Dublin to Morocco

So I left off falling asleep after our first night in Kracow. We planned on going to Auchwitz the next morning but it just didn’t happen. Laura popped her head up around 9am ” Hey Ryan?” , “mmm” , “do you want to just to it tomorrow?”, “mmm”, “is that a yes or no?”, “yes”, ” ok”.

Oh, now I remember. Lenny Kravitz. We did some laundry, drank some beers and headed out to this free festival where Lenny Kravitz was playing. A lot of young polish people, most of them who didn’t know or care that Lenny was playing, we didn’t either. It is not like he totally sucks, he is just kinda boring, but he comes up with some good melodies and hooks or whatever. Honestly, yeah, he sucks. But it was free so…. we get to a hoard of people and we file in line with the cattle taking tiny steps to not step on anyones feet or go to fast or to slow. In the end it didnt really matter cause you just had to pretty much let your self go and you were literally carried along. I felt like a cow, but it was cozy. MOOOOO.

The stage was across the river and all the fans, well, people , were on the other side of the river. Shitty sound, umbrellas everywhere, raining, but I still liked it. We found a spot and stayed. Lenny gets on, plays a shitty song, waltzs around on stage pretending everyone cares about him and his shitty song. Barely any hooting or hollering, just people with a blank face trying to figure out what the hell was going on. You can tell everyone was thinking the same thing, ” come on dude, just play your 7 singles we hear on the radio and shut up with your other songs that didn’t make it on the radio for a reason, lenny,you’re a radio artist, stop it! enough!”

By the way, the older people of Kracow were pissed because this festival (which they have every year) cost a whole shitload of money and they wanted to keep it traditional by having polish dancers and polish bands. From what I’ve heard, Kracow wants to be “on the map” so they are barging through tradition and somehow came to the conclusion that Lenny Kravitz was gonna help them do this. Too funny. It’s like introducing a Big Wheel into a tricycle race.

Almost witnessed about 3 fights. We were practically squished like sardines, praying a cracker would come scoop us up. One fight consisted of some brute polish uglyass yelling at this girl trying pry her way up to the front of the crowd. It escalated, he grabbed her wrist and shook it violently while screaming at her. I guess this is how you do it in Poland. no one even noticed it I think, except Laura and I. So I thought to myself, I could just turn around and slap the bitch behind me with her elbow in my asshole….sweet..and get away with it…possibly with an applause. The girl kept yelling in his face, which I commended but at the same time was thinking just shut up you dumb twit, he’s gonna punch your lights out with his pinky! Nothing happened. Someone thought it was cute to throw around an umbrella while it was fully opened. So now we have people crowdsurfing an umbrella while people have a horrified look on there face because they fear for their eyeballs. There ya go Lenny, your concert is so lame that an umbrella is doing the crowdsurfing.

He plays his set and then briefly stops before his encore, which everyone knows is “are you gonna go my way”. He plays it, people bob there head…he stops. Before that he was talking about love and all this shit……”i know im all the way over here, but we have love connecting us” or some shit like that. All I could think at the time was ” you’re a fucking lunatic, really? reality check Lenny, how about you tell this whole crowd how you like to share your love with men?” I’m not sure if he practiced that or not but…anyway, he would get booed off the stage and possibly be ass raped by a gang of angry Polish Youth skinheads. “Feel the love now Lenny?” didn’t think so.

After his show, I witnessed one of the best fireworks displays I’ve ever seen. I thought up to that point I was disenchanted with fireworks but the first set they played to Clint Mansels “requiem for a dream”. It was beautiful. That song makes we want to cry every time I here it, and with it accompanied in sync with the fire works, I had to hold myself back….I’m not a pussy, fuck you!

Got back to the hostel. Had some drinks with some Polish people who were here for the concert, they said it was shitty too, but they had a good time. Nice people, kinda rude but I think I liked that about them. Asked me if I knew any polish? Dupa. means ass. I remember how my great grandmother would always say ” I’m gonna givya a spanking on your dupa”. I always thought was halarious..cause she was really no threat. They all laughed and asked what else I knew. I knew hi, thankyou, please…and a Bobby Vitton song that I grew up with thanks to my stepmother. “moya degroga yahey coha” they all looked puzzled and then laughed their asses off….thanks Bobby, you fucking moron. I had a pamphlet with me with some awkward phrases in polish on it. I asked one of the guys for a kiss in polish…..they didn’t find that too funny. They said I shouldn’t say that. So then I spouted off another phrase which was may I feel your butt? I got halfway through and they stopped me. It was all good. They left to go to their room where Laura was sleeping and soon be woken up by their rudeness. She was pissed.

