Becky is starting the trip not feeling 100% (woman cold, if you will). So we ordered her a drink with apple cider vinegar in it. 🤢

We are those people.... so many selfies are going to happen.📸

After we showered and regrouped at our hotel, we fought off some major jet lag and explored Vienna. To tie us over to supper, we grabbed a kebab from a street vendor near our hotel.

Our hotel is within walking distance to downtown core of all the touristy destinations, which is great.

We didn’t go through the entrance to this building but we plan to explore that more tomorrow and Tuesday. We think it leads into some sort of Garden.

In one of the many cool old buildings we walked through, we a training arena for these horses. There must have been at least 15 stalls to accommodate all the horses.

Don’t mind how jet lagged and tired we look in this one...!

There were lots of horse drawn carriages tourists could take, near where we saw where the horses were trained.

We’re on London time now!

When you’re late for breakfast just have a coffee and strudel. The Viennese way.

The siteseeing commences

An old building

An old church building

An old Ferris wheel

An old building maybe a church...should I have taken notes?

River cruising on the Danube! Their “large” beer appears to be a pint.

PWC tower...it’s quite large...that is all

Out on the water

It’s like glass out there.

My large beer is empty.

The highlight of the tour - the large golden waste incinerator

Cool graffiti along the danube

Schnitzel sandwich here we go

Schonbrunn palace! Beautiful...huge...interesting...who was this Sisi character (she had tattoos!)

Our new home

The start of strudel show!

Get your elbows in it!

The strudel taking shape

We got a sample of strudel dough

Enjoying some coffee after studelling.

This ridiculous historic restaurant we managed to get into - Sacher Cafe. The hotel was frequented by the Hapsburg fam, the Queen (of England), Grace Kelly and other assorted artists. Oh and us.

They even had real flowers.

Wiener schnitzel and beef goulash (I don’t know the proper German wording)

Followed by their famous dessert - Sacher torte.

An evening walk. If that’s a Burger King sign in the back the answer is yes, we did stop there.

A large large church! Like maybe St Stephen’s cathedral but also it might not be.

The hookah lounge!

OUR LUGGAGE IS HERE!!!!!!

This is a photo of the Opera house that is an iconic building and venue in Vienna. It also has a couple museums in the building, one of which houses a piece by the famous Claude Monet.

A panoramic view from the Opera house balcony. Straight ahead is Cafe Mozart where Becky and I had our strudel breakfast yesterday.☕️

We were planning on doing the free walking tour that came with our hop on hop off pass, that would have started at the Opera house, but we decided last minute to do our own ‘self walking tour’ using an app that downloaded a bunch of different walking tours that guided us using GPS (surprisingly didn’t require data). For those interested, the app is called ‘GPSmycity’ which has walking tours in a bunch of cities. And within the app there is a bunch of information about each stop in the walking tour. Great for those who don’t want to deal with a group. We ended up basically following the walking tour we were going to go on anyways.

One of the entrances in the winter palace as part of walking tour.

Hofburg Palace / Winter Palace

They were setting up for some sort of event when we walked by.

We explored Volksgarten which was a park right in front of Hofburg.

Not pictured, we explored the museum quarter a bit before finding a spot for lunch.

We found a restaurant called Centimeter II, which seemed to be a pub that catered to North American tastes, while also having some Viennese options. The pub was playing American pop music from the 90s / 00s and had Budweiser on tap as an option (🤢). \240It was named this way because they had a one meter beer option. \240We both got burgers and it did the trick. They had some interesting menu options such as 2m of sausage as pictured below.

This is one of the two Museums beside Hofburg Palace. This is the art one. Directly facing this museum (not pictured) is the natural history museum. We had planned to tour it but found out it wasn’t open on Tuesdays 😕. That was a bit of a screw up on part, but oh well!

The picture below is of the famous Cafe Central, where various famous historical figures frequented, including Hitler, Stalin, Sigmund Freud, and others.

Not pictured anywhere, we toured the Hofburg palace through the Sisi Museum. Sisi was the nickname of Empress Elisabeth who was married to Emperor Franz Joseph. She had quite the interesting story - was known for being quite independent. The museum showed off the palaces silver collection, history of Sisi’s life, and a tour of the palace apartments which showed off how the rooms looked and an audio guide telling us the purpose of each room and a ton of history.

