Prague

Bavaria competes with Bohemia in beer quality. But Prague is miles ahead in coffee. But that's OK cause nobody's eager to rise and shine after an Oktoberfest night anyways. Pictures of coffee are pretty worthless. 

But it was pretty darn good. We started out staying with the hipsters of the neighborhood Vinohrandy. Somehow this is the third apartment that we've stayed in that is rented by someone in film. Here's to hoping they didn't have the cameras rolling on us. There are always cameras out in the tourist magnet Stare Maestro neighborhood where we spent two nights when we decided to stay an extra two nights. It's gotta be the biggest, most well preserved old town of a big European city. 

It's also one of the most picturesque. 

This stuff is everywhere. 

It only gets worse at night. The Stones came here right after the wall fell and they left behind there lighting technicians and about $100,000 to show the castle at night. Seems like the rest of the city caught on after that.

Today Prague still has great engineers. 

But like most places they could use a few more Borns and Schoenfelds. The Nazis didn't help that cause. Here we are on the memorial list of the 80,000 murdered Czech Jews in one of the former Synagogues. 

That'll make the old days when there was just very little room to bury the dead seem not as bad. 

The day before a man invited Ali and I to have a bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah and celebrate Yom Kippur. I would have made a better effort to attend if I had already seen this. I'm not sure when I will be invited to Yom Kippur and my own bar mitzvah in Prague again but in the meantime I have other ways of dealing with my emotions. 

Why would anyone ever serve a hot chocolate that is anything but heated chocolate?

 

Munich and Oktoberfest

Munich.

Oktoberfest.

Beer gardens.

Party hats?

Nothing like you expected. 

We met a new friend, Nadya a mutual friend that studied Physics with of our friend Chris at UT.

We had a beer at a beer garden and a water to prepare for the work we were putting in that night. 

You could get drinking water from the fountains there or at least that's what they told me.

We made another friend at Oktoberfest, Dr. Ryan Dooey of Glasgow. Ryan was dressed like a true Scot. Kilt. Commando. Luckily the winds stayed down. He was separated from his blokes so we had him close his eyes and hold out his arms while we pushed him toward the entrance to the best beer hall we had been to. All in the name of glory. 

There's more to Munich than Oktoberfest. There's also the crazy ideas that probably came from physics PhDs talking shop at the end of an Oktoberfest night. 

And then there are things that can't be explained at all.

Stick to beer and pretzels guys. 

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

The thing about being a medieval trading center is that the plague rolls around. Then nobody wants to trade. Then you have few people and less money, so why build or change anything? 500 years later this place is cuter than a puppy parade. It's enough to induce deafness from the ooooos and aaaahhhhs of the better halves.

It's so cute this is what they call Hell (Zur Höll) in R.o.d.T.

Everyone that told us to go to Hell in this city made a very pleasant recommendation. Ali thought so too.

If all the party people are going to Höll then you might as well serve wine as soup. 

What's the best way to enjoy your sinning? Year round Christmas!

Which is just down the street from where they keep the Burning Man costumes. 

Not sure why they keep those in the torture museum, but this one sure makes sense.

They make a lot of high quality goods here. Steins and people included. 

No better reason to do the family jig!

Berlin

It's a little strange that the most historic city of the 20th century has so few historical sites to visit. I guess thats what happens when you have the most evil society of the century lose the biggest war ever and then barricade the half of the city that is actually developing. 

We stayed in a old soviet building that looked like it might have another ten years before condemnation. It was actually pretty nice. A lot of places to grab a good beer nearby but as far as German coffee goes this sums it up:

Then there's the fried food, which in German is called food. Pasta? Fry it.

Back to history, it's probably best that nobody in Germany is building replicas of the 3rd Reich buildings. At least the Germans stepped up to the plate and built a memorial to the murdered Jews.

That's about a block from Hitler's bunker, which wins the award for most appropriate parking lot site. A lot of the soviet relics have been adopted into the broader city. The old soviet crosswalk signals are still around. Below is the western one. Is that family appropriate?

And who would ever want to get rid of a giant reminder that big brother is watching you sleep.

I would run from that. Other people did. But did you know that the Berlin Wall was actually built to keep fascists out. What a success! But for some unknown reason thousands of people died trying to cross the other way. Another case of history's mysteries.

Here's a mystery. The east siders we rented an apartment from told us they had a dryer. Thanks.