Well now. It has been a
while since I wrote, mainly because I've been busy Getting the Most
Out of Each Day. It's feel as though I'm short-changing myself if I
don't experience a city's
Culture during the day and its night-life
until after midnight, given how much I'm spending on travel and
accommodation costs. But it's more than that, too. If you are one of
the many who have contacted me online and haven't received an answer,
I sincerely apologise. For some reason it has become almost too hard
to use my down-time to keep in touch. This is perhaps because I can't
think of anything in particular when I'm not sure where my next
low-fat, delicious vegetarian meal is going to come from (a real
challenge! I crave tofu sooo badly). I suspect that once I'm chilling
out in a city for more than a few days it will become easier. At the
moment, I'm on a high-speed intercity train from Berlin to
Luxembourg. It is 8 hours, which sounds like a long time, but truth
be told I enjoy train journeys. It's the only time I get to feel
really bored.
Anyway,
I when I left off last time in this tale of misguided cultural
studies, I believe I had just left Munich for Vienna. Nat and Alex
went off to Salzburg and had what sounds like a lovely time, not
least because they got to do their best Julie Andrews impression on
an idyllic Austrian hilltop. I opted to go firstly to Vienna, and
then to Bratislava, and we arranged to meet again in Budapest. I
stayed at Wombats in Vienna, which, I think, turned out to be a good
idea. I went out by myself to sample the local night-life, and found
the people friendly but largely disinterested in becoming bffs (and
who can blame them?). But encouraged by the Wombar's special that
night (“Fizzy Vodka” - a shot of vodka with a packet of sherbet)
I became friends with a cool group of Finnish guys. I discovered
something really important: I'm so much better
at pool when I've had a few drinks.
The
next day I checked out one of the art galleries in Vienna (for the
second time this trip I found the Vienna natural history museum was
closed) and learnt about Tishon. Then I went to the very silly Freud
museum. I did get a giddy thrill, being in the great albeit misguided
man's rooms, but it had “tourist trap” written all over it and a
gift shop nearly as large as the museum. Sadly I spent my last cent
on the entrance fee so although I was tempted by the Freud action
figure I didn't buy it. But I enjoyed looking at the originals of
Freud's works and standing next to the industrial air conditioner,
which slowly dried me out. I wandered back into the city centre and
did a tour of the Hapsburg palace, including the vast
plate-and-cutlery exhibit and Empress Sissi's apartments.
That
night I arranged to meet up with my new Finnish friends who invited
me to the Danube island. I had wanted to go swimming for days, so I
set out to try to find them and ended up walking around the island in
random directions for the next hour and a half in the sweltering
heat. Twas all good though, because I found them eventually drinking
next to the canal. We went back to the hostel and they introduced me
to a thick, black aniseed-flavoured liqueur with an unpronounceable
Finnish name. Whatever it was, it was effective, because I taught
them how to play my favourite drinking game (sadly, the name is
unprintable).
With
an epic hangover the next day, I set out for Bratislava. I managed to
find the hydrofoil dock and paid an exorbitant fee for them to take
me down the Danube to Slovakia's capital city. It was lovely though,
and relaxing, and the trip only took 75 minutes. The hostel in
Slovakia was another too-cool rambling building with a deliberately
boho feel to it. It's a good strategy, because in places like that
you expect to be in a
sweltering room with seven other people and no fan. The first night
was not much fun because I was in a room with 5 rambunctious teenage
British boys, one of which put shaving cream in the beds of all the
others, but I had a dinner of amazing gaspacho soup for 2 euros and a
63-cent glass of wine. Over the next couple of days I met some very
cool people. There was a great common room and kitchen, and we were
allowed to drink alcohol in there, so I stayed in every night with a
small group of fun people and drank vodka that cost 3 euros for
750mL. We played I Never.
I
did an excellent free walking tour with an Australian guy who was
living in Bratislava (you can't bloody escape the Aussies). He gave a
great tour and a very impassioned history lesson on his adopted city,
none of which I had known previously. He took us to the site where
the Prague Spring uprising was viciously crushed by Soviet tanks, and
where the famous photo of a man baring his chest to a tank's gun was
taken (the uprising began in Bratislava, despite its name). We also
heard the story of Slovakia's reluctant alliance with the Nazis in
the hope of gaining independence from the Czech Republic and the
efforts of a few brave people to get thousands of Jewish people out
of Slovakia to safety. After the war, the little country was used
like currency between the world's superpowers and it was “given”
to the Soviets and fell behind the Iron Curtain. It's got an
incredible history.