After touring the Sisi museum we found Cafe Bellaria and shared some more strudel. We got the cheese curd strudel called Topfenstrudel, with some vanilla sauce. Amazing.

We weren’t originally planning on attending a classical music concert, but we got persuaded by a sales person in the museum quarter. We were really glad we did it too! The show was hosted in a beautiful building and room, and including music from Mozart Strauss. There was also ballet and Opera singers included in the performance. The most famous and recognizable pieces played was The Blue Danube by Strauss.

And of course, we ended off the night stopping in at a Craft Beer Pub we sought out on tripadvisor. It was a nice pub, and seemed to be more of a local spot, as opposed to a tourist filled place, which was nice. However, we concluded that Regina still has better craft beer 😊.

As they say in Vienna...peace out!

The hills are alive in Austria!

Our apartment in munich

Great view of all the action from our palace!

Speaking of action - Marienplatz is the place to be!

Enjoying the English menu at Augustiner!

Enjoying the Augustiner Oktoberfest beer!

Crispy pork skin on my pork and a potato dumpling! Plus that gravy! Talk about a healthy meal!

Meg is excited about her pork knuckle (not moose knuckle)

Meg is dreaming about drindls.

I myself am looking for a jaunty hat.

Meg already has a jaunty hat.

Heading to the famous Hofbrauhaus Beer Hall!

The Meagans reunite!

Bren and some guy from Sweden reunite! Really they’ve just met. And Sven (Matthias) would not leave us. Even after I repeatedly questioned him over his alleged IKEA ownership.

Beer and pretzel. How German.

Clearly enjoying themselves.

Sven! He’s still there.

Check out the vid of Hofbrauhaus. Watch out for a cameo of the one and only...Sven!

“Work will set one free”. The original gate was stolen. It was retrieved a couple of years back so is now in safekeeping. This was the gate that Auschwitz was based on.

The area of the camp was huge. Interesting is that the gas chambers and crematorium were off to the side, hidden from the main prisoner space. Likely to keep it all secret.

This artwork is to show the camp. As you get closer you can see what it is, but as you get further away it becomes unclear. Perhaps a commentary on Germany and how much people knew about what was going on according to our guide.

Statue of the Unknown Prisoner beside the gas chambers. “To honour the dead, to warn the living”

We also took in some more sights of Munich later in the day (after a long nap).

Paprika haus is my kind of haus!

What’s in the bag Meg? A drindl!?

And I got a jaunty hat!

Oh Oktoberfest! It’s like a really large Regina Ex with more beer!

Pictures of the tents begin!

That lion moved and made weird noises

Check out that ceiling!

So packed!

I found a heart with a cat on it for Meg!

The madness of Oktoberfest! We want a table!

Nutcracker thing in the hallway of our apartment. Uncertain...

Our apartment! It’s a bit messy.

And ending the night with some chips!

Kitten in German... lol.

Becky got a roast chicken for lunch.

Sat with some guys from Italy for a while.

Don’t mind my awful singing!😎😄🎤🎶🎵

We ended up sitting at a table with some people from California!

99 Luftballons ... hehe

Need food to survive the day.

We even met up with one of Becky’s distant (?) cousins from München.

Going to the Augustiner tent today.

10am at the tent!

Prost!

Ein prosit!

A little sleepy today

Our friend from Germany. He started watching NFL three years ago and is now a big packers fan!

Our Greek friends that we argued about American politics with. No one was wounded.

The train to the Bayern Munich game. It was insane.

Walking to the stadium!

Outside the stadium on our trek!

So our seats weren’t bad...

They weren’t the champions of the world on this night.

These fans were unbelievable!

It looks like they’re on a trampoline!

Goalllll! Not for Bayern Munich though.

The stadium!

The stadium gets lit up at night!

When one gets tired of bratwurst...

One gets McDonalds!

This was the church right by the stop where we met for the tour. Not a Sound of Music spot, but beautiful all the same.

All the buildings in Austria are so beautiful.

I am soooo happy right now. Even with the gruelling hangover.... 🤷🏼‍♀️

During the movie, Maria takes the children into town. They walk off the bridge at one point when they are learning how to sing ‘do-re-mi’.

Photo of the mountain that the von Trapps walk over at the end of the movie. Apparently it actually leads to Germany, which would have gotten them caught by the Nazis 🤔.

