Charlie's Guest Blog Post (written in Amsterdam)

Greetings from The Netherlands! We've only been in the country's capital for 20 minutes now. The train station in which we ended our six-hour train ride was a very ornate, cool-looking building. (And boy have I seen a lot of cool buildings so far, my top fav' being, well, nearly every building in Prague.) Then we strolled along a hoppin' street lined with little eateries and hip shops full of funny T-shirts and Amsterdam memorabilia. As Sam said, this place feels like a huge college town. Except it is one that's got hundreds (thousands?) of years of history, Van Gogh's finest works, and lots of canals.

Since Sam has been diligently documenting the day-to-day happenings, I won't repeat what he has written but will instead describe my observations of Europe in general. (I haven't read any of Sam's blog posts from this trip, so I apologize for any repeats.) I'll begin with a list of favorites. So far, this has been my favorite...

Food: Doner Kebab. It's basically a gyro, but a little different (more lettuce-like veggies, different sauce). You find these all over Germany, especially in Berlin where there is a large Turkish population. According to our concentration camp tour guide, more doner kebabs are consumed in Berlin than Whoppers, Big Macs, and all other hamburgers combined. It seems like there's a doner kebab joint on every block in Berlin.

Drink: Dark Munich beer + Lemonade. I had this drink along with a giant pretzel at the famous Hofbrauhaus in Munich. I had no idea which beer I had ordered as it was in German. Upon taking a first sip, we both thought it tasted like Sprite; it had a sweet taste to it. We later found out that it was dark beer mixed with lemonade. Who knew that'd be good?

Building: As mentioned before, all of Prague, pretty much. Every building's faade was beautiful. Every single building, from the famous ones lining Old Town Square, to the tucked-away apartment buildings, had ornately carved faades. It would be quite difficult to find a plain, cement building in Prague, ugly monstrosities that are so dreadfully common in every other city in the world.

View: From atop the tower in the middle of the Old Town Square in Prague. Nearly every building has the same red-tiled roofs that are typical of Prague. The view was spectacular. Later that day, I looked at the picture on the cover of my Eastern Europe guidebook and realized that it was taken from that very tower of the buildings and hustle-bustle square below.

City: Prague (see above two items for why). Prague was simply overflowing with charm.

Church/Synagogue: The palace church in Prague. (Can you see a theme?) The church is on a hill and has a great view of the city. But I mostly liked it because it was so old, way older than any of the other churches we've seen (and we have seen a ton of 'em!). The stain glass work inside was also very unique; the colors were unusually bright, which made them far more interesting than typical stain glass in churches. Also, King Wenceslas is buried there, along with lots of royal treasures, but we were too cheap to shell out a few euros to tour the crypts underground to see some of that stuff.

Desert: CafŽ con Helado. It's a latte with a scoop of ice cream and a tiny spoon. First you eat the ice cream and dip it in the coffee. Once the ice cream is melted, then you have a delicious, creamy latte. Believe it or not, we always got this at McDonald's. We have only seen this available in Madrid.


Random observations of Europe, Europeans, and the European lifestyle.

Mullets: There's so many! It is very common for a European male to have short hair all around but longer in the back. In the U.S., a mullet is a stereotype of white trash, hicks or hill-billy's. But in Europe the subtle mullet is common among hip, metrosexual men.

Public Bathrooms: Almost everywhere we go, the public bathrooms cost money. This bugs me. It costs upwards of .50 euros (or -,50 euros written in the European way) to use a public bathroom! Even McDonald's charges its customers to use their bathroom. I've never seen this in the U.S. In German train stations, they even split it up between Number One and Number Two, and they have different prices for each.

Shoes: I love the European style of shoes. I have been looking to get some Puma shoes, which are very common here. In the U.S., guys wear more cross-trainers and athletic shoes, but in Europe guys wear more stylish shoes. It's hard to describe. I also like the European style of fancy "pointy" shoes.

Breakfasts: We've had hostel breakfasts in 3 countries now, and they have been surprisingly similar: rolls, meat and cheese slices, jam, plain corn flake cereal, OJ and coffee. Each hostel seems to have a little variation on this breakfast.