Terrible at updating, I know. Sue me.

Since you last saw me:

End of the 10th: Warsaw, Poland.

We went out to dinner at a nice sushi place after going to the Chopin Museum – the museum was nice, great sound booths, and the sushi was good too, if rather expensive. We didn’t do much else due to the rallies going on outside of our hotel. Maria ended up getting video of that, so, go over to her blog to see that.

11th:

Another not incredibly exciting day, we woke up early to get to the airport in Warsaw where we flew to Athens. We ate a nice little breakfast and then proceeded to get on a terrifying flight – the weather was too warm in Athens, so updrafts and stuff made it not a very nice flight. After exiting the airport with all of our luggage, we got a cab to our hotel (which is super nice), and walked down to lunch in the Plaka. Dad ended up getting sick, so we bustled back to the hotel for the afternoon, and in the evening we ate at a nice little restaurant down the road from our hotel. Then we tried to stay awake and died of sleep deprivation.

 

Today:

We woke up kind of late this morning, due to awesomely light blocking curtains. We headed out early this morning to the Acropolis, and wandered around there. We ate lunch down the hill in the neighborhod I stayed in last year, then walked through the Plaka back to our hotel. We hung out in the spa for awhile – hot tub for the legs, sauna for the soul. Then we found out the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed on Tuesdays, so we wandered down the main road and found a weird little cafe that was playing club music and showing cooking channels on tv. Now, you are all caught up.

 

I’m feeling rather uninspired today and altogether more exhausted feeling than I should be while staying in this nice hotel, but alas. I shall update eagain soon. Pictures are up on Facebook.

Bad Luck weekend: Prague fires and Polish Presidents

April 9^th

So, I’m sitting in the hotel room in Prague, watching some Sky News, trying to spend as much time as possible in the hotel before we become homeless and have to wait for the night train.

Today we’re trying to figure out the next leg of our trip, without having to spend a million euros, and having an actual place to sleep.

We’re going to go mail our box full of things back to the UK today, since we did over pack quite a bit. Hopefully it doesn’t cost toooo much, and hopefully it actually gets there.

Nothing else to report, really. Maybe I’ll type again on the train. :D

April 10^th

It’s the anniversary of Lech Kaczynsky’s (and others) death here in Poland today. We didn’t realise this fact until we were sitting in a coffeehouse watching everyone walk down the street with Polish flags. I can’t believe it’s been a year since those 80+ people died and completely changed the government here.

Yesterday, in Prague, we were wandering around wasting time until our train, really, and we came upon a fire in a building, which was one of those terrible things you have to watch. It’s been a rather bad luck set of days.

 

The train to Poland was fine – the toilets were crap, but other than the beds being waaaaay too hard, it was a good trip. We stopped in Katowice for like an hour at 1am, which was unsettling and bothersome, but the trip was good.

The palace our hotel is near.

The square by our hotel in Warsaw

Part of the old town of Warsaw

John Paul

Our street.

Our hotel.

There’s nothing really to report beyond that. We’re trying to figure out the tail end of our trip, and tomorrow morning we leave for Athens. I’m super excited for Athens. Seriously. I missed the city. It’ll be nice to be in the warm weather too.

I’ll update later tonight with Poland things!

<3

Bad Luck weekend: Prague fires and Polish Presidents

April 9^th

So, I’m sitting in the hotel room in Prague, watching some Sky News, trying to spend as much time as possible in the hotel before we become homeless and have to wait for the night train.

Today we’re trying to figure out the next leg of our trip, without having to spend a million euros, and having an actual place to sleep.

We’re going to go mail our box full of things back to the UK today, since we did over pack quite a bit. Hopefully it doesn’t cost toooo much, and hopefully it actually gets there.

