Slovakia and Hungary

1. 8.13.06 Trip to Bratislava, Slovakia
   
   My first real scam happened to Nithin and I today. The guy at the desk at our Hostel told us to take the tram to the train station. He didn’t tell us about pre-buying a ticket to get on the tram. We waited at the stop, like everyone else and got our money out to pay for our ticket from the tram driver like we’re used to. Right as we get on the tram, it takes off. We are obviously travelers with our backpakcs on and we are immediately approached by three big guys with id’s to check our tickets. I gave him 5 Kc to cover both Nithin and I. he looked at me like I was a bug. He put his hand up and said, “ I don’t take money, I just check tickets.“ So we tried to explain to him that we had no idea WTF was going on and to let us off the train. They kept threatening to call the cops on us and I was like, hell ya! Bring the freaking cops over! The guys said we had to pay 100 for us, and on top of that 75 for our bags, instead of the usual 2.50Kc. I accepted that we made a mistake here and I will follow the law, even if I think it is rediculous, but I know that whatever money I give to these bastards WILL NOT end up in the tram companies pocket. They will pocket it, and thus rob us blind. So, seeming that they were being complete ass holes to us, I pretended to not understand them when they tried to talk to me, and not fully cooperate with them just to get them pissed off. Even thought they threatened us with the cops, they never really went over to them because they wanted to pocket our 175Kc each. I told him that I will go to the cash machine and get the money but I am NOT giving it to you! I insisted that we go to the ticket salesman in the booth and give it to him. Of course they tried to convince me that that was no use. I got the cash, walked to the booth, and that he said something in Polish to whomever I was looking for help from. He obviosly convicted me as a lawbreaker and a bad person before I could communicate to them to help me. It instantly demonized Nithing and I as criminals. Even the policeman looked at us as if we were dilinquents. Sot they got us there. He also took our ID’s earlier before he pretended to get pissed off at us, when we trusted him as an official. Note to self... DON’T EVER GIVE ANYONE YOUR ID. People like this use it as blackmail for money. I told him to give me my ID and I will give you the cash. We exchanged, but I grabbed both Nithin AND my ID. The ball was half in our court. Nithin then told him that in order to get Nithins money, he needed to give us a reciept. The guy instantly complained and pretended as if he didn’t know what we were talking about. But we refused to cooperate whatsoever until he gave us a reciept. After about a minute of pissed off conversing, the guy gave in. He pulled out a tiny reciept book that he HAD THE WHOLE TIME, and filled it out. I watched to see if he was writing down the correct amount of money on the ticket so he didn’t get away with 1 cent of our money. He tore the ticket, Nithin grabbed it, gave him the money and we took off. They looked so pissed, even though we lost about 50 USD to a freaking tourist scam, at least those losers didn’t pocket any of it. I fealt good, like we just one a game of chess, out manuvering the enemy.
   
   The bus to Bratislava took forever, 10 hours. Uncomfortable, as usual, but we did drive through some amazing mountains. Some had castles on it and fog was rising out of the forrests. The boarder check points always look a little intimidating. I guess they are supposed to. Then I just reminded myself... Dude, he’s just a border guard, what the hell is he going to do to me. It’s like being afraid of the mall security guard at Park Meadows. The guy walked on the bus and looked us all over, only taking a select few, of course he took Nithin and mine... the fiercest looking criminals on the bus, and brought them into his booth to be checked. As I predicted, Nithin and I had no dirt on us, so we got our passports back.
   
   We arrived in Bratislava later that night, just before dark and wandered the city to find a hostel. The one we found was full, but they called another hostel for us and they even came to pick us up! This was convenient because it was pitch black outside and it did not look like the kind of place to be walking around in after dark. The guy who owned the place, Yuri, came to get us and an English couple. I figured he didn’t speak English very well because when I asked him if he had children, he responded, “hmm, maybe, I don’t know.“ He dropped us off at his house and we dropped our stuff off, then asked if he could take us to a grocery store on his way out. We would have to walk back of course, but it was only a 10 minute walk and we fealt safe.
   
   Later that night, we started talking with the four British girls that were staying at Yuri’s place that night as well. We told them how to play some card games and they taught us some. Then Nithin and I decided to watch the horror movie, Hostel, because we were in Bratislava after all! Before we started, I asked Yuri if he was in the movie, and thankfully he said, No.
   
   
   8.14.06 Bratislava to Budapest, Hungary
   
   I meandered the town with nothing but my camera. This city is nothing like I thought it would be. The perception of it, after seeing EuroTrip, was that it was incredibly poor, filthy, boring, grey, and concrete. But now I see that it is a very well developed city. I believe it is the second richest city in Eastern Europe. The main thing that hostel got right was the women. They are drop dead gorgeous out here. I think we have a new winner on the worlds hottest women list. Everyone here is very fashionable. I guess this city used to be a large walled and moated city. I came across this really cool brand theme for a musical festival going on at that time. I think that is something I would like to do in the future. I would like to create environmental branding and event design. It looks and sounds fun to completely brand an event. There aren’t as many tourists here, but I could tell the areas that were.
   
   Nithin and I walked to the train station hoping that we could get a ticket to Budapest. We did, but the train was so crowded that we had to stand in the aisle. I got lucky and ended up sitting in the stair well to the door in the connecting section of the two passenger trains. While sitting on the floor, I met a nice English girl named Becky. We talked about all kinds of stuff. Sports, places we’ve been and places we want to go, etc. She asked me about the electric chair and why our country uses it. It made me realise that the electric chair seems like a pretty messed up way to die. It is no worse than hanging, something Britain stopped doing in 1960. Anyway, I gave her my email address and told her to mail me if she ever wanted to come to Colorado.
   
   When the passport guards came through they tried to open the bathroom. The Polish girl and Italian guy sitting next to it said it was broken because it wouldn’t open. The guard was like... It’s not broken and used his key to open it. The whole 1.5 hr ride until that point we thought it was broken and jammed, but the door opens all of a sudden and this stoned kid emerges through the pot smoke bellowing out of the WC. His head and hand appeared so lightly, that it almost appeared as if the kid was floating out into the doorway. The guard looked at his passport and gave it back. The kid slowley floated back inside and the door shut. It was so damn funny! We all started cracking up because we had no idea he was in there!
   
