Frohe Weihnachten!

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I am now in Kassel, Germany with a good friend of mine named David and his family. David and I met when we were matched for a foreign exchange thing a while back. We've kept in touch so far as he came back to visit me in America with his sister last summer. He's a good guy. A good, stereotypical German guy. He's very fond beer and is adamant that Volkswagen is the only way.

This is the best picture of David I could get from where I was sitting without actually expelling any energy. 

David's family was nice to take me in and host me for Christmas this year. Hearing that they were excited to do so took a large amount of weight off of my chest. Spending the largest holiday in the Christian world in a youth hostel was not appealing at all. Pretty sure it would have ended with me sharing some Pringles with a homeless guy in an attempt to have something that resembled a holiday dinner.
The German Christmas traditions are great. I think my favorite one is how you have to sing holiday songs for a while before you open gifts. Speaking of which, I got tickets to a circus and a six pack of beer as my present. I couldn't be happier, I think it's a weird combination of the fact that I can't drink beer in America and that I like circuses.
The food at all of my Christmas dinners has been absolutely wonderful here. It's almost exactly what you would expect out of German food; meat with a side of meat and some cabbage and potatoes thrown in somehow. I've eaten so much food in the past three days that I don't think that I need to eat anything in the next week. I would recommend German Christmas to anyone that wants to have a crazy, slightly different time for Christmas in the future.

A soliloquy

I don't plan on making this a long entry, I just wanted to point something out really.

I am now sitting in bed almost ready to go to sleep, and have just said goodnight personally to Tim the German, Oskar the Chinese guy, and Mohammed the Syrian. These are my roommates tonight. The fact that I can hang out with all of these diverse guys in Leipzig, Germany blows my mind. Truly, this beats going to college at the moment. As of now on this trip, I have met Spaniards, Brits, French people, Koreans, Egyptians, Australians, Irish people, Chinese people, Austrians, Germans, Poles, Czechs, Russians, Syrians, Afghans, Indians, New Zealanders, Japanese people, and some Mexicans. Also a few of my American countrymen but those guys are too normal to me.

The diversity of people like myself just wanting to experience the world is astounding. Through this trip I have realized that all people are the same. Sure, I may have said I knew that prior, but now I really have experience with people from all over the world. People are the same in the simple fact that they just want to be happy. I think that no matter what, every person deep down just wants to feel like they have good people and good food around them and nothing else. I guess it's kind of like what Mark Twain said about travel being the only cure for ignorance. Through experiencing these people, I realize that they aren't just imaginary places that a person only hears about on TV shows.

And if that ain't the niftiest thing I've ever written I don't know what is.

Leipzig

So, first off I want to rub the fact that the weather here in Germany is like an early fall day in late December in the faces of people from my hometown. As I understand it's cold and snowy there at the moment.

At the moment I am chilling in the beautiful German city of Leipzig with my current traveling companion Tim. I met Tim in Dresden and he decided to follow me to Leipzig. It was actually more of his decision I think. I asked him what a good city to bum around in for a few days before I spent Christmas with my host family in Kassel would be and he said Leipzig sounded cool. We arriv
ed yesterday and spent most of that time looking through the touristy area and finding food. It's seems like a nice enough town, not big and sophisticated like Berlin or Hamburg but not small and disturbing like most inhabited areas of Arkansas. 

Today we did a little wandering and decided to walk to the outskirts of the city to see this really tall monument to some Napoleonic battle. On the way there we walked through some really soviet looking parts of town and came across this relic:

We have no idea what it is, but it has a red star on the top and looks derelict and terrifying. Leipzig is also in the former DDR so we figure it's some sort of important socialist building. 

When we got to the monument thingy, we were shocked to find it was six euro to get inside. We made ourselves content with just climbing to the top and looking out over the city. 

Beautiful day here in Germany. I wore a sweatshirt and a scarf and it almost seemed too much. These posh Europeans were still wearing parkas because not doing so would have broken some social code that I don't follow. 

Little cloudier when I took this one a few minutes later. The rest of the day was still gorgeous. 

In other news, I'm debating turning vegetarian. Tim is devout and has shown me the light. We made this stir fry with tofu the other day and it was one of the best meals I've had while I've been in on this trip. It's not even that it's healthier or anything. Finding protein and stuff while only eating vegetables is like living life on hard mode, the only way worth living in my opinion. 