Nothing else to report, really. Maybe I’ll type again on the train. :D

April 10^th

It’s the anniversary of Lech Kaczynsky’s (and others) death here in Poland today. We didn’t realise this fact until we were sitting in a coffeehouse watching everyone walk down the street with Polish flags. I can’t believe it’s been a year since those 80+ people died and completely changed the government here.

Yesterday, in Prague, we were wandering around wasting time until our train, really, and we came upon a fire in a building, which was one of those terrible things you have to watch. It’s been a rather bad luck set of days.

The train to Poland was fine – the toilets were crap, but other than the beds being waaaaay too hard, it was a good trip. We stopped in Katowice for like an hour at 1am, which was unsettling and bothersome, but the trip was good.

The palace our hotel is near.

The square by our hotel in Warsaw

Part of the old town of Warsaw

John Paul

Our street.

Our hotel.

There’s nothing really to report beyond that. We’re trying to figure out the tail end of our trip, and tomorrow morning we leave for Athens. I’m super excited for Athens. Seriously. I missed the city. It’ll be nice to be in the warm weather too.

I’ll update later tonight with Poland things!

<3

I am dying of fat poisoning, Or, The last day in Prague

We're sitting downstairs in the lobby of our hotel and surfing the webs on the hotel computers, so I decided I should write my post for today. It's not incredibly exciting, though, and my computer spazzed and deleted two days worth of pictures! How will I ever remember now!?

After everyone was fed on the lush breakfast served at the hotel this morning. So, despite my best efforts, I will have another picture free day. Maybe I'll google some pictures for you, dear readers.

This morning we hopped on the tram and made our way to Prasky Hrad (Prague Castle), which was totally glorious. The weather was much colder today, but still sunny. We bought a short visit ticket to go see the St. Vitus Cathedral, St. George's Basilica, Rosenberg Palace, and the Old Royal Palace. It was pretty impressive, but pictures weren't allowed inside, so there weren't many pictures to begin with. :)
After the castle, we wandered home and lazed for an hour or two, and then went out to dinner at a place called Lary Fary, where I got mushroom risotto, mom had a Czech dish of beef medallions on a bed of bread (wtf?), Dad had a huge skewer, and Maria had a tuna salad. It was a yummy meal, and now we're just vegging out, man.

Tomorrow we're off to Poland on a night train, so I probably won't be updating unless there is WiFi on the train (please, dear God, that would be amazing!), but I doubt it. We reach Poland at 7am Sunday morning, and will check into our hotel and probably collapse and die before going out sightseeing. :)

Anyways, good night all!

Good morning, world.

Hello hello, faithful blog readers. Sorry for the utter lack of posting yesterday, and the half-assed attempt the day before. I’m still not going to have a very spectacular post today – mostly because I didn’t bring my camera down and the WiFi is in the lobby here at this awesome hotel.

Yesterday, Maria and I went to the Emmaus (Emauzy) Monastery in the morning. It was beautiful and so peaceful. We finally left there after an hour and meandered over to the National Museum area – where Maria and I parted ways: her to the museum, and I to the airport!

I dropped down into the metro station and bought a 20 minute ticket and rode to the main train station. There, I had to ask just about everyone where to buy a ticket for the airport express bus, and, once I bought that, where to board the bus! After half an hour of trying to figure things out, I finally was directed to the bus (in  Czech) by a nice train lady, and waited about 10 minutes for the next bus to show up. The bus ride was sweltering because the weather was so intense yesterday, but it was nice. The city towards the airport is exceedingly nice and has some very green grass and large houses. I finally reached the airport and found that my parents had been waiting for me to get there! They didn’t even get a stamp on their passport.

We got into a taxi and sat in traffic for awhile before getting to the hotel. Once we got to the hotel we vegged out – mom and dad took showers, mom then took a nap and dad and I went downstairs for a beer. Then we met Maria at the old hostel and brought our bags to the new hotel, and took showers then popped out for dinner. We had dinner at a restaurant I can’t remember the name of, but mom and Maria had the Czech specialty of roast pig’s knee. It was pretty awesome. Dad had the knee of lamb, and I had a yummy flank steak (they like their leg meat here!). We then rolled ourselves back over the Charles bridge to the hotel – stopping to buy some chocolate on the way. Basically, after that, we hit the beds and slept until now (well, everyone else is still asleep I do believe).