Met another Alex who was from London, said we could stay at his place when we are there. Went to bed. Went to Auschwitz.

I knew what to expect, but I didn’t realize how emotionally draining it was going to be. It is one thing to hear and read about it, it’s another to go into these rooms and showers and stoves and actually feel the heaviness of energy looming about. Laura and I split up and met up with each other when we were finished.

All of the pictures, inserts from survivors, piles of hair, piles of shoes, suitcases, torture rooms,and firing wall was a lot to take in. How could this have happened? I knew how, but are we really this brutal? Evidence points to yes. Could this happen again? It’s happened many times before, so I would say yes. Rowanda? If you are anyone who read outside of what public school taught us then you’d know that Hitler wasn’t the only one involved in this whole catasrophe. It was the ignorance of the german people and many other factors. Did you know one of the Nazi party contributors in finance was Ford. He was anti semetic. The brand Fanta was solely created to finance this. And guess who owns Auschwitz and many other parks and monuments around the world….Unesco. Look it up.

Left Kracow the next morning. About 5 in the morning a group of canadians came in and decided to have a party in our room. I was mad but I only like to chime in when a certain line is crossed and Laura I was sure was the one to bring it to that line. I could feel Laura’s agitation just below me in the bottom bunk. She gave them a toungue lashing and they started to harass her a little. I gave them a piece of mind as well…they later apologized… they were shouting things like “The Germans are coming!!!” and trying to wake this one guy up by shaking him and saying “andrew, where are the keys to the tank?”….i cracked a smile because it was funny but…i was tired and hated them at the moment so my smile quickly retreated. Laura brought the guy taking care of the hostile up to the room and those assholes pretended like they were sleeping…i wanted to burst out laughing but again I held it back. The hostel guy was like “they are sleeping, I can’t do anything”…..

Came to Wroclaw (pronounced vratslawf) by train. Met some entertaing older Spanish and English ladies who were sharing the same cabin as us. I helped them put their bags on the shelf and then they walked out to say bie to their family members they were leaving in kracow. I heard a commotion and the older lady yelled ” oh, she’s stuck!”.. I didn’t pay much mind cause i was thinking…”what the hell could she be possibly stuck in ? the door, toilet? ” I came around the corner and her fingers were stuck in the window. I have a sick mind so I almost laughed. I came to her aid and pushed down on the window…nothing..ok….well maybe I’ll push up..”oww”…ooops…not that…ok well her family were outside the window looking at me like “dumbass, help her”…. I finally yanked down enough so she could wriggle her fingers out…she was fine.

I like Wroclaw, small but cheery. nice hostel, kebab again, ummm…..gonna go out tonight. They have 50 gnomes here that are placed throughout the city..Laura was more enthused about finding them..she found 10. We still have two more days so maybe she’ll find the others. dumb gnomes. anyway. seen some churches..one of them was The Church of the Holy name of Jesus…ok..pretty redundant…it was a sight to look at though. Im not religious in that way but I do like to see the architecture of churches back in the day. Seen a huge painting of abattle between Russian and Polish armies..interesting.

Laura is gonna head out with me to the gay bar in Wroclaw….hence “gay bar” singular. alright..brain is mush…im hungry.

I have a Bon Jovi song stuck in my head “its my life” I beleive the video consisted of a bunch of 40 year old women jumping up and down possibly shouting at their parents still….im not sure…or.

Ok, so, I’ve decided to follow Laura’s lead and do one of these blogs for my trip. Hopefully I don’t bore the hell out of all of you.

Alright, I guess I’ll start from square one: leaving Chicago en route to Dublin, Ireland–uneventful to say the most of it. I think I was the youngest one on the whole plane minus the two rug rats sitting an aisle over and a couple of seats behind me. I was waiting for the bingo game to begin but unfortunately it had never came to fruition. Most of the conversations consisted of which five star hotel everyone was staying at. Here I was holding in a shit because of my weird fear of taking a dump on a plane: mainly because I don’t want to subject others to such a foul inhalation. But…..maybe I should……nah, I’ll wait until the airport where the bathroom doors go all the way to the ground, hell yeah…yes I’m weird. So, bored out of my mind I forced myself to sleep. I remember waking up halfway and noticing I had my mouth wide open and my face was turned toward the man next to me…..wonder what he thought about that….heard some giggling, repositioned my wedgie and went back to sleep.

