Berlin

I took a train to Berlin last Thursday through Saturday. I went with two of my roommates, and our main reason for going was to see the Berlin Philharmonic. On Friday, we went on a free walking tour of Berlin, and it was great because our guide was really funny and it was a nice long tour and free! I tipped him of course, because he deserved SOME kind of pay. In the tour we saw pretty much all the big sights in Berlin: the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Holocaust memorial, parts of the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Humbolt University, the site of the book burnings during the 1930s, and we also stood on the spot where Hitler's bunker is still burried 6 meters below ground. You know, the place where he committed suicide after WWII. It was great.

That evening we went to our concert at Philharmonic hall, and it was spectacular. I have never heard such a perfect performance. I wish I was more familiar with the pieces that they played (an English Violin concerto and a 5 movement piece by Bartok) but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The bass trombone player had a little solo in the Bartok piece; it was a big, weird sounding gliss and it was very comical, and the other trombones immitated it. It was just funny to hear. What made the evening interesting was that we had been having dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, and we were late in getting back to our hostel to change, and so once we had our nice clothes on, we had to RUN to the performance hall, nice dress shoes and all. It was crazy, and we were all out of breath and sweaty once we took our seats. Not so fun, but once we calmed down, we were able to enjoy the music. 

So the next day, Saturday, was our travel day and I am glad that we decided to see Berlin on Friday because Friday was the beautiful, clear, sunny day but Saturday was very cloudy, gloomy, and cold! We were so glad to leave that behind us as we got on our first train (the first of 5 trains to get back). We had this cheap group ticket that got us back to Heidelberg for only 11 euros each, but the catch was that we had to take several different trains and we had to exchange trains 4 times and sometimes in the middle of nowhere. That was kind of weird because a couple times we had to wait about 20 minutes in a completely deserted train station, save the few people who were waiting with us. We were nervous about our train not showing up or us missing it or something because we had no idea how we would get back if that happened. Luckily our trains were all there on time and we had no mishaps, just 10 hours of sitting on trains...

Paris

I went to Paris this weekend (hence the Eiffel Tower as my main picture), and I just got back. Four friends and I rented a car (my roommate has an international driver's license) and we drove there Thursday afternoon. We had a GPS unit, but it wasn't updated so it could only get us TO Paris, but nowhere specific, so I was the official navigator, or the "NAGivator" as I called myself because there was a LOT of this going on all weekend. I am selling the rights soon.

So here's what we did:

Thursday: Checked into hotel in the evening in a city next to Paris, went to McDonalds (this wasn't YOUR trip), drove to the Eiffel tower and took lots of night pictures and then we went up it. It was amazing to see Paris at night from the Tower!! And the beams of light that shine from it like a lighthouse look like giant blue Lightsabers. We also got to see a cool light show (a bunch of flashing white lights on the Tower that made it look like it was sparkling) at 10 pm and 12 pm. We got back to our hotel at about 1:30 AM.

Friday: Drove to Notre Dame in the morning, had breakfast (the best crepes ever!) next to it and then went inside and out around it in the gardens. Then we walked around the island that Notre Dame is on, looking in souvenir shops and stuff, then we went to the Arc de Triumph. Jim (our driver) had a lot of fun in the CRAZY traffice that circles the Arc, and we were all breathing pretty hard when we finally parked to walk up to it and take pictures. Then we went and had a picnic lunch at a lawn near the Eiffel Tower and we fed some birds there. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, and you should look at my facebook album I will  be putting up soon. Anyway, then we went up the Tower (again) but here's the fun part: WE. WALKED. UP. THE. STAIRS. You read me right. We walked up the Eiffel tower. Just relax, we didn't hike all the way, just up to the second floor (or third if you are thinking of it in American talk). But it was still 710 steps. Oh, and we saved about 5 euros. Ok, so we got done with that, took pictures and stuff, but it was really crowded and it took us forever to get up and down, so we had to walk quickly to get to our next stop: the Louvre, about 2 1/2 miles away. Once there, we got in for free because if you are under 26, you get in free on Friday nights from 6PM to 9:45PM. We walked around for 3 hours, and then we were so tired but hadn't eaten dinner yet so we asked a guy who worked at the Louvre where the Hard Rock Cafe is (I had been there before, but didn't remember, and it was a spur of the moment thing so I didn't have time to look it up) and he told us where. Problem was, the place where he told us it was was nowhere near the actual place, so we spent a long time driving around and asking people, so we settled on a fast food place at about 11pm. We were all pooped.

Saturday: we went to the Palace of Versailles. We got there at 11 AM and stayed till 5:30. We got audio guides which were really cool for the inside part of the palace. Way better than having a guide with a heavy French accent, like some groups had and I tried to listen but couldn't understand them. We ate lunch there too which was great, and I had the Napolitaine pizza. We also went to the Grand Trianon (a "smaller" palace on the grounds of Versailles) and the Petite Trianon (estate of Marie Antoinette). We ended our time there with a fountain show at the Neptune fountain. We then drove back to our hotel, got dressed up and went out to a pretty nice restaurant and had AMAZING food. Then we wanted to drive mast the Moulin Rouge, and on our way, we happened to glance at the Eiffel tower, and the whole thing was blue! (see above picture) It was incredible, and the most beautiful blue ever. Definitely a treat. We finally made it to the Moulin Rouge, but on the way had to drive past a bunch of bad stores and clubs, so that wasn't so fun. 

Today, Sunday: We checked out of our hotel at 11 am and went to the Hard Rock Cafe (found a flyer in our hotel) and then drove home. We got to go really fast at some parts because certain parts of the Autobahn don't have a speed limit. Don't worry mom, Jim was very safe and only did it for a couple seconds.

Austria: Vienna and Salzburg.

So as the post before says, I went to Austria last week. Well, I am back and alive, even though almost everyone in our group got really sick, and now I am sick, but getting better. I have decided that it is way too hard to post a lot of pictures on blogspot AND give descriptions of each one, so I just made a facebook album about my trip and here is the link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066063&id=56902422

Also, the picture that is at the top of my blog is in the album, but just in case you wanted to know, it is a church in Vienna.