Krakow

Bratislava was great, for the short time I was there. The Communist influence in the city was so palpable. And yet they were also so proud... a very interesting mix of people. A little dirty, a little run down, but all part of the charm.

Now I am in Krakow, Poland (I know, I don't know how I ended up here either!). It is giving a good fight for one of, if not the, favouritist (making up words is fun!) city in Europe. It is a lovely city, with lovely people, all so dramatic, loving, sad. The past two days I have spent seeing Wawel castle and cathedral (I LOVE tombs. Is that strange? I find them cozy...) with MEgan and Chrissy (Aussie girls... naturally) and wandering around the town square (which is all of - literally - 15 seconds away from my hostel) and watching live Polish music and dance and visiting the Jewish quarter.

Today I finally worked up the never to go to Auschwitz. I really can't even describe what it is like. There is so much horror and sadness in the place. Even sixty years later it saps every last piece of you. I went on a three hour tour. Most everyone in my tour group was under 25. By the end, no one was talking, no one was touching, holding hands, kissing. We plodded forward, dragging one foot in front of the other, heads down, hearts heavy.

I have seen displays showing tonnes and tonnes of human hair that was cut off of women after they were murdered in the gas chamber and then sold to make blankets. I have stood in a room, not an arm span across, where they would cram 4, 5, 6 people for days as punishment, no light, barely any air, pissing, sleeping, shitting, standing breast to breast. I have looked at the certificates that were paid for by Jews for homes and land in Poland after their Nazi "relocation". I have touched the furnaces where hundreds, thousands of bodies were burnt after dying from the gas chamber. I have a pebble in my pocket from beside the Killing Wall where anyone who opposed the Nazis was executed.

I would go again, without hestitation.

So..... next is Czechy Krumlov! It is a little town in the south of the Czech Republic. It is supposed to be beautiful and fun and relaxing. I need it....

Bratislava

So turns out that Venice is way, way, WAY out of the way of where I was. Oh well. And it also turns out that ticket people should not be trusted. After not getting the ticket I wanted to Venice and showing up there a day night and having to take a night train, I decided to be smart and get my ticket to Bratislava as soon as I got into Venice.

"A ticket to Bratislava on the 27th please."

Confused look on ticket lady's face.
Uh oh.

"Bratislava. 27th. Vingt-sept?"

I trace 27 on the window of the ticket counter.

"Oh, okay."

She checks the computer.

"Umm... no trains to Bratislava on 27. Vienna?"

Vienna has a train every 20 minutes to Bratislava, so I say okay.

I get my ticket, hang out in Venice with LCD, walk across the entire city twice, go to the beach, heart-wrenchingly buy a mask and hope it won't get broken during the next month in my bag, go back to the station to get on my train.

I used my Eurail pass to get the train reservation, so I take it out to write down the date for this day of travel. I look at the date on the ticket, and write down 25/07 on my ticket. Oh, wait..... Turns out she gave me a reservation on the day I bought the ticket, not on the day I had requested. I have half an hour left before the train leaves. I go and stand in the ticket line for what seems and eternity and finally get to the ticket office.

"Hello. English?"

"No."

Crap.

I struggle through it and manage to communicate that I was given a reservation for the wrong day, and he gestures that I have to go to the Railiway Information desk to get it resolved. So I do. 15 minutes left. I stand in line for the Information desk and he tells me I have to go to the Ticket desk. 10 minutes left. I cut through the line and he again tells me to go to the Information desk. (I told this story to Josh, an Italian student I met on the train and at this point he laughs and says "That is SO Italian!"). So this time a young guy who speaks some English goes with me and has a long conversation with the Information desk guy, and I can tell from the conversation that this still isn't going to help me at all. So I turn to the young guy and he says "Ummm... Just get on the train."

So I do. Apparently it wasn't an issue that I had no reservation. Just being told that would have been very useful.

So now I am in Bratislava. It is dirty, poor, cheap, proud and I love it.

More later!

Budapest, Venice

Internet in Venice is tres expensive, so this will be a short one.

Budapest

Funky, beautiful, cheap, Terry is a maniac. Definetly a place to go back to at some point.

Venice

THRONGED with tourists. I cannot take it. The canals are kinda cool, and I may have got a picture of the library from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and even if it is not it I am just going to say it is. Oh, and I hung out a bit with those Vancouver people, whatever their names were :P.

