i live a tough life
well i just realized that i have done a pretty poor job of keeping this thing updated, and that i dont write down half the stuff that i intend to, so for that i apologize to you all. there are a few of you with a substantial investment in this trip and im sure you would like to know where all that money is being funneled.
Budapest on sunday night was an absolutel blast, we saw the hungarian national orchestra playing in a huge open air park, and then i went to this massive club on the river with a bunch of friends. on the way home (about 4am) we saw a drunk idiot dive into the very fast moving and flooded danube river. i cannot confirm the outcome of this swim, but we did notify the closest cops for a rescue\recovery mission. somehow i got up relatively early on saturday morning, and i did the free walking tour of the city with my canadian buddies. i cant describe how much i love budapest, and im still bitter about only spending 3 nights there. after the tour i went through the caves and the labyrinth underneath the castle. when i went in, it was a beautiful day, and i emerged a few hours later into a rainstorm, without my rain jacket. so this consumed all of my day and by the time i had walked in the rain for 30 minutes i was pissed, so i determined that i needed another trip to the hungarian bathes followed immediately by a massage. i went out with some suisse last night to morrisons opera (which is not an opera at all, its a kareoke bar), and then got up at 6 this morning to hop on the train to Munich.
i was quite sad to leave the east, especially once i got to Munich and remembered how bad you get raped with the exchange in the euro zone. i have now changed currencies 11 times, so it was already hard to take any of the money seriously, but the hungarian forint was by far the most ridiculous and worthless. the exchange is a little over 200 forint to 1 USD, so it was really like using monopoly money the whole time. i took a sweet picture of myself rolling with about 50,000 forint the other day.
i got to Munich early this afternoon, and i remembered that i really liked Munich, but i couldnt remember why, but then as i was reading my book at the Englishgarten, i remembered why. i was befriended by 3 really old bavarian guys, who happened to really like the same beer i was drinking. this was why i liked Munich so much. so through various hand signals, broken english, and rounds of "proast" (german for cheers), i had another awesome day in Bavaria. i love this place. i wandered around after this, looking for my favorite thing in Germany, the guys who surf in the river in the middle of Munich. i had some cool videos of them from a few years ago, but i am still fascinated by these guys. i spent a couple hours on the river bank, and finally called it a day when the rain started about 8. i will no longer be complaining about the weather, as i think my complaints are the reason that i get rained on every day. i am getting up early to head to Interlaken tomorrow, and then i am skydiving on thursday. im pumped
hungary?
what a crazy few days it has been for me. so i left Split on friday for the beautiful train ride through the croatian mountains up to the capital city of Zagreb. i arrived at my hostel, and was greeted by name with beer (i told him what time id be arriving). i liked Zagreb already. the hostel is called Fulir, which is croatian slang for "pimp". thats exactly what it was. i had a blast there and decided that i really like the croatian people. not only are they super friendly and very good at english, but they also enjoy the art of the all night bar hop. so my 8am departure on saturday came very early, but myself and a few other people from the hostel made our train to Budapest. i have quit encountering austrailians so much over past week, but now they have been replaced by canadians. i find canadians easier to understand and much less ridiculous looking, though they all really like to take "chinese" pictures of themselves (where someone takes a picture of you standing in front of a building by yourself with a blank stare on your face). the chinese picture taking thing really bothers me, but other than that i have enjoyed my encounter with the 10 or so canadians i have met in the past week (3 more at my hostel here in Budapest).
so yesterday, i set off to do something that i havent done since i have been traveling by myself, which was to actually be by myself for a little while. i went out of my way to not introduce myself to anyone at the hostel yesterday, and set out to walk the streets solo for a little while. so im walking along, minding my own business, when i stumble upon an outdoor concert. as im walking up, i here a tune that sounds vaguely familiar... okay so i walked into the 2nd verse of a butchered version of sweet home alabama, in the middle of a random park in Budapest at 5 oclock yesterday. i took a video because it was so ridiculous. after i got my fill of them repeating the same verse for about 3 minutes i wandered on down into an outdoor skate park and made some conversation with some hungarians, who are also quite friendly. last night i finally broke down and made friends at the hostel, and then played quarters for a little while before calling it an early night.
