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             My Journey through most of Eastern and Central Europe came to an end at about 1:15 EDT yesterday as flight KLM8164 landed on the sweltering tarmac of Hartsfleid-Jackson International Airport.  After a 2-hour flight from Paris, a brutal 12-hour layover in Amsterdam, and a 10-hour flight to Atlanta both Jonathan and I arrived safely.  My backpack full of dirt clothing did not though.  I am still waiting on that pack of some of my favorite smelly clothing and there is a great chance it could be quite some time until I see any of them ever again.

            It is nice to be a back on American soil and certainly enjoyed my bed last night, as I was the only person in the room, for the first time in 35 days.  What a great feeling.  Our stay in Paris was solid and consisted of several stops by the Eiffel tower, which never ceases to blow me away with its enormous size and atypical design, a never-ending stroll through the Louvre, and a nice trek down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triumph.  I got a picture of the Mona Lisa.  I was only the 100- millionth person to take its picture, but I still felt special as I heard the click of the shutter.  

            On Sunday there was a music festival throughout the entire city of Paris, so we walked all around the city with Jordan, a friend of ours from Athens who was interning there.  We stumbled upon some interesting bands; the band that rocked out to Britney Spears’ “Hit Me Baby One More Time” I will probably never forget.  The best show was the French speaking Metallica cover band that dominated a square near our hostel.  We ended the night at the Eiffel tower again and watched it turn off its plain white lights and turn on its Sparkling lights, which make the tower look like it was created out of stars from a galaxy far far away. 

            My experience has been amazing and I am incredibly happy that I was able to share it with so many of my friends and family.  I hope that it gave everyone the urge to see the world, because there is a lot to experience and not a whole lot of time.

 

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this trip of a lifetime transpire.

 

-Brendan

Normandy

Over the past 5 weeks Jonathan and I have seen countless memorials for WW2 and have managed to read the quick excerpt engraved next to them, take a quick picture, and moved on to the next site. We were short on time and had to be efficient with our time. Despite a severe lack of sleep and some holes in our directions, we decided to take a day-trip to Normandy. We hopped on a 9:11 train to Caen, a city just to the south of the Beaches at Normandy and the wrong stop for us. Luckily, the correct stop was only 20 minutes from the Caen train station, so we were able to jump onto the next train to Bayeux, the right stop, and catch a bus that took us to Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery.

Before heading to the Cemetery I wanted to walk to the beach and see exactly what it’s terrain was like. The memorial for the beach was incredible and had a trail that led down the steep Cliffside to the beach. After hiking down to the water, we were able to see what faced the American troops as they climbed off their boots on June 6th, 1944, D-Day. After looking at the water, which could not be anymore picturesque, I turned around and looked at the hillside and tried to envision what exactly it would have looked like for the young American soldiers as they were trudging through the water with their 70 lb. packs and rifles. There is no real way to recreate that situation, but being there really gave me a sense of the adversity that the troops faced on their mission for freedom. We were able to walk down the beach and climb up some of the steep rocky coastline, to get a better glimpse of Juno beach, about 10 miles to the east. Cut up legs and muddy shoes were the result, but a phenomenal view that I would take the dirt and blood for any day.

With wet shoes and itchy legs, we headed back to Omaha Beach and found an old bunker that housed the Nazi soldiers, who were positioned there to protect the Atlantic Wall and their lives. The bunkers were very beat up, as they were bombed heavily, but it gave me a sense of what a German Soldier would have been experiencing as he felt the ground tremble with 32,000 American soldiers storming his bunker. Knowing what had probably happened to the people stationed in these bunkers made the experience stunning and unforgettable. The next part of the trip was the American Cemetery.

The first sight of the American Cemetery and memorial is one of extreme beauty, which is usually not the word one would usually use when describing a cemetery. The sparkling white crosses and Stars of David of the fallen soldiers are aligned with extreme precision and are situated right on a field that looks over Omaha Beach and the English Channel. Over 9,800 headstones, that symbolize the lives of the lost that gave up everything they had for their country and the right to freedom. As we walked through the headstones, we noticed the countless unknown soldiers and the soldier’s that died on June 6th and probably died on their first day of combat. A memorial for all of the soldiers and the unknown is situated directly in front of the headstones and overlooks them to give them the respect they all deserve.

Throughout school, we always here the numbers of the dead soldiers, but that number did not really hit me until I was standing their reading the names of the lost and realizing that every individual digit resulted in countless distraught families, fatherless children, and lives completely altered.

