Budapest is awesome. We only spent 3 nights but would have liked to have spent a week due to the fun and the amount to do and see.
We arrived from Bratislava and left our car on the side of a road on the west (Buda) side of the Danube river. It was getting late so got a taxi to the hostel, "Tiger Tim's". Initially dubious about the hostel, as getting there required going through a little complex of tiny shops then up 3 levels into what looked like an old apartment block via steep stairs or a tiny, dodgy, rickety, communist elevator. Communist in the sense that its from the Hungarian communist era, the elevator itself doesn't, as far as I could discover, believe in communism. "Tiger Tim's" however turned out to be the best hostel we had visited. It felt very much like Tim had just converted his house into a hostel, filling all the rooms with bunk beds, decorating it with cool graphics and filling the main room (which also included the kitchen) with bean bags, games and a TV with a bunch of movies and stuff to watch. The atmosphere was amazing, the staff were all so friendly and outgoing that it spread to the guests and everyone just becomes friends with everyone. On arrival Dave, a cool Irish bloke working there, showed us around and then told us to "go out, have some dinner, grab some beers and be back here by 9 for the drinking games before we go pub crawling". Who are we to disobey such excellent orders.
Got dinner from a really cool "Hummus Bar", $3 for a big pita bread filled with hummus, fries and salad, then got 12 beers for $8 from the nearby supermarket. Beginning to realise how amazing Budapest is at this point. Got back to the hostel and join the other guests (plus Tim and all the employees) in a game of drinking Jenga, which essentially is Kings (or Ring of Fire if you will) but there is a rule on each block and whoever knocks it over drinks the cup filled at the start with a little bit of everyone's drinks. After that we did a couple of Australia vs The Dutch (the 2 groups being the majority of the guests) boat races before embarking on the pub crawl. Apparently the hostel does this every night, they actually have one of the staff members to run it and the others come along anyway because its always fun.
The first place we visited was this little cheap bar doing $1 (or like 230 of the Hungarian funbucks we never got the name of) beers and which, unexpectedly, started showing rather explicit ads for hardcore porn on the TV. Befriended a group of Irish girls from the hostel while we were there. The second place was amazing, and I really wish I got its name so we could have gone back, and was a big room with a bar at one end, karaoke and a dance floor up the other and in the middle a big table set up for beer pong and boat races. Stayed there for a while, sung "The Bad Touch" by Bloodhound Gang with a couple of the Irish girls then we moved on to the final place of the night, called "Instant". "Instant" became my favourite place in Budapest, an awesome ruin bar (bars that used to be ruined buildings, bought up and converted to bars, graffiti, ruins and all) covered in crazy decorations, series of rabbits running into the room, a huge owl-woman, lots of cool artistry and little rooms off each level (2 + the basement, each with a different style of music). Hung out there until about 3am.
Slept in and bummed around the common room, recovering and watching national geographic, until 3 when we went to the bus/train station, bought a large pile of tickets and went caving, which was absolutely amazing. 2 and a half hours of exploring a massive cave system under Budapest in a group of 12, lead by a crazy Hungarian guy who just dived headfirst, literally, into the various drops and climbs. I am a caving ninja. We also befriended 2 girls from Melbourne, Elizabeth and Anita, who we amused with our dumb shenanigans and talk of cave bears.
Got back to the hostel at 8:45, changed and then me and Macky left Lewis and met up with Elizabeth and Anita at 9. Went to some awesome Hungarian and Thai restaurant where we sat on cushions and spent very little in exchange for starters, full meals and a couple of beers each. We then went to "Instant" again, explored a little more before going to an open air ruin bar for a couple of quiet drinks and heading back around 2am.
Got up at 9 in order to make a 10:30 walking tour. Didn't make the tour. Instead we headed over to the "House of Terror", a building that was home to the Hungarian Nazi party and then the communist secret police. Lots of displays on the time Hungary spent under the nazi and communist thumbs as well as the torture that was inflicted and the victims of the regimes. The basement level also had a lot of the original holding and torture cells. Very worthwhile for the entry fee. We left with an hour to make it the 15 minute walk to the start of the afternoon walking tour, stopped in at the hostel to get jackets as it had started raining and ended up running late to the tour and missing out of lunch as a result (and also breakfast earlier), leaving me somewhat grumpy with hunger. Toured around Pest, the eastern side of the river, then crossed a magnificent bridge to Buda and walked up the hill to the castle. Lots of awesome information, cool buildings and an amazing view of the city from the top of the hill the castle was on. Ended the tour at the entrance to a small cave system called the labyrinth, which contains at its end a fountain of wine (which is not meant to be drinkable but according to the guide tastes very sour and, according to a couple at the hostel, can be drunk in severe quantities without any negative effect) and at 6pm turns off all the lights and gives guests a lantern to explore in the dark.
Made our way back to the hostel via the synagogue in the Jewish quarter, apparently the second largest in Europe, and a much needed, cheap and tasty Dutch pizzeria. Got back intending to have a quiet one in order to wake up at 8 for the long drive to Belgrad, but with Macky skyping Jo and Lewis on his laptop Grace, an American who was running the evening, convinced me to join them for drinking games. Telling myself I wouldn't go out after I joined in for the 2 rounds of drinking Jenga and then everyone got ready to leave for another pub crawl. Again, Grace convinced me (probably more easily due to the whole drinking thing this time) to join them for "a short while" and went to the same first place as the other night then on to "Instant" again, hanging out with Grace, Dave and a group of poms from Bristol and exploring more of "Instant", finding a room where the room was covered in furniture glued upside down, tables and chairs, a carpet and all sorts of paraphernalia, ala the Twits. Ended up leaving rather late, having issues getting back to the hostel and getting in around 4. Oops, I guess.
Woke up the next morning at 8:15 in order to commence the drive by 9. Due to needing to find maps and the needs of the other members of the party to skype their girlfriends while I vegetated on a beanbag. Left at 12.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Days 40-43 (July 16-19) - Vienna & Bratislava
Our drive to Vienna was happily drama free, the only noteworthy events being the stunning Austrian scenery and Czech Vegas. Czech Vegas is our name for a... town?... just on the Czech side of the border with Austria, and announced it's appearance through a series of rather bored and uncomfortable prostitutes lining the side of the road, their lacklustre appearance and pimp on a motorbike forming a stark contrast with the fields of corn and huge yellow sunflowers. Initially puzzled by a series of used looking women wearing very little standing at regular intervals. Our realisation of their purpose came just before we turned a corner and entered Czech Vegas itself, which was a long strip on either side of the road of rather explicit billboards the size of trucks for sex shows and shops, as well as the shows and shops themselves and a variety of casinos decorated with huge statues, often dinosaurs or globes, or made up to look like mini-castles. I'm not exactly sure what laws in Austria cause them to cross the border to visit such a place but that is clearly its purpose and we left it behind feeling somewhat baffled, incredulous and slightly dirtier.
A while later we arrived and checked in to the "Westend City Hostel", which was fairly unimpressive, with small rooms, uninterested staff, crappy wifi and, while it was included, breakfast wasn't great, especially as the staff running it didn't even refill the water jugs so there was nothing for us non-coffee drinkers to drink. Anyway, we showered and settled in to our corridor with bunk beds room and headed out to find dinner. Found a place around the corner that did a student's special meal that, combined with a beer, cost $8 and consisted of a big bowl of excellent soup (with strips of pancake in, because why not have pancakes in soup) and a massive schnitzel and chips.
Got ourselves (or at least, Macky and I did, Lewis' waking up process takes somewhere between half an hour and half a day) up early the next morning and drove 2 hours west to visit Mauthausen concentration camp. Spent all day there, leaving just before it closed at 5pm. Entry was only $2 and included an audio guide with about 75 minutes of information about the locations, conditions, history and with quotes from survivors. Spent the whole day in a sort of fugue, wandering around the various buildings, 3 of the prisoner barracks, admin buildings, the laundry, showers and jails as well as the execution and cremation rooms and the SS buildings. The site also included a huge series of memorials for the various groups that made up the ~100,000 people who died at Mauthausen and the quarry where a lot of the work groups spent their time and the long, steep track and stairs they had to carry huge rocks up all day.
Drove home in near silence, had the same dinner from the same place as the previous night, watched some TV in the common room and went to bed.
Woke up the next day feeling more like ourselves again, had breakfast and then drove straight to Bratislava. We were intending to explore Vienna a bit but there didn't seem to be that many sights and none of us really felt like staying around Austria after the previous day.
