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what the heck is this blog about?

This blog is for me to share with you all about the exciting adventures I am having while spending all my money on travel. When not sleeping in train stations and lugging a pack around you'll find me wishing I was, in the garden city of Christchurch, New Zealand. I'm an 20-something, wishing-I-still-was-one student, worth around 100 camels according to that guy in Morocco. Lucky enough to have already been on lots of global adventures but still looking for more countries to go to with unpronounceable names. On the right you can see my progress around the world. Blogs posts are grouped in countries and in different trips. The first block is from my 2006/2007 RTW trip, below that is my 2008 'overland trip', then lay travels since then. There is also links to all my photos, video's and trip expenses. Have a look around and please leave me a comment if you like what you read! *update* I am now living in London with a job that I love and taking a break from the travelling life, one day I will return but till then...

Getting Scammed…

November 7th, 2006

Every guide book warns you against scams in India, gives you all the details and I think theres no way I will EVER fall for that I’m way to on-to-it…but well welcome to India where the only way to get things done is some sort of scam.
But lucky for me my first story turns out good.
So to start off with, everything is all good as I meet this cool chick in the airport who’s sitting next to me on the plane. SO after no sleep and terrible movies we touch down early morning in New Delhi and set off together to find a hotel. Now after all the stories Im bracing myself for an onslaught of touts/taxis/beggars etc etc. After everything I’d heard I thought India would be worse than Bolivia, Peru, Zambia, Indonesia, Morrocco put together. But it was surprisingly calm, no touts/beggars and only the taxi we ordered. All good so far. We decide to head to the tourist district of Delhi abundance of guidebook recommended hotels, food places, shops where we can cloth ourselves in the neccesary India hippy outfit…it was all good. APart from apparently we got lost ended up at a tourist office where they helped us find a hotel.
“Is this Pahr Gangi?”
“yes yes yes”
“Really the main road?”
“yes yes yes”
“Well why can’t you find the hotel..its on the main road?”
“where the street number, no we need the block number, its a very big place…”

blah blah blah, anyway Im too tired to care we get into a nice room and I have a sleep. Only later do we discover we are not actually anywhere near Pahr Gangi but in some other area which tourists end up in when there taxis get ‘lost’ and ask for directions!
Great start!
But not to worry as the tourist office turns out to be full of a very cool, fun and mostly genuine guys who take the most excellent care of us. Im stll in Dehli and haven’t hardley been by myself at all. Jeanie the american chick heading off to the mountains the day after we arrived after we got a free car and driver for the day from them. Also I stayed in their free guest house, we went out for dinner and drinks in flasher places than europe…all pated for by them…been constantly entertained by their charming, flirtations and quintessentially India ways. Been cool hanging out the back of their office having Dahl for lunch and drinking endless cups of chai. I am just one of many girls and backpackers who spend more time in that office than actually in Delhi! One of the guys friends came with me today and took me around all these amazing places including this beautiful Ba’hai Lotus temple, pretty much a giant Lotus surrounded by all these gardens. Also an amazing tomb similar to the Tajh Mahal and then he took me through the back streets to this Mosque when he went to pray and I just kind of hung out watching which was amazing. Just people everywhere, men singing and playing drums, handing out food to beggars, women and kids coming and sharing their sweets with me…it was one of those amazing moments which I wish I could get on film but not right to take photos so will have to stay in my memory.

So i have been well looked after! almost too well as haven’t done anything by myself in 3 days! Tomorrow am heading off to travel a bit (catching a free lift with some english guys who hired a car from the tourist guys). So should be facing a few more challenges. But Delhi has been good, lifethreating rickshaw rides, so much to buy, already adopting my hippy India travellers clothes, amazing food amd amazingly friendly people. and its really not as bad as I thought It would be, I think Morrocco still holds the record as ‘the country where you get harrassed the most’
will see how many more scams I fall for though!

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I’m in India

November 6th, 2006

very quick post to say I arrived in India all safe and sound so far!
more exciting info to come and about to upload photos form eastern europe so check those out!

