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Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014
  • Road Trip 2016
  • Road Trip 2016

Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014

Un’avventura di 57 giorni di Road Trip 2016 Leggi altro
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  • Road Trip 2016Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014Road Trip 2016

    Hamburg, Germany

    2 ottobre 2014, Germania ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    I am declaring this my single greatest travel blog post ever solely because this is such a great collection of pictures. Hamburg is beautiful but it's also got a lot of quirky stores in the red light district where as usual my hostel is located.

    If you have a scary armless manequin why not put it right in front of your establisment?

    At this train station right in the widow you can shop for candy and toys while you can get a mag with topless gal on the cover.

    Asia Hung? Not what she said...    Leggi altro

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  • Road Trip 2016Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014Road Trip 2016

    Hamburg, Germany

    2 ottobre 2014, Germania ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Soviet Cold War Era submarine. Sometimes you go to see a site hoping to see one thing that sticks. A single visual or feeling that imprints at a level in your mind you'll never forget. I've had a number of such moments on this trip that have had that effect. In this case while viewing the officers mess in the submarine I noticed the middle picture of the Statue of Liberty and up close it has cross hairs from a periscope. Hard to know if it's real or just motivational propaganda but I checked the tack and it looked 40 years old and as though it hadn't been removed in as many years.Leggi altro

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  • Road Trip 2016Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014Road Trip 2016

    Berlin, Germany

    3 ottobre 2014, Germania ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    A lot going on here as my timing to arrive in Berlin just happens to line up with German Unification Day. Yes celebrating East and West Germany reunited as one country. Many trains headed here and this place is clearly amped up for a big party.

    The Berlin HBF (main train station) is the biggest I have seen yet. It looks to have trains entering on 5 levels. Look closely and you can see a train coming in on the second level.

    View out the back of the Generator Hostel Prenzlauer which in what would have been East Berlin Soviet Sector during the cold war. I think that is a massive gymnasium and pool with a park on top. I'm betting it was used to train East German athletes but I'll have to look it up later.

    Brandenburg Gate; I'm here with Tom from Manchester who is also staying at the hostel. Coming down to see what's going of for the celebration.    Leggi altro

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  • Road Trip 2016Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014Road Trip 2016

    Berlin, Germany

    3 ottobre 2014, Germania ⋅ 🌬 14 °C

    As we were walking back from the Reunification celebration we were passing by the Reichstag (pictured) and heard loud organized chants. Thinking it might be a protest we decided to check it out, hoping it wasn't a soccer level riot. Got behind the building and found they were showing a documentary about Reunification so we watched it with thousands of Berliners. Even saw a clip of Reagan saying, "Tear down this wall.", close to where he actually spoke these words.Leggi altro

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  • Road Trip 2016Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014Road Trip 2016

    Berlin, Germany

    8 ottobre 2014, Germania ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    On the road again. Leaving Circus Hostel as seen with the lion entrance. Best hostel I have ever stayed at, more like a boutique hotel with both dorm and private rooms.

    On the way I crossed Karl Marx Allee. I am relatively sure it was originally on the East Berlin side.

    So this time I'm really in the road taking a bus to Krakow, Poland. My rail pass doesn't cover Poland so the lowest cost and actually faster option than rail is the bus. It is a Deutsche Bahn bus operated by the German rail company and complete with WiFi, bathroom, food and drink vending machine, comfortable seats and a bathroom that you don't have to pay for.

    Looking forward to seeing Eastern Europe having only read about and seen pictures with little understanding of what is there or the cultures. I also understand it is much less expensive than Germany which makes being in the D.C. area seem like a bargain.    Leggi altro

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  • Road Trip 2016Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014Road Trip 2016

    Krakow, Poland

    9 ottobre 2014, Polonia ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    Just arrived at Greg and Tom's Hostel. Picture of the common area and the quote above my bed in the room and oh so true. The most painful part of my trip has been hearing from the many uninformed about how bad everything is in the USA. Just so everyone back home we in the U.S. are all running around shooting each other (unfortunate yes mass shootings do occur in the U.S. but account for 200 deaths a year not thousands and the USA is 319 million not 20-80 million like most euro countries so do the math people), nearly all our cities are having riots, we are all broke, our unemployment is higher than Italy's (uh...never!) and our economy is not that big anymore (wrong still #1 GDP). They receive a constant stream of negative news and feel obliged to tell me all about it. Those who have actually spent time in the USA in recent years know better. So to all those so uninformed do me a favor and keep your false beliefs about my country to yourself until you've really spent some time there and read the quote pictured a couple times until then.