Arrived in Bratislava, parked the car right next to where the hostel was meant to be and then spent 30 minutes wandering the Bratislava backstreets (is good you come in summer, in vinter is very depressing) before we found a tiny little walkway which took us through to the main shopping boulevard and we found ourselves outside the barred gates of "Hostel Vegas", which required its guests to buzz to get in, and oddly enough out too, and which filled the hostel with the regular annoying trill of someone seeking entry or exit but was otherwise quite nice. Once we were in we asked the girl working the reception about free parking and she marked a couple of spots on our map. Thus begun our first confrontation with the Bratislava 1 way street system, which I am convinced has a minotaur in the middle and caused us to spend about 45 minutes finding the first marked area, finding out how to get to it, deciding it was too hard to deal with and then reaching the second area, which was just cars parked on the curb, but everyone else seemed to do it so we squeezed ourselves on and, praying we would find her in one piece, left Cumu there and walked back to the hostel and then went clothes shopping for the various pieces we each desired. After taking our picks of Bratislava fashion we then went looking for some authentic Slovak food but mostly found a series of kebab and pizza stalls until we arrived at the "Slovak Pub", which, despite its fantastically original name, had really excellent cheap spicy goulash. Headed back to the hostel to have a few quiet beers as it was storming and, apparently, Bratislava nightlife is nonexistent on weekdays.
Woke up from a crappy sleep, largely due to our Italian roommates drunken arrival around 2am and drunken departure around 6am, both of which involved much loud Italian, stumbling around the room and what sounded like poor, innocent backpacks being horrifically violated. Got ourselves up for a walking tour at 11am, where a funny woman led us through a series of cool little statues, past an awesome bright blue church and ended up at the spot where a student stood in front of a line of soviet tanks, daring the tank to shoot him and was, apparently, one of instigating factors for the downfall of Slovak communism. The tour also included a wide array of anecdotes about our guides favourite shopping places, restaraunts and, for some reason, her grandmother. After the tour we had lunch at an awesome, medieval themed restaurant called "Flagship" where we experienced Slovak garlic soup in a bread bowl. Bread bowls are the best thing ever. Garlic soup was so ridiculously garlicky that neither myself nor Lewis could handle it. Macky had no such problems.
A while later we arrived and checked in to the "Westend City Hostel", which was fairly unimpressive, with small rooms, uninterested staff, crappy wifi and, while it was included, breakfast wasn't great, especially as the staff running it didn't even refill the water jugs so there was nothing for us non-coffee drinkers to drink. Anyway, we showered and settled in to our corridor with bunk beds room and headed out to find dinner. Found a place around the corner that did a student's special meal that, combined with a beer, cost $8 and consisted of a big bowl of excellent soup (with strips of pancake in, because why not have pancakes in soup) and a massive schnitzel and chips.
Got ourselves (or at least, Macky and I did, Lewis' waking up process takes somewhere between half an hour and half a day) up early the next morning and drove 2 hours west to visit Mauthausen concentration camp. Spent all day there, leaving just before it closed at 5pm. Entry was only $2 and included an audio guide with about 75 minutes of information about the locations, conditions, history and with quotes from survivors. Spent the whole day in a sort of fugue, wandering around the various buildings, 3 of the prisoner barracks, admin buildings, the laundry, showers and jails as well as the execution and cremation rooms and the SS buildings. The site also included a huge series of memorials for the various groups that made up the ~100,000 people who died at Mauthausen and the quarry where a lot of the work groups spent their time and the long, steep track and stairs they had to carry huge rocks up all day.
Drove home in near silence, had the same dinner from the same place as the previous night, watched some TV in the common room and went to bed.
Woke up the next day feeling more like ourselves again, had breakfast and then drove straight to Bratislava. We were intending to explore Vienna a bit but there didn't seem to be that many sights and none of us really felt like staying around Austria after the previous day.
Arrived in Bratislava, parked the car right next to where the hostel was meant to be and then spent 30 minutes wandering the Bratislava backstreets (is good you come in summer, in vinter is very depressing) before we found a tiny little walkway which took us through to the main shopping boulevard and we found ourselves outside the barred gates of "Hostel Vegas", which required its guests to buzz to get in, and oddly enough out too, and which filled the hostel with the regular annoying trill of someone seeking entry or exit but was otherwise quite nice. Once we were in we asked the girl working the reception about free parking and she marked a couple of spots on our map. Thus begun our first confrontation with the Bratislava 1 way street system, which I am convinced has a minotaur in the middle and caused us to spend about 45 minutes finding the first marked area, finding out how to get to it, deciding it was too hard to deal with and then reaching the second area, which was just cars parked on the curb, but everyone else seemed to do it so we squeezed ourselves on and, praying we would find her in one piece, left Cumu there and walked back to the hostel and then went clothes shopping for the various pieces we each desired. After taking our picks of Bratislava fashion we then went looking for some authentic Slovak food but mostly found a series of kebab and pizza stalls until we arrived at the "Slovak Pub", which, despite its fantastically original name, had really excellent cheap spicy goulash. Headed back to the hostel to have a few quiet beers as it was storming and, apparently, Bratislava nightlife is nonexistent on weekdays.
Woke up from a crappy sleep, largely due to our Italian roommates drunken arrival around 2am and drunken departure around 6am, both of which involved much loud Italian, stumbling around the room and what sounded like poor, innocent backpacks being horrifically violated. Got ourselves up for a walking tour at 11am, where a funny woman led us through a series of cool little statues, past an awesome bright blue church and ended up at the spot where a student stood in front of a line of soviet tanks, daring the tank to shoot him and was, apparently, one of instigating factors for the downfall of Slovak communism. The tour also included a wide array of anecdotes about our guides favourite shopping places, restaraunts and, for some reason, her grandmother. After the tour we had lunch at an awesome, medieval themed restaurant called "Flagship" where we experienced Slovak garlic soup in a bread bowl. Bread bowls are the best thing ever. Garlic soup was so ridiculously garlicky that neither myself nor Lewis could handle it. Macky had no such problems.
Days 36-40 (July 12-16) - Dresden & Prague
Drove to Dresden and checked in to "Lollis Homestay Hostel", which was this awesome little chilled out place where we had treated ourselves to a private room, about 6pm and went to find dinner. Walked around a bit looking at the various options and ended up going into this cool little place that was essentially just the ground floor of a house, a standard house kitchen and table and chairs run by a single (as in alone, I didn't hit on some random German chef) woman did really tasty homemade burgers for very cheap. On the way back we walked past an area known as the "Bermuda Triangle" which apparently is a local thing where 2 main roads cross and everynight people just go there to sit around and drink on the side of the street because it's cheaper.
The next morning we checked out, dumped our bags in Cumu, who was waiting faithfully (which is very much against her usual cantankerous manner) outside then went for a wander around Dresden. Dresden has a very punk sort of feel to it, largely due to the look of a large portion of the people, but also from the clubs and expansive, often amazing, graffiti. It actually felt shocking to see a guy walking past in a suit. Lewis and I were looking to find the "most beautiful and decorative cheese shop in the world" but, alas, we failed in our quest. We did however stumble, completely unexpectedly, down a random alley and suddenly find ourselves in a plaza of wonder, every building fronting the plaza was decorated in some fanciful manner, lots of tile mosaics, lots of colour, one building had a set of drain pipes that looked straight out of a Dr Seuss tale and another had rendered monkeys and a giraffe swinging off or eating the wall. Very odd but a spectacular find. We then made our way back to Cumu and commenced the drive on south to Prague.
The border crossing into the Czech Republic was very confronting, a big, soviet-looking building and floodlights, followed by a large concrete wall around the road before we got to see the countryside and realise that, if your Czech, the grass literally is greener on the other side. The fields, and the town who soon drove through, had a much shabbier, dirtier feel to anywhere we had yet encountered and really brought home the realisation that we were now getting into Eastern Europe. After a while driving through a series of small Czech towns we arrived at Prague itself and easily made our way to the "Clown and Bard" hostel, a very cool place with a chilled out, fun loving feel and nice, old school tavern aesthetic. On checking in we came to the realisation that we had made a terribly rookie error and the Czechs don't use Euros, so we went on a minor hunt to acquire some Koruna, which there are about 20 of to an aussie dollar.
Take two. Checked in, moved Cumu to the recommended "secure parking", which felt like a somewhat dubious title given that it was a patch of dirty surrounded by shipping containers on 2 sides and wire on the other 2, and with a small boomgate next to a shanty hut run by a guy who spoke no english. I, having driven, let this be Lewis' problem, and 10 minutes later, looking confused, he came out and said he had a ticket and we had to do something with the number 5, which we discovered was our assigned parking space thankfully.
