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May 12 Frankfurt and MunichI ended up heading back to Frankfurt to catch up with the friends I made in Berlin. I see why they like to go to Berlin, cause there really isnt much to do in Frankfurt.
I spent most of my time sitting by the main river, people watching in the sun. Theres not really much else to see in Frankfurt except a whole lot of banks and a big train station! They did issue the euro here though. Wow.
Caught up with my friends a couple of times, and managed to go out on my last night which was good fun but not very busy. Unfortunately they were sick on the day I got in so I didnt get to see them as much as I would have wanted to! Ariane, Anke and Ollie, you will have to come to Australia so we can catch up again!
The german police accosted me on the street, and searched me for drugs. It was really scary, even though I knew I didnt have anything on me. Really didnt want to end up in a german gaol for no reason hahaha.
From Frankfurt I travelled to Munich for a couple of days, which is an amazing Bavarian city full of bmws, leiderhosen, beer gardens and beautiful german women. The weather was great in Munich, and we spent most of our time in the sun drinking german beer and you guessed it, people watching. There is some amazing architecture in this city too, most of it recently restored after WWII bombings. Should have some great photos of the city up soon! It is amazing. May 06 HollandWell... picking up where we left off. I had landed in Amsterdam and some dodgy guy on the street helped me find a hostel. Thank goodness. I was told that there was only one hostel with rooms left in all of Amsterdam because of Konnoningenday (Queens Day, I hope the spelling is right Madous!). And you could really see why this place had rooms left. The sheets were dirty, ripped, the rooms smelt of feet and cigarettes, and there was a stray black cat that would walk around trying to eat your food.
I had booked there until the Saturday of Queens Day, and decided that I would check my bag into a train station locker and stay up all night. Sure beats paying forty euros to stay in that dump (Hostel Kabul if you ever go to Amsterdam). Queens Day was full of canal and street parties, it seemed as though the whole country had descended on Amsterdam with all their orange clothes. Thankfully, an exhaustful day was accompanied with some amazing dutch hospitality and my sister's host brother Sjoerd, put me up at his house for the night. So good to have a bed and a real sleep without drunken englishmen coming to wake you up at 3 in the morning.
Found a great hostel (the bulldog) after Queens Day and stayed there for another 6 nights. Met some great people there, and now know about 15 people going to the Roskilde festival that I will need to catch up with. Just need a phone now :)
Spent quite a bit of time with Sjoerd,Inge and Sarah. We had dinner at Inge's one night, dinner and a movie at Bazar another night and checked out a screening of a film Sjoerd had directed in Utrecht.
All in all I spent about ten days in Amsterdam. I made the most of the museums, visiting the Tropem, the Rijk, Van Gogh and Stelijk CS Modern Art Gallery. Spent a lot of time relaxing in the Vondel and Ooster parks, which filled with people in the hot hot weather here. It was about 25 degrees today, really nice for travelling.
Also managed to see liberty day here in Amsterdam, which is a bit like Australia day, just with even more street parties. A great time of year to be in Amsterdam, with the Queens Day and Liberty day.
I have headed off to visit Sjoerds family for the weekend, and they have been looking after me soooo well with food and a real bath... and a bed! A really lovely family and I can see where Claire has picked up a lot of her 'dutch' humour from.
Anyway, I will write soon from Germany again, as I travel back to Frankfurt then to Munich. By the way, if you dont have my email it is stephenharland@gmail.com
April 29 Berlin Part IIWell, sunday or monday quickly turned into wednesday, as I discovered
just how big berlin really is. Found some great art galleries, but
didnt make it to the pergamon. Will have to make it up in Amsterdam. Found a really great gallery in an old squat that had been hollowed out for some artists space, a bar and cinema. A really great atmosphere with some really talented modern artists and sculptors. Managed to discover some great berlin bars that night too, and partied way too late. The next morning we checked out the german baths, where you need to get naked (hi podders!) and roam around some really great baths. Not quite as impressive as Hungary (50 year old naked german women hahaha) but still an experience! Spent the next day touring the city by beach cruiser bikes, which was a great way to see the city, especially the tiergarten park where the operators werent too happy with us bunnhopping, skidding and endo-ing their bikes! But a litre stein went a long way at the halfway point and riding became a little more dangerous. Managed to squeeze in a bit of shopping for some new shoes to replace the ones that got ripped dancing two nights before. Spent my whole last day in Berlin chasing up accomodation for Amsterdam, which is completely full because of queens day. Couldnt find anything but still came, and found a dump of a place with 16 bed dorms that is definitely the worst hostel yet. Sjoerd has put me up tonight, which is fantastic, so I have a clean roof over my head. Then onto the bulldog tomorrow, which sounds like a great hostel. But queens day today was an amazing sea of orange all over amsterdam. I cant even describe it, but the city tomorrow will be a mess of beer cans and orange streamers. April 21 BerlinEnded