today i woke up and met some friends at this local hungarian joint for some lunch. hungarian food is suprisingly awesome, and if i could even pronounce what i ate i would write it down. it was some sort of bread with chicken and cream sauce inside it on a salad. so delicious. after that i walked from Pest over to Buda (they are actually seperated by the danube, which by the way is flooded right now because it rained ALL night and all morning, not that im bitching). i toured the Buda castle and bounced in and out of various little street cafes and bars to avoid the rain. this is by far the coolest city i have been in and im kind of bummed i dont have about a week here. this afternoon, me and the canucks went to the hungarian hot bathes, a massive complex of pools, saunas, and springs. it was a great end to a day of walking. im back at the hostel now, and i just met 5 irish people that are staying here. i think everyone knows the high regard i have for the irish and their ability to party, so you can imagine my excitement. thats all for now, im going to caving tomorrow in Buda to squeeze through "the sandwich of death"
one for the road
sorry its been a few days, but it was not convenient to use the internet in Hvar and I didnt have a whole lot to write about except laying around on various rocky beaches. what was interesting starts on Wednesday night... i made it to a club called Carpe Diem where these Canadian guys were doing flaming sambuca shots. One of them asked for a lighter, and i had a lighter that i had just recently adjusted (to hold up at the concert we went to before the club). so this lighter is spitting out a flame roughly 6 inches high, and this guy lights the shot on fire in his mouth, simultaneously catching both eyebrows on fire with the giant lighter. i dont know if that description makes any sense, but it was one of the funniest things i have ever seen. so Marie left for Italy a couple days ago, and i ended up partying for the past two days with these ridiculous canadians. Yesterday we rented a boat and spent all day cruising around to different beaches and coves on all the uninhabited islands around Hvar. it was a beautiful blue sky day and the water couldnt have been prettier. of course i was the only one who knew how to drive a boat, so i spent all day as captain (sucked) while every one else partied. i finally crashed last night about 8 oclock for the first time in 48 hours and woke up early this morning to catch the catamaran back to Split, which is where i am now. i am heading to Zagreb in about an hour for the night and then tomorrow i am going to Budapest for 3 or 4 days. i wish i could post some pictures but the internet cafe doesnt have a memory card reader. this week has been awesome and was definately a nice break from traveling and walking all day, but i am really excited to see Budapest. Also i finally updated my travel map, so if you click the link above there is a map of everywhere i have been so far. Hope everyone had a good week, ill update tomorrow from Pest.
oh yea, somebody told me this morning that michael jackson died? someone please email me what happened, i am out of time on this comp.
the weather wins again
I dont know what I did to piss off the weather gods, but I definately did something. It never rains in Croatia, ever. A lot of resorts here even guarantee the weather will be nice or your room is free... so obviously its raining today, which is why I am on the internet. Hvar island is unbelievable, I cant describe it much better than that. Hopefully the sun will show its face sometime in the next few days. I think I am going to meet some friends I met in Berlin in Budapest this weekend. Then I think I may go to Interlaken and sky dive out of a glass bottom helicopter next week. I told Jordan I would meet him in Lyon on July 3rd, so I am going to have to start making my way back west sometime. And as with every trip I have taken to Europe, I am scheming on how I could possibly get to Barcelona before I leave. Only two weeks left and then back to reality.
Dalmatia
So I'm now 1500 miles away from where I was last weekend (in Riga),
and I finally stumbled upon some nice weather. I left off in Vienna,
so on Friday I wandered the streets all day and then went to the
supermarket to prepare for my 19 hour overnight train to southern
Croatia. I'm going to quote what Eurail says about night trains
"Imagine gently rocking to sleep to the rhythm of the rails and
arriving at your destination the next morning relaxed, refreshed, and
ready for a day of sight seeing." so that's what they had to say, this
is my interpretation in accordance with my 19 hour voyage: Imagine
sweating yourself to sleep, in a couchette with 5 Austrian strangers
and no AC, and being awoken three times in the middle of the night by
the Austrian police, Slovenian police, and the Croatian police, all on
a train that has no bar car, and arriving at your destination looking
closer to dead than alive. So that about sums up Friday night.