    Upstairs windows of a place right down the block where I'm certain I knew what's going on...    Leggi altro

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  • Road Trip 2016Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014Road Trip 2016

    Auschwitz - Birkenau

    10 ottobre 2014, Polonia ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Some say they don't know if they would go well if you have the opportunity and you don't then you have done a disservice to yourself and humanity. Every person who has the opportunity to see this has an obligation to go and talk about it. You can disagree if you want buy if you do I can only assume you have not been. You only know that is the truth if you have been. This happened only 70 years ago and the only prevention we have is educating ourselves about it and discussing it. Books, documentaries and survivor stories are important but I think it is different altogether to stand where it happened and see the well preserved in your face evidence. I had been to Dachau the first Nazi concentration camp and thought that was enough. I was told Krakow was a good place to visit but almost didn't come when I found how hard it was to get here with Poland not participating with my rail pass and not having planned for flights while here. Then I happened to see on the map just outside of the city Auschwitz - Birkenau and knew I had to visit.

    The tour of the camps was 8 hours with a 1 hour and 15 minute bus ride there and back. The first pic is of the entrance to the camp and probably the most fucked up signage ever as it means "WORK MAKES (you) FREE". Second picture: location where the "camp orchestra" played to help prisoners keep in step but as our guide told us to also calm people as they came through the gates as many knew what awaited them.

    Third picture: double row of electrified barbed wire fencing.

    Like most places in europe they had pigeons here which I am not fond of. All the pigeons here are black which I found interesting and had not seen before.    Leggi altro

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  • Road Trip 2016Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014Road Trip 2016

    Auschwitz - Birkenau

    10 ottobre 2014, Polonia ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Rows of "dormitories". What one would have seen looking out one of the windows. Several of the dormitories had been displays setup in them of various pieces of evidence found when the camps were liberated. Pictured are used Zyklon B canisters in one of the displays. Not pictured is when we came into the first dorm containing exhibits and led in to a room where we were asked not to take pictures out of respect for what we were to see and those who had died. I walked in and to my left was a glassed in partition 30 feet long 10 feet deep with tied off clumps cut of human hair piled to above eye level. They said they had discovered it in sacks when the camps were liberated and it had traces of Zyklon B gas in it. That means it was cut off the Jewish women's heads after they were dead and it was packaged to go to be made into blankets. I have known about these things since I was a child and read extensively about WWII but to see something like that was startling. It certainly left me reeling feeling like I was kicked in the gut. I think the tour guide purposely gave little warning to ensure we saw it. He spoke later about how few come to see the camp that could and the importance of what we were doing.Leggi altro

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  • Road Trip 2016Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014Road Trip 2016

    Auschwitz - Birkenau

    10 ottobre 2014, Polonia ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    In one of the dormitories they showed the bags collected from those brought to Auschwitz. These bags and other supplies were kept in enormous warehouses the prisoners called Canada 1 and 2. They imagined Canada was a land of plenty, a place they would much rather be. They named these warehouses where there belongings were amassed after the country to represent that they had so much in them.

    Wall where over 1000 prisoners were shot in the head for any one of many absurd accusations the SS guards came up with.    Leggi altro

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  • Road Trip 2016Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014Road Trip 2016

    Auschwitz - Birkenau

    10 ottobre 2014, Polonia ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Ruins of barracks went on as far as you could see. We were told some where as far as a couple of kilometers. The scale of what they were doing here was massive and it is not only important to remember what happened as this was a death camp but also that many thousands of people were complicit in these crimes.

    Remaining parts of a gas chamber. These were the ones built late in the war after the final solution and were built to kill at a much higher rate. The Russians blew them up.

    I can't say I would come back here but if someone wanted to go I would. Just too important not to see.    Leggi altro

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