I
also went to the museum of viticulture and paid my admittance without
really knowing what it was. Since so few people speak English even in
the touristy parts of town, I saw the word “museum” and “2
euro” and went in. It turned out to be a reasonably interesting
exhibit, followed by a tour of the “palace”. It was good,
especially with the audio guide, but I was the only tourist and about
7 different women followed me around the whole time I was there. In
case I stole something? They spoke no English and didn't return my
smiles, and I felt awkward listening to the audio guide at each
exhibit while they were hovering, looking like they'd much rather be
doing something else. But it was still interesting.
In
the afternoon I gave up and simply sat in the common room hoping for
air conditioning, or death, or both. The ice cream vendors in that
city sold some very questionable ice cream – too high a
sugar-to-cold ratio – and of course I was guessing at the flavours
by their colour. And dinner was a kind of dense potato gnocchi
covered in poppy-seeds and icing sugar, by far the strangest local
delicacy I've sampled so far. It was strangely tasty but had a
vitamin content of 0. But the next day four girls I had met and I
went to the lake on the edge of the city. It took ages for us to
figure out the immensely complex bus system, but it was worth it to
get there in the late afternoon and dive into the water. There were
about 1000 people there, I'd say, mostly getting a tan, or children
enjoying the water. I had my first nude-bather sighting – just one
very aggressive exhibitionist. We hired a pedal boat and had fun
tooling around on the water. One of the girls who I went with turned
out to be a Christian missionary from Vermont, and a gentle debate
began when we had lunch that day and she asked what was on my
necklace. I told her it was an Archaeopteryx, the “missing link”
between dinosaurs and birds, which is my personal symbol of science's
victory over a “God of the gaps” theory. Becca was really lovely,
and she was by no means uneducated. She had what I considered to be
an informed view to back up her convictions, and we had the kind of
philosophical debate that I really enjoy. It went on for hours. I
think the other girls we went with thought we were really weird. But
we have a fundamental difference in the way that we think. I don't
want to misrepresent her, but I think she finds immense comfort in
her belief in the divinity of Jesus and believes implicity in
scripture – and she was well-versed, not only in the Bible but all
kinds of philosophical writings. I told her that I would love to
believe in God, to believe in a higher plan, but that it would be a
lie to myself, a betrayal. I have to believe that I don't do things
just because a book tells me to. It was a great discussion and one of
the most interesting experiences I've had so far. Ooh, I also met a
cool forty-something guy who was there for the AIDS conference. He
used to be a plastic surgeon but is now a volunteer doctor for
children with AIDS, living off the money he made making rich people
look more identical. He has been to space and gives lectures on how
to be happy, staying in hostels or couch-surfing around the world. I
told him all the places I wanted to travel and experiences I wanted
to have. He asked me: “So why not do it now?” I didn't have an
answer. I tried to sleep in my bed that night but gave up quite soon,
and went to lie on the common room sofa and slept there next to the
open window. Unfortunately, I had been unable to find any mosquito
repellent (seriously, not even in pharmacies. They've never heard of
it.) and when I woke up I was covered in literally hundreds of bites.
I know that some people say “literally” when they mean
“figuratively”. But I'm not exaggerating. Every inch of exposed
skin was covered in little red bumps by morning, apart from on my
face. There was even one on my ear. The damn things still haven't
faded.
The
next day I hopped on the train to Budapest with two British girls and
a Canadian guy from the hostel. We sampled the Slovakian train
service – no air con in the incredible heat. There was a gauge
painted on the wall with a lever that could be pointed to “cold”
or “hot”. I assume that it was there as a sort of placebo. I got
to the hostel a few hours ahead of Nat and Alex and took the
opportunity to revel in the luxury or a fan in the common room, and I
soon fell asleep, waking up only once they got to the hostel.