I got sunburnt yesterday! That’s how warm it was. And today look very nice out already, just a bit cloudy (which will be good for my toasty skin). We’re planning on going to Prague Castle today and wandering around and exploring that. We leave tomorrow night for Warsaw, so we’re jamming in a bunch of Czech sightseeing in the next couple of days.

Maria and I have also decided we’re going to mail some of our stuff back to London because we grossly overpacked (I never knew 10 shirts for 30 days would be too much), and it’ll lighten our load through the rest of our trip.

Anyways, I’m going to go see if anyone else is up yet.

Day 6: Prague

This won’t be going up until late, because the internet sucks hardcore tonight. Hopefully it will get better by morning, or else I’m going to have to make a special trip to the lobby to send this off! I also can’t post my pictures on facebook or here, properly, either. UGH.

Anyways, today!

We tried to have an early start this morning – I woke up at 7, waited for the shower till 7.30, then got Maria up at 8. We then went down to breakfast, but I had been kept awake for a long time last night by our noisy hostelmates – two who left today, one is still around, but I can deal with his stupid radio better than talking/yelling/throwing shoes. Maria’s lent me her soundproof headphones.

Anyways, I went for a nap while Maria wrote a non-drunk blog post about yesterday, and we dawdled until noonish. Then we took the tram up to the Charles Bridge and walked around. The bridge was beautiful, and horrifically crowded, but still worth it. We then walked from the bridge to the Jewish quarter, where we saw all of the old synagogues from the outside, and the old Jewish cemetery. It was really pretty, but the synagogues were rather expensive to get in, so instead we shopped in little souvenir shops – Maria got some postcards and we looked for a glass frog thermometer.

After that we decided to eat at the Kafka Cafe, which was cute and quaint. We had a nice, healthy meal there, then we moseyed on over to the Wenceslaus Square and toured the Kafka House. It was pretty cool, but pretty much everything Kafka has been torn down. Oh well.

After more souvenir shops, we settled into a Cuban cafe and had drinks which cost entirely too much. So we decided not to eat dinner out and just came home – Maria walked, I took the tram.

Tomorrow, Mom and Dad are getting in town – so I’m going to the airport to get them and hopefully that won’t be too much of an adventure.

This internet crap is throwing off my blogging skills. Excuse the lame post. <3

Praha on my mind!

So, despite a certain homesickness that struck last night due to exhaustion and leaving the comforting home of Simon, we hunkered down and saw lots of Prague today.

We started the day walking from our hostel, which is pretty much a million miles away from the center of town, but it’s only another night after tonight, so we’re dealing. We’ve also figured out how the trams work…sort of. We walked for about an hour before we reached the center area of town on the left side of the river. We met some swans on the way who gave us the stink eye and the fluff of anger, but they left us alone after we stopped taking their picture. We stopped at a cafe called the Cafe Savoy, which was very lush, and rather overpriced – but still cheap, this is Prague.

We found a map in the Cafe Savoy which was more useful than the others we had, and figured out we were basically at the base of Petrin Hill. Petrin Hill, for those who don’t know, was written about by Kafka in ‘Description of a Struggle’ and by Milan Kundera in ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’. It’s a beautiful hill and in the middle you can already see all of Prague and the Vltava river out in front of you in an awesome landscape.

