Prague

And then there was nothing left but Prague.



I purposefully left myself a full six days in Prague, because I wanted to have enough time to see the city properly, and do everything that I wanted to. As it turned out, I didn't quite do everything due to weather, but otherwise, Prague was everything I wanted from it.

I got there on thursday after leaving Budapest, and once again, had a hell of a time trying to find the hostel. This time, the directions were good, it's just that there are no straight roads in Prague, so you walk in one direction, hoping it is right, and it suddenly makes a 90 degree turn, and you're going somewhere else entirely. I had a few Czech beers on the train, and just hung out in the dining car, which had been enjoyable, but had a decidedly soporific effect on me by the time I finally found the hostel at 9:00, so my evening nap raged out of control and I woke up early in the morning.

On friday, I just wandered around looking at some of the many sights to see, went to the two St. Nicholas Cathedrals, went back to the hostel for a bit, and went out for a couple pints in a place called "The Pub" where you poured your own beer from taps at your table, and your score was shown on a big screen comparing you with the rest of the tables. It's a really cool idea that would be great for sports bars, college towns, and such. Also good for degenerate alcoholics, and people with too much competitiveness. Checked out the castle and the St. Vitus Cathedral at night (awesome) and on my way back across the Charles Bridge, ran into some Koreans that I chit-chatted with for a while (they were a little tipsy, and I startled the crap out of them) and it turned out that two of them are students at Suwon University. Go figure.

The next day, I just wandered around again, trying to see some of the places I didn't make it to previously. Eventually ended up at the hostel, and hung out with the people there trying some absinthe, and playing the most viscious game of rock, paper, scissors ever. (I lost). The highlight of the evening was when the Danish guy Jess ate the giant bug in the bottom of the bottle of Absinthe. It was like seeing a car wreck. You don't want to watch, but you can't look away.

Sunday was pouring down rain all day, so we just continued from the night before. The Danish guys left eventually, and an American girl Lara and I went with a bunch of other people to a cool pub in a cellar somewhere, which was a really cool place, but incredibly difficult to find your way out of after a little tipple. After there, Lara and I wandered around looking at Prague at night for a while before heading back.

I had to say goodbye to Lara on Monday, and did another walking tour for a bit, before having to take a break. Prague is all cobblestones, and walking over them constantly for the last few days was taking its toll on my feet. Went back to the hostel, where I had to change rooms, and took a little power nap. After that, I went out on the town with Monique, who I met in my new room. We had a really good time wandering about, and made our way back up to the castle, where we went into a fenced in area to check out the garden before I started imagining the guards with sub-machine guns, and ran like a little girl for the fences. We spotted a strange looking wall from the castle, and tried to find it, eventually finding out it was in another restricted area, but we could come back tomorrow to see it. We headed back to round up some more people, then went back to the same bar as the night before. Unfortunately, the two of us that had been there had no idea where it was, so we took a tortuously circuitous route to the pub, which turned out to be right beside the hostel John stayed at last time he was here, so could have easily taken us there if we had actually known where we were going. It was much worse for him though, since he broke his shoe shortly after leaving the hostel, and so did the entire night out with one shoe. Now there's a trooper for you!

The last day in Prague was just spent wandering about to places I didn't make it to before with Monique and John, including the Museum of Torture, which has some really hideous stuff in there. People have an amazing capacity of being incredibly cruel to those they feel are beneath them. There were lots of evil looking implements designed for being inserted into various places. Ended up the night having dinner and watching a Jazz festival in the main square, followed by a few final absinthes.

The next day, it was off to Frankfurt, home, camp and another vacation...

Budapest

When last we left him, our hero was leaving Vienna for Budapest.



I got to the train station, which was genuinely, quite ugly, and exactly what you would expect from an Eastern Bloc nation. I followed the wonderful directions that my hostel provided, which read "take any bus, as they all go past the hostel" and promptly went in the complete wrong direction. Fortunately, the driver, who was encased in what I can only assume was bullet proof glass, was kind enough to inform me that the bus would eventually turn around and go back to where I wanted to go. I therefore found myself driving past said ugly train station a solid three quarters of an hour after I had left it going in the other direction.

I finally got to my hostel, gladly got rid of my bag, and headed out for food and a beer. Fortunately for me, both of these are served in mammoth portions. All Hungarian food is just meat in some sort of sauce with potatoes or bread on the side. There are many different variations of sauces/meats etc. but it never differs beyond that. Beer is also served in litre jugs. It's quite impressive when it gets to the table, but a little warm towards the end, unless you make sure to stay on top of your drinking.

