The Hills are Alive with the Sound of....Break Dancing??

Ahhh...hello from the tropical weather of Austria! Apparently it's been one of the warmest Aprils here on record so it's been wonderful to experience Austria with the warm temps of summer but minus the crowds of summer! So, I am now officially travelling solo for 8 weeks. I left Christine behind in Schladming, Austria where she will be studying at a Bible School for 2 months. After I dropped off my little sister on her first day of school I spent an extra day in Schladming to explore the hiking trails in the area. I think I bit off a little more than I could chew because I picked a steep, uphill for 2 1\2 hours trail that was way beyong what I could do that day! So when I came to a form in the trail with the uphill trail to my left and the panorama trail to my right I of course chose the right one! I'd gotten so high already though that the view was pretty good from there! Needless to say I had some sore muscles the next day!

So travelling alone made me made me a little nervous at first but now that I've been on my own for a week already I'm starting to get used to it. I no longer have someone around to tell me when I have jam on my face or lettuce in my teeth but I think I can manage to stay presentable on my own as well! I think it also helps that I'll be visiting friends along the way so I won't be completely alone for 8 weeks, and hey, you never know who I might meet along the way as well! While in Salzburg I spent some time with an irish girl who was sharing the hostel dorm with me, so I'm already off to a good start!

Salzburg, like most of Austria, is a beautiful place. I wasn't really sure what to expect when I arrived, but it is one of the nicest cities I've been to. It's a little smaller, population-wise than most of the others, but it's locale and charm was really set it apart from some of the other cicties I've been to here. It's kind of like a Calgary, only because it's situated on the edge of the Alps, but it's way better because it has so much more history and culture and it's all condensed into a small area in the centre of the city.

Salzburg is famous for two reasons. One being that Mozart was born and bred there and as a result there's a huge fine arts music scene in Slazburg. It's not unusual to see people walking around with orchestral instruments in hand. The second reason is that Salzburg is where the "Sound of Music" was filmed in 1964. So I could not very well visit Salzburg without paying homage to a classic like the Sound of Music! I signed up for the official "Sound of Music" tour with my irish roomate and was pleasantly surprised by what we saw. We visited the Mansion where the Trapp family in the movie lived. In actuality, they used two homes, one for the outside and one for the inside. The outdoor terrace scenes with the lake were all filmed at the Leopoldskron Manor in Salzburg and the interior scenes were all filmed at another mansion closer to Hellbrunn Schloß. We also drove by the Nonnberg Abbey and the best part was that they drove us outside the city to the Lake district where thay filmed a lot of their mountain scenery and it's also where the church in which Maria and the Captain get married is located. The countryside up there was so amazing! The former german chancellor (Helmut Kohl) even used to have a cottage at one of the lakes up there. I could see why Maria was so inspired to skip through the mountains in her free time I almost felt like doing the same but some other Canadian girls on the tour went for it instead so I just laughed at them instead! The best part, however, was when we just randomly stopped at an outdoor summer luge track on one of the hills overlooking a lake. For 4 euros we could try luging down the side of an Austrian mountain, and while I hemmed and hawed about it for awhile I decided at the last minute to give it a try. I was not disappointed! It was a short run but definately a lot of fun! I unfortunately didn't get a pic of me on the track tho...That's another downside to travelling alone, you don't always get a pic of yourself doing stuff or standing next to something cool. I've asked people on the street to do it for me but I have yet to encounter another tourist who can take a picture properly for me! By this I mean they always cut the top or bottom off or they don't tell me when they're taking it so I'm not looking...where are you Christine! Oh well, I'll have make do!

So my hostel in Salzburg was about 20 mins from the centre, but lucky for me I had bought a Salzburg Card which granted me free public transportation and free entrance into a lot of museums and sights for a 24 hour period. I definately made sure to get my money's worth out of that card on my second day there! I spent the entire day just hopping from one museum\sight to the next!

I visited Mozart's birthplace, the oldest preserved fortress in Europe, catacombs, Hellbrunn Schloß with it's trick fountains and the Austrian folklore museum. The most memorable museum was Miracle's Wax museum. It was located right next to Mozarts Birthplace and recreated life in the 1700's (Mozart's time) with wax figures. It was a little creepy actually! I didn't even give it a second thought when I walked in there but the dark alleys, flickering candlelight and sound effects of the 1700's with lifelike wax figures got a little freaky after awhile especially since I was the only person in the place! Not one other person was touring through the place so it was a little freaky, especially since some of them moved mechanically which made them seem even more lifelike. The worst part was when I turned a corner and there was an old bum wax figure hacking in a corner behind some barrels. An imigination can definately get carried away in a place like that! I never would have paid the expensive price to see this place but since it was free on my Salzburg Card I of course had to be cost efficient and see as much as possible! In the end it was a really cool way to see life in the 1700's and if any of you are ever in Salzburg I would suggest seeing the Wax museum, but don't go alone!

