Argentina

Sandra and I took a weekend trip to Berlin via a 3 hour train. Flying was actually cheaper than train, but trains are more comfortable and the train stations are more centrally located in Nuremberg and Berlin than the airports are. Trains in Germany are freaking fast. It shows the instantaneous speed and we got up to 250 km/h, which is 150 mph and it feels super smooth. The Amtrak train between New York and DC probably does 80 mph and feels way bumpier. Even though the tickets were 160 euros each, our tickets were never checked on the train. I guess people just trust you'll buy our ticket, or the fines are expensive enough that no one risks it. Berlin has had a tough history, although not nearly as bad as Poland. After being mostly destroyed in WWII thanks to Allied bombings, Berlin became divided between the Soviet Union in the East and Americans, British, and French in the West. The weird thing was that Berlin was a divided city, but it was entirely surrounded by East Germany ...

Last weekend Sandra and I spent 4 days in Warsaw, Poland. Poland has had one of the toughest histories of any country due to its central position in Europe with difficult to defend land borders. From the 17th to 19th centuries, Poland was invaded by Sweden, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Russia & Prussia (this time together). Finally in 1919 they get their independence only to be invaded by Nazi Germany in 1939. Finally, in 1944 Poland is liberated! Hooray! Wait, who liberated them? Oh, the Soviet Union. Goodbye Hitler, Hello Stalin. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, the Polish economy collapses by 40%. Everything seemed to go okay after that until 2010 when a Polish plane crashed in Russia killing all 96 people on board, including the president and former president, the chief of the Polish General Staff, the president of the Bank of Poland, Poland's deputy foreign minister, 15 members of parliament and senior members of ...

I've been in Nürnberg for three days and I'm very happy so far. I am living in SudStadt (South City), which is much more residential than downtime. Nürnberg feels very similar to Salamanca for a couple reasons: 1) It looks like a stereotype of what you would imagine a German city to be (just like Salamanca does a Spanish city) 2) There is a central pedestrian street that is very touristy with tons of shops lining it 3) It's just a beautiful city I was able to find a short-term apartment on AirBnB for USD1000 per month and the apartment and location are both good. It feels very neighborhoody and non-touristy. I've already found my go-to corner pub with 3 euro 0.5L beers and great food. I was ordering blind and ended up getting cold sausage with raw onions, tomato, and pickle vinaigrette with rye bread. It was actually very good! Germans seem to have a thing for pickled things. The grocery store had a huge assortment of pickled items. I'm going to see if I ca...