Afromania!!!!

So now that the days are flying by, its harder and harder to keep up on the blog. Christina's doing great with updating the pictures and videos to the website but it's still difficult to find time everyday to write, especially when there's no internet access. With that in mind, please don't mind the gramatical errors of the next few blogs. I'm way too tired tonight to re-read everything. Plus, I type faster than I can think!!!!

Warsaw, is one of Poland's most European city! It's pretty large, and everyone drives like maniacs. Every time we take a taxi, I'm surprised we're still alive. They must go through so many breakpads because every light they slam on their brakes!!!! We didn't do too much site seeing as our main priority was visiting Woz, a friend of ours from high school. He was our foreign exchange student our senior year. He lives about fifteen minutes away from the hostil we stayed at. Right now he is a lead singer in a band called Afrometal, a pretty popular band in Poland. To be honest I hadn't heard much of his music until about two days ago. He took us to old city where we saw the oldest buildings in Warsaw, they were beautiful and full of life! Traditional perogies were our lunch that day, I didn't think I'd be a fan but not bad at all!! It was also nice because we had Woz there to interpret. The afternoon was of course spent in one of Poland's most beautiful parks were we watched a couple celebrate there wedding. Although, we were very amused at the random peacocks walking around.

It wasn't until that night, that we realized Poland guys like to party hard!!!! We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, then the Mono Bar for a jam session. This was pretty cool, because a bunch of Woz's friends were at the bar and are very talented. The have a set of instruments on stage and whoever wants to play or sing goes up and plays with whoever's up there. It was amazing!!! I'm also pretty sure we are now know in Poland as the crazy Americans that can't dance!!! We didn't get home that evening until about 6am, the food and the laughter was heavy that night. So of course the next day we spent passed out in bed (apparently we got some complaints because we were too loud!) Shopping was our next priority! Still there was no place for the girls to get our nails done (way too expensive), no piercing studio found, but the boys bought some new clothes because they ran out of clean ones. One of the top picks for the evening was some wacky ball thing that Woz bought the boys, you spin it in your hand to see how fast you can get it to go. I guess everyone's into this game over here. And of course the boys were then occupied for the rest of the night.

Last night, would be our craziest and wackiest night. Since Woz is in a band (we kinda got a gist that he was a semi celebrity when people would stop him in the mall and ask for his picture or autograph) we were invited to watch him play up north at Bikupiec. We left early that morning to catch the tour bus where we met the rest of the six band members and crew They even gave us a before show, show using Josh's guitar on the bus. All of the guys are super sweet and really fun to hangout with (check out the pics on the website to learn more). Lucky for us they all spoke English really well. I can only say about two words in Polish!!!! The manager was sweet enough to book us a hotel room at their hotel. Three hours later we were watching the band setup and get ready for the night. To my surprise, the guys were pretty serious about their music. After we had settled into our hotel room, we went back to the concert as the guys were playing last. This is when it hit me that the guys were kinda a big thing in Poland. Girls were screaming everywhere, asking for autographs or pictures. It was super cute! Of course we got backstage passes and took a ton of pics, Kup was all over the place! He really seemed comfortable walking around the stage and even on some parts of the stage. The guys were super good, we took a video of the show and plan on posting some of their songs to the webpage! Alll the guys are really talented and such good musicians! It wasn't until the end of the show when a crowd of girls covered the rec building chanting the guys names that I was the most entertained. There were so many girls who wanted to meet them!!! Even one of them asked for Josh's autograph (way to go Josh!!!) We actually had to wait around quite awhile before we could go back to the hotel room. Talk about the other side of the spectrum, it wasn't even a month ago that we were those girls waiting for Dave! Ok, ok at least we didn't scream and throw our panties on stage!