   The train arrived and the tourist squad rushed in, asking us if we needed a hostel. I guess there is a large Mob syndicate here and they are everywhere. We didn’t know this at the time, but Mike told us that the turkish and hungary mob fight over parts of the city, including hostles. So I don’t know... maybe that friendly guy who got us our hostel worked for the mob?? I hope he doesn’t show up later and ask me to do him a favor in return.
   
   Once Nithin and I arrived to our hostel we walked over the bridge from Buda to Pest to try and find Aaron, Mike, and Mr. Ryan. We found out what room they were in and they weren’t there. I left a threatening not on their pillows and the room mates said they went to a Hooka bar and gave us directions. Nithin and I decided to go on a mission to find them. Operation find Ryan, Aaron and Mike and kick their butts for not telling us where to meet them that night. We wandered the city, and eventually found a hookah bar. We wrote another note on a beer coaster and asked the waiter to deliver it to those three Americans over there at that table. Then, while they were reading it, we stood directly outside the window across from their table. When they looked up, we made the cut throat motion with our hands and pointed at them. Mwahahahahaa. The whole thing was really pretty anti-climatic, so we just walked inside and joined them.
   
   
   8.15.06 Hammans and Siget
   
   Mr. Ryan and I went to the Budapest Baths today. I had no idea what to expect, but basically it is like a giant set of swimming pools that vary in size indoor and outdoors. The pools vary intemperature as well from really hot to really cold. It is meant for relaxation, not screaming little kids, diving boards, etc. each pool shas cerain minerals added to it to make your skin feel a different way. I explored all the pools. Some were disgusting because they smelled like a million people just took a bath init and it smelled like sulpher. But I took in the culture and sat in them anyway. It was probably a little more difficult for me because I was a lifeguard at a pool for six years and I know this water would certainly not pass under a health inspection. In the outdoor pool, the water was brown, but it was really warm like a hot tub. Old men were playing chess in the water on these floating boards. Chess was everywhere. It was in the water, on tables. There were classical sculptures and fountains spraying water into the pools. I guess you move from cold water and gradually move up the pools to the warmer temps. I really liked the sauna. I was scorching hot in there, and it burned to breath in through your nose. But when you get parched enough you could walk out and jump in this little pool that is ice cold. Then run back into the sauna. It was actually quite relaxing. One room we walked into was this wet suana. I opened the door and steam bellowed out. It smelled somewhat like the sweat of 100,000 pudgey old men mixed with a dead animal corpse of some kind. I turned around and left immediately. Ryan and I decided... why not, lets get a massage! So we signed up and had a beer while waiting for our turn.
   
   Mr. Ryan went first. I couldn’t believe the massuse he got. She was a drop dead gorgeous blond Hungarian. As he was walking in, I noticed a grin on his face that said, hell ya! Then my turn, I got a beautiful brunette girl. She walked me in and told me to lye down. I was worried about my feet because as you can imagine, 3 months only wearing sandals can do a little „“re-modeling“ to your feet. I thought she would either pass out unconscious or run out screaming, but then I thought that they were probably happy to have us two yound skinny guys due to the fact that they push around the pudgy flub of fat old men all day. I’ve never had a massage in my life, but it was amazing. I must know the ways of massage and hopefully I’ll learn it in Thailand. She used lotions and oils and totally worked out all the knots and kinks in my calfs and shoulders. Of course I was smiling the whole time because a Hungarian girls was pretty much messaging everything on my backside, but she couldn’t see my face anyway. It was only 15 minutes but I felt like a million bucks after that. Ryan and I had an international rock festival to attend, so we had to leave the lovely ladies and baths.
   
   Siget is an annual major concert held on an island in the middle of the Danube River. There are about 100 bands that play non-stop, day and night for 7 days! It is a camping festival, so people bring their tents. We where going on the last day to see Prodigy play.
   Nithin, Aaron, Mike, Mr. Ryan and I bought a bottle of wine and drank it while walking on the way. It was called Bulls Blood because in the old days, the war clans would drink this wine and it would dye their beards red. The incoming attackers would see these red stained beards and think these crazy warriors drank bull blood! They would get scared and retreat. We didn’t have an opener, so we did the vagabonder way and pushed the cork in, then just took swigs and passed it around. The true way to enjoy a fine bottle of wine.
   
   The concert was massive. I’ve never seen a bigger concert in my life. The entire island was covered with stages. The main stage was huge! We walked the entire island listening to bands from around Europe and the rest of the globe. We planned on staying up all night, so I started to drink my coffee.
   
   Prodigy was great. They came on at 11pm. They haven’t come out with anything new in like 10 years, but they know how to put on a show. I think one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen at a concert was during Prodigy. There was a bungee jumping crane that hung over the massive crowd. People were bungee jumping while Prodigy played! Can you imagine how insane that is!! Wow! There were also people zip lining over the crowd from a tower off to the right of the stage.
   
   After Prodigy played, we were all somewhat drunk and decided to do Kareoke in front of hundreds of people. Were thinking of doing the Bohemian Raphsody by Queen because we knew it would be a big hit with the crowd, but unfortunately we didn’t make it to the stage in time. The people ahead of us were the last ones to go. Damn, that would have been hilarious. Well, we danced the night away. They were playing a lot of American music so it was great. We stayed up the entire night walking around the island and dancing. It was a blast. We took a bus in the morning back to our hostel to sleep all day.
   
   
   8.16.06 Budapest
   
   Today I walked around the city to get a feel for it. I’m starting to feel like the unfamiliar is becoming familiar. Every city seems similar to me now. It’s not that I’m getting bored, it’s just that I’m getting used to it. I’ve decided that I’ve done enough of the city hopping and it’s time to really get off the beatin track, starting with Romania in a couple of days.
   
