Friday, August 14

We woke up before the alarm this morning. I don’t sleep well knowing a train depends on me walking up to my little watch alarm! Oh well, it gave us more time to get organized. It is kind of a weird feeling getting up watching 68 other people sleeping in their beds! And it is even weirder because most of them appear in the night after we have gone to bed!!
No problems with the tram or the train to Dresden, where we arrived just before 11am. I have been told by EVERYONE that Dresden is a place to visit – however it wasn’t evident getting off the train! However, as we walked closer to the centre and the river, I saw what people meant. Within a very small area there are three churches, one synagogue, and various art galleries and government buildings. All of which were beautiful.
Dresden has nothing remaining from its Eastern Germany days – it looks just like any other German/Austrian city in respects to what you’d expect to find. That was a little disappointing, but I’d been told that you’d never know what it had endured. And, although I know absolutely nothing about the history of Dresden, from looking at the post cards and putting it together with what I saw, I think one of the reasons it is so well known is that it was completely demolished during the war – and today it has all been rebuilt and is beautiful.
One of the three Churches, Kreuzkirche, was interesting to see because the original stone foundation was used as the foundation for rebuilding the church and the sculptures and various elements in the rock were preserved to be seen within the new church.
The main church in the city, Frauenkirche, was beautiful from the inside and out. It was huge and was entirely shaped in a dome shape. It looked kind of like a theatre on the inside because there was seating up high for several levels. The colours were fantastic – pastels of blue, pink, and yellow. It was really spectacular.
The other church was more cathedral-like and had the typical cross-like structure on the outside. There were many statues standing on the roofline, which was pretty unique. It was huge. Much bigger than the other two churches, actually. It was the Hofkirche and is located right near the river, which made for great pictures!!
There was an impressive mural along the wall of one of the government buildings. It went on and on forever. The bridge was also nice – but we didn’t end up exploring anything on the other side of the river at all.
We had an ice cream (my last one) sitting in a little cafe in the central square looking at Frauenkirche. The service was not great but the ice cream sure was. The best bang for our buck thus far on the trip, I’d say! Don’t think I’ll be eating ice cream for a while now!
We then walked back around the same church and there was a guy playing a grand piano in the street. All songs that are well known, like unchained melody, Elton John, Beetles...we listened for a good half hour or so – and then I had to buy a CD! It was just too perfect. How does it get any better than sunny church steps, in Europe, listening to live piano music?! I’m a suck.
It was really a great day – much better than another one in Frankfurt, I dare say! And this way we broke up the train trips as well. Currently, we are on the ICE (German high speed train) heading towards Frankfurt where Sophie will catch another train home and where I will hang out in the airport until my flight leaves tomorrow!!
Bye!
-Allison

Thursday, August 13

I had such a great sleep last night! There was some noise, but because there was a general noise it kind of drowned out everything else. I think it also helped that I could breathe almost normally again.
The included breakfast was good too...nothing to write home about, but it was pretty good, none the less! After eating our allotted cheese and bread we headed out to wander around the city. We hiked up a hill to see a huge pendulum on top of a hill – but it wasn’t working this morning. It was a nice view of the city, however.
We then walked to the market and looked around there for a while – bought some nougat and a huge basket of raspberries. Both quite good!
Those were our two main events of the day, to be honest! We wandered over to the government buildings and to the other train station because the towers looked pretty from a distance (nothing too special when we got there, however!!). We then sat down on a bench in a very busy park – it was an excellent hour or so that we sat there looking at the people. There was an interesting group that sat down next to us. They opened their box of wine with their teeth and then proceeded to share it while bumming cigarettes from a group of young girls sitting across from us. They later all fell asleep with their chins on their chests.
When we were tired of sitting there we walked back to the tourist part/ old town and walked into a few shops. We were severely lacking money because we had to give a 200czk for our deposit at the hostel – and we had only taken out 600czk originally. For lunch we split a hot dog! It was kind of funny, but it gave us another chance to people watch on the curb of the clock tower. And....we saw the clock hit the hour (twice today, actually) – where a little skeleton pulled a string to ring the bell above and some other figures did a little dance. It was quite cute.
We decided it would be more fun if we could use our 200czk so we walked back to the hostel and begged to trade in our deposit for an increased euro value – which then gave us a lot more money to play with! Ohh – and on the way back to the hostel we passed a hotel called “The Manderin Oriental” where there was a huge crowd, police, and media assembled at the exit. Apparently, Madonna was going to be leaving soon – so everyone was waiting there to see her! Well, we waited for ½ an hour with no action, so we left! However, I can now say I saw the hotel where she was staying in Prague!!
After a nap in the hostel we headed out to locate some form of dinner – and managed to buy an ice cream each and then a hot dog each – and then found enough cones for a ½ cone each! You think I’d be ice creamed out by now, eh!? Apparently not...they just have the best ice cream here ever!! My two favourites are lemon and Strachetella. Both awesome!!
Oh – another funny thing was making Sophie pee in fancy hotel toilets again! We were looking for things to do, so we walked around the “Carlo IV” for a while until we found the washrooms! When we found them she looked at me and said “I don’t think this is normal, but I thank you. They are better than public toilets”! It was funny!!
One more night here in the hostel and then in the airport tomorrow night before heading home on Saturday morning!!
Night
-AJ

