Saturday, June 27 - PRAGUE (Castle)

I woke up early so I went to the train station to book my night train to Auschwitz. Surprisingly, I found out that my Eurail pass was not valid in Poland. Luckily, it was Eastern Europe and train tickets were cheap. I only needed to pay 14 euros for a flexible ticket to cover the Polish part of the transportation. The lady who helped me sounded very patient and explained everything to me. Since I asked for the cheapest option, she didn’t charge me for reservation fee and tole me to “go on Wagon 350, you will find space there.” I had no choice but hoping for the best; or, this could be one of those classic Euro trip stories, especially in the eastern region. I came back to the hostel and had breakfast before meeting Yujing and Sijia at the lobby. We first had to told Sijia what happened last night and go to the police station to report. The plan for the day was to go to the Prague Castle -- the Castle of all.

We bought some food from the supermarket and I grabbed a Czech newspaper with MJ covering the front page. In a way, MJ was more influential in Europe than in America; and some of his concerts there had to be ranked top live performances in the history of entertainment.

The Prague Castle is located on a hill on the west bank of River Vltava. According to Guinness Book of Records, it is the biggest ancient castle in the world. It was majestic from every view and Roman Empire was here. One thing about the beauty of Prague was that during the War, when the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, this country did not put on a fight and surrendered right away. Thus, almost all the historical treasures sustained the brutal wartime. I appreciated the fact that the irreplaceable are in their original face and this jewelry city feels real now. However, I had to justify the notion against a country who kneed down in front of the Nazis to leave us with this beauty. We walked up the hill after getting out of the subway station Malostranská, and passed by St. Wenceslas vineyard. Already, there were a massive crowd of tourists. We entered the Castle from the east gate. We passed by a blacksmiths shop, a stage set up with white sheets hanging in air as the background, and caught an outdoor live performance. Then, we arrived at the heart of the Castle: St. George’a Basilica and St. Vitus Cathedral. We were lucky to have a comprehensive Prague guidebook from Sijia, so we had the chance to not only have a look of this magnificent place, but to learn the stories behind it. St. Vitus Cathedral was the first big cathedral I visited in Europe, and there couldn’t be a better first one than that. I learned these majestic buildings took hundreds of years and generations of architects to finish. I wowed in front of the spired buttresses, the Golden Gate, the Rose Window and the facade. I walked by the outer courtyard, the high-vaulted naves, the colourful stained glasses, and the treasury tomb of John of Nepomuk. The entire experience was all first time to me. We came outside of the Castle from the eastern gate and watched the changing of the guard. Then, we walked along the South Garden and dropped down to Lesser Town Malá Strana, heading toward the famous Charles Bridge. This bridge used to be the main connection across River Vltava between Old Town and Less Town to the Castle in old time. Nowadays, it became the center for artists, kiosks, and tourists during the day time. It is well-known with the statues on both sides of the bridge, and the bridge towers on both ends are equally impressive. I got the best view of the Castle across the river on the Old Town end of the Bridge. The timeless river, the ancient Castle, and the old bridge combined into a frame one could only dream of. We had dinner not far off the bridge when a passing shower came. After a short break back in the hostel, we went out to the center of the Old Town for the outdoor concert. Unfortunately, the concert just finished when we arrived -- it was only 22:00. Dejected, we decided to let food and beers solve our pain. We bought some yummy assorted meat potatoes from the stands at the still-busy Old Town Square, and enjoyed it in the drizzling rain along the cobbled streets. The night ended at La Casa Argentina, a lively bar next door to our hostel. I had the best beer so far on the trip: Czech Pilsner.

Friday, June 26 - DRESDEN to PRAGUE (and MJ)

I was checking my Facebook after waking up and the entire homepage of my friends’ updates were almost the same one: “RIP MJ.” MJ? The only two initials I could think of that could attract that wide attention were Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan. When I read another message relating to child molesting, I knew who they were referring to. But, Michael Jackson died? REALLY? I was confirmed seconds later after checking out the news. NO WAY! CAN’T BE TRUE! WTF! I could not think of anything but denial. It was like a soldier's spouse opened the door and found two fully dressed officers standing in front. He’s gone?! It cannot be true! I could not care less about what some of the others thought of MJ. To me, he was a legend whose status in the history of music world would never be replaced. (Can you think of any other entertainer after him in recent years who could be called a legend?) He gave his all to his fans in every song he performed on stage. He was a true performer that his dance moves would be followed by generations and continue on forever. He brought the crowd down like no others could. (Remember those girls passing out in his concerts and those who cried so hard on the front row?) He was a humanitarian who brought love to many children whose lives were in danger and wrote songs for those who needed help. (Let’s leave those controversies in recent years alone for the moment.) He was not one of us. He was THE King of Pop. And because of that, like a lot other uniquely talented individuals in his league, he was doomed to be messed up. I had a theory that he would collapse during his upcoming This Is It tour. To me, the schedule was simply too cruel for a 50-year-old who even had problems breathing normally. I told Caymin the news when she came back from the washroom. “MJ died? No way!” Obviously, she understood what MJ and his legend stood for in the same way as I did. I was glad to have shared the shocking news with her. We immediately started playing his legendary tunes on YouTube. What else could we do to remember him? We had nothing to say except “unbelievable”. So “when words leave off, music begins.” Caymin’s favourite was Will You Be There. We played that one again and again. I wanted to see MJ dancing so I searched out some of his live concerts -- love the atmosphere. We were singing and dancing together in our German hostel room to celebrate a legend’s life who was half way across the globe. I wanted to stop for a day in my trip and dedicate it to MJ because all in my head was his music. I knew there would be something happening in Prague -- a beautiful artists’ place. “Have a good moonwalk up there, Michael!”

