On my return from Brno, I once again had a one nighter in the wonderful, money-sucking city of Vienna. I had planned to catch up with Charlie for a drink but nothing huge as I had to be on the bus at 8am the following morning. When I had arrived and checked into the hostel, I had a real shower as I had been rushing my showers for the last three days in Brno due to the fact that it was all communal. After washing 4 days on sweat and sunscreen out of my hair I called Charlie to see what she was up to. Charlie and two French dudes from her hostel were at Schonnbrunn, the Habsburgs summer palace. I had wanted to see this place due to it having a hedge maze in the grounds and I’d always wanted to do one of them, so I got on a tram and went to meet them at the palace.
The Habsburgs were terribly over the top, drunk on their own power and married within their family to preserve the purity of their own bloodline, resulting in a litany of retarded offspring, but holy moly, they sure know how to build a palace! Schonnbrunn is gorgeous. The palace is nice enough, but the grounds are truly astounding. I was walking around, thinking “yeah, this is all nice and palacey”, and then I walked around a corner and looked up the manicured gardens behind the palace, leading all the way up the hill and had to stop and say “whoa”. How very Keanu Reeves of me…
After walking around the gardens I met up with Charlie and the two French dudes, Ivan and Vincent. We went to the Hedge Maze, which was very fun, even though it was nowhere near long enough, and not terribly difficult. It was very fun getting to the lookout point in the middle first, and then looking at the other walking around and giving them false directions. After that we all played around with some other stuff in the garden area, such as a xylophone thing that you work with your feet, and some stepping stones that shoot out water as you try to run across them, before making our way out of the Palace.
Charlie came back to my hostel as she needed to use the internet to book her next hostel in Budapest, while Ivan and Vincent went home. After Charlie and I had eaten and she had sorted her hostel, I walked her back to her hostel along Mariahilfer Strasse, getting some fantastic Gelato along the way.
I came back to my hostel with designs of having a quiet night pottering around on the internet and doing my washing. All those was going to plan until I got a call from Charlie telling me to come out to the Travel Shack, where she was meeting the Ivan and Vincent. I decided I might as well, as I hadn’t had a big night in a while after putting a lot of deposits in the sleep bank while in Brno. We got to the travel shack at midnight and Ivan and Vincent were already smashed. Ivan could barely stand up and Vincent was attempting to dirty dance with anyone who walked past, be they male or female. After another wonderful little creature and a jagerbomb, Charlie found a map of Budapest and I went through some cool places for her to go.
I was only going to walk with Charlie up to the first Kebab stand, as I was hungry, but when we got to the main intersection there was a guy who had been in a fight, so I decided that I should walk with her the whole half hour back to her hostel as it didn’t seem as safe as I had originally thought. I got myself a bratwurst along the way and was actually quite enjoying walking through Vienna in the middle of the night when the streets are empty of people. After dropping Charlie back at her hostel, I made the long trek back to my own, finding the French guys out the front, having just been dropped off by the taxi, and still being wildly drunk.
By the time I actually got to bed, it was 4:30am and the sun was coming up. I had to get up in 2 hours, hence the 21euro I had paid for a bed would work out to be 10.50 euro per hour. Vienna is still trying to suck money from my wallet, but I actually had a really good night, so even though I feel like someone scrubbed my eyeballs while I sit here on the bus to Salzburg, I refuse to have my good mood depleted.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Brno –World Superbikes
Brno is the second biggest city in the Czech Republic as every year it hosts a round of the World Superbikes at the Automotodrom about 20kms out of town. This was, obviously, my reason for being here. Without a round of the Supers, I would’ve never had any reason to come here, and that would not have been a great loss. Brno is pretty, but so is every other place in Europe. I really should stop comparing towns to Perth, as most towns are going to be prettier. As far as European towns go, Brno is nothing special, a run of the mill town of 370,000 people with nothing particularly amazing to set it apart.
I got into Brno after the Budapest/Vienna debacle at around 4pm. I had no real idea where my hostel was, but knew that it was close to the train station so I called the hostel and was given directions over the phone. Travellers hostel is only a hostel in the summer, at all other times it is a school. Hence, all the rooms are classrooms, complete with a cabinet which contains, I can only assume, shit that the kids have made. The beds look like they’ve been stolen from a pre WW1 hospital and they don’t have pillows. I know that it’s still better than sleeping on the ground, but I would’ve expected pillows for AUD$24. Plus, the showers are all together, so I’d better make sure I don’t drop any soap…
The first night I just went out and walked around Brno, taking a few photos and seeing the sights. I got an early night, going to bed and watching some of the movies I ripped of Ryan Hard drive in Budapest. This is a trip on my own, and as such, I am using it as down time. There will be no huge nights out. No heavy drinking sessions. There will be sleep. There will be bikes. Just the way I like it. And comes at a good time to recharge the batteries for section 2 of the trip as I have now lost all the friends I have made over the last six weeks on the bus and the best way to make new friends is to get smashed. It’s gonna be a boozy time in Salzburg and Munich.
On day two in Brno I got up and went out to the track for qualifying. The Automotodrom is a breathtaking race track, nestled in the Czech woods and full of elevation changes and sweeping corners. I would love to come back and ride it someday. They do track days here, but you have to have your own bike, which makes things a little difficult at the moment. Ben Spies had a cracker in Superpole, and would be the man to beat on Sunday.
Race day at the track and it still wasn’t anywhere as nuts as I would have expected. The crowd was adorned in a variety of shirts bearing the number 96 for Jakob Smrz, the Czech rider in Superbikes. I went into the paddock, and was stoked to see a bunch of riders and team bosses from less than 2m away. I won’t bore you with the names, but the standout was telling John Hopkins “welcome back to racing, Hopper” and having him reply, “thanks man”. The races themselves were pretty good. Fabrizio punted Spies out of the lead, and the race and Biaggi went on to win race 1. Crutchlow ran out of fuel on the 2nd last lap, leaving a four way tussle for the win in Supersport, with Ant West (aussie) going from 5th to 1st in a lap before getting pushed wide on the last corner and coming in 2nd behind Fabian Foret. In the 2nd superbike race, Spies was obviously not going to be anywhere near people likely to punt him off, and cleared out from the start, although Biaggi did make a late charge, it was always Spies’ race.
Getting back to the hostel was pretty easy, and I then went out to a steakhouse the girl who worked at the hostel. It was reasonably cheap and they had broccoli, which I hadn’t eaten since Perth, so while the steak was nothing special, it was still an okay meal.
The next morning I got up fairly early, quite excited to be leaving Brno. The only thing I can really say for it is that it is not full of tourists, like Prague, so most of the people you are seeing are Czech. With that is mind, the Czech women are pretty hot, and also as it is summer, they are all wearing those little summer dresses. Damn.
It was, all in all a very quiet weekend, as I avoided any sort of big night. The racing was great, and it was cool to see it. It did just kinda make me miss Nate and Billy as it would have been cool to have people to talk to, watch the race with, barrack with etc. I guess this closes sector one of my solo holiday and gives me an opportunity to look back on a few things I have noticed.
Berlin and Budapest are the bomb. I have now been to Groningen and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Berlin and Dresden in Germany, Prague, Cesky Krumlov and Brno in the Czech Republic, Vienna and Budapest. While in Berlin and in Budapest I actually looked up what sort of work was available for English speakers who don’t speak the local language. That’s how much I loved them. If the right job came along, I would live in either of those cities in a heartbeat.
There are shitloads of Aussies travelling around, and we don’t seem to mind doing it on our own. Of all the people that I have met that are solo travelers, there has only been one non-aussie. You don’t actually meet many locals as you travel around, except for the people who run the hostels. The best you can hope for is to maybe meet some Czech girls in Budapest or something like that.
European people wear awful jeans. I know this sounds like a weird observation, but it seems that standard stylish plain blue jeans with a good cut are not in fashion. People wear jeans with ridiculous paint all over them, or tears all through them, or the best one, with patches of green camouflage material sewn all over them. Eeeww.
Europe is gorgeous. I really haven’t seen a town that nearly picture perfect. Although, I must admit, I have only really been in city centres most of the time, where the old town is located. The history of each town is amazing, and although most places on the northern loop had to contend with forty odd years of communism, they are all remarkably modern, clean, efficient and prosperous.
Busabout is fantastic. I’m really glad I did Busabout as it makes it so easy to meet new people, yet gives you the flexibility to do exactly the trip you want to do. I’m looking forward to many drinks in Salzburg and Munich before heading down to Switzerland blowing wads of cash doing white water rafting and other extreme stuff.
I really miss my friends back in Perth. I love this lifestyle (who wouldn’t) and living out of a suitcase doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I don’t even miss my range of awesome t-shirts that I left in London, or TV (I do miss AFL a little). But I really miss going out for a ride with the boys, dragging Sara shopping with me, getting yelled at for walking too slow with Bec, having a joke about Cooper’s biological Dad with Trent and Tess and all the general hanging out with nothing to do and just having a good time with all my friends. You don’t get that here. A chilled out day is a wasted day, and that is a cardinal sin. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t know if I can do this for five years, and Nate getting the awesome promotion and move to Melbourne just makes me want to go back there more. I’ll definitely be here for the winter, as I’ve pretty much already got the job, and Canada will happen as if I don’t do it now I’ll never do it. I guess I’ll make the decision about the 2nd year in Canada, the year in South America and the 2 years working in the UK after that.
Well, that’s it for now. I’m waiting for the train to pull away from Breclav in the Czech Republic, and then I’ll be shortly be back in Austria. I hope I like the rest of Austria more than Vienna likes me, as I’ll be in this country for the whole winter.
I got into Brno after the Budapest/Vienna debacle at around 4pm. I had no real idea where my hostel was, but knew that it was close to the train station so I called the hostel and was given directions over the phone. Travellers hostel is only a hostel in the summer, at all other times it is a school. Hence, all the rooms are classrooms, complete with a cabinet which contains, I can only assume, shit that the kids have made. The beds look like they’ve been stolen from a pre WW1 hospital and they don’t have pillows. I know that it’s still better than sleeping on the ground, but I would’ve expected pillows for AUD$24. Plus, the showers are all together, so I’d better make sure I don’t drop any soap…
The first night I just went out and walked around Brno, taking a few photos and seeing the sights. I got an early night, going to bed and watching some of the movies I ripped of Ryan Hard drive in Budapest. This is a trip on my own, and as such, I am using it as down time. There will be no huge nights out. No heavy drinking sessions. There will be sleep. There will be bikes. Just the way I like it. And comes at a good time to recharge the batteries for section 2 of the trip as I have now lost all the friends I have made over the last six weeks on the bus and the best way to make new friends is to get smashed. It’s gonna be a boozy time in Salzburg and Munich.
On day two in Brno I got up and went out to the track for qualifying. The Automotodrom is a breathtaking race track, nestled in the Czech woods and full of elevation changes and sweeping corners. I would love to come back and ride it someday. They do track days here, but you have to have your own bike, which makes things a little difficult at the moment. Ben Spies had a cracker in Superpole, and would be the man to beat on Sunday.
Race day at the track and it still wasn’t anywhere as nuts as I would have expected. The crowd was adorned in a variety of shirts bearing the number 96 for Jakob Smrz, the Czech rider in Superbikes. I went into the paddock, and was stoked to see a bunch of riders and team bosses from less than 2m away. I won’t bore you with the names, but the standout was telling John Hopkins “welcome back to racing, Hopper” and having him reply, “thanks man”. The races themselves were pretty good. Fabrizio punted Spies out of the lead, and the race and Biaggi went on to win race 1. Crutchlow ran out of fuel on the 2nd last lap, leaving a four way tussle for the win in Supersport, with Ant West (aussie) going from 5th to 1st in a lap before getting pushed wide on the last corner and coming in 2nd behind Fabian Foret. In the 2nd superbike race, Spies was obviously not going to be anywhere near people likely to punt him off, and cleared out from the start, although Biaggi did make a late charge, it was always Spies’ race.
Getting back to the hostel was pretty easy, and I then went out to a steakhouse the girl who worked at the hostel. It was reasonably cheap and they had broccoli, which I hadn’t eaten since Perth, so while the steak was nothing special, it was still an okay meal.
The next morning I got up fairly early, quite excited to be leaving Brno. The only thing I can really say for it is that it is not full of tourists, like Prague, so most of the people you are seeing are Czech. With that is mind, the Czech women are pretty hot, and also as it is summer, they are all wearing those little summer dresses. Damn.