up giving Cesky Krumlov a miss, as Im running out of time to get to
Amsterdam for the queens birthday, which is this weekend (I think, will
need to check lonely planet). Spent most of the first day recharging my
batteries, laundry etc but managed to see a little bit of Berlin on
foot, near the enormous television tower and Alexanderplatz. Had a
feeling that I had hardly scratched the surface though, and I was right
the next day. The next day I managed to get in a pretty good trip around Berlin's two main 'suburbs'. Some amazing 14-16th century architecture, some great street art too. Some of the more modern buildings, built to replace the devestation of world war II were also monstrous and really well done. Spent a bit of time at checkpoint charlie, visiting some WWII sites including the place of Hitlers bunker, the Brandenburg gate and Museum Island. A long day (10 hours of walking), made all the worst by a tiny hangover from the 'white trash' bar the night before. Met a couple of bartenders from Melbourne there which was pretty amazing. After our 10 hour walk I met a few kids from Frankfurt at the hostel, and thought it would be a good idea to go and check out Berlin's gothic scene. An amazing subculture here, if you could call it that because it is just sooooo huge. Went to a gothic bar, decorated to the 9s and a gothic club, which was an old soviet bloc (or similar) shelled out and converted. Those buildings are pretty amazing, they are all pre-fabricated and I was told they could be constructed in 2 weeks (a 5 storey apartment bloc). Going to spend today people watching and shopping, then a quiet night in the hostel. Will probably hang around in Berlin until Sunday or Monday, then catch a ride with a ride sharing agency to Munich, then onto Frankfurt to catch up with the friends I made last night. April 17 PragueWow, what a city. After arriving in Prague with Chris the Pom and Tali the Israeli, we met up with a guy who runs tours of Prague and promised that we would come on his tour the next day. Which was quite strange because we were all anti tour operators carrying around sticks on fluffy animals.
But as it turned out, Stephan, our tour guide/history professor hated those tour operators two - he called them 'the evil!'. He was a very funny guy with an amazing passion for PRague. On top of this, he was a history professor and knew so much about well, everything. He took us off all the backstreets in Prague, showed us some amazing streetart, some beautiful architecture and some great shopping spots. Possible the best thing I did in Prague. Even meet this funny rabi who wanted cigarettes and then stole Chris camera and demanded a donation to charity to get it back! So we all kicked in a few krowns and we got it back hahaha.
Unfortunately, we were moved from the hostel we were staying to a place in the city. It was full of english stag parties who took a lot of pride in tearing apart this beautiful city. At least the hostel was close to the heart and we got to see a lot of prague in the few days we were there. The opera house was amazing, just unfortunate it was an italian opera subtitled in Czech. Hm. There was a bit of love a bit of fighting and the guy got the girl.
We also managed to find a few too many bottles of absynth here. Amazing stuff, pity it tastes like rat poison. Might see if I can get some through customs ahhah.
Have seen most of the major tourist sites here now, so think I will be heading off soon. Was thinking of going to a small town called Cesky Krumlov but its a little out of my path so might go straight for Berlin. I have some photos of Hungary, will upload them as soon as I can. April 13 HungaryThe haze that was Budapest
Ended up leaving Croatia - almost couldnt escape. Turned out Kerry had a great night with Croation boy, she left me a note and was off on her way. I caught a train to Budapest and met some Spanish kids who were studying translation and spent most of the train trip. Also got a really cheap train ticket as someone sold me theirs second hand.
The train trip to Hungary was really amaying, we went past an enormous lake that stretched for about 60km i think. Found a hostel in Budapest after a lot of searching in the dark - a map really would have helped! The hostel seemed to be full of English backpackers and Rugby teams, which i think is fairly common for Budapest over the weekends. They spent most nights drunk in the bar and caused a bit of a nuisance really.
After a pretty drunk first night, a friend Chris and I went to swim off our hangovers in the 165th century Gellert baths. Really quite amazing that you can still swim in something that old. On the way back we checked out a few of the 9 bridges crossing the Danube, a really good mix of old and modern Europe. The danube had recently been flooded due to melting snow, and you could see the devestation and the still very high level of the water. One street was still completely submerged. We then spent most of the afternoon in a coffee shop people watching.
Met some Danish kids in the hostel that night who unfortunately managed to get us quite drunk most of the time in Budapest! Kind of wish I had seen a little more of the city now! Did manage to get to the Jewish synagogue though, and some great sweeping views of the city from the statue on top of the hill on the Buda side of the city the next day. And had some great Goulash from a city restaurant. Mmmmmm.