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theres something in the air. Amsterdam to London

November 6th, 2006

Amsterdam, the city of sin where all your drug and sex related dreams come true legally.
Jess, my lovely English friend who I worked with in London flew in for 3 nights to meet me which was great. By the time I arrived I was very tired and very sick so we had a relatively quite 3 days which was nice. It was pretty flippin cold the whole time so that did not make me too excited about getting out and doing stuff. I think people should hibernate in the winter, but at least it was making me look forward to India where it was bound to be warmer. Actually the whole October was really nice weather…just the Netherlands was a bit average. But anyway first night had a bit of a walk around and checked out the red-light district. Really bizarre and in your face prostitues. Have their little rooms with windows in which they hang out in most of them looking bored. Its all surprisingly unisexual and more matter-of-fact, definitely different from Manchester st back at home! Along with the interesting prostitutes and a lot of sex shops and live sex shows theres also Amsterdams other major draw card for backpackers….legal marijuana. They definitely have gone all out with this, and there are ‘coffee shops’ every few meters and a distinct smell pretty much everywhere. We found a shop will a whole lot of plants just growing in the corner. Its very weird that its all just so open coming from everywhere else where its illegal. So you need to be careful where you wander in looking for coffee and if your paying more than 3 euros for a muffin or brownie, well its probably got a few extra ingredients! There is more to Amsterdam though and we got to check out the big museum there, a flower market, a whole lot of very very cool shops, Anne Franks house which was amazing. Amsterdam is just a very cool city, very arty and cool. So many bikes and trams everywhere it is surprising that there aren’t more people killed on the streets!
The last night there I dragged Jess along to the sex museum, one of the more interesting museums I’ve been to! With porn photos through the ages, ancient sex toys, some interesting photos. Documentaries, a giant penis and mannequins that flash you….all very interesting and actually informative. Like the red light district it’s all very un-sexual, is on a main street and people don’t give you funny looks when you walk in (check out my photos). So yeah I really enjoyed Amsterdam, a cool easy to get around city, really nice canals everywhere and a cool vibe. I like how everyone in the Netherlands seem like that kind of hippys with lots of organic stuff and everyone using bikes, its cool. Which is good because while I was here I went a couple of hours north to check out a town with a uni that I want to do my post grad at in a couple of years.

Groningen and back to London
Doesn’t matter that I can’t even pronounce the name of the town but am very keen to do my masters here (yes its in English) So had a night here, its smaller than Amsterdam but not as obsessed with drugs and sex which is nice, only saw 1 coffee shop. The rest of the town is full of bikes, cute streets, cool shops, heaps of bars and café’s. The uni is right in the middle of town and just about everyone is a student. Stayed at a very quite youth hostel where I was the only one in a 18 bed dorm. And the staff probably were wondering what I was doing there. Didn’t arrive till late afternoon so just had a walk around, some food and poked around the uni which seemed cool. So altogether thumbs up for Groningen and hopefully I’ll end up here in a couple of years. The next day was my long journey back to London, decided to take the train-ferry-train combo as flights were expensive and sick of flying. Took 7 hours and got into central London at 9 but wasn’t a bad trip, nice ferry etc just long. Got the hell security check on arrival to the UK. They pulled aside random people and questioned us about what were we doing in Amsterdam, who did I talk to, Did I talk to anyone on the ferry, did I make any friends, why was I there, am I carrying any packages??? Was kind of expecting something like this after being in the weed capital of the world, but I got through OK, they didn’t find the 3 kilos of hash strapped to me…just kidding…but I’m sure some people try! So got into London and went to stay with Jess’s mum (Jess is studying in Glasgow now unis back) She lives right near the pub so picked up some stuff I’d left there, all new staff which was a bit weird. Had about a million things to do but didn’t get much of it done. Same with the morning, sent some stuff home and brought some supplys for India, rushed around like a crazy person then it was off to Heathrow for the next leg of the journey…6 weeks for India and Nepal…a bit of a change from Europe I’m guessing!

photos from the last 5 weeks are here:

Eastern Europe

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the worst journey ever

November 6th, 2006

So first I checked the train timetables on the internet leave at 7pm arrive at 9.30am. SO get there at 6pl but find out that it doesn’t leave until 10pm. A bit annoyed because could have gone out for tea with people from the night before but not too bad found a cool noodle bar and had another walk around town. So this train ride is OK, as good as it can be for an over-nighter, supposed to change trains at 7am in Frankfurt and it gets to about 6.50 and I’m hoping we are getting close. But no, train keeps randomly stopping, its around 7.30am in some place called Wurzburg and we have been stopped for the last 20mins when they tell us all to get off the train and another one is going to Frankfurt. So stumble sleepily off the first train and bump into this American guy who I meet in the thermal baths in Budapest, he lives in Amsterdam so we both jumped on this super flash high speed train going to Frankfurt. We workout that iff we don’t get off at Frankfurt we can get off at another place further on and make a 11am connection to Amsterdam. Perfect. Until the conductor tells me that being a high speed train I have to pay 21 euros to go any further the Frankfurt, 21 euros!!!! What’s the point in having a rail pass….so I refuse to pay and decide to get off at Frankfurt and try get a normal train from there. Say goodbye to my American friend who stays on the train and find information. “Quick, jump on this train to the other Frankfurt station and there’s a train leaving at 9am to Amsterdam, you should just make it” great, apart from the first train was late and I miss the Amsterdam one by about 3 mins. So back to information and he prints off a list of 5 trains I have to get to get there by 3….great so it will be a train tour of Germany. Right so I get on the first train, it’s a high speed one again and the conductor tells me I have to pay a surcharge…surely it cant be that much, but its 21 euros again!!!! Have to pay it so really could have stayed on the first train! So this train is late which means I miss the next connection. By this time I’m pretty pissed off as every train I’ve taken has been late! And haven’t slept properly for about 2 days now. I go and start half yelling half almost crying at the ticket lady about useless trains and paying surcharges. I think she felt sorry for me because I obviously looked awful so she said I could wait 4 hours and get a direct high speed train to Amsterdam and she’d exempt me from the surcharge…so that worked out OK, still had 4 hours to kill in Cologne so checked out a cool church and just mucked around. Finally arrived in Amsterdam at 5pm…22 hours after my original plan of leaving Prague at 7pm…worst journey ever, who ever said German trains were efficient?

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Living in a fairy tale

November 6th, 2006

Thanks to the train system giving me a whole 3 minutes to switch trains and the first train being 30 mins late I was forced to spend a few hours in a strange little town called Cesky Buda…..something. Thinking I could have stumbled upon an undiscovered town I went for a bit of a walk….I was wrong. Sometimes there’s a reason why you haven’t heard of somewhere. Well I finally arrived in Cesky Krumlov which is a couple of hours south west of Prague. Ended up at this amazing hostel. Only a few rooms and more like a big fun house than a hostel, really cool people working and a nice homely atmosphere. Ended up catching up with the boys after dinner where the entire hostel, including the staff come out. Another massive meal, good conversation, a crazy old Texan that sounded like a movie character. Krumlov really is like a little fairytale village, small streets cute little shops, a castle with a moat and real live grizzly bears living in it. Went to a pretty crazy bar that was ‘the horror bar’ skeletons, gothic waitresses, spider webs…all a bit weird!

Good to see the guys again and stayed up far to late at the hostel playing games, guitars and talking rubbish with them. Always cool to meet quality people that your able to spend a bit of time with! We were sad to see Sweet Chilly off the next day as he continues on to Germany. Me and Cameron both had another night and walked around the castle for a bit during the day, it really is a beautiful place, Particularly at this time of the year all the leaves that matched the colours of the houses, really really amazing, if I haven’t said that enough! I liked it much better than Prague, not so many tourists and a cool vibe to it. Would love to come back and hang out for a decent amount of time. The chick from the hostel even cooked us all apple strudel in the afternoon, I love this hostel! Another whole hostel dinner trip, another massive meal and a fun evening at the gypsy bar with a really cool live gypsy band playing the coolest music and all these crazy ladies dancing in this tiny bar tucked away down another cobblestone street. I love this place!