I was completely thrilled with the trip to Normandy and I think, although I due have a couple days left, it gave me a good sense of closure on my trip and I feel as though I accomplished the goals I had for the trip.

-Brendan

I Love to Eat

As we were standing at an intersection in Brussels, we hear “Jonathan, Brendan”, from across the road. This was completely unexpected, being that we don’t know anyone from Brussels, so we were a little startled. We gave that look of who in the (insert word) would be calling our names and sure enough across the street is Ethan, one of the guys we met in Barcelona and were on several trains with during a 14-hour day of traveling. Ethan and his friends had arrived the day before and were heading to Amsterdam the next day, so we met up with them later that night and had dinner and a couple of beers. It was really nice to run into them again; we are so used to meeting people and then leaving, usually knowing that we would never see or talk to these people ever again in our lives.

Brussels has several amazing things that are not good for the body. The first being their French fries. We walked out of our way to find this little shop that was well known for its fries. They were exceptional, with the perfect combination of salt, some sweetness, and the perfect crunch that I will not even try to describe in words, because they would not do the crunch justice. After some rest, we headed over to this bizarre statue of a baby boy peeing into water, called the Mannekin Pis. The best part of this statue was its premium location right next to the Belgian Waffle shop. They do not play around with their waffles in Belgium. This waffle I consumed was incredibly simple with just a minimal amount of powdered sugar sprinkled on top; the waffle literally melted in my mouth.

I also consumed some Belgian chocolate, which might be better than the Swiss chocolate. The Swiss are very proud of their chocolate as well as pretty much everything of their own, but they may have lost the battle of the Chocolate as far as I am concerned. Being that my pants don’t fit anymore and my belt broke, I came to the conclusion that I mine as well just keep on eating crazy amounts for the last couple of days. I needed to wash all of these delicious treats down and since Belgian beer is world famous, I had to sample several different types.

I am now sitting in our Paris Hostel, the Young and Happy Hostel, feeling pretty disgusting from the brewed chocolate covered waffle and fries that are still destroying my stomach. After some rest we will attempt to climb up the Eiffel tower, it could be ugly.

Not watching the U.S. Open is killing me and I would love to just be sitting on a couch right now watching Tiger dominate Bethpage and the rest of the field.

-Brendan

The Durty Nelly

After taking a quick right out of our hostel, the Durty Nelly, and another 90 degree turn to the right we found ourselves in the middle of the Red-light District. This is obviously a strange topic, but I am here to tell my stories of our adventure through Europe, so I will write about the things I experienced. We are all aware of what the red lights mean, but the area known for such promiscuity, is not what one would think. Amsterdam is a beautiful city and it does not let one or two of its streets determine its identity.

The first thing we noticed once we got off the train from Berlin was the copious amount of “coffee shops”, which offer not only your favorite concoction of coffee beans and cream, but some other type of all natural substance that the likes of Bob Marley and Cheech were known to enjoy. These shops surrounded our hostel and were pretty much everywhere. After checking into the Durty we rented some bikes and trucked it through the city to Anne Frank’s house, which had transformed into some modern building that did not match the diaries description; the line was long so we decided to not go in. From there we peddled over countless brick arched bridges, past some churches, and headed for the Heineken Brewery.

The Brewery was great and we learned a lot about the history of Heineken; they even let us get a little taste. After dodging more cars, and more bikes (there are more bikes than people who live in Amsterdam and it makes for a peculiar site), we turned our bikes in, and headed back to the hostel for some grub. We met some people from Canada, Australia, Florida, and Sweden, and chilled at the hostel. From there we walked around the streets and saw some things that would most certainly not be viewed on the city streets of Atlanta. This was a learning experience and we were trying to make sure we completely understand the atmosphere of the city.

After crashing at about 12:30, I woke up at 7:30 and decided to sneak out of our 10-bed room and walk around the city. The morning in Amsterdam may be it’s most amazing time; the streets are not filled with obnoxiously high or drunk people, but it was just as any city functions with businessmen walking to catch their trains, store’s opening their doors, people just going on with their everyday lives and pursuing their dreams. I walked as far as I could from the Red light district and walked along the streets near the rivers and discovered some of the cleanest, most picturesque neighborhoods that even Norman Rockwell would be proud to paint. Our free breakfast was served at 9:00, so I reversed and headed back to the hostel, while attempting to soak in the moment before packing, once again, and finding our train for Belgium.