It was, all in all a very quiet weekend, as I avoided any sort of big night. The racing was great, and it was cool to see it. It did just kinda make me miss Nate and Billy as it would have been cool to have people to talk to, watch the race with, barrack with etc. I guess this closes sector one of my solo holiday and gives me an opportunity to look back on a few things I have noticed.
Berlin and Budapest are the bomb. I have now been to Groningen and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Berlin and Dresden in Germany, Prague, Cesky Krumlov and Brno in the Czech Republic, Vienna and Budapest. While in Berlin and in Budapest I actually looked up what sort of work was available for English speakers who don’t speak the local language. That’s how much I loved them. If the right job came along, I would live in either of those cities in a heartbeat.
There are shitloads of Aussies travelling around, and we don’t seem to mind doing it on our own. Of all the people that I have met that are solo travelers, there has only been one non-aussie. You don’t actually meet many locals as you travel around, except for the people who run the hostels. The best you can hope for is to maybe meet some Czech girls in Budapest or something like that.
European people wear awful jeans. I know this sounds like a weird observation, but it seems that standard stylish plain blue jeans with a good cut are not in fashion. People wear jeans with ridiculous paint all over them, or tears all through them, or the best one, with patches of green camouflage material sewn all over them. Eeeww.
Europe is gorgeous. I really haven’t seen a town that nearly picture perfect. Although, I must admit, I have only really been in city centres most of the time, where the old town is located. The history of each town is amazing, and although most places on the northern loop had to contend with forty odd years of communism, they are all remarkably modern, clean, efficient and prosperous.
Busabout is fantastic. I’m really glad I did Busabout as it makes it so easy to meet new people, yet gives you the flexibility to do exactly the trip you want to do. I’m looking forward to many drinks in Salzburg and Munich before heading down to Switzerland blowing wads of cash doing white water rafting and other extreme stuff.
I really miss my friends back in Perth. I love this lifestyle (who wouldn’t) and living out of a suitcase doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I don’t even miss my range of awesome t-shirts that I left in London, or TV (I do miss AFL a little). But I really miss going out for a ride with the boys, dragging Sara shopping with me, getting yelled at for walking too slow with Bec, having a joke about Cooper’s biological Dad with Trent and Tess and all the general hanging out with nothing to do and just having a good time with all my friends. You don’t get that here. A chilled out day is a wasted day, and that is a cardinal sin. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t know if I can do this for five years, and Nate getting the awesome promotion and move to Melbourne just makes me want to go back there more. I’ll definitely be here for the winter, as I’ve pretty much already got the job, and Canada will happen as if I don’t do it now I’ll never do it. I guess I’ll make the decision about the 2nd year in Canada, the year in South America and the 2 years working in the UK after that.
Well, that’s it for now. I’m waiting for the train to pull away from Breclav in the Czech Republic, and then I’ll be shortly be back in Austria. I hope I like the rest of Austria more than Vienna likes me, as I’ll be in this country for the whole winter.
Friday, July 24, 2009
The debacle - Getting from Budapest to Vienna and then Brno
The idea was to get back to Vienna on Thursday afternoon, get out to Spittelau to get my World Superbike tickets, and then jump back on a train to Brno, arriving Thursday night. This would give me a night to take it easy and get accustomed to Brno, where I expect the English to be fairly scratchy, and I’ll need time to get anywhere.
We all took it a little too easy leaving Budapest, so we missed the 11:10am train back to Vienna. The next one was at 1:10pm, so we caught that. Halfway to Vienna we realized that we were running 40min behind schedule, which would put me back at Vienna Westbahnhof at 5pm, and mean that I would be unlikely to get my tickets before the office shuts. I called Sara in Perth and she was nice enough to get me their number. I called, but it went through to message bank, which of course is all in German, so I don’t even know if it was the correct number. I don’t know my UK mobile number off the top of my head yet, so I had to get Hannah to read my number out to me as I was leaving a message, but she didn’t give me that last digit as her phone didn’t display it. At that point I didn’t care, because I figured if you’re not answering your phone at 4pm, then you’ve already gone home.
We arrived into Vienna at 5pm and I ran to the Metro line to get to Spittelau, but the instructions were in my laptop and I hadn’t looked at them for a while. I knew it was on the brown line, but I couldn’t remember which termination it was. Both trains were at the platform going either way. I chose one and jumped on. I chose wrong. So I had to get off at the next stop, and change platforms, eventually getting to the GPticketshop.com offices at 5:30pm. Nobody was there. Christopher was fucked.
I returned back to Wombats hostel to find that there were no rooms available, but I did manage to get a room in a hostel around the corner. Hannah, Jaz, Kas, Ryan and me all went out for a few drinks at the travel shack that evening, and I must say that I was glad to have one more night to hang out with those guys, Hannah especially as we’ve been travelling together since Amsterdam and she’s become like my little sister. I won’t catch her again when I get back from Brno, as she’s off to Italy and I make my way down to Spain. But I guess that’s the best and worst thing about Busabout. You’re always meeting people, but you’re always losing people too.
The next morning I got out to the GPticketshop.com offices at 9:30 and picked up my tickets. They had got my message the night before, but couldn’t call me due to my number not being complete. That was more than a little irritating, but I got my gear and got a tram to Sudbahnhof to catch the train to Brno.
When I got to Sudbahnhof I was informed that the train was 40 minutes late. This turned out to be an hour. Vienna hates me. And I’m starting to hate it back.
We all took it a little too easy leaving Budapest, so we missed the 11:10am train back to Vienna. The next one was at 1:10pm, so we caught that. Halfway to Vienna we realized that we were running 40min behind schedule, which would put me back at Vienna Westbahnhof at 5pm, and mean that I would be unlikely to get my tickets before the office shuts. I called Sara in Perth and she was nice enough to get me their number. I called, but it went through to message bank, which of course is all in German, so I don’t even know if it was the correct number. I don’t know my UK mobile number off the top of my head yet, so I had to get Hannah to read my number out to me as I was leaving a message, but she didn’t give me that last digit as her phone didn’t display it. At that point I didn’t care, because I figured if you’re not answering your phone at 4pm, then you’ve already gone home.
We arrived into Vienna at 5pm and I ran to the Metro line to get to Spittelau, but the instructions were in my laptop and I hadn’t looked at them for a while. I knew it was on the brown line, but I couldn’t remember which termination it was. Both trains were at the platform going either way. I chose one and jumped on. I chose wrong. So I had to get off at the next stop, and change platforms, eventually getting to the GPticketshop.com offices at 5:30pm. Nobody was there. Christopher was fucked.
I returned back to Wombats hostel to find that there were no rooms available, but I did manage to get a room in a hostel around the corner. Hannah, Jaz, Kas, Ryan and me all went out for a few drinks at the travel shack that evening, and I must say that I was glad to have one more night to hang out with those guys, Hannah especially as we’ve been travelling together since Amsterdam and she’s become like my little sister. I won’t catch her again when I get back from Brno, as she’s off to Italy and I make my way down to Spain. But I guess that’s the best and worst thing about Busabout. You’re always meeting people, but you’re always losing people too.
The next morning I got out to the GPticketshop.com offices at 9:30 and picked up my tickets. They had got my message the night before, but couldn’t call me due to my number not being complete. That was more than a little irritating, but I got my gear and got a tram to Sudbahnhof to catch the train to Brno.
When I got to Sudbahnhof I was informed that the train was 40 minutes late. This turned out to be an hour. Vienna hates me. And I’m starting to hate it back.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Budapest – One place. Two cities. All sorts of awesome.
Something I think I knew but had long since forgotten is that Budapest is actually 2 cities. Buda, the old town nestled in rolling hills and cliffs, dominated by the castle district looks eastward over the Danube to flat, modern Pest. Also, the name Budapest is always mispronounced. The ‘s’ sound in Hungarian is written as ‘sz’ and ‘s’ in Hungarian is pronounced ‘sh’. Hence, Budapest is pronounced ‘Budapesht’ by the locals.
Enough of the pointless facts. This place rocks. We all know how much I loved Berlin, but Budapest is cheaper, prettier, has a more temperate climate and is just as full of gorgeous women. However, English is less prevalent (I still got by with no major issues), the history is less impressive and its language is nigh on impossible to learn. Either way, Budapest is a fantastic city, and the equal of any other European capital.
We got into Budapest at around 4pm and after speaking to the tourist information office at the Keleti train station we figured out roughly where we had to go. Once we found the correct train line we were on our way on Budapest’s extremely efficient public transport system. We got off at the correct stop to be about 400m away from our hostel, Good Morning Budapest, according to Google maps. Google maps was wrong and we walked up the street for another two blocks before we decided that Ryan, Kas and Hannah would sit down at the Irish pub on the corner while I continued to look for the hostel. After walking up and down the street for another 15minutes I remembered that I had cancelled my Sunday night’s stay and would have their phone number in my phone. I got hold of Esther, the girl from the hostel and she directed me to where I had to go. As I thought I had found it she asked if I was wearing a blue t-shirt (which I was) and I looked up to see her waving from the third floor of a building with absolutely no signage. I got the other guys from the pub, which as it turns out was directly across the road and we went to Good Morning Budapest. It had hostel written in magic marker on the buzzer and that would be the only way to tell there is a hostel there. We were buzzed in and looked if a dank smelling hallway, we walked through seeing a rundown cement outdoor area filled with weeds and went up the old marble spiral staircase. At this point I was internalizing my worries at the quality of the hostel, while Hannah was vocalizing her fears that we had made a mistake. However we walked through the door to the hostel on the third floor and found a clean, new hostel with a great kitchen and free internet and wifi. Esther welcomed us, we unpacked, and sat down in Budapest, pleased with our efforts of not getting completely lost and having a nice hostel to use as our base from with to explore.
That evening we walked down to the Parliament building, which is a brilliant piece of neo gothic architecture and walked along the Danube on the Pest side down to Vorosmarty square. The city was gorgeous, bathed in the crimson sunset, the spires of the numerous cathedrals on the Buda side cutting through the orange light reflecting off the Danube and the buildings along the Pest foreshore. At Vorosmarty square we caught the Yellow metro line up to Octagon and ate a cheap fantastic meal at Kocisma Kiado. The urinal in the Kocisma had a cushion at the wall at head height, so if you were too drunk to stand up straight you could just lean your head against it while taking a piss. I don’t know about the cleanliness of such an idea, but it’s a bit of lateral thinking on their part.
The next morning we went out for breakfast, where a full English breakfast (admittedly not a huge serving) cost me about 6 Australian dollars. After that good, cheap breakfast we got the metro up to Heroes square where we took a bunch of photos and walked around the city park, finding one of the natural hot spring fed baths in Budapest and a few market stalls. After going back to our hostel to get our swimwear we got some lunch, where I had a traditional Hungarian dish made with veal, dumpling and spiced with paprika (yes, it was awesome) we went to the Baths. Two pools are fed directly from the hot springs and therefore hover at around 38’C, the pool in the middle is basically the standard temperature you would expect for a pool on a 32’ day. It was great fun at the baths, especially when we tried to create our own whirl pool and when we started messing around with the underwater camera.
At about 6:30 we made our way home and got ready to go out on the town. The Hungarian Formula 1 race was on this weekend, so there was heaps of stuff going on. We planned to hit up a few clubs on our way down to a rave that was happening on a mutherfucking boat. The guy in our hostel said he likes a place called Morrison’s 2, which did 500forint (about $3.50AUD) cocktails before 9pm. As it was 8:00 by the time we were ready, we headed down there, with instructions for Mel and Jasmine, who were staying at another hostel, to meet us there. We arrived and immediately bought 4 cocktails each. This night was going to get loose.
Mel and Jaz arrived, we drank our cocktails and headed to a bar called Godor. It is a public square in central Pest where all the train lines converge. The bar is actually under the pond and has a glass ceiling so you can look up through the water. The whole outdoor square is also full of people, drinking their alcohol either bought at local convenience stores or the removable bars set up around the square. We started talking to some English guys who are driving from London to Beijing, although, they are ditching the Land cruiser in Kazakhstan and taking a train the rest of the way.
After Godor, Mel decided to call it a night and go back to the hostel, while we set off to look for a summer bar that is set up in the university square. Unfortunately we had lost our book with the directions, and hence had to stop some people and ask them, also unfortunately, they had no idea what we were talking about, but after a few wrong turns and some crankiness, we finally found it and sat down for a drink. Hannah and Jaz sat next to a table full of Hungarian dudes and started talking to them. It all seemed in pretty good fun, but afterwards we were told that they wanted us to save them. Why is it that women don’t know that men rarely pay attention to sideways glances and innuendo? If you want something done, tell us!