After saying bye to Caymin at the train station and wished her luck on bussing/hitchhiking to Copenhagen that day, I stored my luggage and went out for my Dresden tour before heading east to Prague in the afternoon. As I said, the city is beautiful with its magnificent baroque architectures. My first stop was the Frauenkirche, Church of Our Lady, a newly rebuilt icon just in time for the city’s 800th anniversary in 2006. A fancy restaurant in decent size located outside the church caught my eye because it had Canadians flags on everything. Its name was Ontario Canadian Steakhouse. I was curious and thought the owner must be a Canadian. To my surprise, the waiter told me it was all German owned but served Canadian cuisines. What does Canadian cuisine have? Poutine? Everything inside was fairly new and goldenly shiny. It didn’t have the feel of its history, but had the scale to make you wow. I made the trip up the stairs to the top of the church and had a great 360-view of the various gems in town. After coming down the church, I walked to Schlossplatz and Theaterplaz, where Dresden’s treasured buildings were located: The neo-Renaissance opera house Semperoper, Catholic Hofkirche, and fortress Zwinger. It was a royal feeling to stand around those structures. The last stop for me in Dresden that day was to watch a 40-minute film that told the history of the city with black-and-white footage from 1930s. From the film, I learned how closely they modelled the originals while reconstructing the city from rubbles. It also made me ask in what way Dresden deserved that brutal fate with no military importance left at the end of the war.

After having a delicious German pork steak sandwich, I got on the train to Prague. The train had no AC and was steaming hot. My experience later on told me that it was Eastern Europe -- the EC trains connecting to that direction were all a class lower than the ones in the Western part. However, the view was beautiful along the way. The train followed River Elbe and passed by valley of forest and limestone towers. A bit more than 2 hours later, I arrived in the dream city everyone talked about. At the tourist office at the train station, a couple from Vancouver recognized my Canucks shirt and said hi. I had to exchange money as Czech Republic still didn’t use Euros. I checked into the hostel Sijia’s friend Yujing was in. It looked sketchy to me in the first sight. I started off half an hour before our scheduled time to meet Sijia in front of the National Museum. Since I gave myself more than enough time to stroll there, I didn’t use the map at the beginning, which turned out to be a mistake. The streets in European cities are not as square as they are in North America. 10 minutes later, I was lost, ending up on the wrong side of the train tracks. So I had to return almost all the way and followed the map to the main train station first. Unfortunately, the last road sign I needed for National Museum was fallen from the pole by the train station, so I had no clue where to go for a destination 5 minutes south. I asked a couple of people inside the train station, they either didn’t speak English or didn’t give me clear enough direction of which side to get out of the train station. Just when I figured out 10 minutes later, the thunderstorm came and it started pouring cats and dogs. Because I was already very late of our scheduled meeting time, I had to continue running in the rain. It didn’t take long to get me all soaked. I was about half an hour late when I finally found Sijia and Yujing -- the 15 minutes walk from the hostel took me almost an hour. Good they were still waiting for me over there, as Sijia’s bus was about 20 minutes late as well. The first sight I saw under Wenceslas Statue was a growing memorial for MJ. We decided to find Sijia’s staying place first and then go out for food. Sijia was working the summer as an intern in České Budějovice (Budweis), the city where Budweiser beer was from. She would stay at a university in Prague where her professor gave her. It was a bit of work for us to locate the office she was staying in, as the instruction from her professor wasn’t clear enough and the security guard in the building didn’t speak too much English. But, in the end, we did manage to work out the doors with the keys we had to find the room. In the process, I also found the intriguing magnetic key which only need to be touched against a magnetic button to unlock the building door. It was the first time I saw it. The dinner was good, except we were charged unexpectedly with big money for the side bread -- we thought it came with the meal. Sijia said Czech food was pretty much all meat. My order, Prague Plate, proved it -- it was simply a big plate of all sorts of meat: ham, sausage, bacon. We were all tired after the late meal and decided to call it a night to get ready for touring the next day. But the day didn’t end there.

After sending Sijia home, Yujing and I came back to our hostel. I was surprised the two girls from England in my room were all asleep by 22:30 when I got back. In order not to disrupt them, I went to bed straight as well. But I was waken up by the knock on our door: “Shane!” With my sleepy eyes half open, I found Yujing outside. “I got stolen!” “What?” Obviously, when Yujing went for a shower after coming back, the guys staying in her room took off and stole her camera, some money and some other things, including the power converter I lent her. We went downstairs and talked with the guy at the front desk, he didn’t look like he wanted to help too much and only called the police upon our strong request. Yujing was devastated but we all knew small theft like this would go away unsolved 99% of the time. In order to make her feel comfortable, I decided to stay in the same room with her. The incident only made me dislike that hostel more, and I had to drag my valuables out of my room since I didn’t trust that place any more.