Man, Dresden is so...hygenic

Yesterday I spent my first day in Dresden exploring the town with a German guy named Tim. I met Tim in my hostel room. All I did was ask him if he wanted to go to the German hygiene museum. Boom, instant friendship.
Dresden has definitely lived up to the hype, it is incredibly beautiful. Here's a glimpse at what a lot of the buildings in the Altstadt look like.

Beautiful. Although I can't decide if this photo is actually good, or if I'm just hoping it is. 

I especially liked this. I forget the name, but it's a mural that depicts all of the Saxon monarchs that reigned here. Tim later made the realization that besides a small girl, there were no women in the entire thing. Those sexist bastards. 

We spent most of the day at the German hygiene museum. I had just typed in to Google "Things to do in Dresden" and that seemed like a cool place to spend a few hours. I mean come on hygiene is such an interesting, mainstream topic. It was not at all what we thought it was. There was nothing about hygiene. I'll let this photo do the talking.

You see correctly. That is a manikin of an incredibly ripped man in a man thong gesturing to his package. 

That was a photo taken from the human sexuality section of the exhibit. Tim and I couldn't for the life of us actually figure the correlation of any of the exhibits to hygiene. The tour began with a section  on anatomy, then eating habits, human sexuality, your brain on drugs, stress, and some weird Victorian thing with like... spoons. Another exhibit in the museum was about sustainable fashion. It was definitely an interesting museum. I can't say I have a real desire to go back. Today we plan on seeing nice things, like Christmas markets. 

To end things, have some eye bleach. 

Hostel lyfe

I just had the desire to make a post about hostels, because I know a lot of people feel they are shrouded in mystery.

A hostel is a cheap travel accommodation somewhat like a hotel, except you sleep in a room with like ten other people and you all share a bathroom. This is why they're so cheap. It's really not as bad as it sounds, you really only use the room to sleep in anyway. The quality of the hostel varies a lot as well. Some seem like mansions for the price you paid and others make you worried you'll be shanked while walking back from the showers. Every hostel is different and will provide you with some sort of entertainment. 

The room comes with a bed, and usually a locker to put all of your valuables in. Some rooms have an attached bathroom and shower, others have the dorm style thing where they are at the end of the hall. Most have a kitchen and some free food. The food ranges from free tea to non perishable items that some backpacker left like pasta or oil or something. One hostel I went to had free oranges. I ate way more oranges then I needed to as a result. All hostels have a common room to meet new people in. Some (the good ones) have bars attached. Others offer a more chill vibe and just have a huge collection of movies and a large TV. 

If you ever end up staying in a hostel, make friends asap and ask the receptionist for tips on fun things to do. They are usually natives and know all of the intricacies of the place you're visiting. 

Don't be a loser and sit on your phone or computer all night. Those guys are lame. 

Dresden!

After a long, drawn out process, I managed to find a place to go to next that was sufficiently close, and fulfilled my personal interests (I slept in and picked a random German city twenty minutes before I checked out). I chose Dresden, a rather unassuming German city with a knack for having kick ass Christmas markets. Apparently the Christmas market there is the oldest continuously operating one in Germany. It's like the super bowl of festivities, with fewer commercials and more hot wine than it's football counterpart. It also happened to be on my way to Kassel, which is the city I'm going to spend Christmas in with a friend of mine.
Dresden was at one time known as an incredibly beautiful city until it was fire bombed into oblivion during the second world war. I don't know how much of the city has been rebuilt to be in that fashion, but I hope it still holds some of that charm. It also holds the German museum of Hygiene and the German transport museum, two attractions that I hope are as amusing as they sound.

To end this post I'd like to share one last Poland ball to commemorate my time here.

It's a little dark, But I don't care anymore. I've had enough Poland to last a lifetime.

Polish the Polish

I won't keep it a secret, I'm becoming, in actuality, sick and tired of being in Poland. I meant to be here for like four days max and I've now been here for like eight with two more definite days planned. Here's the deal, Poland is cold and isn't on everybody's list of things to see in Europe during the winter. At the hostel scene, there aren't too many people that want to hang out and see all of the attractions (However few there are). I've been a lone wolf for too long. I need socialization like a duck billed platypus needs metaphysical assistance to survive.
At the hostel I'm currently at in Wroclaw (Breslau for you traditionalists) I've pretty much been sitting in the common room writing blog posts and catching up on my journal. There is a Polish girl reading a book and a Romanian guy sitting in the corner playing League of Legends. He's pretty cool though, he gave me some desert thing like a souffle just for being one of the three people in the same room.