After leaving Treffort, we had to make the very long trek to the motherfucking boat club, known as A38. After a long walk across a bridge, where we passed a club under the bridge on the Buda side that was absolutely banging, foolishly we decided to carry on to the boat. However, by the time we got to the boat, it was only 1:30am, but they were closing and they were not letting anyone else on. Quite a disappointment, as we’d heard numerous reports that it was a really cool club. And it did look cool. From the outside. It was, however, 1:30am on a Tuesday night, in a city that only has a slightly higher population than Perth, so I can’t be too upset.
We walked up to the nearest bridge where the tram would take us back to our hostel, only to find the trams were no longer running at 2am. A bus pulled up in front of a crowd of about 50 people outside a nearby club called Rio. We decided to jump on the bus too and see where it goes. It was going in the right direction, and if it stayed on that road it would take us within a block of our hostel, so we ran to the bus and climbed aboard with fifty inebriated Hungarians. To our great relief, the bus never turned off the main road and we were home within 10 minutes without spending a dollar on a taxi. Brilliant.
The next morning we headed out to the supermarket quite early and bought a bunch of food to cook up a big, delicious breakfast. Hannah cracked the shits that she couldn’t find pancake mix, but it was a kick ass breakfast all the same. We then headed out for the free walking tour of Budapest. It was probably the worst tour I’ve been on. One of the girls running the tour was hot and really friendly as I spent most of the time walking along talking to her. However the delivery seemed amateurish and was filled with the same info over and over again. It was unfortunate as the places we walked to such and the Buda castle at the top of the hills and St Matthias cathedral are really beautiful, and probably has heaps of interesting stories attached to them.
That night we had planned to go on the pub crawl, but we were the only people who turned up, hence it became pointless for us to pay 3500forint for a pub crawl that would be just us. The guys running the pub crawl were pretty nice and took as to the first pub anyway, which was called Instant and was in what looked to be an old apartment building. The interior ground floors was all bar and standard seating areas, where the stairs went up to rooms with lounges and chairs in smaller, dimly lit rooms. I picked up Jaz, who was running late and we then headed to another bar which the pub crawl guys said was pretty good, called Szimpla (pronounced simpla). After a few drinks at the bohemian Szimpla, which was a warehouse shells full of lounges, fuseball table and car shells altered to be seated areas and tables, we ran into Kelly, who had been at our last few stops with Busabout, but had just come from two days in Bratislava. She was on a pub crawl organized by her hostel, and they informed us of the next place they would be going which was a big club with a roof garden chillout area at the top.
We left Szimpla and Hannah decided she wanted to go back to the hostel as she was feeling sick, so we gave her directions to stay on main roads and let her walk the 5 blocks back to the hostel. We arrived at the big nightclub and went up the dimly lit rooftop bar. Jaz had some mini cards in her purse so we sat there drinking, laughing and playing bullshit for a few hours. We were all having a great time, laughing loudly and often, but we still had an inebriated Hungarian girl come and ask us if the club was so boring that we needed to play cards. We explained that this was a chillout area, and it was actually quite fun. We asked her to join us, but I don’t think she saw the allure of playing bullshit with a bunch of Aussies and a Brit at a rooftop bar in the middle of Budapest at 2am. I walked Jasmine home at the end of the night, whereas Ryan and Kas decided to go to Jolly Rogers, the local strip club. As I found out the next morning, they soon wish they hadn’t as it was a very expensive beer, and one of their more uncomfortable experiences of their holiday.
We packed up all our stuff the next day. Said goodbye to the girl at the Hostel, who’s name I can pronounce, but would have no idea how to write in English. All three of the girls that worked at Good Morning Budapest were smoking hotties, and very pleasant, even when we were ringing the bell to get let back into the hostel at four in the morning, so that’s one more pleasant memory from Hungary.
As far as Budapest goes, I will come here again. It’s everything Prague promised to be. It’s beautiful. It’s cheap. It’s not full of tourists. It is full of lovely people who are friendly and happy to help. It’s the country that initiated the fall of the iron curtain. It’s full of great bars and clubs and gorgeous girls. It’s Buda. It’s Pest. It’s awesome. It’s Budapest.
Enough of the pointless facts. This place rocks. We all know how much I loved Berlin, but Budapest is cheaper, prettier, has a more temperate climate and is just as full of gorgeous women. However, English is less prevalent (I still got by with no major issues), the history is less impressive and its language is nigh on impossible to learn. Either way, Budapest is a fantastic city, and the equal of any other European capital.
We got into Budapest at around 4pm and after speaking to the tourist information office at the Keleti train station we figured out roughly where we had to go. Once we found the correct train line we were on our way on Budapest’s extremely efficient public transport system. We got off at the correct stop to be about 400m away from our hostel, Good Morning Budapest, according to Google maps. Google maps was wrong and we walked up the street for another two blocks before we decided that Ryan, Kas and Hannah would sit down at the Irish pub on the corner while I continued to look for the hostel. After walking up and down the street for another 15minutes I remembered that I had cancelled my Sunday night’s stay and would have their phone number in my phone. I got hold of Esther, the girl from the hostel and she directed me to where I had to go. As I thought I had found it she asked if I was wearing a blue t-shirt (which I was) and I looked up to see her waving from the third floor of a building with absolutely no signage. I got the other guys from the pub, which as it turns out was directly across the road and we went to Good Morning Budapest. It had hostel written in magic marker on the buzzer and that would be the only way to tell there is a hostel there. We were buzzed in and looked if a dank smelling hallway, we walked through seeing a rundown cement outdoor area filled with weeds and went up the old marble spiral staircase. At this point I was internalizing my worries at the quality of the hostel, while Hannah was vocalizing her fears that we had made a mistake. However we walked through the door to the hostel on the third floor and found a clean, new hostel with a great kitchen and free internet and wifi. Esther welcomed us, we unpacked, and sat down in Budapest, pleased with our efforts of not getting completely lost and having a nice hostel to use as our base from with to explore.
That evening we walked down to the Parliament building, which is a brilliant piece of neo gothic architecture and walked along the Danube on the Pest side down to Vorosmarty square. The city was gorgeous, bathed in the crimson sunset, the spires of the numerous cathedrals on the Buda side cutting through the orange light reflecting off the Danube and the buildings along the Pest foreshore. At Vorosmarty square we caught the Yellow metro line up to Octagon and ate a cheap fantastic meal at Kocisma Kiado. The urinal in the Kocisma had a cushion at the wall at head height, so if you were too drunk to stand up straight you could just lean your head against it while taking a piss. I don’t know about the cleanliness of such an idea, but it’s a bit of lateral thinking on their part.
The next morning we went out for breakfast, where a full English breakfast (admittedly not a huge serving) cost me about 6 Australian dollars. After that good, cheap breakfast we got the metro up to Heroes square where we took a bunch of photos and walked around the city park, finding one of the natural hot spring fed baths in Budapest and a few market stalls. After going back to our hostel to get our swimwear we got some lunch, where I had a traditional Hungarian dish made with veal, dumpling and spiced with paprika (yes, it was awesome) we went to the Baths. Two pools are fed directly from the hot springs and therefore hover at around 38’C, the pool in the middle is basically the standard temperature you would expect for a pool on a 32’ day. It was great fun at the baths, especially when we tried to create our own whirl pool and when we started messing around with the underwater camera.
At about 6:30 we made our way home and got ready to go out on the town. The Hungarian Formula 1 race was on this weekend, so there was heaps of stuff going on. We planned to hit up a few clubs on our way down to a rave that was happening on a mutherfucking boat. The guy in our hostel said he likes a place called Morrison’s 2, which did 500forint (about $3.50AUD) cocktails before 9pm. As it was 8:00 by the time we were ready, we headed down there, with instructions for Mel and Jasmine, who were staying at another hostel, to meet us there. We arrived and immediately bought 4 cocktails each. This night was going to get loose.
Mel and Jaz arrived, we drank our cocktails and headed to a bar called Godor. It is a public square in central Pest where all the train lines converge. The bar is actually under the pond and has a glass ceiling so you can look up through the water. The whole outdoor square is also full of people, drinking their alcohol either bought at local convenience stores or the removable bars set up around the square. We started talking to some English guys who are driving from London to Beijing, although, they are ditching the Land cruiser in Kazakhstan and taking a train the rest of the way.
After Godor, Mel decided to call it a night and go back to the hostel, while we set off to look for a summer bar that is set up in the university square. Unfortunately we had lost our book with the directions, and hence had to stop some people and ask them, also unfortunately, they had no idea what we were talking about, but after a few wrong turns and some crankiness, we finally found it and sat down for a drink. Hannah and Jaz sat next to a table full of Hungarian dudes and started talking to them. It all seemed in pretty good fun, but afterwards we were told that they wanted us to save them. Why is it that women don’t know that men rarely pay attention to sideways glances and innuendo? If you want something done, tell us!
After leaving Treffort, we had to make the very long trek to the motherfucking boat club, known as A38. After a long walk across a bridge, where we passed a club under the bridge on the Buda side that was absolutely banging, foolishly we decided to carry on to the boat. However, by the time we got to the boat, it was only 1:30am, but they were closing and they were not letting anyone else on. Quite a disappointment, as we’d heard numerous reports that it was a really cool club. And it did look cool. From the outside. It was, however, 1:30am on a Tuesday night, in a city that only has a slightly higher population than Perth, so I can’t be too upset.
We walked up to the nearest bridge where the tram would take us back to our hostel, only to find the trams were no longer running at 2am. A bus pulled up in front of a crowd of about 50 people outside a nearby club called Rio. We decided to jump on the bus too and see where it goes. It was going in the right direction, and if it stayed on that road it would take us within a block of our hostel, so we ran to the bus and climbed aboard with fifty inebriated Hungarians. To our great relief, the bus never turned off the main road and we were home within 10 minutes without spending a dollar on a taxi. Brilliant.
The next morning we headed out to the supermarket quite early and bought a bunch of food to cook up a big, delicious breakfast. Hannah cracked the shits that she couldn’t find pancake mix, but it was a kick ass breakfast all the same. We then headed out for the free walking tour of Budapest. It was probably the worst tour I’ve been on. One of the girls running the tour was hot and really friendly as I spent most of the time walking along talking to her. However the delivery seemed amateurish and was filled with the same info over and over again. It was unfortunate as the places we walked to such and the Buda castle at the top of the hills and St Matthias cathedral are really beautiful, and probably has heaps of interesting stories attached to them.
That night we had planned to go on the pub crawl, but we were the only people who turned up, hence it became pointless for us to pay 3500forint for a pub crawl that would be just us. The guys running the pub crawl were pretty nice and took as to the first pub anyway, which was called Instant and was in what looked to be an old apartment building. The interior ground floors was all bar and standard seating areas, where the stairs went up to rooms with lounges and chairs in smaller, dimly lit rooms. I picked up Jaz, who was running late and we then headed to another bar which the pub crawl guys said was pretty good, called Szimpla (pronounced simpla). After a few drinks at the bohemian Szimpla, which was a warehouse shells full of lounges, fuseball table and car shells altered to be seated areas and tables, we ran into Kelly, who had been at our last few stops with Busabout, but had just come from two days in Bratislava. She was on a pub crawl organized by her hostel, and they informed us of the next place they would be going which was a big club with a roof garden chillout area at the top.
We left Szimpla and Hannah decided she wanted to go back to the hostel as she was feeling sick, so we gave her directions to stay on main roads and let her walk the 5 blocks back to the hostel. We arrived at the big nightclub and went up the dimly lit rooftop bar. Jaz had some mini cards in her purse so we sat there drinking, laughing and playing bullshit for a few hours. We were all having a great time, laughing loudly and often, but we still had an inebriated Hungarian girl come and ask us if the club was so boring that we needed to play cards. We explained that this was a chillout area, and it was actually quite fun. We asked her to join us, but I don’t think she saw the allure of playing bullshit with a bunch of Aussies and a Brit at a rooftop bar in the middle of Budapest at 2am. I walked Jasmine home at the end of the night, whereas Ryan and Kas decided to go to Jolly Rogers, the local strip club. As I found out the next morning, they soon wish they hadn’t as it was a very expensive beer, and one of their more uncomfortable experiences of their holiday.