The next morning I cooked up a whole lot of French toast then managed to somehow lose my key (and key deposit along with it) leave my towel and all our food for the trip home there…..not such a good morning! Caught the bus back into Prague as decided it was a bit easier than risk the trains again, so got back into Prague around 4 to see all these people from the Krumlov house the night before at our hostel! Isn’t it weird how you can be in Europe traveling across countries and still manage to bump into people you know (well know in a traveling sense of the word that is!)

The weekend happened to be daylight savings- awesome-makes coming home at 6am all that better when you get an extra hours sleep! Saturday night in Prague, yes we did see a few stag/hen parties wandering the streets looking stupid….I promise myself that I will never do that, attend one or otherwise that involves going to a random European city dressed like an idiot. Had an amazing meal at the restaurant by our hostel again (the whole amazing meal thing really has been a trend since Krakow). Meet up with Krumlov girl and guys and had a walk around the Prague castle in the evening, pretty flippin amazing with all the lights, as cynical as I’m getting about church/castle type things, but this really was cool. After a futile search for a jazz bar we ended up at a few random places drinking strange drinks that you light on fire and too many things involving absinthe, the strongest of all alcohols.

Searched out the 5 story ‘biggest club in Europe’ which predictably turned out to be overpriced and overcommercialised. Still a very fun night and fantastic having an extra hour to sleep in and good to see the Prague street empty for once, was pretty cool to be almost the only ones on the Charles bridge normally choc full of people. So my last day in Prague, had checked out so nowhere to sleep which I probably would have done if I had a bed. Instead walked around the old town a bit more, got caught in the rain but found a cool exhibition of aerial shots from all over the world. Quite a few from India which made me excited, less than a week!

So I said goodbye to Cameron and went off to the train station in an attempt to get on the overnight train to Amsterdam, turned out to be the worst journey ever and deserved its only special entry.

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Prague

November 6th, 2006

Prague was one of those places I’d been looking forward to, I guess I’d just heard so much cool stuff about it, I’d also heard how the place was over run with tourists and sometimes seems a bit commercial and ‘sell-out’. As much as I like the city I did feel it falls into the later category…not all the time mind you just daytimes, especially weekends. The best way to enjoy Prague I found was at around 4am when your just about the only people on the streets!

Anyway I did have a good few days there, once arriving myself and Cameron went off to a hostel leaving Boris to find his hippy boathouse place somewhere on a river. The hostel was really cool, a tram ride away from the town centre but no big deal as escaping the tourist crush of the old town is definitely a good thing. And the hostel had the biggest, comfiest beds with massive pillows and duvets, after the overnight train it was heavenly! So caught up on a couple of hours sleep before heading into town to find our good friend sweet chillie. Feeling cultural like always we ended up trekking across town in order to find some bar we had heard was good. Of course it turned out to be closed ( I guess it was 1.30 in the afternoon) so we spent a nice afternoon in a park frolicking in the autumn leaves, and taking cheesy photos. Despite being a bit colder it really is a good time to travel, not as many tourists and its mostly sunny and pretty amazing looking with all the leaves and autumn colours. So yes we really did frolic in the autumn leaves….is there a son with that line?

Chilled out at the hostel before meeting up with Boris at this awesome restaurant right next to our hostel. It really did have amazing food, so to continue my trend of eating ridiculous amounts every day. Dinner conversations was about as polite as you can imagine for 3 guys and me in the middle….always interesting and I think got worse over the next few days…boys….

We did end up going to the coolest club I;ve ever seen later that night. It’s made out of crazy car junk all welded together to create different levels and rooms. Very very funky and there was a totally insane band playing with lead singer dressed as a super hero and one girl in bondage gear, pretty much what you’d imagine from an underground eastern European band.

Against all my moral travel ways I joined the hostels walking tour the next day to actually see a bit more of Prague than a park. Basically there is this eccentric crazy old guy that lives in the hostel giving walking tour because he had a tu our in his leg and walking in good for it….very weird but despite all his crazyness he’s quite a cool guy..in weird sort of way. He’s German or something and is an exprofessor and hates tourists. Detirmined to show us the ‘real Prague’ (an illusive goal of every tour operater) and abuse as many tourists along the way we set off first to watch everyone else watching the famous astrological clock. Made by a guy who later had his eyes gorged out to avoid making anything as beautiful again. We stood right underneath and watched with perfect timing as Stephan cued in the cameras, the late comers running and the clapping. All a very odd sight and unbelievable amounts of people there every hour to see the clock do its thing ( I missed that thing as was too busy laughing at everyone else). Stephan taught us a lot about the history of the town, showed us the back streets, it felt very much like a university trip! The only thing you needed to know was to NEVER argue with him though as he seemed incapable of people having different opinions, one very funny argument was with a random girl about John Lennon’s contribution to peace. We all walked away very slowly… SO with Sweet Chilly and Cameron already headed to Cesky Krumlov I met up with some other people from Krakow including an American chick who studies film in Prague. Do you know that there are something like 69 000 Americans in Prague? We went out with a whole lot of her film school friends for another amazing meal and a few drinks at some cool bars. So 2 nights in Prague and the next day it was off to see the boys in Cesky Krumlov, a place mentioned in Lonely Planet as the next big thing…so was I early enough to beat the onslaught on tourists that are sure to follow any Lonely Planet recommendation?

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salt anyone?

November 2nd, 2006

So I find myself yet again surrounded by an inordinate amount of salt. The first time being the salt flats in Bolivia now this time 100’s of meters underground in salt mines just outside of Krakow. Myself, Laura (american chick), Matt (Lauras friend, aussie living in UK) and sweet chillie philly (American guy from Philidelphia, hence the name. Ended up spending the next week or so with him and a few others) caught the bus out to who-knows-where to check out these mines. Luckily we arrived just in time to jump in with the english tour and started a very long descent into the mines which are only used now for tourists. These mines were a lot different from Bolivian silver mines as I could actually stand, breath and see (all very good things). So we wandered aroud these very old mine shafts where they used to mine salt and it seems they must have had a bit of time on their hands as the workers carved lots of stuff out of salt. It doesnt look like white powdery salt, more like a greeny rock. So there are statues and churches carved out of this salt stuff. The most impressive being a massive chapel made entirely out of sat, including chandeliers, tiles floors, a copy of ‘the last supper’ and to top it all off a life sized statue of the pope! They even hold weddings in there! Its just so impressive cause you literally are right underground and theres all this stuff, and massive halls and gift shops, toilets even a restaurant, bar and function room. Its a bit surreal but very very cool, despite a bit chessy. So we spent a bit of time under ground checking all this out, licking the walls (yep they do taste salty) and had some food before catching the scaryist lift in the world back up to the surface.

Back in town we met up with Cameron and Boris and went to the greatest Polish restaurant ever. Its all just so cheap! So had a massive amount of food, all very heavy Polish food, fish, potatoes and my favourite perogies which are like little dumpling things filled with good stuff, we had fruit ones, cheese ones…so many perogies…I think I just like the word!

Sweet Chillie Philly headed off to Prague on the overnight train with some other chicks we’d meet and the rest of us went to a few bars before heading home. Last day was spent at Aushwitz as explained, dinner again at the Polish place then myself, Cameron and Boris took the long overnight train to Prague. After all the dodgy stories I’d heard of this train ride it was nice to have some people to travel with! Cameron even had a guitar so we spent a lot of the evening singing Radiohead very loudly and trying to get a bit of sleep. We arrived in Prague 7am with all of our belongings which is all ways good! another day another country, another language, another crazy currency….

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Lets get depressed

November 1st, 2006

Its kind of weird asking people if Aushwitz was good, its like well yeah its worth going to but good? How can a death camp be good, and so why do we all go out there for a day trip? Surely we want to have fun on our travels rather than depress ourselves….this is kind of what I was thinking as I sat on a bus out to the largest concentration camp which is in Poland just outside of Krakow. It was my last day in Krakow and kind had been putting it off as didnt seem like a very fun sort of thing to be doing but here I was underneath the infamous gates “Work will set you free”.

I had meet up with a couple of the guys Id meet in Budapest so luckily wasnt out there on my own, despite all the warnings I somehow got tricked into doing a tour which rushed through the camp and didn’t really leave much time to think about what had actually happened there. Basically there are 2 camps, Aushwitz 1 and Aushwitz-Berkenau, the 2nd being much bigger but mostly destroyed by the Nazis trying to cover up the evidence…”No these are gas chambers theyre…showers….and of course we didnt put 400 people in these horse stabels designed for 50 horses….” I guess the mass graves kind of gave it away though. The never ending rows of chimneys give you an idea of the scale of stuff. Aushwitz 1 is mostly intact and you can walk right through the gas chambers and past where they would cremate all the bodies. The buildings had lots of displays in them which was quite interesting and also a bit scary like the whole room full of hair thet was shaved off the prisoners and massive piles of shoes, suitcases and other things confiscated. All the barbed wire is still up and even part of the wall where they would shot people in front of, made of special stuff to absorb the sound. Its all very freaky and at berkinea theres still the train track going right into the camp and you stand in the exact spot where they would select those to work and those to go off to ‘have a shower’, and at that spot theres a picture taken of this all happening and you can see the railway tracks and the buildins…all a bit weird.
So great way to make yourself feel bad but still think it was good to go check it out. The whole area seems to still be feeling the affects of the war and theres lots of monuments etc dedicated to those who died.

Other than that krakow in Poland was all fun! Arrived at 5.45am go totally lost in a park trying to find the hostel..again in the dark not so safe! But eventually found it and meet 2 guys from the last hostel plus a whole lot of other cool people. The hostel was in a great location, right on the main square so after a bit of food I forced myself to stay awke and checked out the town. Krakow is really cool, something like 6oo bars all built in basements all over the city and a beautiful and very big main square. Theres also a big castle on a hill so I had a bit of a walk around there and through the underground caves that were secrete passages. And theres a bit statue of a dragon that breathes real fire!

Ended up drinking a bit of polish vodka before going to a few funky bars in the evening but not to much of a late night as a few of us were going to visit the salt mines the next day.

So will continue Krakow a bit later as need to get off the internet now. Am in Amsterdam though at the moment and leaving for India on saturday! really excited about that! Unfortunatly have gotten sick again!! could be going out every night and catching too many overnight trains…hopefully Ill be better for India! and lots of photos will be coming by the weekend when ive got time to sit down and sort them all out.

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Hungry?

October 27th, 2006

OK so it seems Im getting prtty useless at this blog thing…havnt been updating it for over a week now…I knw Im slack but on the up side it means Im having far too good a time to waste it on the internet, in fact why am i writing now when its a beautiful day outside? Well anyway I better catch up at some point otherwise I never will….

