Cool parking garage for bikes.

There are only two places I’ve found that have free wi-fi so It’s hard for me to write here or respond to emails. The hostel I’m staying at in Prague has free wi-fi so it should be easier to keep in touch.
I’ll finally be making my way east so my money should be worth a lot more than it is in the west. Now my dilemma is booking hostels/trains/buses/flights far enough in advanced so I don’t get stuck somewhere like I am now. I decided since I’m losing a couple days, I am just going to skip Bratislava and just go straight to Budapest. I’ll try and be there on the 18th.

It’s cool how this city works. The entire city lies below sea level. I found this diagram in the hostel.

Left: View from the top floor of Amsterdam’s library, the largest one in Europe.
Right: View from the city up close

Here are a couple pictures from the Red Light District. Sorry I know they’re blurry but I still think they look cool.

Now when you hear about the Czech Republic you probably think of the Soviet Union. And when you hear about the Soviet Union (or eastern Europe in general) you probably think of Buildings with huge holes in them and paint chipping off the walls, or something along the lines of these pictures:

While I did take those pictures in Prague, that's not what it looks like at all. Prague has surrendered to almost all European wars in order to preserve it's history. Prague was never bombed or anything so everything here is ancient. You can see huge golden tipped spires and cathedrals as far as the eye can see in all directions.

Today I took the metro to the Old Town Square and saw some of the sights there. The Astronomical Clock in the square was gigantic and very intricate. I even got the chance to walk up to the top of it. I also checked out the Salvador Dali exhibition they had going on in the square; Unfortunately I was unable to take pictures of the exhibit.

Here's the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn from the top of the clock.

Notice the gold on all the buildings.

Everything is very cheap here too since they don't use the Euro. A pint of premium Czech beer downtown cost me 22 koruns (pronounced crowns). That's like $1.51 American. The hostel I'm staying at has one of the priciest drink menus in town. Here I believe the same pint of beer goes for 46 koruns.

The day I arrived I was very hungry. I have been craving tacos for a long time now and I decided that an "authentic Mexican" Czech burrito would be a good substitute. And at 39 koruns from a local bakery, how could I resist? Well I now know why back home why there is Taco Cabana if you want a taco and Krispy Kreme if you want a donut. I also know why you don't see Mexican restaurants in the Czech Republic and why you don't see Czech restaurants in Mexico. Czech food is to Mexican food just like a goldfish is to a telephone pole.

It may look legit at first glance, but it's obviously not a burrito when you crack it open.

Also I tried a traditional Czech dish today. Goulash! I don't even know what to say about it or how to even describe it. It wasn't bad, but it was far from good. Interesting dish that's for sure.

Yo Andrew Minard, what it do?

written by  pathaley on July 16, 2008 from Prague, Czech Republic
from the travel blog: Eurotrip
tagged Castle, Prague, Czech, Praha, Goulash and Burrito
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The bus from Prague to Bratislava and then to Budapest was only seven hours and played movies through entire duration of the trip. Good movies too. Well they were in Czech but they had English subtitles. The bus to Bologna played “Wild Hogs” in Hungarian with no subtitles, so I just sat there listening to the gibberish spewing from Tim Allen’s mouth and laughing when everyone else did.

I really enjoyed Budapest. It was a beautiful city and I go back again if the opportunity came up. But it seems that the Hungarians’ taxes are wasted on employing 10,000 people doing the same job. Every time I entered the metro station I purchased a ticket for 270 Forint. Then you walk five feet to a machine that stamps your ticket or sometimes even punches a hole in it. Then you get on the metro. Next to every machine there would be anywhere from 2-10 guards next to each machine to make sure you don’t sneak by without paying. The guards can see you the entire time and you are no more than ten feet away from them at all times yet sometimes they still persisted to check my ticket anyways. Even though they watched me purchase it, then validate it. Once I had my metro ticket checked four times! One guard right after the other…
Metro tickets are a pain in the ass. That is why I’m still bitter about Prague. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time in Prague, it was a gorgeous city. On my last day there I was cutting it really close to catching my bus. I hopped on the tram and was about to hop off when a man with a badge approached me asking for my ticket. I presented it to him but he wasn’t satisfied. Apparently the tickets are only good for 72 minutes at a time. Meaning the one I had would have expired about 5 minutes before he approached me. He demanded 700 koruns or he would call the police. All I had on me was 150 koruns. I pleaded with him telling him I have no money, I’m going to miss my bus. He asked if I had a credit card and I said yes and he took me to an ATM. I told him I don’t have enough money and that I won’t be able to eat for several days, but he was a heartless bastard. Before I handed over the cash to him I called the police over and had them check his ID and badge to make sure he wasn’t trying to scam me. The police said it was real but I can tell this embarrassed him. Serves him right, I barley caught my bus.