I am going to briefly pause here to discuss the Prague tram system. It's really good, they are near constant, go everywhere you could want to go and do so directly. However, the ticket system is not something we could figure out. We only found 2 ticket machines in the 3 days we were there and, due to our lack of Czech or, most likely, common sense we could not work out how to use them. Additionally we didn't in those 3 days see a single person use a ticket. In the end we ended up using the tram system the whole time without paying and without running into any trouble at all. Either the Prague tram system is some sort of glorious free system or we rorted it horribly by way of our stupidity.
After dropping the car off we trammed back to the hostel and found this amazing place 2 doors down that did the best dinner we had had for around 100Kc. We went the adventurous option and chose dishes from the "Stuff we invented" part of the menu, which resulted in me ordering "pork stuffed fries" (Pork?! Inside fries?! Best thing ever!) and ended up being a huge pork schnitzel wrapped around mushrooms and blue cheese, on top of a huge pile of fries, with cheese melted over the entire lot. New best thing ever. During dinner, in the period between beer and food (with more beer) it started to storm explosively and, although we were happily ensconced under a large umbrella watching the lightning and less dry patrons, we were moved inside. After dinner we headed back to the hostel to have a couple of drinks in the hostel lounge/bar and made friends with a couple of dutch girls, Doreen and Iris.
Woke up early to take advantage of the cheap (and tasty) hostel breakfast and jumped on another (free) tram to start seeing the sights of Prague. First stop was meant to be Mozart's house. Following the map we walked up a little street past a cool music hall next to a little park and then up a tree-lined path and found ourselves, rather than getting our Mozart on, in what seemed like an upper class district of Prague. After a bit of a search (and a larger bit of being lost) we came to the realisation that the music hall must have actually been Mozart's house (a sign would have been great but I guess this is our bad... music hall... Mozart... no common link at all for us to pick up on). We then trammed on up the hill to Prague castle, walked up a huge flight of stairs and at the top were confronted on one side by magnificent views out over all of Prague and on the other by the hugely ornate entrance to the Castle. Bought our tickets to allow entry to the various buildings and explored the various churches (and the amazing gothic cathedral) and buildings, plus (to Macky's delight) a vast display of medieval weapons and armor.
Trammed back to the hostel and met up with Doreen and Iris, then trammed back into town to go to a place called the "Iron Curtain" which I cannot recommend highly enough. It is an underground, bunker like, restaurant/bar/club decorated profusely by old artifacts from the Czech communist era, and for $6 (roughly, can't remember the exact Koruna price) did a "secret special" of a beer and a good sized goulash. We hung out there for a while playing a dutch drinking game based around blowing cards (or in our case beer coasters) off the top of a glass and were joined around 9:30 by Marty and Simon Fraser. Started rebonding with Marty, had another beer or 2 and a round of shots then headed to a club the girls wanted to go to called "Roxy". "Roxy" is this crazy minimalist club with super slow dance music playing in a single huge hall. We stayed there, Simon leaving around midnight, until 3 when we left the girls there as they were chucking an all-nighter in order to get a train early the next morning and we went back to the hostel (Marty taxiing on to Simon's place).
Woke up, all feeling pretty gross, and drooped around the hostel until 1:30 when we jumped on yet another tram and joined a free walking tour of Prague, guided by a startling loud, enthusiastic American called Keith. Saw all the Prague sights (at least from the outside, didn't head inside anywhere), got a bunch of awesome Prague history and finished back in old town square where a little medieval faire was ongoing, grabbed ourselves a late (5pm) lunch of thick cut ham and bread and a mix of potato, cabbage and bacon called Halusky and then headed back to the hostel.
When we got back Lewis and I showered and changed and left Macky, who was still feeling the previous nights escapades, and went back into the old town to join a pub crawl. Signed up, got our free t-shirts and first free beer and ran into 5 friends from back in the Northern Beaches, Judy, Emma, Lauren and Frances who were touring around together and Robbie who was part of a huge contiki group that made up most of the pub crawl. Such a scarily small world at times. The first hour of the pub crawl was at the starting venue and was an hour of free beer, wine, vodka and absinthe. I hope everyone can see where this night is heading. We got drunk. The second venue (each venue also gave us a free shot on vodka on entry) was this little bar that had an awesome VIP lounge for us where all the walls were decorated by what, on first inspection, were trees but whose branches, when you looked a bit more, formed the shapes of people having sex in all sorts of different positions. Memory of the third pub is somewhat fractured but it was a maze of corridors and small dance floors.
The final location was "Karlovy Lazne", a huge, 5 level club where each level had a different vibe and style of music. Lost everyone on one of the dance floors, which had a floor made up of large, brightly coloured, flashing squares and made friends with some Irish girl and went to explore and try find our various friends. Eventually, having explored most of the levels, or so it felt, we found them back on the same dance floor we started at. Spent the night dancing and chilling out in the top level VIP area with Lewis, the girls from back home and an American girl and left with Lewis at some point, getting back in at 5am (according to Macky).
Woke up at 10 feeling surprisingly perky (especially compared to Lewis who was made of hangover), checked out, got Cumu back, happily intact, and drove us on to Vienna.
The next morning we checked out, dumped our bags in Cumu, who was waiting faithfully (which is very much against her usual cantankerous manner) outside then went for a wander around Dresden. Dresden has a very punk sort of feel to it, largely due to the look of a large portion of the people, but also from the clubs and expansive, often amazing, graffiti. It actually felt shocking to see a guy walking past in a suit. Lewis and I were looking to find the "most beautiful and decorative cheese shop in the world" but, alas, we failed in our quest. We did however stumble, completely unexpectedly, down a random alley and suddenly find ourselves in a plaza of wonder, every building fronting the plaza was decorated in some fanciful manner, lots of tile mosaics, lots of colour, one building had a set of drain pipes that looked straight out of a Dr Seuss tale and another had rendered monkeys and a giraffe swinging off or eating the wall. Very odd but a spectacular find. We then made our way back to Cumu and commenced the drive on south to Prague.
The border crossing into the Czech Republic was very confronting, a big, soviet-looking building and floodlights, followed by a large concrete wall around the road before we got to see the countryside and realise that, if your Czech, the grass literally is greener on the other side. The fields, and the town who soon drove through, had a much shabbier, dirtier feel to anywhere we had yet encountered and really brought home the realisation that we were now getting into Eastern Europe. After a while driving through a series of small Czech towns we arrived at Prague itself and easily made our way to the "Clown and Bard" hostel, a very cool place with a chilled out, fun loving feel and nice, old school tavern aesthetic. On checking in we came to the realisation that we had made a terribly rookie error and the Czechs don't use Euros, so we went on a minor hunt to acquire some Koruna, which there are about 20 of to an aussie dollar.
Take two. Checked in, moved Cumu to the recommended "secure parking", which felt like a somewhat dubious title given that it was a patch of dirty surrounded by shipping containers on 2 sides and wire on the other 2, and with a small boomgate next to a shanty hut run by a guy who spoke no english. I, having driven, let this be Lewis' problem, and 10 minutes later, looking confused, he came out and said he had a ticket and we had to do something with the number 5, which we discovered was our assigned parking space thankfully.
I am going to briefly pause here to discuss the Prague tram system. It's really good, they are near constant, go everywhere you could want to go and do so directly. However, the ticket system is not something we could figure out. We only found 2 ticket machines in the 3 days we were there and, due to our lack of Czech or, most likely, common sense we could not work out how to use them. Additionally we didn't in those 3 days see a single person use a ticket. In the end we ended up using the tram system the whole time without paying and without running into any trouble at all. Either the Prague tram system is some sort of glorious free system or we rorted it horribly by way of our stupidity.
After dropping the car off we trammed back to the hostel and found this amazing place 2 doors down that did the best dinner we had had for around 100Kc. We went the adventurous option and chose dishes from the "Stuff we invented" part of the menu, which resulted in me ordering "pork stuffed fries" (Pork?! Inside fries?! Best thing ever!) and ended up being a huge pork schnitzel wrapped around mushrooms and blue cheese, on top of a huge pile of fries, with cheese melted over the entire lot. New best thing ever. During dinner, in the period between beer and food (with more beer) it started to storm explosively and, although we were happily ensconced under a large umbrella watching the lightning and less dry patrons, we were moved inside. After dinner we headed back to the hostel to have a couple of drinks in the hostel lounge/bar and made friends with a couple of dutch girls, Doreen and Iris.
Woke up early to take advantage of the cheap (and tasty) hostel breakfast and jumped on another (free) tram to start seeing the sights of Prague. First stop was meant to be Mozart's house. Following the map we walked up a little street past a cool music hall next to a little park and then up a tree-lined path and found ourselves, rather than getting our Mozart on, in what seemed like an upper class district of Prague. After a bit of a search (and a larger bit of being lost) we came to the realisation that the music hall must have actually been Mozart's house (a sign would have been great but I guess this is our bad... music hall... Mozart... no common link at all for us to pick up on). We then trammed on up the hill to Prague castle, walked up a huge flight of stairs and at the top were confronted on one side by magnificent views out over all of Prague and on the other by the hugely ornate entrance to the Castle. Bought our tickets to allow entry to the various buildings and explored the various churches (and the amazing gothic cathedral) and buildings, plus (to Macky's delight) a vast display of medieval weapons and armor.