Thursday, June 25 - Dresden

After a great start in Europe and 4 nights at Gabriele’s place, I was ready to make the first move in my trip. I couldn’t appreciate more of what my first CS host had offered to welcome me to this new continent. We set our reunion date to two and a half months later when I came back to Frankfurt. It was my first long train haul as well. The ICE train went from the modern West Germany to the historical East part, Dresden was the destination. The journey was covered by beautiful sceneries: windmills, farmlands, harvest. With the tunes accompanying from my iPod, I felt like a free soul. The world outside was full of actions and I was appreciative enough simply looking at it to enjoy the every second. 5 hours later, I arrived at Dresden Hauptbahnhof. I had to drag myself 1 km north of the train station through Prager Straße, the modern part of the city, to the nearest tourist office. It wasn’t that hard to locate my first hostel in Europe, Louise20, and it was a very clean one.

Dresden is the capital city of the State of Saxony in Eastern Germany, very close to the boarder with Czech Republic. Because the city is located on River Elbe and was the home for collections of baroque masterpieces, it is well-known as “The Florence on the Elbe”. The city was full of history, both in the ancient time and the modern Germany. (I learned more of it when I came to Berlin a few days later - Dresden played a big part in the revolution that led to the falling of the Wall.) It was also a place of artistic gems. Unfortunately, this was changed in a controversial Allied bombing shortly before the end of the WWII, which destroyed 90% of the city and left the elegant central area as rubbles. (The amount of bombs the Allied used in the three-day bombing was almost one per two Dresden population that time.) The flattened place was rebuilt after the war, in almost exactly the style, model, and location as it was like before. I usually don’t like replicas of anything, but this town attracted me in no other fake structures could. The buildings are uniqued decorated, the history was irreplaceable, and the skyline view from the River Elbe cannot be justified by words. One trivia of the place is Dresden had no subways due to its geological ground feature, so the tram systems played a big part in their public transportation. Some of the trams were the longest in record, and they ran on railways built in grass to reduce noises.

I settled down in the hostel and met my only roommate that night (in a 5-person room): Caymin, a very cool gal from Californian. She’s a climber, a surfer; oh well, let’s just say a West Coaster. And she just came from hiking around the Bastei area, where she stayed in a cave in the rain the night before -- what a trooper! She told me that area was where the crazy Europeans first started “free climbing”. That instantly brought me back to the film I saw at the Mountain Film festivals in Vancouver earlier this year - yeah, those outrageous “suicides”. Caymin and I decided to have some drinks together after she used the internet. I took the time to have a short stroll to the river bank. I passed by the two fountains at Abertplatz, and walked through the tree-covered pedestrian Hauptstraße. On Augustusbrücke, I had my first taste of the skyline of Dresden over River Elbe. After meeting Caymin back in the hostel, we went to a pub called Katy’s Garage. It turned out to be a pretty cool place. We had a couple of drinks under the tent outside before going in. The music was nice and we even played a couple of fusball games - I’d rather play real soccer, as it proved again that I sucked at this game. After coming out of the pub, we went on looking for more drinks but end up exploring the Neustadt at night. The more we walked into it, the more we found Dresden was such a diverse place with unique pubs, art galleries, and shops. We went back earlier than we wanted and went to sleep without knowing a shocking news would strike us the first thing the next morning.

Wednesday, June 24 - MARBURG

In Germany, some local regional trains split at a station in the middle of the trip and head toward different directions. Thanks to Alina who warned me of this, I paid extra caution and got on the correct wagon of the train going to Marburg. Alina was very busy that day so she didn’t how much time she would have with me. When I texted her after getting on the train, she told me she was coming to pick me up. She biked to the train station and we walked back into town. On the way, she gave me the directions to tour around the town and told me some stories behind this place.

Marburg is build on the hill by the River Lahn. It is divided into the Upper Town and Lower Town, with the Castle on top of the Upper Town and center in the middle of the Lower Town. It looked like a smaller version of Heidelberg but had fewer tourists. The city preserved its original looking better because it escaped most of the bombings during the war being as an unimportant military target, as well as a hospital city. Marburg is also famous as a university town. According to Wikipedia, the University of Marburg is the oldest Protestant university in the world. According to Alina, it is the most left-wing university in Germany. Whenever there was a protest or demonstration, the students from Marburg were always on the frontline. To prove that, the Political Science Building in the university had been a lockdown by the students for two weeks by the time I was there. They were protesting against the change in the education system: Before, German university use a “degree” system from which students would come out with a similar level of certificate; recently, the government was to adopt a new system which classified the levels of degrees more distinctively, like the Bachelor, Master, and PhD in different levels we use. I cannot remember exactly how they classified the different levels of university of education before (they did have a legitimate one). They argued that the new system discriminated against certain groups of students as inferiors. Everyone graduated from a university degree should have equal chance. Furthermore, the students who graduated from the old degree from the previous system would have more difficulties now looking for employment due to the change. Oh yeah, I love these socialists in Germany. Remember, they don’t need to pay for their university (They were complaining paying very small fees for textbooks as those were free before!) and have numerous benefits such as taking trains for free 100 km around the region. Comparing to them, Canadian students (let’s not talk about the poor Americans) are paying a lot for their educations which I considered nothing comparing to my astronomical international students fee figures. Talking about education should be available for everyone...