Anyways, back to Budapest. I had arranged to couch surf with someone when I arrived but they bailed on me at the last minute. So I arrived at late at night and was about to go sleep in a park but of course I got off at the wrong metro stop. I was out of money and there was not an ATM in sight so I started to walk to the park when I came across this little hole in the wall hostel named “Home Made Hostel”. They didn’t have a bed available that night but Jimmy, the Dutch guy at the front desk/living room, said I could have the employee bed because he had to stay up and let people in all night anyways.

Home Made Hostel was one of the coolest hostels I’ve stayed at. It was basically a large flat or apartment. There were several rooms and a kitchen and kitchen. I don’t believe this place could host more than 20 people at a time. It was great, small hostels mean small groups of people. Right away I got along with this English guy named Robbie Lang who ended up in Budapest by himself as well. We are the same age and were very similar so we went for a night on the town. This particular night ended around 5:00am after we checked out some local pubs and then gorged ourselves on McDonalds on the way back. Ironically Robbie looks uncannily like my friend in San Antonio, Tyler Bravin. I showed Robbie a picture of Tyler and he freaked out. He immediately called his dad to make sure he didn’t have some long lost twin or anything.
Separated at birth? You be the judge.

Right: Robbie Lang Left: Tyler Bravin

I explored the city for a bit my first day there. Later in the afternoon I went to go check out St. Steven’s Basilica. I was standing in the square in front of it when all of a sudden 200 people of all ages sprang out of every nook and cranny, every street, every building, little kids seemed to popping out of the cracks between the coble stones and before I knew it, I was in the center of a massive water fight. Water balloons whizzed overhead and people acted as though they were hit by a hand grenade. Everyone had water pistols and water guns of all sizes. One kid who couldn’t have been older than 10 had a portable pressure washer strapped to his back. Before I knew it I was soaked from head to toe. Luckily a girl gave me one of her back up water pistols so I could defend myself. Whenever we ran out of ammunition we sprang for the numerous fountains and reloaded. This free for all lasted for about an hour before the Police showed up. There were only 2 of them and they tried to assert their authority, but they just ended up getting drenched by countless water balloons and buckets of slimy green fountain water. Then just as quickly as it had started, everyone disappeared. All that was left were a few people staying back to help clean up the broken balloon bits. I was talking to a group of Hungarians afterwards and they said there is this organization that organizes this kind of stuff every month. For example, they told me that last month they had a massive pillow fight.

Later the Hungarians I was with took me on a tour of the city.

They next day was pretty lazy and I woke up late. I didn’t want to do anything too extravagant because I had to catch the bus later that night. So I decided to hit up the Hungarian spa. It was this huge castle like building where you go in and there are hot tubs from warm to boiling hot. There were even pools with water so cold that your bones started to ache after being in them for 10 seconds. Some corridors led to saunas and therapeutic steam rooms. Outside in the courtyard there were largest pools I’ve ever seen. One was a normal pool and the other was just as large but it was a huge communal hot tub. There were crowds of old men dawning the most revealing Speedos playing some of the most intense games of chess I’ve ever witnessed. I made a couple friends while I was there. One American girl who was couch surfing and backpacking around Europe by herself as well and 2 Australian sisters doing the same.

I caught the bus and 12 hours later I was in Bologna, Italy where I had to wait a couple hours for the next bus to Ancona. Italy is an interesting country so far. It is home to the world’s worst drivers. It is next to impossible to cross the street without killed. You may have the green light to walk across but Italian drivers won’t stop. Not because they want to hit you, but because they’re all too busy honking at gesturing wildly at each other. It’s the most contagious form of road rage I’ve ever witnessed so heaven forbid a car switch lanes and pull out in front of another Italian driver even though there is more than enough room. We’re driving on an open country road and I’ve heard the bus driver honk about 30 times already. Italian’s seem to have a very short temper. I saw a man walking earlier and I could have sworn he was about to explode. He had ones of those pulsing veins on his forehead that grew larger with each step. I was afraid to actually walk in to the station because I could see people at the check in counters flailing their arms and arguing with the people behind the desk and then the attendants replying in the same manner, so I just chilled outside in the terminal. Oh, and Italians have no concept of waiting in line. We took a 30-minute break and I was standing in line to get a sandwich and I was bumped all the way to the back of the line. It’s like being back at my school cafeteria. Everyone is constantly screwing each other over. One man even cut in front of me twice. It took so long that I was unable to get anything to eat because it was time for the bus to leave. Aside from all the hostility, the Italian is everything I imagined it to be. There are these green and yellow rolling hills littered with Tuscan and Mediterranean style homes all with they’re own vineyards. It’s just like the movies.