Arrived in Dublin, smooth transition to the hostel I was staying at: Paddy’s. Had to wait to check into my room so I took a short walk around the city to get the feel of it. That’s how I like to travel, or one of the main reasons why I choose to travel. I can do without the museums, monuments and all the rest of the touristy things that you “should” do and see. I instead like to survey the environment of places, the feel of it, the different manners and facial expressions of the inhabitants and how they carry themselves…stuff like that….and of course the food…..men…ahem.

I expected Dublin to be more….lets say…Irish? I really don’t know what I was expecting, I wasn’t expecting leprachauns or rainbows everywhere, but…I don’t know. I enjoyed the vibe of Dublin though. Would have enjoyed it more if a sandwich from seven eleven didn’t cost 5 euro, but yeah, I’m overseas and not at work so why complain?……because the lousy bolagna sandwich cost me 5 euro damn it!! Well, actually it didn’t cost me anything, I didn’t buy it. Next.

It was nice being alone and having to do nothing and being on my own schedule. Went for a run along the Liffey and stopped to notice a swan swimming gracefully past a floating coke bottle and a dirty diaper a few yards away…..it seemed to sum things up pretty poetically: along with the beautiful comes the diapers….although that fucker of a swan has no qualms about ripping the flesh off your bony ass finger. Anyway, swans are gay.

Went out to a car called The George and a club called the Dragon. Nothing different about the gay life here than in Chicago really. Same shit. Nice people, but same shit. Danced, got drunk, got molested by a fag hag. Good times. Upon arriving to the Dragon one of the “straight” door men looked at me confusingly and with a smirk asked, ” you know this is a gay bar, right?”, thinking I was straight and lost. I fantasized about his two front teeth missing and replied, “yeah, why? whats up?” ” oh, well, alright, where you from? oh , Chicago? how about them cubs?” my mind was saying “fuck off” my lips said ” they suck”. sorry, to even it out the sox also suck too. there, now the war is settled. dear god.

Spent another day in Dublin, walked around a lot, shouldn’t have smoked those cigarettes the night before, but I believe everyone in Dublin smokes, so it helped ease my conscience. Spent the night in the airport and on my way to Berlin, Germany. I was nervous from hearing others talk about the language barrier with Germans and how hard it was to get from the airport to the city center. It was a piece of cake. Had a glass of milk with it too. dumb asses.

Berlin is huge, spread out quite a bit with a bunch of parks and a huge park inthe middle of it called the Tier Garten. Its equivalent would probably be Central Park in New York City, probably larger.

Ingested some curry wurst and a cheap bowl of lo mein noodles and then took a visit to the toilet: this trip to the toilet will become a common daily thing throughout the trip known as traveler shits. Just imagine your ass hole exploding over and over again!! or, imagine it puking chunky salsa in fountain form. ok, now that I have that out of the way. Maybe I should become a writer for a travelers guide….how about it?

I wasn’t supposed meet Laura until I came to prague about 5 days down the road but she was tired and wanted a sense of home so she came earlier, which was great. We did all the touristy things, which I actually enjoyed. Went on a free tour, learned some history: The fall of the Berlin Wall was an accident. Look it up.

Met a guy in our room from Luxemburg, smart guy. Went to the hostel bar, got drunk off only 3 beers cause I’m not a man according to the drunks in Europe. Oh well, I pay less suckers!! After 2 beers I came to the conclusion that he was a part of the CIA and was investigating me for my unfounded intelligence. What I don’t understand is, why they just don’t kill me now? Why wait until I get super powerful and take out the Illuminati? We’ll see.

“It’s what I mean, not what I say….mean…say”

Went out by myself to the bar scene. Was told by the bartender that I was in the more traditional, less lively part of Berlin and needed to head to East Berlin. So….with a few free beers in me I tried to do just that…but…I never arrived there….I remember thinking at the time how much I missed the cta…if only I could temporarily transport the cta to berlin for a night then I’d be fine. Got back to the hostel at around 6am.

