Mara's Website

We stayed in a hotel room in Berlin where every room in the hotel was different and designed by artists. This room was called "Flying Bed" where the floor was uneven, but all the furniture was cut to be level. It was a funky room and quite a lot of fun! Not to mention the weird sounds you could turn on to fall asleep to!

We visited the Jewish museum in Berlin. Really interesting exhibits, but far more interesting building. This is a 360 view of a couple of the hallways in the bottom floor- one for the various cities where they had taken Jews during the Holocaust from and one for the names of the Holocaust camps

One of our favorite places we thought was going to be quite different than it turned out to be. Topographie des Terrors was a VERY extensive exhibit of WWII pictures and information currently housed outside under a small wooden roof in the excavated basement of the old gestapo headquarters. What was particularly interesting is that part of the Berlin Wall was directly on top of this. So it was an interesting history blend of the old and new.

The glockenspiel in Munich. Or, at least a recreation of it after it was bombed in WWII. Now it's built out of concrete and just looks old!

Will, Achim, Jill and their son, Nathan at one of Ludwig II's castles (built on an island). Jill was my college roommate freshman and sophomore year and we had a great time visiting with her, Achim and Nathan in Munich and hiking in the Alps with them!

Will looked for the path in the Alps (since it was so foggy) and instead just found cows. :)

We bought cheese, butter and bread from an alm in the Alps that made all its own! Quite tasty!

Will and I at the base of the mountain after hiking. Doesn't Will look like he has horns?

Jill told us about how we could see surfers in Munich. It's all on a wave formed by a river coming out of a small hole. The surfers line up on the side and hop onto their boards from a standing position. VERY odd, but some were quite good!

Another of Ludwig II's many castles was within very close walking distance of Jill and Achim's apartment. Will and I went running here (such a fun experience!)

The backside of the same castle so you can see part of the gardens

One of the buildings off the main square in Prague. You could start to see the Russian influence in architecture. Very cool stuff!

The Jewish cemetary in Prague. Back when this was a Jewish ghetto, they didn't have enough space to bury all their dead, so they started burying them on top of each other. It was amazing how many gravestones were there!

The astronomical clock tower on the main square of Prague

A closer view from the front of the astronomical clock tower. Such a cool building!

At the Prague Castle (across the river from the main old part of the city)

A view across the river (and you can see the Charles Bridge)

Eating dinner at a very tasty Czech restaurant. We had really good sauerkrat (with purple cabbage!), goulash and duck. Yum. Oh, and cheap as dirt but tasty as all get-out Czech white wine!

In Krakow there was a statue of an Owl (sadly the baby owl statue that was supposed to be there was gone. Stolen, I'm guessing). But I had to make a Rice Owl symbol next to it!

A building off the main square in Krakow. Again, so cool seeing Eastern European architecture!

Barbed wire fence at Birkenau. You can see the chimney stacks from all the burned down buildings in the background. Birkenau was huge. Amazingly huge and so hard to comprehend...

I found these signs INCREDIBLY humourous. The fact that not only was it crossing for children, but for children with really large lollipops!

A view of Wawel (pronounced Vavel) hill in Krakow

And my fabulous younger sister, Leah, was at my apartment the whole time taking care of Anika. They had a great time (Anika got quite spoiled) and I had fun hanging out with Leah both before Will and I left for Europe and afterwards. :)