In reality, the von Trapps actually took a train to Italy to escape and just stayed that they were touring, which they were. They just ended up not going back!

The house in the film, was filmed in multiple locations for the exterior house scenes (interior was all filmed on sets in Hollywood). This is where they filmed the scenes at the back of the house on the terrace.

Apparently when they were filming the scene where the Captain comes home with the Baronese, and Maria and he children are out on a boat in the lake, Gretal nearly drowned as the fall seen in the movie was a real fall. In the planned scenes Julie Andrews was meant to hold on to Gretal.

This is the road where they filmed ‘I have confidence’.

This was some sort of palace we saw on our way to see another Sound of Music item.

The gazebo !!

You are sixteen, going in seventeen....

A good view of the fortress. We would have liked to have gone up and looked around but we didn’t have any time unfortunately.

A view of Nonnberg Abbey, which has been around since 712 AD!

How do you solve a problem like Maria? 🎶

View of the beautiful Austrian countryside. We also drove by the headquarters of Red Bull!

We were encouraged to sing along to the various songs. The lady was basically a professional opera singer. She was so amazing.

The tour took us to a village name Mondsee, where the wedding scene was filmed.

What was interesting about the church was how much smaller it seemed compared to the movie. Per our tour guide, that was because of the wide angle camera lense, and other Hollywood magic involved.

Steps where the children and Maria sing do-re-mi.

When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything!

Mondsee was such a lovely and picturesque town. Wish we could have spent more time here!

Another great view of the Marienbell gardens, and fortress in the background.

We even re-enacted some scenes from the movie!

Mostly just had a lot of fun!

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music!

This may or may not have been a house that Mozart lived in? He was born in Salzburg after all...

We wound down the night with some supper at an Italian restaurant that played Nickelback.... 🤔. I enjoyed it!

The Hungarian countryside.

Our beautiful apartment

The street view from our apartment!!

Trying out the cherry and elder flower beers. A little too sweet for Meg.

The soup was amazing! Why you ask? Because paprika! Meg said it was her best meal so far.

I found a flat white cafe! In the proper size cup (see cup size offenders: Starbucks)

The synagogue near our apartment.

Traditional Hungarian chicken: KFC

The Danube at sunset!

Photo op by the Danube

Warring pano’s of the Danube. Who shot it better: Meg?

Or me?.

Danube selfie!

And we found a boat to sit on with overpriced food...so we had a drink!

I tried some Hungarian plum palinka...

It is like somebody slapped me in the face. Woof.

Night time on the Danube. Not bad.

Walking down the main shopping street in Budapest - Vaci Street.

Budapest has a Beer Brother’s too!

The paprika chickens? At Bob restaurant.

Paprika chicken for sups.

The weather is fairly decent here. No snow...

Our guide said that while the market does host a lot of tourists, many locals come here for lunch because it’s cheap and tasty.

The first item we consumed was Unicum, which tastes a bit like Jagermeister. But apparently it has something like 40 herbs and spices in it and was used partially as a type of medicine.

Our first food tasting was langos which is deep fried dough with sour cream and cheese. AMAZING.

And of course, Becky’s favourite, paprika. So much paprika. There are sweet, spicy and extra spicy types of paprika, but Hungarians primarily use the sweet paprika.

Goose liver is a type of delicacy that is popular here. Yuck. And also yuck to how they treat the geese in preparing them for goose liver eating purposes.

They use every part of meat from every animal. And they put the weird parts in stews. 🤢

We tasted a variety of deli meats next including venison, horse, and a couple of varieties of pork including a particular breed of pig (the guide referred to it as the ‘cute pig’) where they fatten it up. Apparently there is some sort of pig beauty pageant for this type of pig 🐷.

And yes I said horse....😕

Another view of the market.

Hungary also has a ton of pickled things. Including pickled baby watermelons which we later tasted.

Becky is loving life.

When we introduced ourselves to the tour guide, the guide recognized Becky’s last name ’Lipoth’ as a well known Hungarian family name. It is ‘Lipot’ in Hungary, but said that an H was added to royal/noble families. So basically Becky thinks she is royalty now🙄.

Close up of the goulash per Becky.

All the pickled things.

This had a paprika pork sausage, liver sausage, and blood sausage. I wasn’t overly keen on the last two.

Nice little chocolate shoppe. We had a lemon oil one, a praline one, chestnut honey one, and one other I can’t remember. All yum.