Next

Train to Vienna at 3pm, getting into Vienna around 9;30pm, trying to make it Bratislava, Slovakia that night. I better, I have no where to stay in Vienna that night!

Vienna

It just took me a couple minutes to remember what city I was in. Travelling does that....

So I am in Vienna (duh), about to leave for Budapest in a couple hours. Vienna is a massive, MASSIVE city, it sprawls more than any other city I've been in. It also has an incredible amount of tourist attractions and historic sites. So many in fact that I couldn't decide which to go to, so went to almost none of them.

My first night I met up with some Aussie girls, Emma and Cass, and we went to a film festival that was playing outside the city hall, in a huge square with tonnes and tonnes of booths and people. They were playing a recording of a jazz concert with Harry Connick Jr. We sat in the front and chilled.

The next day we went to the amusement park! Much fun was had. Then we got a load of food from the supermarket and had a three hour picnic in a park. We talked, bonded, etc. They are currently living in London, and offered me a place to stay should I have a couple days in London to kill at the end of my trip. About half an hour before we parted ways I turned to Cass and said "Do you know my name?". She didn't. Heh. That also happens when you travel.

The past couple nights have been long and fuzzy. I switched hostels and in the hostel bar met some working class Brits (James and John) and some people I had met in Madrid (Jerry and Jane) and we hooked up with some more people and all went down to the riverside with the assistance of our appointed Austrian tour guide, Chrissy. We found an outdoor bar and hung out there till about 4am. After fending off attacks of a sleazy German (30) who tried to bring Chrissy (17) back to his place and declining an invitation from some Nigerians to go back to some place that they wouldn't specify, we hopped into a cab and crashed.

The next day I slept through a date to go touring Vienna made the night before and ambled around Vienna before running into the working class Brits and we checked out Parliament and some more parks. Then we met up with the people from the night before and we went to a free open air Sean Paul concert. Sean Paul is insanely irritating. So we go back to the hostel bar and some people go to bed and others hang out and I meet some recently gradded engineers from Queens and they destroy me and a English girl at fooseball.

Now I am killing time till my train leaves for Budapest where good times will be had with Mr. Terry, and then after that Venice with LCD (Lauren, Caroline, Danielle).

And what I REALLY want to do right now is sleep. Stupid 10am checkout time....

Pictures!

I found an internet cafe that has a card reader! Which means I can try to post some of my 500-of the past month and a half! Huzzah!

Drinking and looking generally disreputable with Lauren, Caroline, Terry, Myself and Danielle in London, England.

Temple Bar District in Dublin, Ireland. Yeah, that is what I remember it looking like.

The Cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland.

A crazy person singing, dancing, and selling doughnuts from a board that he balanced on top of his head on the beach in Barcelona, Spain.

Dancing in Granada, Spain. On the right is Melissa and Terry and I cannot remember the names of the two girls on the left, but I dearly, dearly wish I did just for the sake of that facial expression.

The hostel kitchen in Seville Spain, Paget, and the beginning of a nights good work.

My old dormmate Fiona and I, late one night in Lisbon, Portugal.

Port tasting at the Sandeman in Porto, Portugal.

Paul doing his best pirate impression on a beach outside of Nice, with Laura laughing in the background. Hey Paul, your nipples are on the internet!

Me, Ethan and Paul trying to look all tough and manly on the Nice beach. Well, I was anyway.

Waterfront in Geneva, Switzerland at night.

Wandering Liechtenstien at night, trying to score some dental products.

Today! I took a day trip around Salzburg with Aryanne (pictured, but very, very smally) and one of the stops was at this luge thing down a hill that you took a little cable sled to get to the top of.

And I finally bought new shoes!

Yep, definetly moving to Austria when I am rich and powerful.

Liechtenstien

It is true my friends, I am in Liechenstien! It is as entirely delightful as I had hoped. The idea that some people travel to Europe and do not visit Liechenstien saddens my heart. It puts me in mind of a country-themed amusement park, on a massive and grand scale. It is the distilled and condensed essence of an entire nation, squeezed into a scant 160 square kilometers.