Trammed back to the hostel and met up with Doreen and Iris, then trammed back into town to go to a place called the "Iron Curtain" which I cannot recommend highly enough. It is an underground, bunker like, restaurant/bar/club decorated profusely by old artifacts from the Czech communist era, and for $6 (roughly, can't remember the exact Koruna price) did a "secret special" of a beer and a good sized goulash. We hung out there for a while playing a dutch drinking game based around blowing cards (or in our case beer coasters) off the top of a glass and were joined around 9:30 by Marty and Simon Fraser. Started rebonding with Marty, had another beer or 2 and a round of shots then headed to a club the girls wanted to go to called "Roxy". "Roxy" is this crazy minimalist club with super slow dance music playing in a single huge hall. We stayed there, Simon leaving around midnight, until 3 when we left the girls there as they were chucking an all-nighter in order to get a train early the next morning and we went back to the hostel (Marty taxiing on to Simon's place).
Woke up, all feeling pretty gross, and drooped around the hostel until 1:30 when we jumped on yet another tram and joined a free walking tour of Prague, guided by a startling loud, enthusiastic American called Keith. Saw all the Prague sights (at least from the outside, didn't head inside anywhere), got a bunch of awesome Prague history and finished back in old town square where a little medieval faire was ongoing, grabbed ourselves a late (5pm) lunch of thick cut ham and bread and a mix of potato, cabbage and bacon called Halusky and then headed back to the hostel.
When we got back Lewis and I showered and changed and left Macky, who was still feeling the previous nights escapades, and went back into the old town to join a pub crawl. Signed up, got our free t-shirts and first free beer and ran into 5 friends from back in the Northern Beaches, Judy, Emma, Lauren and Frances who were touring around together and Robbie who was part of a huge contiki group that made up most of the pub crawl. Such a scarily small world at times. The first hour of the pub crawl was at the starting venue and was an hour of free beer, wine, vodka and absinthe. I hope everyone can see where this night is heading. We got drunk. The second venue (each venue also gave us a free shot on vodka on entry) was this little bar that had an awesome VIP lounge for us where all the walls were decorated by what, on first inspection, were trees but whose branches, when you looked a bit more, formed the shapes of people having sex in all sorts of different positions. Memory of the third pub is somewhat fractured but it was a maze of corridors and small dance floors.
The final location was "Karlovy Lazne", a huge, 5 level club where each level had a different vibe and style of music. Lost everyone on one of the dance floors, which had a floor made up of large, brightly coloured, flashing squares and made friends with some Irish girl and went to explore and try find our various friends. Eventually, having explored most of the levels, or so it felt, we found them back on the same dance floor we started at. Spent the night dancing and chilling out in the top level VIP area with Lewis, the girls from back home and an American girl and left with Lewis at some point, getting back in at 5am (according to Macky).
Woke up at 10 feeling surprisingly perky (especially compared to Lewis who was made of hangover), checked out, got Cumu back, happily intact, and drove us on to Vienna.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Days 33-36 (July 9-12) - Pritzwalk & Berlin
On our way to Berlin we decided to stop for lunch and a random adventure in a town about halfway between Hamburg and Berlin called Pritzwalk. Pritzwalk was a hectic ghost town, in the hour and a half we were there we saw about 10 people and the only places open were a couple of the pubs and an ice cream shop, but it was a very picturesque small German ghost town with very good ice cream (the quality of ice cream going some way to explain our frequent sightings of massive, built German guys on bicycles eating ice creams). Lewis took over driving after Pritzwalk so I napped the rest of the way to Berlin. Before that point though it was a lot of fun to cruise down the autobahn doing 150 (I wasn't allowed to go higher due to fuel consumption and was still getting smoked by some of the crazy German drivers!)
Woke up just as we arrived at our next hostel, "Plus Berlin", again part of a big hostel chain (it's hard to tell these things when we book, often drunk, off a hostel website). The hostel was huge, bigger than any we had stayed in before, so we went in expecting the worst given our previous, experience-generated, theory of "the bigger the hostel, the worse the hostel" but it was an awesome place. Very nice rooms, cheap laundromat, pool and sauna, massive open grassy common area with comfy chairs, ping pong tables and a large quantity of rabbits and a very cheap bar and restaurant, its only downfall being the completely useless wifi. Got late (as in 5pm) lunch from the supermarket down the road and relaxed in our dorm, which we had to ourselves the whole stay, until about 7 when we headed down to the bar/restaurant, which did great value for money pizza and pasta and $3 beers. After dinner we sat outside as summer in Germany isn't the lie that summer in England is. After a while I went inside to get more beers and watch a bit of the football on TV and when I returned we had gained the company of three awesome pom chicks, Lucy, Izzy and Bella. Had some more drinks with them and then got kicked out of the outdoor area (kicked in?). Stayed there for a while then moved to the smoking area, where Bella started getting hit on by 2 hugely drunk American tools, which was hugely entertaining for the rest of this. After about quarter of an hour of this we all headed up to our rooms and played drinking games until 3am when the girls went back to their room.
Spent the majority of the next day sleeping and relaxing around the hostel, doing all our much needed washing. For lunch we went out an found a little indian place called "Asra" which did huge, $5 curries. Spent a lot of our time in the common area, amusing ourselves with our books, strongbow and watching a variety of girls (and one moronic group of English chavs) trying, with little success, to catch the rabbits that are all over the area. Had dinner again in the hostel restaurant then met up with the girls again for some drinks at the bar before we all (excepting Lewis who needed to get a bunch of work done) went out. The first place we went to, "Matrix", wouldn't let Bella in so we tried an apparently very trendy place in a warehouse. The bouncer there let Bella straight in but then refused the entire rest of us. When we then asked why couldn't get in he said "No why! No!" a couple of times before pushing us away, apparently we weren't trendy enough for a warehouse called "Suicide Circus". Bella decided she would stay at "Suicide Circus with a couple of the English guys we who had also joined us" and the rest of headed back to "Matrix" and got our clubbing on. At some point not long after Bella rejoined us.
Woke up the next morning around midday to Macky regaling Lewis with our previous nights tales, telling him about how "boss" I was for carrying Izzy between "Suicide Circus" and "Matrix" because it was pissing down with rain and there was broken glass around. Yeah I'm pretty great. Supermarket lunch and again spent the day around the common area as Lewis struggled to get work done on the craptastic wifi and discovered that Macky plays ping pong like a crazy person, very badly but with sudden explosive bursts of violent and scarily effective smashes. Had another cheap dinner, couple of drinks then early bed.
Got up at 8, showered, cleared up our room, which looked somewhat like a bomb had gone off in it, and checked out by 9 before getting a train in 4 stops to central Berlin for a walking tour run by a company called "Original Berlin Walks", which cost $10 but was well worth the money. In the next 4 hours we saw a whole chain of amazing churches and rebuilt buildings (Berlin having been 90% destroyed by bombing in WW2 and still rebuilding now really brings on the realisation that WW2 wasn't really that long ago and the effect it had on Europe). Also a whole bunch of monumental sites, Checkpoint Charlie (the last closed checkpoint in the Berlin Wall when it openned), the Berlin Wall itself, the site of Hitlers (and Eva Braun and Goebbels) bunker and suicide, haunting memorials for both war and the holocaust, the Brandenburg Gate and a host of others, plus a lot of very interesting German and Berlin history, from its creation, through the World Wars, the division and reconnection of East and West Germany (and Berlin itself which was divided) and up to the present day". Found a nice cafe after to rest our legs and have some cheap lunch then headed back to the car for the drive to our next stop.
Woke up just as we arrived at our next hostel, "Plus Berlin", again part of a big hostel chain (it's hard to tell these things when we book, often drunk, off a hostel website). The hostel was huge, bigger than any we had stayed in before, so we went in expecting the worst given our previous, experience-generated, theory of "the bigger the hostel, the worse the hostel" but it was an awesome place. Very nice rooms, cheap laundromat, pool and sauna, massive open grassy common area with comfy chairs, ping pong tables and a large quantity of rabbits and a very cheap bar and restaurant, its only downfall being the completely useless wifi. Got late (as in 5pm) lunch from the supermarket down the road and relaxed in our dorm, which we had to ourselves the whole stay, until about 7 when we headed down to the bar/restaurant, which did great value for money pizza and pasta and $3 beers. After dinner we sat outside as summer in Germany isn't the lie that summer in England is. After a while I went inside to get more beers and watch a bit of the football on TV and when I returned we had gained the company of three awesome pom chicks, Lucy, Izzy and Bella. Had some more drinks with them and then got kicked out of the outdoor area (kicked in?). Stayed there for a while then moved to the smoking area, where Bella started getting hit on by 2 hugely drunk American tools, which was hugely entertaining for the rest of this. After about quarter of an hour of this we all headed up to our rooms and played drinking games until 3am when the girls went back to their room.