A famous central coffee house.

Two of the traditional Hungarian cakes. The first is a chocolate sponge cake with a caramel glaze on top that is hardened. \240The caramel was originally only used as a method for transferring the cake.

Second is one that is gluten free made with walnuts. It was made for a queen for had digestive issues (probably allergic to gluten) and so the chef created this cake for her.

Ended the tour at a cute little wine cellar for a wine tasting.

Hungary is known mainly for its ice wine. We tasted it with blue cheese and dried fruit, and was a really nice paring. I don’t normally say that about blue cheese.

The rest of the afternoon we spent touring the royal palace and the castle district. We saw some amazing views from the hill top.

I’m pretty cute!

Our evening event was an hour long river cruise down the Danube which included a drink and an audio guide. Once again the views were spectacular.

We met up with my Aussie friends for supper and a night cap. We headed into a cool craft beer pub (YAY).

The Széchenyi baths. There were three outdoor baths and tons of indoor ones. People kept swimming without swim caps and the lifeguards got quite upset.

It was ridiculously hot

I ended up with a small burn.

I’m a little fish...that doesn’t swim well

I can float on my back now though.

Soaking up some sun

Basically like we’re in Mexico

Practicing our poses. Saw quite a few like this today...

My pose may still need some work.

This pose looks perfect!

Meg is a fish too

A fish that can swim though

Angry pose

We really do ❤️ Budapest

St Stephen’s Cathedral

This delightful little pastry is called Kürtőskalács.

So much craft beer in Budapest. This was one of many places we saw.

The tap list.

Video of Szimpla Kert. It’s a maze in there. A very cool, eclectic maze.

Having a Szimpla cocktail

Or two

This bar was unreal. I can see why it’s on a lot of Top 10 bars in the world lists. It used to be a factory before it was repurposed as a bar.

You needed a map to get around.

We had so much fun!

I’m dumbfounded by this bar!

Meg is excited! We managed to get a table in what seemed to be the food room.

People have written their names on the wall and on the table.

Some of the decor. Each room has a different theme and it’s own bar and drinks.

The apparent classic Becky pose

Close up of the table in our room

Don’t touch the pictures!

We wrote our names on the wall.

More decor

It’s sort of like Christmas! Can you imagine this place for Christmas?

We made friends with Candice and Eduardo from Brazil!

Meg went shot for shot with Candice. They had two shots. One was palinka...a terrible terrible Hungarian drink. You may remember it from a few days back in the blog.

A sequence of photos showing Candice and I drinking some sort of straight liquor. She loves it. I’m uncertain.

She still loves it. Now I’m disgusted.

She continues to love it. I’m fighting back tears.

Candice teaching Meg to samba.

And the video!

We found another cool little touristy street that we hadn’t walked through yet.

We had come to the area to pick up a Hungarian cook book for Becky and family.

We strolled down by the Parliament buildings which were huge but also beautiful.

One last stroll on the Danube.

Walked by this memorial to the Hungarian Jewish people who were killed by the river and their bodies dumped into the Danube. Before they were killed, they had to take off their shoes.

Taking break before we head to the airport. I’m really impressed that Becky took a picture. Look at that hair.

CUT TO THE CRAZIEST TAXI/AIRPORT TRANSFER IVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN MY LIFE. YES, THIS TITLE REQUIRES ALL CAPS TO EMPHASIZE HOW INSAME THIS STORY IS.

So we had debated how we were going to get to the airport in Budapest, because there was no metro or train station to get us there. So you either have to take a bus, taxi, or hire a private pickup. So we did some googling and saw this minBud company that does transfers. They had some good reviews on TripAdvisor and they were the first company when we googled airport transfers in Budapest, so we hired them to pick us up at our luggage storage spot at 430 for a 730 flight. We maybe should have gotten an earlier pick up, since the timing landed right during rush hour traffic, but whatever, we still had lots of time.

So the van arrived around 445, and traffic was so clogged up, the van just stayed in traffic and we loaded our suitcases up and got in. There were some other passengers already in the vehicle that got picked up, and we had to go pick up one more.

The last two guests were staying at a hotel that was right by a park area with a pedestrian only street.

