Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Hungary for Buda...pest

Arriving in Budapest after a rather pleasant eight hour train journey I look at the weather and my map thinking that its a lovely day so I'll walk the 20 minutes to the hostel. Turns out George W Bush is in town so the Metro is closed anyway, stupid Americans. So about an hour later I'm sweating like a bastard as I buzz the door to what looks like an absolute shit-hole of a building. Nothing happens. I re-buzz. Again nothing happens. Giving up I take off my pack and sit down on the footpath exhausted. I'm thinking, not only have I booked the shittiest hostel in the world but they won't even open the door.

Moments later a woman pokes her head out of the door and says "Hello, come in" to me in English. I'm thinking eh what the hell it looks like a shit-hole but its probably cooler inside than out. After taking the worlds worst elevator one floor as its quite clear that I can hardly walk, I ignore the shittiness of the hallways and suddenly find myself in this beautiful apartment come hostel. Its practically a B&B!

I get offered a customary welcome drink, visions of iced fruit cocktails run through my head until I snap out of it when she, whose name turns out to be Silvia, comes back with a bottle of spirits and a couple of shot glasses. Explaining to me that its customary to have a drink with someone and I'm travelling alone she decides to have a drink with me. The drink itself scorches my already parched throat and my eyes water like a little girl, Silvia assures me that after a lie-down I'll feel great in 5 minutes.

True to her word in five minutes I'm feeling like a million dollars.

The evening is spent with some Americans, Theo and Morgan. We catch some dinner and I try the local goulash and fresh water trout, a local delicacy I'm assured. As I begin to eat I begin to realise that every city in Eastern Europe along the Danube claims that the goulash and fresh water trout is their own. Still, I'm not complaining as the meal is nice.

Wanting a taste of the Budapest night life we find a couple of young Scottish gals who are up for a good time. We hit the "beach party" clubs along the Danube where we all partake in dancing, drinking, sitting in huts, and general good times.

The morning is spent nursing a hangover, so with the women of Scotland in tow I check out the famous Hungarian Turkish style baths. Warning to all: In Europe fat ugly people exist too, and insist on exposing all that is fat and ugly about themselves, shudders and general feelings of fear will follow.
I have a night out with Bianca the Aussie and we eat at a fancy restaurant. Fancy because it just turned out that the only one we could find that served a main lacking meat was rather fancy, those vegetarians, tut tut tut. Still after downing the odd bottle or two of fine Hungarian red I wasn't complaining. A very civilised evening if I do say so myself, which of course I do.

As I am experiencing the phenomenon known as "travellers feet", whereby after a month or two of travelling your feet cease to function as normal due to the inordinate amount of blisters and general "walking my ass off every day", I decide to partake in a city bike tour.

The tour takes in all the major historical monuments and our friendly tour guide, in between dinging his bike bell at all the attractive women, explains the sobering fact that in Hungary's entire history it has never been on the winning side of a war.

Not really believing that our guide is telling the truth concerning the Hungarian custom of dinging ones bell at attractive women I can't argue with the fact that my dings are eliciting waves and smiles from women too. At this point another sobering thought wanders through my head, perhaps they are not waving at me but at my exorbitant amounts of foreign currency?

Back at the hostel I'm drinking with Bianca and Nick the Brit. Nick has an awesome public school boy accent and apparently speaks fluent Portuguese. Our friendly host Silvia directs us to the clubs worth visiting on a week night and I again find myself out with some Scottish birds, although different than the previous ones. We find a cool bar with table football and many awesome games are played. Hilariously because of the Hungarian currency being generally great the table football games cost approximately 4 cents NZ and beers about $1.50, oh and the girls got balloons too.

What a great city...

Check out the photos
here:

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Prague: City of Sexy Danger...

Like lonely planet says the night trains to Prague are for hardened travellers only. I catch the train with Scott the Aussie and we are with two Irish rugby players that are absolutely slaughtered and not finished drinking yet. One of them begins to freak out so badly that he hurls his clothes from the window of the moving train and decides that he wants to fight someone.

Cue Czech border guards who inform the Irish that there is no drinking on this train to which they reply, but we're Irish as if the Czech can understand. At this point 'naked Irish freaking out guy' gets the fight he wanted and the Czech border guards in their best broken English subdue him... oh and the gun pointing and punch in the face help too.

At this point using a Czech phrase I prepared earlier for such an occurrence I inform the Czech boarder guards that I'm not with them and flash that beautiful beautiful thing that is the New Zealand passport. This gets me and the Aussie out of the room and in to the next cabin where upon we spend the next two hours listening to the Irish get their bags and by the sounds of it, cavities searched.