“When I told my friends in London that I was going to travel around Europe and write a book about it, they said, “Oh, you must speak a lot of languages.”
“Why, no” I would reply with a certain pride, “only English,” and they would look at me as if I were foolish or crazy. But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you only have the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross the street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.”

I also love talking to people from the different countries and hearing they’re opinion on Americans. It dawned on me that most people back home have no idea what’s going on outside the country. In fact most people don’t even have a passport. It’s sad really. Everyone in Europe has a passport. It seems as if everyone likes to travel here. So I encourage anyone who actually reads this to go get a passport (if you don’t already have one) and go see the world.

I’m out for now, I’m about ten minutes from the bus station and by the time I get around to actually posting this blog on the internet I will be in Split, Croatia.
Peace,
Patrick

Quick update: The bus dropped me off in Ancona, well near Ancona. It seems that I was the only passenger to Ancona so the closest they took me was about 18 km outside the city. I wandered around a little bit and asked strangers if they spoke English or Spanish. I had no luck. I ended up interrupting my dad’s beauty sleep in Hawaii to see if he could get on the internet and try and help me find the nearest bus station, but I wasn’t sure where I was in the first place. I ended up going to finding a small office across the street and asking for directions but no one there was able to help me either. Then the rain came. I was in this parking lot off a highway huddled up under my umbrella when a man pulled up and offered a ride. I was very grateful, but he was heading the opposite direction. Several minutes later an Italian woman who looked like she should be on the cover of Vogue magazine pulled up and asked me if I was all right. She spoke a few words of English and Spanish so our conversation was a mixture of the three. Her boyfriend came to meet her there and he spoke very good English and they were very helpful. They said that they would love to give me a ride but they were heading the opposite direction.

I walked a few kilometers to the town of Callefearete and found a bus that would take me to the port in Ancona. I was snug as can be in the bus when I noticed everyone else was paying and somehow I managed to walk by the driver without paying him. I didn’t have (and still don’t) have any money on me and I was not prepared to pay him. He kept eyeing me to make sure I didn’t get off the bus, and I couldn’t afford another stupid fine like in Prague. So I offered my seat to this older woman and when she got off I dashed off the train with her. I didn’t even bother trying to get on another bus. I was in Ancona though, so I just walked to the port from there (a good 5km). As I got closer there were two ports about 1 km apart. I obviously looked like I didn’t know what to do, and southern Italy is that last place you want to look like a helpless tourist. Then this shady looking fellow approached me. He looked like a gypsy so I started clenching my pockets. He had this big goofy grin on his face when he said, “Eh boi!” I was expecting him to beg for money but he didn’t. “You lookin’ for la fiera righ? It dat one.” He turned out to be a really nice guy and we shook hands and went our separate ways. So the moral of this update is that you just can’t judge a book by its cover. Italians aren’t as ruthless as I portrayed them to be earlier. Except one thing’s for certain, they still don’t know what the hell a line is.

So now I’m on the ferry to Split, which I’ll arrive to at 6:00 in the morning. I took a couple pictures but the weather was bad.

The day I arrived I went and explored the city. It is very small so it is easy to see most of the city on foot. The water is a beautiful shade of dark blue and the water is calm because several islands protect Split from storms in the Adriatic Sea. There is a large sector of the city with these huge apartment complexes that were old communist housing blocks. Each building is the same and each room is exactly the same size. From the beach you can see the old ruins of the city that Diocletian was born in. During his reign he had a massive palace constructed in Split that still remains to this day. Over time a city grew around it and now people have built houses using the palace’s existing walls. Shops are on streets that used to be hallways and corridors. There are stairways that lead to nothing and numerous sphinx’s that were imported from Egypt two thousand years ago.

All around split there are ancient Roman and Greek structures that are still standing. They’re all in ruins of course, usually just bits of old stonewalls that don’t really amount to much. Glynn, the owner of the hostel I was staying at, told me that it isn’t uncommon for people to pick their potatoes and an old Roman gold coin pop out of the ground. Apparently Split (and I’m guessing most of Croatia) is a land developer’s worst nightmare. People will buy a piece of land and decide to build on it and it’s a 50% chance that they will discover an old Roman ruin beneath their land. When this happens an archaeologist has to come in, uncover the rest of the structure, map it out, make a plastic mold of it, then seal it with concrete. All this takes a very long time. So nine times out of ten when people find a structure they just build over it really quick, which is illegal and a shame.