Today I walked between the most populous city in Liechtenstien (Schaan) and the capital city (Vaduz). It took 20 minutes! My original hope of walking across the entire country, widthwise, has been unfortunately dashed, due to a rather sizable and inconsiderate mountain bisecting my supposed path. I did attempt to walk up to Vaduz Castle, home of the Prince of Liechtenstien and his family, but after 30 minutes of fruitless searching for a path not marked "private" I gave up. Considering that you cannot go into the castle (Could you imagine tourists wandering through your home!) I decided that I could see it well enough from where I was.

My only regret is that I have not found anyone to share my rapture of this fairytale place with. Throughout my time in Switzerland I had been taking a break from talking with people, having gotten quite sick of the same repetive conversations that occur between backpackers (Where are you from, where have you been, where are you going, oh, was it pretty?, repeat ad naseum) and it was a glorious time to be solely in the company of my own meandering thoughs but now I again feel up to setting upon myself the great burden of conversation. Unfortunately, the other guests of my hostel are:

• Three Koreans who share my room and speak very little English. One makes loud smacking noises with his mouth for no reason, I may have to smother him in his sleep.
• A gang of middle-aged German bikers, who despite their hardened appearances are actually very polite. But again, speak no English.
• An American family with a slow-witted patriarch and two young daughters.
• A German-Swiss family

Zurich today, Liechtenstien tomorrow!

I have some internet time left at this cafe, so might as well expound on my trip.

Nice

Hung out with a this soon-to-be Masters of Computer Engineering dude, Paul, a lot. He looks kinda like Jon Heder. Oh, and where is he going to get his masters? UBC of course! I have met so many UBC students this trip, it is surreal....

I switched rooms a lot in Nice, since I kept on adding how much time I wanted to stay there. For my last night I was in the "dungeon", a huge dorm room underneath the hostel bar filled with passed out revellers and building supplies. Two nights before a rager had destroyed a good number of the beds. But thankfully the had been replaced by the time I got there and slept in moderate comfort. Oh Terry, I ran into a poli sci grad from McGill who said she knew you from French class. Her and her friend were kinda annoying though, so I did not spend too much time with them.

Geneva

Definetly international. And definetly beautiful. A good place for sweethearts, but even by myself I enjoyed walking along the waterfront. I never did do the boat trip, but I did watch Superman Returns. Bryan Singer, you have done it again. And I think my guide book writer girl is crazy. She said that there is very little English spoken in Switzerland, but I have yet to meet one person who did at least not know passable English. And the hostel she recommended in Geneva did not love up to my expectations. I was in a 6 bed dorm room that was very spartan and dungeonesque. I have stayed in worse, but it was not as "cozy" as she described. I think she just reviewed the female accomodations and not the male. From what I saw, it is a great place to stay if you are a woman. I am pretty sure I was the only guy there (the yonly have the one male dorm room and I was the only occupant).

Zurich

I like Zurich better when it rains. It is just one of those cities that looks good in the rain. It suits it.

Future Plans

I have my ticket to Liechtenstien!!! I am ridiculously pumped to see this tiny, tiny country. I have to send people postcards from there and buy some dental products. I was hoping to run across the entire country (it is only 6 km wide), but I am still a bit sick, so my have to statisfy myself with merely walking across it.

Terry, I am booked in the Prima Hostel in Budapest (on Laurens suggestion... I will be seeing her shortly after Budapest so she better hope it is all she promised! :P) for the nights of the 21, 22 and 23. If you have some place else you want to stay or have booked somewhere else, let me know.

Zurich

Zurich is uninteresting. You are not missing much Terry. Okay, only 5 minutes left! Here is the intenerary...

Tomorrow in Zurich
Next day in Liechtenstein (the 15)
16 - Salzburg
17 - Salzburg
18 - Vienna
19 - Vienna
20 - Vienna
21 - Budapest
22 - Budapest
23 - Budapest
24 - Bratislava
25 - Bratislava
26 - Bratislava
27 - Venice (??)

Man, I hate having a set schedule... none of that past the 15th is actually booked, Terry, so if you have any preferences, let me know and it can be moved around!

Geneva

So had a good time in Nice, met up with some quality folks, tried to ignore most of the 18/19 year olds (apologies to the 18/19 year olds who may be reading this) who thought I was in my 30s. Visited Monaco, the cleanest city I have ever seen, spent a day on the beach, tried to even out the disparity in colour between my arms and face and everywhere else, and just generally chilled out in the villa.