Onion dome!

Average park in Poland. They love the army more than we Americans do. I have to say it's disheartening. The Polish have out 'Merican-ed 'Merica. 

Oh look. Poland. 

I did have the best schwarma I've ever consumed in Warsaw though, so that's a plus. Get it with a coke, will not disappoint. 

Auschwitz

So, yesterday I made the trek to Oswiecim. It's around two hours outside of Krakow by train and almost half that by bus. Quaint is how I would describe it. I would guess most have no idea of the significance of this small, unassuming Polish town, so I'll use the German name,

Auschwitz.

I'm a huge history nerd, so being in the same general part of Poland as this death camp, I felt I needed to experience it. It's one of those things that has impacted the world to such an extent it would almost have been inexcusable to tour it. 1 in 6 of the people that were murdered during the holocaust were killed there.
My first impressions was that the atmosphere was perfect. It was cold and rainy with a wind that makes you want to curl into a ball. I walked through something akin to airport security and was transported to a place much different from the chaos of the line outside.

The gate. Work makes you free. 

As soon as I walked through the gate, an eerie feeling of dread washed over me. There was no reason to my movement, I just started walking, not even searching for something to look at. I don't cope well with death, just walking over places that at one point had been piled high with corpses made me feel unnerved. 

The museum part of the camp was situated in about four of the barracks towards the back. It began with an explanation of why the nazi's felt they needed to bring about the final solution, and then went on to show evidence of the slaughter. 

What was left of the camp was mainly just barracks like these. 

In one part of the museum, there were just rooms filled with shoes, suitcases, cookware, toiletries, and prosthetic limbs. Another room was filled with hair that had been taken off of the recently killed to be sold to textile factories and insulate u-boats. If you looked closely into the pile you could see braids. That hit me hard because I put little girls and braided hair into the same group. 

A canister of Zyklon B pellets, the type of poison used in the gas chambers. When I was in Hamburg, I saw the building that housed the factory that produced these pellets. The owners of the factory were tried and hung and the building is now a chocolate factory. I find that fitting. 

I walked into the gas chambers and the crematoria and took two pictures. The one above is of what the walls looked like. Those are groves scratched into the wall by the people being gassed. You often hear about the scratches in the wall, but it still came as a shock to me to see how deep they were. They do a good job of illustrating how many people actually met their fate in that room. I got out of there as quickly as I could. 

Crematoria.

Those metal things were like stretchers on tracks that went into the gas chamber to make lifting corpses into the furnace easier. 

Throughout my time at Auschwitz I kept thinking of a line from the movie Blade Runner; 

"All these moments lost in time, like tears in rain". 

It was just a shame that all of these people died. They weren't faceless, they had jobs, and positions, and family, and lives. 

The collective life that was destroyed when a group of men decided it was useless is an incredible slight to the world. 

I'm having a hard time finding words to describe my experience here so I think I'll end it at that. 

Polan!

First off I want to introduce you all to my favorite political internet comic. It's called Poland ball, or sometimes Polan ball. It's great, trust me. 

I am writing this entry while sitting in the isle of a moving train. It's a long story, I'll begin from the top.

In terms of trains, Poland is a weird and mysterious place. In most countries I have encountered, the train system is pretty much the same. With my pass, you get onto all of the regional trains and that's that. But, Poland decided that it needed to be different. For example, with my train from Prague to Warsaw, I needed a reservation for a seat from the Czech border to Warsaw, about a two and a half hour journey. The rest of the trip, From Prague to the border, (about six hours) was totally reservation free. Keep in mind I was on the same train, in the same seat the entire time. I paid three euro just to sit exactly where I had been for the past quarter of a day.

Fast forward to today.

I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed expecting the train ride from Warsaw to Krakow to be a two hour breeze.

