prague, czech republic

Prague rivals amsterdam and edinburgh as nicest cities and amsterdam as the best nightliving. in contrast with berlin, this place got through the wars without much damage. even new town has buildings from the 1400's. we did the pub crawl last night which entailed free beer, wine, vodka, and absinthe for the first hour. the clubs are enormous and filled with drunk tourists...i fit in ok. i ran into a couple of people who grew up an hour from me, and jeff and our tour guide grew up in the same city. quite the small world. we developed a protocol once we get to a new town of: wander around the first day, free tour and pub crawl the second day, and visit remaining sights and bars on the third...not a great deal of time for anything else. we are heading for munich and then interlaken, switzerland for hiking in the alps. apparently, we were supposed to reserve the night train from bern to rome already, so we may be camping out for a bit in the alps. a tip: don't ride the berlin metro without a ticket (you may get a 40 euro fine). a thank you to the amsterdam pub crawl guide who literally ran across amsterdam with me to get the coat i left at the previous bar.