Was thinking of heading to Poland next but wasnt quite sure, so I ended up travelling with an american - jessy, an israeli - tali and Chris the englishman to Prague. A breathtaking place but more about that later, Im almost out of internet credit. April 05 Croatia Part IIIYeah thats right, part III. Didnt think I would even make it to here. I had planned to head into Bosnia (Mostar) for a day or two but that fell through because 1) accommodation was tight and more importantly an aussie slash croat friend of mine had been assaulted there recently for being australian.
Instead, I met up with a girl from Perth (Kerry) and we have got along like a house on fire. We ended up taking a bus on her birthday (9 hours) to Zagreb to what is possibly the worst backpackers on the planet. Every time someone goes to the toilet you can smell it from every corner of the place. Meh. Checked out this morning and upgraded. Nice place.
Anyway, ended up heading out for birthday drinks with Kerry a small (well it started that way) Croation bar. By 2am on a tuesday there wasnt room to scratch yourself. A great night, we actually ended up staying with some croation friends we made which sure beat that backpackers and the scabies in the sheets hahaha.
Weather is pretty ordinary but the city is great. It looks just like melbourne, it even has trams. The people are really friendly too, they have been coming up and chatting to me about the city and I spent about an hour talking coffee with Croatias best barrista - so passionate and an amazing guy.
Anyway, Kerry has a date with a tall croation boy (she is 6ft!) and I have offerred to go do her washing for her. Speak soon - from Budapest. April 04 Croatia Part IIHave spent a few days in Dubrovnik now. What an amazing place. It was shelled to pieces in the early 90s but all the old town had been restored (you can see the new tiles on all of the roofs). A walled city by the sea with some great coastline, very much like the great ocean road.
Unfortunately, I have been pretty sick for the last couple of days and havent been able to appreciate it as much as I would have liked. Not sure whether to blame it on the amazing seafood or the questionable bosnian kebab, thinking probably the latter.
Met up with an Australian girl from the hostel and we found a great bar on the edge of a cliff. Ended up turning into a bit of a backpacker party, and we all watched the sun come down over the croation islands. Amazing. Unfortunately, this is when i decided i had kebab cravings.
Spent most of yesterday out at the island of Lokrum, which was really peaceful. They had a great botanical garden, which interestingly had a lot of Australian fauna???? It also turns into a bit of a nudist colony over the summer. Shame.
Was thinking of heading east next into Bosnia but finding it hard to organise transport and accomodation so I think I will go north into Hungary instead. It just means a lot of travel over the next day(s). Got my photos burned to CD, will upload some in Hungary. April 02 Croatia Part IThe Ghost Ship Well, its not quite as exciting as it sounds. But my overnight ferry from italy to Split in croatia must have had about 3 people on it. And it probably could have held about 3000. Which was great because i had a cabin all to myself. Split Landed in Split early morning, which is a university slash shipping town in Croatia. Really beautiful, lots of people watching and drinking coffee. Most people use it as a port to visit islands off the coast. Croatia has something like a thousand islands. Unbelievable. Got quite drunk in Split and decided it would be a good idea to get a piercing (hi mum!) its in the side of my mouth. Was a really good idea until I discovered I had to clean it after every meal for three weeks. Whoops. Hvar After split I headed off to an island called Hvar, which is a swanky tourist island where the rich and the famous party. But in the low season (now) its quiet and incredibly cheap. I had a double room to mzself with my own bathroom and beach views for less than 15 aussie dollars. Magic. Some great walks through fortresses, rugged coastline. Even went swimming but it was damn cold. The weather had been great though, 25 degrees most days. From Split into Dubrovnik by ferry. Havent had much of a chance to explore yet, but will get back to you on that. March 27 RomaWell, my two days in rome are over now. Spent a whole day shopping, looking for black denim. A great way to explore rome though, cause noone sells anything but blue denim.
Explored most of the major tourist sites, and did a tour slash pub crawl by night on the first night. Lots of american kids and drunken shennanigans but nonetheless Rome is even more beautiful by night. Helped me through my jetlag a little bit and after a nap through to the afternoon i was back on europe time.
Picked up from great pizza the next lunch, that was spot on. Thin crust and really cheap, i wish you could get that in lygon st. Still havent had a great coffee, but have another hour or two to kill so might try that on.
Last night we hung out at the hostel with some canadian kids, and one of them could fire twirl so we got my kit out at about 11pm and headed down to the spanish steps. Looked great, beautiful backdrop for juggling fire. At least until the polizia came hahhaa.
Off to croatia in a minute - will keep you posted. photos are on the way, just need to find a cable.
March 25 Tokyo Part IIOkay, felt a little hungover after a big night at the Ageha nightclub. Well worth it though. Woke up late morning to make a journey to Harajuku. It was a public holiday so an amazing amount of people out (plus it was tokyo fashion week and Harajuku is the fashion capital).