   Budapest is beautiful. I know I’ve said that for about every city, but they all are beautiful in their own way. The Might Danube River runs directly through the city, dividing the city Buda from Pest. There are many large bridges that gap over it. I won’t be there to see it, but in a few days there will be the Red Bull air competition where planes fly about 10 ft above the water and go under the bridges. Anyway, the Parlaiment building is probably the most famouse and recognizable building in Budapest. It looks very gothic with sharp spires and flying butresses. I went over and laid out in the lawn for a few hours. The grim but powerful building reminds all of yet another city haunted by the brutal Communist rule of Eastern Europe. Like so many other cities, hundreds of people were gunned down here, mostly students protesting the Soviet dictatorship.
   
   Like I mentioned before, the mob is very dominant in this city. As I was walking home, I passed club after pub after strip club, etc. Every one of them had large bouncers outside that wouldn’t surprise me if it were a mob club. Mike roomed with some guys the night before that said they went out, three of them, to a small bar for one drink. When they got the bill, it said that one drink cost 100 Euros!! The bouncer/thugs escorted them to the ATM to give them the money. So... the lesson here is don’t go to any bar where there is nobody else inside.
   
   Every time I walked by a strip club the bouncers would target me!! Not any of the other guys on the sidewalk, but me. It really pissed me off. I know thta they just wanted to mug me anyway. Apparently they mistook me for someone who needs to go to a strip club.
   
   That night we went to go see the movie Thank You For Smoking. It was a very funny movie. It was in Hungarian subtitles, so I figured out we were the only Americans in the theater when we laughed and nobody else in the room did. This is because most people didn’t understand American sarcasm. I think that is something very American... sarcasm.
   
   
   8.17.06, The Terror Museum and the Opera.
   
   Mike left to go to Balatonfured, across the lake from Siofok in Hungary. I will meet him there tomorrow. Nithin and I walked around again to see the House of Terror. This is a former Nazi and then Soviet headquarter for Budapest. It was turned into a museum and memorial when the Soviet Union fell.
   
   Hundreds of people were killed in this building. Most of the museum was devoted to the horrors of Soviet Communism. The most surprising thing about this building was the underground Soviet torture cells and prisons. After the Soviets rushed in and kicked out the Nazi’s, they made underground tunnels to connect the entire neightborhood block. This was a James Bond movie/video game reality. I felt like this was something out of a bond film. This is where the Russians tortured people with electric currents, beatings, starvation, etc. These wer specific cells one could be thrown into. One was a room filled with about 2 inches of water on the floor. The walls curved and sloped off at the bottom, so there was no way to climb out of the water. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be thrown into a cell fullof water for months. Another one was a standing cell. Similar to a very small closet with an eye hole like a speak easy. There was only enough room to stand there with your arms at your side. Another room was a low concrete ceiling that is pitch black. You can not stand up or stretch out. The last room, I walked through was the Gallows. This is a cell where they would hang people. I never quite understood why the USSR and Communist government was considered such a bad thing until visiting Eastern Europe. The Soviets closed off everything and took over everyones lives. You would be exectued if you tried to leave, or even if you spoke ou against them. All of this ended only 15 years ago. Most of those country’s lived in terror and were closed off to the rest of the world for about 40 years.
   
   On our walk over to the largest Jewish Synogogue in the World, Nithin and I walked by a long line of locals waiting to get some food. We thought...hmmm....long line of locals...lets check it out! This small food stop seemed to be a very popular local place. This was my first experience when I couldn’t read anything on the menu and nobody spoke English. I just observed what others got and then pointed to the food that I though looked interesting. I got some kind of cabbage stew with fried mushrooms and a piece of bread. It had to have been one of the best meals I’ve had yet.
   
   We walked by the Opera House and decided to go see an Opera tonight. It was only $12, so why not? Nithin and I were a little worried when we showed up and everyone but us was dressed up. Nithin was wearing the same shirt that he wore to the Sziget rock concert 3 days earlier, and I was wearing the only semi-clean clothes I had... a mildewy t-shirt and stained pants. We were looking hot, watch out ladies. But I did wear my shiny leather shoes, which had to count for something. We saw the ballet “The Taming of the Shrew,“ by Sheakspear. It was very good. We were in the nose bleeds, but still had an excellent view. I find it amazing that these people can describe an entire story, emotions, character developement, etc... just with the movements of their bodies. That’s how you know it is a good ballet, when nobody has to say anything and you understand the entire story. Nithin brought up a good point. If you go to see a movie, it is just one person who runs the reels to entertain you. At a ballet or opera, there are 30 hardworking people putting on a show for you. Anthe they don’t get paid much. That is devotion and love of art and drama.
   
   We sat next to a Canadian guy, Greg, who has been a high school history teacher and traveler for the last 10 years. After the opera, we all went out for a beer and he gave us some great advise on india, Thailand, and Japan. He also told us about his trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, somthing we planned to do ourselves.
   
   On our walk home, I said goodbye to Nithin because I didn’t knkow when we’d meet up again. We were in two different hostels, so we split.
   
   
   8.18.06, Balatonfurer, Lake Balaton
   
   As I was looking out the window of the trai, the lake, Lake Balaton, appeared through the trees and the first thing I saw was a dozen kite surfers riding th ewind along the coast. Mike was waiting for me at the train station at Balatonfured and told me that we’d be staying with this lady who offered us her house. She didn’t speak a word of English, so it was a lot of fun, and we had to play our own little game of charrades to communicate when she came to pick us up. Her place was a little beach house about 1km from the water. It was probably the nicest place we’ve stayed in during our trip. It was a nice, clean, traditional lake house.
   
   Mike and I wandered in town i search of a post office, a hair cut, and a grocery store. I had a ton of stuff to mail home, which would significantly decrease my backpack load tremendously. Most people here speak German because this is a tourist area for Europeans. There are no English speakers anywhere here. Thank god Don and Linda Wagner bought that mini pocket translator for me before I left. Well the haircut place was closed, which suckes. Mike and I look like semi-groomed Neanderthals, and could go for a little trim. I got lucky with the post office though. It closed in 10 minutes, and I had no way to communicate with the post lady except playing charrades. We got it figured out by speaking broken German.
   