I'm in Geneva, Switzerland now. And sick again.... it's not a debilitating sickness, I refuse to give in and just stay in my hostel bed (like I probably should). I'm booked now to go to Zurich tomorrow, and then Liechenstein after that. Still trying to get a bed in Liechtenstien, they are not very conscientous about answering the phone. After that, the wind will most likely carry me to Salzburg, Austria and then Vienna, followed by Budapest, Hungary and Bratislava, Slovakia with a perhaps a brief sojourn to meet up with the lovely(-ies) Miss Lauren, Caroline and Danielle in Venice. The only reason I really want to go to Venice is because a number of scenes from "Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade" took place there. Rather like how I want to go to Vienna because that is where "Before Sunrise" took place. I should just have modelled this entire trip based on movie shooting locations.

So so far... I arrived in Geneva from Nice late yesterday afternoon. Took out some Swiss Francs from a bank machine and because I was lazy decided to take a cab. After walking from my hostel to the train station today, I can say the cabbie definetly took the "scenic route". By which I mean he ripped me off horribly. I kinda suspected, since we were at the main train station, my hostel is right beside the main tourist cathedral (which rings very loud bells far too early in the morning), there is no way that many side streets should have been involved. Ah well. Last night I wandered the waterfront of Lake Geneva, and had a lovely dinner at a place that only makes three chicken dishes, it was a very refreshing meal, if a tad expensive (22 francs for a single dish and two iced teas! one france roughly equals one Canadian dollar. I think that three weeks in Spain and Portugal may have spoiled me).

Geneva is the French part of Switzerland. There is also a Italian part and a German part (which is where Zurich is). My guide book said that not many people in Switzerland speak English compared to the rest of Europe, but so far I've heard more English than any other place I've been and have had no problems. This could be due in large part to having a hostel located in Tourist Ground Zero.

Today is more wandering. I may take a boat tour of the lake. I may also go watch Superman Returns, which is playing in a local theatre by my hostel. My movie obsession knows no bounds.

Madrid/Barcelona/Nice

It has been three night trains since I last posted... But now I am clean and clothed, in a honest to God villa (it has it's own chapel! Which is now the hostel lounge/bar...) in Nice. So...

Madrid

Night trained it from Porto to Madrid, ran into a Vancouver girl named Laura and we talked and talked in the bar car before crashing into horribly uncomfortable 2nd class seats.

Madrid was an alright time. I spent two days there, checked out the Prada and Sofia art galleries, wandered around Michelle's aptly named "gaybourhood". Bested a load of Americans at their own drinking games. Did anyone else know that Asshole can be a drinking game? I had no idea.

Barcelona

Night trained it from Madrid to Barcelona. This time in 1st class seats. Which are NOT worth the money. They reminded me of Air Canada seats, with the awful headrest that jutts out and forces your chin firmly into your chest. Who ever designed those seats should be flogged. I managed about 3 hours of sleep.

Go to Barcelona and I went to book my Nice train and found out that Eurail trains schedules lie. There is no morning train from Barcelona to Nice. So instead I booked my third night train in five days to get me to Nice, this time in a second class sleeping car. I went to find an internet kiosk so that I could email my hostel that I would not be able to make that night, and ran into Laura. Turns out we were on the same night train from Madrid and didn't know it. Laura and I seem to have a string of weird coincidences that I won't bother going into.

I spent the day wandering Barcelona with Laura and Gordon, a guy she had met in Madrid. Say some Gaudi architecture, and the big Sagrada Familia (most visited construction site in the world), a massive cathedral designed by Gaudi in the late 1800s and is due to be completed in 2020. It is unlike any cathedral I have seen before. It has to be seen, I don't think my poor descriptions would do it justice.

Laura and Gordon caught the night train to Paris, with Laura saying she'll try to meet up with me when I head to Budapest. I got on the train, and the 15 extra euros for the sleeper car was definetly worth it. I slept some of the best sleep I've had in a while.

Nice

I got to Nice, ran into some Irish girls (yay Irish!) who work at the hostel I'm staying at, and they guided me here. It looks like a nice place in Nice (badoom-ching), and I talked to a guy Paul this morning who said it has a great atmosphere. Nice is my break town from the constant travelling and site seeing, I have five days here to just relax and do as little as possible. Paul said that this is definetly a good place for that.