After a eleven hour train journey that would've only taken nine hours I arrive in Prague exhausted with no accommodation at the busiest time of the year. Fortunately it only takes one hour to find a place. Note to all, never stay at a place called Golden Sickle or Golden Shit-hole as it shall now be known.

Prague itself is beautiful, the history and architecture blows me away. Just walking through the cobbled streets is pleasure and the famous Charles bridge lives up to expectation. Its a shame I ran out of batteries or I would've taken more pictures really.

I get some top shelf Czech vodka for about $12 NZD and polish it off with two American women from New Jersey. We get hammered and hit a massive club with 6 floors of all different kinds of music, The girls (Nicole and Anthea) proceed to pole dance often with me as the pole. Nicole decides that it is her duty to show me exactly what American, specifically "Jersey girls" can do and dirty dirty dancing ensues. Tourists and locals aghast but I'm hammered so I don't give a shit.

Loud porn star style sex follows where moves such as the reverse-cow-girl are flawlessly enacted while in an eight bedded dorm but everyone else was Canadian and therefore ever so polite.

We wander the city and catch some paddle boats on the river for an hour.

To apologise to the Canadians I get some more top shelf vodka and Scott the Aussie and I introduce them to Circle of Death. Three games later everyone is pretty hammered.
The Canadian boys head for the clubs but I'm in the mood to just chill so I go for a wander. On my return Anthea has injured herself while drunk believing that she was on the bottom bunk when in fact she was on the top. There is blood everywhere. I take a look and its just a flesh wound on her toe. Simpson's style calls of "I'll get the Iodine" occur, man I crack myself up. I clean and bandage her up and she promptly falls asleep.

Nicole is keen for more porn star style sex but I'm a bit tired and drunk but I think to myself "That's no excuse" and there is no stopping her anyway. Checking my watch 35 minutes later as I blow my load balls deep in her throat I'm thinking that Prague is awesome and I could really go a kebab right now.

Prauge photos
here:

Monday, June 19, 2006

Krakow... Beautiful...

After getting on the wrong train, i.e. first class instead of second and express train instead of slow train there is casual gun pointing and fines to pay, the fine is 10PLN and I ask if they have change for a hundred. I continue my journey to Krakow in style.

Ahhh Krakow... Beautiful, I'd fully recommend it to anyone, great night life, beautiful sites, castles and of course Auschwitz is an hour and a half away.

The hostel has a BBQ every night so despite already having enough Polish sausages to possible overdose I decide to go along, plus they have a pub quiz following.

I drink with some Canadian chicks and we get slaughtered on the hostel bar's 10 shots of polish vodka for 30PLN ($12NZD).

The following day I meet up with some Scots and an American and we go to a lake which used to be a quarry. The women are unbelievable and insane cliff diving ensues. Pity I didn't take the camera that day.

In the evening we all have a few beers and play pool at the hostel, surprisingly I take everyone to school. A relatively quiet night because the next day we're going to Auschwitz.

Auschwitz is... well its un-be-fucken-leavable, you can literally feel the personal hell of the people that died there. Everything is presented so matter of fact, from the bullet holes of the firing squad to the scratching of the names on the wall.

Auschwitz II - Birkenau is completely different, the scale is much bigger the numbers are much bigger, its more of a production line of death and appears to be less personal. As far as the eye can see there are the chimneys of the huts that housed people while they waited to die. There are two separate ash piles with small signs. Its quite hard to comprehend "Here lie the ashes of approximately Six hundred thousand people".

Back at the hostel the next day I wandered in to a massive Catholic procession. It turns out that it is a national holiday today and I run in to some school kids that I met in Warsaw who are on a class trip, they are keen to chat and tell me whats going on.

I go to a resturant and have a big night out on the town with some Danes and Swedes. I have a paticulary "good time" with a curly haired Swedish blond called Elana. I take her to the lake the next day and we get caught in the rain on the way back.
Scott Anne Elana and unpronouncable name girl
Check out all the photos here:

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Warsaw Poland: What the hell…

Arriving in Poland via air I get a very reasonably priced taxi to the hostel. I have a random night out with some Irish guys. We go to a club that is full to the brim of beautiful women, at this point I realise that Poland has no men, apparently according to the Irish all the men are in Ireland working.

I meet a hot hot hot local girl called Nap or Lap or some other single syllable name and take her for coffee, dinner and dancing, she is obvisouly blown away by my cosmopolitian ways and likes me for some strange reason, hey I'm not complaining. The next morning she says she wants to meet up later on so we can spend another day together. I wander through the hostel gates and there she is in all her hotness with... her mother. Mother and daughter smile at me and Mother says "You marriage". At this point I start freaking and politlely decline. Damn woman, I'm not ready for that kinda commitment!

