Vienna was great. I have a couple of stories not for for internet consumption, but when I get home they wil be part of the 'Slide Night Extravaganza' I will be subjecting all my friends to. I figure I've got to dangle the occasional carrot out there to get people to look at my not very good photography at (short) length.
That is, of course, a joke. There will be no slide night.
Apart from all the brilliant things I am seeing I am constantly struck by the amazing an friendly people I have met. In the last 5 days I have met the following people:
1. dJim (yes, there is suppsoed to be a d there and it's a weird, long story). I met Jim on the train yesterday as we were both missing our connection to Krakow because apparently Polish trains only got at 40mph when people are actually trying to get somewhere. So we chatted on the train to Krakow about life, the universe, everything. He was a really interesting man - he made records for bands like the Microphones (!!) and was a musician/painter. Currently an unemployed musician/painter, but for the past 11 years he had worked as a caretaker for a woman in Boston on her estate. She let him turn any building he wanted into a temporary studio. When she recently passed away, he and his musician friends had a 2day long session in her vintage gymnasium recording songs in tribute to her.
Anyway, we went for dinner last night and ate Polish food at this random restaurant with weird dolls everywhere. He was so cool and interesting. As part of his trip to Europe he had brought photos from the estate to a Czech woman who was friends wth Louise, his employer. He saved the photos of this lady's mother from being thrown out by the people inhertiting the estate and had brought them all the way to the Czech Republic for her.
2. Erna I met Erna on the train yesterday and she was such a cool old lady. She would have been in her 70s and she spoke limited English - explaining to me that she had started learning before Communism but had to stop afterwards. I thought she was doing pretty well. She gave me sweets on the train (yes, I know that's how all good fairytales start, with old women giving youg girls sweets) and pointed out all sorts of things in the countryside and explained some of the history and geography of the country.
When she asked me about me about my trip, I explained what I was doing. She asked me if I knew anyone in Prague and I said no. She told me that now I knew her and that if I ever come back I should come and stay with her. Her husband died 2 years ago and she had no children and that I should definitely call on her. She gave me her address, phone number and was insistent. It was also very cute when she told me that she was very modern and had a mobile number.
Erna is going to Turkey for 2 weeks in July. She said her friends told her she should be home in bed not wandering around Turkey. I couldn't disagree with them more.
3. Austin I met Austin, who is an American missionary and her Czech friend whose name I can't spell, when I first got to my hostel in Prague. They work for a Christian group who teach English in the Czech Republic. Anyway, after my first night there they were heading back to he border town where their program was run and Austin said to me I've been thinking about you travelling by yourself for 6 months and wondering how many hugs you get'. I then got two massive hugs which were very much appreciated, especially since I was in the process of having a massive internal sook about the hostel I was staying in.
Their thoughtfulness almost made me cry actually.
4. Stefan I met Stefan on the train from Vienna. He was from the west of Austria and working in Vienna. He said he missed the mountains. He was so cute and sterotypically Austrian. It may have been that his sports short and golf socks were very 'European Abroad' but he was incredibly sweet.
I also thought Prague was brilliant, even in the rain. I loved its gothic beauty. I am now in Krakow and it is still raining. But again, it is a beautiful city. At least the few blocks of it I have seen.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
You know, Hostel, like the movie.
*sigh*
My sleeping issues of a couple of nights ago were resolved by battering my eyelashes at the English stag group mentioned in the previous post. I was too tired to think that sleeping on the couch was going to be that great. But I would have done it had Juulia not said that there was one free bed in the hostel, but it was in the stag party room - one of their friends hadn´t come and they'd paid for the bed to keep the room to themselves.
Anyway, they let me have the bed and were insistent that I not pay for it (which of course I did) and then I felt incredibly guilty about being mean about them previously. They didn' seem like that bad a guys.
BUT my temporary good impression was erased when I woke up the next morning and the following conversation ensued:
Me: Hey. Did you guys have a good night last night? Good weekend?
Guy: Yeah. It was okay. Not as cheap as I thought and I didn´t get laid.