Anyway I arrived here Saturday morning to beautiful weather and Marie
Lemay (the frenchie I met in Latvia) walking off the boat she had been
sailing on for the past week. It was like I had never seen sunshine
before, so as soon as I showered a day's worth of train dirt off we
took it down to the beach for the whole day. I couldn't have asked for
a better day. We went to a Mediterranean restaurant last night, where
I made the mistake of ordering "fishes". I forgot that I was going to
get about 10 tiny little fish and then have to negotiate the ribs out
of each one. It was more frusterating than it was delicious. After
that we found a "Billiards" bar and shot some pool for awhile. The
forecast was for 80% chance of rain today, so we were thinking of
dipping out to some island further south, but we walked out into
sunshine this morning, so spent another day walking the coast and
laying around on the pebbles of the Adriatic shores. Probably going to
go Hvar island tomorrow, maybe for the day or maybe more, depending on
how cool it is. Happy Father's Day, Dad! I'll try to find a phone
around here sometime tonight. Peace to y'all
austria? put another shrimp on the barbie
well last night i was going to go around and take some pictures of the charles bridge and the castle at night, both seemed to be pretty cool pictures. then the aussies decided that i had to do the pub crawl with them. every single aussie is ridiculous. also, on the austrian keyboard the y is replaced with a z so from now one i am just going to tzpe and im not going to adjust to the new position of the z on the kezboard. last night i was just chilling in prague and of course the aussies talked me into doing the pub crawl with them. it would have been prettz cool except that i didnt leave the second stop. i ended up hanging out with a bunch of Czech dudes all night and went to some clubs with them. we listened to an awesome band last night, two guzs doing drum and bass and then two other guzs plazing trumpet and horn. it was a reallz interesting mix and an awesome time. i took off this morning and headed to Vienna. it was a hot daz and the train i was on was full of gzpsies and had no air conditioning, which leads to a verz smellz situation. so i got to mz hostel todaz and started some laundrz, and i met a dude that had lived in birmingham and had gone to church camp in alabama. i tell him im from anniston, so he asks if i know Rob Childers or Corey Davis. (his name is Peter Rutgers, in case an camp folks reading this know him) such a small world. so i know me and this guz knew each other from camp mcdowell, and we have been hanging out a bit and talking about good ole camp dazs. i am about to go out with a few folks from kansas and see some of Vienna. i have most of tomorrow to wander the citz and then i am getting on an overnight train and headed to Split, Croatia tomorrow night. i am going on vacation from vacation. how manypeople can say that?
Czech me out
It's been a crazy few days around my neck of the woods. I'll preface
this with a few things. austrailians are every where and they are the
drunkest people on the planet. My struggle with public transport
ticket machines continues. I have renewed my love affair with ham and
cheese sandwiches from the train station. Anyway with this being
established I will continue on with my tail. I was planning on having
a low key night in Berlin... then the Aussies came clean with some 5
dollar bottles of wodka. So I partied with like 20 Aussies and a
couple chicks from Florida. They headed to Prague the next mornng and
I went to try to go to Krakow. The train was full, so needless to say
I hopped the next train to Prague. It has been an awesome few days
here, I have made a ton of friends and will def meet up with some of
these peeps after Croatia. Having a phone over here right now would be
really convenient. Today we did a walking tour of the city and then
walked up to the castle. This is absolutely one of the most beautiful
places in the world. I am staying at a cool hostel some people
recommended me called the Czech Inn. Def the place to be. On the not
cool side of the past few days, my debit card isn't working and I lost
one of my flip flops under the train. That's it for today, I am going
flip flop shopping and then I'm off to Vienna in the morning
Holy $hit, Copenhagan is expensive
so I knew I was in trouble when my first beer in copenhagan cost 12
dollars, at a cheap place. Everything was completely booked Saturday
night when we got there, so we tried to find a hotel. For some reason
copenhagan is very popular, and there were no hotels either. We
finally checked into the trashiest place I have ever been before, for
about 100 dollars. Yea so I was ready to leave Saturday night. But
thankfully, we didn't get murdered. Sunday we checked into a hostel,
and then walked THE ENTIRE CITY. 6 hours later we got back to the
hostel and met some Swedish people who told us we had to go to
Christiania with them. I did not know what this mysterious place was.
It's a separatist part of copenhagan that's ridiculous party central.
