Whiskey, You're the Devil

One fine Saturday afternoon in Dublin, I ventured out with some Americans to visit Jameson Distillery, just a few Luas stops away.

The girls.

The boys.

Collin, quite excited, jumping on fences.

The tour was fun, but the distillery isn't actually a distillery anymore. Most of what you see is old equipment or models of the equipment. But if you like whiskey, it's pretty cool to hear about, and kind of see, how it's made.

Plus, you get a drink at the end of the tour. 

You can volunteer to do a taste test of different kinds of whiskey and become a real connoisseur -- like me.

Backpacking Part II: Berlin

We are all Berliners... or jelly donuts.

I was only in Berlin for a few days, but I think I could see myself as a Berliner.

There is barely a language barrier as, like much of Europe, everyone learns English at a young age. Especially in cities, where there is a large amount of tourism, everyone starts speaking English as soon as they hear you say "hi."

The coolest thing about Berlin? The wall. It was actually the coolest thing I think I've ever seen. Naturally I will wait until the end of the post to show you the photos, both to create suspense and because I took around 40 of them.

Berlin is so full of history, and it shows. While a lot of the city's oldest and important buildings and places have been destroyed, there are a number of memorials around the city to make sure the past is not forgotten. Most of them are rather abstract, not explicit in what they represent, but allow the viewer to take away their own meaning.

The above photo is not mine and legally snagged from Wikipedia.

This memorial is for the Nazi book burnings of 1933 in Bebelplatz. Around 20,000 books were burned because the Nazi regime didn't agree with their content or their authors. When you look down into this glass, you can see an empty library.

Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny

This building was once a guardhouse. Now it's mostly empty except for this statue of a mother holding her dead son. Buried in the building are two unidentified bodies - one a soldier and the other a concentration camp victim.

This is the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, or Holocaust Memorial. It consists of 2,711 concrete slabs in a grid pattern, all the same width and length but varying height. It's a sort of chilling sight to see, with no real explanation of why this was chosen. Everyone can take away their own interpretation of it.

Brandenburg Gate

Checkpoint Charlie

Sums up German food pretty well.

The moment you've been waiting for: the wall!
I thought Berlin, as snowy and grey as it as, was a beautiful city. I think the abundance of graffiti as well as the architecture is what makes the city beautiful. Graffiti (or Street Art, as some would say) seems more embraced in Berlin. It's everywhere, and much of it is political or social messages rather than just gang signs or profanity. I think party of this has to do with the wall, and the way Berliners expressed themselves on there.

These murals from the East Side Gallery are by artists from all over the world. Some are messages about the joy of the wall falling down, of the terror of fascism, or commitment to never again let their city be divided.

Backpacking Part I: Madrid

Remember all those times in high school Spanish class when we said --

"WHEN will I EVER use this?"

When you visit Spain, that's when.

Luckily, I managed to retain a good amount of important words and phrases:

"Cuerta" means "bill."
"Cambio" means "change."
"Pollo" means "chicken."
"Mas" means "more."
"Cerveza" means "beer."

(The last two being of special importance.)

For me, that was probably the coolest thing about visiting Madrid. I've had the opportunity to speak in Spanish to native speakers before, but never out of necessity. Let me point out, though, that all in all... there really isn't that much necessity. At least half the restaurants we went to had English menus, and we probably only met a handful of people that didn't speak English at all. It's everywhere.

Nightclub promoters on the streets would approach us speaking English, right off the bat. We later determined it was a combination of Colin's Red Sox cap and Connor's Lil' Wayne hat that gave us away (as without the boys, Ali and I were approached by people speaking Spanish - we were delighted.)

The food was delicious, and sometimes containing small bones (so watch out). The paella was incredible. The cervezas were never dark or stout or very rich... but cheap and available at McDonalds.

McBeer - photo courtesy of my friend Ali

Tapas!

Some American things you can never escape.

Desayuno Completo - breakfast

The boys' favorite part of the whole trip was probably running into and briefly meeting (in their words: "spending the night out with") Bam Margera of the Jackass movies.

He was very friendly, and said he was working on filming new episodes of Punk'd!

My fellow backpackers. (Last 2 photos from Ali)

The Museo del Prado was probably my favorite part.

The Prado was free for students and filled with 12th - 19th century European art. The most interesting exhibit is a collection of Francisco de Goya's paintings, notably the Black Paintings. Like:

The scene outside of the museum is equally entertaining, with art for sale, musicians performing, and even some "free haircuts" by interesting characters.

Colin got a 5 Euro portrait done in 5 minutes, after which the artist pointed to me and said he wanted to paint me because I was "bonita" -- pretty sure he just wanted more business (and it almost worked). 

Madrid was full of talented street performers, from violinists to glass players, which seem to be particularly popular.

Some more scenes from Madrid:

Spain seems to have a thing for lions.

After a few days Ali and I packed up our bookbags -- all we brought for the trip -- and shipped off to Berlin. Blog post on that trip up will be up soon!