Wednesday, August 12

We woke up this morning at 5:30am because we were walking to the train station and our train was supposed to leave at 7am. It was hard trying to be super quite at that time because in these small flats there are doors everywhere, it seems! In any case, I think we did a good job of being quite and we were on our way by 5:50!!
It was a nice, quite walk down to the station. It is actually quite impressive that our number of bags has remained the same throughout the entire trip. I know mine is a little bigger and I think Sophie’s weighs a little more, but overall quite good!
I had coughed and been awake most of the night because of my personal lack of oxygen, so eating wasn’t really all that appealing to me at all and I was able to sleep most of the 5 hours on the train to Prague. There were no passport checks at all, which I was kind of disappointed about, because I would have really liked another stamp. However, I know there has been something in the media (oops, I guess I should be following these things) about the lack of visas for visitors going to the Czech Republic. So, it was probably a good thing that they decided they didn’t need to check my passport – I wouldn’t want any trouble!
We arrived at about 11:30, and both Sophie and I were rather dazed because we had both slept most of the way! We wandered out of the train and finally found some information regarding how to get to the hostel that I had booked on-line. By this point, however, I realized that I had no money...so off to find a machine we went. We finally found one, and withdrew what we thought was acceptable. It is always hard to tell! Meh.
The tram worked well and we got off at the stop we wanted. However, that was the end of the directions that I received from the hostel! Thankfully, Sophie has eyes that work better than mine and she spotted a HUGE sign that indicated that the hostel was about 100 feet from the tram station! It was perfect!
The hostel is another whole experience! It is a gym that has been converted into a hostel. There are three floors – the main floor consisting of 70 bunk beds – separated by sheets in between groups of 12 beds. There are also corresponding lockers that make kind of the middle hallway between each side if the gym. Then, on the second floor are the guys showers and bathrooms and on the top floor are the girls bathrooms and showers. It is quite the arrangement, really. However, for 7E per night we also get breakfast and free internet! AND – it is in the middle of everything. One block away is the famous Charles Bridge, for example. So, you couldn’t really ask for a better price or a better location! I am really impressed with the hostels I found for this trip, to be honest! I think I did quite well overall (thank you very much ;) ).
We spent a grand total of 2 minutes in the hostel before heading out to visit the city. We really saw everything, and I didn’t use my map as much as normal, because the city is easy to navigate with all of the bridges and large buildings, etc.. We went over the Charles Bridge (Karluv Most) and up to the castle, stopping into many of the churches and tourist shops along the way. The castle is huge and the Cathedral is gorgeous. I think I liked the views from the top more than the actual buildings, however.
We made our way back down to the river and walked across to the other side where we explored the Jewish town. I was disappointed, however, because they wanted to charge us for everything in that area – not really our style - so we didn’t actually go into the Synagogue or museum. I really wanted to go into the grave yard, because I just love graveyards, but even that was about 10E to go to...so I snuck a good picture instead!
Afterwards, we walked around the old town. We saw the Old Town Square with the clock tower and several churches. We walked past the National Theatre and got lost in the various streets with all of the shopping and tourist trap shops everywhere! I really like the feel of this city. Yes, there are tourists everywhere, but it is still so pleasant and cute. It makes me happy!!
As a bonus, the food is much cheaper than most of the other cities we have visited, so we went out for dinner instead of getting groceries. We ate pizza again – at a very cute little place in the old town. I actually drank a beer with my pizza because it was ½ the price of water or pop! Go figure, eh?! But it ended up being 6E for an entire pizza and a 50cl beer! Pretty awesome! (wow! I sound like a guy...pizza and beer!)
I was a little happier after my beer, so walking was more interesting, so say the least. At least it made Sophie laugh! I went back to this place that had nice vases to look at this one that I kind of like...but I think I won’t buy anything this time. I am starting to feel a little broke, to say the least! We then stopped into this art gallery and Sophie fell in love with this beautiful (original) painting. It is a black and white painting of St Nicholas Church with a red streetcar on the road in front. It is absolutely gorgeous. I really liked it as well – but it was listed for 19000 originally. He came down pretty fast when he saw that Sophie was a little interested. He came down to 8000 and Sophie couldn’t make up her mind. Sooo....we went away and sat on a curb so she could think about it – I knew she would buy it, however! We went back and offered 7000 and she ended up buying it for 7500, which is about 300E! I am glad she bought it, because one of us should have bought it and I sure don`t have the money –so it is better that she bought it!! Made me happy!
Now, we are back in the hostel, and it is rather odd to be in this big gym with all of these people! May be an evening for earplugs!!
Night
-Allison

