Prague

Prague rules. Like super lots. It's got a really cool vibe to it and is incredibly beautiful. The architecture is amazing and there is so much to do and see, we wish we could have extended our stay! 

We slept nice and easy at an awesome hostel called Blind Eye. The staff was great, rooms were great, and we even got to watch Step Brothers while we were there! Triple great! Anyways, we spent most of our time wandering the city and hanging out in Old Town. Checked out some cool cafes as well as famous sites, not to mention climbing a very large hill to get the most amazing view of the city! As recommended by some lovely friends and family we made sure to grab some bites to eat at a place called Bohemia Bagel, as well as Cafe Louvre (best squash soup ever). 

Our last night in Prague we went on a pub crawl, which to save our parents from going grey early, we'll just say it was lots of fun :). 

One not so fun thing that happened though at the end of our Prague trip, was that my wallet got stolen/accidentally lost. It really, really, really sucked. Thank god just my money was in it and not my passport. Bailey should have gotten some kind of honorary medal for being so wonderful helping me out until my parents dumped me some cash through her account. Mucho appreciated! 

Ending on a funny note. People often tell us how jealous they are of our trip. And I mean, it is really awesome. Something not so much to be jealous of; having 10 cents to your name, our hair looks like birds nests because we haven't washed it in 7 days, all your clothes smelling like..I don't even know, and having crappy sleeps on buses to finish that lovely list off! Oh well, such is life! We're happy. 

Love, 

M & B

Krakow, Poland & Auschwitz

After being in Germany for a solid month and a few days, we decided it was time to spread our wings. We never really had Poland in mind as a place to visit, but we really wanted to do a tour of Auschwitz/Birkenau Concentration Camp. I'll get to that in a second. 

Things to know about Poland in October. It is REALLY cold. It has SNOW! To be honest, it has a bit of a depressed feeling looming over it. It's super cheap, which rocks. Having supper at The Hard Rock Cafe in Krakow is delicious, cheap and will 100% guarantee in giving you a lovely little food baby. The Old Town area is pretty! 

Now, about Auschwitz. It's difficult to write about it and put it into words, but I will do the best I can. Throughout school and such, me and Bailey had both shared an interest in learning about WWII. We knew going to the worlds biggest and most famous death camp would be difficult, but it was what brought us to Poland, and something we knew we wanted to experience. Let me tell you though that it is the most overwhelming, heartbreaking, unsettling and eye-opening experience. With the tour package we did, we got a guided tour of the Auschwitz Museum, which was full of all evidence and records and belongings of the lives lost during Nazi terror. We also were taken to the Auschwitz/Birkenau camp. Which is what people of the world have seen pictures, videos, etc of. The barracks and crematoriums are located here. It was so unbelievably sad walking the grounds knowing that exactly where your feet were stepping, millions of innocent others took there last. There are certain things we saw that can never be erased from our minds, and certain emotions we felt that can never be forgotten. You can truly feel all the lost souls. Walking out of the gates at the end of the day was filled with many mixed feelings. Confusion and sorrow for all those we never got to do it, but also so much thankfulness for the gift of life we're blessed with. Go hug your parents, tell someone you love them. Spread kindness everywhere you go and shut hatred down just as often. Love every single breath that enters your lungs, because this life is much to precious to take for granted. 

Love, 

M & B

Saying goodbye to Germany!

We won't share every detail of our last night in Berlin, but just get the picture that it was everything you hope for during your last night in one of the worlds most glorious cities. We didn't get back to our apartment till 7 am (which honestly is the norm there), and realized we had to be up at 8 am to clean our place and pack our bags. So that's super fun! Not. Bailey got about a 20 minute snooze in, while I went into zombie mode and did sinks full of dishes and cooked up all the food we had left in our apartment. Yep, we had pasta for breakfast and walked down the street eating bags of popcorn. 

That's way in the past though, so fast forward and we're in Flensburg, Germany! Bailey did a three month exchange a few years ago here, and lived with the Broderson family. Our dear friend Janna, whom was her exchange partner, sadly wasn't home during our stay. But she's in Australia, so we'll let her go easy this time ;). Just jokes, we did miss her and would have loved to spend time together but at least we got to have a short but sweet Skype date! 

