Luzern With Maxine

Luzern is amazing. It is such a beautiful location! Maxine and I met in the Zurich airport, and headed straight to Luzern, which is about an hour away. Luzern is right on a lake in the alps, full of cute shops and restaurants. Unfortunately it was cloudy the first day, and the alps weren't fully visible until late the second day.

Maxine and I wandered around the first day. We climbed a clock tower along the old wall, which went off while we were inside of it. We both almost fell over, and screamed so loudly!

That night we ate fondue - cheese and chocolate are, after all, the best swiss exports. It was delicious, and the owner of the restaurant looked like your typical swiss man with large glasses and eyebrows out of control.

The next day we had planned on hiking (or taking a gondola) to the top of the mountain, but it was totally covered in clouds. Instead we took a ferry around the lake, then got off and walked back to the train station. We stopped along the way for a delicious Swiss lunch, then got back just in time to make our train. Whereupon I left my camera in the Swiss train when we changed in Basel.
Luckily, people in Switzerland are nice (or at least some of them are) and returned my camera. I picked it up last week. I will never EVER let it out of my sight again.

A sea of blue and orange balloons

Flowers along the bridge

Maxine at our restaurant

Balloons!

Getting oriented

Up close and personal on the ferry

A swan nest! I had no idea that they looked like this!

Look at the alps in the background! Gorgeous.

Freiburg

One gorgeous day I decided I needed to take more pictures around Freiburg. Here they are.

Gargoyles on the Münster (church)

Apparently there are a lot of legends surrounding this particular gargoyle. I can't imagine why...just kidding. But it is pretty funny.

Bikes in Freiburg

One of the pretty buildings

Crocodile in the river. There's no explanation on the plaque next to it, just a rhyme that says that this crocodile is not in the nile and won't bite you.

Feierling Biergarten

Funny story: it turns out that the lady in this picture is my art teacher. She still doesn't know.

Berlin part 2

On our second day in Berlin we slept in (until 9) to counteract the effects of not sleeping on our sleeper train. We started our day with Berliners - jelly-filled donuts, of the 'ich bin ein Berliner' variety. We then explored an art show in the streets on our way to the Pergamon Museum. The Pergamon Museum is promoted as being the one museum you go to in Berlin, if you can only get to one of them. Inside they have deconstructed, moved, and rebuilt the entire facade of a Greek temple that once stood in Turkey. Cool, huh?

We then wandered the city, looking for nothing in particular. We found the KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Wests), which is a giant mall (as it turns out) that symbolized everythig the East couldn't have. Near the KaDeWe, we stopped for ice cream, and accidentally stubled upon the Gedenknis Kirche, a church that was bombed out in WWII and remains open to this day.

We went out to dinner that night, searching for a restaurant that had ben recommended to us. Instead, we found another restaurant as well as prostitutes and a Jewish cemetary. Don't worry, the area was not unsafe. It was just an interesting experience - prostitution is legal in Germany, but it is still a little surprising to me.

We left the next day, undestanding a little more about the Cold War and a divided Germany. Our train was in daylight this time, so we got to see what we were passing; much of the middle of Germany resembles the middle of the US. Interesting.

Mother's Day cakes

Berliners for breakfast

Pergamon Museum

Athena in battle

Floaties that we found in the museum store. You never know when you might drown in the art museum.

Humboldt University's enterance. The missing bricks have been replaced by legos.

My favorite.

KaDeWe

Gedenknis Kirche

The bells in the tower of the church were made in Sin(n). This is ironic.

Our room in the hostelboat. I'm on the top bunk, which was unfortunately close to the ceiling.

Our hostel is the boat on the left, with Berlin in the background

Jewish Cemetery

Berliner Bier