We walked passed by St. Elizabeth’s Church, where, as Alina said, “the person who elected Hitler as the President of Germany was buried.” The man’s name was Paul von Hindenburg, the President of Germany who preceded Adolf Hitler and played a big role in Nazi’s rise to power. After dropping me off at the tourist office, which was closed that day (thankfully I had Alina), Alina had to go to her meeting so I was left to discover the town by myself. Although I had no problem with that, she felt very bad and said she would try her best to come out again. The plan was if Alina had time during a break, she would call me and I didn’t pick up to save money, then we would meet at the elevator (the town was built on the slope, so there were several elevators connecting the upper and lower levels) by the tourist office within the next 15 minutes. I liked the feeling of exploring a place without a map. I walked back to Elisabethkirche, and turned up the road to the Castle and Upper Town. Hiking up through the forest at the back of the Castle and passing by several beautiful gardens, I found the Schloss. As usual, it was build on top of the hill and had an overlooking view of the city. I walked around the Castle and even used its washroom, kind of a chilling experience since it was in the dark lower level with spiral stone stairs leading down. You know, this old stone castle with a single door entering the darkness and nobody around, not hard for me to relate to some Halloween stories. After enjoying the view of the city at the fortress balcony, I went down the road and found St.-Marienkirche. It stood on a terraced plateau and had some benches at the front, so some students came up to have a break, reading books or just relaxing with the view. It was like the Rose Garden in UBC for me. Of course, I didn’t miss the chance to sit down and relax with my book for half an hour. Then, I walked down to the busy central part of Marburg. This town was beautiful to me. Narrow cobbled streets winding up and down sneaking between the old medieval houses, some of them were so original that they tilted vertically to an angle from aging. Fountains, sculptures, cafes, bars all had their own characters. I was at the Marktplatz thinking about lunch when Alina called. We met ten minutes later at the agreed meeting point and she said she would brought me to a little characteristic cafe for lunch.

The place’s name was Roter Stern, a little cafe that had a back patio by the River Lahn. We went outside and was lucky to have a table in the sun. The tranquility could easily inspire a master work with willow trees bending over the green water. The backdrop was the beautifully decorated medieval houses. Wooden boats and canoes passed by occasionally. Students sat by with a couple of coffees, having discussions about the ongoings, studying their big binders of notes, and reading the thick texts or small handbook where they would discover their next genuine ideas. Alina brought me to here for one more reason, the philosophy of the cafe, which I learned at the cashier counter while ordering the food: the cafe’s menu had a price on each item, but it was only symbolic, the customers were encouraged to pay whatever amount of money they felt comfortable. The idea was to have the rich pay a bit more and the poor afford whatever they could. What a lovely place! Isn’t that what human beings’ actions should be based on, not money but heart! We had pasta for food and talked more about other things, mainly learning the differences between the society, system, ideas we were used to. I didn’t want the conversation to end, but Alina had to go to deal with her professor about her thesis. In the end, she asked me whether I liked the place. Looking at that tranquil ambience again while drinking down my last sip of water, I told her: “I can stay here for the whole day.” On the way out, Alina showed me the university student magazine she was involved in, as a marketing director. If I remember correctly, the name of the monthly publication was War and Peace (Krieg und Frieden?). It collected articles from all channels of resource. Students who did not have opportunity to publish their opinions on big name papers would have a chance to show them in that magazine. Again, the goal was to promote equality. Do I have to say it again how much I loved the Socialism atmosphere in Deutschland?! We finally said goodbye for the day and agreed to meet again when I came back to Frankfurt before flying back to Canada.

I turned left at the Alte Universität and walked up Universitätsstraße before hiking up to the right diving into the busy city again. I went to the center of the Rathaus because Alina told me a paper shop nearby. This tiny shop was opened by a 80+ years old woman. The place was completely jammed with paper works that it was hard to find a square to put your feet in. The collections ranged from postcards to posters, artistic paper folds, paper cuttings, newspaper archives; the list goes on forever, basically any sort of piece you could imagine made from paper. With the translation help from her staff, she told me she had been collecting those for more than 60 years. Some of those items did not worth anything to most people, but with the effort she put in and the history behind them, they were certainly not worthless. I bought an old University of Marburg paper badge from her. I went out of Altstadt to Neustadt via Wettergasse and Steinweg, and kept enjoying the elegant medieval houses on both sides. On the third time I passed by St. Elizabeth’s Church that day, I stopped by the archaeological excavating site. It seemed that there were underground paths built in the area of tens of kilometers long. The site of working archaeologists brushing off dirt reminded me of the Terra Cotta Warriors and Soldiers at home. The time was still early, so I decided to walk along the river side. The lawns by the river was occupied by students playing and chilling. When I reached the New University area, I felt the exciting students’ vibe again. They seemed so happy. I walked across a couple of bridges back and forth around the area, had a gorgeous view of the Castle from its foot, and caught a few protesting signs on the Old University building for equal education. I also came across a graffiti in the old town earlier that day of a barcode with the bottom labelled “Education”. Guess it was truly a university town.

