Toronto: Homeward Bound

Well friends, our journey has ended.  We traveled by chauffeur (thanks Mom and Dad), plane, train, cab, bus, subway, streetcar, foot, bicycle, boat, gondola, horse, ski and snow tube.  Through all this and eight hostels we did not get a single bug bite, although we are all bit by the TRAVEL BUG! DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN!  


Here are some final answers:

JD still has his travel laundry to do, and the pile keeps growing with everyday socks and underwear (which luckily don't smell as bad).  Since we are bidding you (and this trip) farewell, clearly we have finished the blog, in less than one week since we've been home (not bad!).  The movies on the flight were terrible (The Tooth Fairy 2, Gulliver's Travels (again, in case we missed its awesomeness the first time) and a made for tv movie called "Hoot" about saving owls)... brutal!  And we couldn't even dull the pain with drinks after the beer of Munich.  Everyone has asked us what our favourite parts were... and it was truly all amazing, but here are the highlights and the... lowlights?  of it all.


Amsterdam
Highlight:  Getting to Europe, having our first beer on a canal, discovering free walking tours which formed the basis of our entire trip and learning that Amsterdam is exactly like how its described.  
Lowlight:  Realizing that our hostel was located on top of a nightclub with beats that would rock the house (and our beds, literally).  
 
Berlin
Highlight:  Celebrating a 4 - 0 Germany win in the quarter finals of the Euro Cup with 100 000 Germans (in front of the Brandenburg Gate)
Lowlight:  Having to break into Britt's suitcase with wire cutters on a travel day, when all you want is clean pyjamas and bed.  It could have been much worse if we were on the train and had locked our railpass in the bag!

Prague
Highlight:  The Astronomical Clock
Lowlight:  The Astronomical Clock


Vienna
Highlight:  Finding Alice and Alice finding four desserts from her must eat list.  Also, Alice finding fast Viennese friends who because our friends (and taught us how to drink and eat like Austrians).  
Lowlight:  Realizing that the opera is really just an "experience" and that it wasn't the air conditioned refuge we thought it would be from the 40 degree heatwave.  Note:  staying awake during an opera is near impossible when it is in German; staying awake during an opera is impossible when it is in German and your face is melting.

Salzburg
Highlight:  Everything - eating fancy cake in a fancy restaurant in our beachwear with our dirty beach hair, climbing up a mountain and exploring the largest ice cave in the world (with a cute Austrian tour guide who spoke excellent English), completing a three hour biking tour AFTER climbing a mountain on the hottest June day recorded EVER in Salzburg.  Finally going to Halstatt (although not by horse, it was one of the best train rides ever).
Lowlight:  Not learning that our hostel would hold our beer in the fridge for us until the last day.

Zurich
Highlight:  A day at the "public" aka free beach with a picnic lunch from the grocery store with the locals who also didn't want to pay for the fancy sanctioned-off part of the beach.

Lowlight:  Everything else, read the blog.  Haha no in actuality, Zurich grew on us.  If we ever have a Swiss expense account we'll be going back for some fine dining.


Interlaken
Highlight:  Britt skiing on the Swiss Alps for her birthday (even if it was a bunny hill) and JD and Ash snow tubing which was so much more fun than skiing on a bunny hill.  Galivanting on horses across trails behind Interlaken in the rain.
Lowlight:  When Alice lost her hat (yes, we're still not over it.)

Munich
Highlight:  Experiencing three different beer gardens with Christie and Drew and drinking from litre beer mugs; Ash finally gaining the title of beer drinker.   
Lowlight:   Injuries sustained from litre beer mugs.  Britt's wrist is STILL in pain, almost a week later!

The only question that remains is how long will we last in Toronto until our next adventure... (which we started planning even before our last stop)...


Stay tuned!

Our Motto:  Paint the world green.

 

Munich: Last stop, beer.

JD, Britt and Ash were able to function without Alice, but we certainly laughed a lot less and did not endanger our lives once (except for when Ash almost fell down the tower stairs in St. Peter's Church). We also ceased to attempt speaking German except for the occasional danke and nein. To the best of our knowledge and despite her best efforts, Alice never did find her hat. We hope one day she will be so lucky as to find another hat just waiting for her on a street corner...one that fits her head perfectly (which, according to Alice, is very hard to do!) We also did find Christie and Drew in Munich... and we found litres of beer. It's still too early to tell if we will make it home without any bug encounters, hold tight! (Don't let the bed bugs bite)

Some thoughts on Munich...

Where we stayed: At Euro Youth Hostel, located on hostel alley, close to the train station. It was a pretty standard hostel with bunk beds and shared washrooms. The only big negative about it was the fire escape outside of our window, necessitating that we keep the window closed for safety at night. This created hot and sticky conditions. Exactly the kind of conditions needed to make our clothes smell even better than they already did and to keep our Swiss chocolate from melting (note, sarcasm).

What we ate: Typical Munich beer garden food including schnitzel, sausages, potato salad, pretzels, and chicken. Our last night we ate Italian, as JD and Ash had been craving pizza for days. Don't worry, we followed this up with a beer to restore our German ways.

What we drank: Beer, and not much else. We went to a total of three different beer gardens/halls (Augustiner Brauhaus, Hofbrauhaus and the Chinese Garden) on four occasions over two days and consumed at least ten litres of beer. Ash is OFFICIALLY a beer drinker! Note: this fact is endorsed by Britt and JD who encouraged her to finish the nasty warm beer at the bottom of a litre mug in order to earn the title. JD and Ash also ordered what they thought was a refreshing lemonade and turned out to be a ... sprite?

What we did: If you couldn't tell already, we drank a lot of beer. When we weren't drinking beer we were learning about the city of Munich and the importance of... beer... to Munich's history and culture. The five of us climbed up 306 steps of St. Peter's Church for a view of the city, and did a walking tour, exploring Munich's old city (highlights included the Glockenspiel - Europe's second most overrated tourist attraction behind Prague's Astronomical Clock and World War II history). After we said goodbye to Christie and Drew, the next day we did a walking tour of Dachau concentration camp. Words can't describe our experience here, so we won't even try.

Lessons learned: Don't give servers your camera with the flash off, the photo will be blurry. Never take note of the fact that you haven't injured yourself yet this trip, just because you only have one city left. You can still almost fall down a flight of stairs.

Questions for home: 

1)  Will Air Transat play better movies on our way home than they did on the way over?

2)  Will JD do his dirty travel laundry?

3)  How long will it take Britt and Ash to complete the blog posts once real life resumes?

Stay tuned!

Our motto:  This star means wars.