After Salzburg I made my way to Vienna, the capital of Austria! Upon arrival I of course did the obligatory half hour of wandering around before I finally found my hostel (I gotta get better directions from these places!). Vienna is also a city that is very classical by nature. A lot of classical music and art museums, which don't interest me as much as palaces and castles so of course that'what I've seen here. The interesting angle to Vienna for me is that back in my University days I wrote a large paper on the Imperial Habsburg family who resided in Vienna for over 400 years so it was cool to see some of the people and places I studied come to life! They had two palaces (just like any proper royal family does I've come to learn!) Schönbrunn was their summer palace outside the city and Hofburg was their winter palace inside the city. I saw both but definately like the Hofburg better. The interiors were beautiful, there's a special museum on Sisi, one of the Hapsburg empresses who married young and was murdered young (an interesting story), and also a special exhibit on the Imperial table services (table settings cutlery, centrepieces...very extravagent! ). I also really loved the statues guarding the front entryway as well as the two statue fountains on either side. They are so animated! I think it is so amazing how some of these artists have captured live body movements in a still form of art like sculptures. I also really like the Hofberg because there is a Starbucks around ever corner where I can satisfy my tastebuds on a warm day with a mocha frappacino..mmmmmmm and no Starbucks did not pay me write that! In my solitary wanderings I have turned to Mocha frappacinos! So good! After enjoying my frappacinos I have decided that I need to keep up on my exercise back home to balance things a bit! I was inspired by watching the Vienna marathon in action today! I have never run a marathon but definately feel that I would like to, so that I can participate in a marathon in a beautiful city like Vienna. These runners got to see all the sights on the marathon course that I was walking around all day to see on my own! Very scenic. I've done a lot of walking in Vienna only because it's been a little harder to navigate. There are so many little nooks and crannies to see (including a square where they used to hold jousting tournements!) but the best thing I saw here I encountered as I was on my way to see St. Stephen's Church which is located in Stephanplatz, the main pedestrian square in Vienna. I was sidetracked on my way to the church when I saw a silver painted mime type guy moon walking so I stopped to watch a bit, but when I saw a crowd gathering a little farther on I of course went to see what the draw was and a group of five guys was just getting ready to do a break dancing show. It was amazing. This wasn't just a bunch of guys hanging out breakdancing for fun. They had practiced, set up a routine to some great tunes and were doing it to entertain (and make a little cash of course too!) They had skills but were very artful in how they presented it. It was so great. I did eventually go to see the church but I went back afterwards to watch these guys do their routine again, they were really talented! And so ends my time here in Austria. Tomorrow I fly out of here super early in the morning and head for Münster where I will be visiting a friend I met at Bible School in British Columbia 6 years ago!! After that I will be migrating even farther north to Norway! (I guess it's too much to hope the weather will tropical up there too eh?!) Til next time!

Laura

Big City Livin' and Adventurous Village Life!

