Looking from the window of the railway train

Trying to wipe away past memories that left a permanent stain

From sunshine to rain, mountains to plains

As myriads of thoughts flash through my brain

And emotions seep through my veins

I have lost myself, but more of me I intend to find

As the wheels from the locomotive turn with each country that I leave behind

I’m greeted by smiles and whispers, laughter and stares

Beautiful hospitality as well as those who don’t seem to care

Within the essence of madness there is an overwhelming peace

Like finding a meal within the belly of the beast

The nights are shorter and the days are longer

But as the milliseconds race by I can feel myself getting stronger

At the conclusion of this journey what shall I become?

I know not the answer but to this void I shall succumb

After a somewhat frustrating time in Prague with the train being late and terrible customer service I was greeted with nothing but hospitality at the Berlin train station.  The attendant at the service desk was very helpful.  I was told that I would have to catch a train the next day to go to Paris, but that they would pay for my hotel stay.  I was given a voucher for the hotel night and it even included a full breakfast in the morning (not just the Continental BS that the hotels try to pass as breakfast).  I figured that as long as I’m in Berlin I might as well venture out and see what there is to see.  It was about 9pm.  I asked the guy at the hotel desk about some good places to go and he pointed me to the direction of a club across the street.  It was a techno club and I’m not really into that kind of music but I figured what the hell.  I met a security guard there from America who was pretty cool.  He’s a black guy from Arkansas who has been in Germany for about 7 years.  He suggested that I hit one of the clubs that play R&B/Hip Hop and he helped me look through the local disco guide to find some places.  The only problem is that clubs there don’t really get started until midnight or 1am.  Seriously, no one even shows up before then.  I found out that there was a club just around the corner that plays reggae music.  I then asked him if it was safe to walk around at night alone and he told me that I shouldn’t have any problems.  He says that there are some skinheads here and there but no one is going to mess with you unless you are being a complete idiot and there are 15 of them and just one of you. LOL.  Nevertheless, he assured me that I would be fine.  Also, the club is right at the beginning of the Berlin wall and I’ve always wanted to check that out.  As I’m walking to the club I pass by a couple of girls and ask them where the club is just to make sure I’m headed in the right direction.  They giggle, ramble something in German, and point that it’s just down on the right.  Then one of them starts to flash her breast at me as the other one is pulling her away.  DAMN.  Germany is definitely a lot different than Prague.  LOL.  The people there are scorching hot compared to the coldness of Prague people.  I checked out the reggae club but it was pretty much dead at 11:30pm and I was told the party doesn’t even really begin until 1am.  Since my train was due to leave at 6:40am I decided to head back to the hotel and get a few hours of rest.  Maybe I’ll head back to Berlin on the tail end of my trip!

6/14/2009 – 9:06am

As I was traveling on the train from Prague to Berlin I met a couple of girls from the UK. I told them about my blog and gave them my card. One of them was intrigued that I was starting a website detailing my experiences as a Black American traveling. She said that she was very aware that it must be different for me as opposed to her as a white woman and also surprised that she’s never seen anyone else with a blog based on the experiences of traveling while black. There are tons of resources pertaining to traveling as woman alone. She has done a lot of traveling and has noticed that every time she stays at a hostel it is full of white people and maybe a couple of Asians. She hardly ever sees any Black Americans and wondered why. After giving it much thought I also have similar questions. Could it be purely because of economic disadvantage? Lack of interest? Fear? Or maybe it’s a combination of all of those things. I think that if more people traveled it would eliminate a lot of racism in the world and it would force people out of their comfort zones. I’m not naïve enough to think that racism would ever end because as long as there are 2 people in the world there will be some form of discrimination. Hopefully this blog can be used as tool or possibly an inspiration for other Black Americans who have always wanted to travel abroad but couldn’t quite get past that fear of the unknown. I have optimism that I will. We shall see…

Prague is a beautiful city! It is the most beautiful city that I have seen in my life so far. The architecture, the artwork, and design of the buildings are amazing. The details are so intricate. You could walk around the city all day doing nothing but looking at them and snapping pictures. I think I took at least 300 pictures there. It’s also a pretty safe city in my opinion. There was not a moment that I hesitated to walk around with my camera in my hand and I saw others leisurely strolling with lots more expensive cameras than I had without a care in the world.

As far as the people, well, that’s a different story. While I did meet some really nice folks, the majority of the people there, in my opinion, were just rude. I’m not sure if it’s just a cultural thing or if they just get frustrated with the English language but for what the city is abundant with in beauty it is very lacking in customer service. There are many examples that I could give but here is one that stands out to me. I went into the McDonalds to get something to eat. Now, I don’t usually go to McDonalds but since Czech food isn’t really my cup of tea it was the only thing familiar that I knew I could stomach. I go up to the counter and order a double cheeseburger and ask if they can put Big Mac sauce on it. They sell Big Mac’s and they also sell double cheeseburgers so I wouldn’t think it would be that much of a big deal. I order it like this in America all the time and it isn’t an issue even if it’s something that they have never done before. The guy looks at me with a confused look and says “No, we don’t do that here”. Okay. Then I ask, “Well can you just put some Big Mac sauce in a cup and give it to me on the side?” He then walks away and asks someone else (possibly a supervisor) and I’m given the same response that it’s just impossible for them to tell the kitchen to give them a side of Big Mac sauce. Now it may seem that I’m complaining over something so small but seriously, how hard is it? When a very large portion of your economy is based off of tourism (60% I heard) I would think that they would try harder to please their customers/cash cows. I guess being an American I’m used to being treated like, well, a paying customer. And I’m not the only one. I ran into a couple of girls from France and a couple of girls from London that all said the same thing about the service.

As for the financial aspect of my visit, Prague may be one of the cheaper cities in Europe but it’s definitely not cheap. I paid $12 USD to do 2 loads of laundry at the self serve Laundromat! And they charge for everything from ketchup packets at the McDonalds to using the toilet. Needless to say, after taking tons of pictures and spending 3 days there I was ready to go. But just my luck, my train ended up being 90 minutes late leaving Prague, which made me miss my overnight train to Paris that I was supposed to get from Berlin. Once I got to Berlin though it was like night and day…..

Here are some pictures of Prague. There are LOTS of pictures of Prague so I’m only posting a few just as a sample. If you’d like to see the rest just click on any of the pictures playing in the slide show and it will take you to my Picasa site where you can see all of them. They should be in the albums titled Prague Day 1, Prague Day 2, Prague Day 3, and Prague Misc. If you can, try to view them fully blown up 100%. The smaller versions just do not do these pictures justice.

Ciao

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Right now I’m in Cologne, Germany awaiting my train to Paris, France. I have been doing a lot of writing on the train ride here so I will post some of my previous entries from a travel log that I am doing when I don’t have internet connection. I hope it doesn’t look too confusing. I have posted the date above each entry to show when it was written.