Hungary
is pretty cool. We did a walking tour and I was astonished to learn
that 20 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain it is still very
much a post-communist country. Apparently the average wage is 500
euros per month. The government employs far too many people and pays
them peanuts, and so the country has some astonishing social
problems. There were far more homeless people than I had seen
elsewhere, and the streets were grim and filthy. But the people
tended to be friendly, despite our inability to pronounce even the
word for “thank you” (which, by the way, is the best phrase you
can learn in any country. People respond well to it). Did you know?:
Hungarian is ranked the fifth-hardest language to learn in the world
and is classed in a linguistic group with Finnish; it has little in
common with German. They also have yet to adopt the Euro, and 1
Australian dollar buys nearly 200 forints. We found it difficult to
wrap our minds around this and often had to whip out a calculator to
check prices. It's a bit harrowing, at the end of a small meal, to
hear that you owe 10,000 of anything.
But
the stress relief in Budapest comes from going to the baths. We went
our first night and paid the high 3000-forint entrance fee. It was
with some horror that we stepped into our first bath, which turned
out to be a toasty 38 degrees. We then realised that the bath next
door was a chilly 26 degrees, and spent several hours alternating
between the two, revelling in the sensation of being cold. The baths
come from thermal springs and spurts out into the pools from
fountains around the edge. You can stand in front of one and get a
pretty decent back massage. There was also a current pool that causes
you to revolve extremely quickly around the circumference of a
circle. We stayed until closing time, 10pm, and went back again in
the morning, this time getting access to all the indoor pools as
well. There were dozens of pools of different temperatures, shapes
and depths, the coldest being 20 degrees (Alex somehow got in to her
waist) and the hottest 40 degrees. It is an incredible feeling to go
from one to the other. I believe I got a lot of the accumulated grime
out of my skin. They had some rather oppressive saunas there too.
Coincidentally, we ran into the two British girls I had been on the
train with who were also enjoying the baths, which was pretty cool,
and we had a nice chat. Afterwards, Nat, Alex and I went to a rather
too-posh restaurant on someone's specific advice and had some amazing
local pancakes. They were quite, quite delicious.
We
met some cool Belgian guys who were staying in our room at the
hostel. They turned out to be really nice. I talked Nat, Alex and the
three boys into coming with me to “Memento Park”, a spot in the
middle of nowhere to which a lot of the Soviet statues were brought
after the country regained independence. I very nerdily bought the
little book they sell there and played at being a tour guide for my
less-than-enthusiastic comrades. I loved it :) especially seeing the
famous Stalin's Boots, a gargantuan pair of lower legs which stood
after rioters sawed the rest of him off during the 1960s. Nat, Alex
and I then spent several hours trying to find food as we were looking
for something “authentic”. We ended up going to a food court.
Being hungry as a backpacker is stressful!
That
night we went out with the Belgian guys and drank a moderate amount
of beer. We went to a ruined bar, or a former abandoned building
converted into a cool beer garden, complete with graffiti, fairy
lights and cheap drinks. The Belgian guys were really nice and I
think Nat and Alex are hoping to meet up with them in Brussels.
In
the morning we packed up our stuff for another day on the road and
made our way to the train station. We got on a busy train to Prague
but managed to find seats together. It was a 7 hour trip, made
slightly longer because we had to avoid Slovakia (in which the Eurail
pass is not valid), but was an OK trip. We had surprisingly delicious
sandwiches with warm plastic cheese and, for the girls,
room-temperature ham. But we were in the same carriage as a group of
girls that were extremely annoying, because they took up several
booths in which one or two of them were lying each, while we had to
sit bunched up on opposite sides of the aisle. We had to get Czech
kroner (25 Ck = 1 euro) out of an ATM and they contrived to get in
line before us and took ages to each get out some cash. We saw them
on the street the next day being obnoxious and I was pretty keen to
do something unpleasant to them, but I decided that I should pick an
English-speaking country for my first police interrogation. Anyway,
we had an apartment in Prague which was rather nice, because it meant
we could self-cater. I was a bit pathetic and Nat did most of the
cooking; I tend to pass out after a day's hard touristing, which made
me feel a bit bad. We had three full days in the Czech Republic. We
did a paid walking tour the first day which was expensive, but
included lunch and a nice river cruise. The tour guide cheerfully
informed me that the Czech people's favourite vegetable is pork. I
ended up eating what he derisively referred to as “student food”
- deep-fried gooey cheese. I ended up having this two days in a row
as it was often the only vegetarian thing on the menu. It's hilarious
when it's served to you – it just looks exactly like a plate of
food that is missing a hunk of meat.