Yay!! I have finally found some time and some cheap internet to finally write my installment on Berlin and Hagedorn! OK, so we left off in Poland where Christine and I had fulfilled our Quest to find Paska. Our next destination was the capital of Germany and the self proclaimed "Best City in World" (I don't think I'd argue that!): Berlin! We were greeted in Berlin by amazingly warm weather and a brand spanking new Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station). I think this station is the best one I have encountered on my trip thus far and I have seen many by now. It's huge, the entire place was made of glass, there's a shopping mall on the lower 3 levels and is officially sponsored by a Canadian company so it scored big points for that! It's so huge we had trouble finding our way out of the place! We finally found our S-bahn and made the 45 minute trip out to our hostel which was situated in the Grünewald area of Berlin. It was pretty far from the centre which wasn't so great but it was also cool because all the rich people lived in that area (including the German president on our street!) and we were surrounded by nature while still in the city. This included the wild boars that Christine and I encountered on our way out to dinner one night. I wouldn't normally have associated Berlin with boars but the huge ugly beasts live right in the city and apparently are pretty tame, not something Christine and I were going to test out! Anyway, our time in Berlin was a lot of fun. The most memorable thing we did was take a FREE Walking tour of the major sights in town. So awesome! Because the guides are working for tips they really get into the role of being a guide and ours did an amazing job! Not only was she very knowledgable about Berlin but she was super charasmatic and made it funny and relatable. She condensed hundreds of years of German history into a 3 hour tour. So great! Did you know that the only reason the wall between east and west Berlin came down was because an inexperienced East German Public Relations officer got his facts mixed up at a press conference and just screwed up on live television!! I had no idea it was something so simple, but I guess at that point in time if the East German officials even hinted at opening the border on live National Television the public would be all over it in no time! After the tour we went to a FREE museum on the Stasi, the East German version of the KGB secret police. Dissapointingly there wasn't too much to see there so we headed over to Checkpoint Charlie (the former checkpoint between east and west Berlin) and spent a good two hours at the museum there instead. The best part about that place is that they had all kinds of displays on how various people had succeeded in escaping into west Berlin from the east. One guy put two surfboards on the roof of his car and put his girlfriend in a hollowed out space between the two boards and was able to drive across with her. Another guy constructed his very own hot air balloon! Not everyone was successful though. There were some pretty sad stories about how a lot of people died trying to escape as well. The most heartbreaking one was about an 18 year old man who was shot down just as he was jumping off the wall onto the westside. As he lay dying the american soldiers watching were not able to help him because the wall had a 10 metre buffer zone on the west side that still belonged to the east so this poor guy was still in the east and the american soldiers did not help him as foreign ploicies forbid them from entering the east. It's crazy how much history there is in Berlin. Originally Christine and I had only planned to stay for 3 nights but we had to extend our stay for another day to do Berlin justice and see a little more and even that feels like it wasn't enough. While in Berlin we also paid Knut a visit. For any of you out there who are completely out of the news loop like Christine and I have been and have not been watching or reading any important world news, Knut is an adorable little polar bear that was recently born at the Berlin Zoo. We only heard about him when one of the girls in our walking tour told us about him so of course we had to make like we were with the times and go to see him! Only we didn't realize just how popular this little guy was and waited in line for an hour to catch a glimpse of him. He was really cute and it was amazing how comfortable he was with his trainer. I guess when you're raised in a zoo the animals become a little more accustomed to people. We also spent that afternoon at the German History Museum and while we spent a few hours in there I probably could have spent an entire day there. It's exactly what I've been interested in seeing because there's so much I don't know about German history. In a way it's directly related to my own personal history so it's something I really wanted to learn about while I am in Europe. It's also not something you study in high school and I didn't study it in University at all either so I was really intrigued by how the German Nation came together through the centuries. One of the