Bratislava and Krakow.

Bratislava – Make your own fun. One of the more boring cities we’ll visit on our trip, but that isn’t to say that we didn’t have a great time. As the slogan suggests, you have to go out looking for fun, but you can find it. We arrived to a bit of a bumpy start; the 10 minutes it was supposed to take to get to the hostel turned into about an hour, due our difficulty in telling the difference between a bus and a tram (no we’re not actually that retarded, the bus did look a little like a tram). Anyway, from the lack of tourists and abundance of strange stares we got we figured this stop might have been a mistake. A wander around the city the next day however proved that the city is actualy quite nice, with a nice view from a hilltop castle and the fact everything was cheap as chips.

So I’ll try not to bore you with too many details, but that night we met a couple of dutchies and a couple of english guys and all went out for a drink or two. We got a few more strange stares in our first bar when the shot we ordered with out first beer turned out to be eggnog, not quite the usual party starter. We hit up the best club in town, which we were convinced was playing ‘So Fresh; the hits of summer 2004’ from a CD player behind the bar. But the night got better, and reached a climax when we found a trolley at the top of a small hill and we [I] thought a good bit of trolley surfing would be reasonably harmless. The police that pulled us over just as I hit a curb and fell out didn’t seem to think so. They checked our ID’s, muttered something under their breath (I assume it was something along the lines of ‘bloody tourists’) then burned off. The ‘almost get arrested by european police’ box has now been ticked. What menaces to society we are.

Then, after sleeping through 3 alarms the next morning, we finally got up and caught 3 trains to Krakow. Unlike Bratislava, Krakow rocks. Cheaper, cooler, more to see and do, and our hostel was one of the best I’ve stayed at, Soph spent the best part of the next two days ranting about the all you can eat breakfast (?). Spent half a day wandering around the city, and the other half at Auschwitz, which was heavy man. Also, turns out that if you buy the cheapest antihistamines from a chemist, they might not be non-drowsy. I fell asleep at 2pm. Then on the train on the way back we made a new friend who we named Trent from Poland (a play on words from the youtube character ‘Trent from punchy’, for the foreign or youtube n00bs). After singing an amazingly enthusiastic rendition of the sex pistols, complete with lap drums and vocals, he prodecded to strip and show us his stomach tattoo’s, then left dragging his cap on the ground via a piece of gum attached to his arse. Classy stuff.
I miss Trent from Poland.

That evening we had a rendevouz with Hugh in Krakow and went for a beer, and this morning we set off for a marathon 10 hours of trains to get to Budapest, where we have booked a hostel called Grandio Party Hostel that suggests if you intend to sleep before 3am, you should drink enough to pass out. Should be an interesting night to say the least. So I’m in the waiting room of a train station, waiting for a train that may or may not be 50 minutes late (if only I could understand Czech). Getting on a train, then finding out where it’s going seems to be the order of events now. We, like, totally know what we’re doing.

Dusseldorf, the Love Parade, and Soph.

Righto. So I left Paris at 5 in the arvo after splitting with Hugh, and travelled up do Dusseldorf in Germany. So I got to my hostel, only to find no staff there whatsoever, but istead a group of drunk Irish, English and Australians – so naturally I chilled out with them a bit and shared some stories. They were all there for the Love Parade in a couple of days time. More on that later.

So I spent the day walking around Dusseldorf by myself, checking out the sights and cool stuff like that; there is this tower 180 meters above sea level where the observation deck turns a full circle every day, kind of like the revoling reastaurant at the casino back home. Anyway, went up there to check out the view, which was pretty cool, then just wandered about the river, doing normal touristy stuff, untill that evening where I met Soph at the train station. Coool as. We went to our hostel, and had a beer and shared stories and photo’s for a fair bit.

Anyway, the next day was the interesting bit. Amazing and sad at the same time; I’m sure you’ve probably heard what happened at the Love Parade. 1.4 million people. Amazing atmosphere and vibe (up untill about 5 that evening), reasonably well organised and masses of people. It was supposed to be a free concert and parade celebrating love, with some of the worlds best DJ’s; apparently its the worlds biggest techno festival. As the photo’s on facebook show, the whole thing was surreal, I’ve never seen more people in one spot in my life. At one stage my pants ripped, but then a random german happened to have a sewing kit and fixed them for me, which was a pleasant surprise. But of course the tragedy that evening was the stampede in one of the tunnels leading to the stage area that left 19 (and counting) dead, and over a hundred injured. Scary stuff, had we left Dusseldorf a little later, we may well have been involved. Luckily though Soph, Gareth (an Aussie we befriended) and myself were all OK, we didn’t even realise what had happened untill later that night, around 11 o’clock. DJ’s were told to play on, so as not to cause another stampede of people leaving, but from the evening onwards, the crowds started to get smaller and smaller. Later that night, everyone was in a very solemn mood, masses of people on their phone to their mothers in reassurance they’re ok, police and ambulances EVERYWHERE. It was a pretty scary end to a night that had started off with the potential to be so amazing.

So Soph and I pulled an all nighter that night, having a marathon 3 hour facebook session in the early hours, untill we left Dusseldorf at 6 in the morning on our way to Prague for a night, and then on to Bratislava. About 2 hours ago, I fell asleep againt a door of the train, and when it stopped and the door opened I fell out. Sad christmas.

So I’m sitting on the ground in a corridor of the train, after having no sleep last night and not having had a huge amount at all to eat in the last 18 hours. To he honest, I’m pretty looking forward to a nice granny nap and a shower when we get to Prague, before we wander around the old town at night.

The whole experience of the Love Parade, for the good bits and the bad, will be one that will stick with me for life I’m sure.

Paris..

Paris.

The french have a sick obsession with pharmacies [excuse the pun], and zebra crossings are apparently purely for aesthetics. Pretty cool place though, pretty tame so far - have been wandering around with Hugh for a day now, visiting the must sees (Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame etc.). We also visitedit the museum of modern art, which tripped us both out. I can't begin to describe with words some of the 'exibits', including one that involved a dozen female actors dressed as snow whe, a couple of which holding machine guns, moving around a table with a dead deer on it. Yep. That's art.

I'm not sure where I'm going tomorrow which is exciting, if not a little worrying.

Pictures will be uploaded very soon.

In the beginning..

So I'm on a train down to London, and then on to a small town called Lewis where I'm meeting Hugh to have a Boags Premium or two and chat about footy. And then tomorrow morning it begins.

I've booked a train to Paris, and six weeks later, a flight back from Morocco. Time to work out what to do in between. I have unlimited trains, very limited money, and an overly heavy backpack that contains, amongst other things, an Australian cape, facepaint, and a sherrin - hopefully a foolproof recipe for an awesome European and North African adventure.

The only concrete plan I have so far is to be in Morocco on the 23rd August, to meet some friends who are skeptical I will actually turn up. So with virtually no plans, nothing booked, and a nice new shiny camera, I'm a day away from setting off. The trip is going to be intense with usually only 1 or 2 nights in each place, so (theoretically) I should have plenty of stories to blog about, which I will try and do regularly. I will also add photo's to facebook as I blog, so, if anyone other than my mum is actually reading this, you can check some of them out too.

Anyway, time to spend the next 3 and a half hours on a train, and play with my pretty new camera..