It was hard to say farewell to Marburg with all I learned and saw in those few hours. And because of the friend I had there, I felt special connection to the city. I came back to Frankfurt and finalized my plans for the next few days: Dresden in East Germany, and then Prague to meet Sijia. When I arrived at Gabri’s apartment, he happened to be on the phone with Alina. I thanked her again for coming out and showing me so much of Marburg despite her busy schedule and told her where I was up to after we parted. It was a day to remember!

P.S. I almost forgot: Marburg was the first city to enforce solar panels on new buildings in Germany. Isn’t that another reason I have to fall in love with this place!

Tuesday, June 23 - HEIDELBERG

After my morning internet debrief at Coffee Fellows, I went to the Hauptbahnhof. I had to activate my Eurail pass first before getting on my first train in Europe. The DB Service line was longer than I expected, so I thought I was going to miss the train in my first plan. The Germans worked in great efficiency, my number was called 3 minutes before that train scheduled to leave. The lady stamped my pass and got it ready for me in a minute. I was even surprised it was that easy and asked “That’s it?” “Ja!” My watch told me there were about a minute and a half left, so I decided to make a try, without too much hope. I checked the platform information on the big screen quickly and fortunately the train I needed was on the platform in the middle of the terminal. I ran to the beautiful ICE train and jumped onto it not even 100% sure if that was the one I was supposed to take. 30 seconds later, the door shut. What a start for my running-for-the-train fun in the following two months! I loved the ICE train. Its motor head was like a bullet and the interior was luxurious. The 2nd class was better than the 1st class on a plane. It took me a second to figure out how the doors operated, how the seats were adjusted, and of course, how to make the best of the clean toilet. I was like a kid who jumped into a wonderland. The train was fairly empty so I found a four-seat table square for myself, made myself comfortable, and started enjoying the first ride. “Welcome to board Deutsche Bahn!” I’ve already so many good things about DB and my first ride proved that easily. The German trains are on schedule 90% of the time, and when I said “on schedule,” I meant by the minute. Even that, the Germans still complained, they wanted to be on the seconds. People could plan short 2-3 minutes transfers because the punctuality. They usually announce the information (i.e. time and platform) for the transfer trains on frequent-travelling routes before reaching the station, a lot of the times, they are on the other side of the same platform or within one or two. After about an hour including my own short transfer, I arrived at Heidelberg.

Heidelberg is a small medieval city in Baden-Württemberg State. It strides over River Neckar and was surrounded by mountains on both sides. It had a long history highlighted with the ruins of the Castle, the oldest university in the country, and the jawbone of the 600,000-year-old Heidelberg Man. I grabbed a tourist map from the tourist information building outside the Hauptbahnhof and started walking toward the main sites area. I didn’t use the map at the beginning so I easily dived into some quiet residential neighbourhood. That was the first time I came across with the real old European style houses. The streets were quiet, the houses were elegant, and the churches were huge. It seemed like every house was a work of art. People put their effort into decorating the houses, instead of building them only for the sake of shelter. Not before long did I walk into the busy tourist district. The Bismarckplatz was busy. People, buses, trams all swarmed into this square. I followed the pedestrian Hauptstrasse eastward, not without diverting into some small side roads or the river side once in a while. The University of Heidelberg was my favourite site. It was not hard to feel the student vibe soon after reaching the university square. Students were hanging out on the square during classes breaks, having lunch in the busy cafeteria which reminded of the SUB at UBC. Hundreds of bikes were parked all around the university buildings. Being a student myself, I couldn’t resist the urge to go into some of the buildings and have a feel of their student life. Of course, those students were looking at me with a strange face: “What is this tourist doing in our university classrooms?” I completely understood their notion because I resented those tourists taking photos in front of our Koerner Library or Rose Garden. This is OUR territory. The holy student world was never meant to be intruded. I particularly liked their old library. It had a beautiful courtyard and the exhibitions by the passages and staircase were historically interesting. Our university didn’t have that long history inheritance; even that, they torn down the second oldest building (The Main Library at UBC) and put an ugly modern disaster on the site. I felt like an intruder in their buildings, so I decided to back out to my tourist duties. On the way out, I passed by the Studentenkarzer (student jail), where misbehaved students were prisoned for punishment. I spent 2.49 euros on a Subway sub-of-the-day for lunch. Then, I headed to the center Marktplatz. Couldn’t wait to go up the hill on the other side of the river to have a view of the city, I crossed the pedestrian bridge Karl-Theodor-Brücke. The gate of the bridge on the south side was beautiful, and had a bronze monkey on the side to bring good luck. On the north side of the river, I hiked up the steep zigzagging Schlangenweg, a path with high walls on both sides. From the middle of the hill, I could get a good look at the entire Heidelberg City on the other side of the river, with the gigantic Castle dominating the hillside and the church spires from the old town. Still not satisfied with my view, I decided to walk a bit more along the Philosophenweg, the Philosophers Walk, which name came from the various famous thinkers who attended the University of Heidelberg. Soon, the path led me into the woods. Yes, it was a place for some thinking. I couldn’t believe I was already in a hike the second day into my trip. The way up was not that easy because I had my laptop in my backpack. But the smell of the woods and fresh air had me no complaint at all. It was a longer hike than I expected to reach the tower lookout point on the map. Upon reaching to the destination, I realized there was a road to drive up there. The site was the Ruine Stephanskloster, a 11th-century monastery ruin with a tower by the side. I couldn’t understand the information board because it was all in German. Two friendly German hikers passing by explained to me what it was there. They were at least 60 years old and they told me they were doing a 20km hike around that mountain that day. No surprise to me, the Germans are famous for their mountaineers/climbers craziness. After climbing up to the tower and enjoyed more of the view over Heidelberg, I visited a spooky stone house with a big hole in the middle. I didn’t understand completely what it was, but I believe it was a well that went down more than 100 meters as the water supply for the monastery. Coming down the hill, I went back to the town side and walked up to the Castle. The red sandstone was still standing tall despite its half-ruined state. I didn’t mind the ruin because it gave me an ancient appealing. I didn’t go into the Castle because it was late and they asked for 2 euros. Since I was on a time constraint, I had to return. Trying to catch the train on schedule, I jumped onto my first tram in Europe and it just made on time for my train.

