Guten tag!
We just finished up two days in Nürnberg, the place of Kevin’s birth.
When we were back in Delft, I sent out a Couchsurfing request only 2 days in advance and only to one person. I was more than surprised to hear back that we were welcome to stay with Mark, Chris and Felix – three awesome guys that are going to school at the University there. To give you an idea of how difficult it can be to get a couch to surf on, I spent 3+ weeks sending out 15 requests to people living in Amsterdam and still didn’t get any offers. This was going to be our first time sleeping on someone’s couch, so we weren’t sure what to expect.
Getting in by train, we were going to meet Mark at the Main Station, though we forgot to set a specific meeting point. Kevin and I were wandering aimlessly through the station, looking for anyone that looked at all like the pictures we saw on CS. He had given me his phone number, so we found a pay phone and tried to give him a call, though we couldn’t figure out how to call locally. We kept getting an error message, but couldn’t understand it because she spoke in German. While we were trying to figure this out, Mark found us! Our knight in shining armor.
That night they gave us a brief tour of the old city, with our main destination - ein biergarten. Here we had typical Franconian fare and a plethora of German beer. On a side note, it’s nearly impossible to find public restrooms in Europe. I unfortunately did not use the restroom before we left the beer garden that night, so after about 50 meters of walking, the urgency of my bladder under duress proclaimed itself quite loudly. After a couple blocks, we found ourselves in at a monument called “The Pillars of Human Rights” – Mark and Chris were explaining the importance of the site, but all I could think was “don’t pee your pants, don’t pee your pants…” What seemed like five miles later, we finally got back to the apartment and my agony was finally over. Moral of the story: Europe needs more public bathrooms.
We just finished up two days in Nürnberg, the place of Kevin’s birth.
When we were back in Delft, I sent out a Couchsurfing request only 2 days in advance and only to one person. I was more than surprised to hear back that we were welcome to stay with Mark, Chris and Felix – three awesome guys that are going to school at the University there. To give you an idea of how difficult it can be to get a couch to surf on, I spent 3+ weeks sending out 15 requests to people living in Amsterdam and still didn’t get any offers. This was going to be our first time sleeping on someone’s couch, so we weren’t sure what to expect.
Getting in by train, we were going to meet Mark at the Main Station, though we forgot to set a specific meeting point. Kevin and I were wandering aimlessly through the station, looking for anyone that looked at all like the pictures we saw on CS. He had given me his phone number, so we found a pay phone and tried to give him a call, though we couldn’t figure out how to call locally. We kept getting an error message, but couldn’t understand it because she spoke in German. While we were trying to figure this out, Mark found us! Our knight in shining armor.
That night they gave us a brief tour of the old city, with our main destination - ein biergarten. Here we had typical Franconian fare and a plethora of German beer. On a side note, it’s nearly impossible to find public restrooms in Europe. I unfortunately did not use the restroom before we left the beer garden that night, so after about 50 meters of walking, the urgency of my bladder under duress proclaimed itself quite loudly. After a couple blocks, we found ourselves in at a monument called “The Pillars of Human Rights” – Mark and Chris were explaining the importance of the site, but all I could think was “don’t pee your pants, don’t pee your pants…” What seemed like five miles later, we finally got back to the apartment and my agony was finally over. Moral of the story: Europe needs more public bathrooms.
The next day was an absolutely gorgeous tag. And for the majority of the day we explored the streets of Nurnberg within the old city walls. Points of interest were the “Fountain of Married Life”, Saint Sebald’s Cathedral, Church of St. Elisabeth, Albrecht Dürer’s house, the executioner’s tower and bridge, and Kaiserburg Castle. We saw the coliseum where Hitler gave some addresses to the Socialist and Nazi parties…but it wasn’t as spectacular up close as it was at a distance. It looked like a bunch of carnies had taken up residence on the area in front of the stadium.
Our night was more relaxing. Going to order Kebab’s at a local Turkish deli, with neither of us speaking either Turkish or German, was an interesting affair. We ended up ordering twice as much as what we could eat. Note to everybody: learn as many languages as you can…it will help you immeasurably at some point in your lives.:0 We then went and hung out with the guys again, at their place, until the wee hours of the morn.
This brings us to now, where we are currently on a train to Munich. It pays to be thrifty – we found out that you can share tickets with up to five people when traveling from Nürnberg to Munich. Instead of paying something like 30 Euro each, we only had to spend 6 Euro. The joys of budget travel.
Again, a huge thanks to Mark, Chris and Felix for sharing their home with us for two nights! It was great meeting you guys, and stay in touch!
Auf Wiedersehen
Our night was more relaxing. Going to order Kebab’s at a local Turkish deli, with neither of us speaking either Turkish or German, was an interesting affair. We ended up ordering twice as much as what we could eat. Note to everybody: learn as many languages as you can…it will help you immeasurably at some point in your lives.:0 We then went and hung out with the guys again, at their place, until the wee hours of the morn.
This brings us to now, where we are currently on a train to Munich. It pays to be thrifty – we found out that you can share tickets with up to five people when traveling from Nürnberg to Munich. Instead of paying something like 30 Euro each, we only had to spend 6 Euro. The joys of budget travel.
Again, a huge thanks to Mark, Chris and Felix for sharing their home with us for two nights! It was great meeting you guys, and stay in touch!
Auf Wiedersehen
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