We
walked up to Prague Castle and saw inside the cathedral. We saw a lot
of the sites of Prague that first day. We went on a rather sad ghost
tour that was free with our 6-hour tour. We soon found out why it was
free. The guide would tell us an interesting albeit silly ghost story
and shortly after we would be accosted by another guy wearing a scary
mask. It got quite surreal when the guy turned up in a skeleton
outfit and just hung around, pretending to be drunk. It was very
weird. Afterwards, to regain our nerves, we stopped in at a nice
little bar where we shared two enormous daiquiris. I also had a glass
of “grog” - 50% vodka, 50% black tea. It was really horrible.
We
decided to hire a car the next day, a surprisingly uncomplicated
affair given that the person who lent it to us spoke very little
English. We were hoping to get a Skoda, but she ended up giving us a
Renault that Alex, as a previous wrong-side-of-the-road driver, had
the honour of driving all day. She did remarkably well against the
horrendous Prague traffic, and we headed East to Kutna Hora. We had
some tasty pancakes there for morning tea and went to my main
priority for the trip, the Ossuary. When I upload the photos, I
encourage you to check them out. It is basically a church filled with
human bones artfully arranged. The decorations on the walls are made
of bones, as is the huge chandelier. Skulls are everywhere. From what
I could gather, they were mostly plague victims or people killed by
the Hussite invaders who, after a while, were dug up to make more
room in the cemetary. The bones were piled unceremoniously next to
the church until a nearly-blind monk with nothing much to do decided
to get creative with them. It was quite bizarre.
Next,
we headed South for Cesky Krumlov. We took a rather, er, roundabout
route. Apparently in the Czech Republic signs don't show you where to
go on a roundabout until you are right next to the sign. What I mean
is that if a sign says to turn right, you don't turn right until
after the sign,
instead of going the direction that it is pointing when you first see
it. If we had known this earlier we probably would have arrived a
couple of hours earlier and wouldn't have met so many
non-English-speaking irritable Czech people. But we also got to go
off the beaten track and see the countryside. The girls pulled over
at one point so that I could run around in a meadow and a wheat
field. I saw a bunny. And lots of interesting insects. It was really
fun until I remembered that snakes exist, then I became rather
paralysed by fear and they had to convince me to come out one step at
a time.
By
the time we got to Cesky Krumlov the sun was setting, but we still
got to be enchanted by the little village. It is a medieval town
which, sadly, is now swarming with tourists and tacky souvenir shops.
A t-shirt that says “I <3 Cesky Krumlov”? Who wouldn't want
that? It's just so original.
We took lots of lovely photos and had a nice dinner by the beautiful
river, flanked on one side by quaint old houses and on the other by a
sheer rock cliff into which various structures had been built. We had
ice cream for dessert, then Alex drove us home. I tried,
unsuccessfully, to stay awake to keep her company, and we got back
after 1am and had to drive around for ages before we found a parking
spot. Fun times. It was a lovely day and I highly recommend it to any
groups of backpackers who are sick of being in either cities or
trains.
The
next day, after we returned the car, I went to Czech out (bazinga)
the Kafka museum. Not recommended for non-Kafka fans, but as a bit of
a literature nerd I really enjoyed it. It presented an interesting
hypothesis on the way the city of Prague shaped poor Franz's writing.
I also went and saw his birthplace but didn't go inside; it appeared
to be a gift shop to which they charge admittance. Nat, Alex and I
met up later and went shopping. I can't believe how cheap clothes are
here.
We
had seen a shop selling absinthe ice cream a couple of days before,
and that night Alex and I set out to try to find it again. It was
only about 100m from our apartment but we ended up getting utterly
lost in the rain. I got fed up eventually and hailed us a cab. I'm
sure the absinthe ice cream would have been disgusting, but we were
very sad that we didn't get to have any.
We
left on the train for Berlin the next day, which was completely
packed and we couldn't really find seats for about an hour and a
half, after which we got our own compartment. I love train
compartments. We had managed to find peanut butter in Prague (the
find of the trip, in my opinion) and I ate several sandwiches with
gusto. Thankfully, the obnoxious girls were nowhere to be seen.
That
was only, er, four days ago, I think. I'm doing better, right? But it
will have to wait for another time because the train is nearing
Luxembourg (I hope). The sun has set and I'm travelling through the
idyllic vineyards, forests and secluded villages of Western Germany.
I shall update again when, y'know, I can be bothered.
Peace.
