I Tend to Think of Myself as a One-Man Wolf Pack

The train from Prague to Berlin passed through really pretty countryside. Through the Czech Republic it followed a river, and occasionally the route would pass a picturesque little village with brightly colored houses built into the side of a hill. After crossing the German border, the train pulled away from the river and passed fields and more old, pretty houses. But this was not Berlin. Berlin was something different.

Berlin Holocaust Memorial. It's abstract, but it certainly feels eerie when you're walking amongst all these stones.

The British can stop complaining about how hard World War II was on their country. Berlin was leveled. Razed. Completely destroyed. Almost everything in the German capital was built in the last few decades, since 90% of the buildings in central Berlin were destroyed during World War II. It's the closest to the Far East I'll get for a while, with Berlin's glass office buildings and new cityscape, so the part of me that wanted to study abroad in Hong Kong is temporarily at ease. But Berlin is more than endless new developments that have gone up since the war. Determined to learn the history of this city, I took a free walking tour that was advertised in the hostel. The story of Berlin is really interesting. There are odd diagonal brick strips in the streets where the Berlin Wall stood just 25 years ago. The Holocaust Memorial is a rather abstract piece of art that is designed simply to make viewers remember Germany's terrible past.

Close-up of the art on the Berlin Wall's East Side Gallery

All around are reminders that Berlin has endured a tough past, through Hitler's Third Reich and the Soviet occupation of East Berlin. The East Side Gallery is the longest stretch of the Berlin Wall still standing, and it's decorated with paintings from artists from around the world.

The Reichstag, home of the German Parliament. It was built in 1894 but was destroyed by a fire in 1933. It wasn't restored until after Germany was re-unified, but it re-opened in 1999 to hold the German government.

Berlin was nice, but I would have liked to see older parts of Germany. There was art everywhere: In stores, on the sidewalk, and even in this odd sculpture market I walked into on my first night there that sold strange sculptures and jewelry. The city was clean and the people were friendly. And I didn't go into one of Berlin's famous techno raves once, not that I wanted to anyway, because this city had so much more to offer.

The final stop on my fall break tour was Paris. It's cliche and I've done it before, but that's part of the appeal. The first time I went to Paris, I was thirteen. I didn't like it. Maybe because it was the first place I had ever been where English wasn't widely spoken, maybe because it's just what I expected and nothing more, but I remembered hating Paris and I wanted to see if my opinion would change if I saw it again. Things looked bleak as my plane landed in a cold rainstorm.

Musee d'Orsay, an art museum converted from what used to be a train station.

I liked Paris, though. Didn't love it, but it was pretty and people were friendlier to tourists than I remember. My hostel was located right near the Sacre Coeur, a large cathedral set up on a hill with sweeping views of Paris. I went to the museums, of course, but the one painting I wanted to see in the Louvre, Portrait de l'artiste sous les traits d'un moqueur, was not there. Does it look familiar? The museums were a good way to escape the cold and rain that hung around Paris during my stay, but for the brief dry moments I was able to walk around, climb the Eiffel Tower, and eat some crepes.

The Eiffel Tower poking through the Paris rooftops at night. It shines a bright beacon into the sky.

By the end of the trip, I was exhausted and ready to head back to London and sleep in my own bed instead of a hostel, but I was glad that I had gone to Paris. Mostly, I was anxious to just spend time with people again after traveling solo for so long. Paris was better than I thought it would be, even though it was far from the best place I'd seen all week (Still Vienna). I'm ready for more London now, though. I love this city.