Future Plans

Due to all the time spent of trains in the past week, I've had some down time to consider what my next steps will be. Places that I want to go, but not nessecarily in this order:

• Florence, Italy for two days
• Rome, Italy for three days
• Somewhere in Sicily is a volcanic area that sounded really cool, but I can't remember the name of it just yet. Two days.
• Budapest, Hungary for 3 or 4 days
• Bratislava, Slovakia for 2 days (might try to find the Voytilla name's home, Provac, Slovakia while I'm at it)
• Trencin, Slovakia for a day
• Vienna, Austria for 3 days
• Salzburg, Austria for 2 days
• Prague, Czech Republic for 3 days
• Brno, Czech Republic for 2 days
• Krackow, Poland for 2 days
• Dresden, Germany
• Berlin, Germany
• Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Brussels, Belgium

And now that I've made the schedule, I can throw it out the window and tell you that I probably won't be doing anything much like what I've just written. In fact, right at this second I am thinking about throwing out Italy all together (it just doesn't interest me, even though I know so many people who love it) and passing through Switzerland to go to Vaduz, Liechtenstein just for the pure freaking novelty of it. In that case, I'd go to Salzburg, Austria and then head east, then north, then west.

But who knows?

Porto

Porto is a fantastic, fantastic city (you missed out Terry....). I was a little worried about it, since I ran into a Brit girl in Lisbon who said that Porto was a hellhole and she hated it. Once again demonstrating that the English cannot be trusted. I mean sure, it´s dirty and smells bad.... but c´mon, it´s Portugal, OF COURSE it´s dirty and smells bad. But it is also friendly, beautiful, vibrant place.

My first day I ran into a Canadian named Dave, who of course went to UBC and graduated the same year, same faculty as I did. We went out to dinner at a little cafe and had some meat on a hook. Portugese food by the way is also fantastic. Very.... hardy. Then we stopped by a grocery store and picked up 2 one liter bottles of beer and a bottle of wine each. Grand total..... 3 euros.

We then went back to the hostel and sat down in the courtyard and I brought out a pack of cards and we started playing. Within two hours we had about half the people in our hostel sitting with us, playing cards (it is not a big hostel, 30 people at most I think). After a few hours of that we decided to see if the nightlife in Porto is as nonexistant as we had heard. It is pretty dead, but we managed to find a place.

The next day I started some more random wandering. Porto is a great city to wander by the way. Tonnes of cool little alley ways and really breathtaking views of the entire city as it slopes down to the river bed. I then went to one of the more famous port distilleries, Sandeman. While there I ran into Tex, Edmonton and Melbourne from the night before (Isiah, Christine and Liz, respectively. Oh, and here is an odd YK connection.... Christine used to date Chris Mercredi´s brother Paul). So we all went on the Sandeman tour, learned about how port is made and did some tasting. Then we went to another tasting place and after tasting about my seventh port I decided to buy a half bottle of one I liked. It is a 1998 vintage, and should be left to age for another 4 years or so. And I have to carry it in my backpack for two more months. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

After the tasting we found a cafe to watch the Portugal-England football game. Porto LOVES its football. They have big screens set up all around the city centre, showing the football game to the public with hundreds (if not thousands) of people crowded around. But we wanted to eat, so we after some extensive searching we found one with a free table and a TV. AND.... PORTUGAL WON!!! The whole city went NUTS! The energy on the street after that blew me away.... And Tex walked along the top of a bridge walkway, teetering on the railing, ready to fall 100 feet into the river below and freaked me and Christine out.

That night was me, Christine and Dave celebrating Canada day, and handing out Canada pins and naming all who were willing honourary Canucks for the day. Good times were had. I ended the night chilling in the courtyard with some Aussies. Ainsley, Jimmy, John and Matt. They´re doing almost EXACTLY the same route I am, so I will probably run into them another half dozen times over the next two months.

In three hours I am off on the night train to Madrid. YeeHA.

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So here is the schedule:

1. Madrid tomorrow, for two days
2. Barcelona for one day
3. Nice for two days, three if I can find some more accomodation
4. Florence
5. Rome

Ever been to Florence Terry?