Spent the majority of the next day sleeping and relaxing around the hostel, doing all our much needed washing. For lunch we went out an found a little indian place called "Asra" which did huge, $5 curries. Spent a lot of our time in the common area, amusing ourselves with our books, strongbow and watching a variety of girls (and one moronic group of English chavs) trying, with little success, to catch the rabbits that are all over the area. Had dinner again in the hostel restaurant then met up with the girls again for some drinks at the bar before we all (excepting Lewis who needed to get a bunch of work done) went out. The first place we went to, "Matrix", wouldn't let Bella in so we tried an apparently very trendy place in a warehouse. The bouncer there let Bella straight in but then refused the entire rest of us. When we then asked why couldn't get in he said "No why! No!" a couple of times before pushing us away, apparently we weren't trendy enough for a warehouse called "Suicide Circus". Bella decided she would stay at "Suicide Circus with a couple of the English guys we who had also joined us" and the rest of headed back to "Matrix" and got our clubbing on. At some point not long after Bella rejoined us.
Woke up the next morning around midday to Macky regaling Lewis with our previous nights tales, telling him about how "boss" I was for carrying Izzy between "Suicide Circus" and "Matrix" because it was pissing down with rain and there was broken glass around. Yeah I'm pretty great. Supermarket lunch and again spent the day around the common area as Lewis struggled to get work done on the craptastic wifi and discovered that Macky plays ping pong like a crazy person, very badly but with sudden explosive bursts of violent and scarily effective smashes. Had another cheap dinner, couple of drinks then early bed.
Got up at 8, showered, cleared up our room, which looked somewhat like a bomb had gone off in it, and checked out by 9 before getting a train in 4 stops to central Berlin for a walking tour run by a company called "Original Berlin Walks", which cost $10 but was well worth the money. In the next 4 hours we saw a whole chain of amazing churches and rebuilt buildings (Berlin having been 90% destroyed by bombing in WW2 and still rebuilding now really brings on the realisation that WW2 wasn't really that long ago and the effect it had on Europe). Also a whole bunch of monumental sites, Checkpoint Charlie (the last closed checkpoint in the Berlin Wall when it openned), the Berlin Wall itself, the site of Hitlers (and Eva Braun and Goebbels) bunker and suicide, haunting memorials for both war and the holocaust, the Brandenburg Gate and a host of others, plus a lot of very interesting German and Berlin history, from its creation, through the World Wars, the division and reconnection of East and West Germany (and Berlin itself which was divided) and up to the present day". Found a nice cafe after to rest our legs and have some cheap lunch then headed back to the car for the drive to our next stop.
Days 30-33 (July 6-9) - Bremen & Hamburg
Drove out of Holland and into Germany. We didn't realise we had crossed the border until we stopped at a service station for refreshments and to swap drivers and were confronted by a huge german truck driver wielding a plate with a single giant sausage covered in about 4 types of sauce. My first time driving in Europe (and hence on the right side of the road) and didn't experience any problems at all. Checked in to our hostel, the "Gast Haus" which was this cool little place just north of the center of Bremen and went for a wander and to get some food. Bought ourselves some bread, meat and eggs and discovered that in Germany baked beans and bacon don't seem to exist. Cooked ourselves dinner and had a quiet one while Lewis worked.
Woke up, showered in the fortunately empty communal male showers (and before the jokes start, we took turns showering) and cooked ourselves another meat, egg and bread meal before checking out. Left our bags in the car and then walked in to check out the Bremen city festival, "Bremenale", but it was empty, not starting til 2pm, so we wandered around a bit before heading back to the car and driving to Hamburg. German scenery is very similar to Holland, super flat as far as the eye can see, but where Holland has canals everywhere Germany has far more trees.
Checked into our next hostel, "Meininger", part of a big hostel chain, which had very cheap room prices and was close to the centre of Hamburg but charged for all little extras, had expensive drinks and charged for wifi unless you wanted to just sit in the lobby, plus the now expected large hostel atmosphere. Met some of our roommates, Richie and Ross from Coffs Harbor and Kate from near Melbourne and went with Richie and Ross to find food. Found ourselves an awesome beer garden which sold these thin, pizza like, dishes and Franziskaner beer ($3 for half a litre as opposed to the $12 we pay for the exact same beer in Australia at the Lowenbrau or Bavarian Bier Cafe) then went back to our room where all 6 of us spent the night drinking, playing cards and hanging out. Kate, Richie and Ross went out for another smoke around 3am and the rest of us went to bed, turned out that they met some crazy Canadian guy offering free cocaine in the park across the room and spent til 7am coking themselves up.
Woke up and Lewis, Macky and I went to explore the local area and find lunch. Found a butchers, "Breisse", that sold huge plates of roast potatoes piled over with this goulash-like meat dish. Did all the ordering of that and drinks in German, apparently year 7-10 German wasn't as useless as I had previously suspected. Spent the afternoon in the lobby while Lewis worked and Macky set up his new ipod touch. At about 6ish went up with Ross to our room and met up there with Richie and Kate, who spent the whole time we were there hooking up, and headed out to Reeperbahn (Hamburg's red light district, apparently the largest in Europe). Found a surprisingly tasty steak dinner and more cheap Franziskaner while laughing among ourselves at the various hookers, each of whom seemed to have set positions along the road and would chase after any guys not in large groups, and the two large groups of drunk Germans who seemed to be chanting the German equivalent of "show us your tits".
After dinner went out into Reeperbahn proper to find places to drink. First stop was a place called "99 cent" where everything cost $1 (some very slight false advertising possibly but still super cheap) but the place was packed out with guys and not a single girl so we moved on to a place across the road from a club called "Dollhouse" (which had strippers dancing both on the bar and in the doorway, all visible from the street) which did $2 jager shots (Jagermeister in Europe seems far cheaper and far tastier than in Aus). We then made our way up the street to check out "Club 36" where the Beatles apparently played their first shows but it was dead so we explored a bit and found a place which did 4 beers for $10 and had a stripper pole on the dance floor (not with a stripper attached but for drunken idiots like us) and a crazy old lady in a trench coat who walked in, danced on a table, danced on the pole (briefly but memorably joined by Macky) and then left. We stayed there for a while, as its 3 pronged appeal of cheap drinks, dance pole and good view of the street from the balcony seduced us before moving on to a packed club across the road called "Shooters". Started talking with a German girl on the dance floor who didn't speak english, which was complicated enough, and after 20 minutes or so of talking and making our way to the bar she pointed to her hand, coated in rings, and said "husband". I looked around and almost immediately spotted a huge, bald German guy glaring at me from across the room, turned around to apologise and midway through trying to do that in my bad, drunk, version of German I felt an arm wrap around my shoulders and start squeezing. After both her and I repeated "English! English!" he stopped and she said something to him and I tried to apologise in my fail German ("mein nicht guy" which essentially translates to "my not good", I think). Managed to survive and find Macky and Lewis talking to a bunch of Finnish guys. After another hour or two, which included a couple more encounters with the big, bald husband who kept coming up and shaking my hand or hugging me for reasons I cannot comprehend, we headed back to our room, having lost Ross, Richie and Kate while I was occupied by trying not to be snapped in half by an angry, drunk German. Got back about 4am.
Woke up at 9 in order to check out on time, which we did by 5 minutes, and spent about 3 hours sitting in the lobby occupying ourselves while waiting until we felt it ok to drive.
Woke up, showered in the fortunately empty communal male showers (and before the jokes start, we took turns showering) and cooked ourselves another meat, egg and bread meal before checking out. Left our bags in the car and then walked in to check out the Bremen city festival, "Bremenale", but it was empty, not starting til 2pm, so we wandered around a bit before heading back to the car and driving to Hamburg. German scenery is very similar to Holland, super flat as far as the eye can see, but where Holland has canals everywhere Germany has far more trees.