Me: Riiiiiggghhht....aren´t you the stag?
Obviously I have missed something about the concept of getting married. Ah well. At least I was well rested!
Stayed the last few days in Bratislava, hanging with some cool Canadians. It's a small town with not much to do other than drink coffee and lay in the sun. Pretty lazy times. Discovered a fair few interesting facts about Candaian engineers as well.
I know I said I wouldn´t mention bars but this was way too funny to ignore. I don't know how many people have seen the movie 'Hostel', but it´s set in Bratislava. The basement bar at my hostel was decked out in theme from the movie - complete with severed heads and limbs. There was even a ´table´ made out of a bathtub with blood smeared through it. Hilarious! But a bit ghoulish. But the beer was good and very cheap. The entertainment was provided by a group fo 6, 18&19 year Irish girls who were absolutely mad and hilarious. And a foozball table.
My sleeping issues of a couple of nights ago were resolved by battering my eyelashes at the English stag group mentioned in the previous post. I was too tired to think that sleeping on the couch was going to be that great. But I would have done it had Juulia not said that there was one free bed in the hostel, but it was in the stag party room - one of their friends hadn´t come and they'd paid for the bed to keep the room to themselves.
Anyway, they let me have the bed and were insistent that I not pay for it (which of course I did) and then I felt incredibly guilty about being mean about them previously. They didn' seem like that bad a guys.
BUT my temporary good impression was erased when I woke up the next morning and the following conversation ensued:
Me: Hey. Did you guys have a good night last night? Good weekend?
Guy: Yeah. It was okay. Not as cheap as I thought and I didn´t get laid.
Me: Riiiiiggghhht....aren´t you the stag?
Obviously I have missed something about the concept of getting married. Ah well. At least I was well rested!
Stayed the last few days in Bratislava, hanging with some cool Canadians. It's a small town with not much to do other than drink coffee and lay in the sun. Pretty lazy times. Discovered a fair few interesting facts about Candaian engineers as well.
I know I said I wouldn´t mention bars but this was way too funny to ignore. I don't know how many people have seen the movie 'Hostel', but it´s set in Bratislava. The basement bar at my hostel was decked out in theme from the movie - complete with severed heads and limbs. There was even a ´table´ made out of a bathtub with blood smeared through it. Hilarious! But a bit ghoulish. But the beer was good and very cheap. The entertainment was provided by a group fo 6, 18&19 year Irish girls who were absolutely mad and hilarious. And a foozball table.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Industrial Complex
I have had exactly one hour of sleep, I am going slightly around the bend and I have discovered that there are NUMEROUS really cool bars in Budapest. I also have nowhere to sleep tonight which is something that I should remedy sooner rather than later.
Hung out with Julia, Finnish girl from the hostel and the two French guys. Also spent the night with actual Hungarians - nice to actually meet the locals instead of just running away from them. Briefly considered working illegally in Budapest at a vegetarian restaurant. Decided against it alhough apparently it's what everyone does. Works illegally, I mean. Not specifically at vegetarian restaurants.
First bar last night was in a big warehouse with a massive skeleton structure hanging from the roof. Music was industrial/hardcore which isn't exactly my type of thing (except for the brief moment that I wanted the Matrix Soundtrack in year 10 and thought it was pretty heavy). But it was great. Must hang out with metalheads more when I get home. Having said that, I just don't think Australia has the right type of weather for me to be a fan of that type of music in general.
Second bar was smaller. Last club was crazy - had to get in a tiny lift that only carried 5 people at a time and one of those with the guy operating the lift. Victor, the mad Hungarian intent on improving international relations was, by this point in pretty fine form.
I ended up with Julia, Eric and Manu in a park next to the hostel this morning, drinking a bottle of red wine with the cork pushed in at 6am. Talking about not much and trying not to fall asleep on the bench. Very, very classy.
Yesterday I went to the Terror Museum, St Stephen's Basilica, Heroes Square, the park around Heroes Square and some other stuff. Also manged to see the Croatian Head of State's convoy which included a lot of armed Hungarian guards with machine guns.
