DAY 5: PRAGUE/BERLIN

It was our last morning in Prague. And then we were onto Berlin for the remainder of the trip. So we decided to grab breakfast and go on a boat cruise during our last few hours in Prague.

After wandering a city a bit the day before, Rudes and I had found a little place called Coffee Heaven. Turns out it's another chain of coffeehouses, but much more in the nature of Cosi (if you've ever been to one, they're all over Philly, NY and DC). So we decided to have breakfast there.

They had a case full of pastriesAnd another full of sandwiches
But I decided to be a bit simpler and just have a cappuccino and croissant. Again, the cappuccino was unremarkable and the croissant I'd had the day before was just so much better.I did like the interior, though. And most importantly, the a/c was on full blast.We then went on a mediocre boat tour. Where Sam actually fell asleep, and I zoned out, but at least they gave us beer. Oh, and ice cream. And that was it for our time in Prague. It was time to head out to Berlin. It was another 4 hour drive to Berlin, but it was much easier to navigate. So after driving by the roadside prostitutes near the border of the Czech Republic and Germany, and getting held up a bit by the German border patrol, we were able to make it into Berlin.

We were thrilled to finally arrive at our hostel. Unfortunatley, I had directed us to the wrong one. We were staying at the Hotel Transit Loft, not the Hotel Transit! But it turns out the the Hotel Transit Loft was a much cooler place anyway. Really great rooms and the best hostel we stayed in the whole trip. Plus, it was located in Prenzlauer distric. Berlin is divided into all these different neighborhoods, and this one is in the former East Berlin.

I really loved Prenzlauer district. After all the touristy-ness of Prague, I was ready for a break and this was it. Just a nice neighborhoody area, with actual Berliners. We wandered out of our hotel in search of dinner. And a nice place to watch the game. On the recommendation of the hotel staff, we walked 20 minutes to a German restaurant, only to find it was closed. But on the way, we had passed a bunch of great restaurants, with people sitting outdoors watching the soccer game. I was really happy to see the diversity of the restaurants, too. Thai, Italian, German, just a whole mix of them. Almost like being in NY. We were exhausted doing the trek back and were very hungry. So we finally settle into a little restaurant called Mathes and Lautz. There weren't many people out front, but we had a great view of the TV.

It was a good thing we had Sam with us, because we no longer had the English menus to rely on. Oh, and the waitresses spoke English. I tried to order pasta, but then I thought it'd be wiser to find out if they had anything without meat. The only suggestion was a salad with chicken on top. So I gave in and ordered that. It turned out to be pretty good, I liked the cracked black pepper that it was topped with.Meanwhile, the boys order all variety of schnitzel. (pork and veal) and it came in massive portions. It looked really good, too. Sigh, if only they had it in chicken...But tomorrow was a new day...