   That night, we went down to the docks for some wine tasting. There was a long boardwalk that stretched all the way down along the beach, kind of like a park with a lot of trees and walkways. You would put down a deposit for a glass and then walk up and down the boardwalk trying different wines. We were with an Italian guy, Daniel, who knew his wine. He also knew Hungarian, so he would translate for us. We hit the clubs after that and headed home. The girls here are amazing.
   
   
   8.19.06, Balatonfured and Siofok
   
   Slept most of the day and switched hostels. Went down to the docks and read. That night we would take a boat across the lake to Siofok and party all night until the next morning when the ferry returns at 9am. That way we didn’t have to pay for another night in the hostel...problem solved.
   
   Siofok is to Europeans (mainly Germans) what Cancun is to Americans. It is a massive party on the beach of Lake Balaton. We didn’t have anywhere to stay that night, so our plan was simple... party all night till the ferry takes us back to balatonfured in the morning. We left the docks around 9pm and it took an hour to cross the lake. As we got closer, I saw all the lights from beach clubs flare up and twist into the sky. There were giant spotlights rolling across the sky to attract people and bright neon pinks and greens pulsing to loud techno music. We went to get some food at first at an Italian place. We bought a bottle of wine and sat in the park to kill some time. We sat and talked while the clubs boomed in the distance. Around 1am, we decided to move out. I noted this place for later in case I wanted to crash on a park bench to sleep.
   
   The first place we hit was a blacklight bar. It was cool, but was filled with 16 year olds. We moved on fast. Ran into a club that cost 3,800 Ft just to get in. That’s like $20... not happening. Sw, we headed out to the beach. Now this is where it started to look like we were on MTV’s Spring Break. The beach was packed with clubbers and dancing all up and down the docks. There were volleyball nets in the water and bkinis everwhere. We pretty much danced from club to club thta night. Ravers on the beach, people climbing up trees and dancing, glowsticks and strobe lights... It was awesome.
   
   
   8.20.06
   
   I opened my eyes hazily to a blurry silhouette against a light blue sky. I woke up on a bench in the park to some clubber asking me something in Hungarian. It took me a while to get my bearings. There were six guys hovering over me and one fat guy sat down next to me and cracked open a beer. I motioned to them that I had no lighter or cigs. Then he asked me if I had any Extasy or Coke. I said no. I couldn’t understand anything, so I got up and started to look for Mike. I found him on another bench asleep. We were in that park that we started drinking the bottle of wine in the night before. I woke him up and we started to walk back towards the docks to wait for our ferry. I found a video arcade and started playing this shooting game. From out of nowhere, the only English speaker I heard jumped out and yelled “Shoot the mother fucker!!!“ He was obviosly still drunk. He was this big ripped guy from Toronto. He told us all about how crazy his night was. Although we were talking to a drunk Canadian, it was nice to hear some English.
   
   We returned and slept all day. Woke up to go down to the docks and watch some fireworks because it was Hungary’s Independence Day, so a lot of people showed up. They had this stage floating out in the middle of the cove, playing music and would eventually launch fireworks. Unfortunately, the obviouse occured and a massive rainstorm hit. So we ran home and watched boondock saints on my IPOD.
   
   
   Off to meet Dracula in ROMANIA, booya.

CZECH ME OUT!!! Czech Republik and Poland

8.2.06, Prague

I flew into Prague around 1pm. This was the first time I experienced ending up alone in a country where I didn’t know or speak any of the language, couldn’t read any signs, and didn’t understand any of the currency. I got some money out and it was like 1,000…2,000…or 3,000 Kronos! The currency exchange was so high. I was completely lost. I roamed the city blind… the map I had was useless because I couldn’t read any of the steet names. I was desperately looking for an internet café because I didn’t have anywhere to sleep that night and I had to find a place before it became dark. I frantically took a metro all around the city to hostels to find out any had openings for tonight. Three out of four said no. I was walking to my last resort hostel and bumped into two Finnish people and a guy from Mexico on the street and decided to find a room together. Leena and Peter are from Finland and Jorje is from Mexico City. The A and O Hostel had a room for all of us.

Jorje and I decided to start walking out into the city. He was a photography teacher so we had a lot to talk about. We stopped at a bar and I asked the bartender where we could find some cheap Czech food. She wrote down Goulash and told us to go to 4 Zieke. We found the place with some help from the locals and it was a traditional Czech restaurant, in a tourist way of course. There weren’t separate tables, they were just long cafeteria wooden tables. One guy would walk around carrying pints of beer and trying to give them to you because they would charge you money for it. Some carried the bread and wine around on a serving tray. We only wanteded to eat the Goulash and leave. It was unbelievably deliciouse. By far the best thing I’ve tasted on this trip. It consisted of 4 dumplings (2 bread and 2 bacon dumplings), sitting in a veal and beef stew.

I was still hungry after dinner, so we stoppede at a pizza place and I bought a tuna pizza. Jorje (Hoorhay) and I walked down the bank of the river like true photographers. We snuck up behind people to pull off a shot. The castle in the distance was beautiful and picturesque. Prague is known for the old architecture because it wasn’t destroyed from war.

On our way back, we ran into the Fins. We sat down in the main square and had some drinks. A night of incredibly interesting conversations followed with Italians, Finlands, English, Australians and Germans. Unfortunately I don’t remember any of it.


8.3.06, Prague +2

I checked out of A+O, went to the metro to find Hostel Marabou to meet up with the others. I was on a bus and some guy was feeling my pockets. Of course I’m always aware of pick pockets when I’m crowded on a bus with my gear, so I caught him. I just gave him the “I see you, I’m not a fucking idiot look,” and he walked away.

I got off the bus and czeched in to my new hostel (haha, czeched in…I crack myself up…) I met Mr. Ryan and Aaron and we went out into the lobby, had some beers and exchanged all of our crazy stories that happened over the last few weeks. We made a grocery run and made beef quesadillas with red peppers, avacados, and cheese. Mmmm…mmm…good. We also bought 6 Czech beers. BEER IS CHEAPER THAN WATER HERE, and it is some of the finest on the planet. That night we met a few Mexican girls, one of which is a graphic designer. Denise Chaves is studying in London now but lives in Florida usually. It was cool because I got to tell my Running of the Bulls story for the first time and they ate it up! We also exchanged music with some French girls and sang traditional songs with a group of Romanians!


