Our first night in Prague, or Prague Fail.

We all loaded up on the bus to Dresden and many of us put on our headphones and immediately went to sleep, but were woken an hour or so later by our tour guide, Anita, who informed us we had entered the Czech Republic. The whole concept was difficult for me to wrap my head around, as I recall the sister of my second grade teacher coming into our class in 1992 and teaching us about Czechoslovakia, which she had just visited.

Although I was sleepy and bleary-eyed, I forced myself to wake up and take in the landscape, which was absolutely beautiful - so so green and quite picturesque.

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We stopped shortly after for a quick bathroom break, then loaded up and kept going until we hit Prague. This trip was particularly important for the Texas group, because they were Czech in background and all did traditional polka dances back home. Of course, the irony of it all was that a handful of them immediately booked it for the McDonald's at our rest stop. Ohhhh middle and Southern America...!

It took us some driving around to find our hotel, but we eventually came across it. Only this Hotel Legie was the most janky hotel I'd ever seen from the outside, and I felt like we were staying in the TL. Our group piled into the lobby, which smelled like smoke and deep-fried food, and waited around forever because the front desk ladies had a somewhat complicated method of checking everyone in. And once we got our keys to our rooms (mostly on the sixth, seventh and eighth floors), we had to wait for the ONLY elevator in the building - which only took three people at a time - to come down and go back up. Annoying.

But we made it to our room, which was small and smoky and not very luxurious ("This is a three-star hotel?" I asked Elia incredulously) and dropped off our baggage, then headed down to the second-floor "restaurant" for dinner.

The food was another adventure all its own, and by that, I mean it was disgusting. The food was mostly fried - fried potatoes, fried chicken, fried fish. And the vegetarian options consisted of a cucumber tomato salad with no dressing, stale-ish bread, and the aforementioned potatoes, plus some questionable scalloped kind of potatoes. When we told the kitchen staff that we couldn't eat that food, they begrudgingly informed us they would make us a vegetarian option. Which was... fried mushrooms. FML.

I was frustrated with this - add to it the fact that the front desk ladies told Lynn that our neighborhood was so unsafe that if we females stepped outside after 10 p.m., we wouldn't be seen again, and we were disappointed. After all the money we paid for our trip, we were not at all pleased with the accommodations or the location.

Lynn, Elia and I were pissed, and as a protest, we said we'd go get food elsewhere. Jesse was fine with the food, but he didn't want to be stuck with the Texans (who he was rooming with) so the four of us peaced out.

We wandered and finally came across a cute looking pizza place, although not before coming across a lot of sketchy looking bars and people. There we were able to have delicious food (for relatively cheap), delicious beer (but gross wine) and enjoy the weather and brainstorm our options.

When we returned to the hotel with a plan, we got beers at the "restaurant" and sat down with Renate who had, in the meantime, chatted with a couple employees and a couple from Berlin that was staying there. They said they stayed there every time there were in town, and quickly put to rest the garbage that the ladies at the front desk had told us, saying that they were trying to 1) stir up fear and 2) keep us in our rooms at night and not constantly coming in and out of the hotel at night. LAME.

But there wasn't much we could do at that moment, so we all decided to go to sleep and think about it, because that was all we COULD do, and reassess the situation in the morning.

Afternoon in Dresden.

On Friday morning, we all woke up far too early and began the nearly 200 kilometer trek to Dresden, a beautiful beautiful city in Saxony.

This was our first day of nearly unbearable heat, and our day began with one of the Texas kids passing out in the middle of the square, from what was likely dehydration or heatstroke (in my mind, lots of drinking plus little sleep plus lots of heat usually equals passing out). After that all passed, we picked up our tour guide, who took us on a guided tour of the city by bus, during which we saw lots of fancy and ornate buildings and gorgeous gorgeous homes, as well as a few castles.

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The tour ended after an hour or two and we were turned loose, so Elia and I went out to lunch and afterward, she opted to do some writing so I wandered and took in the architecture and street life.

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Finally, our group met up and we boarded the bus again, this time on another nearly 200 kilometer journey to the Czech Republic, although little did we know what awaited us there...

Shopping in Berlin.

The next morning, we began with a walk a few blocks down to a museum, The Story of Berlin, which could have been cool under different circumstances, but neither of us were particularly interested in it, so we breezed through it.

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Our plan of attack was to hit up the shopping on the street, since we were staying in a classy area. The first stop was Diesel, a no-brainer, where the pants were incredibly cheap (100 euros here for a pair as compared to 300 dollars back home) but none of the pants that I liked were in my size, so instead I got a new purse which was on sale. I also got my official German soccer jacket, which I'd been searching for everywhere and finally found at - duh - Adidas.

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Once those purchases were complete, we were off to the Berlin Zoo. Let me tell you: this zoo is amazing. Absolutely awesome. The landscaping is gorgeous, there are so many different animals, and all the animals actually appear happy. They have plenty of room to roam and aren't confined like other zoos I have seen.

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Next we went on a shopping excursion to Berlinomat, where Rich had suggested Elia go, and along the way, she picked up a great new dress at F95. We quickly had to head out to meet the group for dinner, so we made our way down near Alexanderplatz where we had another relatively subpar dinner of vegetables covered in cheese (thank goodness for the beer). After dinner, we skipped out on the whole group's trip to Potsdam and instead went to a nearby shopping mall (the first cool mall we found in Europe!) to cool down and walk around. After hitting up all the floors, we caught a train and began our walk back to the hotel, where Elia came across some shops and I made a new pug friend named Rocco who wanted to follow me back.