I was very tired coming back to Frankfurt and was debating if I still wanted to go to the birthday party for Gabri’s friends as we planned to. He persuaded me when we met at the Eurotower and I sticked to our plan. It turned out to be a good decision. I went back to take a shower before coming out to this French restaurant where the party was held. Gabri’s friends were from all over the Europe and were all very friendly to me. They were very interested in my trip plan, and since I didn’t have any, they started pouring out ideas, mainly promoting their own hometowns and areas for me to visit. Spain, Italy, France, Holland... even the ones that were not in my original plan came out: Slovenia, Slovakia - 80 days were certainly not enough then. I struggled to keep track and jog down the list of places I had to go, food and drinks I had to taste. The girl from Greece, Melina, even helped me plan my Greek trip in one sentence: “Athens for two days, and then go Islands hopping around Cyclades.” She might even have a CS friend in Athens for me. (Yes, I was planning to go to Greece that time.) One guy from Cyprus got so curious about the Chinese language that he kept bugging me question after question on how the Chinese character formed, pronounced and written. Of course, I had no problem at all with that. I was so happy and excited to explain with my best to him: The characters were formed by symbol like signs; The pronunciations were followed by the Pinyin system; Cantonese was not one of two official languages in China, we only have one, Mandarin, it’s only a dialect just like the many of the others; we don’t have alphabet, there are no fixed number of characters, such as the 26 letters, to form the entire language; and so on. He was so bewildered by the differences and even started asking me to write, rather draw, Chinese on his iPhone. He didn’t wanted the conversation to end, so in the end when we all finished the dinner, he asked me for a translation of his Cyprus name (it was really hard for me) into Chinese and write it down on a piece of napkin. Oh, what a hilarious guy! The difference between the languages even continued to dominate the topics on our way back home. I forgot to mention the gifts they gave the two birthday persons. One was a big poster of all the pictures they have together with the girl since they started working together - they already started pointing to the photos and talking about memories when the poster was presented. The other was a diary book for the guy, who they asked to continue writing their good time together and maybe as an internal publishing in the future. None of the items was expensive money-wise, but both were priceless from their hearts. What a night, again!