best parts was special section on Propaganda and Art from 1930-1945. They had a section for Germany, Italy, U.S.A and the Soviet Union. It was really fascinating how these countries perceived themselves and eachother during the second world war. After an educational afternoon Christine and I rested our weary brains on the field in front of the Berliner Dom. So cool to lay there and see this beutiful old church when you open your eyes. It was one of the few buildings left standing after the war. Our guide told us that you can tell if a building in Berlin is an original if there are patches all over the buildings that were meant to fill in bullet holes. The church was full of them. Christine and I were also able to escape the city like the royals of Germany used to and visited the Schloss Sanssouci and the Neue Palais, summer residences of the 17th and 18th century Prussian leaders including Friedrich the Great. As usual, the palaces were beautiful, what palace isn't! The unique thing about the Neue Palais was that there was a ballroom decorated with seashells, clams and precious natural stones on the interiors. Very cool. Apparently Friedrich the Great liked nature so much he brought it inside! That's my kind of King! I'd totally vote for him, oh wait Monarchies are not Democracies, I forgot! Here's a picture of me pretending to be a Prussian Royal, I'd totally pass for royalty what with the stylish black fleece and stained capris!! Hee hee! We also checked out a museum (not FREE) on German Film history, it was a pretty big dud, I thought it would be better but luckily thay had a really cool children's feature on Fairy Tales brought to life in the movies so Christine and spent some more time pretending, this time that we were in Fairy Tales!! Here's me pretending to be Snow White. Anyway, we left Berlin with the warm weather after three memorable days and headed for some rest and relaxation in little tiny Hagedorn, Germany. We planned to stay with a family friend called Heike. She's the granddaughter of the woman my oma worked for during WWII when my oma's family was traveling through Germany on their way out of Russia and onwards to Canada. She spent about two years working there and whats really cool is that Heike still lives in the same Farmhouse that my oma worked at 60 years ago! It's really great that our families have been able to stay in touch for so long! Our stay did begin with some rest and relaxation but quickly progressed into another exciting travel destination! Heike teaches a yoga class so Christine and I took part to relax our travelworn muscles. We also explored the countryside on bikes, took part in an African drumming class (another one of Heike's projects!), took a 5am wildlife "safari" with Heike's friend Klaus, visited a reconstructed German village from the 15th - 19th century, and saw Hermann, a huge German hero, who is made of iron and continues to protect the German land like he did 2000 years ago when he thwarted the Romans' attempt to take control of German land. The best part of our stay in Hagedorn was when Heike took us paddling on our last day. We took two canoes and paddled down the Lippe river. I'm used to canoeing on quiet lakes and rivers but this one had a few mini rapids which was scary at first (just look at Christine's expression in the pic!) but was pretty fun after I got used to it! A really nice way to see the german countryside! After our paddling adventure we were ready to head home and get ready to leave the next day but there was one more adventure in store for us. Heike let me drive on the Autobahn in her car! My first autobahn experience in the driver's seat was a very memorable one not only because it's the first time I've driven 160 km's an hour (I didn't dare go any faster!) but because her car proceeded to break down just as I was givener in the fast lane! All of a sudden the accelarator shuts down on me and I'm losing speed in the passing lane on the autobahn! We got a few dirty looks and car honks as I tried to manouvre to the shoulder...a little stressful! The stress didn't end there though. Heike called the german version of CAA and they came and fixed the fuse in the car, simple problem right?! So we headed out again only to have the same thing happen again. This time the CAA guys were not so speedy and we waited over an hour for them to show up again. Our growling bellies were beginning to pose a problem at this point so Heike proceeded to find the nearest house, order pizza for us and arrange for us to have pizza in our car on the Autobahn. Boy did it taste good! It definately helped pass the time too. When the same CAA guy showed up we "fixed" the problem again and said we would be good to go, but 5 minutes after he left us the car shut down again...Heike then finally called her neighbor and asked him to come schlep us home. Needless to say it was a long night, but an adventure nonetheless! Anyway Hagedorn was a wonderful stop on tour and congratulations for making it to the end of this very long blog entry. I think I need to start posting more often! For now, Aufwiedersehen from Salzburg!