Bailey mostly showed me around her little German hometown, which is SO cute! We spent some evenings with her friends from there, which was loads of fun! Our last night there, we decided to go to a movie. (We were actually just really cold and wanted to prolonge our freezing bike ride home). Anyways, we went to the film called Bachelorette or something, and yep, we went to it in German. No English subtitles either. It was fun though. We got to make up what we would like them to be saying, and we just laughed when everyone else in the theatre laughed. It worked out great! 

We were very fortunate to stay with the Broderson's and they made us feel very welcome! They provided us with everything we needed and more! We miss them already!

Until next time, 

M & B

Beloved Berlin.

Wow, what can we say about Berlin. It really can't be put into words. This is a place you truly have to experience. It might just be the coolest city in the world. At least so far for us. It is amazing, awesome, beautiful, strange, kickass, and just all things wonderful. We had booked a hostel for 3 nights and after about our first or second night, realized there was no way we could part from this city just quite yet. We got online and found a very cute, decently cheap apartment and booked it! No questions asked, we knew this was the place we needed to spend our time at. So, all in all we spent about two weeks in Berlin, and we could have spent a lifetime. There is SO much to do and to see, no time is enough time. We were lucky to have pretty beautiful weather, so everyday we ventured out and saw what we wanted to see, and did what we wanted to do.

A bit about our apartment! Because it was really really cute! It was located in a beautiful leafy square, in a really awesome neighborhood bustling with cafes, shops, bars, parks and everything else under the sun! We were on the top floor (which was sometimes really unfortunate), but it was a cool old building. We rented a studio apartment, so one big room for the bed, living space, etc. We had a little kitchen, which was SO nice to be able to buy all our own groceries and do so much cooking! Best part was laying in bed with coffee every morning, listening to the neighborhood wake up to a beautiful autumn day. We even had a tub and washing machine! It was heaven! Awesome bikes were provided for us, so we got lots of miles in with those babies! We miss our lovely abode already!

It will take a long time to explain every site we visited, and every single thing we saw, so we will just list everything in a crazed, lazy way. The following....
-Berliner Dom (the view from the top is beautiful!)
-Potsdamer Platz
-Brandenburg Gate
-Hackescher Markt
-Jewish Holocaust Memorial/Museum
-Ramones Museum
-Botanical Gardens
-Berlin Wall/Topography of Terror
-Checkpoint Charlie
-Gay Museum
-Tempelhofer Park
-East Side Gallery
-Tiergarten
-Unter den Linden

(there is probably more, but we really can't remember!)

Okay, nightlife in Berlin. That is on another level. This is the nightlife capital of the world for a reason. Clubs don't close till the sun rises, and some just simply pull down the blinds and keep the party rolling. It is insane and mind blowing and wonderful. We went to one of Berlin's most famous clubs, and one of the worlds highest rated techno clubs, Berghain/Panorama. This is just a place you need to be in, to understand. You forget about the time or day it is, any thoughts you had from the outside world, and feel almost as if this is what present day Andy Warhol factory life would be like. We spent other nights checking out other famous clubs and bars, and dancing all hours of the night, basking in the true Berlin, never wanting to leave.

Sadly, our time did come to an end. Our last night in Berlin was spent having the most fun probably possible, at a club called Cookies. Our day went slightly downhill though once on our way out of Berlin to get to the main train station a ticket checker busted our asses for not having a subway ticket. I mean, come on. We hadn't bought one single subway ticket yet, and on our LAST ride, on our LAST day...Seriously!? It was not fun handing her 40 Euros. Ugh. That was literally the only negative thing about our time in Berlin. It is full of breathtaking sights, beautiful people, and everyday comes accompanied with bliss.

We love you Berlin, xo.
M and B.

Kiel, Germany

Kiel! The best thing about this place, is our dear friend Johanna! She was gracious enough to let us stay at her place for a nice amount of time and we were so grateful! She even picked us up from our hostel in Hamburg, and being in a car for the first time (other then taxi's, was really weird!) It was so nice of her though, and we can't thank her enough for the wonderful accommodation. All three of us snuggling in her bed together watching movies, made the coldest of nights warm and lovely. Having a 'home' was really nice, compared to always being in hostels. We haven't had any hostel horror stories (yet!), but being able to sleep in as long as you want and have breakfast set out for you in the morning really rules! We spent the days either just hanging out, or doing things around Kiel. One day we decided to go to Ikea, to well I don't know, go to Ikea I suppose! We were all feeling super cheap so we had some food there, and we had a LOT of it. We all had major food babies, and once we hit the bedroom part of Ikea, found Johanna snuggled up in a bed unable to move. We went out a few nights and had a blast dancing and meeting new friends!