The party didn't really start until we got back to the hotel. It was ridiculous and so much fun. The guys were hysterical and couldn't stop making me laugh!!! Every two seconds theree was a joke, or something fun going on. I especially loved the little pup that followed us around. (Probably because I kept sneaking him food) Again we didn't go to bed till about 6am, only to have to get up only a few hours later. Oh yeah, apparently Woz and I were married at some point during the night. So for the rest of the day today we refferred to ourselves as a married couple. The relationship started off on a high note, but fizzled when he found out about my love affair with another man. Only took a day to ruin that marriage!!! I even picked out my rings while the boys tried to play golf (it started to rain, so before they could finish the first hole they came running back!) The ring is a million dollars and will be engraved to me. Thanks WOZ!!!!!

We are now back in Warsaw, no hostil was booked so we decided to check out the hotels online, finding a super good deal for a five star hotel righ tnext to the train station. We took super long baths and are now just trying to get back to reality. Kup, however is done...finished!!!! He ran out of money and only has enough for his plane ticket home. So he stayed at Woz's place, his flight leaves tomorrow from Warsaw into NYC. None of us had planned on it happening so quickly. We're all really sad to see him go, I mean he is our mojo! :( It's only been a few hours since our good-byes and we already miss Woz and Kup. I think we need to start planning our next trip out here.

Tomorrow, we will be taking a train to Prague (the four of us Alyssa, Josh, Christina and I.) So now your caught up. I'm sorry Iwasn't more entertaing but I'm too damn tired from the partying, so not used to that life style!!!! Well, now it's off to bed!!!!

Later gaters!!!

~cheryl

Choo...choo...Warsaw!

Good-bye Berlin! Our train was the best way to travel thus far, we had a nice little cabin to ourselves (which we destroyed in all of ten minutes!), a dining car to have super cheap food at, and if you wore your socks in the walk way you could slide from one side of the car to the next! By far the best way to travel in my opinion! The train was so good that when we arrived in Warsaw we sat on the train for about ten minutes not realizing that we had arrived. We may not have flown but the time sure did!

Our hostel is in a family run old house, very homie! It's perfect for what we need, and only about 15 minutes from the train station. We just wish we knew that before we walked the hour and 1/2 to get here, missing the street not once but twice!!!!

Today, we're meeting up with a friend of ours, Woz! He was our foreign exchange student from high school. He should actually be here in about a 1/2 hour to give us a tour of the city and hangout!

Well, till next time!

~cheryl

We’ve Made Our Mark on Berlin

We have been away now for exactly one month. I know I know, many of you are wondering if we are home sick yet. Well, that answer is NO!!!! We are still having an amazing time and haven’t killed one another yet. Although, I must admit I do miss everyone, however I wouldn’t use the word homesick.

Tina, Cher and I left for Berlin two days earlier then the boys. We decided to spend 3 days in West Berlin then the next 3 days in East Berlin. Spending time with just the girls has been a lot of fun and we have met a ton of people. When entering Berlin my expectations were low. Knowing some of the history about Berlin from our high school days set a real pessimistic point of view for me. Learning the history of WWII and the holocaust of Amsterdam and how it affected the city lead us into the intense history of Germany. However, Germany has proven to be a country where we met a number of people and had an amazing time.

ToP MEmorAabLE MoMMentS of BeRliN!!!!

1. Playing Tag in the Holocaust Memorial

Watch the videos attached to the website (or above). One thing I hope never to forget is the face that someone makes right before you tag them and there it. Unfortunately the only person I saw make that face was Kup, but all and all I f**ing rocked at tag. This was one of the funniest nights I have had in all of Europe.

2. Pub Crawl

Tina, Cher and I went on a Pub Crawl that was awesome. Now I do know that Pub Crawls through the tourist centers are very clichéd, but where else are you gonna find 200 people who speak English. We met a ton, and yes I mean a ton of amazing people. Tina had a blast and was completely in her element, just look at the pics below.

3. Signing our Name on the Berlin Wall

I am completely and utterly against taking part of the Berlin Wall home. If everyone who visits Berlin takes a piece of the wall home with them in 20 years what will be left of it. Plus, I am sorry why take the wall with you when you can leave a piece of you with the wall. If you guys ever go to the gallery look for the mark that the Poccia Twins left. If you have a problem identifying it, well its on the East Gallery side of the wall and says Poccia Twins.
The picture above is of what I thought spelled Poccia. We DID NOT tag this. I spotted it within seconds of looking at the wall. I thought it was awesome.