8.4.06 Prague +3

Today I completely vegged out. I did some laundry. I haven’t washed my clothes in about a month. Keep in mind that I only have three T’s, two pants, and 3 boxers. Ya…pretty bad. I found some Queso at the store. Ryan edited some video footage while I wrote in my journal.

Later that night we pre-drank and taught the Mexicans, New Zealanders, and Romanians how to play King’s Cup. Then we went to go out to this dance club that people keep talking about. It was about midnight and the club doesn’t close until 5pm. That is not a typo. It is open from 6pm to 5pm. So we’d be out all night because the metros and busses stopped at midnight. We followed some Slovakians to the Charles Bridge and the club was located right at the bridge corner. The place was called Karlov Lazne. Apparantely it’s the biggest club in Central Europe. It is five stories tall with each level specializing in different music and atmosphere. The second floor had this crazy electonica music and green lasers everywhere. On the wall there was this giant metal angel and red lasers came out of slits in its eyes. It was a really cool decoration. It would look around the room, painting people with red laser beams. The stong strobe lights made everyone seem like they were flash images dancing. I ran into the Russian and Italian that I met the night before and they bought me drinks. The night was pretty fun, I danced to the crazy Euro-techno that dominated the Contenent. I walked back with Mike and Aaron at about 4:30am and helped some people along the way by pushing their stalled out car. It was a long walk.


8.5.06 Prague +4

The World Trippers had a little group pow-wow to determine what the route for the next month and a half would be. We might split up and meet in Krakow, Poland, on the August 9th. Nithin and I decided to go on a road trip to see the countryside of Czech. Aaron, Mr. Ryan, and Mike were going to head to Chesky Kromlov.

We moved out of Hostel Marabou and into Levir Hostel located in a different part of the city. Basically it was two large rooms with bunks in them. You had to walk through one to get to the other. Nithin and I decided to do a major walk around the city, to see the sites. It is a magnificent city. It has survived many wars, including the destructive WWII, and a harsh Communist rule, so most of the architecture is still intact as if it were hundreds of years ago. Many are still lined with gold pieces and crests placed onto building facads and sculptures. Most of the time the city is gloomy with overcast and rain, but that only emphasizes the brilliant colors of Prague. I can truly feel the Communist rule of the past in the architecture. Some buildings are very tall, flat, emotionless, grey, dominating with powerful facades. There are sculptures lining nearly every building in the city.

The most impressive point in the city is the St. Charles Bridge. It is important because a miracle occurred here hundreds of years ago. A man was thrown over the bridge to face the icy cold river below and greet death. I don’t remember why he was sentenced to be tossed over, but he was surely to die. While falling, five golden stars appeared over his head to form a halo as he plunged into the water. The bridge has since been decorated with black and gold statues that look down from sides of the bridge onto those who walk across it. These depict things like angels, a crusifixion of Christ, and even St. Charles with his five gold starred halo around his head. I wish I cold be hear during the winter season to see the freshly fallen snow blanket the bridge statues and the cathedral spires that break the skyline. The bridge leads to the castle and large gothic cathedral that sits at the top of the hill and dominates the city view.

As Nithin and I were walking up through the tiny streets to the castle, we heard a lot of singing and commotion from a tiny midevil pub next to us. We decided to stop in for a drink. I told the bartender to give us something “Czech.” He showed up at our table with a shot and a beer each. I don’t remember what the shot was called, but it was some strong stuff! I think it was some kind of vodka. It burned the hell out of my throat, but I took it like a champ. We also ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, some garlic and onion fried bread. ( Make mental note not to eat this on future dates ;) The yelling came from 10 drunk Italian guys at the end of the table. They had a megaphone and were yelling at people walking by out thewindow to come inside and drink. They were yelling things like, “Italia! World Cup Champs!” I cheered them on and they said “Hooray America!!” then we attempted to sing our own National Anthem and failed miserably, which was very embarrassing. We walked with them over the bridge. Now I know where Italian guys get their reputation. They would walk up to women, young, old, and take a picture with them. Then they would all walk up and give them a kiss for being in the photo. Amazingly, this worked!… for Italians. If I tried to do that, I’d get slapped.

On the way home, I did a little shopping and one of the girls working there was talking to me. She said she escaped Russia from the Communists. I can’t help but wonder what her life was like growing up. Her name is Lucy. That night, I just hung out at the hostel with a group of Irish girls from Dublin. They seemed very interested in our stories about Tornadoes. There was also a girl there who had met JD and Turk from “Scrubs“ in a coffee shop in Amsterdam.

8.6.06 Prague +5

Walked to the Dancing House, a medern architectural wonder, then continued all the way up the river to the north part of Prague to the Jewish section. I saw synogogues around almost every corner and the Star of David was engraved all over the place. I noticed thsi part of town was not nearly as flash as the other parts. The Synogogues were hardly noticable except for a Star of David emblem on the well.

I walked back down the river to see the Astronomical Clock in the main square next to the St. Charles Bridge. This thing was mesmerizing. It was built in the 1400’s and hasn’t stopped since. I couln’t figure out what all the symbols meant. I recognized some Zodiak symbols, but had no idea about the others. At the top of every hour the clock comes to life and there is a small skeleton that pulls on a rope to ring the tower bell (he represents Death.) It was so anti-climatic and lame. I can’t believe I wasted 2 minutes of my life on this puppet show. There was even a puff of smoke that is let out at the end and a waning kazoo sound occurs. LAME.

Back at the hostel, Nithin and I ran into a new group of English kids. We taught them how to play Presidents and Assholes. Then moved onto a bar because we were being too loud and the hostel owner pretty much kicked us all out. There were also two girls studying in France, one of them from Mexico and the other from Taiwan. Another girl was from Japan. We all talked about where we come from and attempted to draw maps of our countries on bar napkins with crayons.


8.7.06, Czech Road Trip to Uncle Harry’s!