Tuesday, August 11

We ‘slept in’ this morning...which was a good thing because I definitely did not have a good sleep because of all of my coughing! Thankfully, Sophie wears earplugs to sleep, so she didn’t hear me during the night!
We ate our breakfast before heading out to explore more of Vienna. It wasn’t really raining, which was a really great thing! We found an excellent route heading down into the center of the city, which, unfortunately was lined with shops...lots of which had sales! We stopped into a few – and I got a shirt for 5 E and so did Sophie! We then stopped into a dollar store and I bought a pair of plastic flip-flops that immediately gave me blisters between my toes! I didn’t realize my feet were such high maintenance before! OH! In that store there were also those really good shopping bags that I had bought two of at Safeway – except, here, they were only 1E! I bought 2 more...just because I know what they cost at home and because we have used my plaid one daily here!
We passed by several sites including a castle of sorts and a few museums, the opera and another theatre. Because we had already seen all of the official sites we mostly wandered around, poking into the shops along the way! It really poured rain for a while, which was annoying to say the least. At this time we were walking through a nice park where there were statues of famous musicians and composers – so I got a picture with Strauss, in the pouring rain!!
We walked down all of the shopping streets that we wanted to see (that Herman had told us to visit) and walked along the river. There were ice cream shops everywhere – people here eat ice cream even more than I do, it is great! We ate a wonderful ice cream cone at a place beside the river before continuing along the streets...
In front of the opera there is a nice fountain and grassy spot. We sat there for a good hour watching all of the people pass by! It was really interesting. The diversity of tourists and locals as well as a few really bold pigeons was cool to see! We were tired, so it wasn’t hard to sit on the curb for that long, watching the world go by!
I took out the map and decided that we really had seen everything that we needed to see, so we were going to start to make our way back up to our couchsurfing location...when I decided it would be a good thing to stop in the “Grand Hotel Vienna” to have a look. Sophie was completely appalled – but I have been well trained, and despite us looking awful, there were no problems. It was a beautiful hotel. And, the bathrooms were to die for! I decided since we were walking around the hotel that we should try out their facilities! Awesome, I must say. It was enough to shock Sophie into crawling out of the hotel as soon as possible.
We hung out at the couch surfing flat for a couple of hours after getting groceries to cook dinner for us three. I figure since Bernd had offered to lend us the use of his stove and fridge, the least we could do was offer to cook him food! Works for me – pasta is cheap.
It was interesting dinner conversation...between talking about Truman Capote –who wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s (I totally didn’t know that before) to condom dispensers in the major cities in Europe to the conversion between square meters and square feet. I think Bernd was/is a little odd – but he seems to be really into all of this couch surfing stuff – having hosted over 30 groups in the last year – which works for me! I seriously have never met someone so meticulous. I was afraid to leave any crumbs anywhere or drops of water in the sink! And that is a comment coming from me!! Anyway, I thought we were doing really well with the cooking of the dinner and keeping really tidy and everything. But, then, he made a comment about how he always tries to take everything he brings with him away with him! Sounds obvious, I know, but he kept saying it – and in a way that made me think he actually wanted us to take our garbage with us! That is just a little extreme, I think. In any case, we will make sure to bring all of our belongings with us when we leave tomorrow, but I think the garbage will be staying where it is. Sorry!