4. Breakfast

Breakfast is a meal in the day that 9 out of 10 of us take for granted. Infact when I am home I rarely ever eat breakfast. That was until we stayed at this hostel in Berlin. There breakfast was as good as Cher described. We only paid 9 Euro a night for the hotel, but the breakfast should have been 9 Euro alone. A bonus side to going to hostel that serves an amazing breakfast is that it forces us to get up be for noon. We even had the idea of getting up at 7 am to eat the buffet go out and see the sites then come back by 11 am to have lunch with the free buffet. Although, we weren’t that ambitious, but we did wake up by 10 to get that full hour of eating in.
I think after us they may be raising the rates of the rooms.

5. My Ring

One day in Berlin Cher and I (and a few other people) were walking through this flea market where I spotted this ring that I absolutely loved. Since this trip we are taking is expensive one way I try to conserve money is to not buy many souvenirs. Well, I loved this ring. The flea market was going on the next day, so I decided to think about it before making the purchase. Come to find out later, Cher had Adriane, a friend we met, keep me occupied at another booth while she went to buy the ring. The entire time we were at the market I kept asking if I should haggle, do they do that here or should I just buy it. The entire time I am talking about it Adriane is down playing it, trying to keep my from buying the ring. I didn’t catch on at all. The next day, after the tag game and the bar Cher surprised me with the ring and I was shocked. Def. one of the nicest gestures. I was almost in tears.

Thanks Cher!!!

6. The Concentration Camp, Sachsenhsn

I have been to the concentration Dachau and that it was so interesting. Sachsenhsn was a lot like Dachau, but had a lot of difference to it. Coming from a designing and architectural stand point I found the design and intent of the concentration camp very interesting. I wouldn’t call this place fun, but it was very interesting.



The one thing that we tend to be doing in every cit is missing the public transposrt. While the concentration camp closed at 6 so does the public bus. We found our selves walking to the train station to get back to Berlin.

I did have fun convincing everyone that the information center was closed though and that now can get their ids back and we were going to have to go cak tomorrow.

Only a few people believed me… but it was still funny. Huh… maybe that’s why we missed the bus.

7. Traveling with the Best People Ever

Spending so much time with the same people everyday and night might take a toll on any relationship. One of my absolutely favorite things to do on this trip in EVERY city is sitting around and bullshitting. Even in the most boring situations we all seem to make each other laugh. There is rarely on hour when someone isn’t laughing. I know the trip isn’t over yet and we still have time to form hatred and irritation tward each other, but for now… well lets just say we are all entertained!!!

So I know that this is the part of the blog is what everyone is waiting for. Do you like culture and history? Cause there is a massive amount in Berlin. Below is just a glimpse at what we learned.

Berlin was home to much of the worlds conflicts, and a base for all of us to learn from.

Below is a picture of the monument at the concentration camp. The triangles at the top signify the 18 countries where the victims of the concentration camp were from. Each Triangle is different and is meant to symbolize the different triangles each prisoner was suppose to wear. Each prisoner was assigned a certain triangle according to the reason why they were imprisoned (homosexuals, Jewish etc…). The men at the bottom of the monument where re worked by the sculpture many times. The Soldier positioned in the center is to liberating the prisoners on either side. The designer originally had these prisoners as being week and frale. However, the people of Germany didn’t like how they were being portrayed and had the sculpture rework the figures. Some people misinterpret the statue as the prisoners of the concentration camp being lead by a Nazis soldier.

Below is the central church of Berlin This church was built by Germany to compete aesthetically with the church of St. Peters in Rome and St. Pauls in London (if you look at our London Blog you will see the Church of St. Pauls). However, this church was little too Baroque in style and was not found beautiful by many people. Personally I feel that it would be a shame not to appreciate this architecture. It is very impressive.