I was thinking about getting up at 4:30am to walk to the bridge and photograph it, but I thought that walking alone at night with my camera wasn’t a good idea. The previous day, Nithin found a flyer that said ,“Two day road trip, meet at the Travelers Hostel tomorrow.“ So we walked to the van and met Peter, our driver and two Aussies, Sarah and her brother Daniel. So the van will tke us around the Czech Republic to see some sights and then spend two nights in a completely remote town at a hostel called Uncle Harry’s. The first stop we made was in Kutna Hora to see a church made of human bones. There was a graveyard here since the 12th century. Around the 16th century, so many people were buried here that there wasn’t any more room to bury people. They think the remains of around 300,000 people located around the church. So they decided to decorate the church with the found and dug up bones. Some were soldiers in past Czech wars because you could see that some skulls had holes or massive damage done to them by a weapon of some sort. There is a chandalier dangling from the ceiling that contains every bone on the human body. It was definately a morbid feeling when you have thousands of human skulls staring at you. I wonder what these people would think of where their remains are now, and how they are being used as a tourist site...

It was pouring rain out and we headed to the small town of Dalecin. The countryside was very interesting. There are NO tourists here. Nobody speadks English. I find it interesting that I am really covering some ground here. I can tell a difference in the way people look. The bone structures are different. I thin kthe Czech/Slovik people have brioad, flat faces. The women here are very pretty. The clouds were rising out of the forrests like they were evaporating out of the trees. It seems like a very cold, wet place, but Peter assured me that it does get sunny here too. It had been raingin so much that the rivers were flooding as we drove through the tiny villages. We finally pulled up to Uncle Harry’s and met the other people staying there. Nathan, an Australian, and Fred from Norway. They told us that Uncle Harry was the name of the village drunk. They said maybe we might even see him tonight if we’re lucky.

We eventually went to the pub. This is only one of two in the entire town. It was only a short walk and it really turned out to be the basement of some families house. A beer here only cost about 60 cents US for a .5L. I sat with another American, Chris from Maryland and Nathan. Chris works at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. We immediatly hit it off because I’ve been to Philmont a couple of times myself. I found out that Nathan was well on his way to being a special forces Sniper for the Australian SAS, but he injured his back during a training excersise and had to quit. The girl serving us had to have been about 15 years old. One drink led to another, and another, and a shot of Slivovice, and another, etc... We drunkenly stumbled back to Uncle Harry’s and put on some music. Drink led to drink, led to screwdrivers, led to wine, led to tequila... ya, you can see where this is going... COW TIPPING!!!

Cow tipping is a game made up by incredibly bored teenagers in very small towns around the globe. They have nothing better to do than sneak up to cows in a field when they are sleeping. Cows sometimes fall asleep while standing. With enough experience and talent, one can sneak up to the cow and... push it over! Hahahahahahahahahahaha. It is quite an amazing site folks. So, we all stumbled out into the country fields behind Uncle Harry’s almost unable to walk in search of the elusive Czech Cow. Nathan was so pissed (drunk) that he fell over into a puddle deep enough to cover his head and was laughing so hard that he couldn’t climb out for a good 10 minutes. We had to get across the electric cattle fences which was an adventure in itself. Well, we never found any cows. Little did we know they are usually put into the stables at night by the farmers. The rest of the night consisted of head banging to Rammstein and breakdancing to NWA. Another adventure in the bag.


8.8.06, Czech Road Trip continued

Today we drove to a cave system in the southern part of the country. Unfortunately the rain had flooded some of the caves so we couldn’t go rafting in the underground lakes, but we still went inside to have a look. It was nothing too exciting. It reminded me of the caves at home and in Carlesbad Cavern in Texas. As we were driving away from the cave, I was watching people we drove by the small towns. I wonder what their lives are like. I am seeing them, these souls, through my point of view. What if I could switch souls right then and there and be in their body. What would it be like living in this small village in Czech? We stopped for lunch in this small town and Peter was friends with the owner. It is known for their Borsch Soup and of course their dumplings. Peter made it clear to order only one because they are both very filling. He has never seen anyone finish both the soup and the dumplings in one sitting, and he has brough hundreds of people here. Well, Daniel decided to try both. I got the soup and it was so good. It is Russian, but they make it very well here. It is made of beets, and is served with whipped cream on top. It is a sweet broth soup. Very very good. Daniel did not finish both. The dumplings are so dense, it is amazing how only three of them would fill you up. When we got home, Peter helped us figure out how to get to Poland from here.


8.9.06, Travel to Krakow, Poland

Peter drove Nithin, Aaron and I to a city in Czech and told us to take a bus from there to Oloumoc. From there, we would catch a train to Krakow. A two hour ride later we arrived in Oloumoc. The bus broke down on the way and we stopped another bus on route to drop us off because we had to catch a train and didn’t want to miss it to arrive in Poland late at night.

Oloumoc was a pit. Nothing but cold concrete, flat walled apartment complexes, and large fumimg towers from power plants surrounding the city. I can imagine it would get very depressing here come winter. We had a 2 hour layover here so Nithin and I walked around while Aaron read and guarded our luggage. There was random trash pits and an occasional concrete slab wall, graffitied of course, with barbed wire running along the top. We were lucky and it was sunny out, otherwise I’d probably have to shoot myself. OK, I guess it wasn’t that bad, but I just can’t imagine what there is to do in this town growing up as a kid or living here. The further East I go, the more old lady’s with canes I see. I guess they can’t afford medical aid, or can’t afford a retirement home, so they simply walk around enjoying the occasional sunlight they get.

We arrived in Krakow, the air was warm, the building facades were tinted pink, orange red colors from the setting sun. We stayed at the Good Bye Lenin Hostel. It was a hip little place with a brand new bar and layout in the basement. The whole theme was about the Anti-Communist revolution. The walls were painted with revolution symbols used in the past to topple the unwanted Communist rule throughout Eastern Europe.

There was a barbique that night, so I sat outside and talked. I met some Romans who took a large interest about the US. They me a lot of great information about Poland because they had been there for almost two weeks already. I thought it was funny because I was talking to Giulia and I said the word „sweet“ in responce to one of her cooking recipies and she started to list off sweet Polish foods. I explained to her that „sweet“ is a slang word and I didn’t mean for her to list sweet foods. Luca and Giulia invided us for dinner tomorrow night and wanted to cook us a real Roman dinner. Some REAL Italian food.