We went for an outdoor concert and the Swedish guy told us the two
rules. 1. Don't for any reason, pet the dogs and 2. Never make eye
contact with the drug dealers. We finally escaped from Christianian
about 3 this morning, and then I woke up and hopped on the train to
Berlin. I got to my hostel a little while ago, and now I'm with a
bunch of ridiculous austrailians. They are looking at me funny right
now for typing on my iPod. I'm headed to krakow tomorrow, wish me
luck.
the adventure begins
so doesnt look like ill be able to put up pictures until i get to croatia, ill be only blogging on ipod only. so we finished school yesterday and today is the day everybody goes their separate ways. ill give a brief run down of the highlights of the last 3 weeks.1. everyone in eastern europe talks with a ridiculous "Borat" accent, so we have spent the last 3 weeks imitating them at every possible opportunity. we have now listened to the Borat version of the Kazakstan national anthem probably 50 times, and screaming I hate Uzbekistan in the streets. I accused a begging woman in Lithuania of being an Uzbek spy. yes it has been quite entertaining.2. Bruce the Wise. so i never told everyone about our international contingent on the trip. One half of that contingent is Bruce Packard, aka the Grim Reaper. Bruce was a very succesful investment banker in London, and if you google his name youll see why he was called the Grim Reaper of Banking. We decided that his name is Bruce the Wise, due to his constant supply of wisdom on every imaginable topic. Bruce the Wise is in his mid 30s and has become a vagabond since leaving the banking industry last year, and litterally has nothing to do but read all day. so Bruce joined our Economic Crisis Tour just for fun, and because he likes asking ridiculous questions to eastern european finance ministers. I have found Bruce to be a very entertaining character, and we culminated our trip with a lecture from Bruce yesterday. maybe ill write more of Bruce's wisdom down sometime. just know that he has the keenest sense of predicting exactly what time it is going to rain, and completely avoiding it. Bruce also worked at a ski resort in Checnya in the mid 90s when he was like 18. he is very wise.3. Latvia sucks. for various reasons (similar to my view of Finland) i have decided that i do not like Latvia, not to mention we had some terrible company visits here. we went to the "Solid State of Physics" lab yesterday. i have never in my life seen more people sleeping during a lecture.4. Russians. i find they are a fascinating people, and i think the next trip i take will absolutely involve Moscow and St. Petersburg.5. The worst weather on the planet. in correct fashion, it is a cold raining day today in Riga. there have been two hail storms so far on this trip, and rain almost everyday at some point. they have some of the highest suicide rates anywhere in the world in the baltics, and i know exactly why.so there is a little taste of whats been going down. the last few days have been fairly uneventful, just working all day and playing all night. last night we had our fairwell dinner and then pulled an all nighter since a lot of people were flying out at like 6 in the morning. we came back to the hostel and there was a norwegian staying on our floor. so at 3am this morning we sat around listening to about 20 old women sing norwegian folk songs to the whole hotel. i cant explain how ridiculous the whole scenario was, but at some point i think we ended up singing sweet home alabama to them. security made us shut up at around 430. then today Bruce the Wise took the bus to Tartu. Bruce the Wise loves Tartu, and has told me more times than I ever want to hear about how great Tartu is and how he is going to take the bus back there. I am now without wisdom. we also went to the top of a giant church tower today, in the rain. so i have some sweet blurry pictures from up there that maybe ill put up if i stumble upon a computerim off to Copenhagan with John and Mandy in a few hours, then Berlin on Monday, then Krakow for a few days. on friday im hopping the train and going to meet Marie Lamay for a few days on the coast of Croatia, and then maybe ill go to Budapest. this is all subject to change based on my mood and the weather, because if i dont see some sunshine soon im gonna lose it.
a little bit of direction...