The next few posts will not be about bars, I promise. Julia has said I can sleep on the couch at the hostel tonight, which I am seriously considering. Tempting...
Hung out with Julia, Finnish girl from the hostel and the two French guys. Also spent the night with actual Hungarians - nice to actually meet the locals instead of just running away from them. Briefly considered working illegally in Budapest at a vegetarian restaurant. Decided against it alhough apparently it's what everyone does. Works illegally, I mean. Not specifically at vegetarian restaurants.
First bar last night was in a big warehouse with a massive skeleton structure hanging from the roof. Music was industrial/hardcore which isn't exactly my type of thing (except for the brief moment that I wanted the Matrix Soundtrack in year 10 and thought it was pretty heavy). But it was great. Must hang out with metalheads more when I get home. Having said that, I just don't think Australia has the right type of weather for me to be a fan of that type of music in general.
Second bar was smaller. Last club was crazy - had to get in a tiny lift that only carried 5 people at a time and one of those with the guy operating the lift. Victor, the mad Hungarian intent on improving international relations was, by this point in pretty fine form.
I ended up with Julia, Eric and Manu in a park next to the hostel this morning, drinking a bottle of red wine with the cork pushed in at 6am. Talking about not much and trying not to fall asleep on the bench. Very, very classy.
Yesterday I went to the Terror Museum, St Stephen's Basilica, Heroes Square, the park around Heroes Square and some other stuff. Also manged to see the Croatian Head of State's convoy which included a lot of armed Hungarian guards with machine guns.
The next few posts will not be about bars, I promise. Julia has said I can sleep on the couch at the hostel tonight, which I am seriously considering. Tempting...
Friday, May 9, 2008
And although she may have studied with an expert...
I went to the coolest bar last night. It was in the Jewish Quarter of Budapest where the ghetto was during the war. It seems that most interesting bars in this city are hidden, badly signposted and you have to be in the know or you'll spend all night wandering around aimlessly and stumbling into a kebab store (which is what I did with a couple of French guys and a Canadian the night before). So last night I headed out with Julia, a Finnish girl who works at the hostel.
The bar - it was massive, crumbling, leaking, ramshackle, under ground, upstairs, outside...it just sprawled. It was also exactly the kind of place that would be shut down instantaneously in Australia or the UK because it would breach about 5000 different building regulations. There were holes in the floor, it was an ex-factory style building where no one had bothered to fill in the gaps or smooth the cement and there was a mysterious leak of a substance I had no desire to investigate. The crowd were also very Amplifier-esque but in a much cooler, Eastern European way. Music was awesome. Some very intersting Dusty Springfield remixes included.
After that we went to a Jazz themed bar closer to the hostel. When we got back I managed to run into the stag group staying at the hostel arriving back from their evening out. English men can be such charmers when they're drunk . At least they weren't wearing matching hats or t-shirts.
Oh, and on a side note, apparently it is getting harder for French guys to leverage their accent to pick up women. Bemoaning how unfriendly Hungarian women were, Eric, one of the aforementioned French guys, said 'you used to be able to just say your 'and, eet is so small and white, like a delicate flower and it would work'... Imagine it as Pepe La Pew would say it. Poor things!
Additionally, I have seen some stuff. Like churches. And a synagogue (with Holocaust exhibition) and a park or two. And I went to a market. And saw the parlimanet building. And walked down the not very blue Danube. I also get lost a lot.
The bar - it was massive, crumbling, leaking, ramshackle, under ground, upstairs, outside...it just sprawled. It was also exactly the kind of place that would be shut down instantaneously in Australia or the UK because it would breach about 5000 different building regulations. There were holes in the floor, it was an ex-factory style building where no one had bothered to fill in the gaps or smooth the cement and there was a mysterious leak of a substance I had no desire to investigate. The crowd were also very Amplifier-esque but in a much cooler, Eastern European way. Music was awesome. Some very intersting Dusty Springfield remixes included.