I also met some Aussies and Irish people. I tried some Polish Vodka which was very strong, and then a drink that the bartender made up. It was a shot of vodka dropped into a glass of apple juice. It tasted great!


8.10.06 Krakow

Today, Nithin and I explored Krakow. We walked around the entire city. The architecture here is different from any other I’ve seen. In the town square there is a large tower with spires that run high up above the city and are all topped with shiny golden orbs. A trumpeter trumpets a song at the top of every hour which has been a tradition for hundreds of years. Krakow seems to be next on the „soon to be swarmed with tourists“ list. There was a guy with a little Elvis puppet show. Great... I come all the way to Krakow to see some cheesy Elvis gig. We climbed one of the towers to see an overview of the city. We were walking to the castle from the main square and saw this cathedral and thought... Why not go inside? Turns out there is an exact replica of the Shroud of Turin displayed on the wall. It was amazing to see. Although it wasn’t the real one, which is kept in a locked and protected box in Turin, it was so mysterious. You could actually see the oils from the skin of whomever’s body was wrapped in it. It is supposedly the cloth wrapped around Jesus after he was crusified.

We continued to walk up to the Krakow Castle. I proved to be a complete iditot when I somehow managed to reconfigure my combo lock on my backpack. I had to crack a 999 possibility code in order to get back inside my bag. I was walking through the streets carefully turning the dials one by one and pulling each time to see if it opened. I eventually got the right digit combo at number 393. Hope that doesn’t happen again. The castle had a cathedral on top and looked like it had some different features on it that must have been added over it’s long history. It looked like a giant puzzle piece that was fit together over the ages. There was a main tower with a giant golden clock on it, then a tiny peak off of that with little golden orb spires, then they slapped on some gargoyle water spouts, but they resembled Oriental architecture?!

On the walk back home, we passed the house of Pope John Paul II. We asked what was inside and the ticket woman told us some of his old property like the Pope’s old snow ski set and bed set. I really didn’t want to pay money to see JPII’s old checkers board, so we left.

I strung up the Hostels old and crappy guitar so I could play it and relax, then took a nap. Later that night I went to the clubs with two Irish girls, four Irish guys, one English girl, and Kyle from Indiana. Kyle was a great guy and had been teaching English to kids in Switzerland for a while. I had absolutely no clean clothes. I think it has been about a month since wash, so I had to wear my tacky swimsuit out and flip flops... to a dance club... felt a little awkward but screw it, I don’t care.

It figures, my drinking buddy was an Irish guy. The first round he ordered for me was a double jager bomb. Buyt they ran out of Jager, so instead we used some really hardcore Polish stuff. So basically, we had to drop 4 shots into 4 glasses of red bull and down them all in a line. Ha, I didn’t drink the rest of the night, that set me up pretty good. I was dancing with the Irish girls and noticed there were more guys in the club than girls. I went over to talk to Kyle and some guy had told him that we were actually in a gay bar. Then things started to sweep into perspective. Lots of guys, tight clothes, flamboyant bartender... yup, it’s a gay bar! It was a cool place and all, but we decided to go to another club.

By this time, we’re all pretty tipsy and I’m standing outside this club taking with the guys and this dude comes up to me. He askes me if I had seen a girl standing outside like he was looking for her and couldn’t find her. I told him that I hadn’t and we just started talking about the club scene. He walked up to the bouncers and said something in Polish to them, then they just let us in! We all headed towards the bar but ran into a massive line. The guy that got us in told us to follow him to another bar on the other side of the club, so we followed. There was no crowd over there. Kyle and one of the guys with us bought a drink. By the way, MGD is huge here. The guy asked me if I wanted a drink. I was like... hell ya I want a drink! So he brought me one from the bar. As we’re walking back across the dance club Kyle grabs me and says, „Dude, that guy is totally hitting on you.“ I asked him if he was sure because I just thought he was some cool Polish guy who wanted to buy a round. Then I saw him dancing like a woman on the dancefloor and realized Kyle was right. Maybe gay guys are attracted to hawaiian swim trunks, but damn! That’s twice in one night! Anyway, we all started dancing with the girls and Kyle goes into this breakdance. So I jumped in and did some backspin, windmill stuff and everyone flipped out! People were coming over to shake my hand and girls were looking at me and whispering to each other! I felt pretty cool! Kyle kept trying to make me do it again throughout the night but I was getting too tipsy and there were more guys who seemed to respond to it than girls which made me worry a bit. We stayed out until the sun came up and then walked home.


8.11.06, Auschwitz and Berkendau (Auschwitz II)
THIS SECTION IS VERY EMOTIONAL. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO FEEL DEPRESSED, SKIP OVER IT.

Aaron, Nithin and I took a mini bus to the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Berkendau. It was about a two hour ride to get to the city where they are located on the outskirts of. I was talking lively with the people around me on the bus, but started to realize as I was getting closer that I was about to walk into a place where 1.5 million people were tortured, gassed, and murdered. As I got out of the car I thought to myself... this doesn’t look like a concentration camp. It was a sunny, nice afternoon with a suddle breeze.

We walked into the visitor center and bought a guided tour ticket. You couldn’t see anything from the outside. I read some of the letters on the display in the hallway from people in the capm to their loved ones, and it was tearjearking. I couldn’t help myself and was trying not to get teary, but those letters where horribly sad. They were basically saying that they knew they were going to die and wrote their goodbyes to their families. We entered an auditorium and watched a brief film and afterward the tour started. I walked out of the tour center and stopped in front of the camp gates. ARBEIT MACHT FREI. Work gives freedom. These are the steel molded letters that struck fear into the hearts of thousands as they walked underneath and through the iron gates. I’ve seen photos plenty of times from outside and at a distance, but now I have an idea of what it was like on the other side. The guard towers and electrified barbed wire fences sent a hellish feeling down my spine. I just walked into the hell of 1.5 million people. The camp didn’t look like what I originally had thought. This camp was inside of brick buildings, not the wooden horse shacks. Auschwitz was not a full fledged Death Camp until the Nazi’s decided to initiate the Final Solution and terminate all the Jews in Europe. They would either kill you immediately or send you to work and starve to death.

