Dueling Backpacks

It’s difficult to distill our time in Europe down to a few comments, but we certainly saw our fair share of town squares and old churches and we sat outside at countless cafes. Most of our time in Europe was spent within the Schengen Area, where there are no passport checks between countries and the currency is most often the Euro, but not always. Overall, it was fairly easy traveling. Especially after having come from China not too long before, traveling through Europe was a breeze. There are always delays, complicated logistics, and moments of intense confusion to figure out, but in general we had fewer of those moments traveling through Europe than other places we had been to on this trip.

Day 441 – (September 12, 2019) – D ü sseldorf, Germany We, once again , found ourselves back in Germany! After leaving Brussels by train and making a quick transfer in Cologne, we had arrived in D ü sseldorf. We were starving by the time we got there so the first order of business was to find some food. We went for a couple mustard-slathered bratwurst to mark the occasion. What could be more German than that?

Day 404 (August 6, 2019) – Dresden, Germany Our two-night stop in Dresden was another opportunistic stop for us. Our train tickets from Berlin to Prague included a free 48-hour layover in Dresden if we chose to take it, so of course we did. Two days was a pretty short stop for us, but it was enough time to wander all around the city and get a feel for it.

Day 402 (August 4, 2019) – Berlin, Germany Our first impressions of Berlin weren’t the greatest. Honestly, our first thought was that Berlin was kind of a dump. We got off the metro near our apartment and there was graffiti everywhere, a small, unkempt park with severely overgrown grass, pages of newspapers floating down the street in the wind, and a group of disheveled people taking shelter under the train station, which reeked strongly of urine. Berlin exuded grittiness, at least around the neighborhood we were staying in. It was a bit of a shock after coming from Stockholm and Wroc ł aw , which by comparison seemed so pristine and polished it was like they had jumped right off the page from a fairy tale book. Not a speck of trash was to be found on any of their streets. Although to be fair and to put this in perspective, Berlin probably looked no different than downtown Philly, so you can interpret that how you want.