We packed up all our stuff the next day. Said goodbye to the girl at the Hostel, who’s name I can pronounce, but would have no idea how to write in English. All three of the girls that worked at Good Morning Budapest were smoking hotties, and very pleasant, even when we were ringing the bell to get let back into the hostel at four in the morning, so that’s one more pleasant memory from Hungary.
As far as Budapest goes, I will come here again. It’s everything Prague promised to be. It’s beautiful. It’s cheap. It’s not full of tourists. It is full of lovely people who are friendly and happy to help. It’s the country that initiated the fall of the iron curtain. It’s full of great bars and clubs and gorgeous girls. It’s Buda. It’s Pest. It’s awesome. It’s Budapest.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Vienna – Where it all came crashing down
I rolled into 32’ heat and a hostel that didn’t have airconditioning when I arrived in Vienna o n Friday night. I was still sporting a sore throat that had hung around since Dresden and was feeling like it was moving its way towards my lungs. After checking in and taking a shower I organized a few things and then headed out for some 6 euro schnitzel down the street with a bunch of the people off our bus.
The schnitzel was good, and after the meal everyone headed down to the travel shack, which is a bar specifically for backpackers and tourists. It immediately struck me as the shittest bar in Australia, just in Vienna. I was in no mood for drinking and without some serious drunkenness, this pub would remain completely unacceptable. A few of us decided to head into the city for the evening and look around. Vienna is a city filled with beautiful and overly excessive buildings, thanks to the ruling Habsburgs centuries of decadence as the rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
The next day I was feeling significantly sicker, but went out to do some shopping with Hannah and Nic. I needed sunglasses after losing two pairs to the Vltava and had decided to go something adequately stupid like mirrored aviators. At around 11am it started absolutely pissing down with rain. We had gone from 32’ and hot to 16’ and wet in one day. We spent the rest of the day at the hostel working out what we would do for the rest of our trips. I have now decided that I will be going to La Tomatina. This decision cost me about $400 for the accommodation and the bus for the 40km out to Bunol, which is the town where La Tomatina occurs on the last Wednesday in August every year. I then had many other things to re-arrange as hanging around on the west coast of Spain waiting for La Tomatina means certain other things get thrown around. I now have flights to Paris to meet Kate, Porto where Nic and I will catch a train down the Lagos for a few days before going up to Lisbon for 2 days, then back to Madrid, out to Stuttgart in order to catch the train to Salzburg for my 3 week trial at Alpen-rider in the Austrian Alps, over the Oktoberfest period. That night we all went out to see the new Harry Potter movie at the English cinema down the road from our hostel. We were sat 2 rows from the front and the movie had an interval. Other than that, it wasn’t anything special.
The next morning I woke up sicker than ever, even though I’d been off the turps for 2 days and hadn’t been doing anything strenuous. I was supposed to do a grape and winery tour that I had already paid 48euro for, but I needed to be smart and see a doctor. I would be in Hungary the next day, and four days later in backwater Czech Republic, so this would be my last chance for over a week to easily see an English speaking doctor. The doctor quickly diagnosed me with a bacterial throat and lung infection, charged me 80euro and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. So before the day had even started I was down about 150 euros, plus the fact that I was only staying in Vienna on the Sunday night as I was supposed to be doing the Grape tour. Not happy.
As it turned out, Charlie, the girl I had met in Dresden, was in Vienna for some dance workshops as part on the Vienna dance festival and I got to hang out with her all day. It was a very amusing and affronting day as we both like to search for the other person’s weakness and pick at it for our own amusement. It meant that my conversation revolved around her propensity to have her mouth open in all her photos, how her ‘self cut’ haircut was awful, and how her clothing resembled that of a hobo. Her conversation on the other hand revolved around the pigment fluctuations of my skin, my tiny hands and my age. We both took it all with and laugh and had a great day looking around at all of the buildings, beauty and overpriced food and drink that Vienna had to offer.
That night Nic and I sat down and booked all of our accommodation for Portugal in September. It looks like that is going to be an absolute blast. A couple of the other travelers we have met along the way look like they’ll be meeting us in Lagos so that should be mad fun, and it will be good to have some last minute partying before I have to work for three weeks and be responsible in Austria.
The next morning I woke up with a killer sore next as I slept head to toe with Hannah due to her not wanting to pay for another night in Vienna while waiting to go to Budapest because of my misadventure with the grape tour. I had no problem with this, apart from the fact that she stole the pillow, but at least my throat and chest we feeling better so I was confident I would be back to full fitness for at least some of my time in Budapest.
We said our goodbyes to Nic and some of the other travelers and made our way to the train station to get our tickets to Budapest. Tickets Hannah had ensured us were 38 euro. We got to the counter to find out they are 70 euro. Vienna. It’s a really pretty city, and I can see the quality of life would be excellent if you lived and worked here, but damn it knows how to suck the cash out of your wallet.
The schnitzel was good, and after the meal everyone headed down to the travel shack, which is a bar specifically for backpackers and tourists. It immediately struck me as the shittest bar in Australia, just in Vienna. I was in no mood for drinking and without some serious drunkenness, this pub would remain completely unacceptable. A few of us decided to head into the city for the evening and look around. Vienna is a city filled with beautiful and overly excessive buildings, thanks to the ruling Habsburgs centuries of decadence as the rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
The next day I was feeling significantly sicker, but went out to do some shopping with Hannah and Nic. I needed sunglasses after losing two pairs to the Vltava and had decided to go something adequately stupid like mirrored aviators. At around 11am it started absolutely pissing down with rain. We had gone from 32’ and hot to 16’ and wet in one day. We spent the rest of the day at the hostel working out what we would do for the rest of our trips. I have now decided that I will be going to La Tomatina. This decision cost me about $400 for the accommodation and the bus for the 40km out to Bunol, which is the town where La Tomatina occurs on the last Wednesday in August every year. I then had many other things to re-arrange as hanging around on the west coast of Spain waiting for La Tomatina means certain other things get thrown around. I now have flights to Paris to meet Kate, Porto where Nic and I will catch a train down the Lagos for a few days before going up to Lisbon for 2 days, then back to Madrid, out to Stuttgart in order to catch the train to Salzburg for my 3 week trial at Alpen-rider in the Austrian Alps, over the Oktoberfest period. That night we all went out to see the new Harry Potter movie at the English cinema down the road from our hostel. We were sat 2 rows from the front and the movie had an interval. Other than that, it wasn’t anything special.
The next morning I woke up sicker than ever, even though I’d been off the turps for 2 days and hadn’t been doing anything strenuous. I was supposed to do a grape and winery tour that I had already paid 48euro for, but I needed to be smart and see a doctor. I would be in Hungary the next day, and four days later in backwater Czech Republic, so this would be my last chance for over a week to easily see an English speaking doctor. The doctor quickly diagnosed me with a bacterial throat and lung infection, charged me 80euro and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. So before the day had even started I was down about 150 euros, plus the fact that I was only staying in Vienna on the Sunday night as I was supposed to be doing the Grape tour. Not happy.
As it turned out, Charlie, the girl I had met in Dresden, was in Vienna for some dance workshops as part on the Vienna dance festival and I got to hang out with her all day. It was a very amusing and affronting day as we both like to search for the other person’s weakness and pick at it for our own amusement. It meant that my conversation revolved around her propensity to have her mouth open in all her photos, how her ‘self cut’ haircut was awful, and how her clothing resembled that of a hobo. Her conversation on the other hand revolved around the pigment fluctuations of my skin, my tiny hands and my age. We both took it all with and laugh and had a great day looking around at all of the buildings, beauty and overpriced food and drink that Vienna had to offer.
That night Nic and I sat down and booked all of our accommodation for Portugal in September. It looks like that is going to be an absolute blast. A couple of the other travelers we have met along the way look like they’ll be meeting us in Lagos so that should be mad fun, and it will be good to have some last minute partying before I have to work for three weeks and be responsible in Austria.
The next morning I woke up with a killer sore next as I slept head to toe with Hannah due to her not wanting to pay for another night in Vienna while waiting to go to Budapest because of my misadventure with the grape tour. I had no problem with this, apart from the fact that she stole the pillow, but at least my throat and chest we feeling better so I was confident I would be back to full fitness for at least some of my time in Budapest.
We said our goodbyes to Nic and some of the other travelers and made our way to the train station to get our tickets to Budapest. Tickets Hannah had ensured us were 38 euro. We got to the counter to find out they are 70 euro. Vienna. It’s a really pretty city, and I can see the quality of life would be excellent if you lived and worked here, but damn it knows how to suck the cash out of your wallet.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Cesky Krumlov – The Greatest and most Awesome town on Earth
I may have many things to thank Belle for. She was an enormous part of my life for a very long time and someone that will always be special to me, whether we ever live in the same city again or not. About a year ago I received an sms from Belle in the middle of the night telling me of the fantastic day she had on a rafting pub crawl in a small town called Czech Republic, and how she wished I was there to experience it. Due to this recommendation I ensured I would have four days in Cesky Krumlov, and it has been the best time of my trip so far. So thank you for that message, Belle. You were right. Cesky Krumlov rocks.
We arrived in Cesky at about lunchtime and were immediately bonded as a group of about twenty busabouters in this tiny fairytale town near the Austrian border of Czech Republic. The hostel was built in the 13th century and was once part of the city wall, then turned into a hospital, and finally the hostel which it is now. The staff was fantastic, and it was finally that storied hostel experience I was waiting for. Large dorms, good kitchen and great outdoor area meant that everyone socialized with everyone. It was not a cheap hotel with no bathroom in your room, which is what you get at most hostels. It was a traveler’s hostel where everyone had talked to everyone by the time they left.
We got some lunch near the Vlatava River and then went up to the castle. The bear pits, much to my surprise still have bears in them, and the castle, which is the second largest in Czech, has absolutely amazing view out over the town and the valley it sits in. After walking through the castle complex,, astounded by the beauty of the place and taking some silly photos in the superbly manicured castle gardens, we went back to the hostel to make some dinner. Everyone quickly started to get drunk and we continued to bond with drinking games and card games and helping each other cook. The food was as fantastic as the company and loss that I had felt over the past month having lost my brilliant group of close friends that I left in Perth was eased slightly by this new bunch of people from all over the world (mostly Australia and New Zealand) as we talked and drank the night away.
The next day Craig, Hannah and myself were driven up the highest mountain in the area and given kickbikes to make our own way down the mountain back to the hostel. A kickbike is like a cross between a scooter and a mountain bike and when shooting downhill can pick up some serious speed. There were a couple of hairy moments with some blind corners, but we all safely made it back in time for the rafting.
The rafting is what every has heard about Cesky Krumlov, and with good reason. It is freaking awesome. Groups of between 6-10 people are put in a dingy with a few oars and pushed into the river, where you will paddle from campsite to campsite along the river. Each campsite sells food and beer and if you’re smart you’ve brought some of your own beers to have along the way also. The result is a rafting trip where the only effort you need exert is occasionally steering the boat and tying it to the shore and the campsites. At the beginning of the day, everyone is sober, but nobody knows what they are doing so you will hit a few trees, then in the middle you get the hang of it, then by the end you are so drunk that it all starts to go to shit again, but as you’re so drunk, nobody cares.
The third leg was very eventful for our boat. About 5 minutes down the river, Helen realized she had left her purse at the last stop, and wanted to go back for it. The rest of the boat had to let her know that there was no way we could get back there as the current is very strong, so we continued. Then realized we had lost an oar, which we then saw float past the boat and into a nearby area of reeds, we paddled over there and I got out to get the oar, giving my Ducati Oakley’s to Courtney. I got the oar, but the boat was so far into the reeds, that all the guys had to get out of the boat so it floated enough to get us out. As we pushed through the reeds my glasses got brushed off Courtney’s head and fell to the bottom of the Vlatava. Never to be seen again. After looking for them briefly it was time to let them go and we continued, only to find that somewhere along the way we had lost our three remaining beers.
By the end of the day, we were all drunk. We were all injured in some way, as the Vlatava is quite shallow, very fast flowing and rocky. We were all wet. We were all hungry. We were all aware that we had just experienced one of the greatest days of our respective holidays. Having made single serving holiday friends that may now become actual friends, and memories that we would never lose. Back at the hostel we continued the party for a little while, as most people said that they would extend their stay in Cesky. I however was glad that I still had two days left.