This is when the Polish transportation system decided that it hated me

I hopped on to a train going in the right direction, as my pass entitles me to, around eleven. Around an hour into the ride, the ticket guy informs me that my pass does not cover this train and that I had to get off at the next possible station. That station was in the middle of nowhere. Great, no biggie, I'll just catch the next train, all I need to do is get a reservation. Boom, the lady at the counter gave me a reservation that didn't cover the entire trip from northern Poland to Krakow for some reason. Still no biggie, although by this point I was really, really annoyed. I was now back in Warsaw and had to either, wait until like nine o'clock, or just buy a ticket that would get me to where I needed to be. The ticket counter made sure to warn me that the train I was buying a ticket for probably didn't have any actual seats but I was welcome to sit in the aisle. So that's where I am now. The train is so full the aisle is packed to the brim with people and every seat is filled. We're all here for the next two hours.

Nice.

It's all for the experience. 

When In doubt, find an Australian.

In my these past few weeks I've come to realize something, the best resource for any situation is to find your current hostel's Australians and bother them.
It's a really solid plan, Aussies tend to know everything and are generally pretty solid people too. Need to know a great bar? Australians.
Need a new group? Australians.
Hungry? Australians.

Wait, don't ask them about food, they have Vegemite.

I actually ended up extending my stay in Hamburg by two days just so I could spend some more time with a group of Australians (and one French guy) I had met up with. The one guy is also a blogger, so in an attempt to gain karma, here's a shameless plug for his blog:

stumpedsincebirth.com

The title is funnier if you read the blog. It'll all come to you after a while.

On to my current whereabouts!
I'm in Warsaw Poland! I got here late! I haven't done anything yet! The city is cloaked in a bank of some of the thickest fog I have ever seen. Everything has a weird ominous feeling to it as a result. I've actually started to wonder if it's smog, I've never seen smog before. It could also be a result of methodical chain smoking. I have never seen a person actually three finger a cigarette before and had chalked it up to seedy looking gangsters in movies. I can now assure you that weird variations of ingesting cancer sticks are alive and well in Poland.

This. They smoke them like this. 

Tomorrow looks good. I have like six museums to go see and a plethora of Polocks to hang out with. 

Really hoping they have kvas here. It's good. Look it up. 

Tourists

I want to make a post now about something near and dear to my heart.
Tourists.
By now you are all thinking to yourselves "Hey wait, isn't Max himself a tourist?"
The answer to that is, yes, But not as much as some of the mega tourists you see everywhere. I only take my large camera out some of the time and have not worn khaki shorts once.
I bring up this topic because of my experience the past couple of days in Prague. European cities are most of the time designed for foot traffic, as that was the way to travel back when the city was in infancy. They now have the problem of adding in car and train traffic which at times can make things very crowded. Especially if it's a touristy area.
It seems that most tourists have no idea how to walk in any sensible fashion as soon as they arrive in the place they are looking to tour. People slow to a shuffle, walk on the wrong side of the path, and at seemingly random intervals just stop where they are to form a phalanx. That's right elderly Germans, I'm looking at you.

Realistic representation of tourists stopping in the middle of the road for a chat. 

All in all, I really didn't mind the crowds. It kind of added to the majesty of the place by suggesting that it's almost a pilgrimage for some people. I even got to hang out with a New Yorker that showed me the key is to just walk fast and not worry about bumping into people. I let him walk in front like an ice breaker. If I lead I began to feel bad and apologize for every little bump. You can take a boy out of Minnesota, but you can't take the Minnesota out of the boy. 

Next stop: Warsaw. 

Wanna see a dead body?

Yesterday I spent most of my time seeing the sights of Prague with a guy named Kevin that I had just met the night prior as he was a room mate of mine. I really do have to say, Prague is exceptionally beautiful. It seems like every other building is historically significant in some way. At home, a lot of people said that it is their favorite place in the entire world, and I don't blame them. It really is an incredible city. Some of the better aspects are that everything is cheap, the city is beautiful, and the people are friendly. Although the city does have it's charm, I also feel like it's rather dirty and not very progressive. I began to think that being a tourist here is the way to go. living here is another story. For instance, I couldn't find a supver market that sold healthy food or had any real variety.
But, I digress from my main point.
Prague is a great city. I can't imagine a person would run out of things to do if they lived here for fifty years.
On to today.
I woke up a man without obligation. The day prior I had seen a cool looking museum and had decided that I should go there. I had no idea what it was as I can't read Czech, but it looked impressive and national museum-y. I got my ticket with my student discount. Which is awesome because I'm not actually a student anywhere. I just kind of have a Northland Community and Technical College I.D. handy.