Laura

Quest for Paska

Easter weekend in Prague was a pretty cool experience and Christine and I had a great time at the Easter markets there but it just wasn't the same without our traditional Mennonite Easter bread Paska. Since this variety of bread originates from Eastern Europe we were hoping we might find a suitable alternative to satisfy our tastebuds this Easter but anything we tried in Prague just wasn't right. Almost resigned to having an Easter without Paska we moved on to Krakow Poland in hopes of finding the sweet bread there (because it was still Easter weekend!). Upon arrival we found our hostel pretty quickly in the old town middle close to the train station and once we unpacked we beelined for the Polish Easter Markets happening in the Old Town. My first impression of Krakow were wonderful. We really had only seen the Old town so far with it's medieval pededstrian streets, but the garden encircling the entire old town with the Easter Markets in the huge town square gave us a nice welcome! We didn't find the paska there but we did find alot of other really nice polish handicrafts (painted eggs of course!) and we also found some of the best food I've had this entire trip! I had a huge plate of Polish style potatos, mushrooms and sausage and when eaten on an empty stomach in the cool outdoor evening it was just sooooo good. What a meal! What a reprieve Krakow was from all the hordes of tourists in Prague as well. We arrived at the easter markets and were pleased to see that they weren't overflowing with people, we actually had a chance to take our time and look around. There were other tourists of course but it was just so much more relaxed it instantly gave Krakow huge points over Prague! Our first full day in Prague was spent exploring the aforementioned Old Town, we strolled the Plenary Gardens, checked out the University at which Copernicus had studied and of course the Wawel Castle, where all the former Polish Royalty once resided. It being Easter Monday we were feeling a little bad that we were not able to celebrate it properly but as we toured the castle we veered into the castle's Catholic Cathedral and happened upon an Easter service in full swing. The Cathedral itself is tourist attraction so it was quite amazing to walk into this beautifully decorated Cathedral to the sound of a men's choir and the smell of incense. We stayed for awhile to listen to the choir sing but the traditions and customs of the catholics are quite foreign to us so we took a look around the perimeter of the church and decided to keep going. Still was a really cool experience for us! There's also a legend in Krakow that there was a fire breathing dragon living in a cave under the castle and as a way to exterminate this beast once and for all, a shepherd put a sheep skin soaked in sulphur outside the entrance to the cave. This of course attracted the dragon's interest and he ate it whole only to discover his mistake a few moments later. He rushed to the river to douse the burning in his throat and drank himself to death. Fairy Tale or truth? I guess we'll never know but hey at least it makes for an interesting story! After checking out the dragon's cave we took a walk through Kazimierz, the Jewish quarter, where over 60 000 jews lived before WWII. Today only a couple hundred are still living in Krakow, most of the Jews were sent to Concentration Camps in the War. The next day we actually visited one as well, the biggest one of them all: Auschwitz-Birkenau. The weather that day was appropriately gloomy as we toured around the smaller Auschwitz complex and then the much larger Birkenau complex. What a tragedy...it's really hard to relate to what went on there when I haven't ever experienced anything so horrible in my life but it I think it was still really valuable to visit a place like Auschwitz if only to become educated on the atrocities of war. I think people need reminders like this once and awhile, it really puts things into perspective. I think what struck me most was the piles and piles od personal belongings the Nazi's looted from the lugguage the misled Jews and brought with them. Glasses, shoes, brushes, bowls, pots everything of value was taken and sent back to Germany. They valued stuff over human life, kind of twisted. After spending the afternoon there we decided we had seen enough and took a 2 hour twisting winding bus ride back to Krakow. Our now queasy stomachs didn't prevent us from visiting a bakery we had scoped out before we left. We thought we'd try for paska one more time and on our last try we actually had some luck! It wasn't exactly like paska made by my mom or oma, but it was pretty close so we were pretty pumped! Our quest for paska was not in vain! We left Krakow satisfied and headed for Wroclaw (it's not pronounced at all the way it is spelled, a lot of Polish words are that way!). We spent our last night in Poland there. Nice little city but really we just used it as a stopover point en route to the capital of Germany...Berlin!

Czeching out the Eastside!

