New post, this time with pictures!

Guten Tag!!!

After a long dry spell of picture posting, I will now make up for such a terrible thing to do to you. I cannot tell you how much I loved Warsaw, though I certainly did try to. Berlin was really cool as well. I got to Berlin on Thursday evening, was amazed at the huge and beautifully efficient train station, had a little bit of a frustrating time figuring out which S Bahn (tram) line to take to get to my hostel, and eventually got to Wombat's Hostel in the City Center (though it was East Berlin before The Wall came down). I highly recommend this hostel if you ever visit Berlin. I had a great first night - went up to the in-house bar on the top floor of the hostel, which also had a beautiful outdoor deck, watched the sunset, drank some beer, and met some new friends that were also traveling alone - one from Australia another from the Netherlands, and another from Malaysia. They were great to hang out with. I met more people from many other places, including another guy from New Zealand that we had beers with that night, but hung out with those three the most. The next day we all met up for breakfast and the dude from the Netherlands and I set out for a walk through the huge park in Berlin after visiting Karl-Marx Allee, including a climb up the Victory Statute Tower where we got great views of Berlin. Not only this, though, we stumbled across a section of the park that I suppose was a nudist section. I don't have an issue with people that want to be naked, but it just seemed a little odd to me that they would choose to do so in the middle of the largest park in the middle of a city of 3.2 million people. I totally understand the beach, but this was a little weird. And no, I did not take pictures.

Bar/Deck at top of the Hostel:

The Victory Statue Tower:

After the park, which we walked through for quite a while since it was so large, we had a late lunch of Currywurst (sausage covered in a tomato-curry sauce) with french fries and a beer and then walked over to the Brandenburg Gate, where we would meet a tour guide for a walking tour of Berlin. Before the tour could begin, however, we had a quick downpour for about 30 min, where we all (all meaning all the people waiting for the tour) got soaked. After that delay, we finally got started on the tour at 4:30pm. The tour was awesome, included the big sights of Berlin, including the Berlin Wall, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (that's really the name), and Bebelplatz where the Nazi book burnings took place, and ended with the story of how the Berlin Wall came down 20 years ago. Yes, I also realized that I had the great luck to be able to visit Berlin on the 20 year anniversary of the falling of the Wall earlier in the day when I saw all of the outdoor exhibits all over the city comemorating the event. It was an incredible experience to be able to be in the city.

The "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe":

Me and The Berlin Wall:

Humboldt University:

My friends and I all met up at the bar later and toasted to Berlin and our newfound friendship, and in the morning I got up, checked out, had breakfast and headed for the train station.

Above: Friends! Except, we didn't know that chick, she just jumped in the picture from nowhere. All I know is she was a little drunk and from Italy.

I arrived in Luneburg yesterday and had dinner with Wiebke (my friend I'm visiting here) in the city center, along with a walk and a beer in a brewery in town. This place is adorable! I'll be visiting it in earnest tomorrow - I have several things I'm planning to see and will certainly post pictures of that as well. Today, Wiebke's best friend Janine was wonderful enough to show me around Hamburg - all three of us got up super early (Wiebke and I got up earlier as we had to take a 30 min. train ride into the city) , we met Janine at the train station and then took the S Bahn to the Fischmarkt (fish market). This was not just a fish market, but the largest farmer's/merchant's market you've ever seen! It was almost like a carnival, and this happens every Sunday starting at 5am and going until after 10am. There were people wandering around, some of them drinking and/or still drunk from last night's partying (did you know that Hamburg has a red light district?!), looking at all the people shouting trying to sell whatever they had: produce, flowers, souveniers, clothes, fish, cheese, and countless other things. My favorite ones were guys at a house plant stand that were extremely excited about their house plants - yelling and shouting to try to sell them and doing all sorts of ridiculous things. The whole event was awesome!

Then we spent the whole day seeing the sights of Hamburg - what a cool city! And it slightly reminds me of Seattle too as it is a port city on the water. Additionally, I think we used every mode of transportation possible today, except for a plane. The weather was nice and cool in the morning, a welcome break from the heat and humidity of Berlin, and then cleared up around midday - sunny and warm all afternoon. Here are pictures to show you what I mean:

The girls showed my so much that I can't possibly cover it all here - you'll have to wait to see all the pictures when I get home - and we ended the day with a trip up the tower in St. Nicolai's Cathedral for a panoramic view of the city - beautiful!

I'm leaving so much stuff out, but this blog can't become a novel. Oh well. Can't wait to see more of extremely charming Luneburg - Auf Wiedersehen!