We reached the top and wandered around the gardens up there and tried to go up the observation tower, but it was rather expensive. So, we bought a couple postcards (mine is an old-fashioned 3D picture viewer card!), and headed down a windy set of stairs into the Mala Strana area. We saw a cute little cafe called the Booze Bar (ha), and no one was in it except the very kind waitress who spoke very good English. She made us homemade mixed berry iced tea and I had a ginger ale, and some streudel (how do you even spell streudel? It’s too late for me to be writing this!), though I did try to get some kolacki, but it was cherry, so I renegged. We spent an hour or so there, listening to the eclectic music and feeling like it was a very home-y environment, then we toddled on down the street again. We found a market to buy dinner food, then we went across the street into a witchcraft store and bought some awesome tea. After that, we found a fruit stand and bought dates, apples, and oranges. Apparently we’re addicted to those fruit! Anyways, we found where the tram home came, but decided to go into the church of the Infant Jesus, which was both hilarious and beautiful. I can’t believe they dress up a wax doll of Baby Jesus every few months (in a secret ceremony at night) that is from the mid-1600s in Spain! Weird. But pretty church nonetheless. We hopped on the tram, not paying the fare, because we didn’t know how, and got home without any issue. We then made a yummy Italian dinner of pasta and tomato sauce (which is still in the fridge cause we made too much), and Maria drank lots of wine. We’ve just been lazing around at night – everyone in this hostel is here to get drunk and stay out till 2am, so it works out well for those of us who like quiet evenings and going to see the sights at a normal hour of the day.

The weirdest thing about this city is the crosswalk signals –they are the normal green and red men, but when it’s red, they make a slow flap flap flap noise, and when it’s green, they make a fast flapflapflap. I get that it’s for the blind, but that’s rather disconcerting to hear the flapping everywhere around you in a busy intersection. Also, the blind must have better hearing than me, because, shit, they all mix together when I’m standing on a corner.

Anyways, I’m off to bed. Sleepy time is calling me!

Pictures are here, for those who want to see them!

Perkere!

Well, we’ve finally reached Prague (hopefully, I am writing this on the train and will post it when we reach our hostel). We missed our first train this morning – 6:31 am was just too hardcore for us. We just barely missed it, too. But, we persevered and figured out the public transportation system in Amsterdam a little too well, and went the wrong way multiple times, but we finally made it Amsterdam Centraal station. We then renegotiated our travel plans, got on the 8:04 train to Frankfurt, arrived in Frankfurt at 11:51, got out next train to Nurnberg at 12:02 (same platform, thank goodness), and from Nurnberg we’re getting a bus to Prague. Which will (has) land(ed) us in Prague at around 6:30pm. Simon, our couchsurfing host, was awesome today – he woke up with us and walked us to the station where we missed our train, and then helped us get on a bus in the right direction. He was a champ. He also made us awesome pancakes with jalapenos, ham, and cheese last night for dinner. Best couchsurfing host ever. Hands down. He made our stay in Amsterdam totally awesome.

So,today we really spent just staring out train windows at beautiful little German towns and lush countryside. We had a nice meal on the train to Nurnberg, and generally just chilled on transportation all day. We’re staying in a hostel until my parents get to Prague on the 7th, then we’re moving to the hotel they’re in.

Real time update: Wurzberg is absolutely gorgeous. The sun is shining and all of the buildings by the river are old and brick and everything is gloriously green, and there’s a ferris wheel and a castle on a hill. Maybe on a trip through Germany, Wurzberg should be recommended.

I’m finally over my old, almost fully; I’m left with a stuffier nose than usual, but otherwise I beat the bastard hardcore with those good Belgian pharmaceuticals.

I’m a little put out we didn’t stay in Germany, but we didn’t find a couchsurfer – stayed rather too long in Amsterdam, and figured Prague was as good as anywhere to go next, since we have a bed there. I’ll come back to Germany someday.