our time in Riga so far has been quite enjoyable, and the long days of poorly put together company visits are nearly over. yesterday, we had a meeting at the ministry of economics. in the middle of our visit a lady came in and told us that the budget had been adjusted and the ministry of economics is being disbanded. thats how backasswards this place is, the one thing they actually need to survive their crisis and they are abandoning it. just stupid. yesterday afternoon it was finally nice here so we hopped on the train and rode down to the beach. the beach is awesome, but its quite windy and cold there. (the baltic sea is equivalent to swimming in alaska)
and then like idiots.... we got in the water
so i have been meeting all the people in our hostel (most of whom have been living here for the whole semester doing study abroad) and last night we went out with them for a going away party for one of the guys. it is a very diverse crowd here, with russians, germans, ukrainians a palestinian, several georgians and indians, so there is lots of broken english being spoken. we had a good time and then we met up with some french canadians that i met on the train and went out for a while (ironically to a bar that is called "the french bar" here). i am going to end up meeting them in croatia in a few weeks and travel for a bit with them. more on that later as our plans develop. so as the sun started to show up early this morning, i walked my friend home through the maze of wasted english guys and prostitutes and then called it a night (morning).
today 8am came exceptionally early and we dragged ourselves out of bed and got on a bus to go tour some production facilities in rural latvia. we went to a massive bakery, to a candle production facility, and to a herbal medicine shop. the visits were okay, but it was really cool to get to see some small villages and the country side, which is gorgeous. not much else is going on, the crazy Riga nights will continue for a little while longer, and then the real adventure will start. i am really ready to start traveling and finally get to wear shorts. its like 50 degrees here everyday. im off to find the frenchies and get some food. peace
an incredible journey
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=4233223this is the most amazing story i have seen in a while
RIGA
so hopefully everyone has been following the other blog as well, it saves me the trouble of trying to update this every single day. latvia has not yet collapsed, but due to the absurd exchange rate that has not been revised (the lat is pegged to the euro), latvia is substantially more expensive than estonia and lithuania. so we arrived by a small van on friday afternoon, and checked into what we thought was going to be a nice hotel. we had about 30 minutes of sun shine before it started raining on us again. (i have not taken one pair of shorts out of my bag since i got to europe, it has literally been raining and cold since i got to estonia a few weeks ago) anyway our hotel is very nice, except on the third floor, which is the hostel level (this place was probably built in the 40s and the third floor definately has not been renovated since then). we are on the 3rd floor. its a very dirty place, but they have a washing machine, so today i finally got to do some laundry. it has been a gross few days since i ran out of clean clothes (actually about a week ago when i ran out). anyway friday night we went around for a little while and ended up at an indian/irish restaurant/bar. we went exploring afterwards, and finally we ended up watching a movie with a ton of people in the hostel theater area. saturday we had a walking tour in the morning and we went to the museum of soviet occupation in the afternoon. i am eventually going to write a post of all the information i have gathered on the baltics during the occupation of each country. it is unbelievable how war torn these places have been, and the injustice that occurred to these people during the occupations.
last night we had a lecture and tour at the university of latvia, where we did a scavenger hunt around the university with about 15 locals students and the members of their SGA. it was a very cool experience, and we had our welcome dinner with the students afterwards. i took the picture below from the top of the university tower during the scavenger hunt. we hung out with the students for a while and eventually we all went to a bar on the 26th floor of the nicest hotel in riga (appropriately named the skybar) and hung out for a while. we pretty much slept all day today. we got to watch the tennis match this afternoon with a few people in the hostel, and i made friends with a cool german guy who has been living in russia for the past few years. it has been an exhausting weekend for us, and then we just finished watching the braves game on the internet. riga is an absolutely amazing place, caught in the turmoil of trying to be a modern city in a developing country. the city has so much to offer culturally, and i am looking forward to spending the next week experiencing it.
i hope at some point it stops raining so i can take some more pictures, but so far we have not had good luck on that end. thats about all thats going on, its back to company visits and economic lectures in the morning, followed by another crazy night of british stag parties and obnoxious russians. what more could you ask for?
also i have now been in four different countries in one week, going from finland to estonia to lithuania to latvia. pretty damn cool if you ask me.
also here is the only frank zappa statue anywhere in the world (in Vilnius)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2000/jan/29/lithuaniathat is a link that will give you some idea of why there is a frank zappa statue there, but in reality there is no good reason. i will tell you a little about the KGB museum in Vilnius. it was actually called the museum of genocide, and was located in the old KGB building. absolutely the most intense museum i have ever been in and definately one of the most eye opening places in europe. there were tons of prison cells and torture rooms in the basement, along with listening rooms, surveillance offices, and interrogation areas in the upper areas of the building. it was haunting to walk through the execution chamber and mass grave areas there, and to read about the way the soviets treated their detainees. they had a water torture room that people would be in for days at a time. i really cant describe it very well with words, but it was an unbelievable place and an absolute must see in lithuania.