The next morning the reality of extending had sunk in and everybody realized that they had plans which could not be changed. So I lost my new crew at noon when the bus rocked up, taking my new friends away and bringing me people that would soon be my friends, such in the nature and power of Cesky Krumlov. Steve and Nic, whom I had met in Prague arrived with one of their friends, Ryan. I took them for a brief tour of town and then let them explore the castle as I was feeling like crap (not hungover, my throat has been awful since Berlin and would heal if only I would stop having so much fun!). I went back to the hostel and had a bit of a nap, before waking up for free beer Wednesday night. Yes, Free Beer. Hostel 99 at Cesky Krumlov. Gotta love it! I was thinking about having a Beer free day, but instead I had a free beer day. Oh well. That’s fun too. After a night filled with drinking, paying bullshit and listening to the live band in the bar playing really funky, beat filled Gypsy Music, I finally retired to bed.
The next day I awoke knowing that day four would be another day two but with different people. Nic, Steve, Ryan, myself and a few other did the kickbikes down the mountain. We then set up and went out on the rafts for another day of drunken water shenanigans. I tossed a few people in the water on the last leg, and once again lost my new el cheapo sunnies. It seems I owe the Vlatava eye protection for some reason.
That night we all went out to the local (and only) Discotheque. There was a bunch of very serious looking Czech watching out very crazy bunch of tourists dance around like dickheads on the dancefloor. Although one particularly hardcore female punter did jump up on the platform where a pole was fixed and start showing off some of the seedier dance moves in her arsenal, which did take the attention of most of the men. We left after about an hour and went back to the hostel and the club and music were shit and it was really hot up there. We walked home, soaking in a little of Cesky in the darkness of the cobbled street, with the only noise being our own chatter and the river rushing by.
The next morning it was time to pack up my stuff and move out. I handed my keys back to Alvaro, the manager, and thanked him for an amazing time. I let him know that if he was ever in need of staff, he should send me an email, as I would love to be able to work and live in Cesky for an extended period of time. I said my goodbyes to the new friends I had made that I was leaving behind and waited for the bus to arrive. With great pleasure I informed to new arrivals that they had made a brilliant decision, and that Cesky Krumlov would be a spot they would not soon forget.
We arrived in Cesky at about lunchtime and were immediately bonded as a group of about twenty busabouters in this tiny fairytale town near the Austrian border of Czech Republic. The hostel was built in the 13th century and was once part of the city wall, then turned into a hospital, and finally the hostel which it is now. The staff was fantastic, and it was finally that storied hostel experience I was waiting for. Large dorms, good kitchen and great outdoor area meant that everyone socialized with everyone. It was not a cheap hotel with no bathroom in your room, which is what you get at most hostels. It was a traveler’s hostel where everyone had talked to everyone by the time they left.
We got some lunch near the Vlatava River and then went up to the castle. The bear pits, much to my surprise still have bears in them, and the castle, which is the second largest in Czech, has absolutely amazing view out over the town and the valley it sits in. After walking through the castle complex,, astounded by the beauty of the place and taking some silly photos in the superbly manicured castle gardens, we went back to the hostel to make some dinner. Everyone quickly started to get drunk and we continued to bond with drinking games and card games and helping each other cook. The food was as fantastic as the company and loss that I had felt over the past month having lost my brilliant group of close friends that I left in Perth was eased slightly by this new bunch of people from all over the world (mostly Australia and New Zealand) as we talked and drank the night away.
The next day Craig, Hannah and myself were driven up the highest mountain in the area and given kickbikes to make our own way down the mountain back to the hostel. A kickbike is like a cross between a scooter and a mountain bike and when shooting downhill can pick up some serious speed. There were a couple of hairy moments with some blind corners, but we all safely made it back in time for the rafting.
The rafting is what every has heard about Cesky Krumlov, and with good reason. It is freaking awesome. Groups of between 6-10 people are put in a dingy with a few oars and pushed into the river, where you will paddle from campsite to campsite along the river. Each campsite sells food and beer and if you’re smart you’ve brought some of your own beers to have along the way also. The result is a rafting trip where the only effort you need exert is occasionally steering the boat and tying it to the shore and the campsites. At the beginning of the day, everyone is sober, but nobody knows what they are doing so you will hit a few trees, then in the middle you get the hang of it, then by the end you are so drunk that it all starts to go to shit again, but as you’re so drunk, nobody cares.
The third leg was very eventful for our boat. About 5 minutes down the river, Helen realized she had left her purse at the last stop, and wanted to go back for it. The rest of the boat had to let her know that there was no way we could get back there as the current is very strong, so we continued. Then realized we had lost an oar, which we then saw float past the boat and into a nearby area of reeds, we paddled over there and I got out to get the oar, giving my Ducati Oakley’s to Courtney. I got the oar, but the boat was so far into the reeds, that all the guys had to get out of the boat so it floated enough to get us out. As we pushed through the reeds my glasses got brushed off Courtney’s head and fell to the bottom of the Vlatava. Never to be seen again. After looking for them briefly it was time to let them go and we continued, only to find that somewhere along the way we had lost our three remaining beers.
By the end of the day, we were all drunk. We were all injured in some way, as the Vlatava is quite shallow, very fast flowing and rocky. We were all wet. We were all hungry. We were all aware that we had just experienced one of the greatest days of our respective holidays. Having made single serving holiday friends that may now become actual friends, and memories that we would never lose. Back at the hostel we continued the party for a little while, as most people said that they would extend their stay in Cesky. I however was glad that I still had two days left.
The next morning the reality of extending had sunk in and everybody realized that they had plans which could not be changed. So I lost my new crew at noon when the bus rocked up, taking my new friends away and bringing me people that would soon be my friends, such in the nature and power of Cesky Krumlov. Steve and Nic, whom I had met in Prague arrived with one of their friends, Ryan. I took them for a brief tour of town and then let them explore the castle as I was feeling like crap (not hungover, my throat has been awful since Berlin and would heal if only I would stop having so much fun!). I went back to the hostel and had a bit of a nap, before waking up for free beer Wednesday night. Yes, Free Beer. Hostel 99 at Cesky Krumlov. Gotta love it! I was thinking about having a Beer free day, but instead I had a free beer day. Oh well. That’s fun too. After a night filled with drinking, paying bullshit and listening to the live band in the bar playing really funky, beat filled Gypsy Music, I finally retired to bed.
The next day I awoke knowing that day four would be another day two but with different people. Nic, Steve, Ryan, myself and a few other did the kickbikes down the mountain. We then set up and went out on the rafts for another day of drunken water shenanigans. I tossed a few people in the water on the last leg, and once again lost my new el cheapo sunnies. It seems I owe the Vlatava eye protection for some reason.
That night we all went out to the local (and only) Discotheque. There was a bunch of very serious looking Czech watching out very crazy bunch of tourists dance around like dickheads on the dancefloor. Although one particularly hardcore female punter did jump up on the platform where a pole was fixed and start showing off some of the seedier dance moves in her arsenal, which did take the attention of most of the men. We left after about an hour and went back to the hostel and the club and music were shit and it was really hot up there. We walked home, soaking in a little of Cesky in the darkness of the cobbled street, with the only noise being our own chatter and the river rushing by.
The next morning it was time to pack up my stuff and move out. I handed my keys back to Alvaro, the manager, and thanked him for an amazing time. I let him know that if he was ever in need of staff, he should send me an email, as I would love to be able to work and live in Cesky for an extended period of time. I said my goodbyes to the new friends I had made that I was leaving behind and waited for the bus to arrive. With great pleasure I informed to new arrivals that they had made a brilliant decision, and that Cesky Krumlov would be a spot they would not soon forget.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Prague - The Beauty and the Beast
Upon arrival in Prague on Wednesday night I had planned to take it fairly easy, possibly go into town and take a look around, but nothing too serious. This changed when I bumped into David and Linton who I had met on the bus from Berlin a few days earlier. They had done the Prague pub crawl the night before and were wearing the T-shirts to prove it. They apparently had such a good time that they were going again, and after very little coercion I decided to go too.
So, my first night in Prague, I am led into town following David and Linton, when I get to where the pub crawl starts I am handed a pint of beer for myself and a 2 litre pitcher of beer to take to the town square to fill up other crawlers beers. I met a few girls from Kent, near London, which must produce some pretty awesome people as that’s where the Green’s spring from. By the time we got to the crawl bar where everything starts off with an hours of free beers, wine vodka and cranberry and absinthe shots, the night was already getting loose.
Nothing makes the ladies drop like flies like free shots and a lot of guys who want you to get drunk. I carried Laura, one of the Kent girls to the next bar, and then I think she went back to her hostel. She was followed soon after by another of her friends outside the next bar. Then Mel, a girl in Hannah’s room fell over in the street and lost the ability to walk. All in all only about 50% would have made it to the massive 6 level nightclub next to Charles Bridge. I was reasonably loose, but not messy as I had spent most of the evening with Holly, one of the Kent girls, while lost most of the people I had gone on the crawl with over the various levels. After a while I found myself outside the nightclub realizing that I had no map, no friends and no idea where I was. I started talking to a few guys from Bristol, which mostly consisted of me giving them shit as the English cricket team is crap. I finally caught up with Hannah around 4am and we got a taxi back to the hostel. Taxi drivers in the Czech Republic are nuts. The guy was on wet streets and he was absolutely flying along. Oh well. At least we got home quick.
The next day it took a little while to get going but I managed to make my out of the hostel to check out the city in the daylight. Prague is an absolutely beautiful place, but it is completely full of tourists and on that first day it did little to impress me apart from the fact that it is pretty and some nice old buildings. After going back to the hostel, Hannah and I went to the shops to get some food for dinner and after eating, realized that we both felt pretty average so decided not to go out again in the evening and start early the next morning. At about 1am the Irish girls in my room came in massively drunk and laughing themselves stupid. I can distinctly remember one of them yelling “Shot op, Kairtee” repeatedly, which made me chuckle, even though I was trying to sleep.
The next morning we had planned to go out the Kutna Hora, the town where the Ossuary (Bone Church) is located. I was a little disappointed by it, as somehow I had got the impression that it was built out of human bones, but instead it’s just a normal church that effectively uses human bones as some form of macabre Christmas decorations. I’m not disappointed that I saw it, as you’ll not see anything like that anywhere else in the world; however it all felt a little tacky to me. In the afternoon I went looking for a Vodafone as I needed some credit , however it turns out that Czech Vodafones only sell credit for Czech numbers, which didn’t help me much.
That evening Hannah, Clive and I went out to CrossClub, which is a Bar/Club near the hostel. It’s all decorated with car parts, with one room downstairs having moving car engines above the tables. The lights are integrated into the engines, and the whole place looks very cool. I started talking to some girls from the Midlands in the UK. This holiday though Europe was supposed to be about meeting people from different cultures, but I am quickly learning that unless I drastically change the way I behave, I will spend all my time talking to Aussies, Kiwis and the occasional Brit. Not that I’m all that bothered by it, as nearly everyone of met on this trip has been great fun.
On Saturday morning Hannah and I got up and did the bike tour of Prague. Both the bike tours of Berlin and Amsterdam had been fantastic, so I must admit that I probably did expect a fair bit from this, and was disappointed. The tour guide didn’t have fantastic English, he didn’t take us to what I would have thought would be must see sights, such and the Astronomical Clock, and most of his information was his personal stories about places, rather than information about why it was here and historical stories about the place. And we got rained on, which didn’t make me any happier.
That night we decided to do the Pub Crawl again as another busabout of people we knew had rolled in the night before and wanted to do the crawl. It went along in a similar fashion as the last time, except that went I walked out of the club at 4am, I had a map, and a clue. I decided to take the night tram home, and walked along through the streets of Prague to the tram stop. When I had arrived there it was a 20 minute wait for the tram so I decided to walk the 1 hour trek back to the hostel. It was actually hugely exciting and fulfilling to walk through the streets of a city I had always dreamed of, as if I was a local heading home after a big night. It was slightly less brilliant when it started to rain, but I was still very pleased with myself when I got back to the hostel.
The next morning I visited the Prague castle and this is where I really started to understand the amazing beauty of city. Looking down from the spectacular grounds of the castle, the huge amounts of annoying tourists and the poor customer service you will receive from pretty much everywhere fade into the background and I finally understood the amazing drawing power of the Czech capital. Prague is simply gorgeous. From every angle any views across the Vlatava and the city up to the Castle are unlike anything I have ever seen in the flesh. It was my fourth day in Prague, and only now was I finally appreciating the reason the place is packs with visitors, and why I would be sad to leave.