This is where the story starts to get fun - when we loaded up the last passengers, the driver decided, in his words, ‘take a shortcut’ by speeding down the pedestrian only street!!! And I cannot emphasize how fast we was going, and darting around people and kids and pets!! I swear we murdered several people going through there!!! \240So that really set the tone for the next hour of hell we were about to experience.

Like I said earlier, it was rush hour, bumper to bumper traffic. This driver it putting the pedal to the floor for a second, then slamming the brakes, and weaving in and out of lanes. He would drive in left hand turning lanes to avoid traffic. Absolutely nuts.

Then we were at a point where we were dead stuck in traffic, where we thought, ‘what could he possible do now?’...... so the driver decided to DRIVE UP ON THE BOULEVARD AND DRIVE ON THE TRAM TRACKS ALL THE WAY THROUGH DOWNTOWN TRAFFIC. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!&$!?&?!&&&!!!!!!!!!🤬🤬🤬🤬🤢🤢🤢

At this point, I’m hysterical but also trying not to vomit - as many of you know, I get awful motion sickness.

We eventually get on to some sort of freeway way where we are definitely speeding and whipping in and out of traffic. He wouldn’t even slow down for turns! I thought we were going to roll over, honestly.

Everyone in the vehicle was in such a state of shock. There was a mixture of hysterical laughter, crying, anger, and near puking going on among all the passengers. \240I think the driver might have thought he did us good by getting us to the airport fast - but I’d have honestly preferred to miss my flight than experience that death ride.

And you can bet there is going to be a strongly worded letter and TripAdvisor review. While we waited in line at the airport, Becky emailed the company.

Our flight to Prague was good, and we had a driver pick us up and take us to our Airbnb. This driver was much better, although still very fast. When we got to our apartment we were still coming out of shock, but got a little distracted by how beautiful our final AirBnb was.

Having a morning coffee on our balcony

Starting off the day exploring

In front of the Charles Bridge

We discovered there was a stairwell inside the watchtower!

So after posing for pics we decided to climb up

And pose for pics inside

But wow we got some great views of Prague

The Charles Brisge from up high

Looking out over the Vltava river

A cool little statue in the watchtower. It looks like this guy is picking his bum.

Great views of the river from the Charles Bridge.

There were lots of buskers and people trying to sell various crafts as we walked across the bridge.

And there was a little canal on the Mala Strana side, similar to those in Venice.

We made it across the bridge!

Just in time to pose for pics

I coined this door the “Jack and Dex door” because there were cats on it.

The sign before going into the Senate building gardens. I thought the bottom one was No Pooping, but then Meg told me it was No Drones. 🤨

The beautiful gardens of the Senate building

The Senate is also known as Wallenstein Palace, a Baroque style palace. Albrecht von Wallenstein built it to try and rival Prague Castle.

The statues in the garden.

Shameless selfie time 🤳

Walking through the gardens

There were fishies in the water!

And peacocks hanging out on the lawn. He wasn’t very interested in us though

The drip wall. It looks like creepy faces which seems about right for Prague art.

The aviary!

Where we saw these giant owls.

And the frescoes inside the palace arches

Lesser square in Prague. Per Meagan “it looks like a lot of cars parked”

Inside St Nicholas church. On the lookout for Santa Claus. This guy is either carrying a football or dabbing

The impressive dome of the church

The altar of St Nicholas church

I call this one “Dancing saint”

And now onto the series of “Saints killing people”

Curb stomp

The weirdest statue of all time. It moves too...

Charles Bridge from the other side.

A swan!

The John Lennon wall. Was John Lennon ever there? No. But the wall represents peace and love ❤️

Watch tower on our way back.

And then the riverside stroll began

The sangria was dangerous

The bar had this cool yet slightly sketchy basement part. All the bars seem to have basements here

The nazis tried to knock down a Jewish statue and ended up knocking over a German statue. Good one guys

Flying lions!

The coolest part of the walk was that we got to make stencils and spray paint them on the Lennon wall!

Meagan’s freestyle heart

That’s a maple leaf too btw

Cat!

Our crew from the walk. This guy got a hookah for us. Black cherry flavoured!

We met Orville Redenbacher too.

And Beyonce

And then we shared a bucket of chicken and debated Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings with our Scottish friends.

Mega pockets. The greatest invention ever. We need these in Canada. Chicken, cheese, hash brown...who knows what else.

We sat down and drank our coffees and enjoyed the view for a bit here.

Taking in the view of the city 😎.

Becky being a castle guard.