The TV Tower

Germany built the TV Tower in the 1960's to signify their accomplishments and advancements in technology. However, when they designed the big sphere to be placed on the rod, the contractors didn’t know who to build it. In fact it was so difficult they had to call in not one, not two, not three, but four Swedish engineers. A side note: Berlin at one point decided that no place would display a cross. Well. When they built the TV Tower when the sun hits it there is a cross reflected. Germany brought in every designer they could to solve this problem. It was like the pope giving them one big middle finger. At the end of it Germany couldn’t figure out how to solve this. So in the end I guess it was just a plus.

Ok… ok.. I know I am dragging this on, but really Berlin has so much information and I really want to tell you all about it. However, if I do that then what am I going to talk about at home.

Since I always like to end my blog with a laugh, I will tell you about us arriving in Berlin.

The further east we travel the harder it seems to understand the language. German is a language which none of us are familiar with. When we arrived in Berlin it was at the bus station a little outside the city center. We were tired and just wanted to get to a hostel to relax. We had just gotten the subway map from the information station and they didn’t speak English. We were left to our own devices. We went on a search for the Subway and followed the signs for the S. When we got to the “fork in our road” we needed to decide which direction to go in. Well… we were looking for about 10 min for which directions the train was running to Ausgang. We couldn’t find it on the map. So we went on to search for the other line to see if we could find that station on the map. Finally we found a woman in a train station who told us to go back towards the way we came. However, we were faced with the dilemma of heading to that same destination of Ausgang. After a few min of deliberation we decided to go towards this destination. When we went up the stairs we were outside. A little way down the road we saw the S line. We still couldn’t find Ausgang on the map, but that didn’t matter because we found the train heading to the zoo. When we got to the hotel I was walking to the room when I observed the emergency door that had two words written on it. One was Exit and the other Ausgang.

Yeah … not our brightest moment. I will leave you with as much German as I know, Auf Wiedersehen (and just recently Ausgang) !!!!

~Christina

ALYSSA!!!!

We now have our Tina replacement!

Tina, was pretty much our spirit of the group having fun on the pub crawls, catching random men's attention. Oh the stories we could've maybe should've told, well on another thought maybe its good that they are untold. Ahhh the memories!

Alyssa, arrived a few days ago from Italy where her family lives. She is one of our closest friends having gone to high school with us. She now lives in NYC and works as a school teacher for a local high school teaching Biology and Psychology which she absolutely loves. She's good hearted and hysterical. If anyone ever thought I was a clutz they need to meet Alyssa! I'm surprised she still has all of her limbs attached. Very rarely have I ever seen her without a smile on her face, laughter usually follows each sentence. I'm sure having her around will spice things up a bit!

So farewell, Tina, you will be missed!

Welcome, Alyssa, let the adventures continue!!!!!

~cheryl

So funny story...

So if you know me, then you know that I can't live without my cell phone. I need it so much that I pay the extra fees to be able to have it over here in Europe. Again, if you know me, then you would know I am a huge clutz and drop everything. (By now you should have figured the story out.) Yes, when tossing the phone to Alyssa, I hit the ground. When I went to take a picture, I realized that the screen no longer works!!!! I can still get calls and see when I have a message but I can't read or type anything! Hopefully, I'll be able to get it fixed somehow. OOOPS!!!! So pretty much; FYI: my phone's not working right now for those of you who need to get a hold of me or the gang!

Tina's last night was last night. I can't believe it's already been three weeks!!! We've decided that she is officially the spirit of this trip, always having something to say and making us laugh. This morning I walked her to the bus stop to cathc the bus to the airport for the plane home. Of course everyone else is still sleeping from last night! In fact I have to get them up in about ten minutes because check out is at 10am! That and we have to load up on this amazing breakfast they give us here! So worth the 9 euro alone!!!!!!!!