Checked into our next hostel, "Meininger", part of a big hostel chain, which had very cheap room prices and was close to the centre of Hamburg but charged for all little extras, had expensive drinks and charged for wifi unless you wanted to just sit in the lobby, plus the now expected large hostel atmosphere. Met some of our roommates, Richie and Ross from Coffs Harbor and Kate from near Melbourne and went with Richie and Ross to find food. Found ourselves an awesome beer garden which sold these thin, pizza like, dishes and Franziskaner beer ($3 for half a litre as opposed to the $12 we pay for the exact same beer in Australia at the Lowenbrau or Bavarian Bier Cafe) then went back to our room where all 6 of us spent the night drinking, playing cards and hanging out. Kate, Richie and Ross went out for another smoke around 3am and the rest of us went to bed, turned out that they met some crazy Canadian guy offering free cocaine in the park across the room and spent til 7am coking themselves up.
Woke up and Lewis, Macky and I went to explore the local area and find lunch. Found a butchers, "Breisse", that sold huge plates of roast potatoes piled over with this goulash-like meat dish. Did all the ordering of that and drinks in German, apparently year 7-10 German wasn't as useless as I had previously suspected. Spent the afternoon in the lobby while Lewis worked and Macky set up his new ipod touch. At about 6ish went up with Ross to our room and met up there with Richie and Kate, who spent the whole time we were there hooking up, and headed out to Reeperbahn (Hamburg's red light district, apparently the largest in Europe). Found a surprisingly tasty steak dinner and more cheap Franziskaner while laughing among ourselves at the various hookers, each of whom seemed to have set positions along the road and would chase after any guys not in large groups, and the two large groups of drunk Germans who seemed to be chanting the German equivalent of "show us your tits".
After dinner went out into Reeperbahn proper to find places to drink. First stop was a place called "99 cent" where everything cost $1 (some very slight false advertising possibly but still super cheap) but the place was packed out with guys and not a single girl so we moved on to a place across the road from a club called "Dollhouse" (which had strippers dancing both on the bar and in the doorway, all visible from the street) which did $2 jager shots (Jagermeister in Europe seems far cheaper and far tastier than in Aus). We then made our way up the street to check out "Club 36" where the Beatles apparently played their first shows but it was dead so we explored a bit and found a place which did 4 beers for $10 and had a stripper pole on the dance floor (not with a stripper attached but for drunken idiots like us) and a crazy old lady in a trench coat who walked in, danced on a table, danced on the pole (briefly but memorably joined by Macky) and then left. We stayed there for a while, as its 3 pronged appeal of cheap drinks, dance pole and good view of the street from the balcony seduced us before moving on to a packed club across the road called "Shooters". Started talking with a German girl on the dance floor who didn't speak english, which was complicated enough, and after 20 minutes or so of talking and making our way to the bar she pointed to her hand, coated in rings, and said "husband". I looked around and almost immediately spotted a huge, bald German guy glaring at me from across the room, turned around to apologise and midway through trying to do that in my bad, drunk, version of German I felt an arm wrap around my shoulders and start squeezing. After both her and I repeated "English! English!" he stopped and she said something to him and I tried to apologise in my fail German ("mein nicht guy" which essentially translates to "my not good", I think). Managed to survive and find Macky and Lewis talking to a bunch of Finnish guys. After another hour or two, which included a couple more encounters with the big, bald husband who kept coming up and shaking my hand or hugging me for reasons I cannot comprehend, we headed back to our room, having lost Ross, Richie and Kate while I was occupied by trying not to be snapped in half by an angry, drunk German. Got back about 4am.
Woke up at 9 in order to check out on time, which we did by 5 minutes, and spent about 3 hours sitting in the lobby occupying ourselves while waiting until we felt it ok to drive.
Days 27-30 (July 3-6) - Amsterdam
Checked in to our hostel, "Stay Okay" (there is actually 3 of them in Amsterdam but from my understanding they are all pretty much the same), and dumped our stuff in the room before taking the car to a nearby "Park n Ride" (places designed for long term parking and which provide transport back to city free, largely required due to the complete lack of free parking on the outkirts and no parking at all closer in) and then exploring a bit of the area around the hostel. Found dinner then headed back to our room to plan out the rest of the trip as Macky's only allowed to be in Europe for 3 months due to not having organised his visa. Thank god for dual citizenships. The hostel is a very large place and reinforced our growing belief that smaller hostels are definitely better, charging for every little extra, over pricing food and their bar and with a very controlled atmosphere.
Slept in then headed in to central Amsterdam with passes we bought which allow for unlimited tram/bus transport for a set time period. Jumped on a tram in until we saw a cool looking open air market and jumped off to explore. Market (and indeed Amsterdam in general) had a very hippy vibe and all sort of interesting (and often weed-associated) stalls. Then headed in towards the center vaguelly while looking for a place for lunch and to sit down and make a plan for our exploration of Amsterdam and it's sights. Managed, without even trying, to stumble our way into the red light district. It is a very odd feeling to be walking along a random, normal street then peer into a dark window and suddenly have a scantily clad, overly large woman with one hand holding her phone while the other clutches a cigarette suddenly lurch forward to beckon you over to sample her "delights". Apparently the day time hookers are taken from the pimps B team. We managed to escape out the other side of the red light district (because hey, we were there, might as well laugh at the fatties) and find our selves in the equally explicit gay district. "Out of the frying pan, into the fire". There were also a lot of the infamous coffee shops around, instantly recognisable from actual coffee shops by both the type of patron and the "18+ only" signs.
Finally found a place to eat at a Belushi's (the same place we found in Bath) and had cheap tourist food and made our plans. After lunch started heading south, amazed by how crowded the streets were for 2pm on a weekday, even with Amsterdam being a major tourist destination. Walked past a square filled with people dressed up as all sort of historical and pop culture figures posing with tourists for photos and a surprisingly skilled break dancing troupe then found Madam Tussauds but it was very expensive and had a line going around the corner so skipped it and made our way to the America Cafe which had awesome architecture of levels of balconies and awnings, each level decreasing in size but increasing in quantity. We then headed on to the Van Gogh museum via a really nice park, pausing only to watch a clearly tripping hippy lieing on a log waving his arms expansively at the sky. The Van Gogh museum was surprisingly impressive (given by my usual lacklustre feelings for both art and museums and could easily occupy 3 hours. It also had an excellent view out over a park and the city centre behind it.
Headed back after that at about 6, went out and got a picnic dinner (which, after spending all day making fun of Lewis for wanting a picnic, was actually very nice) then went in to hostel bar which was meant to be having a big 4 year anniversary cheap drinks thing but was impressively lacking in both cheap drinks and people to enjoy them so we figured we would utilise our transport tickets and head into the red light district to see it at night. As people who weren't inclined to partake in its $50 for 20 minute, chlamydia free of charge, pleasures it was disturbingly full of people who clearly were, although there were definitely also a lot of people like us just there to gaze in an awestruck combination of horror, amazement and confusion. Couldn't find anywhere we could get a beer without also having to deal with scantily clad women asking us for money so we headed back to the hostel where we could.
The next morning I woke up feeling like the cold I had been ignoring for a couple of days had sensed, and been bolstered by, the vast array of ailments that probably surrounded me the previous night and was making its move so I spent the day in the hostel room updating my blog, watching some TV off the laptop and making a couple of minor excurions for nourishment. In the evening Macky and Lewis went out with one of Lewis' old friends and found a place called "The Watering Hole" which did 10 jager shots for $10 and got back in around 2-3am very drunk.
Woke up the next morning feeling much better and jumped on the tram to get back to the "Park n Ride" to reaquire Cumu.
Slept in then headed in to central Amsterdam with passes we bought which allow for unlimited tram/bus transport for a set time period. Jumped on a tram in until we saw a cool looking open air market and jumped off to explore. Market (and indeed Amsterdam in general) had a very hippy vibe and all sort of interesting (and often weed-associated) stalls. Then headed in towards the center vaguelly while looking for a place for lunch and to sit down and make a plan for our exploration of Amsterdam and it's sights. Managed, without even trying, to stumble our way into the red light district. It is a very odd feeling to be walking along a random, normal street then peer into a dark window and suddenly have a scantily clad, overly large woman with one hand holding her phone while the other clutches a cigarette suddenly lurch forward to beckon you over to sample her "delights". Apparently the day time hookers are taken from the pimps B team. We managed to escape out the other side of the red light district (because hey, we were there, might as well laugh at the fatties) and find our selves in the equally explicit gay district. "Out of the frying pan, into the fire". There were also a lot of the infamous coffee shops around, instantly recognisable from actual coffee shops by both the type of patron and the "18+ only" signs.
