It has been a crazy last few days! We began this trip nine days ago following our intensive German final! We headed out from Vienna and stopped in Prague to have lunch and explore the city a little. – Side note: Prague was definitely one of my favorite cities so far.

This post is a few days late, but I am going to tag it in Berlin regardless, so that it will show on my map where I was at.

Prague had the most beautiful cathedral that I have yet seen to date! They were created in the gothic style, complete with Gargoyles and all. I wish I had had my camera with me while there, but alas I did not have it. The second stop in Prague that we had made (our return trip) was definitely better than the first. Our first experience was in the center of the city where most of the tourism is centered. It was beautiful and great architecture, but our lunch experience was a little offsetting. We had roasted duck (individually) and a few other accoutrements along with it. The meal was delicious. We asked for the bill, which they refused to split, and we calculated the currency conversion from Czech crowns to Euros and included tax and a generous tip and went to pay. When we were at the counter the manager was adamant that the bill was in fact 30Euro more than we had already paid. We asked him why and where this extra euro cost came from, but he was not volunteering any pertinent information. Eventually we paid the bill (totaling 115Euro) and left feeling had – never a good experience.

Our return trip, however, my roommate and I decided to get away from the tourist sector. We spent less than 5 euro on lunch and hiked up to one of the oldest cathedrals in the city. It was completely encompassed by a wall, stairs of which leading to it opened up to a terrific view of the city of Prague in its entirety. It was amazing.

Back in Berlin, we had an interesting time! Way to many things to do and see in only 10 days though. We visited numerous museums and historic sites, the likes of Checkpoint Charlie, The Agypt Museum, The German Museum, Holocaust Museum, and the remains of the Berlin Wall. It was humbling to be touching such a powerful symbol of authority and pain for so many people. Hard to imagine everything that occurred during that tumultuous time.

My overall impression of Germany was that the people were super friendly (maybe even slightly more so than Austria – they were eager to help you with anything and were very patient with our German speaking attempts, I even had one woman tell me that my “deutsch ist sehr gut” after telling her about some CDs I had bought. The feel of the city to me was not as Eastern European, but that does not mean that it should be. I liked its unique qualities, but I also found a certain comfort in the fact that it was more like an American city. Take out the language aspect and one would have a difficult time distinguishing the two. I think that a good number of the students on the trip felt this same comfort and automatically decided that they liked Berlin better, but I think that every city I have been to so far has owned its unique qualities.

Location: Johannisstr. 11, 10117 Berlin, Germany