Berlin to Stuttgart

08/05/09
21:04
We are finally at Ben and Maria’s apartment in Berlin. More to come on the journey here later, but for now we are about to head out to a much needed and very late dinner…

08/06/09
01:19
Corey and I are finally finished repacking our things to exclude our large suitcases for the next month. He and Ben and I went to a great dinner at a Thai place within reasonable walking distance of his apartment. On the way there Ben explained the “squats” to us… Basically buildings taken by the government when East and West Germany combined, then lost in such a legal mess that squatters have taken over and lived in them for years, most of them subsiding on welfare from the government. We came back to the apartment to find Ben’s wife Maria. The four of us talked for a little while, then Corey went to packing and I was delighted to see Jeanne on Google Talk, so she and I were able to video chat for a little while. The whole video chatting thing through Google worked surprisingly well, and it just seems to be much less of a headache than Skype. It being almost 1:30 in the morning HERE, I’m really wiped, and I’m ready to go to bed. We have a long train ride ahead of us tomorrow morning. We’ll be waking up at the same time as Ben and Maria at 6:30, then getting out of the house by 7:40 to get to the main train station in Berlin by 8:00. Ben and Maria will head out on a train for work at 8:03, then Corey and I will get on a train bound for Stuttgart at 8:32. The travel time listed is 5h36m, so we should be getting to Stuttgart around 2pm. As much as we’d like to see the old city, we will probably skip this one and head straight to the Porsche Museum. It’s on the outskirts of town, and our hotel is right next door to it.

Thomas

A Start...

I've been keeping track of all the happenings in a Word document so that I could just paste it here when the time came... So here it is.

08/04/09

7:02pm

Boarding plane to Washington Dulles Airport. Plane to Toronto was delayed, so they switched our flights. We’re flying straight from Dulles to Frankfurt and arriving an hour earlier than our previous flight from Toronto would have. Guy two rows up tried to stuff a duffle bag under someone else’s row… “Watch this!” Denied by the flight attendant and made to check it. Corey’s bookbag squeezed into the overhead compartment. Corey can’t type. My window is super greasy. Yum. Thomas can’t type either… Why aren’t there mouse buttons on the bottom of this mouse pad? Three hungry hungry hippos are holding us up.

08/04/09

10:48pm

We are about 45 mins into our flight to Frankfurt. Corey and I got on the plane and automatically bypassed first class only to find that the row numbers we were walking by were too high. We came back and discovered that our seats are on the first row of International Business Class. With this seating comes a TON of legroom, reclining seats with footrest, and a four course gourmet meal for dinner with a selection of wines, plus continental breakfast in the morning and free Starbucks throughout. I guess we lucked out that there was a security issue in Toronto, because we’re getting there sooner and we’re flying first class. Before writing this I helped the German lady next to me figure out how to work her personal entertainment system (built into the seat). She just pulled out a sandwich and handed me half of it, which I tore in half again and handed part of to Corey. Chicken, tomatoes and lettuce in a hoagie bun. It was good.

08/05/09

12:51am

Just finished an excellent dinner (by any standards, much less that of a plane) of salad and bread, then shrimp and cold deli meats plate, then beef and purple lettuce main course plate, then key lime cheesecake and coffee dessert. We are currently, by the “map” option on the personal entertainment screen, traveling at 38,000 feet above Newfoundland (almost to the Atlantic on the eastern side), about a third of the way through the trip. We’re moving 638 miles an hour and the outside air temp is -55deg C/

08/05/09

5:25am/11:26am

About to land in Frankfurt. Captain says it’s a beautiful day.

08/05/09

14:51

On the train to Berlin via Hannover. Big ordeal just passed over, as Corey left his Eurail Pass in the scanner when he was making security copies. He had to buy a new pass, and will be able to return the old one for an almost-full refund later on when his parent s bring it over. I had my pass validated and made reservations for the Cisalpino train from Zurich to Como while I waited for his new pass to come out. It looks like there may not be a night train from Rome to Nice as we had planned on, so we will have to wait and see how that plays out. Corey says he is going to be SO glad to get rid of this crap in Berlin. He has two rolling bags, a pack, and a bookbag. I currently have my pack and my rolling bag only; all my other bags are packed away inside those two. Whew. Hope we’re on the right train… Oh, and as you can see, we’ve switched to 24 hour time to be consistent with the trains.

08/05/09

21:04

We are finally at Ben and Maria’s apartment in Berlin. More to come on the journey here later, but for now we are about to head out to a much needed and very late dinner…

More to come later... Miss and love you all.

Thomas

It's Official...

I'm leaving to embark upon what may prove to be the greatest adventure of my life in 8 days' time. To say that I'm nervous and excited is putting it mildly. Before spending the semester in Prague, Czech Republic, Corey and I are doing a one-month tour of Europe. Planning has been both fun and at times excruciating, but here is the final itinerary.

August 4th in the evening we will fly out of Charlotte Douglas Int'l towards Frankfurt via Toronto on CanadaAir. The plane will arrive in Frankfurt mid-day on the 5th. From Frankfurt we will (armed with Eurail Global passes) board a train to Berlin to meet up with my cousin Ben and his wife Maria for a late dinner on the 5th. We will spend the night with them and leave our larger bags with them (thank you!), and in the morning we will head to the train station to start the journey. From there, it goes like this... (A=August, S=September)

Stuttgart, Germany (A6) (meaning we will spend the day and night of August 6th there)
Zurich, Switzerland (A7)
Como/Lake Como, Italy (A8)
Milan, Italy (A9, 10)
Venice, Italy (A11, 12)
Florence, Italy (A13) (late train to Rome)
Rome, Italy (A14, 15, 16)
Nice, France / Monaco, Monaco (A17, 18)
Coillure, France (A19)
Barcelona, Spain (A20) (Tyler will be joining us for the Spain portion of the trip at this point)
Ibiza, Spain (A21, 22, 23, 24)
Valencia, Spain (A25, 26) (We'll be heading to Buñol for La Tomatina on the 26th)
Madrid, Spain (A27, 28)
San Sebastian, Spain (A29, 30) (Tyler parts)
Paris, France (A31, S1, 2)
Amsterdam, Netherlands (S3, 4, 5) (late train to Berlin on the 5th)
Berlin, Germany (S6) (pick our luggage back up)
Prague, Czech Republic (S7)

From that point we will be in Prague, other than minor excursions, until we head back to Frankfurt to fly home on December 8th.

For those of you who are interested, I will be on Skype at some points at "thomasvick" and I will probably be best reached by email at t(period)vick(period)06(at)gmail(dot)com

Whew. Wish me luck.