GO ITALIA!!!  Last night I watched the match at Pratergarten - several thousand people were pack into this Biergarten watching Germany lose to Italy...

Needless to say I didn't cheer too loudly...

I took the Underground at to the Olympic Stadium today.  It was about a 30 minute ride from East Berlin.

Berlin Olympiastadion

The current Olympiastadion was originally built for the 1936 Summer Olympics in the southern part of the Reichssportfeld (today Olympiapark Berlin). During World War II, the area suffered little damage.

Amazingly this "self shot" came out pretty well!

The site was renovated in the early 2000's for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.  On January 9, 2002, construction workers found an unexploded World War II bomb buried beneath a section of seating. It was defused outside the stadium by Berlin police!

Looking towards the sky on a hot summer day!

Can you guess what's going on here?  I bet Tarah can!

Did I do something wrong?

Cool Cool

Today in Berlin I just walked around (and did some laundry)...enjoy!

River sights...

Berlin Radio Tower...

More river sights...

Cool art on the side of a building in East Berlin...

On the train heading to Berlin!

Nuremberg at night!  On 2 January 1945, the medieval city center was systematically bombed by the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces and about ninety percent of it was destroyed in only one hour, with 1,800 residents killed and roughly 100,000 displaced.

Nuremberg was a heavily fortified city during WWII. Despite this intense degree of destruction, the city was rebuilt after the war and was to some extent, restored to its pre-war appearance including the reconstruction of some of its medieval buildings. However, the biggest part of the historic structural condition of the old Imperial Free City was lost forever.

Bridge over the Pegnitz River in the old town center

City wall tower and dome in the old city center with the half moon in the sky

Church and monument in the old town center

Yesterday we were in Nuremberg.  Nuremberg held great significance during the Nazi Germany era. Because of the city's relevance to the Holy Roman Empire and its position in the center of Germany, the Nazi Party chose the city to be the site of huge Nazi Party conventions – the Nuremberg rallies.

Today, it has the largest remaining collection of Nazi architecture, such as Zeppelin Field, Congress Hall, and the Great Road.  The Nazi Rally Grounds are a memorial today, yet they are used for large events such as concerts, F1 Racing, and Motorcycle races.

Unfortunately, the place was very commercial and we were a little disappointed in the advertisements everywhere and the Madonna music that was being blasted for the breakdown crew of an auto racing event held the day before...

Inside the Documentation Center - a museum for the Nazi Rally Grounds

Nazi Rally tickets

Congress Hall

Zeppelin Field - this is the building were the famous American footage of the Nazi Swastika was blown up - the Swastika was on the top of the building

Seating area and podium (where Adolf Hitler gave speeches) at Zeppelin Field - to the right you can see part of the race track area that there were currently breaking down.

I bet you didn't know that there is surfing in Munich!!!  Totally tubular - where's Jeff Spicoli when we need him?

"All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, an' I'm fine."

We stumbled onto this Michael Jackson memorial in a park in Munich.  Defintely one of the strangest things we've senn so far..

You can read more about by visiting the Memorial to Michael Jackson page!  Enjoy...

Here are some Biergarten pictures from Munich...

Sean drinking a Weißbier (Hefeweizen) at the Viktualienmarkt Biergarten

The "maple tree" at the entrance to the Biergarten - it displays what types of beer and food are served along with the merchants selling crafts and other goods...

Me drinking a beer at the Englischer Gartern (English Garden) Biergarten - this is Munich's "Central Park" and it is the largest park in Europe! More than 100,000 people visit the park on summer days...no doubt drinking some beer!

Panorama of the Biergarten with a Chinese Tower in the middle - we rented bikes for the afternoon and cruised around this awesome park...

Driving on the Autobahn in in Audi A6...way awesome - a dream come true!

I apologize for not posting anything in several days.  We have had very limited access to Wi-Fi.  So, to catch up...

We left Krakow, Poland...

...and decided to get to Austria via Munich, by plalne (90 minutes) instead of train (16 hours)...

...we picked up our rental car, an Audi A6, in Munich and drove to Herschegg, Austria in the southern Bavaria region (Austrian Tyrol)...

...after spending a few days in Austria, we went back to Munich, Germany...

...and, now we are currently in Nuremberg...

...I'll post more soon...until then, Gute Nacht

Birkenau block house...view looking out from a bunk bed...

Reflecting the Holocaust

Birkenau...

End of the train line where the "selection process" took place...

The Nazi SS destroyed the gas chambers to cover up their mass murders...

Auschwitz....

Only crematorium left at Auschwitz I

First thing Wednesday morning after arriving in Krakow, we decided to go visit Auschwitz-Birkenau.  It took about 90 minutes by local bus and once there we walked around for about 5hrs.  The temperature was approximately 91 degrees with no breeze.  This site was probably the most disturbing place I've ever been.  It bothered me even more than Hiroshima!  For those of you that don't know, Auschwitx-Birkenau was a network of concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II. It was the largest of the German concentration camps, consisting of Auschwitz I (the Stammlager or base camp); Auschwitz II–Birkenau (the Vernichtungslager or extermination camp); Auschwitz III–Monowitz, also known as Buna–Monowitz (a labor camp); and 45 satellite camps.  About 1.3 million people were murdered here between 1942 - 1944.  That breaks down to roughly 1200 human lives taken per day...

Arbeit macht frei - "Work brings freedom"

We're in Krakow, Poland!  We took an overnight train on Tuesday and made it to Krakow at about 6:30am local time.  After storing our packs, we found some coffee and food...

Good thing the window opened....

Sean in our sleeper compartment...

We decided to stay one more night in Prague which gives us all of today to check out this incredibly beautiful city.  We are taking a "Sleeper Train" tonight to Krakow, Poland.

Down by the river with the Prague Castle in the background

PS - Nice work Italia moving on to the quarterfinals in Euro 2012!

Bomb shelter bar near our hotel - Hotel NOIR

 

The night ended a little fuzzy as well...

Food...

So Prague is pretty damn cool...we walked all over town again yesterday, ate good food, and drank great/cheap beer.  We also went to a Pipe Organ Concent at an old Braque Church!

Night view over the river Vltava River

Prague Castle

Beer with a view...

PS - I didn't really get arrested...

Oh No...

Yesterday we arrived in Prague after a 5hr train ride from Berlin.  The train was awesome.  We had our own compartment, so we listened to some music, ate some snacks and had some adult beverages.  Once we arrived, we quickly found a place to stay on the edge of the "Old Town" district.  We also were lucky enough to arrive on the evening that Czech was playing Poland in the Euro 2012!  We found a bar and watched the game with some locals.  Luckily Czech Republic won or it would have made for a even more crazy atmosphere!  I think we have found the Beer Drinkers paradise.  Half liters of beer were only 30Kc which is about $1.50.  There is also places off the beaten path that have local brews for under 20Kc - that's less than $1.00 for a ,5L beer!!!

Rezene Pivo (a mix of light and dark beer)

Sean in Wenceslas Square

Hope everyone back home is doing well...we're headed out for the day, so I'll post more later...Na shledanau!

Prague!

As if Berlin wasn't cool enough....

We went to the Reichstag and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe sites...as a History buff, these two sites were absolutely breathtaking and very disturbing at the same time.  Especially sitting on the grounds of the Reichstag - this building is easily one the most important, if not the most important building in the history of Germany...If you don't know about the Reichstag...do yourself a favor and learn about it...now!

The Rechstag

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe