Au Revoir Europe! Bonjour Minnesota!

My last day in Brussels was pretty boring. I walked around a little bit more before decided to just go back to my hostel and kill the rest of the day there reading. In the morning, I walked to Brussels Midi, the main train station, and bought a ticket to Paris. Only a one and a half hour ride, wonderfully short! When I got there, I tried to get to our hostel but didn't print out directions or an address, but I thought I remembered the directions. Either they were bad directions, or I didn't remember them well, or both... So after wandering around for a bit, I saw someone else in the group and we found the hostel together.

After catching up with the people who where there, we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower and climbed the stairs to the 2nd level, 668 stairs. Not that bad. We would have walked the whole way but it is a hazard or something thing to walk to the third level so we took the elevator. It was a clear day so the view was really nice, except for the smog, but oh well, it's a big city after all!

After we walked back down, I split up from the group to do some last minute shopping and walked around the city for a few hours. I impressed myself because I walked from the Eiffel Tower to our hostel and wound my way around the city without getting lost! Yeah, I'm pretty skillful. That night, Carly, Ian and I went out to get one last French dinner. I got creme burlee for dessert! I had to have it at least once in France right? Mmm, twas delicious! After a bit more socializing at the hostel, we all went to bed. We had to leave at 930 for the airport. Our flight left at 230 and we got through security and to out gate without much problem. Until I tried to get on the plane. As I gave them my ticket, they pulled me aside and I had to go through security again. A full check, pat down, take off shoes and swab them, look through my carry on, everything! They kept asking me where and when I went through security. Apparently I should have been searched when I first went though but they didn't see the ticket on my ticket, I dunno. But I got on the plane fine and started off to the USA!

The 10 hour plane ride went by really fast. We watched a few sitcoms, Wall E, and National Treasure 2. Also, it was nice to know the people in the program better so we could talk about our travels and what not. We got into O'Hare, and customs was a breeze. When we got to our next gate, I got my first American food in 4 months, a Chicago style hot dog with everything on it. It was amazing! Then the ride back to Minneapolis went by like nothing. An hour and 20 minutes seems short after a 10 hour ride right?

Finally! I'm home!!! I didn't sleep at all on the plane and I got home at about 11pm, had a beer with mom and dad and went to sleep! So I went to bed at a normal time and haven't experienced any jet lag! That's nice, I'm pretty good at fighting it off I think. It's good to be home and I am looking forward to going back to school in the spring.

So!

I went to Paris, London, Geneva, Leeds, Knaresborough, York, Dublin, Maynooth, Nancy, Evry, Levanto, Rome, Catania, Rethymno, Athens, Thessaloniki, Budapest, Prague, Berlin, Brugges, Brussels. I read 11 books, was on a train for far too long, and slept in a lot of different beds. Now I have my own bed! It's good to be home.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner

From Prague, I took a train to Berlin where I would meet my friend from high school, Micah, at the train station. The ride was about 5 hours, and went by really fast. I was reading my book and when I looked at the clock I was like, "whoah, we're almost there!" Guess that'll happen when you are used to 19 hour rides... But I prefer the shorter rides, that's for certain. So I met him at the station and we took the metro to his apartment. It's a really nice place he has. South Berlin, one roommate, his own room. Full kitchen and bathroom. Nice place. After a little settling in, we went to get a case of German beer to have. That night we ended up having a crazy fun dance party with his roommate. Good times of singing and dancing.

The next day, Micah had class from 2-8 so I had some time to kill. After I did some laundry, I went to do what I do in most cities; wander the town for a while. Micah had given me a metro map and wrote where the Berlin Wall was so I started in that direction. I didn't really know where I was most of the time but I just kept close to the underground and would match stations to my map to find out where I was. I walked through a Christmas market on Alexandarplatz and got my first German brat. Tasty. Then I kept on walking because for as far as I've gone, I was only half way... I got to the station Micah said it was by and wandered around there for a while. I would have thought that being something that seems kind of important and could be a tourist attraction, there would be signs pointing to it, but no such luck. So I took the metro back because I had walked about 4km to get there.

When I got back, I went online and found that the Aussies from Budapest were going to an opera then going out after that night. So I decided that I would meet up with them after the opera but they didn't really give me clear directions on which one it was. So after a bit of searching and guess work, we found one so I gave it a try. I got off the train and took a right and walked till I found an opera house. I waited there for 20 minutes or so and no one came out (part of the guess work was that we knew it got out at 22h00) so I was majorly bummed and didn't want to go back so I went for a walk instead. After a walked a few blocks I came across another opera house that had just let out. Darn! So close! Still missed em though... So I kept going on my walk and had a nice time wandering in the dark.

I have been wanting to go to a German Christmas market for a while because everyone says they're so great. So Micah found one online and we went there, and it was totally lame and dead. Bummer. Micah's roommate Hannah came with us and knew of a gay and lesbian museum so we were like, what the heck, why not? It was an interesting exhibit thing, yeah, interesting... And a little boring, but maybe that's because everything was in German so I could only look at the pictures. Whatever. After that we wandered around so more looking for a German restaurant but came up short, so we had kabobs instead. That's basically German.

Today, Micah and I went to see the Berlin Wall since I missed it when I tried. Now I had someone who knew where it was! When we got off the train, we got a currywurst each and some famous shop. I dunno, but it was good! Then we started off for the wall, but when the wrong direction... So much for knowing where he was going. But after a short right turn we randomly ended up at the wall! How convenient! It was cool I guess. I peeled a little of the wall off and Micah yelled at me, but then he realized it was just paint and then didn't care as much. There was at least an inch of paint on there. We thought the whole wall might have been made of paint, then we wondered how they did the first layer...

Well, after the wall, we found 2 playgrounds and played on them for a while. I like playgrounds, who says they're just for kids? Eh, I'm basically a kid anyway. Then more wandering around Berlin. After all the walking we were getting tired, thirsty, and bored of the area we were in so we decided to jump on the train to a new area. We also bought a Beck's Green Lemon beer. If you can call it a beer... But something unique to Germany (I think) is you can drink pretty much anywhere. On the street, the metro, bus, whatever! So we took around "beers" on the train and headed off. When we got off and walked a little, we ended up find a 2 Christmas markets. So we walked that for a while. I don't remember why, probably cuz we didn't have anything else to do but then we went into the mall next to the market and it had an awesome fountain in it. I probably can't describe it very well, so I won't try and leave you all in suspense!!! Eh, it's just a fountain, don't get all work up. I think we went to another place and found yet another market. On the day that we weren't even trying we found a bunch of nice markets! What's up with that?! Don't ask don't tell I guess.

After wandering around the market and smelling the good smells, we were getting hungry so headed to a German restaurant. I like to sample the local food, and I couldn't skip out on sausage, kraut, and beer now could I!? I got a brat with potatoes and kraut and apple strudel for dessert. It was all really good! Especially the kraut. I know! Since when have I liked kraut?! Does it matter? No. So it was a good meal and then we headed back to his place to relax the rest of the night away.

Since the market smelled so good before, we went back to indulge in some German market food. I got a half meter brat (long, but skinny), some pocket kabob type thing, and chocolate covered strawberries. All delicious. Then we went to his friend's apartment to watch some soccer. After the game was over, I noticed that he had a Sega Genesis (but over here it's called a Megadrive). So we busted that out and played Sonic 2 for a while, along with a few other games, but I like Sonic, so there. But that was a good time. We then went to a dance club and danced the night away. There were 2 floors; one was a normal type dance floor and music and the other was playing some techno polka stuff. I liked that one better. So it was a fun time too. Then we went back to his place because it was late and we were tired. Crash.

Saturday was a very laid back day. I spent the whole day reading The Green Mile and finished it. Micah was doing school work so there wasn't much to do. When we were both done we cooked up some dinner, yeah, it was pretty good, mostly because we can cook pretty good. Jealous? After that, we went to a party someone invited Micah to, I tagged along because I could. It was a pretty laid back party. I felt a little awkward though because of the language everyone there could speak at least 2 languages (minimum). But dancing is a universal language so I did that. It was another late night and I was heading to Brugges in the morning. Time for bed!

I woke up early (8am! Well, I have been sleeping in lately) got pack, said ciao and went to the station. It was a 9 hour ride to Brugges and for most of the trip I was facing backwards. I don't like to face backward! I get sick feeling... So I tried to ignore it and sleep but it was a long time to just sleep! I got in around 18h30 and went to find my hostel. The directions from online said to look on a map. How helpful. For some reason my compass wasn't working right or I wasn't reading it right because it took me far to long to get going in the right direction. So eventually after walking around most of the city, I found the hostel. After putting my stuff down I went to get dinner. I found a nice little restaurant not too far away and had a good little 3 course meal. Delightful! Sleepy.

The next morning after breakfast, I circled places I wanted to see on my map. I saw Michelangelo's Madonna statue and went on a beer tour. I also rented a bike but needed gloves so my hands wouldn't freeze so I picked up a nice pair that worked very well! After the tour I got some fries and headed out on what ended up being about a 40km bike ride. I rode from Brugges to the North Sea and back. It was a nice easy ride but I must have bruised my butt because I am not used to sitting in bike seats and I'm sure that one wasn't designed with distance riding in mind. When I got back, I went to a little cafe that was suggested on my map and got a huge bowl of spaghetti that made even me think that I should have gotten the small one. It was only 5.50 euro though! And I finished it pretty easily, after all, I had just rode 40km! I also got a cherry beer that was quite refreshing! Then I returned my bike, showered, and read (since I finished the Green Mile, Micah traded me one of his books) until I feel asleep.

Since I only have a few days left, I only spent 2 nights in Brugges before moving on to Brussels. I will only spend 2 nights here as well. Then Paris for one night then I will be back in the US of A. So I got into Brussels after a really short train ride (45 mins is much better than 40 hours) and found my hostel. After checking in, I walked around Brussels and I think I covered the whole city, so now I have to figure out what I'm gonna do tomorrow! Oh well, it's a nice city so I'm sure I can find something! Right now I'm gonna go find a restaurant and have some mussels for dinner! Should be delicious!

Czech This Out!

I bought a ticket to Prague there so I wouldn't have to deal with it later. Then I found my hostel without much trouble. I went to my room and ate some food I bought at Tesco after I got off the train. This hostel was called the 11th Hour Cinema Hostel because they had a large movie collection. When I was down there, someone put Family Guy on so I grabbed a bean bag chair and chilled for a while. I think I deserved it after my ordeal. I watched it for a few hours and when people came back from dinner, they asked "you're still here?" and "have you moved?". Whatever, I was comfy. The hostel also served hot wine which is one of my new favorite drinks. When they were first making it, it smelled like cookies! It was really good. Next, someone put on "No Country for Old Men", quite a strange but good movie. Yeah, that's about all I can say. A little gory though... Well anyway, when I went back to my room, some people who were watching the movie were there and said they were going on a cave tour tomorrow. Cool, I want to do that, and they said I could tag along with them. And tonight I got to sleep in a REAL BED!!! Good sleep.

In the morning I asked at the desk and paid. When they came down, we set off the walk the town for a bit before the tour started at 15h45. They were 4 people from Australia. Dan, Tom, Tom, and Teagan. After a bit of talk, I found out they were going to Berlin at the same time I would be there, so we would try to meet up there. 3:45 rolled around and we set off to the meeting point. Someone had told me the caving tours were cool and the tour guides start off being closed and quiet when you first meet them but when you get in the cave, they open up and are crazy. That's exactly what happened with ours. It was really funny because I could not understand half the stuff he said but that didn't matter. Before we got in the cave, we got suited with overalls and a helmet with a light on it! Sweet! Being in the cave was a lot of fun and I climbed around on all the rocks and had a good time crawling through the little spaces. I'd probably be a good spelunker because I'm so skinny!

Once back at the hostel, I didn't shower even though I was covered in cave dust, eh, I'm not trying to impress anyone. We got some more hot wine and watched Juno. It was really nice to have time to chill and watch a movie. Seems like I haven't gotten to do that in a long time. I said goodbye to them then because I would be getting up early to catch a train to Prague.

In the morning I walked to the metro and walked passed the ticket office without noticing it and ended up at the train, so I thought I would risk it and see if I got caught or not. Well, I got caught. And paid 6000 Fourint, about 30 dollars. Oh well, that's what you get! I caught the train to Prague just fine and made my way to that hostel. After I got settled in, I asked the reception where a good place to get some turkey would be. After all, today is Thanksgiving! I ended up at a place and ordered turkey stuffed with cheese and cranberries with a side of Bohemian potatoes and a Budweiser! Pretty good Thanksgiving dinner, and Czech Bud is really good. Too bad the US had to ruin the name...

The hostel I was at (Czech Inn) let you rent an unlimited public transportation pass for 70 crown, or about $2.50 so I did that. My first mission was to get breakfast which I did at a bakery. The next was to buy myself a sweatshirt. After looking around for a while, I decided that I would not be able to get a good sweatshirt, they were all too thin! So I went on a search for a jacket. I found one I liked at Tesco. It's comfy and warm. Kinda looks like a pilot's jacket. I also bought a new long sleeve shirt because all I had was my plaid and for some reason, people picked me out as American really easily. I don't know why. When I put this jacket on, I all of a sudden got a lot of people approaching me thinking I was Czech or a local or something. Guess it worked in that regard! Now that I had food in my belly and a warm jacket, I was ready to see the city! I took the tram to Prague's Castle and went in the Cathedral. That was big with a lot of cool stain glass. After a bit of wandering around there, I went to the mini Eiffel Tower next. Climbed to the top of that and got a good view of the city. Since it starts to get dark around 3, I started to walk back. I walked across St. George's bridge on the way back, neat thing, but I don't know much of the history there. While walking, I picked up a cup of hot wine for 35 crowns. Mmmm. Then I was getting hungry and wondering if it were dinner time, but it was only 16h30, so I got a kielbasa to hold me over. That was tasty! Except I dripped mustard everywhere... Finally after waiting, I found a restaurant and ordered an amazing mixed grill with sausage, duck, ham, turkey, bread and potato dumplings, and cabbage. I also got a side of cole slaw. Delicious dinner! Czech food is good!

The next day, November 29th, I got something I've been craving for a while: a real breakfast. My hostel served an all you can eat breakfast so I got 2 plates of eggs and break, 2 bowls of granola with yogurt, 4 glasses of OJ and some tea. So good, so full. Most of today was spent wandering the many markets because they are a fun place to be around. I saw St. Wenceslas' square, which isn't so much a square as a really long thing. After a day of walking, I went back to my hostel and went to a book store nearby and picked up a new book since I'm done with all the ones I bought in England. This time I got The Green Mile. We'll see how I like it. For dinner I got Goulash! Never had that before, but it was pretty good too. Well, now I'm not really gonna complain about food. I've come to have little peaks of what it's like to not have it. I'll take what I can get!

Again I had an awesome breakfast and set off to wander a while. Before I left I asked the front desk if there were any hockey games going on and after a little searching, we found one in town, sweet! One thing I really wanted to do was go to a Czech hockey game. The game was a 5 so back to the markets for a while where I bought myself a new hat! It's really warm an green! When 15h00 rolled around I made my way up to the arena and bought my ticket, 200 crowns (10 bucks) for a really great seat! When I got in, I got my first beer at a sporting event, a 30 crown bud, beer is so cheap! Gonna be weird to go back home... Then the game started and I was really happy because I haven't gotten to watch a hockey game for a really long time and I'm missing Wild and Falcon hockey right now! Aye aye aye. It was a good game and the home team won. One thing I noticed was the refs were not sissies. When there was a fight or something like that, they jumped right in the middle to break it up. Not like the NHL refs who watch it happen and don't interfere until they fall. I know, it' for the fans and what not, but still. Tough refs!

That was my last night in the hostel and in the morning I caught a train to Berlin. I changed my status on Facebook (for you who don't know what that is, don't worry, it's not important) to say I was going to Budapest. One of my friends from high school saw it and said he was making a trip to Budapest in December. I asked him if he was in Europe and turned out he is! He's got an apartment in Berlin and it letting me stay with him. So I'm on his computer typing this now and that makes it free!

Ok, I've been typing for a while because I had a lot to catch up on but now I'm gonna go catch up with him. Hope you enjoyed the read!

I'm Going Off the Rails on a Crazy Train

Hey there gang, how ya doing?! That's good to hear. So, where was I? Rethymno? Ok. Well, I ended up switching rooms because I didn't want to deal with that guy anymore and ended up with a room to myself the whole stay. Always a nice treat when you're staying in a hostel. My main reason for going to Greece was for the food. Did I mention that before? I don't remember, if I did, it's for reiteration, if not, it's for information. Anyway, I basically went around from day to day waiting for the next meal. Let's see what I ate: Lunch: Tzaziki, Wild Rabbit and a Mythos, first time I've had rabbit, it was good! and the tzaziki was good too. Dinner: A simple gyro plate and a Mythos, it was alright, didn't really care for the restaurant. Breakfast: Chocolate filled croissant and a cherry Danish. Lunch: Chicken Souvlaki in a pita, quite tasty. I ate it on some rocks by the water, a delightful lunch! Dinner: Stuffed Wine Leaves, Moussaka and a Mythos. The stuffed wine leaves was good, basically grape leaves with rice. Moussaka was good too, I'm gonna try to make that when I get home! Lunch: A gyro in a pita, simple but good. Dinner, since it was my last night, I treated myself: Greek Salad, Feta from the Oven, Chicken Souvlaki, and an Alfa. The feta has something like vegetable stew on it and it was super good! In case you didn't (k)no(w)tice, Mythos and Alfa are beers, Hellanic Lagers to be exact. I liked Mythos better than Alfa. So that was my food, and it was delicious!

Hmm, what else did I do there? Well, in Rethymno, there is a fortress so I wandered around that for a while. That was a cool little bit of old stuff. I also went on a hike around the city, and climbed a little mountain/hill. Twas a nice day around town. That night (Nov 21st, special day anyone?) I was to catch a ferry to Athens. It would take 8 hours and that is where my adventure begins........

I took a bus to the port which was about an hour from Rethymno and boarded the boat. I bought a deck ticket so I did not have a specified chair or room or anything. Just chill around the boat until we landed. It was an 8 hour ride over night. So I got on and went into a lounge and watched Demolition Man with Sly Stallone and Westley Snipes. Terribly awesome 80s movie. In the lounge, they would not let you lie down on the couches so I sat up the whole time. When the movie ended, I walked around to find a place I could lie down and sleep for a while. I found a covered area on the deck that people were sleeping on so I found a little piece of the couch for me and settled in for a few hours. I slept lightly because I wanted to be aware of what was going on around me. After a few hours I got a little chilly because all I had was my flannel and rain jacket on, not too warm. So I went inside and found a place on a stair landing (people were sleeping there too). I didn't like that though, I was too paranoid about someone walking by me or waking me up. After I was a little warmed up, I went back out on deck and we docked about 30mins later. So it was 5am in Athens. I had booked a hostel for one night so I wouldn't have to stress about getting in and out right away.

I found my hostel at about 8am and checked in and was oddly enough let into my room at that time. I found that strange because most hostels won't let you in until 1 or 2. But I wasn't complaining. I took a 2 hour nap because of obviously not sleeping well on the boat. From there I set off to see the Acropolis! That was really neat to see. I started off walking the park area around it and saw a few temples and other old stuff. Then I bought a ticket to go in and see the Parthenon for 6 euro. I snuck a 50% student discount from them, but I'm not sure if I really should have got one. It was really cool up there too but there is a lot of scaffolding on the Parthenon because of the big reconstruction process they are going through. Still, cool to see. As I was about to leave, the it started to clear up (it had been cloudy all day) so I took a few more pictures in the better light and explored more of the grounds. Pretty nifty stuff going on there. I ate lunch at some restaurant and got had the worst gyro I've had, so that was very disappointing. Oh well.

After all that, I went back to my hostel to use the internet to plan out the rest of my travels. After looking around a bit, I went to the train station to find a way to Budapest. After getting an itinerary and rough price, I went back to search for a better deal but didn't find any so I booked some hostels (Budapest and Prague) and went back to the train station. The itinerary went as follows: 23h00 Athens to Thessaloniki, 009 Thessaloniki to Bukuresti, 18h00 Bukuresti to Budapest. So according to that, I should have arrived in Budapest the next day in the evening. Well, I don't know my European geography very well so I didn't know how far it was or anything like that so I went with it. When I went back to the station to buy the ticket, the train that would leave for Thessaloniki tomorrow was full so I would have to take the one that left tonight if I were to stay on the schedule. Alright, whatever. I bought that ticket and cancelled my hostel, but it wasn't that bad. 10 euro for a nap, place to keep my bag and internet, I'll pay that. So I waited around until it was time to leave which took quite a long time. Finally I got on the train and found my seat. It ended up being a 7 hour ride that took all night.

At the next station I bought my ticket for Bukuresti that left at midnight that night. So I had all day to kill in Thessaloniki. The day was spent with me walking around with my pack on for a while until I went to a Starbucks and stayed there for about 6 hours. I read one of my books, The Lonely Hearts Club, cover to cover. Now, Thessaloniki was a nice town, but I didn't want to lug my bag around with me all day because that thing gets heavy! So I relaxed in a Starbucks. It was a nice time, I talked with a Greek couple for a little bit. Then I set off to find the train station again and wanted to hit up a grocery store to buy food for the ride. Well, it was a Sunday so all the stores had closed already... I ended up buying 2 sandwiches from the station, some pringles, cookies, and water. I ate half of that for dinner and the rest would be for lunch.

After a few more hours of waiting, I got on the train and found an empty compartment. After fiddling with the heat for a while, I figured it didn't work so put on an extra tshirt and pair of socks. It was really all I could do. So I huddled up using my bag as a pillow and went to sleep. When I woke up a few hours later, there was a Greek guy on the bench across from me. He woke up a little later and we talked for a while, mostly about how cold it was. Then, at his stop, they made everyone get off as they switched the cars, maybe because the heat wasn't working in the first one. Well, no I was alone and the heat still didn't work. So I went to sleep again to kill time. This time, when I woke up I was WARM! The sun had been shinning in on me while I was sleeping and made me nice and toasty warm! It was a very pretty ride through a ravine or something, so quite enjoyable. Except that it took 19 hours... So it ended up being my best and worst ride I've had, neat! I killed the rest of the time reading, sleeping, and throwing cards into a hat.

I got into Bukuresti at 7pm and went to buy my ticket for Budapest. I bought that ticket and the train left at 23h45. Well, this made me pretty upset and with the lack of sleep and food, it kinda got to me. There wasn't much I could do but wait so I went into the waiting room and caught up on my journal. While I was writing, a Romania lady started talking to me and we had a long conversation with a big language barrier. I don't know if it was because I was too tired to analyze it or I knew some of the Latin derivatives but I could understand a lot of what she was saying. She also kept says "supero" after everything she said. She kind reminded me of Aunt Gail because she was friendly, talkative, and looked similar. Well, at about 11 I went to get dinner and caught my train. I did not realize when I bought it, but I got a sleeper car. I probably would have declined because it costs more but oh well. It ended up being really nice. I was alone so could sleep without any disturbances and got a full night's sleep. I really needed it because I woke up feeling a lot calmer than I had the day before. So it was worth the extra money. Plus, it was the fanciest sleeper car I've seen. It looked like a cabin on a cruise ship just a lot smaller. So that was cool.

I finally made it to Budapest! I arrive at about 14h45 on November 25th. About 40 hours total on a train in 3 days. It had been 4 days since I slept in a proper bed, even though the last night was nice, I don't really consider it proper because it was on a train... And I had yet another lacking of food, but again, not on purpose, there was just no way for me to have known it would be so crazy. It's not what the guy at the first station told me. Whatever, I made it to Budapest and only lost 1 night of my 3 night booking.