To celebrate Tina's last night here, we decided to do it the old fashion German way, hit a beer garden. Looking fabulous we went to a very local spot, the six of us now. Ahh yes, Alyssa has joined our group!!!! The garden was filled with picnic tables and families eating while the children play off to the side. Alyssa and Christina tried this green and raspberry beer that Berlin is famous for, so can't remember the name!!!! In my opinion, it was ok. It just tastes like raspberry flavored beer. The night was pretty low key, keeping the conversations to the group. We also talked a bit with two German born men who now live in California. They gave us some good tips and tricks to get around. They also gave us some stories of German and Europe in general twenty years ago. By now you've heard us tell our stories on how nice everyone is, and how it is not what we expected. Especially with all of the horror stories we've heard. But apparently, in Germany years ago there was some kind of world soccor tournament in the country creating lots of tourists. This is when Germany realized that their attitudes and customer service skills needed an adjustment to better represent themselves. This meant that people working in any customer service field, i.e. a grocery store, bank, post office, are specifically trained on niceness, greetings, and working with tourists. If they aren't nice they can't get into trouble! Kinda of funny, but I guess some places are making a conscious effort to be more hospitable for tourists. These and other stories kept us engaged in conversation with these men for the majority of the night. I think I learned more about the culture last night, then I have in the past three days combined.

Alright, I just looked at the time. They are soo not going to like me waking them up! The days we travel are always the most challenging!!!

Berlin'in it out...

Ireland, I think of green; Paris, I think of fashion; London, I think of Big Ben; Amsterdam, I think of Bikes. Not going to lie, out of all the cities we’ve seen I’ve talked about how excited I’ve been this was so not the case for Berlin. When I think of Berlin I think of a large grey block. Nothing interesting, very stern unfriendly people, with a lot of horrible history. In a way I guess I was prejudging subconsciously. Either that or it could have been that I was missing the boys and that it was cold, raining and there was no park but I was miserable for the first day. I couldn’t get warm, I didn’t know the language and people seemed to be much ruder here than anywhere else. So I pretty much didn’t feel like doing anything! Although, I stuck it out, the people in our hostile turned out to be the most friendly people we’ve met to date. They were from everywhere, Cali, Texas, Canada! The next day we did a free walking tour with some of our fellow travelers, 200 people showed up for the tour and I was number 176. Obviously we weren’t going to be making the tour because our numbers were too high. Instead, we just tagged along with an earlier tour in hopes that we wouldn’t be noticed! We visited so much of Germany! Check out the pics on the website. When I get more time, I’ll try to tell you the stories of each site. The Holocaust Memorial was the coolest place here, this is where I came up with the idea of hide and seek (Christina will fill you in) Instead of Germany depressing me and reminding me of the bad things people are capable of doing, I almost feel like I was given a sense of hope. I really feel that the history behind such horrific events should be studied and understood to help guide us in the present! I wont bore you with my thoughts and theories but if anyone’s ever interested feel free to join me for a cup of tea!

Our night out without the boys was pretty fun actually, we went on a pub crawl with about 200 people. Apparently without bodyguard A and bodyguard B, we were much more approachable. We spent the night mingling and just having fun. Five bars in six hours, good times. It was pretty funny because the majority of the people we met were again from the Americas!!!! Here’s a quick cap of who we met: (this is more for my recollection though)

Australia: Cool, really good dancer, and super sweet guy!

Denmark Soldier: he was lost on the train and coincidently was staying at our same hostile so we took him back w/ us. He was home on holiday because he is a Srgt in Denmark’s military. Kinda cool hearing a different perspective on Afghanistan and Iraq stuff!

Holland Boys: I pretty much spent the entire night trying to learn four German words, thanks to the Holland Boys! They were also super sweet guys and looked out for us the entire night.

Cali Boys: They all turned 20 and were wicked drunk. I’m pretty sure the one guy wanted to make out because every time he would lean over to talk he would pretty much be spitting in my ear. And the boyfriend card has been played!!!!!

CANADA: We met a ridiculous amount of people from Canada! All seem very cool, but I’m starting to be able to tell the difference from the people in Toronto, British Columbia, and Quebec. Very different!!!

And of course there were tons of different people, I would definitely recommend the pub crawls for anyone interested in meeting a ton of people!!!!
Now that are time away from the boys is coming to an end, we’ll be meeting them tomorrow at our new hostel!

~cheryl