins for a while talked with friends then we went to sleep. It was a 12hour train ride cause we had to go back through berlin for some reason. I actually slept ookay, but not great, kinda woke up with half a cold. Then we got back at 7am this morning, got back to my apartment and fell asleep until about 11. Now im writing this, uploading photos and just praying I don’t get a cold. Tomorrow I start my for real classes so we’ll see how that goes, but for the rest of the day im laying in bed and calling and skyping home to friends and family!

Hope everyone is well, and I miss you all!

Josh’