Since we weren't in a huge rush back to the hotel, we stopped off at a restaurant and hotel nearby our hotel and had a couple drinks and enjoyed the evening air. Then while she took a shower, I went out to the nearby store to pick up some beer and candy, and we watched "American Pie" on my laptop, before the both of us turned in for the night.

Out and about in Berlin.

The next morning, we woke up to a wake-up call (which was hugely obnoxious and far too early) and got ready, then headed downstairs for breakfast. The offerings were juice, coffee and tea, as well as cucumbers and tomatoes, cereal with milk or yogurt, and breads, jams, meats and cheeses. We had a light breakfast and I packed a sandwich for later in the afternoon, and then we waited for the entire group to gather downstairs in the lobby before boarding the bus.

Our first stop was Checkpoint Charlie and the accompanying museum. It was an interesting place, but the information was haphazardly organized throughout the first two floors, and the most intriguing bits were the stories of the people who escaped or attempted escapes over or under or through the wall. The third floor was a mishmash kind of exhibit about religion and countries and other things that - at first look - didn't appear to be connected to the rest of the museum, so we left.

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We walked around a bit and I did some souvenir shopping, picking up some Berlin flip-flops and a lighter, as well as a few postcards. We wandered around the neighborhood and stopped for lunch at a Vietnamese place, where I had spring rolls and a beer (saving room for my sandwich) and Elia ordered a huge and delicious soup. From europe v2 From europe v2

When lunch was over, we milled around our meeting point for around 10 minutes. In the morning, we were one of the first groups, but by this time, the place was buzzing with all kinds of tour buses, and it struck me as rather commercialized, with guards in uniform posing at the checkpoint and charging an outrageous price of 1 Euro per person in a picture. Ridiculous how people capitalize on these things.

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Shortly after, we met up with our tour guide for Berlin, a certain Kevin Kennedy, who was nothing short of awesome. For the next three hours, he guided us through the city by bus, pointing out all the major sights and explaining the history and significance of them, as well as adding his own personal commentary which we found fantastic (but which offended much of the conservative Texas group). Some of the places we drove by or saw included: 

The Brandenburg Gate, The US Embassy, a Jewish Memorial, a Gay/Lesbian Memorial, and of course, many many strips of the Berlin Wall.

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After our tour ended, we found ourselves at the edge of the river, where a boat was waiting to take us on a one-hour tour of the city. It was at this point that I skipped out on the tour, heading instead to the nearby train station at Alexanderplatz and taking the S-Bahn to the hotel, where I settled down at a nearby cafe to watch the soccer game (USA versus Algeria). 

Unfortunately, the England versus Slovenia game was running concurrently, and the German media decided to air that match with only highlights of the other one every once in awhile. Disappointing, but the most I could ask for I suppose. The server at the restaurant befriended me since it was a bit slow (4 p.m. - not yet dinner) and he brought me beer, taught me some phrases in German, and made conversation with me. 

The game didn't appear to be going too well, but once the other match ended, it cut to the American game which was just ending, and I was able to catch the last few moments in which we scored!!! I started yelling, but of course no one around me seemed too interested, so I ran inside the restaurant to tell my new friend "Wir haben die Fussballspiel gewonnen!" and he grabbed me and hugged me and kissed my checks and told me how excited he was for me. Then he introduced me to his co-worker as his "new American friend" and explained that he was happy my team had one. It was quite a moment.

After I calmed down a bit, I walked back to the hotel, a couple bottles of Gaffel Kolsch in my bag, and opened them up while I waited for the group to get back from dinner (also a buffet, which I gladly skipped based off the previous night's experience). Everyone else arrived a bit later and I went up to the TV room to drink and go over the game with Jake (who - dedicated fan that he is - woke up at 6 a.m. and went down to Streets of London to drink and watch the game in the packed, standing-room only, pub).

After a little bit of downtime, I met up with the other girls and we got all decked out in our German gear and then set walking down the street to find a place to watch the Germany versus Ghana match. After a series of false starts, we ended up going down to King's Pub (which I'm convinced was a gay bar) and hung out with a few of the Texans, drinking beer and cheering for Germany, who won (of course!). 

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After the game was CHAOS. People and cars and flags and horns and screaming and cheering and honking in the streets for HOURS. We watched it and cheered at the passers-by for a good thirty minutes, but finally, Elia found me and suggested I go get some food, as I hadn't yet eaten and I was relatively drunk. 

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We made our way to an Italian restaurant and I ordered a pizza while Mario the pizzamaker was blowing kisses at Elia and calling her "bella". At some point I told him in German "First off all, she doesn't speak German, second of all, can I have some cheese and peppers?" and then later on I told him she was married, and when he asked me where her ring was, I told him it was so big and expensive that it had to be locked up in a safe in the hotel. He responded with, "Ok, boyfriend, hotel?" And I said "No, boyfriend San Francisco, ring hotel." His response "Not a problem for me". Haha.

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Anyway, once dinner was done, we made our way back to the hotel and I went to sleep in preparation for the next day.