So Christine and I rolled out of Bueren after visiting with our Derksen relatives and headed south, back to Austria, to get our new Europe East Railpass validated there. Originally we had intended to visit one more person, a family friend in Hagedorn, but Heike was away on a paddling trip this first week of April so we changed our plans around and decided to go east and then circle back to Heike later. It was a long train ride through Germany on our way to Austria but we had our "Durst Loeshers" along (my new favourite drink) to make it through and actually scored a super nice train and were riding in luxury even though it was only second class. Deutsche Bahn really is one of the best train systems in Europe! After spending the night on the border of Germany and Austria in Passau, we veered through Austria and back north into the Czech Republic. Since the Czech Republic is not yet a part of the EU we encountered out first border patrol guards on the train. It was kind of exciting because we finally got a new stamp in our passports! What also made it exciting was that 20 years ago this country would have been inaccessable to traveller's such as us because back then the Czech Republic was still hidden by the Soviet Union's Iron Curtain. That fact was visible as we travelled into the Czech Republic but you can also notice that they have made efforts to modernise and catch up with th west. Their currency, the czech koruny, was actually much more affordable for us than the Euro is so that was a definate bonus for us that they have not switched over yet! So our first stop in the Czech Republic was Cesky Krumlov, a small town in the south that is famous for it's medieval old town, like Rothenburg ob der Tauber is in Germany. It's quite pretty and is situated in a large bend of the Vltava river which eventually flows into Prague as well. We stayed in a hostel in the old town again and were thrilled to have finally found a place that offers a kitchen! It's nice to be able to make your own meals from time to time because it's definately cheaper. The IT thing to see in Cesky Krumlov is the old medieval castle so we took the obligatory tour...(a lot of places won't let you inside unless you pay for a tour). The coolest part was actually outside, though. There was an old moat, filled not with water, but with bears! There a unique way to keep invaders out! Well we only actually saw one bear but there a supposed to be two. The castle has seen many owners including an important Czech family, the Hapsburg rulers as awhile as a royal German family. This type of situation I think is common for the region of Bohemia and even the Czech Republic in general because it is situated in the crossroads of a lot of old kingdoms and national lines and there is evidence in the language of some of the town signs and emblems of this. I find all this quite fascinating but you may not so I'll move on! After the hour long tour was up we were chilled from the unheated castle!! We still managed to tour around the town a bit and get some nice pics. But we were ready to move on to Prague! I have been excited to see Prague for a long time so it was cool to finally get there! It truly is a beautiful city but in a more medieval sense than any other city in Europe I have visited thus far. It just feels older than some of the other more modernised cities do and I love that. There's a lot to see and experience in Prague: we visited Wenceslas Square, Prague Castle, the Old Town Square with the Astronomical Clock, Charles Bridge and many other more minor sights in between and really enjoyed it. We were also able to make some time to check out the Easter markets that were in full swing by the time we arrived! I love outdoor markets and the various ones in Prague did not disappoint! We ate traditional pastries (homemade paska is still better!), looked at traditional crafts and were even entertained by a youth orchestra and dance group playing traditional music and performing traditional dances. It was very fun and it partially made up for the fact that were not at home for Easter this year! After walking the old streets of Prague for awhile we found the Communism Museum (ironically located right above a McDonalds) and learned a bit about how Communism affected the Czech country and people. Very interesting insights into the world that ended with a riot at Wenceslas Sqaure in 1989. The sights in Prague are unique but Prague has become such a tourist hotspot that it is just PACKED with people! I can't imagine how the people of Prague have coped with this influx of tourists over the last 20 years but I can imagine it can be stressful, we witnessed a lady ranting in Czech at all the tourists at the Astronomical Clock one day. I can imagine this is great for the economy but it's a lot to deal with day in and day out! I for one will not regret visiting Prague though. It is a memorable city with a ton of history and we only spent two days there, I'm actually quite happy I'll be going back there at the end of May. Next time I'll definately have to check out one of the many concerts being advertised for on the streets in many of the beautiful theatres and opera houses in Prague. I'll also have to make sure I stay at a different hostel because there was a light outside our hostel dorm room that would flash on and off all night long and normally this isn't really a problem if you've got curtains but they didn't function and we could not get that curtain shut!! Anyway, in spite of that we did have a good time in Prague and I am looking forward to visiting it again in the warmer weather in May! Our Eastern Europe tour continues into Poland, Krakow to be exact, but that will have to wait for the next blog entry!

At Home in Germany: Part Two

After leaving our cousin Olga in Frankfurt, Christine and I headed north, along the Rhine river to Buren, Germany to visit with some more Derksen relatives. The train ride up there took us alongside the famous Rhine river and we caught a few glimpses of some of the old castles that dot the cliffs along the way. We would have liked to stay and explore the area longer but we had family expecting us! So these relatives are from my dad's side of the family. My uncle Johann's father was a brother to my father's father. Again, it was so nice to stay at an actual home rather than another hostel, not only was it more comfortable but the food was just too much, literally, they fed us to no end! My Aunt Sara is a great cook and provided for us very well! Nine years ago when I was in Germany on german exchange I visited these relatives as well so it was really cool to reconnect after almost a decade! They were very hospitable and my Uncle Johann is a great storyteller, we learned a lot about our family history which is something I'm really interested in learning more about. It was also great to reaquiant myself with my second cousins Viktor, Peter, Klara, Willi, and Daniel. They've all grown up so much since I last saw them it was really cool to hang out with them again. We spent the weekend sightseeing, shopping, and chilling out at Klara's apartment and at my uncle Johann and Tante Sara's place. They took us to see a castle closeby called Wawelsburg. Apparently, back in WWII, Hitler had intended to make this place the centre of his German Empire because of it's geographically central European location. Huge plans were made for this place to be the administrative headquarters of the German Empire but unfortunately for him it was not to be. It's now a youth hostel and museum. We also got to view some great German television on Saturday night! We watched the German version of Canadian Idol (big upset with the voting!!) and after that the famed German Boxer Henry Maske had a comeback bout against Virgil Hill after Virgil defeated him in his last fight ever 10 years ago. This time he won it! Pretty exciting! On sunday we also went to church and it felt a lot like being at home....it's just too bad we couldn't be there a week later for easter! Anyway, we'll be in Prague for Easter which I'm sure will be an interesting experience as well! We've heard that there are some great Easter markets in Wenceslas square so we're looking forward to checking those out. Hopefully we'll be able to ford the crowds of people that will undoubtedly be there as well!