European Odyssey, Part 1 at 4:49 AM

Note: We're on our third and final day in Italy right now, and this is the first hotel where we've had free internet, so that's why I haven't been posting. As for why I didn't post the last couple of days...well, Rome's kept us busy. So here's the first post I wrote when we came to Germany. I'll continue to update as I'm able to.

We're in Dresden now, and there is no free internet here. Hence, you will not see this post until we get to Dusseldorf. But the timeline is beside the point. Let's talk about how we got here, shall we? (Boring stuff first.)

We left Indianapolis's fabulous (seriously) new airport on Wednesday afternoon, and flew to the magical land of Detroit. From there we caught our long flight on a big giant A330 to Amsterdam. Now, on my last trans-Atlantic flight, I was still set apart as an LDS missionary, and as such I did not partake in any media goodness that was available at the time. However, this time I was able to do so. Let me just say this: Holy crap, does that make an 8-hour flight more bearable. I mean seriously. We watched Slumdog Millionaire, which was fantastic. Then we tried unsuccessfully to get some sleep and avoid extreme jetlag, followed by me taking out the ol' laptop and plugging it in (we sat where there was power) to watch some Friday Night Lights. And then the flight was done. So yeah, it was not that bad.

We ended up getting into Berlin around noon. After taking the bus to the Hauptbahnhof (central train station), we took way too long to figure out what trains we needed to take in order to get the Courtyard, where we were staying that evening. By the time we actually made it to the hotel, we were pretty wrecked. But we still fired up the Interwebs to get on the webcam and talk to the boys. (As a side note, big thanks to the in-laws, who came out from Delaware to watch the boys while we're gone.) If you've used webcams before as we had, you may think that they're always choppy delayed. This was not at all the case when we used the gmail webcam service. There was no delay at all in the picture, and the quality was great. So we're using gmail's webcam service from now on. Since you're extremely interested in that.

So the first actual sight we saw was Checkpoint Charlie. This was the American Sector of Germany when it was separated into four parts after World War II (for those that don't know.) It's right next to where the Berlin Wall used to be. The museum was good, but a bit nonlinear. We felt like we walked in and were suddenly in the middle of things. There wasn't much of an explanation of origins, or logistics, or anything like that. The first thing we saw was how people attempted to escape East Germany. It was cool, like I said, but just a bit disorienting. The other problem was, as we realized partway through the museum, we were freaking tired. We sat down at one point to look at something and almost fell asleep. So we walked back to the hotel and got some dinner (keeping it easy at this point – Jessica had a club sandwich and I had some mushroom ravioli. It was most excellent.)

All these details and I forgot to mention how my German is. It's actually still pretty good. I can get along just fine, although it took a few times talking to people to get comfortable. I think one problem I still have is that once people are aware that I speak German, they get excited and start talking too fast. Then I can't understand them and I feel kind of dumb when I have that look on my face like, "Ummm…..I know I was speaking German to you just now, but I have no clue what you just said." But largely it's been fine.

So today we started off in Berlin. To get around, we had a Welcome Card, which gets you all your train and bus fares within the city, along with discounts at museums and such. We've also got the German Rail Pass, which gets us four days of travel anywhere in Germany for two people. So it's a lot of public transportation for us, which I love. I like being able to walk through the train stations and walk along the streets to wherever we're going from the smaller stations. It brings back a lot of memories of how we got around as missionaries, and plus I just enjoy the atmosphere. You get to really see the city, and you enjoy the company of the people. You almost feel like you fit in somehow. It's getting the whole Germany experience, since a lot of people get around like that. The downside, of course, is that it's murder on the feet. Since we don't walk nearly this much at home, we're not quite accustomed to the beatdown that the ol' dogs are currently receiving. But the good part is that we're walking off all the food that we're bound to be eating over the next few days.

So anyway, Berlin. We went to the German History Museum, and let me tell you, it was fantastic. It was a complete history of Germany. From about 100 BC until today. There were two floors worth of exhibits. Artifacts, paintings, written history, etc. And we also got the audio guide, which gave us further details about specific exhibits. Our guidebook says that there's six hours worth of information in the audio guide should one choose to listen to every part. There's certainly enough to keep you busy in the museum every day for a week or so. We were a bit worn out by the time we hit WWII, but we got a pretty good dose of that at Checkpoint Charlie, and we're hitting Nuremberg and Dachau later as well. So we've got that covered.

After the history museum, we went over to the Reichstag through the Brandenburg Gate. The Reichstag is the German Parliament. We were going to get in there and have a look around, but the line ended up being too long to get in and we had a train to catch to get to Dresden, and we still had some lunch that needed to be eaten.

Speaking of which, one thing that we didn't factor into our plans was travel time. You know, you watch these guys on The Amazing Race, and you kind of lose perspective on that sort of thing. It's like, "okay, we're starting in L.A., and the first stop is…Scotland!" And then they're in Scotland. Not that we thought we'd be teleporting or something mind you, but still. You look at Berlin and Dresden on a map of Germany, and you don't think "two-hour train ride." But that's what it is. So we hit the train to Dresden, and now after walking around for way too long again, we're in the hotel. It's actually 1 am right now. We hit the hotel restaurant for dinner, since the place we were going to go to was closed. I had a duck salad (bad idea, since I remembered I'm not a fan of duck, but it was still edible), and Jessica had a Hawaiian pizza. Before you boo that decision, I'll just say that pizza tastes completely different here. Forget your canned pineapple, pre-shredded cheese, and pre-made spaghetti sauce. Everything is fresh on these bad boys. And they're good.

I also forgot to mention that Jessica had her first Doener today. What is that, you ask? Well, it's a kind of sandwich with lamb, lettuce, cucumber, and zaziki sauce on a piece of flatbread (not the kind of flat bread you're thinking of – better.) You can also get goat cheese on it, but that's gross. It's a staple of missionaries in Germany, and it is delicious. I was very pleased that she enjoyed hers. Staying on the food side of things, I'm thinking brats and pommes tomorrow. Pommes is French fries, but different because you get curry ketchup, mayonnaise and onions on them. I know what you're thinking, but trust me, it rules. The caveat is that you cannot try this at home, because it's not the kind of mayo that you buy at the store in the States. That's just wrong. Don't do it.

So this is way too much detail right now and I need to get to bed, so I'm going to stop. More tomorrow.