Sunday night came around and for my last night in Prague I went up to a beer garden that overlooks the whole city whit a few new friends from Busabout. After a few beers and I nice meal I walked through the city at night and took some photos of the beautiful central European capital at night. Prague belted me around a few nights, and her punches are hard and swift, but when she holds you in her arms, it’s hard to wish you were anywhere else.
So, my first night in Prague, I am led into town following David and Linton, when I get to where the pub crawl starts I am handed a pint of beer for myself and a 2 litre pitcher of beer to take to the town square to fill up other crawlers beers. I met a few girls from Kent, near London, which must produce some pretty awesome people as that’s where the Green’s spring from. By the time we got to the crawl bar where everything starts off with an hours of free beers, wine vodka and cranberry and absinthe shots, the night was already getting loose.
Nothing makes the ladies drop like flies like free shots and a lot of guys who want you to get drunk. I carried Laura, one of the Kent girls to the next bar, and then I think she went back to her hostel. She was followed soon after by another of her friends outside the next bar. Then Mel, a girl in Hannah’s room fell over in the street and lost the ability to walk. All in all only about 50% would have made it to the massive 6 level nightclub next to Charles Bridge. I was reasonably loose, but not messy as I had spent most of the evening with Holly, one of the Kent girls, while lost most of the people I had gone on the crawl with over the various levels. After a while I found myself outside the nightclub realizing that I had no map, no friends and no idea where I was. I started talking to a few guys from Bristol, which mostly consisted of me giving them shit as the English cricket team is crap. I finally caught up with Hannah around 4am and we got a taxi back to the hostel. Taxi drivers in the Czech Republic are nuts. The guy was on wet streets and he was absolutely flying along. Oh well. At least we got home quick.
The next day it took a little while to get going but I managed to make my out of the hostel to check out the city in the daylight. Prague is an absolutely beautiful place, but it is completely full of tourists and on that first day it did little to impress me apart from the fact that it is pretty and some nice old buildings. After going back to the hostel, Hannah and I went to the shops to get some food for dinner and after eating, realized that we both felt pretty average so decided not to go out again in the evening and start early the next morning. At about 1am the Irish girls in my room came in massively drunk and laughing themselves stupid. I can distinctly remember one of them yelling “Shot op, Kairtee” repeatedly, which made me chuckle, even though I was trying to sleep.
The next morning we had planned to go out the Kutna Hora, the town where the Ossuary (Bone Church) is located. I was a little disappointed by it, as somehow I had got the impression that it was built out of human bones, but instead it’s just a normal church that effectively uses human bones as some form of macabre Christmas decorations. I’m not disappointed that I saw it, as you’ll not see anything like that anywhere else in the world; however it all felt a little tacky to me. In the afternoon I went looking for a Vodafone as I needed some credit , however it turns out that Czech Vodafones only sell credit for Czech numbers, which didn’t help me much.
That evening Hannah, Clive and I went out to CrossClub, which is a Bar/Club near the hostel. It’s all decorated with car parts, with one room downstairs having moving car engines above the tables. The lights are integrated into the engines, and the whole place looks very cool. I started talking to some girls from the Midlands in the UK. This holiday though Europe was supposed to be about meeting people from different cultures, but I am quickly learning that unless I drastically change the way I behave, I will spend all my time talking to Aussies, Kiwis and the occasional Brit. Not that I’m all that bothered by it, as nearly everyone of met on this trip has been great fun.
On Saturday morning Hannah and I got up and did the bike tour of Prague. Both the bike tours of Berlin and Amsterdam had been fantastic, so I must admit that I probably did expect a fair bit from this, and was disappointed. The tour guide didn’t have fantastic English, he didn’t take us to what I would have thought would be must see sights, such and the Astronomical Clock, and most of his information was his personal stories about places, rather than information about why it was here and historical stories about the place. And we got rained on, which didn’t make me any happier.
That night we decided to do the Pub Crawl again as another busabout of people we knew had rolled in the night before and wanted to do the crawl. It went along in a similar fashion as the last time, except that went I walked out of the club at 4am, I had a map, and a clue. I decided to take the night tram home, and walked along through the streets of Prague to the tram stop. When I had arrived there it was a 20 minute wait for the tram so I decided to walk the 1 hour trek back to the hostel. It was actually hugely exciting and fulfilling to walk through the streets of a city I had always dreamed of, as if I was a local heading home after a big night. It was slightly less brilliant when it started to rain, but I was still very pleased with myself when I got back to the hostel.
The next morning I visited the Prague castle and this is where I really started to understand the amazing beauty of city. Looking down from the spectacular grounds of the castle, the huge amounts of annoying tourists and the poor customer service you will receive from pretty much everywhere fade into the background and I finally understood the amazing drawing power of the Czech capital. Prague is simply gorgeous. From every angle any views across the Vlatava and the city up to the Castle are unlike anything I have ever seen in the flesh. It was my fourth day in Prague, and only now was I finally appreciating the reason the place is packs with visitors, and why I would be sad to leave.
Sunday night came around and for my last night in Prague I went up to a beer garden that overlooks the whole city whit a few new friends from Busabout. After a few beers and I nice meal I walked through the city at night and took some photos of the beautiful central European capital at night. Prague belted me around a few nights, and her punches are hard and swift, but when she holds you in her arms, it’s hard to wish you were anywhere else.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Dresden – Germany’s schizophrenic child
I arrived with Hannah into Dresden. Hannah was still calling it Dredsen at this point, and both of us were wondering if it was a good choice to leave the friends we had made and not continue on to Prague. We walked to the hostel and were too early to check in, so we put our bags in the luggage room and checked the place out.
Dresden is split down the middle by the Elbe River. It is split into two sections, Altstadt and Nuestadt (old town and New town). It is probably most famous for the fact that the Allies bombed the shit out of Dresden in the last days of WW2, completely flattening all of old town, and most of new town. All of old town has now been completely rebuilt to look exactly as it did before the war, but it makes a bit of a misnomer out of old town, as many of the buildings in New town are older than those in Old town.
Walking around New Town, the place looks like someone has been giving out free spray cans to the local youth, as there is tagging everywhere. The cars rumble down the cobblestoned streets, giving you some warning that you are looking the wrong way as you go to cross the street. Hannah and I stopped for a burger at Burger Meister, where I ordered a chicken burger with analas. I didn’t know what analas was, and the German girl behind the counter didn’t know what the English word was, neither did the German dudes hanging out waiting for their takeaway food. In the end she went into the kitchen and grabbed some analas, and as it turns out, it’s pineapple. Problem solved.
After checking into the hostel, we walked around looking for a supermarket and just checking out the town in general. We walked down to the river’s edge to check out old town, and this is why the place is so schizophrenic; Old Town has no graffiti, no tattooed, pink haired punks and dogs walking around wandering into shops. It is however, spectacularly picturesque. It was around 4opm, and like most of Europe in the time I have been here, it likes to rain between 4-6pm so we headed back to the hostel hoping to find a supermarket on the way.
That night Hannah and I had a few drinks at the hostel and she went off to bed fairly early. I decided to walk around the town and get a feel for it on a Monday night. To my surprise, there were people out everywhere, pubs were nearly full, people were drinking on corners and yet there was very little of the agro you would normally associate with such an event in Australia. As I walked the street of new Town in Dresden, I felt safer than I would normally feel doing the same through Northbridge or any similar drinking area of Australia.
The next morning Hannah and I got up fairly early to go out to the nearby town of Meissen, which we had heard was worth a look. It was about a 30min train ride from Dresden, and once we had figured out how to validate our ticket, we were on our way. The trains in Germany are fantastic. Clean, new and smooth. More than once we had to check that we weren’t in first class as it just felt too nice to be the seats we had purchased for 7 euro.
Upon arrival in Meissen we could see the castle in the distance on the other side of the river and started walking towards it. The cathedral style castle is known as Albrechtsburg, and built high up on a steep hill next to the river Elbe. We wandered through the narrow, cobbled streets until we found a steep passage of narrow steps leads up to Albrechtsburg and a beautiful view over the small town of Meissen and the surrounding hills. Hannah and I stopped on the way down for some lunch. We had both decided to have Schnitzel and chips for lunch. She was charged with ordering the food, and apart from knot knowing what ‘pommes’ were when talking to the proprietor, felt pretty confident she had ordered correctly…. Until we each got a plate of chips and no schnitzel for lunch. Oh well. We were both confused how she failed to convey the only German word she used, but it saved us some money, so we ate our chips and went on our way.
We both felt pretty ratshit when we got back to Dresden (we walked up a lot of steps!), so we bought some groceries and Hannah had a lie down while I went out to have a look around more of New Town. New town is definitely where the life of the place is, with hundreds of people at the local park enjoying the sunshine, and usually an icecream. I walked around the town, trying to soak up the atmosphere for another few hours before going back to the hostel for a nap before dinner.
I cooked up some decent but unspectacular spaghetti Bolognese for dinner as we sat around talking to some other hostel guests. There was Christine, Anna and KC from Atlanta, Georgia, who were good fun, both for their sweet personalities and their propensity to use the word “y’all” when referring to anyone. Charlie, who was in Dresden for 2 weeks from Leeds doing a dance workshop and West, who is a true traveler. He was born in South Africa, has lived in NZ for 5 years and Aus for 3. He likes to go to a place and work and stay there for a while. None of this speed travelling like I am doing. He’s definitely got a point, because I could definitely live in Dresden, as I could in Berlin, so I guess it would be nice to one day do both.
West, Charlie and I went out for a beer at a nearby outdoor pub that had been set up in what felt like a gravel parking lot. The conversation eventually got to peoples preferred word for ‘vagina’ (I’m pretty sure it was Charlie’s fault) with Charlie using “noonnie”, West saying “box” and due to it really being the only word Belle used, it was “minge” for me, with a special mention of ‘VeJayJay’ for Sara and those guys back at the Douglas street party palace.
Charlie had to get up early for her dance class the next day so she retired to bed while West and I stayed up talking to the girls from Georgia back at the hostel bar. Again, it mostly revolved around their amusing accents and the fact that it seemed one of them had mistaken India for America on the map (although I do feel that Christine was putting this stupidity on, in order to be funny). At about 1am we were told the bar was closing and we retired to our dorms, with the girls deciding that singing in the shower at 1am with the window open was pretty funny, and I assume, waking the entire hotel.
Out last morning in Dresden and I needed to actually walk around old town. We wandered in quite early to look around. Once you walk through the main gates, you are confronted not with a beautiful town square as I had imagined, but a construction zone. It seems, like most of Europe at the moment, Dresden is also receiving a facelift. Behind the construction zone there were many astounding baroque buildings, covered with amazingly details statues and carvings.
On the way back to the hostel, I really, really needed to go to the loo. After holding it for over an hour I finally found a public toilet on a busy intersection. It is one of those coin operated ones, so I put in my 30euro and went inside to relieve myself. Unfortunately I read the German instructions and pulled a handle, which I thought would lock the door, but it made the door want to open. I ended up having to wedge it closed with my right foot while I contorted my body into such a position that I could still pee with the door remaining closed. It was very uncomfortable, but still one of the best pees ever.
Back at the hostel packed up all out stuff and went downstairs to wait for busabout. I honestly feel like I only scratched the surface of Dresden, and considering I seriously thought about not bothering to stop there, I am quite surprised that I am seriously considering coming back here where I am working in Austria. If I hadn’t already booked all of my time up until world superbikes in Brno, I would have stayed for another two days. The beautiful, grungy, old world charm and new school edge of the split personalities of Dresden will have to wait for my next visit.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Berlin - I'm in love
Some of you may have heard me talk about how much I love Osaka, Japan. I’ve often referred to it as the Melbourne of Japan. Well, in my short time in Europe, I would have to call Berlin the Melbourne of Europe. It has everything, history, culture, activity, life and the soul of an individual. Berlin knows it is different, but has a quiet superiority over other European capitals. Someone get me the t-shirt, because I ‘heart’ Berlin.