We are going the cheap route and getting by on bread, peanut butter, jelly, salami, cheese, and apples. Oh yeah, potato salad, muesli, grilled tomato sandwiches.

Off to Prague. Thanks to my brother Ronnie for setting us up with one of his old frat buddies, Joe, who let us crash at his place for 3 days. Prague is easy on the eyes, cheap…reminded me of Italy even though I’ve never been there. Charles Bridge, Kebab, old town, astronomical clock similar to glockenspiels in Germany which was boring but whatever. Went on another free tour, decent. Biggest horse statue in Europe.

Went out with Joe our last night. Drank some beers, shot of Absinthe, didn’t sleep…went straight to the bus station, slept on the station floor after pigging out on McDonald’s. felt like shit nuggets…boarded bus…on our way to Budapest, Hungary.

I like Budapest….it was more open to breathe…great “vibe”. The hostel we stayed at was interesting. Every one I met there were great. You find smart people when you travel…I’ve noticed. When I’d meet others who speak 2 or 3 other languages including my own, I felt dumb. So..upon arriving in the states I will begin my extensive forge into learning Spanish, German, Polish, and whatever I can get my mind around. Still not exactly sure what I want to do with my major. I love psych but I also want to do sociology, music, quantum physics, history, minor in a language…..hmmm. Is there such thing as quadruple majoring? fuck it..i’ll just rob a bank and request the money in spanish, write a book in prison and upon my release I will have found out how to create a black hole for us all and delete all history.

“now don’t just call me pessimist, try and read between the lines, i can’t imagine why you wouldn’t welcome any change my friend, flush it down”

Went to a rave on some island in Budapest with some “mates” in our hostel. One from Wales and the other from London. I wasn’t too educated on Wales and wasn’t sure if it was a country or a state or province…..Alex was cool about it, didn’t take any offense. It is a country off the southwest side of England. Cardiff is the major city there.
The rave: jagermeister shots, beer, redbull vodkas, cigarettes (pall mall: my grandmother smokes those uglghhhh!!!) Got ripped off by the cabby on the way there, not on the way back though. Before we went to the rave we hit up a couple of bars, asked a girl there about the rave, she stated it was full of “shit people”. Went anyway out of defiance and an open mind for a good time……I could later see some sense into what she was saying but……shit people. nice

Went to the turkish baths which was a BLAZING time. Got fried, plunged into some very cold water, my nuts freaked out and went into hiding for a while. Seen some old dude wearing a speedo that was a couple sizes to big on hip….all I can say is “swing low, swing chariot”…..you’d think his wife would have helped him dress better to the occasion but her tits were practically being knocked around by her knees. next

Went out the next night with two swedes we met Jonathon and Malin, plus a lovely Austrian Claudia.and Alex and Dan from London. Good time….Unicum…Hungarian equivalent to Jeigermeister but nastier. The Hungarians used this liquor as a medicine….so I’ve heard. You are supposed to take sips of it..not shots.oh well. Good night..ended it with a gyro.

Went to one of the islands on the river with Laura, layed out in the park and watched couple all around us making out. People in Europe show a lot more displays of public affection…which I think is a good think. …. and then off in the woods we seen a couple fornicating under a blue blanket…how romantic. flies were biting my legs and biting ants had their way with me. Got some icecream, watched Borat….i wanna see bruno. Probably ten times better.

Got on the bus to Kracow, which is where I am now. The swedish guy Jonathon had been robbed twice in Kracow… 5 guys with knives….hmmm. Weird vibe in kracow. After an 8 hour bus ride with tv screen 8 inches in front of our faces and a dark tinted window to our right….we were trapped watching wedding crashers and some other movie with ashten kutcher…what a dweeb. Walked a long way to where we though our hostel was….well…they moved to another location…it was raining…but it was ok. ate some peirogis and had some beers and fell asleep. About to head out to a free festival where I believe Lenny Kravitz is playing but not totally sure if we heard it correctly….i thought the receptionist said “many concerts playing” and Laura swear she heard “Lenny Kravitz” We’ll see. “are you gonna go my way”?

Alright…sorry so long but I had a whole lot of catching up to do….let me know if you care? ha!

“until next time….tata”

Welcome to BootsnAll Travel Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!