On March 20th (kirstens birthday) we started Prague off by going on one of it's famous pub crawls. The first bar we went to pretty much sucked.. except that shots of vodka and beer were unlimited and included, we also all got pub crawl tshirts which was really fun. The second bar we went to was better, except that all it played was hardcore rap in some unknown language.. probably czech. Finally the third bar was lots of fun! It was underground, had an awesome dancefloor and good music. Eventually we left to go to our final destination, the five story club. When we walked in the first thing we noticed was that you were allowed to smoke and that the club was packed... weird since it was a monday. We got a drink and headed up to the stairs to check everything out. We found that the basement was top40 regular club music and everyone was dancing their faces off. There wasnt much on the ground floor but the first floor was Bob FM stuff, the second was oldies.. to us (including s-club)and the third was a balcony, unfortanetly for summer only. After we got bored of the smoke and the sweat we went back to the main floor to hang out and found an ice bar! At first we thought that 6 euros was a little bit high of a cover price but one of our friends dished out the cash for us and about 5 of us entered. We can say without a doubt it was one of the most awesome, if not the most awesome bar we've ever been to! The entire thing was made of ice, from the tables to the chairs, walls and cups. We also got to wear this sweet heineken down jackets, hats and gloves. All four aussies we were with thought the -5 temperature was freezing but allison and had our jackets unzipped. After our time in there was up we decided we'd had enough of the bar and went back to the hotel where allison passed out instantly and Kirsten had a lovely 2 hour drunk skype.. which she paid for in the morning.

The next morning allison and i ventured out on our own.. which was a little difficult as czech is one of the weirdest languages in the world. After going in the complete opposite direction and about half an hour out of our way we made it to our meeting spot just in time for our lunchtime cruise! We got on the boat and were given drink tokens... exactly what we wanted. The cruise was very nice, there are a ton of canals in prague so we got to see the whole city. Our guide was awesome too she had many random funny facts about czech republic. After the cruise we went souvenir shopping and found lots of cool stuff! We also bought some smirnoff which we later iced some aussies with, starting a never ending battle. The next day we awoke at the crack of dawn to go to Berlin!

Before we got to our hotel we went to the east side gallery which is a section of the Berlin was which has been preserved and now is covered with beautiful murals. Although the paintings were awesome we both thought the wall was going to be a little highger. As we learned the wall was only 3 metres high, but it was the area b/w the 2 walls (i think its called death strip and allison thinks its called no mans land) that stopped everyone from getting to the other side. It was loaded with mines and tons of armed officers, as well in case you werent shot before getting over the wall it was all sand so that even if you tried to book it was impossible. On the drive to the hotel we both decided berlin reminded us of home moreso than anywhere else in europe. It was flat and because it was destroyed by WWII most of the buildings were pretty modern.

Across from our hotel there was a little convenient store which sold really cheap booze so we grabbed a few beers and a couple of coolers and spent the night in the lobby booking flights, buses and accomodations for our first few days on our own. Kirsten also bought an extra large bottle of blush for 3euros, she was so happy. To make things a little more interesting while attempting to book our bus there were 3 italian boys (who were there on a school trip) trying to talk to us. The funny thing was, only one of them could speak english so they all hit on us through him. I ignored them as i was in the middle of buying bus tickets but allison unfortantely had no out and had to endure the lovely 16 year old boys who clearly hadnt seen such a beautiful canadian girl ever before. As soon as we had tickets we booked to our room to escape the children. We stopped by a friends room to have a couple drinks and found it packed with half of our tour. It was a legit room party, full of stolen 10year old bottles of wine, free vending machine beer and weird Japanese games invloving eating catfood.

The next morning we awoke ready to hit the streets of the historical city. We started off by going on a 3 hour walking tour. We thought we were defintely going to leave part way through but it was the best tour we've had so far! Our guide was hilarious and he gave us the important history as well as interesting celebrity info ( he even pointed out the window of a hotel that mj dangled his baby out of). We got to see where hitlers lasts minutes were, the university that einstein and the grim brothers graduated from, the jewish memorial and the library where "unfit" authors books were first burned. While at the library he showed us un underground window which had many empty bookshelves, representing the book shelves that were emptied and buried after one of Hitlers first speaches. He also pointed out the book sale happening across the street and explained that it happens everyday in honour of the jewish, deaf, and other nazi targeted authors. We thought it was really cool that the booksale sold only books that were burned, and other books by the same authors. The jewish memorial was also really interesting. Its hard to explain what it looked like but basically it was just a huge space with a bunch of cement blocks heights and widths. We learned that everyone has a different view on what the blocks represent. As most of the blocks are all randomly placed and in many places you cant see around them, it is like a maze; many people think the memorial represents how the jews could never see what was coming in the holocaust, how they were always lost. Our tour finished outisde of checkpoint charlie which is was the only legal crossing of the berlin wall. Inside the museum they had lots of exhibits showing all the different methods that people used to get across the wall. In one case an american pilot smuggled about saved about 30 people from east berlin by entering at checkpoint charlie for "tourist reasons" and when then drive to czech republic and fly them out of there! We also went to a jewish memorial museum which was really cool and had tons of stories from Jewish families in the war. The other really interesting thing we did was see a terrorist museum. In there we learned all about how the nazis treated people who weren't "up to their standards". It was quite a lot to take in in one day but we learned so much and were reminded how recent that part of history is!

Once we were beat from walking around the city the entire day and soaking up as much info as possible we headed back to the hotel for some schnitzel and amazing dark bread before heading out for our "eye spy" pub crawl. To make the pub crawl unique we were divided into 2 groups, east and west berliners. We then had to find clues hidden around the walk to the next pubs to see where we had to go, it dispose of the information so that people from the other side of the wall couldnt track us. It was kinda cool but kinda weird at the same time. We had a good time though and eventually got back to the hotel for a few hours of rest. The next morning we left berlin for our final stop with conitki, Amsterdam!!

We have lots to write about still, lots of stories from amsterdam, dijon france, paris take 2 and athens. However we are starting our greek/turkish island hopping cruise tomorrow (jealous? you should be :P) and we will not have interent for about a week! After our cruise we are heading back to Rome and will update all of you on our lives then! So dont worry if none of you hear from us before then! Enjoy cold winnipeg or hot australia or where ever you are from and matt get corn rows :)

bye friends!