Honestly, I was not really looking forward to going to Amsterdam, for several reason, but in the end it was one of the nicest places we have visited and the stay managed to completely reverse my view of the city as a whole, which is not what is usually depicted in Movies and TV Shows. We are on a train to get Waffles in Belgium; other than that we have know clue what to expect from Brussels. Not knowing what is to come is all part of the fun.

-Brendan

37 hours in Berlin

I just woke-up from a solid nights sleep in the six-person sleeping room of the train that is leisurely transporting us from Berlin to Amsterdam. This would have been fine if the train was actually moving, but it was not and we were briefly stuck at a station called Emmerich, which could be located anywhere in either Germany or the Netherlands. So, before we arrive into the city that is synonymous with excess, but holds a storied past that is much greater than its district of red lights, I decided to give a little recap of our 37 hours in Berlin, which were rather eventful.

We arrived into Berlin on Sunday, checked into our hostel, met some fellow travelers, got our laundry done, and crashed by about 12:30, which provided us with the energy we would need for our crash course of Berlin and it’s hectic past. In order to see as much as possible in the shortest amount of time, we rented bikes for 7.50 Euro and peddled our way north to the Berlin Wall Memorial. The memorial provided us with a lot of quality information about the creation of the wall in 1961 through its eventual destruction in 1989. When I say destruction, I mean it; there is not much left of the wall and the sections that are still up are scattered through out the city. Berlin was vastly different from every city we have visited, in that, most of it’s architecture is very modern, as it’s most beautiful and meaningful pieces of man’s creation had been either torn apart from the cold-war or destroyed through the Air-Raids of WW2.

From the memorial we weaved through the traffic of Berlin and headed for the Brandenderg gate and the park that encompasses its west side. There was some sort of rally by the taxi driver’s of Berlin in the park and as a result there were probably two thousand bright yellow Mercedes taxi’s and one Toyota Prius taxi lining the street that flows directly through the middle of the park. The end of the park landed us near a Dunkin Donuts and I decided that I wanted an Iced Coffee( it had been over a month and it was exceptional), this would be the turning point of the day. I order my savory treat and Jonathan went to order and realized that his wallet was missing. With only week left, one second of either lack of attention to a by-passing stranger or one peddle that dislodged the leather wallet, which holds the keys to our lives; the wallet was no longer in Jonathan’s possession. We peddled to every spot we had been over the past 3 hours and the end result was the cancellation of some credit cards, a call to his mom, and the inevitable wiring of money.

The over two hours of anguish, from 2:08-4:22 was not going to slow us down; we hopped right back on the bikes and continued our explorations. We picked up Jonathan’s money at a train station (This was only possible, due to Mrs. Moore, whom I am sure was not expecting to wake up on her Monday morning and wire money to her son backpacking through Europe.), ate some German food, and peddled to an outdoor memorial called the “Topography of Terror”, which is the former site of the SS and Gestapo Headquarters’ of the third Reich. The site itself was not much to see, but the information it provided was pretty heavy stuff. We were literally standing right where Adolf Hitler and Henrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, planned and executed their master plans of evil. The end of the memorial gave us a view of underground cells, which held hundreds of mentally challenged men and women that were experimented on, tortured, and murdered from 1933-1945.

The memorial was truly a landscape of horror and it will and did make a lost wallet seem very minuscule and irrelevant.

-Brendan

Lost

The Underground, the Metro, the Tram, line 12, line 54,the T line, and the Jubilee line have all been minor sources of frustration during the past three and a half weeks. We have managed to get lost in every single city, whether it be by getting on the wrong line or getting on the right line and heading the wrong direction to only climb up the stairs out of the station to find ourselves in the wrong place…again. Directions have never been really an issue with me, but then again I am not used to reading signs in Czech or German. This morning we made the genius move of going to the wrong train station in Prague. Who would of thought that there would have been another main train station in Prague, situated within a rock’s throw away from our hotel? Not Jonathan and certainly not I.

We had fifteen minutes to catch the metro, ride it north for three stops, run through the other train station, skip up some stairs, and hop onto our 12:40 train to Berlin. Well, after 12 minutes, a couple of falls, and the embarrassing task of running through the train station with a thirty-pound pack on my back and a twelve-pound backpack on my chest, we made it. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and collapsed into my seat, my refuge for the next 4 hours.

