20 August 2003 ---JOURNAL ENTRY TWENTY-THREE---
I got a bug up my butt. First, I have the day off because summertime is kind of slow for English teachers but I made enough last month that I don't have to work at all this month to survive financially. It's warping my already warped mind, I tell ya! Anyway, Assiyeah and I just got back a couple of days ago from a holiday to Dresden and Berlin. Some pictures will follow but anyway, Kristian and I were talking last night about going somewhere next week for a night, just to get out of Freiburg for a night, ya know, a little adventure. We've been talking about doing something early next spring, like going to Lithiuania for a week or something but we needed to get started earlier so...I gave us a plan, this after Kristian defined the word 'radius' in German.
150km from Freiburg, somewhere to go for a night. This is getting to be an addiction. We shot the shit for awhile and came up with Liechtenstein. Don't worry, most people haven't heard of it but it's a little speck of country between Switzerland and Austria, the world's only German speaking monarchy. It is 100 miles long and 4 miles wide, 31,000 people in the entire country and we want to go there. Now we have to do it cheap, seeing that I'm not working much now and money is always a factor so we had the idea about camping and also the mitfahrenzenntrale, which is...
We took the night train to Dresden and woke up a bit disoriented once we finally made it, still though 21euro for a trip that long ain't bad. We slept on a boat for 25euro/night for the room, three small beds and a shitload of spiders. I've never seen so many spiders per capita, normally it's mosquitoes but this time spiders...anyway, we saw all the major sites, the Semperoper and Frauenkirche, the Zwinger and Albertinum and then went a lot around the Neustadt which wasn't bomobed as much so it's actually a bit older than the Altstadt of Dresden. There is a cool street called Alaunstrasse and we also found this famous cheese shop that is covered in decorative tiles, very impressive but the women who worked there were bitches so I refuse to talk about it anymore.
The Mitfahrenzentrale comes in here. We needed a ride from Dresden to Berlin, about 120 miles give or take, it's a 20+euro train ride for two hours or we got creative. Mitfahrenzentrale translates to something like: "drive with central". People put up ads that they are driving somewhere and you can ride with them and pay some of the gas, ya dig? So, we left Dresden with a young student and an old woman who was also riding with us and made the trip to Berlin for 5 euro, cool, eh?.
So, Kristian and I wanted to use this service to ride to Zurich next Wednesday afternoon, stay there the afternoon, maybe even at night if I can meet up with my friend Karin and then in the morning take a train or bus to Vaduz, Liechtinstein. We'll try and see the whole country in a day, maybe even bringing bongos and guitar and playing in the bustling capital of Vaduz with a whopping 5100 people! Then we hope to catch a ride with this car service from Vaduz to Freiburg Friday afternoon. Wish us Luck!:
So, we were in Berlin for a week and it was great, I got to see a ton of the city again which was great, different neighborhoods and pieces of history that tie up the former east and west of not only Europe but of the world. There are too many stories about late-night Sbahns or Ubahns, young drunk Germans who don't have cars and thus can get drunker than we can in America because they can simply take a train home. We also went to a soccer game, Berlin versus Freiburg and it was fantastic, I really had a great time. So, you're just about all caught up and if you want more info about Dresden or Berlin, whether it's travel or personal info, let me know and I'll let you know. Enjoy the pictures, if I can get them on here successfully!
Was ist verboten?= Vahs eest fehrbohten?= What is forbidden?