Night
-AJ

Monday, August 10

We woke up this morning later than normal for a travel morning. I think we got to sleep in until 7am! It was quite exciting considering the noise that the other roommates made when they came in at 4am!! I guess I should get used to it because in Prague we will be sleeping in a room with 70 other people. Makes 12 seem like nothing.
We took the bus and the train and the tram to get back to the far train station where we were early – Sophie hates it that I like to be early for trains...I guess I am just so used to planes where you have to be early that I insist in applying this idea to trains as well. In any case, we had time to eat our brioche with nutella and peaches before we climbed aboard. And, it was a good thing that we got on when we did because, once again, there was a shortage of train seat space!
The ride was uneventful, really. I think the train was mostly full of North Americans, which was funny because aside from the guy running the hostel in Budapest, there haven’t been many North Americans around.
We got to Vienna around noon and made our way down towards the centre. It is, once again, a big city – and there is so much to see!! Thankfully, Herman, (from our first couch surfing location in Munich) lived in Vienna for 8 years and gave us a map and provided us lengthy details of what were the mandatory sites!
We passed by almost everything at some point or another, I think. Firstly, we walked along the Mariahilfestrasse where there was a tonne of shopping! It was kind of difficult, actually, because we were really trying to resist shopping!! I, however, was excited to see a huge Swarovski shop. After I saw the ones in Salzburg and decided that I would probably buy something, I went on-line and checked out what my options were! I found the exact thing I wanted on-line, but neither of the stores in Salzburg carried it...so I was excited to see that this first store we entered had the necklace I wanted! And, it was also nice to see it was listed for the same price as I saw on-line. It took about 2 seconds of looking at it to make the purchase (which is pretty amazing, for me!). It really helps when I know exactly what I am looking for and what I am expecting to pay for it! I decided to buy a necklace instead of a trinket because I don’t like to dust – and necklaces are really more my thing, anyway!! J
We continued walking and walking and walking and passed many museums including the ones for natural history and art. We continued walking and saw the Hofburg castle (I think that is what it is called). It was nice – they really like white statues here in Vienna (and I guess in Austria in general!). We continued walking through the castle district and saw where the Vienna Boy’s Choir practices and where the Lipizzaner Stallions also ride – both of which don’t run this time of year! I was very disappointed, but I think Sophie was rather relieved. I don’t think she is much of a concert person at all.
Sophie was hungry – and I guess I was too, so we walked to the Cafe Landtmann where we had a nice little argument because Sophie couldn’t make up her mind between eating and only having a coffee...which irritated me because I just wanted to have a nice big meal and call it done for the rest of the day, but Sophie thought it was too expensive and told me to eat by myself, which I obviously didn’t want to do. And so, both of us being incredibly stubborn sat there and didn’t talk for a while – quite nice, really! Who knew there could be someone who was even more tight with money than myself?! Go figure!!
We silently walked around the Rathaus, which was also quite beautiful and Cathedral-like. There is a film festival going on right now and it was one of Wagner’s operas that was going to be playing this evening. (Quite fitting, because of the castle we went to see in Germany that was made to bring his operas to life!) Of course, because we weren’t really talking, there was no real decision made to go or not to go – but it ended up being a good thing that we didn’t go because there was a huge rain downpour!
I don’t like silence, and talking to a person that doesn’t reply gets irritating, so, quite maturely, we split up for an hour and a half – I hoped that that would help the situation! It was only food, after all!! I went and walked back through the castle district – read up about the stallions and poked around all of the tiny little streets with amazing little shops in them. The shopping here in Vienna is just amazing.
We met back at the castle around 5pm, where we headed back up towards the train station where we had arrived because we knew there was a grocery store there. We managed to find useful things to eat – pretty much the standard bread and cheese, however, here in Austria, they have milk that is actually refrigerated, which tastes just soooo much better. We ate in a little park before deciding to walk all the way to Bernd’s place.
We walked because we had two hours to kill before he would be home for the evening, and we didn’t want to just sit on his step – and you get to see more things when you walk, rather than take the tram...however, by this time, we had already been walking for 8 hours with our packs on our backs, so the walk was rather long!! And...to top it all off....it really did start to downpour when we were about 40 min away from his place. It rained and rained and rained and we got wetter and wetter and wetter. The worst part was after we had actually found his building complex...the way he had written his address didn’t make much sense at all and we wandered around looking for the right place for a good 10 minutes in the downpour. Finally, Sophie ran towards someone who was walking and it was him!! It was a good thing too, because we had walked past his place several times already!!
Bernd’s place is absolutely spotless...makes me even nervous to move about! It is very comfortable, however, because he has done this a lot and has good ideas to make sure we are who we say we are – for example he checked my passport before giving me a key to the place, which is a really good idea! So, yah, tomorrow we are going to make pasta for all of us – so Sophie and I can eat something else for a change...
For now, good night – breathing may be a challenge – as my lovely cold is completely in my chest – but I am sure I won’t die!
Night -AJ