Whereas Vienna was recovering from the Euro Cup, Budapest was just under construction. All of it. There were many beautiful buildings that I wanted to take pictures of, but they were all covered in scaffolding, and swarming with scary looking construction workers. Definitely not the type that you would want to meet down a dark alley. The only problem being that there are few roads in Budapest that aren't small dark alleys.

Sorry, I must clarify. Buda is all small dark alleys. I never actually made it to Pest. I was at the river and took pictures of Pest on the other side of the river, but I never actually walked across the bridge. For all I know, Pest could be broad, sun dappled avenues of the finest nature, and I was just too lazy to walk the hundred meters or so to find out.

Went up to the castle at night, which was gorgeous. It was all lit up and none of my pictures do it any justice. Apparently the homeless population agrees with me, because as I was walking around the back side of the building, I heard some definite snoring coming from amongst the bushes. Either that, or some workaholic gardener was sawing logs in the deep brush in the middle of the night.

I came back and played some poker with some guys in the hostel, taking great pleasure winning money from the French guys. I have nothing against the French, but my sax player keeps busting my chops, so any kind of dig I can get against the French feels good.

The next day was more wandering around, and went out at night with a few kids from the hostel, and had a really good time. Made it to two different pubs, both of which were quite strange. The first one was down an alley, past the dumpsters, and through a bicycle parking lot before actually finding yourself in the place. It had a big open square with a random car sitting in the middle. The second place was tricky to find, but it had a rooftop to hang out on, which was awesome as the sun came up (yeah we stayed up pretty late that night). At the table next to us, cool as a cucumber, some guy just chopped out lines of coke and tossed them back. It was quite surreal in the middle of a bar for someone to just be so nonchalant about something like that.

I had a blast in Budapest, and wanted to stay another day, but my reservation was set for Prague, so it was time to move on.

To be continued...

Austria

Well, I'm back from my travels, and working again. two days of camp gone, thirteen to go. I already have everything prepped from last time though, so it's not too bad. My T.A. speaks English very well, and is very nice as well, which always helps.

As for my travels, I arrived in Munich at 11:00pm on June 25th, which was a half an hour after Germany won their semi-final match against Turkey. The people in the streets were suitably elated. Lots of flag waving, honking and shouting. Met my family at the train station, and drove to Steinbach am Attersee where my Aunt's house is.



The next day, after having a leisurly breakfast with the Grandma, I went for a swim with Nick, and then headed for Steyrling to visit Onkel Roman. Roman has done very well for himself, and has a large tract of land (aka mountain) that he uses for hunting. We had some nice wine, and sat around chit-chatting for a few hours. We were considering staying for the night to go hunting, but decided to head back, which turned out to be an excellent idea, since the heavens opened up and released a torrential downpour as soon as we left.

The next day I went climbing up Hochlecken, which is the mountain behind the house, but after a few hours, gave up just a little way from the top since the thunder kept getting closer. We got a little way down the mountain before getting caught on the top of a mountain, under trees in a thunderstorm. Not the best of places to be. When we finally got back down, I was completely soaked and needing of a good rest. My cousin Axl came later in the day as well, which was nice.

Had my Grandmother's 90th birthday party the next day, which she enjoyed immensely. Probably half of the town including the mayor showed up (although half of the town consists of about 30 people).

Dropped Nick off in Munich the following day and headed to Berchtesgaden to see Hitler's Eagle's Nest. If you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend it. The bus ride alone, driving right along the edge of the cliff was worth the journey.



Unfortunately, my pictures of the Kehlsteinhaus just don't do it justice. You can actually see Salzburg from Salzberg, which is where the Kehlsteinhaus is.

For the next couple of days I just went around the Attersee looking at different things, took a short trip to Voecklabruck, and a day trip to Graz, which is extremely overooked as a tourist destination in my opinion. They have a giant new museum in the middle of the town that looks like an alien landed in the city amongst all of the old buildings.

We also took a trip to Hallstatt, which is very possibly the most picturesque town that has ever been created. However, there's nothing but tourists there now, so it's a bit cheesy after a few hours with all of the chintzy stuff being sold.

We went to Salzburg the day after Hallstatt to have a wander around, and on my last day with the family, we went to Onkel Roman's house for lunch again, and had some amazing wine, and really good venison steaks. Had a really good time chatting, and was quite sorry when it was time to go.

After saying goodbye to the family, I went to Vienna for two days, and just wandered around the city looking at all of the beautiful buildings. I had a really hard time taking any good pictures of anything though, because they were still cleaning up after the Euro Cup, and all of the really beautiful things had stacks of porta-potties and cranes and such in front of them. Not really lending itself to great memorable pictures.

Next, it was off to Budapest...