We were in Kiel when it would have been Canadian Thanksgiving. They don't celebrate Turkey Day in Germany, so we made our own! We in no way could look at people's pictures of delicious food and be jealous, so we decided to prepare our very own feast! It was also our way to thank Johanna and her parents for letting us stay. We got our shopping bags and headed to the store! Thinkíng it would be really easy to find everything we needed, well think again. They didn't have squash. They didn't have canned pumpkin, and finding cream is almost impossible! We managed though, and ended up with a nice haul to be cooked up the next day. Sunday was spent in the kitchen, listening to good music, with good company, and good food. We made mashed potatoes, corn, peas, salad, garlic bread, sangria, cheesecake and we even made CHILCHA! (A delicious dish our Grandma prepares, that we were SO stoked to accomplish). We had the classic Thanksgiving food coma's, so we would say it was a success!

M and B.

Frankfurt, Cologne & Hamburg

After enough German beer and pretzals to last us nearly a lifetime, we departed Munich and set off for Frankfurt, Germany. We were really excited to go to Frankfurt, as we had heard a lot of great things about it. A bit of a bump in the road, being terribly sick, got in the way though. We both were feeling a bit groggy after Oktoberfest, but were assuming that was just our bodies way of giving us heck for having too much fun. Nope, not the case. We were S-I-C-K. Ill enough to go out and buy real medicine, with real money! (Sorry Moms, but we're travelers and are kind of poor). So, Frankfurt was a bust. We spent the entire time in our hostel room. Oh wait, that isn't true! We ventured out down the street to find some Haagen Daaz. Ice cream fixes everything.

We departed Frankfurt and headed to Cologne, Germany. We were still semi sick, so doing things and getting places took an extra long time. That being said, we didn't really do much there. It is a really beautiful city and we walked around for a day and saw some sights, including the famous bridge with locks that lovers put on to symbolize their love, blah blah blah! :) Seeing the sunset go down and turn the sky all kinds of pink and purple was a beautiful site indeed to end our time there!

Then, to Hamburg, Germany! (I don't know why I keep mentioning all these places are in Germany, I think you all know that...) Anyways, Hamburg. Cool city indeed. We have to mention something weird. At the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), there is the best mashed potatoes/squash/sour cream/corn combination thinger, that is SO good. It comes in a little take out box and seriously, all kinds of wonderful! Anyways, our hostel was super close to the train station, so we were pretty central which was nice. Our first day there we walked around the city seeing main sites, went to a sushi place and picked the most random ones that looked the most yummy, then grabbed some coffee's and found a beautiful little park to sit and chat in. Our last night there we met up with my friend Nils and had a lovely evening full of wine, leftover spagetti and lots of laughs. So nice to catch up with old friends! After a good nights sleep, we were up bright and early ready to get moving on to Kiel!

Xo,
M and B.

Oktoberfest!

Oktoberfest summed up in one word: FUN! This is a huge festival celebrated every year in Munich, Germany. It's complete with lots of beer, traditional German costumes and sausage and pretzals as far as the eye can see! We spent three days basking in all the craziness, and when it was time to go we were very sad indeed! Let's start at the beginning though!
We stayed at a hostel that was about a half hour train ride to get to Munich city centre. We made it from Munich airport to the cute little town our hostel was situated in, but once there, SO LOST. Some may wonder how exactly this could be so difficult. Let us tell you! First off, we had just gotten off a flight so we were quite tired and hungry. Secondly, we had the luxury of everyone speaking English up until now, soo that was daunting when we realized that was over with. We asked more people than we can count how to get to our hostel, and most if not all, spoke zero English. After wandering around for about an hour we gave up, layed in the grass and contemplated making that our bed for the night. But no, we did finally find it. Tucked DEEP in the woods, away from all civilization, was the hostel! We were delighted!
Up early the next morning, ready to hit the town, we put our best beer drinking pants on and headed to the tents! There are many to choose from, each serving their own delicious brews, and each tent complete with music, food, and fun to be had by all!
We spent the next days doing the same thing over again, making new friends and cheering our glasses! It was such an awesome experience that we're so happy we got to partake in. It really is true that it's nearly impossible not to have a blast and a half!

Cheers!
M & B