Sunday, August 9

Sunday, August-09-09
We decided that sleep was a good thing this morning because we covered so much territory during the 5 hours walking around yesterday afternoon. I managed to sleep in until 7:30, which was relatively impressive for me. I then went for a run around the island. The island actually has a running track around the entire thing, so it was quite nice! It was already 25 degrees at 8am, however, so that definitely slowed me down! I don’t do heat that well!!
When I got back from the run, no one had moved an inch in the girls’ dorm! I woke Sophie up and after we were all showered and ready, we ate breakfast on the deck (in the hot, hot sun!) – it was a breakfast of pretzels and nutella! Quite nice, really! J
Walking, we went to the castle. It was quite the walk – we are not used to these big cities!! We walked past the “House of Terror”. It is a new museum that has been erected to document the two terror regimes in Hungry.
It was great to see the castle! The gates are the entrance to the grounds and are called the gates of Becsi Kapu and are the most important in the city. There is an angel in the centre, holding a double cross, which is there to remind of the recapturing of Buda in 1686. There were several different and intricate buildings on either side of the gates and square.
Inside the gates were the castle and the thermal baths. The castle was very beautiful – It is hard to describe these things, really. The grounds were lovely as well, but since we already walked for 2 hours straight, we decided it wasn’t really necessary to explore the area surrounding the castle! And, for the baths...well, they are a “must do” in Budapest, but with the temperature, it was definitely not appealing to hop into a hot tub!! And, the cost was a little exorbitant. So, instead we just took some random picture of the building!
We got on the metro at the castle and took it to....the mall! When we got lost leaving the train station we found this mall – that we thought would be open today as none of the shopping down town was open at all. So, we got there and shopped – for a grand total of 4 hours! It was impressive, really. Sophie is a shoe addict, so we stopped in almost every shoe store in the mall! I was trying to find some form of sandal replacement (I have the sandals I wore the 4 weeks in India – and I have a blister on my heal!!), but the shoes here are more expensive than what I want to pay...so no go! However, I did manage to find a sweater in alpaca wool that I bought! Go figure, eh? It is almost 40 degrees and I buy sweaters! Oh well, more practical than summer things, I suppose. And then, I also found this awesome blue and brown coat – which sounds scary, but it is pretty cool! So, yes, those are my Budapest souvenirs!!
Well, we had a nice picnic in the park and then came back to the hostel to attempt to redo our bags with all of our purchases! It should be interesting tomorrow because our couchsurfing host doesn`t want us there until 9pm!! A long day of carrying things in the future!!
Night -AJ