If you don’t have to be anywhere fast, train travel is so the way to go. Apart from the fact that you’re not hanging precariously miles in the air moving super fast, nor are you stuck in your seat driving a car, trains offer awesome views, totally comfortable seats, and, despite the distinct lack of train-legs, you can wander around and stretch out. Train tracks also go through some awesome places that roads don’t, or that shops on roads have cut down. The forests around the train tracks are rather magical and dense and untouched by man (except for the loud clanging train going through at all hours, of course). But when you’re in the speeding hunk of loud metal, outside the window seems idyllic and awesome.

The sky is a super deep blue today, and there are big puffy clouds stopping the sun from coming through all the time (which is good for computer glare, but disappointing when the warmth from the window is taken away from you!).

I didn’t really take any photos today, when we actually get off the train and into Prague that might change, but I doubt it since we’re getting in rather late. So, I shall leave you with a picture of our train dining experience, the first of what I guess will be many to come.

Maria enjoying her good bread and seedy salad, with her awesome ginger-orange lemonade, and my chilli con carne, with beef that’s travelled more than I have!

Also, Perkere is the Finnish word for ‘fuck!’ which just doesn’t sound angry at all when you say it. We had a joke about curse words in different languages and perkere is just so cute to be coming out of a Finnish lumberjack’s mouth. D’awww.

My butt hurts much less, or Day Three: Amsterdam

Maria and I are blogging at the same time. OMG GUYS. Lawl. Simon is making a crazy sounding noise from the mixing stick thingy because we’re having pancakes for dinner. I bought prosciutto for mine, and i also bought some of the best thing on the planet – stroopwafels! Look it up, they’re friggin’ amazing pieces of gooey awesomeness. I will be sated when I have a lifetime supply of stroopwafels. Unfortunately I can’t carry that many around Europe. My life is so hard.

Today, we went to the Van Gogh museum. We cycled there, with our sore butts protesting, but we suffered through. It was well worth both the uncomfortable bike riding and the €14 entry fee. We spent four hours looking at all of the stuff there. I’d seen a lot of it before, but it was nice to see it all together and with a lot of Van Gogh’s inspirational artists.

After the huge amount of time we spent and the museum we toddled over to the Amsterdam Centraal train station, and exchanged some more money for Maria, and then rode to a supermarket where we bought all of the food we are rather impatiently awaiting. We just recently got home, and Maria’s bike ended up with a flat tire, unfortunately. But, for riding around for two days in a city we don’t know on bicycles that are new to us, it was rather good that the bicycles (or us!) didn’t suffer any more damage.

I didn’t have much of a chance to take pictures today – pictures aren’t allowed in the Van Gogh museum. So, really, all of the pictures I have are of the museum’s square.

Tomorrow morning, we get on a train bright an early – 7.04 am – to get to our next destination, which has changed from our initial plan. Trains were sold out for our initial plan – we were supposed to not even be in Amsterdam today for the whole day. But, I liked the extra day here. It was nice. The weather was not as nice as yesterday, but at least it wasn’t raining. There’s always something to be thankful for.

Tomorrow we’re doing 12 hours of train travel (in)directly east from here, and I’ll probably have either an exceedingly long entry because I’ll be writing on the train due to boredom, or a short entry because I’ll have just gotten in and will want to collapse into a heap in the hostel immediately. Either way, this entry has reached its natural end, let’s not force it any longer.

To see the pictures from today, click here.

Escapology, or: Amsterdam, you owe me a new butt.

Today, we really got to look at Amsterdam. Despite arriving last night and my almost dying of a cold, we were greeted by a yummy dinner made by our Couchsurfing host, Simon. I can’t remember if I wrote that yesterday. The cold medicines were strong within me, young Obi Wan.

Anyways, today we went around Amsterdam like true Amsterdammers. We borrowed bicycles from Simon’s stringmates (the people who live in his dorm building) and peddled around in the nice warm weather.

We started out at the Bloemenmarkt, which is the flower market in the centre of Amsterdam. Maria bought some tulips and it was awesome. Then we walked through the centre of town for a few hours – stopped for lunch in a nice little restaurant; avoided cafes like the plague (too much marijuana smoke!); went through a market in the Jordaan district. It was such a nice day for a walk and we all enjoyed that a lot. We also may have seen the statue of Spinoza. But it was unlabelled. Who knows!