The castle area is exactly opposite of the gardens we walked through to get there - crowded with tons of tourists.

After we finally figured out how to get tickets, we walked down the Golden Lane. There are a bunch of tiny colourful houses here. In a few of them, there was a museum of armour, weapons, torture instruments, etc.

We couldn’t decide if these were replicas or real. We thought they were too shiny too be legit.

This place was packed with people. That plus the hangover, put both of us in a grouchy mood.

This was weird - beer shampoo. 🤔

One side of St. Vitus Cathedral.

Pretty church, pretty lady.

Front of St. Vitus Cathedral.

Becky is so little comparatively!

We got into the church at the perfect time of day, as the sun was hitting the stained glass windows beautifully.

A special room for King Wenceslas. So much history on King Wencelas. Now I have Christmas carols stuck in my head...

Castle guard 👮🏻‍♂️

The pastry dessert but us in a MUCH better mood, as we walked down the hill from the castle.

Walked around in the Old Town and discovered this candy shop, which we visited later. 🍭

The clock tower thing was ringing and doing its thing and everyone stopped to listen. Meanwhile, Becky is watching this giant panda being weird in the square and missing the whole thing. She thought everyone was watching the panda. 🙄

Weird panda thing 🐼

So. Many. People.

We chose the restaurant based on the name. And the fact that we could get a flight.

Took home some candy. None for these though - these are weird.

Goodnight and goodbye Prague - we have a great time! ❤️

Berlin! More on this later!

But first - taking the Hogwarts Express to Berlin. We were in a little cabin just like in Harry Potter.

Someone is happy about our room

So happy to be in a nice hotel!

It’s not bad

Walked out of the metro and saw this. Brandenburg gate nbd

Having a drink and meal just outside the Gate as they call it...

Not many people here compared to the weekend madness in Prague

Starting our walking tour with Rochelle

The Brandenburg gate - a symbol of European unity and peace. But also, think about everyone that has gone through that gate. It survived WWII, though it was badly damaged.

The Hotel Adlon where Michael Jackson famously dangled his baby over a balcony.

A little hard to see, but there is a line of bricks that go through Berlin that mark where the Berlin Wall formerly stood. Look on the street here

The Memorial the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Walking through the Memorial. It was very claustrophobic.

Very interesting memorial. Lots to think about as we walked through.

Former office of the Nazi party which then became an East Germany office, which is now a tax office. Very exciting history.

The mural on the building was painted in the days of East Germany. It represents what the government said a perfect communist state looks like. The picture on the floor is from an uprising that took place where citizens were shot and killed for protesting their (not so) perfect state.

The remains of the Berlin Wall. In the ground is the Topography of Terror museum...the rocks in the foreground are where the SS Office used to stand.

The famous East German Trabi. What a car!

The checkpoint Charlie tourist trap. The checkpoint is no longer there but of course there is one that has been rebuilt to take photos with. The original checkpoint was on the West Germany side

Gendarmenmarkt - this is the Konzerthaus!

And this is the church built for Germans

And the church built for the French.

All of this had to be rebuilt after WWII due to damage

This square is where Nazis burned thousands of books.

The buildings in this square represent the arts, knowledge, books and acceptance of religion and differences. This quote is on a plate in the square:

That was but a prelude;
where they burn books,
they will ultimately burn people as well.
Heinrich Heine 1820

That’s 1820.

This memorial is a library in the ground with empty shelves.

History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes - Mark Twain

We discovered it was the Festival of Lights in Berlin right now!

All over Berlin, landmarks are lit up with different artwork and light displays

Love that’s fox!

Check out the videos!

Time for a little seafood!

The swordfish! And that’s a wrap on Berlin Day One!

The wall art show begins!

It was cool to see someone actually touching up a piece.

Becky is straddling East and West Berlin!

In actuality, there were two walls, and the space between the two walls was called the death strip. The name is self explanatory.

One of my favourites, because of the quote.

All the murals have meaning.

Probably the most famous piece.

A photo to show the two walls and the death strip between.

We thought this was funny and true.

Next we went to the Stasi Museum, which was another combination of trains.

The Stasi were the ‘secret police’ aka the State Security Service of East Berlin during 1961 thru 1989 roughly. The museum showed us everything about the Stasi - how they were formed, trained, operated, and eventually how they ended. The museum was located in their headquarters. We did an audio guide tour, which lasted at least an hour and a half.