Saturday, August 8

I am still on the train....9 hours after we started at 2am this morning! We went to bed last night at 10pm and woke up at 12:30 to go to the train station. I felt bad because Krista said she would still be awake when we left so we could say thank-you and bye, but she was asleep! I wrote a nice little note on a paper towel!
It has been an interesting 9 hours. We (thankfully) reserved our seats when we arrived in Ljubljana – the train was full to overflowing. Lots of people didn’t have seats at all, they just stood in the corridor. Not nice! Well, Sophie and I just put in our ear plugs and pulled out our pillows and slept – until we were rudely awakened by a screaming boarder officer demanding us for our passports! I sure wasn’t expecting boarder checks here...never has been in Germany or Austria! However, crossing into Croatia and then into Hungry there were several mean officers who really liked to yell!
Sophie was completely appalled! She kept saying, “but this is part of Europe” – never had her ID card checked crossing the border before! It was difficult to explain that this is actually more normal – for what I am used to – than to have free crossing all of the time. I mean, really, we have to have them to go to the US too!! In any case, despite the many rude wake-up calls throughout the night, I was happy because I got lots of stamps in my passport! They were bored for the most part – checking people’s documents two and three times at each stop – that is why it takes so long to get from point a to point b!
Well, I think we now only have about 1 hour left on the train before we reach Budapest. We will find our hostel first thing, I think, and then head out to explore. It looks as though there is a lot to see in the city – and tomorrow is Sunday, so some things may be closed, which will be irritating!!
We arrived in the city about an hour later than planned. It was a slow, painful ride, mostly for those people who had to stand in the corridors and move around every time people wanted to leave or enter the train. However, when we arrived, it was hot – something like 38 degrees! Really good fun walking around with the packs and long pants in that!! And...after 10 hours in the train, the washrooms weren’t exactly pleasant, so Sophie and I held it and walked, and walked, and walked.
We started off going in the wrong direction (again!!) but found our way in the right direction. This time the map was more what I was expecting and things were quite far away. This is definitely a big city! It took us a good hour and a half to arrive at our hostel. We did make it however, all in one piece – sweating buckets and buckets!!
The hostel is located on the island of Margit – szigel, which is located ½ way between Buda and Pest. It is a beautiful island – 2.5km long. There is a park, several pools, gardens, a small zoo, ruins, a fancy restaurant, a running track, tennis courts, etc...it kind of reminded me of Central Park – however, here the water is located outside of the island instead of a lake inside the park!
We felt pretty lucky to get a place in this hostel because there are only 12 female beds. It is located so close to everything and has small cooking facilities, both of which are excellent bonuses. And, it made me happy to see the hotel on the island because guaranteed they are paying a lot more than 6Euros per night for the same view as we have here!!
We dropped our things and changed into shorts and got on our way to visiting the sites. It was sooo hot, and that was our biggest problem, but I guess that is better than rain! We first started by walking around the Parliament buildings. It looks like a cathedral; its architecture is so spectacular. However, we couldn’t go in it at all – but we don’t tend to do that, in any case, so it was okay! I think it is more photographed than some of the other sites in the city, even though there is less importance attached to the building than some of the others.
Across another bridge – with lions on it this time – to visit the sites of Buda castle and Royal palace. The castle has been named a Unesco World Heritage Site and was huge. Again, we didn’t go in, mostly because the inside has been turned into an art museum (there are a lot of museums in Budapest). It was built in the 13th century and was rebuilt and changed in various ways by many different rulers over the eras. There are a bunch of ruins that are located in the castle grounds that were discovered recently. The 700 year old church that is on the grounds – it had beautiful tile work on the roof, but the rest of the building had renos being done to it at the moment.
We wandered around the grounds and saw various museums, the national theatre, etc. There was a cute little market, where I resisted some nice glass – I think that is more of a Prague thing, in any case. After boiling to death on top of the mountain, we walked down the hill and explored a couple of churches en route to locating dinner.
There was also this really cool fortification called the Fishermen’s Bastion that surrounded the church area. It was built by Frigyes Schulek who designed an elaborate system of stairs climbing from the Danube to the hilltop. The stairs were decorated with turrets, scrolls, and statues and were defended by the fishermen’s guild.
We were totally exhausted from the train and the heat and the walking. It was great to go to a real restaurant for dinner. M Schigand said that he would buy us one dinner, so we ate pizza at a little cafe! It was great. And, actually, the food is quite a bit cheaper than it was in Germany or Austria.
The ice cream is a rip-off, however! I was so excited to see that it was sooo much cheaper than what we had been paying elsewhere, when I discovered that the portions are TINY! I was sad...
After our dinner, we walked back on the island and wandered around exploring everything that was there! It made me happy to realize what a great location we found! J
And then, I went to bed...my nose is all stuffed... no one believes me that I need to sleep early – every time I travel I get sick half way through the trip....definitely not a party style, am I!
Night
-Allison