I was hoping to see some cool Harajuku kids but no luck unfortunately. Lots of cool Tokyo kids and heaps of amazing tokyo fashion. After doing a bit of shopping (no purchases!) I wandered out to the Meiji Jingu shrine. This thing is enormous. Paths strecthing for kilometres and a temple the biggest in Tokyo. Smoe great photos of this but still cant get them online.
To bed early and then off to the Imperial Palace in the morning. I dont think the japanese guards with big guns appreciated me trying to walk in! Apparently you're not supposed to but how was i supposed to know! From the palace I strolled to the Canberra of Tokyo, which housed all the government offices. Not exactly the highlight of the trip, but these buildings surrounded a beautiful japanese garden, complete with Cherry Blossoms. Stunning.
From this park in Hibya I took a train to Shibuya for some shopping. Lots of bright lights, capsule hotels and other crazy japanse things. Thought I would explore the city and take a walk to Roppongi (the western capital of Tokyo) with lots of nightclubs and shopping. Felt like a quick walk but i soon realised I was over my head and had walked about 10km. At least I made it. As a reward I found a great art gallery which consumed much of the afternoon. Took a walk to Tokyo Tower but it was a bit too overcast to enjoy the view.
A quick visit to Shibia park then off to dinner. Couldnt round up any friends to come with me so went by myself to this small family run restaurant. The owner, a guy in his 50s made my dinner in front of me and we just scraped by with our broken english slash japanese. Eventually his whole family and friends came and we spent the night drinking and eating japanese food together. Magic. They gave me a whole lot of presents and we had a ball!
Spent the next day at a baseball match. These things are crazy! They have trained cheerleaders who whip the crowd up into a frenzy with well known chants and rhythm sticks. At half time they had all brought balloons too and they let them off into the air at the same time. Very impressive. Unfortunately though, the home team went down 5 to 7.
Karaoke for my final night, which was free because we were westerners! Scissor sisters, Bon Jovi, Tom Jones, it was all there and it was great. Met some great kids from my backpackers, just in time to make a move to Rome.
March 21 Tokyo Part ITHE FLIGHT
Arrived safely in Tokyo today, after a 10 hour flight and 2 hours of connected trains. No real dramas finding the hostel (well not after i asked the nice man at the train station). My six year old japanese is very rusty, so scraping by on what little english is printed on signs. The first hostel was nice, with 8 bed dorms.
Ended up bunking up with a few american kids who were over here to learn (yeah thats learn not teach like all the australians over here) japanese in kobei. They were spending a week in Tokyo before they got started, and we all managed to fumble our way around on day one.
The subway was amazingly clean and efficient. Well signed (even the english) and a great ticketing system. I've been on about 10-15 train rides already and not one of them has been late haahha. maybe they should go and teach connex a thing or two!
RUNNIG AMOK AT THE FISH MARKET
For the first day, we trained to the Tokyo fish market, where most of Tokyo's fish is bought. Think queen vic and multiply it by about 10. You're still probably not even close. So much fresh fish, crustacians, shellfish. Lucky i didnt pack my good shoes as we all ended up with entrails all over our shoes and jeans hahaa. When we finished that we sorted out breakfast, which was recommended by a fisherman at the market. he even drove 8 of us on the back of his motorised shipping cart. Got some strange looks.
Sushi was in a small small shop (the 8 of us barely fit in) and was prepared by a couple of sushi chefs. these guys were good. they could put together a 12 piece plate in about 2 minutes. And even though it was only eight thirty, the tray of salmon, tuna, flounder, sea urchin, squid (all raw and straight from the ocean) was fantastic.
after that we went to check out a temple (have to get back to you on the name) which was great, but lots of tourists. there were all these schoolkids running around practsiing their english by interviewing tourists. so cute.
OEDO PARK AND ELECTRIC TOWN
We then checked out a park in Oedo, which had a beautiful temple, lake and a zoo. the zoo wasnt open which was a bit dissapointing as i would have really liked to see a panda here. well i suppose there was a stuffed one in a glass cage near the oedo train station.
We then grabbed some soba (noodles) and headed off to scope out electric town. this place is massive. think every tokyo poster you have ever seen and string all the neon signs in a 2km stretch. now fill all those stores with all sorts of designer electrcis (including this amazing $40,000 massaging armchair mmmmm). the street also had a lot of porn and animae which was interesting too.
TIESTO AT THE AGEHA CLUB
after electric town we trekked back to the hostel where i checked some email,tried to get some shuteye (no luck) and preened myself for a massive night in Tokyo. Found a party at the Ageha nightclub. this place is similar to the metro in melbourne but about three times bigger. Tiesto and DJ Yoda were playing and it was an amazing night. Ended up on the first train home at about 5:30am and was back in bed by 7 and up at 10.
Signing out
steve
ps will have some photos up soon, have to work out how to get them off the camera |
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