Finally found a place to eat at a Belushi's (the same place we found in Bath) and had cheap tourist food and made our plans. After lunch started heading south, amazed by how crowded the streets were for 2pm on a weekday, even with Amsterdam being a major tourist destination. Walked past a square filled with people dressed up as all sort of historical and pop culture figures posing with tourists for photos and a surprisingly skilled break dancing troupe then found Madam Tussauds but it was very expensive and had a line going around the corner so skipped it and made our way to the America Cafe which had awesome architecture of levels of balconies and awnings, each level decreasing in size but increasing in quantity. We then headed on to the Van Gogh museum via a really nice park, pausing only to watch a clearly tripping hippy lieing on a log waving his arms expansively at the sky. The Van Gogh museum was surprisingly impressive (given by my usual lacklustre feelings for both art and museums and could easily occupy 3 hours. It also had an excellent view out over a park and the city centre behind it.
Headed back after that at about 6, went out and got a picnic dinner (which, after spending all day making fun of Lewis for wanting a picnic, was actually very nice) then went in to hostel bar which was meant to be having a big 4 year anniversary cheap drinks thing but was impressively lacking in both cheap drinks and people to enjoy them so we figured we would utilise our transport tickets and head into the red light district to see it at night. As people who weren't inclined to partake in its $50 for 20 minute, chlamydia free of charge, pleasures it was disturbingly full of people who clearly were, although there were definitely also a lot of people like us just there to gaze in an awestruck combination of horror, amazement and confusion. Couldn't find anywhere we could get a beer without also having to deal with scantily clad women asking us for money so we headed back to the hostel where we could.
The next morning I woke up feeling like the cold I had been ignoring for a couple of days had sensed, and been bolstered by, the vast array of ailments that probably surrounded me the previous night and was making its move so I spent the day in the hostel room updating my blog, watching some TV off the laptop and making a couple of minor excurions for nourishment. In the evening Macky and Lewis went out with one of Lewis' old friends and found a place called "The Watering Hole" which did 10 jager shots for $10 and got back in around 2-3am very drunk.
Woke up the next morning feeling much better and jumped on the tram to get back to the "Park n Ride" to reaquire Cumu.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Days 26-27 (July 2-3) - Katwijk and Leiden
Got off the ferry at the Hook of Holland at 5pm dutch time and drove (on the wrong side of the road, with surprisingly few near death moments) to our first stop at the seaside town of Katwijk where we staying at the Beach Hostel Holland which was a really nice hostel, with noone else in our room and an ensuite and balcony looking out over the town. The drive was a constant flow of big wind turbines (apparently the dutch have upgraded from windmills), little canals along the sides of the road and separating the fields (which gives it this really open feel without the British style hedges or fences) and greenhouses. Everyone in Holland seems to ride bikes everywhere (there is bike lanes on pretty much every road) and a surprisingly large portion of them are young, female and blonde. Holland makes a pretty great first impression. Walked around Katwijk, found this cool place that did Chinese style burgers (essentially normal burgers but with awesome sauce) and fries with mayo (those dutch are onto something with them) then went back to the hostel (via its bar).
In the morning the hostel put on an awesome buffet breakfast, bread, cereal, juice, tea/coffee and lots of cheese, meat and spreads (apparently chocolate spread is big here. It certainly seems to be) and had a late checkout time of 12, so we gorged ourselves, lazed around and checked out at 11:59. On a whim we decided to go check out a town called Leiden, which was an excellent call. Leiden is a very nice, non-touristy town with two massive, very impressive, free entry, churches, an old "ruined" fort (for a ruined fort its pretty intact) which looks out over the whole city and lots of awesome canals intersecting all over the place. Found lunch in a little place near Pieterskerk (the main church) called Fresh'n'Fast (despite the English name it was very non-touristy and very lucky one of the 3 people working spoke English) which did these incredible burgers. After lunch wandered back to Cumu, who we had to park on the edge of the town, only getting slightly trapped now and then by the canal system before heading to Amsterdam.
Days 24-26 (June 30 - July 2) - Macky!
Got to Pen and Stephen's about 4pm and settled in again. Met up with Nathan who just flew over from Toowoomba and Stephen dropped him and I off at a nearby pub to have a drink and catch up. Wandered back to Pen and Stephen's, had dinner and went to bed nice and early in preparation of the next morning.
Woke up at 5am and drove to Heathrow to meet Macky. Macky appeared about 6:30 and we went to head back to Walton when the petrol light came on. Petrol stations in England feel like Atlantis or fairies, everyone has a theory on where they are, how to find them and why noone can find them, but in the end they are next to impossible to come across. After three times stopping to walk around because it felt like the car was about to go dry and getting directions (always different) and Cumu shrieking at us to "turn around when possible" over and over again we finally stumbled across one, paid the obscene price (petrol here is the same as it is in Aus, except in Aus its in dollars not pounds) and got back on our way.
Finally got back and Macky woke up Lewis through the timeless method of spooning before Macky and I drove into town to do some shopping. After acquiring Macky an English phone, both of us some toiletries and all of us some more alcohol and welcoming Macky with a full English breakfast we headed back just before lunch.
Spent the rest of the day, aside from pub lunch, at Pen and Stephen's, catching up, keeping Macky from sleeping and watching Murray lose out of Wimbledon with Kirsty who popped in for dinner and to watch the tennis.
Woke up at 5:30 the next morning (again with the early starts, some holiday!), dressed and dragged Lewis (who is the worst morning person I have ever met) and Macky into the car and, Cumu being surprisingly cooperative, drove to Harwich to get on the ferry to Holland. Got there at 8 (last check in and ETA according to Cumu was 8:15) thanks to me being amazing and Cumu not screwing us around (again) and got security checked. Security guard informed us that because Macky doesn't have a UK passport and hadn't organised a visa he can only stay in mainland Europe for 3 months and complimented us on our choice of scotch and we drove onto the ferry to kill the next 7 hours by playing munchkin, reading in the sun on the deck and having a nourishing lunch of beer and snickers.
Days 21-24 (June 27-30) - Bath
Lazed around Justin and Meredith's place until 12 then drove with Lewis and Cumu to Bath. Cumu in her usual mood, being a cantankerous bitch, so I had to navigate us the old fashioned way (Lewis' iPhone). Got to Bath and parked in a carpark with broken exit bollards, hoping they would still be broken when we left, and walked to the hostel. Our first time staying in a hostel (Funky Hostel), it was awesome, walls covered in awesome artwork, really nice common room and downstairs late-night "dungeon". Met our roommates then went out for dinner and a drink, did a lap of Bath and ended up at a place called "Belushi's" which did really nice, cheap, food and drinks and has locations all over Europe for future us to exploit. Ben called for the first time while I was there, spoke for a while, getting to know one another and agreeing to meet up in Edinburgh.
After food we went looking for somewhere a bit livelier and found a place called "The Beau Nash" which was doing £1 beers and jager bombs, which was both dangerous and awesome. We met there a group of local guys who, on realising we were Australian, immediately befriended us and after a few drinks they went to take us somewhere else. On leaving we realised that £1 drinks are amazing and went back in for 1 last drink, promptly lost them and met (when one of them, Amber, fell up the stairs in front of us but this is ok as it was her 21st) a group of girls, Laura, Amber and Venetia. Had a drink with them then headed on with them to the next club, stayed there with them for a while but that place wasn't as good so when the girls headed home we walked back to the hostel, where we ran into some other people staying there and spent another couple of hours in the dungeon with them.
Next day we hung out in the common room for a while then the need for food arose so we walked around Bath, having a look at the Royal Crescent (a huge semi circle of really expensive looking, identical houses looking out over a massive park where we saw a group of women having a tea party), the Abbey (which is hugely ornate and very impressive) and the general architecture (everything is uniform, 3 story height above ground and 2 below, almost all the buildings are identical, gives it a very cool feel) and found lunch at this awesomely tasty, super cheap bakery called "La Baguette". Explored Bath, had dinner at "The Beau Nash" which was, as with its drinks, delightfully cheap and then bought some beers and had a quiet one in the hostel common room.
Lewis had a lot of work to do so the next day he spent in the common room while I wandered around Bath. Got lunch again from "La Baguette" and it was again really awesome, and at around 3 met up with Laura from the monday night escapades and she showed me this place called "The Circus" which is a really cool complete ring of houses, all identical, broken only by a couple of intersecting roads, and in the center is a circular (obviously) grassy area with some enormous trees in the middle. At about 4 headed back to the hostel and Lewis and I re-checked in (we were originally only staying for 2 nights but added an extra) and met a couple of our new roommates, Cameron, an Aussie, and Maggie, a Yank.
