A question I do not mind answering, but one that can consume too much time once I begin explaining and others begin asking questions.

Look to this map.

London, England was my starting point, then I worked south, going somewhat-counterclockwise to Paris, France… Bern, Switzerland… Florence, Italy… Torino, Italy… Pisa, Italy… Rome, Italy… Cortona, Italy… Venice, Italy… Vienna, Austria… Budapest, Hungary… Prague, Czech Republic… Berlin, Germany… Amsterdam, The Netherlands… Bruges, Belgium… and back to London, England.

Miles : 3,500 [approximately, point-to-point]

Number of Cities : 15

Number of Countries : 10

Favorite Small City : Bruges, Belgium

Favorite Large City : Berlin, Germany

Well… happy Tuesday!

I know, I know… a very odd selection to place on the front page of the blog on such a wonderful Tuesday mornin’. But I must say, this graffiti in Berlin caught me off guard, but didn’t really offend me.

You see… graffiti is everywhere. Especially in major cities. And when you start to travel to enough, you start to admire it… kinda.

You don’t really want people to deface property that isn’t theirs… but that doesn’t stop some of it from being pretty good.

Is this particular piece good? Well… it’s pretty creative, and it definitely got my attention.

But I don’t know about calling it “good.”

Morbid? Uh… yeah.

Funny? A little.

Artistic? Only if you were the kid in high school who used to sit in the back of the class wearing all-black.

This is (for now) just one of my pictures from Berlin.

It’s my fav.

The story behind this sucker as follows: It is the underbelly of the roof of the Sony Center in Postdamer Platz (my favorite local in Berlin).

At night time, it begins to change colors… but I didn’t know when.

SO, I stood outside… in the cold… around 12 degrees… for 1 hour, just for this one shot.

However, if pink isn’t your color, you may also view it in blue.

…how cold was it?

It is this cold.

However, the temperatures here are slightly misleading. Remember… I’m walking through snow and ice, which makes my boots cold, which makes me cold. Also, half of the time I’m walking directly into the wind.

But, there’s plenty to see… so it’s all good.

After I checked into my hostel on Monday, I hopped the U-Bahn to go see the famous Brandenburg Gate.

After a couple of minutes on the train, I dug into my bag to snag a couple of Haribo gummie bears, a constant source of nutrtion throughout my European jaunt. As I did this, some grizzly fellow across from me said something in German. I responded my stating that I didn’t speak German… in German (kind of ironic, don’t you think?). So… he goes into this whole conversation with me, in German, and from what I could understand, he was saying one of two things:

“This guy has gummie bears and he won’t give me one!”

…or

“This stupid American came to our country and doesn’t know the language!”

After about 3 minutes of this ranting, four other German men who were sitting around me began to yell at him.

One of them looks at me, smiles and gives me a gesture to relax. I wasn’t at all nervous, just confused. But basically… from what I picked up, the four German guys sitting around me told the guy to go screw himself and to quit bothering me bcause I was handsome and had sky-blue eyes… ok, but they did tell him to go screw himself… which only made him talk more.

At my stop, I hopped off the train and in German, thanked the guy sitting next to me… and then I smirked at the guy who wanted the gummie bear.

I love Berlin. Love it. History, architecture, and some good, good food. A few tid-bits from the last 24+ hours.

No… this is not a joke. But there’s more to the story than this title might imply.

Background: For my train transportation around Europe, I bought a Eurail Pass. Basically, I paid a flat fee and can hop on any train at anytime. Also, I accidentally bought a 1st Class ticket… which turned out to be the best mistake I ever made.

So, I hop on the train this morning headed from Prague (located in the Czech Republic) to Berlin (located in Germany). We are about 20 minutes into the train ride when the ticket taker comes by and asks for my tickets. I hand him my Eurail Pass.

“No.” says the ticket taker.

“I’m sorry?” I reply.

“No good in Czech Republic.” he says.

Oh crap… I had forgotten that my pass isn’t valid in this country.

“You just pay for ticket here. You pay now with Euros or Czech.” he stumbles through in broken… oh-so-broken English.

I freeze, because I know that I haven’t carried any Euros with me in a week, and I spent all my Czech money before leaving Prague because I knew I wouldn’t use it anymore.

As I explain this, a not-so-good look comes across his face. “2nd Class.” he says.

So I’m thinkin’ this is all good. I’ll just chill in 2nd Class for 4 hours to Berlin, and we’ll pretend this thing never happened.

So he leads me through the cars en route to 2nd Class. (It almost felt like I was being walked to the principals office.) He finds me a private cabin in 2nd Class and asks me to sit down. I do so… with a big smile… until…

“100 kilimeters… next stop.” he says.

“Pardon.” I respond… in a very, very nervous tone.

“Next stop… 1 hour, you get off.” he says.

Then I get nervous.

I had been on trains in Europe enough over the last 5 weeks to know that a “stop” can mean a giant city, or a lowly cow pasture.

Long-story-short, I was dropped off in a city that appeared to be about the size of Birmingham, Alabama. I snagged a train ticket, relaxed for a couple hours in the McDonald’s with a cappucino (that wasn’t too bad, I might add), and waited for the next train to Berlin.

I still have actually no idea what the name of the town was… so I made up my own: Smökin-Gürlzen

Why? Because one out of every two girls was absolutely gorgegous (or… “smoking hot”). It was almost too weird.

The craziestest part of this whole story? When I hopped on my new train, sitting in the first cabin that I entered were my roomates from the night before in Prague. Some nice Chicago college students who had been involved in train trouble of their own