We got into Berlin at about 7pm and after check in and settling down for a bit, the crew and myself went out for some food. The crew now consists of Renee from Sydney, Hannah from Newcastle, Clive from Perth, Elleny from Melbourne, Greg from Adelaide and Adrienne from Adelaide. Yes, I was halfway around the planet and hanging out with a bunch of Aussies. We walked around Hackescher Markt looking for a place to eat, when the girls got suckered into sitting down by a waiter and all of a sudden we were eating at some pricey restaurant with an average menu. I had a plan to only eat real German food while in Germany, and hence had the pork, which was very tasty. After most people bitched about the food or price we left the restaurant and looked for a bar. We found a place at the end of a heavily graffitied alley which seemed to be quite popular. Upon walking inside it was decked out like some sort of cheap horror movie with monsters everywhere, and red creepy paint and little monster things in fish tanks set into the bar. We had a few drinks inside and then a few more in the beer garden before heading home to get some sleep before our bike tour the next morning.
Friday morning was bike tour day, and if there is ever somewhere you should do a tour, it’s Berlin. The place has so much history. Endah was our tour guide and was excellent with both his knowledge and delivery. We went through Bebel Platz where the Nazi youths burned over twenty thousand books that didn’t agree with the Nazi’s ideals, down to the Brandenburg Gate, to the Reichstag and more. I won’t go through all of it, as it will sound like a spastic giving a history lesson, but suffice to say there is so much that has happened in Berlin and most of it has some sort of memorial or reminder of its existence.
After the fantastic bike tour we went back to the hostel to chill out for a bit. Hannah and I have decided to split from the busabout for a bit when in Vienna and head over to Budapest for a few days. It should be crazy, as they don’t have a lot of English, and we have zero Hungarian. All part of the fun though! Hannah and I sorted out getting to Budapest, and where we are going to stay. Then we all got ready for the pub crawl. At the pub crawl we went to a whole bunch of bars. Most of which I can’t remember. I was busily chatting up Jessica, the super hot Dutch girl. Unfortunately I suffered a case of being unable to close a barn door, and by 3am it became clear that pretty much everyone I know was stumbling their way home. Luckily our hostel is nearly directly underneath the Berlin TV tower, which is visible from anywhere in Berlin, so my drunken walk home was fairly easy and uneventful.
It is not called a pub crawl because you go to lots of pubs. It’s a pub crawl because when you wake up the next morning, you will feel like a pub just crawled over you. We all felt like 6 bags of dogshit, but we had paid for a walking tour of the third Reich for Friday morning, and nobody wanted to miss it. It was a tough day when your brain is malfunctioning severely, but I made it through the five hour walking tour in blazing sunlight, and I was glad I’d done it. Going through all the places and history that led from the loss of WW1 to the end of Hitler’s third Reich at the end of WW2 was brilliant, even if it was a lot of names and dates that I struggle to recall.
After the third Reich tour ended we were right near the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe so I walked through that. It’s probably the coolest monument I’ve ever seen, as it’s not something you just look at. You can actually walk through it, and it has a definite disorientation about it. After that, we all headed back to our hostel for a rest, some food, and a quiet night in.
On Saturday half the group was going to Prague. Clive, Hannah and I still had two days to explore Berlin. I walked down to the Reichstag, which is basically the German parliament house as you can walk up to the top of the giant glass down and look around. The idea of the clear glass dome is that from now on, anyone can look upon the German government and make sure the mistakes of the past are never repeated. It is a pretty fantastic concept and a brilliant building.
I then made my way down past the Brandenburg gate and found Hannah. We went down to checkpoint Charlie and went through the museum of the same name. Some of the stories of what went on during the construction of the wall and ways people we smuggled out was quite astounding.
After the checkpoint Charlie museum Hannah and I caught the Ubahn (underground) to a section of the Berlin wall where it still has both walls with the death strip in between. It was also very interesting, but sad to see when the Germans on either side of the wall had to go through in their attempt for reunification.
After a full day we went to a traditional German restaurant where I ordered the traditional German specialty of pork knuckle. It tasted great, but it was huge and looked pretty disgusting. I think the German waitress was pretty disappointed when she say how little of it I had managed to eat.
Clive, Hannah and I went out to an entertainment area call Kulture Brueri, which is an old brewery that has been turned into a nightspot with many clubs, bars and a supermarket, which is great for cheap beers that you can walk around the area drinking. We sat outside a bar called “titty twister” for a few drink waiting for the Coyote Ugly show to start at midnight, which was full of German debauchery and fun. We then headed to the club called Franzz, and had a few drinks, but with the exception of one very enthusiastic German gentleman, nobody was dancing so we headed off to an Absinthe bar around the corner. This was the first time I have ever had Absinthe when you melt the sugar cube and mix it with the Absinthe in the style of old time Absinthe users, like Johnny Depp in the Jack the Ripper movie, From Hell. The Absinthe still tastes pretty gross, but it definitely gets cool points for drinking method.
The next morning we headed out to Sachsenhausen memorial and museum. It was the initial design concentration camp where they tested a lot of the things they would use in later concentration camps. Thirty thousand Russian POW’s were killed there, along with countless others. It’s certainly not rivaling Disneyworld for the title of “Happiest Place on Earth”. Pretty much nobody speak while walking around, everyone is just in some sort of solemn trance. It’s hard to believe that what happened could actually happen. I couldn’t get the wash rooms and the morgue out of my head for the rest of the day. Disturbing stuff.
That night we searched out some schnitzel right near our hostel. Unfortunately we got a little lost while looking for it (Hannah’s fault) and walked for ages before realizing where it was and coming back to eat 90minutes after we had left. The schnitzel was good, and we then went down to the city area to take a few photos of the sights at night.
I then packed up my bags in preparation for the early bus departure the next morning when I’ll be heading to Dresden. It’s a pretty country town in Germany and should afford me a few days to do very little and just recover from what is a monster sore throat I have picked up over the last few days. I am sad to be leaving Berlin, but I know one day I will be back here.
We got into Berlin at about 7pm and after check in and settling down for a bit, the crew and myself went out for some food. The crew now consists of Renee from Sydney, Hannah from Newcastle, Clive from Perth, Elleny from Melbourne, Greg from Adelaide and Adrienne from Adelaide. Yes, I was halfway around the planet and hanging out with a bunch of Aussies. We walked around Hackescher Markt looking for a place to eat, when the girls got suckered into sitting down by a waiter and all of a sudden we were eating at some pricey restaurant with an average menu. I had a plan to only eat real German food while in Germany, and hence had the pork, which was very tasty. After most people bitched about the food or price we left the restaurant and looked for a bar. We found a place at the end of a heavily graffitied alley which seemed to be quite popular. Upon walking inside it was decked out like some sort of cheap horror movie with monsters everywhere, and red creepy paint and little monster things in fish tanks set into the bar. We had a few drinks inside and then a few more in the beer garden before heading home to get some sleep before our bike tour the next morning.
Friday morning was bike tour day, and if there is ever somewhere you should do a tour, it’s Berlin. The place has so much history. Endah was our tour guide and was excellent with both his knowledge and delivery. We went through Bebel Platz where the Nazi youths burned over twenty thousand books that didn’t agree with the Nazi’s ideals, down to the Brandenburg Gate, to the Reichstag and more. I won’t go through all of it, as it will sound like a spastic giving a history lesson, but suffice to say there is so much that has happened in Berlin and most of it has some sort of memorial or reminder of its existence.
After the fantastic bike tour we went back to the hostel to chill out for a bit. Hannah and I have decided to split from the busabout for a bit when in Vienna and head over to Budapest for a few days. It should be crazy, as they don’t have a lot of English, and we have zero Hungarian. All part of the fun though! Hannah and I sorted out getting to Budapest, and where we are going to stay. Then we all got ready for the pub crawl. At the pub crawl we went to a whole bunch of bars. Most of which I can’t remember. I was busily chatting up Jessica, the super hot Dutch girl. Unfortunately I suffered a case of being unable to close a barn door, and by 3am it became clear that pretty much everyone I know was stumbling their way home. Luckily our hostel is nearly directly underneath the Berlin TV tower, which is visible from anywhere in Berlin, so my drunken walk home was fairly easy and uneventful.
It is not called a pub crawl because you go to lots of pubs. It’s a pub crawl because when you wake up the next morning, you will feel like a pub just crawled over you. We all felt like 6 bags of dogshit, but we had paid for a walking tour of the third Reich for Friday morning, and nobody wanted to miss it. It was a tough day when your brain is malfunctioning severely, but I made it through the five hour walking tour in blazing sunlight, and I was glad I’d done it. Going through all the places and history that led from the loss of WW1 to the end of Hitler’s third Reich at the end of WW2 was brilliant, even if it was a lot of names and dates that I struggle to recall.
After the third Reich tour ended we were right near the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe so I walked through that. It’s probably the coolest monument I’ve ever seen, as it’s not something you just look at. You can actually walk through it, and it has a definite disorientation about it. After that, we all headed back to our hostel for a rest, some food, and a quiet night in.
On Saturday half the group was going to Prague. Clive, Hannah and I still had two days to explore Berlin. I walked down to the Reichstag, which is basically the German parliament house as you can walk up to the top of the giant glass down and look around. The idea of the clear glass dome is that from now on, anyone can look upon the German government and make sure the mistakes of the past are never repeated. It is a pretty fantastic concept and a brilliant building.
I then made my way down past the Brandenburg gate and found Hannah. We went down to checkpoint Charlie and went through the museum of the same name. Some of the stories of what went on during the construction of the wall and ways people we smuggled out was quite astounding.
After the checkpoint Charlie museum Hannah and I caught the Ubahn (underground) to a section of the Berlin wall where it still has both walls with the death strip in between. It was also very interesting, but sad to see when the Germans on either side of the wall had to go through in their attempt for reunification.
After a full day we went to a traditional German restaurant where I ordered the traditional German specialty of pork knuckle. It tasted great, but it was huge and looked pretty disgusting. I think the German waitress was pretty disappointed when she say how little of it I had managed to eat.
Clive, Hannah and I went out to an entertainment area call Kulture Brueri, which is an old brewery that has been turned into a nightspot with many clubs, bars and a supermarket, which is great for cheap beers that you can walk around the area drinking. We sat outside a bar called “titty twister” for a few drink waiting for the Coyote Ugly show to start at midnight, which was full of German debauchery and fun. We then headed to the club called Franzz, and had a few drinks, but with the exception of one very enthusiastic German gentleman, nobody was dancing so we headed off to an Absinthe bar around the corner. This was the first time I have ever had Absinthe when you melt the sugar cube and mix it with the Absinthe in the style of old time Absinthe users, like Johnny Depp in the Jack the Ripper movie, From Hell. The Absinthe still tastes pretty gross, but it definitely gets cool points for drinking method.
The next morning we headed out to Sachsenhausen memorial and museum. It was the initial design concentration camp where they tested a lot of the things they would use in later concentration camps. Thirty thousand Russian POW’s were killed there, along with countless others. It’s certainly not rivaling Disneyworld for the title of “Happiest Place on Earth”. Pretty much nobody speak while walking around, everyone is just in some sort of solemn trance. It’s hard to believe that what happened could actually happen. I couldn’t get the wash rooms and the morgue out of my head for the rest of the day. Disturbing stuff.
That night we searched out some schnitzel right near our hostel. Unfortunately we got a little lost while looking for it (Hannah’s fault) and walked for ages before realizing where it was and coming back to eat 90minutes after we had left. The schnitzel was good, and we then went down to the city area to take a few photos of the sights at night.
I then packed up my bags in preparation for the early bus departure the next morning when I’ll be heading to Dresden. It’s a pretty country town in Germany and should afford me a few days to do very little and just recover from what is a monster sore throat I have picked up over the last few days. I am sad to be leaving Berlin, but I know one day I will be back here.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Amsterdamage
Oh, what a difference a few days make!
After what can only be described as a testing few days of loneliness and self doubt in Groningen, I arrived in Amsterdam expecting to spend a lot of time on my own, with only my camera and iPod for company.
I made my way to the hostel by tram, and after missing my stop due to not having the exit procedure sorted, I found myself doing the obligatory tourist moment of standing on an intersection, surrounded by my own luggage, staring at a map and the nearby street signs. I figured it all out with minimal fuss and arrived at my hostel feeling pleased with my ability to navigate from Amsterdam Centraal to the Flying Pig hostel near the tourist hotspot of Leidseplein.
I had a few beers while checking in and immediately noticed that the staff was younger and happier to engage in conversation. This made a welcome change from Groningen, as did my room, which slept 4 and had its own bathroom, compared to the 10 sleeper I had just left.