Turns out it was a museum about death.

Yeah, It came as a shock to me when I walked into the first room and it was a pretty obvious preamble to a larger exhibit on cultural practices of death and dying. I hadn't woken up with a large desire to see a bunch of human remains, but damn it was interesting as hell.

"Oh look, a skull rack"

The majority of the exhibit was dedicated to what dying is, why dying happens, how humans have seen dying throughout the ages, and burial practices. The last part was all about unnatural death (Murder, Suicide) and seemed to be a little kitchy in comparison to the rest of the content. It took a swing to "This is how people buried esteemed elders in ancient Rome" to "HEY LOOK THIS IS A REAL GALLOWS OMGOMG LOOK AT THAT NOOSE HAHAHA".

If you're ever in Prague, I'd recommend finding this place for the death exhibit. It's right at the end of Wenceslas square. You can't miss it, people are just dying to get there. 

AAAAACCCCHHHHHTTTTUUUUUNNNNGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!

In Hamburg I had some time to aimlessly wander without anybody while the rest of my group went to an attraction I had already been to . I decided to follow the pier to wherever it would take me and see if I didn't end up at the fish market. While strolling about I came across what looked like a submarine in the distance. When one sees a submarine, one tends to get closer to further inspect.
It turns out it was a museum...with access to the submarine. Whipping out my student I.D in record time, I quickly bought a ticket from the lady at the counter and prepared to be amazed. I'm a huge fan of the movie "Das Boot", so seeing a U-Boat in the Fatherland Germany was really epic. There were also no other tourists there so I had unrestricted access to the boat.

I will not be ashamed, I had visions of the movie plying through my head the whole time. I may have even whispered ACHTUNG a few times.

Das Boot. 

Also Das Boot. 

The ship itself was amazing. I had no idea how cramped they are. I'm pretty convinced that a tour on one would leave me with a disfigured spine. 

"Okay, not too bad. Kind of annoying"

This is the second nicest galley on the ship. It's meant for noncoms. Seriously. 

I geeked out so hard here. 

........Ping..........Ping........

Torpedo room. Nice and comfy. Pretty sure there were a few beds in here. 

All in all, I'd give it a ten out of ten. I can imagine it would have sucked if you weren't at all interested. It is so far the only tour I have ever been on that required me to lift my body weight and crawl in order to get into the different rooms. 

Prague

Yesterday I woke up with full intentions to go to Copenhagen and begin my adventures in Scandinavia. That plan fell through when I looked at the hostel prices and booking fees for my trains. So, in about ten minutes I picked Prague sort of randomly and just...went there.
It wasn't a bad decision at all.
Prague is Beautiful.
When people talk about going to Europe they always say Prague. Like seriously I think most people told me that when I was preparing to leave. I had always kind of felt that it was maybe too touristy or something of that nature. It is actually tourist central, I won't lie it's terrible. But It doesn't matter when the whole town looks like a fairy tale. So, without further stalling, have some pictures. You've been good. You deserve them.

The whole city is just gorgeous. 

Got hot chocolate. Was actually just melted chocolate. Was not disappointed.

What eastern European city is complete without a mirror maze?

More Prague. This time river style. 

I haven't forgotten! I swear!

At the time of this writing I am sitting in my Hostel in Hamburg. I had no real intentions of actually staying in Hamburg. I was originally going to go directly from  Amsterdam to Copenhagen. But, while sitting in the Amsterdam train station I quickly changed my mind when I saw the amount of time I would have to spend in a train and saw the reservation fee. Hamburg is closer and in that respect a much more appealing stop. I also did not intend to stay here for four days. It was just the place that I was to stay for the night to make the trip more bearable. I will now be here for four days. It's really funny how hostel friend groups work. Every single one of them is the absolute best. You'll probably leave them feeling a little sad and that there couldn't possible be anyone else you would like to hang out with in this entire continent.

But,

At the next hostel, you will definitely find more people that are also super cool and you want to spend time with. That simple fact is why this trip has been one of the best experiences of my life and I've only just begun.

Anyway, the next post I do will have pictures. I promise.