A British girl staying there had invited us go watch a cricket game, so Cameron, Maggie and I grabbed a couple of beers and wandered down while Lewis kept working. Cricket is nigh on impossible to explain to an American. The game ended up being really good, won by a 4 on the last ball, and was nice to sit in the sun and watch some lazy sport. At about 8 we went back to the hostel, kidnapped Lewis and went out looking for somewhere to eat and have pre-drinks before we headed to "Discord", an advertised alternative punk/metal Wednesday night (why on a Wednesday I cannot fathom) club. Found a little place called "The Cork" which had really tasty, cheap food (this is a recurring theme so far which I am very happy about) then we pub crawled to Discord. Discord was (is) held at a place called Panana (Pa na na possibly) which is this really cool, underground venue, a whole series of smallish rooms of very old stonework and curved roofs, and also had £3 double vodka mixers and £3 for 2 shots of jager. I originally thought it was for 2 jager mixers (Lewis bought) but it turns out he bought us straight double shots of jager in a glass... this explains my next morning. Cameron and Maggie left and Lewis and I hung around, the music was excellent, old school Blink style with some Pendulum thrown in, and also a more punk/emo room off to a side. We left when the club closed at 2am.
Woke up the next morning at 7:30, and unable to sleep and super dehydrated (damn you Lewis and your straight jagers!) and went down to the common room to doze and drink large quantities of water until 10 when I woke up Lewis because we had to checkout by 10:30. Checked out with 2 minutes to spare and dropped our stuff off in the car then went back into Bath. Grabbed yet another delicious pastry meal, paused briefly to look around the abbey and then went to the Roman baths which were well worth the £14 entry. An awesome, partly restored, partly genuine roman, building filled with sculptures and mosaics and a myriad of other roman pieces. I went in expecting to find a couple of baths and found a whole system of them, different sizes and styles, some enclosed, some open air, all steaming with heat and several bubbling from where the hot water was clearing coming from below. After checking out the baths we went back to the car and found the exit bollard had been fixed. Check our ticket in the machine... £37.60... used the £25 "lost ticket" option and left to head back to Pen and Stephen's in Walton-on-Thames. Keeping the ticket so if I ever go back to Bath I can see how big the fee has got. Bath is awesome and I definitely recommend it.
Days 18-20 (June 24-26) - Brixton
Woke up at Flick and Gerry's slightly hungover, packed my bags and bought a coach ticket to London then went to lunch with Flick and Gerry at a nice place called The Vine. Oh and Gerry emailed me the kindle version of his latest book, which so far looks awesome (Sitting In by Gerry O'Brien).
Jumped on a coach and headed back to London. Lewis was meant to be meeting me with Cumu but somehow managed to get Victoria Station mixed up with the whole Victoria train line so I had to jump on the tube to Brixton and wait outside a KFC for half an hour for him. But it was made better by the pair of black midgets and the fact that while outside a KFC a black guy walked past eating half a watermelon. Stereotypes coming true are hilarious (I'm not racist, but midgets are funny and we don't see a lot of black guys around our area). All in all Brixton struck me as the London equivalent of Redfern in Sydney.
Finally got to Lewis' mates', Justin and Meredith, place and dropped off my stuff before Lewis and I headed out to Shoreditch, which we were recommended. Don't go out in Shoreditch if your not an overly rich, pretentious hipster. Apparently there is one good street to go out on but we certainly didn't find it. The first place we went in was called Cargo, £10 entry each and then we ordered a drink each and it was £15.50. We did not buy another drink. It was a shame because the venue it self was cool, high rounded roofs, decent music, nice outside area, cool decorations, just super expensive. After Cargo we wandered around looking for somewhere better and walked past a club, called Avalon funnily enough, where we were given fliers promising £5 entry and were told it was £2 beers. Intrigued by this apparent nirvana of inexpensive alcohol we entered, paid our £5 and were then forced by the bouncer to hand our jackets in at the coatroom where we were charged an extra £2 for them to be stored. I want to reiterate we had to do this, because it seems so ridiculous. We then retreated to the bar to take advantage of the £2 beer offer. Beers were £4. We went home.
The next morning, finally on a nice summer day, we lazed around a bit before Lewis gave me a ride to Stockwell Station (the closer ones being closed due to a strike) and caught the tube to Archway, then walked to Clem's (an old friend from when I went to school in England) place for a bbq with Clem and Pete (another old school mate). Spent the afternoon with them, catching up, hanging out, drinking a little and then wandering up to Hampstead Heath, which has spectacular views out over the whole of London. Wandered back down towards the station with them, had a last drink at a pub and went our separate ways. Was awesome to catch up with them both and really good to see them both doing so well, Clem's now the editor of a magazine and Pete doing his PHD.
Got the tube back to Stockwell and walked an hour back through nighttime Brixton to Justin and Meredith's place, stopping only for KFC, to ward off beggars and, for one terrifying moment, be suddenly surrounded by 3 huge black prostitutes.
Got back and found Lewis, Justin and Meredith, and a couple of their friends (one of whom earned my instant friendship by having toured with MSI in his old band) hanging out and drinking. Joined in.
Awoke the next day (I was going to type morning but that would be a lie) to summer finally being in full swing, 33 degree, cloudless day and Lewis offering me bacon and eggs. Excellent way to wake up, despite Lewis' constant inability to be a hot blonde girl. Spent the day lazing around the garden, drinking (Pimm's is awesome) and eating bbq.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Days 15-17 (June 21-23) - Winchester
Woke up and hung out with Emma and Zach for most of the day. At around midday we took Zach down to the park, it's amazing how much he loves the swings, and then walked into Hedge End town center where Emma introduced me to Gregg's. Gregg's is a fast food bakery. Gregg's is amazingly cheap. Gregg's is the place where the pastry chef gods allow their divine wares to be imparted on us, the unexpecting, pastry craving, mortals to our utter delight. I like Gregg's.
Hung out the rest of the afternoon at Emma's, she is some sort of crazy cheat at Scene-It (the movie trivia game) and played some Xbox FIFA with Jerry when he got home where he got me back for football the previous night.
Lewis picked me up on his way to London from somewhere and we brought each other up to speed on our respected adventures before he dropped me off in Winchester and Flick and Gerry's (another of my aunt and uncle sets). Flick is lovely and reminds me hugely of Mum (except with better literary preferences, sorry Mum!) and Gerry seems to be doing much better now, he struck me as very intelligent, and very interesting and we had some fantastic conversations.
The next morning, while waiting for the rain to abate (which it was supposed to be finally doing) I did a bunch of washing then around lunchtime walked down into central Winchester. Winchester is awesome, I loved it, its big enough to have a good variety of pubs (and/or shops if that's what you prefer) and very cool olde English architecture, plus a nifty set of tourist attractions and sights. The statue of Alfred is surprisingly hard to photograph in a way that properly conveys its size and coolness (at least, if your me) but is both large and cool. Then there's an old mill which has been restored to make flour and looks awesome (but I didn't go in as I am against the idea of paying to see inside things, half due to being a poor backpacker and half because it usually seems overpriced). Across from the mill is the start of the path along the river which takes you past the ruins of the old castle (I think technically it was a Bishop's residence, but it's totally a castle) and the new Bishop's residence and then through an old gate where the city walls used to be then onto the Cathedral, which is huge and awe inspiring. The rain came back when I got near the Cathedral so I ducked into an alcove on the side which turned out to hold a second hand bookshop in this little ornate alcove. Then on the other side of the town there is the great hall, which is indeed quite great, and contains (I believe there is debate over its legitimacy) King Arthur's round table of legend, which is big and round, funnily enough, as well as having a wall covered in a huge pattern of what appears to be the royal family tree and some awesome stained glass windows.
After my sightseeing I went to the first pub I could find for a drink before I met up with George again and found a little place called the Wykeham Arms. If your ever in Winchester go to this place, it's the best pub I have ever seen, every wall, the roof and every flat surface is covered in collections of items like beer mugs, walking sticks, royal nostalgia, old maps etc. Bought a book and then met up with George for a drink at the Slug and Lettuce before heading back to Flick and Gerry's, stopping only to find a bathroom in a pub which turned into being assailed by a drunk (at 3pm) for half an hour before I managed to escape.
Spent most of the next day at Flick and Gerry's, aside from a brief sojourn for lunch, washing and reading before heading down around 8 to Winchester for dinner and then to see how the nightlife was (the girl serving us at the Slug and Lettuce had said it was big on thursdays) and once again making the mistake of trying English maccas. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Went to the Slug and Lettuce and bought a drink, wandered around for 5 minutes before asking a couple of people playing pool where the best places to go were and immediately finding 3 new friends and people to hang out with for the night (being Australia is socialisation easy mode). Hung out with them and the rest of their friends (2 of whom I will be showing around Sydney in January) the rest of the night, playing pool and drinking at the slug (£10 for 5 jagerbombs is fantastic) then onto a place they called Pitcher which was a much more crowded, more club than pub, sort of place. Eventually we all spread out, got separated and I walked back for much needed sleep.
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