While walking around the city I came across an interesting series of stairs and I wanted to see where they would lead me too. Eventually after what seemed like a thousand steps I was on top of a mountain that overlooked the harbor and bay outside of Split. My first reaction was to take a picture, but the pictures just don’t do it justice. Well I was pretty high up so naturally, being a male, my first reaction was to pee off it, then take the picture.

The next day Glynn and some of the other guests and I woke up early and drove about an hour and a half to Krka national park to go swim in the river, the views at the park were one of a kind. We went for a swim, played some Frisbee and worked on our tan, and/or sunburn. From the bridge I could see sail boats below making their way down the winding river below to the Adriatic Sea for a sail. Once we started walking through the park there were huge waterfalls that spilled into a dark blue and green river.

I took the ferry to Hvar with Rob and Sinead, an English couple I met back in Split. Hvar was nice but it got old really fast. I was unable to book a hostel, but when I got off the ferry these groups of women were renting out rooms in their apartments and I was able to get a room with them. The water is crystal clear and the port is filled with sailboats. The island reeks of wealthy people. They all cruise up to the docks in their huge $33 million yachts, step off and have a couple drinks and down a kilo of lobster and then disappear into the darkness. I can hear their snooty little laughs half a mile away. Hvar is the most expensive place in Croatia, followed by Dubrovnik. The best way to determine if the place is expensive or not is to check the price of ice cream, beer and a coke.

While waiting for the ferry to Korcula I met Abby and Hannah from Wales and Dean from Melbourne, Australia (which is better than Sydney). We became pretty good friends and managed to split the cost of a room in Korcula. Korcula was considerably cheaper and Hvar and much more laid back.

We were planning on leaving at 11:00am but we managed to catch a later ferry, so Dean, the girls and I went straight to the beach, forgetting our swim suits of course. Dean caught me in mid action pose…

Dubrovnik was okay but I wasn’t the biggest fan. It reeked of tourism so I bought a ticket to Bosnia the very next day. Don’t get me wrong, Dubrovnik was beautiful, but Croatia is expensive and hot. I’m glad that I got to see it before it joins the E.U. It will be a completely different country in the next five years. I figured out what has been making me sick here. It's a small shrub that is common throughout Croatia and many people get hay fever from it. Here's your fun Croatian fact too: Croatia does not allow Polish people to enter the country with food because the Poles flock to the beaches by the thousands, fill up miles of coastline and never spend a dime (or Kuna) because they bring enough food to feed their family for a week.

I arrived in Mostar, Bosnia today. It’s a very interesting city. Half of the buildings are in ruins and bombed out pieces of historical crap filled with memories and bullet holes. I grabbed a handful of dirt earlier and pulled out several machine gun rounds. The shops around the city even sell old combat knives that once belonged to fallen soldiers. There are cemeteries all over the city that are separated by the various religions. They all share one thing in common though, 1993. There isn’t a single gravestone that doesn’t say 1993. It’s an eerie feeling knowing that all these people died the same year. They were all innocent civilians too.

I saw a diving competition today as well. Every Sunday there is a large televised diving competition off the 25 meter high Stari Most bridge. I went down to the bridge and witnessed some gruesome belly flops.

I also saw my first gypsies too! They’re awful, lazy, dirty and disgusting; Everything I expected. They all drag their little kids around with them to help gain sympathy while they try to hustle everyone. Families will be sitting outside eating at a restaurant and the gypsies will come and beg them for money and just make a scene. They can be seen just about everywhere begging. They teach their kids to pick pocket and steal so when they come close I clench my pockets.

I apologize but as I've been moving farther east wi-fi and kebab stands are becoming more and more scarce. The only things found in abundance are gypsies, ice cream vendors, and cigarettes. I believe I am the ONLY person in Europe who doesn't smoke. I’ve decided not to visit Greece. They say that it’s the most expensive European Union country so I guess I’ll save it for another day. Tomorrow I’m going to buy a train ticket to Sarajevo and then possibly go to Montenegro after that. I'm just happy to finally be somewhere cheap.

Peace, love & positive vibes,
Patrick

written by  pathaley on July 27, 2008 from Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
from the travel blog: Eurotrip
tagged Croatia, Mostar, Bosnia, EasternEurope, Hvar, Split, Korcula, Dubrovnik, Gypsies and NoodleyPoodelyGreatGoodness
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