GERMANY! crazy...i think we are the only people to do west and east germany in 3 days. We caught a train to berlin, stayed a night, went to a crazy club that had a crazy band that was like the german beasty boys (really strange)...everyone at the club stood there still and ryan danced like a madman....very funny. then we decided, we're here...we'd be crazy not to at least go check out oktoberfest....so we ran our butts to the station and thankfully the train was delayed 5 minutes and we made it!! so we got to see oktoberfest...and i dont have words to describe it. it was amazing. im so happy we made that train!! then we got the only room left in a 300 bed hostel and it smelled like puke everywhere...go figure. but ryan and i werent feeling so great so we caught the last 2 innings (apparently the best innings) of the red sox game and called it a night. it was the last night of oktoberfest so it ended early, but that was fine with us....we were beat. so then we spent the day wandering around munich...pretty nice, but snooty...and we went to the Englisch Garten where there happened to be some nude sunbathers in october...these germans are crazy. then we found our way the the largest beer garden in europe...it can hold 9,000 people...its like a huge park with deer and lots of seats...there werent that many people there...just some locals so we had ourselves a beer and a HUGE pretzel!! good news!! ryans camera is miraculously working again!! woo!! we have a camera now! apologize to the moms who are expecting lots of pictures....we were bummed about no camera believe me...we went to the berlin wall and had no camera....we wrote our names on it! woo! so anyway, the boys played hackey sack and i lounged on the grass and it was a wonderful afternoon in the beer garden. then we made our way back downtown and found a really great small authentic german restaurant and had ourselves some sauerkraut, sausages, pork, dumplings, VERY tasty!! or what i could taste anyway, through this awful cold!! its getting better.....so then we took an 11 hour overnight train to amsterdam (NOT fun with a cold) and here we are with ryans stepsister eva and we are SOO happy and SOO relieved we dont have to wake up early, pack up our gear and be on the run again for a little while....whew....sorry so long!! and eva is great!! we are pretty tired from all this running around so we are planning on relaxing here and calling it an early night...let the fun begin tomorrow! there is apparently a concert on thursday with lou reed at some art gallery with andy warhol stuff....that would be awesome....speaking of awesome...dan and i just gave ryan the best haircut of his life...sorry denise!!! we did take pictures of that....i will try and post pictures...if i can...too bad dans camera is broken....hope everyone is doing well!! miss you all!!!