Monday, June 22 - FRANKFURT-AM-MAIN

My first full day in Europe! I left with Gabri when he went to work in the morning, only to realize that I forgot my camera when I came out of the subway and wanted to start my tourist style snap-shooting on Eschenheimer Turm. Guess I was too excited. So I had to go back to Gabri’s place. Good that Frankfurt was not that big, so were most of the European cities. I picked up some food from a small grocery store on the way back: one chocolate bread, two bananas, a bowl of instant noodle, a small bag of sliced bread, and some salami. It surprisingly only cost me a bit more than 5 euros. Guess it was not that hard if I wanted to eat cheap. I had all the time I needed as a tourist so I took my time to have some more breakfast and got out again. This time, for real. My first mission was to find the Consulates for Czech Republic and Switzerland. For some reason, I was checking an old Schengen website, from which I thought these two countries were not included in my visa. I walked to Eschersheimer Landstraße 20-22, the address I got from a website for the Czech Consulate but it was a bakery shop and a hotel. I was very frustrated because I needed it immediately as I was discussing the possibility of meeting my UBC friend Sijia in Prague that weekend. But there was nothing I could do, so I decided to go to the Swiss one first. Walking on the main shopping street Zeil, I saw a tourist information booth, so I decided to ask them if they know where the Czech Consulate was. The two gentlemen who was working there made their best effort for me with their broken English. They couldn’t find it from the map or their computer system. But they were able to retrieve a phone number and called it for me. The answer was the address was Eschersheimer Landstraße 25-27, instead of 20-22; but the consulate was closed on Monday. I was very disappointed but still decided to go there and make sure that was the place since it was not too far away. Not until I reached the destination did I realize how stupid I was the first time I was there. The address was only 3 numbers apart, the building for the consulate was on the other side of the street from the bakery and the hotel, and there was a huge Czech Republic flag standing in front the building. How could I missed that the first time around? How could those people around this building never notice that big flag? I was very frustrated when I saw the information board in front of the building said only their Berlin Embassy issue visa. The trip afterward to Swiss Consulate was much easier. I found it right away and the reception told me my Schengen visa was valid for Switzerland. The first morning in Europe didn’t go as smoothly as I wanted so I decided to take a break. I stopped by a Chinese restaurant to have my lunch and then went to Coffee Fellows, my daily internet spots in Frankfurt, to check my emails. Sijia told me in her Facebook message that she heard other people used Schengen visa to go to Czech Republic. That finally pushed me to check again on the countries I could visit with that visa. It was a big surprise: a lot more countries had been included in the Schengen zone than I knew; of course, Czech Republic and Switzerland were the two new ones included. I was equally angry with me as I was excited. I wasted a frustrating morning looking for something I already had, but the good news was my travel zone just got expanded. I needed more than 80 days!

Since I no longer needed to worry about the paper work stuff, I officially started tourist sightseeing. Frankfurt didn’t have too much to see. The old town part was rebuilt recently so it doesn’t have too much of the old Europe feeling. The city had become a European financial center with skyscrapers of big banks. I first walked to the old town. The Kaiserdom was the first church I visited in Europe but it was under major construction so it looked very ugly from the outside. I walked to the river side coming out of the Dom and stepped onto the pedestrian bridge Eiserner Steg, where I had a beautiful view of the River Main and the Frankfurt city skyline. Coming back to the old town, I walked past by Römerberg, where the Rathaus (City Hall) was located. That was where I got my first feeling of the good old Europe. Because I didn’t have any plans to go into any place, it was a quick walking tour along different tourist attractions. I was back in the financial center in no time. This time, the cyclists got my attention. It was very cool to see all those bankers in suits and well-made dress cruising around on those 80’s style old bikes, so were the chic ladies on 3-inch high heels. The bike lanes were everywhere. It might be quite a scene to me but couldn’t be any more normal for them. I was still not out of the discussion in Vancouver about adding a biking lane on Burrard Bridge. Should it even be a question at all? Hell, we do need more bike lanes here in North America! After passing by the gorgeous Theatre and Eurotower again, I walked into the long green belt sneaking between those skyscrapers. It felt refreshing to have these easily accessible parks in the middle of a metropolitan. It was like its own small state inside this big busy world. I ended up at the beautifully decorated Alte Oper (Old Opera). After a short break by the fountain, I walked toward the Hauptbahnhof, not without passing by the red-light district. The main station was a magnificent structure, both from the inside and outside. I was so amazed to see the trains coming in to park at the train tracks before heading out again for another journey. We don’t have too many trains in North America; and back in China, the trains pass railway stations from one side to the other in open style. It was the first time I saw 20 trains together on the same end under one dome. It also felt exciting to check out all those different kinds of trains I already heard so much of: ICE, IC, Regional, S-Bahn, etc. I couldn’t wait for my first ride!

I was feeling a bit tired by around 18:00, probably because of the jet lag. So I decided to call it a day. Gabri was meeting his girlfriend Alina that evening, so I had some quick food for myself. I read a bit of my book and watched some TV until they came back home. Alina was a very nice German girl and was well-travelled as well. She even went to Montreal before. We got to know each other and then started chatting about my plans. They recommended me to go to Heidelberg, and Alina said she could show me Marburg - where she was doing her university - if I wanted to. I took both of the suggestions, so my next two days: Heidelberg and Marburg.

Saturday, June 20/21: VANCOUVER -> FRANKFURT

I had waited for this day for so long. But when it finally came, I was not ready. My parents left only 3 days ago. In their first visit to Canada during the past month, I was so occupied that the only thing I did for my trip was pretty much booking the flight ticket, the Eurail pass, and getting the Schengen visa. I had no detailed plan, at all, even for where to 4 days later. Yes, I was nervous. But it didn’t matter, because excitement in those hours prevailed over any other emotion in my head. In the last six hours before heading to the airport, I packed my bags, dealt with miscellaneous errands, talked to my aunt for more than an hour (not as I wanted to), and made one last phone call - to my cousin in Seattle - the only family, at that time, knew I was jetting away for the next 3 months.

I still remember the conversation: “Hey, Leo. ...... You are an adult now, right?! You know, when you grow up, you have to take certain responsibilities for your families. Now, I’m telling you that you are the only family member who knows I’m in Europe in the next 3 months. So ...” It was all of a joke. But I had to do that for my own safety in case of emergencies. (All of you asked me why not telling my parents/families. The long answer could take forever to explain. The short answer would be that I felt it was easier for me to hide this adventure from them than having to face their questions with my decision if I did tell them. Our ideas were simply too different now to have a discussion about life. Unfortunately, my plan of hiding didn’t work out as well as I wanted. You’ll learn what happened later.)

