From Vienna our adventure next brought me to Prague. The first night in the city was a pub crawl where you pay 20 Euro for your t-short and all you can drink at the first bar of either beer, vodka-cran shots, absinthe shots, or wine. Let's just say it turned into a fun night. Met some Irish guys who were total assholes, got caught in a literal torrential downpour (I'm not kidding; I made a video), and ended the night at a five-story night club that had a different type of music on each floor (though I didn't think it was the last bar for the longest time since the stupid place was so confusing I couldn't find the stairs to the other floors. Downside: lost one of my awesome pearl earrings that were a purchase in Athens. Upside: got to have Subway for supper; think it may have been the best Subway I've ever eaten in my life due to it's contrast to the amount of junk food that I consume while bus traveling. Gross.
Focus for the second day in Prague was to do a walking tour and then at all possible costs find Harry Potter (which came out in Prague a day before it was officially released in Canada). Walking tour was missable but Jess and I found the most helpful tourist info lady in the world. Not only did she locate for us a theatre in the city that played Harry Potter in English with czech subtitles, but she gave us the time it started, the transit route there and the name of the theatre. And to anyone who's gotten to see the movie by now have to agree with me that it was absolutely worth it for me to spend my afternoon in Prague finding Harry Potter. AMAZING! However on the train ride home I absentmindedly out my feet on the plastic edge on the seat in front of me when immediately a Czech man came up to me and started yelling at me in Czech. So confused. Then he decided to switch to english in which he proceeded to tell me I was not in my home and I don't do those sorts of things here, call me stupid and an idiot at least seven times, along with the cherry on the sundae: a stupid american. It was so awkward that it was all I could do to not laugh in this man's face while he glared at me until he got off the train. Savage! Passed out early to make up for the pub crawl the night before and since I was so exhausted from my train encounter.
Almost forgot about Munich! What a shame since Munich was a blast and a half. First night there we went to a beer hall that wasn't really a beer hall since it was all Contiki groups there, but we'll save that topic for another day. Had a pork knuckle (which looks disgusting as it sounds, but the pork on it was really delicious. I skipped on the cracklin, but it got cleaned off by someone in my group) and a few litre beers (Becs and I totally smoked the boys that night hehe). Continued the night with a bus party where literally everyone was up and partying/dancing on the way to Hosbrauhaus. Had some fun times here convincing more people to come get a tattoo with me in Amsterdam along with another drink or two and headed home so I wasn't a total disaster for the Bike tour the next day.
Morning bike tour! so much fun! The highlight of it was to jump in a river of glacier water that was pumped through the English Gardens in just my bra and underwear. For those of you who have gone rafting in the Rockies: think just as cold but no wet suit. Could. Not. Breathe. And the water was rushing so fast I almost never climbed out! But it was a super huge adrenaline rush. Stopped in the beer garden there too for some lunch aka meat and beer since we were in Germany. After the bike tour came quite possibly the saddest one and a half hours of my life (I'm actually really rotted that we didn't get longer there): A visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp. It was the first concentration camp that was opened By the Nazis as an experiment of how it was best to set one up. They also conducted a huge number of medical experiments there on how to kill people. But the hardest part to see was most definitely the gas chamber and crematorium which were still set up in its original condition. It's one thing to learn about these things in school, but to see first hand how so many people senselessly met their deaths was overwhelming.
After leaving Munich, we headed to the Swiss Alps with a stopover in Liechtenstein (quite possibly the most outrageously priced place I've been in Europe; had to PAY for my passport stamp!). But the Alps were absolutely breathtaking and our campsite was smack dab in the middle of two huge mountains and super lush/green, just like you picture Switzerland being. And on the second day in the Alps, myself and twelve of my fellow group members who haven't made themselves too poor to pay the steep price tag for the optional made the trip up the mountain to the literal top of Europe. We went by cog train since the mountain is so steep and it took up about two hours to get up there. We got to see an ice palace carved into the glacier ice, as well as a couple of lookouts that were just gorgeous! And it was surprisingly warm up there: I only wore a long sleeve and a fleece and I was too warm. Then came the "snow fun"!!!! snow tubing and sledding (the tubing was waaay better and so much fun to be a kid again) galore! And then I made the plunge and decided to take the zip line (I will refer you to a hugely hilarious video of me screaming my face off that I will post when I get home) but it was so much fun. Grabbed the train back down as a bunch of tuckered out campers who had the best day ever. I loved it so much!!!
Quick stop in Germany tomorrow and then off to amsterdam for the final two days of my trip (where have these seven weeks gone?!).