The next day is spent wandering the city and then come dinner time I met an Aussie and a Canadian travelling together who are keen to go get a bite to eat. We go to a restaurant called Sphinx and eat heaps of fancy food and drink heaps of Polish beer and vodka. I’m dreading the bill but it turns out that everything is amazingly cheap here. Quite simply, we have a fantastic night out.

Belinda Courtney and I wander the town coming across an awesome park full of naked Greek statues, do I hear a photo-op? We see Poland's tomb of the unknown soldier and its at this point I realise that since 900AD Poland has pretty much been at war every 50 years or so.
The old town square is beautiful, after world war two it was utterly destroyed but they rebuilt it lovingly brick by brick. The weather gods are far too kind cause I’m sweating like a bastard and surrounded by oceans of beautiful women. The evening is spent drinking in the hostel with Belinda, Courtney and Rob the English guy.

The next day I check out the parks and museums and monuments. Suddenly I realise that there is a huge amount of cops with full on riot shield gear. I’m getting a little worried as I have no idea what is going on so I decide to head for the safety of the hostel. The problem is the more I walk the bigger the police presence. Once fear has reached all time highs I walk around a corner to the tune of Like a Virgin by Madonna which is blasting from somewhere. I’m so confused and I’m thinking that this is the biggest practical joke ever when I stumble upon what appears to be Poland's first Gay-pride peace march… Thanking the lord follows as I can be pretty sure that these guys aren’t going to cause trouble and the police are only there because Poland is a hard-core catholic state that is paranoid about such things. A few trannies on the back of a truck pass by rather harmlessly and all is well in the world again.

I see an Arthur Miller play in Polish for cheap. The unfortunate thing is that I speak three words of Polish and I can’t even guess which play it is so I pretty much have to guess at the story. Glad I went though.

Belinda and I go for a drink and play some pool, we get some even cheaper beers from the Supermarket and drink in the park on a grassy mound. We hit a jazz bar and drink and dance the night away. I experience the local vodka which is drunk with apple juice, I decide that I like it very much.

I check out the Jewish cemetery and its very airy. Some of the graves that pre-date World War have obvious bullet holes.

All the photos are here:

And that's Warsaw, hope your’re happy I’ve updated now mum ;-)

Monday, June 05, 2006

Gettin bark ta beer-sics…

Had a few beers in Maida Vale with Mike, Sylvie, Sion and Jane, Sion as it turned out had a few too many, it seems Jane will never live it down.. Poor Sion, all he needs is a good cuddle.

So after a semi-big night out I set off quite hung over towards London Euston station to catch a train to Birmingham. The train is one of those fancy new fangled devices that leans in to the corners, and as a bonus I eventually saw some actual grass, it was green too.

For those that don’t know, Birmingham is the ugliest city in the world, it’s so backward the only colour that has reached this so-called modern world is brown, though to their credit it’s obvious that they have splashed out on the odd different hue of brown. Fortunately as it turns out Andy lives about an hour away from it in Lichfield which turns out to be a nicer area and the houses aren’t all joined together which is a nice change from the rest of England.

So the guys sit down to watch some football or soccer, I take my leave and have a snooze, football as it turns out IS good for something. We start BBQing and drinking the second shittiest beer after Lion Red in the world, yes that’s right Fosters.

Games of football and touch rugby follow, playing rugby and passing backwards turns out to be too much of a mind job for Harv who insists on running over the touch line and expecting people to pass him the ball.

A guy turns up dressed as a punk rocker and I think ‘eh what the hell, this is England after all’ until he says “how come no one else dressed up too?” Turns out that the English have practical jokes too.

Oh yeah there was an Irish guy too.

I was beginning to wonder if Andy had any female friends at all when some eventually turn up though clearly not enough to go around, jokes about going to France to see the Eiffel tower ensue.

We toast marshmallows on the BBQ and rip in to the spirits eventually settling down to bed Andy’s sister, I mean settling down in Andy’s sisters bed – ahh semantics - for a well earned sleep about 3am.

The journey back to London is rather uneventful though it is notable for a win to Sion over Jane at chess. Gratuitous fist pumping resulted.

Well I’m off to Poland tonight and I’m frantically trying to simultaneously learn Polish and read everything there is to know about Poland as I currently know nothing except what there is to know concerning WW2. At this stage pretty sure that mentioning the war or fraternising with Germans and Russians is not a good thing… will keep you updated.

Over and out…

Check out all the photos
here: