Hamburg

I got on the train to Hamburg and sat next to a guy who, the more i noticed him the stranger he got, he was almost a little reluctant to move over so i could get a seat (the train was totally packed by the way) anyway as the train ride went on his behavior got more and more erractic, like checking his watch every 15 seconds, looking at his luggage (at one point i thought he had a bomb in his bag) then i noticed on his left hand he was wearing one white glove, then i figured it out. the reason he was so strange was that he was a Micheal Jackson fan. what a weirdo!

So got into Hamburg about an hour late, which i felt was strange seeing that the Germans are known for being on time. anyway, got in and finding a hostel wasn't as easy as i first thought, they were all booked up, but i eventually found one which wasn't far from the infamous St. Pauli district, even the guy at reception was surprised i found the place. it ended up being a bonus because the St. Pauli area is probably what Hamburg is known for.

A bit of a highlight was meeting a band from Sweden, called 'Final days Society', (click here to check out there myspace) they had just released there debut album and were in the middle of doing a week tour. they had a show in Hamburg but it was cancelled due to a booking stuff up so they just had a day off and were staying in my dorm at the hostel. We got on quite well and watched a few funny videos on youtube (click here to check out one of them) looking at them now i think they were funnier at the time. and we went down to the St. Pauli area and had a couple of beers. we got on so well in fact that they offered me a lift with them to Copenhagen (where there next show was) but i had already brought a bus ticket. but i think i'll check out there show.

The St. Pauli distict is pretty cool in parts of it, some of the bars and shops are quite 'interesting'. but also there are parts that are REALLY seedy. Sometimes i felt i was blinded by a sea of red light. the place is full of topless bars and peep shows, i'm trying to keep this blog a PG rating so i'll let you use your imagination. there were plenty of drunk and emotional German men running around saying something around the lines of 'i love youse maaaate...' but in German obviously.
i can see how some people might like it but i can't say that this part was really for me. the part i did like about it was this is where the Beatles started there careers, they toured here and played in bars just before they got a record contract. there is a street named after them here also.

St.Pauli has a bit of a reputation of being a bit rowdy, sometimes rough and a bit kooky. They have a football team here and they won the premiership a couple of years back. and instead of doing what normal clubs would do like, buy new players or fix up there ground, they threw a MASSIVE rock concert for 100,000 people and drank all the profits away. oh and another interesting thing about the club is the president is a female but used to be... a MALE!

The St. Pauli area is not far from the harbour, which kinda explains why St. Pauli is the way that it is. but the habour itself is actually quite nice, it looks like they have cleaned up that part because there were a few posh stores around, i kind of liked the view of the big ships and giant metal contraptions sticking out of the water, though i can see how some people might not.

The city was quite pretty, its pretty old in the city centre (it was strange to see a Burger King in a 200 year building) in some parts they have canals running through it. Probably the best building is the Rathaus, which means City Hall. but some of the outskirts are newish with modern architecture but nothing to write home about really. (hang on, i think i just did)

I'm definately glad i came but i was only here a couple of days and that was more than enough for me. i think perhaps i didn't enjoy it as much because i just had such a great time in Berlin. but one thing i have learnt while i've been traveling is sometimes your gut instinct is right and if your not enjoying a place, just move on. having said that, I'm off to Copenhagen on a 7am bus, hopefully the ride is ok.

Berlin

So the train trip ended up being pretty good. i got a sleeper cabin and because i booked it last minute there was only me and a girl from Krakow called Barbara in it, so it was really roomy compared to the cabin next to us that had 6 people crammed into it. Barbara was really nice she about 26 and had just started her own tourism business with a friend of hers (so if you ever need to go to Krakow click here). she was going to Berlin because shes part of a youth organisation of which shes the vice-president (what a go-getter!) We had a couple of drinks in the food carriage, which i think helped the trip becuase when i hit the hay i could hardly hear the train noises and had a great night sleep.

I have to say i was a little worried about Berlin, mainly because i heard so much good stuff about it i hope that it would meet expectations. but sure enough it did. Berlin is a really cool town i couldn't get over how different it was compared to Munich, considering it is the same country. not only did i get to meet up with Josh and Kate for a few days, we were lucky to catch up with Nick who is Rach's brother ( i worked with Rach in Brisbane) he lives here and gave us a few tips about where to go and check out. One of the streets we were on had a massive street party that seemed to come from nowhere and i get the feeling this happens often, it seems that a party can spring from out of nowhere at any moment for instance i was walking across a bridge and a DJ just started playing a set and all these people started dancing and drinking in the street! it was marvalous, even though it was pretty cold. and the bars here a pretty awesome also, but i think mainly because of the people that hang out in them, i think i could people watch forever around here, there are some very 'interesting' people around here to say the least.

I was lucky because where i was staying seemed to be the cool area with lots of great shops close by. They had some great vintage and second hand stores around (at one of them the garments price depending on how heavy it is) but on Sundays there are some brilliant flea markets. i could've gone nuts, some of the clothes, furniture and artwork they were selling was awesome, if only it were so easy and affordable to send stuff home. at one of the markets there was a guy with a marrionette, he was so talented it was quite amazing what he was able to make the puppet do, it was like it was an extension of his body. they have some great book shops here too. full of brilliant design magazines, damn those Germans know how to design! some of the bars here are brilliant too. i heard some amazing stories of a few underground bars that have now been closed. one of them you could only enter through a secret door in the bathroom of a kabab shop!

Just down the road from where i was staying is the Berlin branch of West Coast Customs, who are the guys that did the TV show 'Pimp my ride'. i'm not really into cars that much but it was pretty amazing what they do to these cars. when i was there they had the Bloodhound Gang tour bus and some German Championship boxer's Smart car (which i have to say is a strange choice for a boxer, don't you think?).

I took a tour of Berlin too and saw some amazing sites and got a bit of background about them:

- like the hotel where Micheal Jackson infamously dangled his baby from a window.

- where Hitlers Bunker was (and how the civilians today, on the aniversary of his death, take there dogs there so they can releave themselves on it)

- the book burning square where thousands of first addition books were burnt by the nazi's, one thing i liked about the book burning memorial was you had to look through a glass window on the ground into a room of empty book shelves to symbolise all the books that couldn't be replaced, perhaps it was a bit obvious, but i liked it.

- the Berlin wall, which is alot smaller than you think it would be, the better section i think is whats known as 'the east gallery' where lots of murals are painted on it. I also heard about the how the wall was never meant to fall, which i never knew about. the spokesman wasn't informed correctly and let the cat out of the bag, what a huge bugger up! (see here on youtube for more) its pretty amazing how far the wall actually stretched, and how it was created (firstly with barbed wire and military) in under 48 hours. i can't even begin to imagine what it was like to live like that.

- Checkpoint Charlie, which is pretty overrated and just a tourist trap, even the guide said so.

- The Brandeburg Gate, which its a miricle its still there after half the things its gone through.

- saw another Frank Gehry building, which from the outside looked nothing like his work, and thats because it had to be altered because the German government thought it was too out there because it would over shadow the Brandeburg Gate. the original concept was for the building to be like a Whale, so the comprimize was that the outside would be made plain and the inside like an inside of a whale. really cool. the funny part is, the building is a bank! so much for thinking banks are conservative.

- The giant TV tower which was built during communist reign to prove to the rest of the world that they can keep up with the rest of the world, only problem was it wasn't built properly and started to sink so they had to smuggle people in from the outside world to fix it. supposidly the media had a field day!

- The Reichstag which, because it caught fire, was pretty much the reason we had WWII. it was enough of a reason to allow Hitler to get into power, because he convinced them it was the communist (long story, too long for a blog). anyway, its been restored to its former self now, but with a new addition, there is a glass roof so that the people of Berlin can always go and look in on Parliament, it was designed this way so that the government would never make the same mistakes again. the list could go on. i think the most interesting thing was the 'Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe' which is 2,711 blocks of concrete that are buried at different levels which, are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere. they are quite amazing to walk through. the Museum underneath is quite amazing also. it caused a bit of uproar because it cost something like 25 million EURO, and to be honest i don't see how it could cost that much. but it is a very moving piece of architecture.


Something quite interesting here is the stop sign men, at the lights, wear little hats. which in itself is kinda cool but the interesting thing about them is they used to have a cartoon about them to teach children how to cross the road and he is a much loved character in Berlin. so much so when they started converting all the stop men to normal everyday one (like the ones we would see at home) there was a HUGE uproar and people protested in the street and thousands of people signed petitions to keep the man as he was.

the archtecture here is quite cool too. as you can imagine alot of Berlin was flattened in the war and has only recently been rebuilt, so alot of the old buildings aren't actually that old, they have been reproduced. however, some of the statues that sit on them are original, Hitler ordered them to be taken down during the war and but into bunkers incase they were damaged during the war. that was probably one of Adolfs good ideas.
but along with the old stuff there new buildings are quite amazing also. (like Frank Gehry's building as i mentioned earlier) so its quite a modern city really. Berlin is quite big, but in fact only something like 50% of it is being used, and there are lot of office space in prime real estate that doesnt get used at all. the main give away is that the streets aren't really that busy compared to other major cities. but in a way this is a good thing because a lot a unused buildings are taken over by artists and use them as studios. some of the artwork and street art in and around these areas is amazing.
I also saw a spy museum while i was here, it was pretty cool, i was amazed that some of the stuff was real. cameras and mircophones hidden in some strange places, like rocks, tree logs, ties, there was even a shoe phone! it was kinda funny becuase i felt like the stuff was straight from the TV show 'Get Smart'.


Since the wall came down you can imagine there have been a few teething problems. one of them is that he east feel that the west are just taking over there side and pulling down buildings at erecting the ones that were there before the wall. an example of this is the the 'Palace for the people' on Muesum Island. which is currently being demolished and being replaced by a the building that was originally there the Royal Palace. i can kind of understand this because the area was orignally built to work with the Royal palace and when its built the surrounding area will make sence. but the people really loved the 'Palace for the people' because it was for them, it originally had a few movie theaters in it, cafes etc. it was kind of like a place where boyfriends and girlfriends would meet. so it had a history with the people of Berlin. supposidly it was a bit of an eyesore and the government pulled it down. Eyesore or not i still think it had a place in Berlin, i think i would prefer to walk through that then see something reconstructed.

Berlin is such a great city, i spent about a week here and there was still heaps to explore. Off to Hamburg now for a couple of days, more when i get there.

Krakow

It was a 8 hour train ride to Krakow, and i struggled. i can't believe i considered taking a bus! i was reading a magazine called GOOD (click here to check it out). Mark, who i met in Vienna, gave it to me, it was a great read i totally recommend it, i think i'm gonna subscribe to it when i get back. anyway i finished reading it in the first couple of hours, i think now that i don't have any reading material it made it 10 times worst.

I got check into 'Mamas Hostel' and found myself talking to some English guys who thought they were hilarious, its just a shame I didn't think they were hilarious, not only were they tools they snored all night long. but they funny thing about there snores were they worked like a choir. there was a baratone and a soprano snoring two different parts. sometimes they even did call and response snores, quite clever actually. apart from them the hostel is pretty good. i badly needed to do some laundry but the dryer was out of action at my hostel, this turned out to be a great thing because they directed me to there other hostel that had one. so went down there and met a guy called Igor (i know, Dr Frankstein came to mind) who worked there. he was a great guy we chatted for hours and checked out stuff on youtube while my stuff washed and dried. he showed me some cool places on the map, in the jewish quarter, which turned out to be really cool full of great little bars with some great vibes, one of them was called 'Miejsce Bar' which was brilliant it kind of had a de stijl feel to it. Igor told me that that the area was really good for jazz but i didn't get to see it. one night he and a few of the staff at the hostel took me out to a couple of clubs. even though they weren't really my scene, it was still pretty nice of them to take me out. One thing that Igor and i talked about was wages. in the job he's in at the hostel he only gets paid 6 Zlote an hour (to put that into perspective a beer here is 8 Zlote) he was saying that a lot of Polish people go to the UK and work for a couple of months of the year and what they earn there in 2 months would be what they would earn in a whole year in Poland. i had heard about Polish people going to the UK from a guy in a tour a few countries ago, he was telling that they really undercut there rates and win heaps of work in UK becuase of there workmanship. plus the english have a reputaion of being lazy. by the way, Dad, i may have invited Igor to Australia, so if a Polish boy turns up at your place, you know who it is.

The food here is pretty good, the restaurants in the main square are pricey in the way of Zlote but not really when you convert it. I had some traditional food while i was here; some sour soup that had sausage and mushroom in it. it was quite tasty. I also had some dumplings with cheese and spinach in the middle. but the best thing to do in Poland is go to a Milk Bar. they are where the locals go to eat. they're pretty basic but you can pick up a good feed for more than half the price of the restaurants in the main square. there's no English menu so the old point and hope for the best seems to be the way to order in the Milk Bars but it seems to work ok, the food i've had there is pretty good.

Krakow is really a pretty little town. the main square is surrounded by a park called the 'planty' it was originally a moat for the town but was filled in. its quite easy to get around and see all the touristy things in the area. But what a lot of tourist come here for is to visit one of the more well known consentration camps, Auschwitz, which is about an hour and a half from town by bus. on the tour i was on a few people cried, and i can't blame them, it was pretty moving. i didn't realise that the Nazi's kept all the things the jewish people once owned to be reused again everthing from shoes, underwear, luggage, toothbrushes, clothes and even hair which they made into material for uniforms. which i found very disturbing. i went to Dachau in Munich but i think this one shook me a lot more. i couldn't get over the sheer size of the place and listening to how they would treat the prisioners was appalling. it really was run like a finely tuned death factory, everything was thought through even from putting flowers beds around where the gas chambers were to make the jews think that nothing bad would happen in there.
I think i might have said this before, but i'll say it again. I don't understand some people that take photos in places in certain places. i can't imagine how you bring up, as your going through your holiday photos with friends "this is me with the leaning tower or Pisa. oh, and this is me at Auschwitz". when i was there i couldn't think of anything worst than to take a photo where thousands of people had lost there lives. it just wasn't approapriate at all, i honestly believe some people don't get it.

As i mentioned earlier i went to the Jewish quarters which is quite well known because Steven Spielberg shot the movie classic 'Schindler's list' here. and of course of Oskar Schindler had his factory there, which you can visit. i didn't get to go because it was closed for renovations, which was a bit of a shame, i would've liked to check it out.

But i did check out the Salt mines here, which are really amazing. on the way there i met a guy from Sydney, Phil, who was over here meeting family so we took the polish tour and his cousins translated for us. you go down over 130 metres below the ground and there are heaps of really cool things down there carved out of the salt, churches, statues, halls, etc theres even a few lakes (which have higher salt levels than the dead sea). it was really quite amazing. one of the churches took 3 lifetimes to make. once one guy died another would tke his spot, and so on and so on until it was finished. it would've taken a lot of work becuase it was all done by hand. heres an interesting fact, all the profits that the mine makes goes towards Krakow's universities, to be spent on books for students. so essentially its a charity. another funny fact was when people had sinus trouble doctors would prescribe them to go to the mine because it helped people breathe.

Krakow is all i'm going to do of Poland, its capital Warsaw doesn't come highly rated, even from the locals, Krakow is definatley the pick. i'm off to Berlin on an overnight train which should be fun. i wonder how much sleep i get?

Prague

let me start by saying, wow! Prague is amazing, i want to be the father of its children. anyway now that i've got that off my chest.
i got into Prague or Praha as it is known here. (it kind of sounds like you caught someone in the act, like 'Pra-ha! gotcha!') and i got in a little late. i hadn't book anything so i wandered around for a bit until i found a hostel, lucky i did because thats where all the action was. right across the road from the hostel was a fair ground and one of the rides caught fire and there were fire engines and police cars everywhere! and i was lucky to watch it play out in front of me, all from the comfort of my room. by the way one one was hurt in the blaze.
At the hostel i met some German students who were on a trip together and they invited me into there group, which was nice. they were a pretty cool group and spoke really good English, they told me they love speaking English and that i was good practice for them. One of them was a semi-pro cross-country mountain bike rider who had a had shoe brand 'Vans' as one of his sponsors. (i thought he was pulling my leg until he showed me a website with him on it). we shared a few beers, which are so cheap because the currency is rubbish (yes, i had to change currency again, another bloody nightmare) and had a good night.
The hostel is pretty funny. I'm staying on the top floor, but because the roof slopes i have to go around ducking my head half the time. but the beds are comfy and the bathroom is pretty good too. its not that far from the city either but far enough for it to be cheap. half the time no one was in my room so it was like having my own room. oh, and the internet is free for the first 20 minutes which is handy.

The first day was freezing so it was lucky i brought a beanie and gloves in Vienna. But i needed a warmer jacket so i went to H&M again and brought a parker. its cost next to nothing and its so much warmer. I had a good walk around the city which is really beautiful. all the buildings are really interesting, the old and the new. the thing i liked about the new buildings was how much they were totally different to the old buildings but seemed to fit together quite well. one of the buildings thats quite famous here is Frank Gehry's dancing building, or known to the locals are 'Fred & Ginger' after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The Czechs consider cubist buildings something unique to Prague and are very proud of the ones that are littered around the city, I went to one of the more famous ones which is a bar called the 'Grand Cafe Orient' and had a beer, it was really beautiful in side.
A personal favourite of mine are the David Cerny statues around the town. One of them is a fountain of two men pissing, but the best thing about this is you can SMS a sentence to the phone number on the fountain and the men will piddle it on the ground for you. haha! how funny is that! brilliant! (by the way I've notice weeing comes up a lot it my blogs, I'll try not to mention is so much in the future) Another one of his sculptures is of giant babies crawling all over the TV towers. supposedly they were meant to be temporary and when they were taken down there was such an uproar that they reinstalled them. also he's done a sculpture of Freud hanging from a pole high above the ground. at one point when it was first installed, people called the police thinking that there was a person who was going to commit suicide!
I also saw the John Lennon wall, which before i went there, felt was a bit of place because John Lennon never did anything in Prague. but when the country was Communist people weren't allowed to write on the walls, if so they would be punished. When John died people all went to this wall and wrote his lyrics on it regardless if they were going to get caught because they admired his freedom of speech, something that they didn't really have. the police would constantly paint over it but they would continue writing on it. also, theres a giant metronome on the hill, ticking from side to side. it looks a little strange, the story behind it was there was originally a statue of Stalin there and after communism ended they pulled down the statue and replaced it with the metronome to symbolize time passed and the time that will tick ahead in the future.
speaking of time, I also saw the astronomical clock in all its glory. actually, it was astronomically dull. i can totally understand why it was voted Europe's most over-rated attraction.
There a funny story i heard about the Rudolfinum during the 2nd world war. On the top of the building is statues of great composers and one of them was of Mendelssohn and because he was jewish the Nazi's gave one of there troops orders to take him off the building. so the troops climbed up but because there wasn't any names they didn't know which one was which so they found the one with the biggest nose and tore that one down... turns out they not only pulled down the wrong one, they pulled down Hitlers favourite composer by accident. Opps!

I don't know what it is about Europeans and having limbs on parade in churches (ie: Budapest) but it seems to be a common occurrence. in one of the churches here hangs an arm thats hundreds of years old. the story goes in the church is a statue of the Madonna (not the 'Papa don't preach' one) and people would come from far and wide to hang jewelery around its neck. a thief came in one day to steal the jewelery and the the statue grabbed the thief's hand before he could steal it and froze again. because the man was stuck to the statue and they didn't want to break the statue they cut the mans arm off! and then they hung it up as a reminder to others not to steal from the church.

Famous author Franz Kafka came from here too, you see monuments to him everywhere. he lived a pretty tragic life really, mainly because he was in love with a married woman. but he was friends with the likes of Albert Einstein who lived here for about 4 years, teaching at the University, which is one of the oldest in Europe. there are stories of the two of them playing violin together in one of the bars in the main square.

I think its quite funny how stories about history change over time, for instance in one of the main squares here there is a giant statue thats been erected of a guy who was burnt at the stake because he spoke out against the church. the statue is of a tall, man mountain with broad shoulders when in actual fact the guy its meant to be was short and fat. the guide told me the statue is meant to be of how the people saw him or a symbol of how they saw him. I say, whats wrong with being short and fat and historically accurate?

The Czechs are crazy about ice hockey and whats not to love? ice, beer, cheer leaders and guys beating the living crap out of each other. its brilliant! there was a ice rink right across the way from my hostel so i had to go and see a game. i got the cheap standing tickets (which, went i worked it out are about $4 AUS) but i reckon they were the best. they were probably the equivalent to bay 13 at the MCG, so in a word... rowdy! I went for the local team and whenever we scored a goal it was electric! the crowd went mental, there were sirens, drums, chants and the lights went crazy! such a good experience. i don't think we won because we were a goal down when i left. 'why did you leave before the end?' do i hear you ask? because when i went to the toilet a saw riot police and figured that the crowd probably doesn't like losing much so i thought it was my cue to leave.

I really loved Prague for being so kooky, it was great to see a city not take itself too serious. i could easily stay here for quite a while. hmmm, I wonder if any good ad agencies are here?

Vienna

Kate and Josh waved me goodbye on the platform as the train pulled away to make its way Vienna. on the train ride there i met an American guy called Mark, really nice bloke, hes a Hedge fund guy thingy... ok i dont really know what exactly he does but he lives in Manhattan, New York and he's very well travelled, i get the feeling hes been everywhere, its great having a chat with him about where to go and what to check out. (by the way, i keep meeting Americans, whats with that?) hopefully we're going to catch up when i get to New York. its been quite fun having someone you dont really know to walk around with, you get to learn about a city and a person at the same time, its like a double date! well, kinda...

Vienna is a really beautiful city, its funny because as i've been travelling i've noticed how the city centre is probably the prettiest part of town but as you move further out of the city it deteriorates but with Vienna it seems consistantly beautiful. tree lined streets, beautiful parks and gardens, stunning buildings it all seems a little too perfect. i don't know if its just me but it seems the city has been designed to have a 'wow' effect. like you kind of get an obsticle in your way and then once you move you see this beautiful building that was hidden behind it and it just slaps you in the face, they are so big and beautiful, you can't help but look at them in awe. there are so many art galleries and theaters here (i shouldnt be so suprised i am in Vienna) that i kind of didn't bother becuase there was too much to see and i couldn't afford to to do it really. but it doesnt matter.

The Hostel i'm staying at is pretty good, actually its probably one of the best i've stayed in so far, fresh, clean sheets. the beds are really comfy and the rooms are pretty warm too. and best of all the showers are warm 24 hours a day, which seems to be no mean feat in europe. The people that work and are staying here are pretty cool too. one thing i can't get over is the number of Australians that are traveling, theres always a good chance your going to run into one wherever you stay. also i've have a few strange moments, not just in Vienna but throughout my trip when i've heard Aussie music playing, like John Farnham 'Your the Voice' blaring out of a train station PA. its bizarre because its the last thing i expected to hear while in europe. They must put John Farnham over the PA to keep all the delinquents away, similar to the way, back home, they play classical music to keep bogans away. (sorry John, in the off chance you come across this blog)

Now, there have been a few child prodigies over time, a few names spring to mind like: Tina Arena, Gary 'what-chu-talkin-bout?' Coleman and that fat kid from the sorbent toilet paper ads. but the first was a little guy by the name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. you may have heard of him, he was pretty big around these parts, he wrote some pretty famous tunes. i checked out the apartment he lived in during the height of his fame and was where he wrote some of his biggest hits, which was quite cool. everywhere you look in Vienna there seems to be a Mozart cafe or a Mozart coffee mug, even some people dressed up like Mozart (smells like a tourist hook if you ask me).

another guy who was pretty popular around here was, in my opition, colour blind. he when by the name of Johann Strauss, he was known as the 'waltz king' and he wrote a song called the 'Blue Danube'. now, i've seen the Danube a couple of times now (the first time in Hungary) and i can tell you, its not blue, i'd say its more of a green.

Being the cultured guy that i am, i went and saw a Opera which was quite an experience, definately a must-do in Vienna. i was lucky because i found out if you go to the opera an hour before it starts you can get standing room tickets for just 4 euro! BARGAIN! and our tickets were suprisingly good, we were down the bottom level up the back. some people who got the same tickets as us got the nose bleed section. we only watched until halfway, because after 2 hours of standing, our legs were about to drop off and theres only so much a man can take. the music was brilliant though i really enjoyed listening to an orchestra live. it was AMAZING! i really hope that i never go deaf because i don't know what i'd do without music, its easily the one thing that makes me really happy. Dad woiuld argue i already am deaf when it comes to him asking me to clean my room, i like to think its more selective hearing.

we checked out pretty much everything there is to see in Vienna, Museum Quartier, City hall (which was massive!), St. Stephans which was a massive Gothic church, but its roof was strange because it had a rastafari pattern (i didnt get to the bottom of that one) and the Opera haus, just to name a few. but i think the most amazing bit was the Schonbrunn Palace. it was amazing, the parks around it were beautiful, complete with hedge mazes and even a zoo! funny story from there was i saw an old lady with one of those recording guide things that tell you about the room but punching in the corresponding number, it looked like she didn't really know what it was because she was talking to it like a telephone, i didn't have to the heart to tell her it was a one way conversation. the palace was pretty cool a couple of people they talked about was Maria Theresia and Franz Joseph who had a pretty tragic life really, he married a woman called Elizabeth (who i believe may have been his cousin) whom he adored but she didn't love him, she was later assassinated and his son committed suicide. The Palace was also where a 6 year old Mozart played his first concert.

The food here is pretty good too, Mark and I came across a strip of markets while we were walking around, and they proved to be quite cheap to eat at also. I heard Vienna can be quite expensive but so far its been about the same. Of course there are some expensive places within the city centre but the outskirts of the city are tasty and reasonable.
It was a little bit colder in Vienna than other places i've visited, but also its getting into winter now (which i'm bracing myself for) but H&M has been my saving grace. H&M is like a chain of shops throughout Europe that have plain but cheap clothing, and that are reasonably good quality. i brought myself some gloves and a beanie to help keep the chill away. some how i think this won't be the last time i venture into a H&M.

I had a fun time in Vienna, but i think its definately for the older crowd. i was going to give Vienna a big fat zero on night life, overall i found there night life a little bland compared to other places i've been too. but i did go to one cool bar, i was taken there by a girl called Eliza, she was originally from Vienna but she now lives in the states, she came back home as a surprise for her mother and was staying at the hostel just for the night. she was pretty out there and a little bit hippy and at first i wasnt sure of her ut she took us out to this bar called 'Tanzcafe Fenseits'. it originally was a brothel in the early 50's but had been converted into a bar but with all the original furniture, it had a real kind of burlesque feel to it, not seedy at all. i really like it, it was pretty pretty different from the rest of Vienna.

Anyway, I'm off to Prague next, which i think will be quite exciting.

Bratislava

After Budapest we headed to Bratislava, again by bus, but this time we caught the early morning bus which wasn't too bad. again i didn't have the pleasure of sitting next to any sausage ladies but i did see a guy who resembled David 'Boonie' Boon. we got into town and at first the people at the bus station and had to make another change of currency just to confuse things. and at first the people weren't too friendly, we had to break a note to get a bus and even after buying something the shop keepers were reluctant to give change, (even small change is a note) which was a bit of a pain. finally we got the change and was helped by a old chap that helped us on our way to the hostel.

the hostel is just OK, nothing to rave about. lets just say it has a little bit of 'character'. for instance you have to hold your breath, stick your tongue out of your mouth and face south east just to open the bloody door. i think during the night some people were having a door slamming contest, which was a bit of a nightmare. and the letter 'M' on the keyboard sticks, hence i'm trying to write words without the letter 'm' in it. we're sharing with a couple of guys from Finland, geez there talkative they never shut up blah blah blah! actually they don't talk much at all, even when we try our hardest to get something out of them.
just to feel comfortable about staying in a hostel in eastern Europe some bright spark in the hostel hired the movie 'Hostel' it was so wrong in so many ways, and didn't make me feel comfortable at all, especially with the young Aussie girl found dead in Dubrovnik. by the way everyone at home, I'm fine.

on first impressions of the town, its not much at all, kind of a time warp like your in the late 80's or something (i guess thats what communism will do to you) but then you walk into the old town and its really stunningly beautiful and full of charm. with little cobblestone roads, fountains, little opera house and tree lined streets, and to top it off, the weather was beautiful. the town is like a ying and yang, one part it totally old world complete with fairy tale castle (which was built in something like the 900AD) and the other really boring almost ghetto. we spent a fair bit of in the older area time sitting on the water just enjoying the scenery and checking out the UFO bridge which the town is very proud of and boasts a cafe lounge. it is kind of cool to look at i guess. i reckon the cuisine is really similar to Hungary which isn't a big surprise, something i learnt in Hungary was that Bratislava was originally Hungary's capital before its borders changed.

I have to say i'm getting sick of the usual hostle chat you have with people. you know the one, 'so, where you from?', 'where have you been?', 'where you going?' and i'm not the only one. Josh was saying it would be nice to meet people that were into the same music have a chat about that rather than (add dopey voice when reading this) 'last night i got, like, sooo drunk, i smashed a few cans, it was sick as...' i just dont get that. the 3 of us enjoy a drink, but were not getting so drunk that we havent seen or can't remember a place, like some people. there was one girl who has been here at this hostel for 5 days and still hasn't been outside. we only stayed in Bratislava for a couple of days which was more than enough, i think we could've done it all in one day but we took our time to fill it out. this is where i leave Josh and Kate for a while because i decided to go to Vienna for a few days to check it out. more when i get there. and again don't worry, I'll be fine.

Budapest

To get to Budapest Kate, Josh and I had to get a 10 hour overnight bus because it was the cheapest way to get there. i hate catching overnight buses at the best of times and just to rub it in a little Josh was telling me stories of when he was catching a previous bus he had to sit next to some weird woman who smelt like she was smuggling sausages around Europe. this made me REALLY excited about catching the bus. anyway, it was freezing and the bus was a bit late but lucky for me i didn't have to sit next to any weirdo's (but the customs did look at his passport for a VERY long time). with a bit of broken sleep the trip went quicker than i thought and before i knew it, i was in Budapest.

I wasn't too sure about hungry because i didn't really know a lot about except what Fiona (my good friend from Melbourne who is Hungarian) had exposed me too. and i wasn't sure if i was going to like it much, but so far its been one of my favorite cities. where we are staying is an awesome little apartment hostel which is more like a home than i hostel, its got a really nice vibe too it has a mezzanine level where we sleep and below it has some nice little couches that are nice and comfty, perfect for reading books, it has free internet (hence the long blog) and its so cheap. the only crap thing about Budapest is the currency which is called Forint. only because i was starting to get used to the Euro and the conversion, so i knew how much i was spending. but it is good in the sence that everything is pretty cheap. but i heard that eventually hungary is converting over to the Euro but it may take some time.
something i didn't know about Budapest is that it is divided by the Danube river into 2 sections, Buda and Pest. Buda i believe is roughly translated into 'water'. its called this because it has many natural springs, which is where a lot of baths are (more on that later) but lso its a lot more hilly, we went up to castle hill which is world heritage listed, it has some amazing little streets and and the palace and also some great views from there. while i was up there i saw Parliament house and wondered why, for such a small country, why it was so HUGE! its becuase Hungary used to be a lot bigger than it is today and was built to accomodate, but during WWI (i think) they lost a lot of land.
i checked out a massive old church (i think the biggest in Hungary) that took something like 50 years to build and it was built to commemorate people surviving a huge flood. inside the church was pretty beautiful, rich in marble and gold. and they had the 3rd biggest pipe organ (it had over 6,000 pipes!) to hear it play was amazing you could feel your body shake on a few notes. the best bit was when it broke into Deep Purples 'Smoke on the water'... only kidding. but the strangest part of the church was an area where they helt the mummified hand of St Stephen, who was there first King. bit weird, but whatever floats your boat.

We went for a wander around and found a few different shops which were pretty cool. i really like walking around with a plan and just checking out the old buildings and stuff not only in hungry but everywhere i go, i think its great when you see piece of the footpath that's been warn down from the millions of feet over centuries or the indents where rain drops have made a groove from dropping in the same spot. we found a nice cafe which was a little bit kooky called 'Csendes' which had art painted on the walls, i think we could've spent hours just looking at all the pictures which seemed to all roll into one. and the coffee there was good too, they gave you the option of having sugar or honey i naturally went with honey to give it a go, surprisingly its a winner! One night we came across a bar called 'Szimpla' when i walked in i wasn't sure what i had got myself in for, it was really dark kind of like a cave, but then i turned around a corner and we found where everyone was, the place was packed out and the atmosphere of the place was brilliant. they had a few different levels and an area outside i thought it was one of the coolest places i've ever been too... until i found a place called 'instant' which was an old apartment block that had been converted into a club but each room had a theme for instance we had a drink in the upside down room which had furniture nailed to the ceiling so it looked like we were standing on the ceiling. maybe this is where Lionel Richie got his inspiration from...? and another room was done like a dentist complete with chair and drill, needless to say people weren't lining up to get into that room.

we found a beautiful old market where the locals sold meat and veg, bread etc and upstairs was where you could buy traditional foods. which was really, really good. even the blood sausage with a little bit of help from some mustard. but the best bit about the market was that i saw an old lady who was trying to get up on her chair but was struggling so i asked if she needed a hand but she indicated to me that she was fine. she must have realized i wasn't going to mug her and she began to speak to me. she ask if i spoke English to which i replied 'yes'. she began to say 'my mother was English and my father was German... good mix, ey?' i said 'yeah', she then told me she was born here in Hungry. At that point her husband came over with a drink for both of them, a beer for him, a coffee for her. but she stole a few sips of his beer, looked at us and was like 'good yes? nice and cold...' we laughed and agreed. her husband was a quiet guy but very nice, all i got out of him was that he was originally from Poland. at one point he went to help her off her chair but she said she wasn't ready to go yet and told him to leave her and got a little bit angry at him, so he gave her a kiss on the forehead. she looked over at us and said 'he's a good one' which put a big smile on his face. she told us that they have been married since 1950 and still going strong. they finished there drinks and they said goodbye and told us to look after ourselves. it was really lovely to meet them both. i really enjoy meeting people and taking to locals you take away some much more from that then seeing a big statue.

One day we went and check out a beautiful old Turkish bath and had a swim. they had different pools at different temperatures, some of them really quite hot, hovering somewhere around 38 degrees. and there were fountains squirting out water and when you stood under them, they almost gave you a massage. this was just what i needed because after having a sleep in a bus, it really stuffed my back up, but after the bath my back was feeling brilliant. it was a miracle! the only scary bit was in some baths some people liked to walk around in the nude, and lets just say they didn't have a body like a Greek god, they were letting it all hand out.

something kinda strange about Hungry was there trams or should i say buses. they were a weird combo of both, which i thought was pretty funny. the only hard part about my stay in Budapest was there was a NATO summit and it locked down a bit of the city and sometimes you had to take the long way around. also there was so much road works going on. i didnt get to make it to statue park which is where they have heaps of statues of Lenin and things about communism, which was a bit of a shame i think it would've been interesting. i really enjoyed my stay here, i wish i could've stayed a little longer to see more but its hard to fit everything in.

Munich for a second time

Munich again didn't start too well, my train was delayed, and i got in 2 hours late lucky my hostel was only up the road so it was an easy find. the hostel was really nice and a good sleep which is exactly what the doctor ordered. and it was so nice to see kate and josh again, it felt like ages since i saw them and it was really nice to see a familiar face again and too catch up on what they have been up to the last few weeks.

the first day was an amazing day at Oktoberfest, we got up rather early and made our way to the festival, lucky for us we got into the german tent called Augustiner. i started having steins at about 9am which i think is the earliest beer i have ever had in my life. the beers were massive too i felt sorry for the girl waitresses who brought the beer to the table because the beers were so heavy. theres the story that you should never give a waitress an arm wrestle, now i understand why. i saw one woman carrying 11 beers.
i found out that Oktoberfest started as a wedding gift from the prince to his wife. it started off giving her a giant block of land but she wasnt impressed with this gift (typical... right fellas?) so the prince threw a huge party with her favourite drink, Italian wine. It became such a hit with everyone they did it every year for the next 10 years straight but it got too expensive to import wine from Italy so instead of stopping the event they changed the drink to something more local, beer.
im pretty sure that our crew were the only Australians in the whole tent which was great and in itself a bit of a feat, to give you an idea of how many Aussie come here, we are the only country in the world where the government temporarily erects an embassy because they get so drunk they loose there passports or get a the people get arrested. i never thought id say this but i told everyone i was from New Zealand.
im pretty sure during Oktoberfest chairs are for standing on because everybody did it during the whole time i was there, at one stage we got a 70 year old man standing on the seating singing with all the 20 something Aussie girls (i think he had an eye on a couple of them, can you blame him). another german guy i met had an amazing smile - he hardly had a tooth left in his mouth! i think i was a hit with the everyone too, everyone i met gave me there numbers and addresses to stay at there place as i travel around there parts of the earth. it was pretty funny because i didn't know them from a bar of soap and they were inviting me into there homes to stay. heres an interesting fact about the tents at Oktoberfest, it takes them up to 2 months to build the tents and when you see them you totally understand why, they are HUGE and the get taken down at the end of the festival.
the atmosphere was amazing in the tent, the band was brilliant and played a number of German classics that got the crowd going crazy, at times i felt i was watching euro vision. then occasionally they would pull out a few numbers i knew of, it was really funny and random when they broken into john denver 'country road' because it was such a hit with the crowd but the lyrics clearly state that its about west virginia... what the? but the most religious experience was when they broke into the beatles 'hey jude' hearing everyone in the tent do the 'nah nah na nana na nana nah hey jude' bit was amazing. i thought i was great when out of no where and without band assistance the whole crowd started singing the riff too the white stripes 'seven nation army' i asked a German guy from the crowd if he knew of the white stripes and he had no idea who i was talking about but he knew the riff really well. maybe jack white came to Oktoberfest one year and stole the riff. but easily my favourite bit is watching all the drunk Germans stumble home in there traditional clothing after the event, they were incredibly drunk they all are.

the food i had at the festival was amazing, in the tent i ordered pork which was the best pork i have ever had and i wasn't the only one, the crackling was to die for. outside i shared a smoked salmon with a couple of other people, it was one of the best fish i have ever had. then i had a macadamia nut that looked like it was deep fried in cinnamon, really tasty. and of course sausage and potato dumplings which were really nice, kind of like a big gnocchi.

Munich was such a cute little city i took a tour with a few people which was amazing to see and to hear about the towns history and the Nazi party. i didn't realize that during the war the Germans took photos of Munich so in case it got bombed it would be restored back to its original state, lucky they did because sure enough, it did. on the tour there was a church there that had two clock towers next to each other and we couldn't figure out why you would put two clocks with the same time together. but i think i worked it out. one of them is the real time, and the other one tells you when its beer-o'clock. maybe.
i also watched the glockenspiel do its thing, its original purpose was to let everyone know when the plague was over. its been voted Europe's 2nd most overrated sight and i can understand why, it was built in the early 1900s and i imagine back then it would've been awesome because it would've been so ahead of its time. but now its kinda like being told your going to get a new Xbox for Christmas and then get a second hand Gameboy.
one thing i really thought was amazing was the new synagogue which was chosen by the jewish people. first of all it was build on a new site to signify a new beginning and was built with a glass second level so during the day it gets natural sunlight, but at night it is lit up from the inside and acts like a lighthouse which is designed to guide jewish people that left Germany, back home.

from a incredibly fun day i had a incredibly somber day when i went to Dachau concentration camp. having been to Anne Franks house a couple of weeks before it really hit home, because i saw it from a jewish perspective. on the way there i felt so strange because to get there you had to go through this friendly little neighborhood and in the centre of it was this killing machine. to see and be told the way people were treated physically and emotionally was terrible and horrifying especially when i walked through the gas chambers and passed the incinerators where so many innocent people lost there lives. im glad i saw it but it was a very emotional thing to see.

From what i could gather in the tour and from observation, Germany has copped a bad wrap because of Hitler and what happened at the Munich Olympics and they have found it hard to shake the stigma of what people think Germany's like. i kind of felt sorry for them because its such a nice place i would've loved to have stayed longer in Munich it was such a beautiful city and the people, amazing and i even thought, brave becuase they are willing to talk about there past, be apologetic about it and embrace the future. im looking forward to seeing more of Germany when i get to Berlin, which ive heard from everyone, is amazing.