Throughout the tour, we walked into the barrack buildings which are now museums and saw the left overs of those who died. Entire rooms were filled with womans hair, luggage, glasses, crutches and false lims, teddy bears, clothing, shoes, and empty cannisters of Cyclon B pellets. It is truly an overload of emotions to see and almost be directly connected to the murdered. The shoes of the children struck me the most. I can’t describe how horrific the feeling is.

They took us to Block 11 which is also known as the Death Block. This is where people were taken to be punished. Hardly anyone who went in ever came back out. There were special cells here. Walking to the dungeon below and through the cells was horrific. If you payed close attention you could see scratch marks in the walls. Some had etchings of christ, or names or some were simply scratched over ande over again into fingernail streaks. One room was large enough for 20 people. They would put 40 people inside and only leave one tiny little airhole. When 20 people would suffocate, then they would let the others free. Another torture cell was called the standing cell. This was a brick walled cell only large enough for one person to stand. They would put four people inside, brick them up and leave them for death. It is haunting to think about the amount of unthinkable, horrid deaths that occured in this 3 ft square area that I was standing right in front of.

Outside Block 11, in between it and the Womans Block, was the excecution area. All the windows of the buildings were blocked off so they couldn’t see or figure out what was actually going on there. Here the SS actually acknowledged that they were breaking international laws of execution, so they simply put a blindfold over their operations and closed off the yard from public view to minimize the witnesses. The most efficient way to kill people, the administrator thought, was to use 1 bullet for 1 person. So, they used the shooting wall to line prisoners up and deliver one bullet to each of their heads. But the SS did it by shooting them from the back of the head and not from the front, which is a very dishonerable way to die.

We eventually arrived to the gas chambers. These were the first gas chambers and crematorium ever made. This was by far the most disturbing part of my experience. 70% of all people brought to the camp were sent immediately to the gas chambers upon their arrival. They were told to leave their stuff and to go take a shower. They crammed about 700 men, women, and children into a room, told everyone to undress, and walked them into the chamber. It had shower heads fixed into the ceilings just to make them actually think they were in a shower room and not to spark panic and chaos. They locked the massive doors and dropped tiny little gravel size pellets of Cyclon-B in through the room. !5-20 minutes of panick and screaming followed as everyone sufficated from the poison gas. In the dark concrete room I was standin inside, the SS murdered 10’s of thousands of people. There were horrific scratch marks in the concrete, on the walls and ceilings. Now, the only thing that remains in the room is a memorial gravestone with flowers in the center. It is hard to think of that many people dying. I mean there were so many souls extinguished in this room that you have to catagorize them as numbers, like 10’s of thousands. But it is hard to just imagine only one of those souls being killed in such a inhumane way. Directly next door is the crematorium. The SS used other prosoners to haul all the bodies out of the room and into the massive ovens to burn the bodies. They would take the ashes and distribute them amount the exterior fields of the camp. This whole process took no longer than an hour until the next mass murder was to occur. When it got crowded, people would have to wait outside while the group in front of them were gassed and burned. I remember hearing a nothing screaming people in my mind while I walked through. Horrible... completely horrible.

After we left the chamber, we all got a 20 minute break before we headed to the next camp, Berkendau, which is 3 km away from Auschwitz.

Berkendau, Auschwitz II, looked very familiar and much more like a concentration camp to me. It was a massive field with row upon row upon row of barracks and electrified barbed wire fences and watch towers. The most famous view here is the train tracks that go directly through the large brick walled tower entrance. The camp had four gas chambers and 4 crematoriums. When the Nazi’s implemented the Final Solution, these death machines wer used non-stop, 24 hours a day. They would kill about 1,400 people per day. I walked into some of the wooden barracks. These are meant to hold horses, but can fit about 200 people inside it. The Nazi’s crammed triple the amount of people it is meant to hold. Usually, people had to share a bed with two other people, or sleep on the floor piled with disease ridden straw. The Nazi’s generally didn’t go near the barracks because they smelled so horrible. The beds had straw matresses filled with bugs and disease. There was usually no heat so the temperature outside was the same as inside. The prisoners only had their striped clothes and a stringy thin blanket. Prisoners were only allowed to use the bathroom twice a day and only had a limited time to do it. There were only a dozen concrete holes to use as a tiolet, so people had to scramble and beat one another to use it. You would be severly punished or killed if you went to the bathroom any time other than the given two times. I walked all the way down the train tracks and onto the other end of the camp. Here, the SS frantically dynamited the other four gas chambers in attempt to deystroy the evidence of their genocide. The ruins are still left untouched after they were blown up. I can’t help to think when I look at those bombed ruins of the gas chambers, how these soldiers who dropped those Cyclon-B pellets in from the roof could sit there and listen to 700 blood curtling screams of people as they are sufficating day after day and not have any feeling of wrong doing. Men, women, children... I can hear the screams of those people in my head. They don’t stop until I look away. 1.5 million people screaming...

I took my time and walked back to the entrance. I kept thinking that every foot step I took, somebody had probably died there. There had been so much human ashes and bodies spread and distributed around the camp that it had completely fertilized the whole place. Human remains are literally all around me... in the foilage, in nature. Every blade of grass, every tree, every shrub and bush. Everything, even nature has been affected by the dead.

I met up with Nithin and we took a train back to Krakow. Aaron had left us a little earlier so he could travel with Mike and Mr. Ryan to go to Budapest. As we walked back through the town we stopped to get some traditional Polish Dumplings, which were of course excellent. That night I hung out with the Irish and Kyle. We had a late night pizza craving and went out to a cafe to get it. After a nice culture exchange talk, we went to bed.


8.12.06 Krakow

Nithin and I decided not to go to Ukraine today because the train situation didn’t work out for us. We didn’t want to end up in Lviv at 10pm with no place to stay, so we went to another hostel, King Hostel, and vegged out for a day. We decided to head to Bratislava, Slovakia the next day.