Original statues from the building when it was liberated.

The Stasi would transport prisoners in this type of truck that would be disguised on the outside as a food truck to the public. The Stasi would sometimes load prisoners into the truck, and drive the prisoners around a bit and come back to the same prison, just to confuse the prisoners.

There’s a hidden camera in the zipper for surveillance.

The Stasi would implant bugs into their target’s homes to collect information . Many people didn’t even realize this was happening until they renovated years after the wall was down.

They kept files and files of information on targets and potential suspects. Nowadays people give this kind of information out freely on social media LOL.

A bust of Karl Marx

When the headquarters were invaded by protestors and West Berlin forces, many of the rooms stayed in tact and in all of the next few photos, the rooms look almost exactly how they would have looked during the 1961-1989 period..... which is very boring .

East Berlin people were not allowed to listen to West Berlin radio, unless you were doing specific work for the Stasi.

They would enforce specific ideals from a very young age - that Western capitalism was evil, and that they were the enemy. They taught military tactics from a very young age. They would teach young children to throw and play with fake hand grenades.

Wire taps that the Stasi used.

Various weird spy devices

They were examine all parcels and letters and go to extravagant lengths to review the contents of packages and letters.

After a long day of museuming, we hit up a nearby burger joint and then a craft beer place called BrewDogs. YUM.

Saw this quote online and loved it. ❤️🌎

A poster where the Nazis were promising their people the new Volkswagen. It didn’t go into production though.

A Waffen SS recruitment poster

Outside topography of terrro exhibit which sits on the former headquarters of the SS. That’s also the Berlin Wall in the background.

Some headless statues. Possibly damaged in the war?

Cool looking trees we saw on our walk to the Riechstag

Meg doing her best to smile for the camera

Finally tried the currywurst. Apparently a food for those late night drinking. It’s basically a sausage in ketchup and curry powder. It tasted...as expected lol.

And Meagan has the very healthy mozzastick meal.

Back in the memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Walking to the Tiergarten

Some last day poses in Berlin

This was the memorial to Homosexuals persecuted under Nazism. A video plays inside.

The Tiergarten

The Brandenburg gate from the other side

The Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism

The Reichstag building. It had a huge fire that destroyed it in 1933. Then it was damaged at the end of WWII. It’s clearly been restored.

Then we went to Princess Cheesecake for...cheesecake

And a latte

Poppyseed cheesecake

New York style Cheesecake

And that’s a wrap, Berlin. Up next - Amsterdam!

View from inside Central Station.

Everyone and their dog rides their bike around here.

Outside view of Central Station.

The buildings and streets of Amsterdam are so cute. I ❤️ them.

Our self walking tour led us to the Tulip Museum!

And by chance, a cheese museum was right beside the Tulip Museum.

Becky says cheese > tulips.

Okay, it looks weird to have multi-coloured cheese... but it was actually really good!

Diamond studded cheese slicer....

Our walking tour lead us to many interesting buildings and sites.

Including the Anne Frank house. We have our museum visit scheduled for tomorrow, but we walked by.

This wasn’t on our tour, but found this building to be really interesting.

Magda Plaza - now a shopping mall, near Dam Square.

And we’ve arrived at Dam Square!

And we’ve also spotted a bakery. Becky had an amazing waffle type thing and I had a brownie. And don’t worry, it’s a rated PG brownie. LOL.

Royal Palace

A giant Madame Tussauds.

People were letting pidgeons sit on them... not sure how sanitary that is.

The Bay - had to take a picture of the only Canadian thing around.

Famous shopping street

A museum we saw as part of our walk

We ended our self walking tour at a pub called ‘Beer Temple’ which had lots of craft beer for us to choose from!

We ended our night walking around the famous Red Light District, which was a definite culture shock! But definitely no pictures were taken there 😊.

Meg touring the city

Waiting outside the Anne Frank House

Anne Frank and her family hid in here from the Nazis. Unfortunately they were found in 1944 and all of her family except her father were killed at Auschwitz.

The Dutch pancake!

Exploring Amsterdam

Apparently there was this big Dance Event in Amsterdam while we were here. Had no idea but everyone is talking about it.

Meg continuing to explore Amsterdam

Meg found some giant chess

While I found the Olympic Stadium on my way to meet her. Apparently Amsterdam held the Olympics in 1928.

