With an extra helping of lard

So, dear readers, where we left off our heroine was somewhere in the Czech Republic battling valiantly against the evil Thor. Would she be able to shake his grasp as her travels continued? Okay...I've amused myself sufficiently, but yes, it finally did stop raining.

After Prague and the Kunta Hora excursion, I headed back to Berlin on one extremely long train ride. I met some fellow backpackers and we chatted for quite some time, so the hours seemed a bit shorter. At the Czech/German border, I received my first passport stamp. (I was rather amused by it, as I have transited through eleven countries with nary a stamp until now.)

Berlin was still awesome. I ended up not going out on a pub/club crawl as initially planned because my lame ass fell asleep. Forget student rates, I need to be asking for my senior citizen discount.

Anyway, I did have a great time there. I stayed very close to the museum district and was able to take in three museums out of the hundred and eighty in Berlin. I walked under the Ishtar gate, which once stood in Bablyon before it was shipped over to Berlin and reassembled in the Pergamon museum. (Yes, I was rather malcontent with the aseptic presentation. Sorry, I know the previous sentence is a bit awkward, but was no other way to phrase it.)

The Communists chose to erect their party headquarters in the museum square, bulldozing a partially destroyed castle to do so. Now the Berliners are planning to bulldoze the headquarters and reerect the castle. Personally, I dislike revisionist history, and I am very sorry to see the Berliners fall prey to it. Perhaps my sadness comes from the fact that the headquarters building was once very beautiful before it fell into partial disarray, and I do not like to think about its delicate skeleton collapsing under the weight of a wrecking ball.

After Berlin, I headed off to Warsaw. The city was (and I really hate to say this) disappointing. It is a pretty city; they did a good job of rebuilidng it after the war, but it is still missing a pulse. There is no spark, no vitality. It's as if you planned to go to a party, but accidentally showed up at a wake instead. I stayed there three nights, partly because I hung out with some people from my hostel, and I completely forgot to make travel arrangements. Oops. However, I am not finished with Poland of course, and I have heard fantastic things about many other Polish cities that I plan to visit at some point in time.

I am currently in Vilnius, Lithuania. I absolutely love it, and I will write about it tomorrow.