After that we went to a Jazz themed bar closer to the hostel. When we got back I managed to run into the stag group staying at the hostel arriving back from their evening out. English men can be such charmers when they're drunk . At least they weren't wearing matching hats or t-shirts.
Oh, and on a side note, apparently it is getting harder for French guys to leverage their accent to pick up women. Bemoaning how unfriendly Hungarian women were, Eric, one of the aforementioned French guys, said 'you used to be able to just say your 'and, eet is so small and white, like a delicate flower and it would work'... Imagine it as Pepe La Pew would say it. Poor things!
Additionally, I have seen some stuff. Like churches. And a synagogue (with Holocaust exhibition) and a park or two. And I went to a market. And saw the parlimanet building. And walked down the not very blue Danube. I also get lost a lot.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
It's not ALL about Dracula
Anyone thinking of going to Bucharest? Don't. it's really not that interesting. It's incredibly grey and really, you should be moving past it to get to the actual pretty parts of the country.
Having said that, upon arrival I did get a very nice religious book from a girl on a bus who wrote 'God Bless You' on the inside. Very nice.
Anyway, I'm going to skip all of Bucharest - which I am sure Libby won't mind, even though she was there for the whole 3 days.
So - bypass Bucharest and got to Transylvania. I went to Brasov where I caught up with some girls I had met at VT and explored the city (black church, main square, train station ticket office). Ended up going for dinner with some very funny Italian guys who certainly fulfilled more than one stereotype about Italian men. It took them forever to get ready, aked for a hairdryer, they were beautifully groomed and they gesticulated with their hands so much that they were almost a danger to public safety. Ended up at a Paris themed bar with bad eighties music where a Romanian boy managed to almost break my elbow with a door and insisted upon kissing it better despite my assertion that I was, in fact, fine. Very weird. Kind've sweet!?!?!?
Went and saw Bran Castle on a bus that I wasn't sure was going to make it. I think that there should be an acceptance that anything over 50 years old shouldn't be used as a people moving vehicle. This also applies to Soviet trains still running in Romania and Bulgaria which are less than comfortable. Castle was fine - more impressive outisde than in.
They have a strange obsession in that part of Europe with writing the name of the town on a hillside - Hollywood sign style! Maybe it's because they filmed 'Cold Mountain' there.
Last night I splurged an extra $10 and got a 4 berth on a sleeper train for my trip to Budapest. Free bottle of water. Better than a lot of hostel accomodation. Met a really nice girl who spoke Romanian, Hungarian, German, English and Spanish. She was on her way to a job interview (she was a law grad) and was really sweet and helpful. She also told me a lot about the history of Romania and what it had been like to live under communism. Really very interesting.
I'm now in Budapest.
Having said that, upon arrival I did get a very nice religious book from a girl on a bus who wrote 'God Bless You' on the inside. Very nice.
Anyway, I'm going to skip all of Bucharest - which I am sure Libby won't mind, even though she was there for the whole 3 days.
So - bypass Bucharest and got to Transylvania. I went to Brasov where I caught up with some girls I had met at VT and explored the city (black church, main square, train station ticket office). Ended up going for dinner with some very funny Italian guys who certainly fulfilled more than one stereotype about Italian men. It took them forever to get ready, aked for a hairdryer, they were beautifully groomed and they gesticulated with their hands so much that they were almost a danger to public safety. Ended up at a Paris themed bar with bad eighties music where a Romanian boy managed to almost break my elbow with a door and insisted upon kissing it better despite my assertion that I was, in fact, fine. Very weird. Kind've sweet!?!?!?
Went and saw Bran Castle on a bus that I wasn't sure was going to make it. I think that there should be an acceptance that anything over 50 years old shouldn't be used as a people moving vehicle. This also applies to Soviet trains still running in Romania and Bulgaria which are less than comfortable. Castle was fine - more impressive outisde than in.
They have a strange obsession in that part of Europe with writing the name of the town on a hillside - Hollywood sign style! Maybe it's because they filmed 'Cold Mountain' there.
