Brave Goes Abroad: Week 12.0/13.0: Spring Break

While I wouldn't have minded some swim suit weather, this year's spring break was definitely not Cabo or PV. Last Friday at six in the morning, Tori and I left Barcelona with our bags packed for more winter weather and potential rain. We were headed off to Berlin and Prague before returning to Barcelona for Easter weekend with Tori's family. So... how did spring break end up? While I usually narrate my weeks in the chronological order of events, it seems more fitting to recap this past week by a handful of reoccurring themes. Between Berlin and Prague, Tori and I spent many hours getting lost, dining with strangers, chasing good coffee, asking locals to explain the history, making more American friends, and lastly, taking ribbon pics!

First things first: Tori and I like to go about things the hard way. This is one of our favorite inside jokes... we simply cannot do things the easy way. Upon arriving in Berlin, we could not for the life of us locate our airbnb. While planning spring break, Tori and I had split up the cities so each of us could become the respective "Berlin expert" and "Prague expert". Well, her city was Berlin and there we were wandering the streets of Kreuzberg feeling desperate and homeless. After about an hour of wandering around and playing phone tag with our airbnb host, we finally found the apartment and ditched our bags. Well, for the next couple of hours we proceeded to get even more lost by the Berlin metro system which I swear would not have been any easier to navigate even if we could have read the German signage. Once we finally emerged from the metro, our Berlin expert Tori realized she had taken us to the Berlin Wall Memorial and not the remaining strip of the Berlin Wall referred to as the East Side Gallery. So Day 1 of spring break concluded without us seeing any of the famous Berlin sights, minus Checkpoint Charlie but Tori and I have decided this is not a sight. Checkpoint Charlie is a tourist trap.

Besides getting lost, Tori and I also frequently dined with strangers. Once again, this reoccurring theme began on the very first day of our trip when Tori made dinner reservations for 3 at a restaurant called The Bird and our third friend did not end up making it. The Bird, being a very popular burger joint in Berlin, eventually decided to make Tori and my 4-person table into a communal table when they realized our other friend was not joining us that night. So... Tori and I made friends with an extremely friendly, gay couple from Berlin. Berliners, they called themselves. Sasa and Simon were great table company as they told us about local history, their favorite spots to eat and go out, as well as what not to wear as a girl according to a guy. Apparently, guys hate rompers and high-waisted shorts. Come on boys... high-waisted shorts give us a great figure! Anyhow, Tori and I towards the end of the meal, after feeling like we had made best friends with this gay couple, decided to put our new friends on the spot (as we like to do with locals) and ask about their perception of Americans. Simon weighed in on this one saying how American girls go crazy when they travel internationally and are not very conservative or respectful of their bodies. Sasa said he thinks Americans like to act informed while really they are not very educated. They also agreed that Americans are known for being violent or at least that our country has way higher violence rates than anywhere they are aware of... and this was sadly a response we got from more than one of our random "dining with strangers" experiences.

In Prague, Tori and I were seated with two men from Sweden, who were road-tripping back home from the Swiss Alps. When asked of their perception of Americans, one of these guys had something very interesting to say. This table mate of ours, Jona, said Americans are hard to get to know. He explained this further by saying he finds Americans to be very friendly, yet we all have this self image or brand that we seek to maintain and so he and others find it impossible to get to know us because we do not allow for conversation beyond surface-level. Sadly, I found myself nodding through his entire answer.

While eating seems to be one of Tori and my favorite past times in Europe, we don't just chase good food joints around town... we also chase coffee! I always say I could live in a coffee shop or one day when I retire I'm going to own a coffee shop so of course before traveling to Berlin and Prague I did my homework. Lucky me, Buzzfeed had already done most of this research and so, at least in Berlin, I dragged Tori to a place called Bonanza Coffee which resides at #19 on Buzzfeed's "25 Coffee Shops Around The World You Have To See Before You Die." Sunday morning, this satisfied our coffee craving before we ventured into a local market with vintage clothing/furniture and other local vendors.

As for asking locals to explain some of the history, I'm sure you already picked up on Tori and I harassing Sasa and Simon about the Nazi era in Germany and the local concentration camps. While in Berlin, we also received a brief history lesson from our airbnb host Ignacio. After returning to the apartment from a busy day of sightseeing, Tori and I sat with Ignacio at his kitchen table as he drew out a map of Berlin and explained how the wall separated the city and had an impact on the surrounding areas, separating families, lovers, and friends for over 30 years. Ignacio, who has lived in Berlin for just a few years now (originally from Chile), said he has even seen the city transform since he has been there. In his opinion, Berlin just keeps trying to be bigger and better and the city is loosing green space by the day and even some of its history is getting destroyed as the local government caters to tourism and overall appearing more "efficient". Efficiency = a German thing.

Beyond making friends with locals of the cities we visited and other foreigners seated with us for dinner, Tori and I also collected a handful of other American friends during our travels this past week. In Berlin, we met a cool guy named Doug from Philly. Doug did his undergrad at Harvard, worked a few years in commercial real estate and just recently went back to school for an MBA at UT Austin. Doug's continuing his studies this semester from Switzerland (not really sure how) and was on the bar crawl we did in Berlin one night. Doug became one of the crew and gave us some great Berlin tips, as he had arrived in the city a couple days before us. Tori and I also made some American friends in Prague at a Mexican restaurant called Agave (same place we ate with the Swedes). The restaurant owner had joked about making our table a communal one and we insisted that we didn't mind so he proceeded to ask what our type was. Tori joked "American college guys are our type" and a couple minutes later we found ourselves with two house margaritas, apparently paid for by the American college guys in the other room. Although this was a total set-up by the owner, our main man Glenn, we ended up meeting the other American students before leaving and they invited us to go out with them that night. To sum it up, the whole study abroad experience is one big "wow what a small world" kind of thing. Turns out two of the kids are from Connecticut, a couple towns over from Greenwich, and happen to know my amazing, adorable little sis Eileen (miss you baby boo).

Lastly, this trip consisted of a lot of ribbon picture-taking because it's impossible to get the perfect shot when your iPhone 5S won't focus. Coming at you this week with two of my best shots from spring break... a pink awareness ribbon from the Berlin Wall (East Side Gallery) and another in front of the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square of Prague. As my fabulous travels are soon coming to an end, I hope that each of you are inspired by my ribbons around the world. Brave Goes Abroad has been my baby this semester and it brings me true happiness to leave this little pink reminder in every city I visit.

A few other highlights from this week:

-Running into my high school friend Ben in both Berlin and Prague and meeting his crazy college friends (Jake Richman new BFF)

-Experiencing some of the coolest graffiti murals in the world

-Trying bizarre drinks like Club-Mate, popular in Berlin, and Banana Bread Beer which we found at a restaurant in Prague

-Having our first shared-room experience at a hostel, shout out to our cool roommates nights two and three in Prague

-Getting to spend some more bonding time with our IU crew from Barcelona, including Megan, Emily, Bos, Danny, and Connor (Jake... you too!)

-Visiting places my best friends from home suggested to me in Prague

-Happening upon a Dali/Warhol exhibition in Prague where Tori made a custom banana-print shirt (there has never been a more Tori shirt in the world)

Enough babbling from me. The picture part: