L & B... London and Berlin.

The picture posting has begun. Yeah so, we went to London and stuff. And then we checked out Berlin. Sigh... alright... I guess I can elaborate. Here we go.

Our journey began, in my opinion, quite typically... with the mad rush out the door. That's famous Rigg style right there. This time it was due to the fact that 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave to catch our train Brandon asked me if I knew where our $300 train tickets were. (These train tickets were our BritRail passes that were good for another 2 train rides!) Oops! We frantically searched every single square inch of our not-that-big-of-a flat, but of course they were lost. Or should I say they were just permanently misplaced. We attempted to make our train, with the plan of just buying new tickets on the train, but surprise, surprise, we missed it. We caught train #2 an hour later and were on our way to London. Hey, we were only out a few 300 dollars and running over an hour late. No big deal, right?

So we finally arrive to our crappy youth hostel around midnight. People, I am not being negative here, I'm just telling you like it was. We were crammed in a room with 8 other people. The room was dark, small, and hot. With it being so warm in the room all 2 windows were opened. I got to sleep right at the window and listen to the cars pass by all night. The noisy traffic, the unacceptable temperature, the people coming in and out of the room all night long, and the drunk dude that made a lot of noise at 6 AM all contributed to me only get 3-4 hours of sleep that night. I think Brandon's sleep amount was similar. Okay, don't worry, our trip only gets better from here.

The next morning we started our day off by going to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. Yeah, fun. Little did we know, it was also the queens birthday! So there were all these celebrations... Bands, parades, horses, soldiers, cannons, big booms, lots of smoke. The queen rode by in a carriage, went into her palace, and then moved her little body onto the palace's balcony to watch the production. It was entertaining.

Somehow the day before in all our craziness we managed to pack lunches and were able to enjoy them in Hyde Park. We also went to the Tower of London and saw the Crown Jewels. Quite impressive! For dinner I really wanted Thai food and Brandon wanted to go to a pub. Sooo we miraculously found this sweet place that was a Thai Restaurant/Pub. Yumyum! It was fantastic.

Night #2 in London we slept in a little higher class of a place known as the Radisson. It was connected to the airport that we were flying out of the next morning and man was it nice! I think it was one of, if not thee, best hotel I've ever stayed in. But we were so exhausted and had to get up so early we hardly were able to enjoy it. I think we could have stayed anywhere that night because we just passed out.

The next morning we caught our flight at like 7 AM or something and a few hours later we were in Berlin! Hooray! We were there for the next 3 days and did so much that I'm just going to say the highlights. But let me at least redeem youth hostels by saying that we stayed in a very comfortable and nice one all 3 nights in Berlin. It was spacious, quiet, there was a bathroom attached to each room, a good free breakfast provided in the morning, etc. Well, let me clarify. By a "good" breakfast I mean there was deli meat, cheese, toast, canned fruit salad, and cereal served. But we are talking European standards here. Everyone's obsessed with deli meat and cheese for breakfast! Gross.

Anyways, Berlin stuff... let's see. We went to the Pergamon Museum where they had lots of treasures and wonders from all over the world and from many different time periods. That was cool to see. Uhh, actually the pictures explain a lot of what we did and saw as well as my Berlin rant from the last post. So there's not too much to say. We went up the Fernsehturm tower, we went to the Berlin Cathedral, saw the Berlin Wall, saw the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, and Checkpoint Charlie. Those are all the major sites to hit up while in Berlin! If you are unfamiliar with any of these things just read the descriptions that go along with each picture. The explanations will tell you what all that stuff is and make it more meaningful.

We also took a really good free tour and learned so much about the city. The tour guides work for tips only so they have an important incintive to do a good job. According to our guide Berlin is the coolest city in the world. Well, that's about it really. We had a great time and really enjoyed the city. We were both sad when we had to go because there was so much more we still wanted to see. Maybe we'll go back someday.

Alright, that completes the first two cities of our trip. Up next is the start of the Contiki tour in Amsterdam and Munich. So stay tuned... ;)