So Hungary…a wee while a ago but flippin awesome place. I really dont know where people get these ideas that eastern europe is dodgy from Budapest is an amazing city, safe, pretty and heaps to do. It helped I stayed at the coolest hostel in the world and meet lots of fun people..in fact I saw less of the city than intended as hung out in the hostel way too much. The thing with this place is that its like a home, small, cosy and everyone is friendly and the owners have travelled everywhere so heaps of cool stuff. Theres a funky outdoor area, crazy rooms like the Bob Marley room and hundreds of dvds…very cool. I of course got lost going there and ended up in a park in the dark by myself…but made it eventually, it was a bit far out of town but not too much of an issue.
So yeah Budapest was awesome, meet a fantastic Canadian guy who I hung out with for the first day, we checked out the city, some funky buildings a really nice park then hung out in the thermal baths for a good few hours. Hungary is full of these thermal baths and theyre nt Hamner springs…far better, like heaps of different sorts, indoor/outdoor, saunas, spas, crazy bubble jets, lazy rivers…so exciting. And old men take chess there and play on stone tables set in the pools. Its very cool and set in beautiful buildings. A great way to spend the afternoon. Now the probablem with the great the greatest hostel in the world is that you never want to leave, some people we meet planned on a couple of nights and were there for over a week and its hard to go out when its fun at home! So despite our best intentions me and Mark (canadian) stayed at home. Luckily for me he was anexcellent cook and cooked me an awesome meal! So we sat around with a great bunch of people untill 5am and had one the funniest nights of my trip. Eddie from Miami and Des from Singapore, you guys are awesome! (this is a pen, a what? a pen!). Once I managed to drag myself out of bed I headed to the house of terror which is like a museum in the old Nazi/Communist headquaters. Compleate with torture chambers , its all pretty freaky but very interesting about Hungarys crazy history. Also headed up to see Budapests palaces which were all very nice, in the evening the whole city is lit up and is so amazing, reminds me of Paris, definitly one of my new favourite cities! After another great pasta meal a group of us managed to break free from the strongholds of the hostel and head into town to a funky bar where we danced the night away. After a long and fruitless search for Kebabs (we’re in europe at 4am and cant find kebabs?) we ended up waking the hour home taking a few crazy photos on the way and breaking for a spontaneous hopscotch game. So another lazy morning…had a bit of look arund some markets and watched a bit of TV before jumping on an overnight train to Krakow in Poland where I was hoping to find some guys from Budapest who had left the night before….and I did and am still with some of them in Czech now!

Budapest, great times and will go back just to hang out more at this hostel. Backpackers guesthouse for those who want to kow..go there now!

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behind the iron curtain

October 22nd, 2006

For some reason I had this idea that once I got to Eastern Europe everything would be better, because i was feeling a bit over Europe and just wanted to get into India, but actually Ive had a great week since I got out of the euro countries and into the post communist world of easten europe. Its funny because you hear all these stories that its all dangerous over this side etc etc but to be honest I feel safer in most of these cities than Italy and its all much cleaner and nicer, I guess I haven’t been seeing too much of the countries but still…

anway Bratislava is in Slovakia, a bit of a random stopver on the way to Hungary, only an hour from Vienna so why not? Hostel seemed pretty cool and arrived early enough to have a walk around town, pretty small had a nice old town area with lots of little cafes and shops. All very ‘nice’, did have to best hot chocolate in the world then headed to a Art Gallery where I think I was the only person there. A bit strange as there is soooo many staff that all kind of followed me the whole time but it was cool. A cool photography exhibition about rural Czech and some funky modern stuff. Found a supermarket on the way home and brought a bit of stuf for tea and headed back to the hostel. Got talking to a group of guys from my bunkroom (I think I was the only female in the hostel) and the 6 of us ended up forming a bit of a tight group over the next couple of days and they even conviced me to stay another night! So Bratislava ended up being a lot more fun than i thought!
3 super cool aussies (yeah they do exist sometimes) a lovely Canadien and this crazy American who is in the military and jumps out of planes to rescue people in Iraq….totally insane stories. So the first night we hung out at the hostel for a bit then headed out to try find something to do on a Sunday night in a very quiet town. Ended up at some cool bars and made friends with crazy Slovakian guys then followed some chicks to a club that had a slide! Not too many people there but still had a good night. Next day just slept in and wandered around a bit aimlessly, had some food, hung out by the mighty Danube river, but was fun, always is with a good group of people. On the way home we stopped and brought food to make a massive dinner for that night so back at the hostel we cooked up an awesome dinner with pasta, chicken compleate with a ful set table, wine and candles. it was super cool! one of the best hostel dinners Ive had. After that we headed out again to a very local type pub where this guy was playing cool Slovakian songs on his guitar! Played cards, drunk stupidly cheap beer until we got kicked out. Went to a few other places and meet some randoms. All in all another fun night…but again not much sleep. The next moring we were all heading off in seperat directions so after procastinating about leaving cause I was too lazy I eventually went off to catch the train to Budapest. So randomly fun time in Bratislava!

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