Our stay in Prague, began on Friday night when we rolled into the train station with no Koruna, the Czech currency, and a pocket full of Euro’s, which were worthless at that time. After 30 minutes of calculating exchange rates and directions we were on our way to the Extol Inn, our hotel for two nights, located about ten minutes via tram from the City Center. An hour and ten minutes walking, we would find that out the next day.

On Saturday, we went for an epic journey throughout the rustic city streets, bridges, and parks of Prague. The most amazing thing about the city is the Vltava river which cuts through the outer banks of the old city and provides breathtaking views of the city from it’s many bridges, which act more as viewpoints than they are bridges. After fighting through the numerous street vendors, who all sell the same thing, photographers, and pick-pocketers of the Charles Bridge, Prague’s most well known bridge, we hiked up a severally inclined cobble-stoned walkway up to the Prague Castle and it’s church, which is conveniently situated in the middle of the castle. This hike put us close to the Petrin tower, which is this eifel-esque tower that sits upon a mountain on the eastern end of the city, that provides it’s visitors with the most incredible 360 degree view of Prague. We climbed the stairs and thanked ourselves for going to the tower; it might have been one of the best sites we had seen in our 25 days of travel.

The final night in Prague came with an incredibly well organized and crowded Pub Crawl through the Old-Town area. We met a Russian-born, U.S. army Veteran, working on his Master’s in Mathematics at UCLA; his build was more Babe Ruth than Ivan Drago. He informed both Jonathan and I that he could kill a man in three moves: an elbow to the skull, a knee to the face, and a quick snap of the neck. This was an odd, but interesting conversation that held my attention. The night culminated in a wrong train back to the hotel, but we both eventually made it back and enjoyed the night out in Prague. The best part of the Crawl was that it met at this bagel shop/bar called the Bohemian Bagel. We went there this morning and I treated myself to an Onion and an Everything Bagel. Incredible. The wonderful tire-shaped treat made me feel like I was back at home with the family on a Sunday morning after being in Athens for a long period of time. I wish there were a Bohemian Bagel shop in every city we have visited.

-Brendan

Piano Man

“Sing us a song you’re the piano man, sing us a song tonight!” exclaimed the 45 or so random travelers that found themselves at the bar of hostel Ruthenstein. Of course, I was right in the middle of the shenanigans holding my mug of beer and shouting at the top my lungs. The great part about a song like “Piano Man” is that almost every person, no matter where they are from, knows the song and is willing to face some minor embarrassment for the sake of creating some brief moment of cohesiveness among the fragmented group of strangers. It made for a great moment and for those 4 minutes and 37 seconds we all seemed to know each other, but the truth being, that we of course, did not know each others names and would most certainly not remember them the next morning. Last night was a solid night, capped with an excellent hotdog from an Austrian street vendor at 2 in the morning.

During the day yesterday, we decided to bring our sightseeing to a more efficient level; my legs could not handle another day of continuous walking through parks and churches. Rather than wasting our energy, we decided to rent some bikes. This was a little bit of a risk. I tend to focus on other things while riding, and as a result almost got hit by a train and several cars. Jonathan saved my life several times and for that I am forever grateful. Despite my bike riding issues, we did some work! We booked it around the city and saw pretty much every touristy site imaginable; eventually we ran into a beer garden and had lunch, which was phenomenal. From there we rode through a massive park and made fun of the roller-bladers as they blew past us. The Europeans may be about 15 years behind the U.S. when it comes to recreational activities; the roller-blading fad has just hit, they are everywhere.

After a nap and some pizza, we chilled-out in the hostel and met 2 Americans, 2 Englishmen, and an Australian. This meeting would eventually lead to Billy Joel. This morning, Jonathan and I went to the grocery store and bought bread, Swiss cheese, and turkey. Sandwiches were then made. The reason I am even mentioning this is because that was the first time in 24 days that we did not go to a restaurant or street vendor. This was a big step and I felt like I had accomplished something.

From there we headed to Schonbrunn Palace, which is an insanely huge, yes you guessed it, Palace with some rather large gardens and Labyrinths. The last thing I wanted to do this morning was to pay someone for the pleasure of being lost in a maze of bushes. I think that the creator of this place had to have some sort of inferiority complex; this place was entirely too large for one family or even the population of Montana. The palace was nice to see, but one can only look at so many statues, fountains, and gardens.

We are about to jump on the train to Prague and will have 4 hours of rest before our night in the Czech Republic.

-Brendan