Dresden, Germany and The AUTOBAHN!!!

After much work on trying to find our way to Berlin and then down to Frankfurt for a reasonable amount of money, we decided to hire a car. If we got over the border to Dresden, the fare was about $200US and we could keep it for a week and drop it in Frankfurt. Deal. We left Cesky Kruml0v excited about driving. Ethan loves to drive and I love navigating and being passenger. We were both excited to be able to just stop the car wherever necesary or not neccesary and have that freedom. Why didn't we do this anywhere else on our trip?

When we left for Cesky Krumlov, we had planned to go back to Prague for a few more days, but honestly we just weren't into Prague or the vibe there. The hostel makes it and we had picked a ok one. I am sure had we given it more time, we could have enjoyed ourselves, but it just seemed like a big modern city. Instead we were going to go straight through. We took a bus from Cesky Krumlov to Prague and had only 20 minutes to get from the bus station to the other side of the city to the train station for a train to Dresden. We had 5 minutes until our train left, when the ticket police checked our tickets and informed us we had bought the wrong ones. We honestly did not know that we bought the wrong tickets and for a lousy 4 more Krones we would have done so. Instead, we were hit with a 500 Krone fee and missed the train. Argh. Now we were really hating Prague and ready to hit the road. They specifically hit tourists with backpacks and after meeting many people in many cities who never buy tickets and hope for the best, we have alwys bought our tickets. Of course we are the ones to get the fine too. We caught the next train to Dresden (2 hours later and 1/2 hour late on top of that) and arrived in a new city blind. We found a cool but somewhat expensive hostel and treated ourselves to a dinner of wings and nachos at a Mexican restaurant. The next morning we picked up our little yellow VW Fox and made our way to Berlin.

THE AUTOBAHN.
So, we get onto the highway alright, but Ethan checks to see if the left lane is clear and to pass a vehicle and jumps over only to have a car come up on him at 200kph and get very angry. From then on, he realizes its not about if the lane is clear but if he can see far enough back where the cars are coming from. We were traveling between 130 and 150 kph and cars were passing us like we were little old ladies putting along on a back road. Each car that passed us seem to make a whooshing noise and sometimes we could barely see them coming. On the way into Berlin, I wanted to stop at an Ikea (because we could) and we got to check out what all this Ikea buzz is about. Ethan didnt like that you were trapped on a path and couldnt vear off, but it was fun to see the styles and think about a home in our near future. We got icecream at the end and back on the highway to find our way into Berlin.

BERLIN.
The city of owls and nightfolk. We should make a point to say that dark happens about 4PM in Germany at this time of year and it is usually overcast during the day, so life seems dark anyway. Why not just party at night and sleep during the day? We went on a pub crawl the first night and were extremely disappointed. But by 2AM, I had to go to sleep. The second night, we headed out with some friends we met at the hostel and stayed at a bar called the WHITE TRASH FAST FOOD Bar and Restaurant. The band was hard rock and the DJ upstairs was pretty cool. It was a mix of Irish, American, and Aussie friends and the first bar we stopped at seemed to be a gay one but after we were turned away at the wine bar (more for the size of our 9 person group), the other American asked if they served our kind in this place and the bartender was very hospitable. Slowly we realized we were the only girls in the place but the great thing about Berlin is that it doesnt matter! Everyone is cool and noone gets upset for you to break the mould. Berliners were awesome everywhere. If we pulled out a map, someone always tried to help us. If someone didnt speak English, they got their friend. We met people everywhere.

We also visited the Jewish Memorial, which was extremely moving, beautiful, touching and offered free admission. Germans seem to have realized the atrocity of the holocaust and are trying hard to remember but move forward. On the same note, we also visited the Checkpoint Charlie museum, where we learned a ton about the wall and separated Berlin. This is history of our childhood and now we can be more connected to it. From Berlin, we decided to go to Munich because, well we can. It was a long drive and we arrived in Munich blind again. We realized that we knew where to go IF we came into the train station but driving was another story. We stopped for directions and made it to Wombats but were a bit disappointed by this highly regarded a somewhat pricey hostel. There is NO kitchen and no credit cards. And we had some very inconsiderate roommates. Today, we are headed to a traditional beer hall for BEER and food. This is the home of beer and the original Oktoberfest. Tomorrow we will find out more about the history and maybe catch a museum or two. We hope to go see the Disney castle (or the castle that Disney used to design theirs) two hous drive from here.

We head home shortly and are anticipating the move to the US. I will load pictures when I get the chance. We love getting comments, so if you are reading this, please let us know so. Cheers!