Getting cultured

Despite our ongoing travel failures, we have done our best to meet as many people as possible and see everything we can along the way. So far, so good. Each new conversation is an eye opening experience. We have met people from all around the world.

Jared's favorite encounter was a conversation with a Russian from Moscow and a Ukrainian from Danesk. Danesk is a war torn Ukrainian controlled city with Russian allegiances. Right now, the people there are starving because Ukraine does not like that they have Russian allegiances, and Russia can not support Danesk while it is still controlled by Ukraine. We met these two guys that know each other from a past travel experience. One guy is a ballet dancer not afraid to bring his skills to the dance floor and the other just liked to have fun and learn English. Both had strong opinions about the ongoing conflict. The Ukrainian shared the constant struggle his family faced just to find food in Danesk and explained how lucky he was to be able to go to school for ballet at the top school in Europe. The Russian explained his belief that the politicians & media in Russia tell him the truth, while American politicians and media only lie. He did not see a conflict in state control of Russian media. What a set of interesting perspectives!

Jason's favorite experience was the German museum. The combination of lots of engineered metal products on display and a brother with a lot of metal work knowledge led to a great afternoon. Jared successful ruled out two career paths: submariner and miner. One exhibit had Germany's first U-boat on display from world war 1. The exhibit cut away the wall of the boat so that we could see right in. Jared did not like the size of the door ways, the beds or the galley ways. We both stared at the intricacies of the engine, the exposed crank shaft and the ballast tanks. After the boat exhibit, we went to the mining section. The mining exhibit put us in cramped quarters to give us the feeling of being in a mine. It worked. While we are not claustrophobic, it was certainly uncomfortable. Jared walked out of the museum with a back ache from all the ducking through the mining exhibit.

Outside of specific experiences, we have thoroughly enjoyed just walking along streets that are hundreds of years old, through palaces that tell tales of Germany's rises and falls and over bridges that just plain look old. Below is a picture from our beach day where we had sun, a view of a church and an old bridge. Pretty cool!

We are writing this from a train on our way to Switzerland. At this point, Jared has realized he should have trained for our city walking in Munich. I can't wait to see how he handles the mountain trails in Switzerland!