My opinions, updates on my life, all sorts of "randomness"...

Here's the end of Prague and Berlin... Hamburg, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and London to follow, when I'm not quite so tired...

November 25th-26th, Prague
The end of Prague was great. Sat night went with Brian & Sam to this amazing little hole-in-the-wall jazz club, and then this massive dance club with crazy electronic music and awesome lights. Decorated like you were inside a machine...Totally trippy. Sunday morning the three of us dragged ourselves out of bed after nowhere near enough sleep and walked over to check out the Jewish quarter. Brian left to catch his train, and Sam & I had lunch at this adorable little Kosher cafe, run by Chabad. Then I left as well, off to Berlin...

November 26th-30th, Berlin
Sunday I trained over to Berlin and found my way to a hostel I had read about, The Heart of Gold. So I had read about this hostel while I was back in the States, planning my trip, and being the amazingly wonderful (possibly slightly dorky...) girl that I am, it was enough to make me wish I was going to Berlin. So when I actually ended up going to Berlin, I obviously had to stay there. :) It's this hostel inspired by Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" which is my favorite book of all time. awesome.

As I was checking in to the hostel (which btw, if you arrive on a Sunday it's half off your first night. How awesome is that?) who should walk in but John! (refresher: Aussie I met in Interlaken...ran into at Dachou...) So ended up chilling with him for a bunch of the time I was in Berlin, in addition to some awesome other people I met, specifically these American guys, Mike & Dan (remember their names...chilled with them in Amsterdam too...) Peter was in Krakow, but he finally came to Berlin on Wednesday and joined us at the hostel.

Did a free walking tour with NewBerlin, part of the NewEurope company that did my tour in Munich. Another awesome tour, really got to see tons and information that I just wouldn't have gotten walking around on my own. Went on their Pub Crawl too, too many nights for me to admit...but tons of fun.

Let's see, what else did I do in Berlin...Saw the Neue Synagogue, gorgeous building that houses a museum now. Wanted to daven Mincha while I was there, but I wasn't allowed into the sanctuary (it's only open Friday nights for services) so I pulled out my handy dandy Mincha/Maariv card (thank you Danie Barak, from 4 million years ago...wow) and just davened in the museum. Interesting... Walked around tons, decent weather while I was there, chilling with cool people...

OH!!! Almost forgot to write about the craziest, trippiest thing I've (probably) ever done in my life! This was the other thing (besides the Heart of Gold) that made me wish I was going to Berlin while I was still in my apartment in Chi-town... Dunkel Restaurant. "What?" you're probably thinking, "That's it? An f-ing restaurant? I was expecting something good!" Ye of little faith... Dunkel restaurant is not just any restaurant. In their words, it's an "Unsicht Bar." Here's the link I know you were waiting for, so you can see for yourself the amazingness of this place, or you can just chill out and wait for me to explain...

Okay, so here's what happens. (sidenote: every time you hear "okay, so here's..." in your head are you thinking "hokay"? As in from the amazing cartoon "End of The World"? Because I do...) You get to the restaurant, look at a menu, and order your food. Easy enough, right? Ah, but that's just the beginning. After you've ordered, your waiter comes to physically lead you to your table in the main room of the restaurant. Abut unnecessary you ask? Ah, but see that's the catch. It's actually completely necessary. Because the main room of the restaurant is pitch black. That's right, no light at all. We're talking "blink and there's absolutely no light at all think you might have gone blind" dark. It was truly one of the more amazing things I've done in my life. And the food was really good, too.

I went by myself, thinking that it would be the perfect time to have some quality "shosh time." Then I was sitting there, alone, in the pitch black, not entirely sure what I was putting in my mouth, listening to everyone around me chatting away in German...at first it was okay, amazing to experience. Then my brain started racing and I realized I had no idea how long I had been sitting there and my heart started pounding and I started to feel nauseous...sat there focusing on my breathing until my waitress came over and I got her to lead me out... Pretty sure it was a panic attack. Not quite as sure about what it means to have a panic attack when I'm left alone with my thoughts... At least now I have an answer to the "would you rather be blind or deaf?" question that always gets asked along with "what super power would you want to have?" (flying, obviously). Really glad I went, if you ever have a chance...

So in all, Berlin was good fun. Saw some things, met some people, good times...