After we sat by a canal for an hour or two and watched the party boats go by, we decided to cycle home. This was where the trouble began. Maria is a new learner on a bicycle (she learned in Israel last year), and I haven’t been on a real bicycle in a long time. Anyways, the cycles didn’t fit us very well since they were borrowed, and my butt was pretty much bruised from the cycle into town, but it worsened on the way out. Maria ended up crashing into Simon at a stop light, which was 2 parts scary, 1 part hilarious. I pulled up on my bicycle that didn’t really have working brakes. No one suffered any injuries, and both bikes were fully functional, but it was a moment we had been dreading all day.

After that excitement, we rode to the supermarket and bought food for dinner (spaghetti with meatsauce and tomato/mozzarella yummies). We rode home with sore butts and knees. While Simon was cooking dinner, maria and I tended to our sore butts by sitting on a soft bed, and then we’ve stayed up quite late. We’re still awake now, at 12:32 at night. We were supposed to be leaving Amsterdam tomorrow evening, but we’re not anymore, because of train difficulties. We’ll probably be leaving early in the morning on Monday.

See you laterrrr!

Day Two: We’re in Amsterdam

Hello world! I have a cold! Awesome! But, we’re in Amsterdam! We haven’t been out and about yet – we’ve just spent the evening with our Couchsurfing host, Simon, who made us a delicious fishy dish for dinner.

Yesterday, we finally ended up in Brussels, and went and walked around. We only went to the Grand’Place since we wanted to catch the train to Amsterdam about 3pm. And our delayed train cost us two hours at the end of it all. It was a misty foggy day in Brussels, but we went to the Chocolate museum, and walked through one of the awesome buildings on the Grand’Place.

Here are our pictures from Brussels!

OMG LOOK AT THE 5kG OF CHOCOLATE

A DOUBLE DECKER TRAIN. YEAH

Our Bags are packed, we’re ready to go…

That’s actually a little bit of a lie. While I have packed a bag, I’m not exactly fully and properly packed. Nor do I think I will be before we leave. Here’s to hoping I haven’t forgotten anything super important.

I started this e-mail yesterday and got distracted. We’re now on the Eurostar. There are technical delays.

We were supposed to leave half an hour ago, but the brakes on the train are having some kind of problem. As frustrating as having our train delayed is, I do very much like being able to stop. So, we’re persevering.

This morning we left the house hurriedly at 4:15am, to catch a 4:28 night bus, and were rather surprised when it stopped at a bus stop we could see, but were not standing at. We then tested the tensile strength of our backpack’s straps by running full tilt to the bus, and we made it, despite being packed in like little sardines. Especially because with our backpacks, we’re the size of two fully grown people. Oh well, what can you do?

We’re on the Eurostar to Brussels, which I realise I haven’t told this blog yet. I think I’ll keep our itinerary a secret so that I can at least somewhat surprise my readers with pictures and information every day. We’re not staying in Brussels tonight, though, but I will probably only be posting pictures of Brussels this evening. We’ll be getting into our next city rather late in the evening and have dinner with our Couchsurfing host planned.

Anyways, we’re still sitting in the station and I’m starting to get rather excited about going to Brussels, only to have it killed by the fact that we’re still sitting in London. There’s quite a bit of commotion outside of my window, I’m right by the Eurostar office place. Maybe we should have taken the later train, we’re not getting to Brussels any earlier than that one on this one! Brakes, why do you have to fail us?

Don’t mind our craziness/grossness, we woke up at 4am. UGH.

 

UPDATE: We have changed trains. It is supposed to leave now. HOPEFULLY IT WILL ACTUALLY LEAVE. Thanks, Eurostar, for ruining our lives.