Last night I splurged an extra $10 and got a 4 berth on a sleeper train for my trip to Budapest. Free bottle of water. Better than a lot of hostel accomodation. Met a really nice girl who spoke Romanian, Hungarian, German, English and Spanish. She was on her way to a job interview (she was a law grad) and was really sweet and helpful. She also told me a lot about the history of Romania and what it had been like to live under communism. Really very interesting.
I'm now in Budapest.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Another beer thanks, barkeep...
Bulgaria, Bulgaria.
I swear to God, today is the first rain free day I have had since I left the UK. Lovely. I am in Veliko Tarnovo which is a town between Sofia and Bucharest. I am continuing the Good Bulgarian Hostel experience - this one is a converted Bulgarian farmhouse. Ace. The only problem is that the town is a hill and we are the bottom of it. Calf muscles are working over time.
The Australian couple I met on the bus have provided good company in Sofia, then to here. And we've added a guy named Nathan to our temporary posse. Between us all we managed to figure out where we were supposed to get off the bus yesterday. But it was a close run thing...we mistook our destination for a rest stop and happily piled back on the bus for the last hour of our journey before we were told to get off the bus. In no uncertain terms.
Sofia was quite a small city and it was nice enough to look around. A bit sad in some ways because there is a lot of decay and ruin that they have stuck bright signs over. It's very post-soviet but the people are friendly and the beer is cheap ($1.60 or 60p per pint). The Rila Monastery was absolutely stunning - high up in the mountains it was so sedate! And the Bulgarian doughnuts weren't bad either.
Took advantage of cheap beer prices last night in VT and have been struggling for most of today. Ah well. Somehow I managed to end up with half a packet of pretzels given to me by a stranger who could see that I was trying to get some crisps at a bar that sold no food. They were cheese flavoured pretzels. I think there are some instances in which sticking to tradition is best. Salt on pretzels is one of these.
I am being thwarted by Orthodox religious holidays which means basically nothing has been open for days. Or is only open sporadically. It's making getting on the train quite a challenge.
Anyway, Kylie and Aaron (abovementioned Australian couple) are chefs and will be cooking for us tonight. After 3 nights of free hostel food we decided it would be better to find a market and make something that wasn't pasta with ketchup on it.
I swear to God, today is the first rain free day I have had since I left the UK. Lovely. I am in Veliko Tarnovo which is a town between Sofia and Bucharest. I am continuing the Good Bulgarian Hostel experience - this one is a converted Bulgarian farmhouse. Ace. The only problem is that the town is a hill and we are the bottom of it. Calf muscles are working over time.
The Australian couple I met on the bus have provided good company in Sofia, then to here. And we've added a guy named Nathan to our temporary posse. Between us all we managed to figure out where we were supposed to get off the bus yesterday. But it was a close run thing...we mistook our destination for a rest stop and happily piled back on the bus for the last hour of our journey before we were told to get off the bus. In no uncertain terms.
Sofia was quite a small city and it was nice enough to look around. A bit sad in some ways because there is a lot of decay and ruin that they have stuck bright signs over. It's very post-soviet but the people are friendly and the beer is cheap ($1.60 or 60p per pint). The Rila Monastery was absolutely stunning - high up in the mountains it was so sedate! And the Bulgarian doughnuts weren't bad either.
Took advantage of cheap beer prices last night in VT and have been struggling for most of today. Ah well. Somehow I managed to end up with half a packet of pretzels given to me by a stranger who could see that I was trying to get some crisps at a bar that sold no food. They were cheese flavoured pretzels. I think there are some instances in which sticking to tradition is best. Salt on pretzels is one of these.
I am being thwarted by Orthodox religious holidays which means basically nothing has been open for days. Or is only open sporadically. It's making getting on the train quite a challenge.
Anyway, Kylie and Aaron (abovementioned Australian couple) are chefs and will be cooking for us tonight. After 3 nights of free hostel food we decided it would be better to find a market and make something that wasn't pasta with ketchup on it.
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