Europe Update - Berlin

Hello Everybody. It's time for another update.

We are on a train headed for Prague after 2ish fun days in Berlin.

Berlin is the home city of our recently wedded friends, Brian and Claudia. They put us up for three nights in the living room of their new apartment on WarschauerStrasse (Warsau Street) - a bustling street in East Berlin. There is scarcely an un-graffitied surface in East Berlin. Every wall and every window of every street level store or apartment building is covered. Brian said sometimes people paint over the graffiti, but it just gets graffitied again as soon as the paint dries, so most people have given up the fight. Berlin has the most well-behaved dogs we've ever seen! They're everywhere and they don't wear leashes, they just follow their humans wherever they go.

On Tuesday, Brian showed us around his quaint-yet-busy neighborhood. We also walked over the Oberbaumbruecke, an old bridge that used to be closed because of the wall. Then we took a stroll down the longest stretch of the old Berlin Wall that still stands, called the East Side Gallery. It is covered by gigantic, beautiful paintings, and of course graffiti. We also walked through the Brandenburger Tor, one of the most famous symbols of Berlin.

A few years ago, in school, Thayer read about the building of the Holocaust Monument. In Berlin, we got to see it, and it was a pretty intense experience. It is a huge uneven plot of cement holding rows and rows of rectangular cement blocks (reminiscent of graves or smokestacks, perhaps) in sizes ranging from flush with the ground to fifteen feet tall. The shorter blocks are around the edge of the monument, so as you walk toward the center, you seem to be walking down, down, down, and the blocks get higher and higher and higher until you feel completely overwhelmed by the scope of the monument and the weight of knowing what it is for. The name of the monument is Denkmal fur die Ermordeten Juden Europas - Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe. A must-see if you ever go to Berlin.

Yesterday, Thayer and I went to Treptower Park and saw the (also giant) Soviet Monument, dedicated to the soldiers of the Red Army who died between 1941 and 1945. Those Germans sure know how to say Thank You.

It was really nice to be staying with friends for the last few days. Most of the time we will be on our own, so we really enjoyed spending some quality time with Brian and Claudia and getting to know some of their friends.

Current favorite memory:
Drinking wine with Brian, Claudia, and their friends Anna, Sandra, and Mathias. Thayer and Brian in heated discussion over organized religion, Claudia and Hayley reminiscing about Catholic upbringing and the joy of Christmas in a Catholic church. Inevitably, Hayley and Claudia break in to Stille Nacht (Silent Night, the only German song that Hayley knows) and try to drown out the rest of the conversation.

Poll time
It's a long trip from Prague to our next stop in Switzerland, so we want to break it up by stopping in either Vienna or Salzberg for one day and night. Which one should we go to and what should we see---- I cannot find a question mark on the keyboard, so you don§t get one.

It§s been great hearing from you guys. We will send another note out as soon as we can.

Cheers
Hayley and Thayer

Memorable trip quote:
(Brian's friend Rafael telling story about a man who ate a Snickers and drank a Coke every day, and then sued Snickers and Coca Cola for giving him diabetes...)

Tanner= "What are they supposed to do, put a disclaimer on Snickers that says WARNING, THIS IS NOT A BANANA"?

Please note the immense effort it took us to edit this because of the keyboard differences, and symbols like +ìšèáøužéíáý§ù.

Europe Update

Liebe Freunde und Familie!

Here is an update on our trip thus far:

Following the trend of our Airport Curse, Thayer and I slept through both of our alarms the morning we left Seattle. Luckily, we were only 20 minutes off schedule. Nothing like running ten blocks to catch a bus to the airport at 5:00 in the morning.

A 5-hour flight, a 7-hour flight, a 4-hour train ride, a 20-minute walk, a 12-minute ferry ride, and a 20 minute taxi ride later, we arrived in Sønderho.

Sønderho is the tiny town on Fanø where we spent the last two days and nights. We came to Fanø, an island off the west coast of Denmark, to see my friend Brian and attend his wedding to his German fiancée, Claudia. The wedding was simple and small (whoever could make it out to Fano – not an easy trip) and held at the local Raadhus (town hall).

Brian and Claudia had a party the night before and a reception the night of the wedding at their rented house on the island. We got to meet a lot of wonderful people. Claudia's entire family spoke very little English, so when Thayer sat down and started speaking German, they were overjoyed! Thayer was, too, as he loooooves speaking German but never has the chance. We also met Jon and Lucy, a couple Brian and Claudia met while vacationing in Mexico for six weeks. They came to the wedding from their home in London, and were generous enough to let us spend our second night on the island (which was unplanned) at their rented house. We had such a fantastic time!

I cannot imagine a more adorable place than Sønderho. People live in houses with straw roofs! Businesses open late and close early, and everywhere you go, you can see someone eating ice cream. Life is slow and simple and peaceful. The "downtown" streets are cobblestone. You can't find coffee before noon, there is one bus for the whole island, and there are more bicycles than cars. You can't go to any restaurant without a reservation. We would LOVE to return there someday… it was a welcome break from Seattle city life.

My current favorite memory: On the back of the bicycle with Thayer tipsily driving, with Jon and Lucy on the other bike, riding on a path along the dark, still, silent Danish countryside, staring up at a billion stars, and faking a British accent while my new British friend faked an American accent back to me.

After Fanø, we got lost on trains until somehow we found our way down to Amsterdam. We got in around 11p. and checked into Hostel The Globe, where we shared a room with 18 other travelers. The next day, we took 3-hour walking tour and learned quite a bit about this incredible city. We strolled through a very popular shopping street (European fashions are awesome!) and then visited the Anne Frank house for an intimate look into the the life of the girl we've all read about. Last night, we walked through the Red Light District, which was an educating and surreal experience! When we got back to our hostel, we attempted to fall asleep over the sound of 30some drunken Irishmen down the block singing "I would walk 500 hundred miles...." Amsterdam is another city that doesn't sleep! Basically, the opposite of Fanø.

Today, we hop a train over to Berlin. You'll be hearing from us, soon!

All our love,

Hayley and Thayer

**Memorable Trip Quote:**

[While searching for a place to eat breakfast in Copenhagen....
looking at a menu in a window of a restaurant]

Thayer: I don't understand what the words mean! Let's keep going.

Hayley: Til what?! Til we understand Danish?