Frank gave me a ride to YVR less than two hours before my continental flight. I believed I was the last one to check in. Since the flight was delayed for 20 minutes, I had the chance to make a phone call to Kelly, who was going on this trip with me but got a job. Everyone knew their priority better than I did. I felt good for her after all the effort she put in to get this job. But of course, I’m also sad to lose a travel companion. The final boarding call came, I had to hang up. The 80 days I had dreamed of officially started with two backpacks, one train pass, a guidebook, and no plan. The second the plane took off from the runway, a pleasant smile came onto my face, which would last for the next 80 days.

The 12 hours flight went easier than I expected. The girl sitting beside me was from Germany. She was going back from a road trip to Alaska by herself. We talked about the wild Last Frontier. She gave me lots of advice on what to see and what to eat/drink in different parts of Germany. It was super cool to meet a fellow traveller already in the first minute of my trip. The rest of the time on the plane, I spent mostly on reading my Lonely Planet, trying to plan as much as possible, at least for the next couple of weeks. I was also successful to take one or two naps. The flight stopped by Calgary, and then made up its delayed time in the air to be 15 minutes ahead of scheduled time landing in FRA.

17:12 June 21 2009 - HALLO EUROPA!

I cleared the customs smoothly and followed my CouchSurfing host’s instruction to get on the bus toward Frankfurt Südbahnhof. That also marked the beginning of my tourist annoying to the bus drivers of not knowing what to do on the bus (i.e. where to stand or not to stand, how to pay the fare, how to operate the doors, etc.) I was so relieved to hear back from Gabriele to have a place to stay at in my first few days in Europe. It meant a lot for me to be not panic and get the trip started with some plans. Thanks CS! It was perfect timing that we arrived at the meeting point at almost the same time. I had a bit trouble understanding Gabri’s Italian accent but that was no obstacle between CSers as we soon started chatting along. Gabri was working for the European bank as a junior economist/analyst. He temporarily lived at an apartment style hotel provided by the company. I was going to share his all-equipped hotel room for the first four nights in Europe. We walked to his place and settled down. He cooked a quick pasta for me and we went out as we planned through emails to watch the Confederation Cup football match between Italy and Brazil in a bar. I was certainly not prepared for the Frankfurt weather, as a thunderstorm downpour welcomed me minutes after we were out. It was blue sunny sky an hour ago at the airport. I was half wet, but WTH, I was in Europe! The first thing we did before heading to the bar only made me more excited. Gabri brought me up to the EuroTower - the headquarters of the European Bank. They required me to deposit my passport to get into the highly secured building. The huge Euro signs in front of the building was the symbol of the European financial market, and you could see the signs everywhere inside the building: on the floor, in the elevator, on the glass doors. Not only did I go to Gabri’s office and signed into Euro bank’s computer to check my emails, Gabri even brought me up to the top floor of the skyscraper, where all those big names have meetings and make decisions on the rates and so on. I had a panorama view of Frankfurt and “stole” an apple from the meeting floor before getting out of the building. Then we went to meet Gabri’s friends in an Australian bar to watch the game together. I like neither of the teams, so for me, it was more of enjoying the moment with my dark German stout, while learning some Italian swears and whining. Watching football game in Europe certainly felt different. Doing it with my first German beer only made the experience better. After that, most of the demoralized Italians wanted to go home, but Gabri wanted to show me more of Frankfurt. So he persuaded two of his friends to come along with us to a very unique pub in the neighbourhood. This bar was opened by a black American woman and her husband. She was a musician and toured around the world for many years. When she settled down in Frankfurt a few years ago, she opened this pub. This place had an old piano, a guitar, and some other instruments. The guests were welcomed to play whatever they wanted to while having a drink or chilling out there. The owner sometimes came out to play for the audience when they felt like to. The philosophy was awesome and the ambience was lovable. We were lucky that the lady and her husband came out a few minutes after we arrived. The lady was very friendly and asked where we were from and what we were up to. (Gabri told me she asked him who he is at least a few times already.) When I was introduced as the guest, the lady certainly started being curious of my background and of my trip. After a while of chatting and knowing each other, she picked up the guitar. It was absolutely amazing and an honour to listen to her playing. Jazz was her favourite, and she played the songs from her heart. Words could not explain the feeling I was in, sitting in this dark corner in this new place to me and savoring those soul-searching tunes. It was something special. It only got better when the lady ran out of songs, temporarily, so she started asking something from us. Caught off guard, I couldn’t come up with anything at the moment. The Italians came to my rescue, as they started singing Italian folk songs together. The beat of the songs and the happiness in the air made me so want to start dancing on the chair. We were clapping, singing and laughing together. It made the lady feeling it - she started playing more and even got her husband in. It was an amazing scene that I so wanted to show you the video I took, on my camera. The night was capped off by some amazing songs by the lady. We only had to go home because my friends had to work the next morning. But I couldn’t complain. My first few hours in Europe could not start any better!