Stepping out into the streets of Amsterdam I was more excited than at any point on my holiday so far. I wasn’t too tired to think as I was when I arrived in London, and I wasn’t in a place I’d never heard of, as I was in Groningen. I was in the almost universally admired city of Amstrerdam, the place where they displaced the sea and set up the most intelligent drug and censorship system in the world. I walked through Leidseplein, which was full of tourist and basically the same shops that you’d find anywhere in the world, and up to the famous Dam square. There was a soccer court set up in the middle of Dam square, along with a large DJ tent and another tent where women dressed in pink were giving other women manicures. It was a hive of activity, but I found myself a little disappointed. It lacked soul. My first impression with Amsterdam is that it was a large tourist filled shopping mall with a few canals. First impressions are often wrong.
Back at the hostel I met one of my roommates, Nic. He’s from San Francisco and he’s just finished his junior year of college at Gonzaga University. Nic was feeling a bit trippy after partaking in some of the more colourful products that Amsterdam has to offer. He went out to get some food and I went downstairs to the bar as the hostel’s bar was recently renovated and they were having a party to celebrate. After a few beers and chatting with some people I met the other roommate, Renee. She’s from Sydney and was also on the Busabout tour, heading off to Berlin in three days, same as me.
There was also a group of about twenty guys and girls from Worcestershire in the UK. They’re all in their late teens and early twenties and were pretty good fun. I talked with a few of them, and tagged along with them as we went out to go to some clubs. At the first clubs everyone baulked at the 9.5 euro entry fee so we went to a bar for a few drinks, and then went to another club where the girls got in for free and it was 7.5 euros for the guys. Unfortunately they baulked at that too, so we ended up going back to the hostel bar and continuing to drink. Then people moved off all over the place. I started predominantly hanging out with two of the British girls, Kate and Helen. Both of which are absolutely hilarious and probably a little more mature to speak to than their friends. Helen was drunk out of her mind however and whenever we would lose her, Kate and I would find her sitting in the first floor stairwell with some more alcohol in her hand. In some of the numerous times we had lost Helen, Kate and I would walk through Vondel Park, which is directly in front of the hostel. It’s a beautiful park in the daytime, but was absolutely stunning in the middle of the night as the mist comes down and makes it look amazing.
After deciding to go to be three times, and every time finding Helen on the stairwell with more alcohol and staying with her I finally got to sleep around 5am, a big change from the early nights on Groningen. It’s nice to have friends.
The next morning I woke up feeling surprisingly good having only had 2 hours sleep. Renee had hooked up with some Canadian dude, but she looked like she had just fought a Bengal tiger. Obviously hickies are still cool in Canada. After she got over the initial shock of the sight of her neck in the mirror, we went out to do a bike tour of Amsterdam. I was feeling fairly average by the time we left at 10:30am, but promised Renee I would go, so dragged myself out, and it turned out to be the best decision I made in my time in Amsterdam.
The bike tour was fantastic. I cannot stress this enough, if anyone is going anywhere in Europe, always do a bike tour. The terrain in Amsterdam is completely flat, so the bike riding is really easy (as long as you remember to look the opposite way for oncoming traffic). However, by far the best thing about the bike tour was all the information you get about the city from the tour leader. Shaun was great and had been all over the world himself, and had a great informal delivery relating to all things Amsterdam, ranging from the way they pumped out the water to reclaim the land, the reason their drugs laws are the way they are, and to why Amsterdam will forever be linked with pornography. All in all it was a fantastic way to spend 3 hours, and even included things I didn’t even think of, such as going past the Amsterdam Hilton where John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged the infamous “love in” in 1969. The Hilton, in their infinite capitalist wisdom have left all of John and Yoko’s writing on the walls, and now charge 1700euro per night as the fee to stay in that room. After the bike tour, I had a much greater respect for Amsterdam as a city, and felt like I was beginning to understand the culture.
When we got back from the tour we went back to the hostel and caught up with a few of the friends from the night before and potted around on the internet. I went to walk away and nearly bumped into some girl who was just arriving. I said “I’m sorry”, she replied with “no worries mate”. I replied “Aussie” and that’s how I met Hannah. Renee, Nic, Hannah and I all went do to the supermarket and got some meat, cheese, bread rolls etc and went for a picnic in Vondel park. The place was packed. That’s another reason to love Europe in the summer. Everybody is outside enjoying the long hours of summer sun. Any area of grass or parkland is taken up by thousands of people, cooking little portable barbeques, playing soccer or just sunbaking.
We had planned to go out to a club called The Winston tonight for some drum and bass. We would be meeting the big British group out at the club for a bit of drum and bass mayhem. On the way in we went to the red light district to see the complete and utter weirdness that makes up this classless tourist institution. After walking through the streets of the red light district we went to the Winston. The drum and bass was good, but the club was ridiculously hot and you could really only stay in there comfortably for about 10 minutes at a time. After a few hours of this we walked back to the hostel. I got a message from Kate when she was back at the hostel and we went out for a chat and a walk around Vondel park.
The next morning I went out to meet Karianne for a coffee. I’d met her on the plane to Amsterdam a few days ago. She was missing her holiday, and I was able to tell her some of the cooler moments regarding mine. After coffee I did a canal cruise and took some obligatory tourist shots around Amsterdam.
Again we got some food at the supermarket and went down to Vondel park for a picnic again. I left the picnic early as I was meeting Louise, the Aussie beach volleyballer from Groningen, for a few drinks in Leidseplein. Louise played indoor volleyball at the Sydney Olympics, and as such has some absolutely amazing and hilarious stories (none of which I am liberty to share) about life on the Athletes village and at other pro sport events.
I got a reasonably early night on my last night in Amsterdam, being as I needed to be ready to leave on the bus the Berlin at 7:45am this morning. A few of the other crew hit it pretty hard, and as we sit on the bus today, they feel pretty worse for wear. Germany looks to be another beautiful country with rolling hills and picturesque towns. I can’t wait to see what Berlin has to offer.
After what can only be described as a testing few days of loneliness and self doubt in Groningen, I arrived in Amsterdam expecting to spend a lot of time on my own, with only my camera and iPod for company.
I made my way to the hostel by tram, and after missing my stop due to not having the exit procedure sorted, I found myself doing the obligatory tourist moment of standing on an intersection, surrounded by my own luggage, staring at a map and the nearby street signs. I figured it all out with minimal fuss and arrived at my hostel feeling pleased with my ability to navigate from Amsterdam Centraal to the Flying Pig hostel near the tourist hotspot of Leidseplein.
I had a few beers while checking in and immediately noticed that the staff was younger and happier to engage in conversation. This made a welcome change from Groningen, as did my room, which slept 4 and had its own bathroom, compared to the 10 sleeper I had just left.
Stepping out into the streets of Amsterdam I was more excited than at any point on my holiday so far. I wasn’t too tired to think as I was when I arrived in London, and I wasn’t in a place I’d never heard of, as I was in Groningen. I was in the almost universally admired city of Amstrerdam, the place where they displaced the sea and set up the most intelligent drug and censorship system in the world. I walked through Leidseplein, which was full of tourist and basically the same shops that you’d find anywhere in the world, and up to the famous Dam square. There was a soccer court set up in the middle of Dam square, along with a large DJ tent and another tent where women dressed in pink were giving other women manicures. It was a hive of activity, but I found myself a little disappointed. It lacked soul. My first impression with Amsterdam is that it was a large tourist filled shopping mall with a few canals. First impressions are often wrong.
Back at the hostel I met one of my roommates, Nic. He’s from San Francisco and he’s just finished his junior year of college at Gonzaga University. Nic was feeling a bit trippy after partaking in some of the more colourful products that Amsterdam has to offer. He went out to get some food and I went downstairs to the bar as the hostel’s bar was recently renovated and they were having a party to celebrate. After a few beers and chatting with some people I met the other roommate, Renee. She’s from Sydney and was also on the Busabout tour, heading off to Berlin in three days, same as me.
There was also a group of about twenty guys and girls from Worcestershire in the UK. They’re all in their late teens and early twenties and were pretty good fun. I talked with a few of them, and tagged along with them as we went out to go to some clubs. At the first clubs everyone baulked at the 9.5 euro entry fee so we went to a bar for a few drinks, and then went to another club where the girls got in for free and it was 7.5 euros for the guys. Unfortunately they baulked at that too, so we ended up going back to the hostel bar and continuing to drink. Then people moved off all over the place. I started predominantly hanging out with two of the British girls, Kate and Helen. Both of which are absolutely hilarious and probably a little more mature to speak to than their friends. Helen was drunk out of her mind however and whenever we would lose her, Kate and I would find her sitting in the first floor stairwell with some more alcohol in her hand. In some of the numerous times we had lost Helen, Kate and I would walk through Vondel Park, which is directly in front of the hostel. It’s a beautiful park in the daytime, but was absolutely stunning in the middle of the night as the mist comes down and makes it look amazing.
After deciding to go to be three times, and every time finding Helen on the stairwell with more alcohol and staying with her I finally got to sleep around 5am, a big change from the early nights on Groningen. It’s nice to have friends.
The next morning I woke up feeling surprisingly good having only had 2 hours sleep. Renee had hooked up with some Canadian dude, but she looked like she had just fought a Bengal tiger. Obviously hickies are still cool in Canada. After she got over the initial shock of the sight of her neck in the mirror, we went out to do a bike tour of Amsterdam. I was feeling fairly average by the time we left at 10:30am, but promised Renee I would go, so dragged myself out, and it turned out to be the best decision I made in my time in Amsterdam.
The bike tour was fantastic. I cannot stress this enough, if anyone is going anywhere in Europe, always do a bike tour. The terrain in Amsterdam is completely flat, so the bike riding is really easy (as long as you remember to look the opposite way for oncoming traffic). However, by far the best thing about the bike tour was all the information you get about the city from the tour leader. Shaun was great and had been all over the world himself, and had a great informal delivery relating to all things Amsterdam, ranging from the way they pumped out the water to reclaim the land, the reason their drugs laws are the way they are, and to why Amsterdam will forever be linked with pornography. All in all it was a fantastic way to spend 3 hours, and even included things I didn’t even think of, such as going past the Amsterdam Hilton where John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged the infamous “love in” in 1969. The Hilton, in their infinite capitalist wisdom have left all of John and Yoko’s writing on the walls, and now charge 1700euro per night as the fee to stay in that room. After the bike tour, I had a much greater respect for Amsterdam as a city, and felt like I was beginning to understand the culture.
When we got back from the tour we went back to the hostel and caught up with a few of the friends from the night before and potted around on the internet. I went to walk away and nearly bumped into some girl who was just arriving. I said “I’m sorry”, she replied with “no worries mate”. I replied “Aussie” and that’s how I met Hannah. Renee, Nic, Hannah and I all went do to the supermarket and got some meat, cheese, bread rolls etc and went for a picnic in Vondel park. The place was packed. That’s another reason to love Europe in the summer. Everybody is outside enjoying the long hours of summer sun. Any area of grass or parkland is taken up by thousands of people, cooking little portable barbeques, playing soccer or just sunbaking.
We had planned to go out to a club called The Winston tonight for some drum and bass. We would be meeting the big British group out at the club for a bit of drum and bass mayhem. On the way in we went to the red light district to see the complete and utter weirdness that makes up this classless tourist institution. After walking through the streets of the red light district we went to the Winston. The drum and bass was good, but the club was ridiculously hot and you could really only stay in there comfortably for about 10 minutes at a time. After a few hours of this we walked back to the hostel. I got a message from Kate when she was back at the hostel and we went out for a chat and a walk around Vondel park.
The next morning I went out to meet Karianne for a coffee. I’d met her on the plane to Amsterdam a few days ago. She was missing her holiday, and I was able to tell her some of the cooler moments regarding mine. After coffee I did a canal cruise and took some obligatory tourist shots around Amsterdam.
Again we got some food at the supermarket and went down to Vondel park for a picnic again. I left the picnic early as I was meeting Louise, the Aussie beach volleyballer from Groningen, for a few drinks in Leidseplein. Louise played indoor volleyball at the Sydney Olympics, and as such has some absolutely amazing and hilarious stories (none of which I am liberty to share) about life on the Athletes village and at other pro sport events.
I got a reasonably early night on my last night in Amsterdam, being as I needed to be ready to leave on the bus the Berlin at 7:45am this morning. A few of the other crew hit it pretty hard, and as we sit on the bus today, they feel pretty worse for wear. Germany looks to be another beautiful country with rolling hills and picturesque towns. I can’t wait to see what Berlin has to offer.
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