And Meg had a Guinness!

And made a new friend

Then I showed up

And we went to the Rikjikjikrikmuseum.

Or Rijksmuseum

A lute

And a legit beer stein

Meg liked the Cleopatra’s Banquet painting

I like the cabinet/tv stand

Pondering art

Pondering life

Pondering where the water closet is

Pondering China

🤔

Pondering the bed

Pondering the mirror

Birds!

Dead birds!?!?

Pondering the dead birds

Pondering the doll house. Why is this here?

I would have loved this as a child

Pondering a lifelike painting.

Pondering pondering

The library in the Rikjikjikmuseum

Pondering the ship painting in the Ship room

What’s this globe doing in the Ship room?

The ship!

Apparently the Dutch had quite the navy

And the big painting of the day - The Nightwatch by Rembrandt. Apparently a big deal because he painted people in action instead of just standing there.

And also Van Gogh’s self portrait. He painted himself to try a new style of painting and not have to pay for a model.

The Rikjikrikjikmuseum garden

People kept getting in the middle of that fountain

Selfie after feeling enlightened by art

Hanging out in Vondelpark. Not to be mistaken with Vandalpark

Fancy supper at Momo, an Asian fusion restaurant

With yummy drinks too

The scallops were my fave

Crispy duck

Salmon nigiri was Meg’s fave

The crispy crab roll was pretty decent too

Grilled lobster main course

And this chocolate lava cake with matcha ice cream for dessert! They somehow imprinted the restaurant’s name in the chocolate

And a garbage bin burning outside Momo. Goodnight folks!

Becky loves the windmills!

Two were saw mills, one was for creating spices, and one was for creating colours for artists.

The rooster and chickens walked right up to us!

OMG dexter came to the Dutch countryside to meet us!!

Omg omg omg 😻😻😻

We got a demonstration from the windmill guy on how the windmill cuts the wood. It was a non-windy day, so he had to manually show us.

So beautiful, especially in the morning - as early and as cool as it was.

The kitty even let me pet him on his perch!

So happy! But also squinty because the sun is staring me right in the eyes.

Squinty😲

Everything is so lush and green.

A picture of Edam.

Becky was smart and brought her sunglasses.

Next was Markhem, where we got the clog demonstration.

Cheesey photo.... 😂

Cloggy photo?

The cutest streets with the cutest girl ❤️

We took a ferry over the largest fresh water lake to Volendam.

In Volendam, on our way to cheese demonstration.

Since Volendam is a fishing village, we had fish and chips for lunch! We should have shared.

This house was completely on stilts, which was pretty cool.

Is that jack??

Striking a pose.

And the last demo we got, was about Dutch waffles! It smelled amazing down there.

Becky was feeling a little sad she missed out on the pancake I had yesterday solo, so we came back and got her one ❤️.

I tried a sweet one this time!

For the rest of the day we wandered down the main shopping and touristy streets, then headed home to pack. Sad that the last trip day was over, but also very tired and anxious to get some rest!

Overall, an awesome time in Amsterdam, but we will definitely need to come back and explore some more!

Sad to be leaving

But so happy about our trip.

Now some highlights:

Most somber moment in the trip - Dachau

The best hotel - Berlin

The tiniest hotel - Salzburg

Best food - gulash in Budapest

Best bar - Szimpla Kert in Budapest

Danube cruising in Vienna

Schonbrunn palace

Meeting up with the Aussies

Going to Oktoberfest

Full drindl attire

The Lowenbrau tent!

Bayern Munich game

And the fans at the game!

The Sound of Music!

Nothing to see here...

The beauty of the Danube in Budapest

And the food in Budapest!

And the baths in Budapest!

And Meg in Budapest!

Basically we loved Budapest

More food in Budapest

The picture is self explanatory. This Brazilian lady and her whiskey though...

And Prague was so pretty

Even if the people were a bit crusty

The Lennon wall was anything but

And we left our mark on it

And Prague KFC left its mark on us and a pair of Scots

Beautiful stained glass

Checking things out from a higher view

This little cinnamon ice cream treat was delightful!

The Brandenburg gate

The Memorial to the Murdered Jewish people of Europe

So much East Berlin history

I’m in West Berlin...now I’m in East Berlin!

Amsterdam knew pancakes

And art

And cats!

And of course windmills!