i am out of internet time, and the latvian keyboard is a even more awkward than the lithuanian, so i am out. good night and good luck. (that is the only phrase i have learned in latvian, but it would be impossible for me to guess how to type it)
a good day in vilnius
so here are a few pictures i took yesterday and one from the ferry last weekend in helsinki. we really got screwed only having one day here so im not going to waste much more of my last 4 hours here on the computer. we are about to go to a KGB museum and to the statue of frank zappa. wikipedia the statue for more info, also somebody did a pretty good write up on the auburneurope.blogspot.com page, so for a more detailed explanation of whats going on today read that. i will write the whole story (hopefully) when we get to Riga if there is internet. As you can see I have finally gotten to use a computer so there is no weird spacing from typing on my ipod. Wish us luck today, the Latvians are already on their 2nd government this year, they had a failed government bond auction last week, so potentially the currency could collapse or be devalued this week... which would lead to mass riots in the streets. sounds like fun huh? anyway i need to run and catch up with my peeps. more from riga unless the city is burning
but we just dont have the time.
Klaipeda land of opportunity
So sorry I don't know why my post yesterday ended up with a space in
the middle of every word. Black cat tavern was awesome. There has been
a us navy command ship here for a few days and we ended up with those
guys last night and with some musicians from Colorado college. Today
we did 3 company visits starting with the syvturys brewery at 10 am
(bad idea) and then to a ship building company, and finishing at a
cool port logistics company. It's exactly the kind of work I want to
be doing. We then went back to the hotel and I planned my attack (no
pun intended) for the second half of my trip. As with most European
invasions I will start by going through Poland. I'm going to go to
Warsaw and then to krakow and then maybe Prague from there. I have a
feeling this email is going to end up with a bunch of weird spacing,
and that's because there is still no Internet in klaipeda, except on
my iPod.. Tonight we went to Skandalas, a cool little retro American
style restaurant and pub. When we get to Vilnius tomorrow I'll
hopefully be able to post some pictures from johns comp. That's about
it from klaipeda, hopefully we will have some Internet tomorrow, for
now its svyturys time.
Lithuania: Not Internet friendly
Ah so it's been a hectic couple of days. We left tallinn at 5am on
monday morning, so obviously we made the decision to stay up all night
before we left. We flew to Vilnius, lithuania on a hang glider with an
engine. I hate turbo props. We got there and got on a van. A van, to
carry 15 people traveling with all their stuff? Yes, after 20-30
minutes of complaining we all piled in, with suitcases and backpacks
being shoved in laps and every ounce of floor space. For a 4 hour bus
ride. So needless to say we get here and everyone is pissed. And then
they tell us we have to do our walking tour of the city because it was
supposed to rain today. You can speculate on our attitude yesterday
night at our welcome dinner. After that we went back and grabbed
showers and went to a cool jazz bar in the old town, the name of which
I will get later on tonight.
Today we were served breakfast in our room (awesome) and then we got
on a ferry headed to Curonian Split, which is the equivalent of a
barrier island that is a hundred miles long. I would post pictures,
but due to lack of Internet access (anywhere in the city), I am typing
this on my iPod sitting outside a hotel. So we went to an old fort
that has been turned into the Lithuanian sea museum. So I came 3000
miles to go to an f-ing aquarium. We then joined about 600 eight year
olds to watch a dolphin show. While I was impressed I would have much
rather spent my morning at the soviet missle base that is about an
hour away. The split looks really cool, and hopefully tomorrow we will
have some time to go back and explore the national park and beaches.
This afternoon we had our first lecture at the University of Klaipeda
on Lithuanian economic impact in the rest of Europe. While it was
painfully obvious that the guy was an old commie, it's been
interesting to get the old soviet point of view on everything. So
after 3 hours of that, john, thomas and I are now all having a
svyturys outside this hotel. That's local beer here, and our first
company visit tomorrow is at their brewery. That's about all for now,
hopefully we can get internet working at the guesthouse and I can post
some pictures later on. We are headed to the black cat pub, I'll let
you know how it is tomorrow.
