Krakow Worclaw Jelenia Gora bound for Prague

At the station in Krakow, we got money, and immediately devoured a huge bottle of water. Geez. That was stupid.

Set off to get an overview of Krakow. It´s a unique city and it seems like it has a closer tie to a painful history than its more southern neighbors. The palaces and cathedrals are impressive. As is the main square and various sculptures (classic and modern) that punctuate the city.

Had a lunch at ´Chopskie Jadlo´ a restaurant near the main square that made us believe that Polish food could easily be put on the map as one of the world's great cuisines. Try the ´sour milk´ and sausage soup. Sounds horrible but is really exquisite. The texture of the dumplings served with a bbq rib dish, a Krakow local recipie, was indescribable except for ´otherworldly´.

Marcin Wisnewski was awesome to host us and help us with certain parts of the city including the city´s ´Museum Madness (don´t think that´s the right title)´ festival --where everyone goes to all the city´s museums for, like 50 cents, which are open until 2 in the morning (with people in them--including the ´army museum´and ´engineering museum´-- we decided to pass on the ´insurance museum,´ however. We also went to the ´Soup Festival´ on Saturday in the must go to district of ´´Kasimirez.´´ We went to Aushewitz on Friday which was a great experience and uncovers a lot more about Polish/Eastern European History.

Sunday saw us board the train for Worclaw (´VOR-CLAV´) where we stayed one night, on our way to Jelenia Gora, a cute town in the Southwest where we did some nice hiking and some wonderful peace from the cities.



The next day, we were off on the bus to the Polish-Czech Republic border, but not all the way on the bus, crossing the border was on foot! We were dropped into the mountains and walked in front of the lined up cars along the checkpoint. They stamped us and we waltzed on in to former Czechoslovakia.

After about a 45 minute hike, we arrived at the next town, beautiful (´Hvarrich?´) where we waited an hour to catch a (what seemed like a
jaw-jarring city) bus -- bound for Prague.

We got into the beautiful (and tourist-flooded) city of Prague at about 5pm, found our place and set off on foot to explore. Before coming, it seemed like almost everyone we talked to wanted to keep us away from Prague. We understood, but were less sure about why they were so passionate about it... Too touristy, etc. While it´s true that although we are tourists ourselves, we tend to like places that there are less of us; it´s also true that we´d kinda like to see what it is that draws so many tourists in the first place! And Prague lived up to it. It is a magical city if you can tune out the clatter of everyone else being there, and at the end of the day, Prague still holds up its own as an unmissable stop on any Eastern European tour. Just go past the Palace and the Charles Bridge to the Fortress-turned-park
in the city South.

It was also to be the place Sarah could get her Mongolian Visa (Canadian Passport needs but USA doesn´t). It turns out what happened was though, they would not give her one unless she had a czech residency. we found out later that there was no precedent for this and either they didn´t want to deal with it - or they had some obscure rule. either way that stupid ass mongolian guy at the consulate made our lives more miserable as it was in a suburb of prague and took a lot of our day to deal with it. no doubt we would have to deal with it as well (probably with mixed results again) in some other crappy city wasting half a day on the crappy outskirts of town with some other crappy person (sorry..i was letting this travel logistic stuff get to me for a moment).

Back to Prague.

It is an amazing city. And if you can unravel Czech history (which we really couldn´t do properly) you can understand a lot about the history of Eastern Europe.



The beer is amazing...so fresh and crisp are the Pilsners -- The ´Budweiser (no joke, it´s the original) Budvar´ takes the cake as the best and even beats out the national ´Golden Boy`: Pilsner Urquell. And they are all about .75 cents US -- AT A BAR. The food, however, is absolutely forgettable. (we wished we could have brought a seperate backpack full of food from Poland. The kiosks that sold hot dogs, etc. were a better option than restaurants)

A couple of days later we met Slavomir Kaminsky, originally Slovakian but living in a suburb of Prague, who was nice enough to host us a couple of nights and share travel stories as well as his guitar and ´medicine,´ Becherovka (´BECK-A-ROVE-KA´).

After a few days (and since our visa didn´t work out), our goal was to go north through Germany (more specifically Berlin) and then on to Denmark. Our hope was to find a respite spot in northern Czech Republic countryside, then cross the German border along the Vlatava River. But time and major confusion on logistics (we were told it was impossible to get from Cech to Germany at Decin) made it much more difficult. We also, wanted to spend time in Berlin (an unexpected stop on our tour) so we wanted to allow an extra day or so.

This time we took the train and it was a spectacular one. Throughout the entire journey from Prague to Dresden (our waystation to Berlin), it wound along the Vltava River, passing by village after village (complete with sickeningly picturesque biking trails) until crossing the German border and thus the higher roofs and darker architecture of the country homes and taverns -- it´s also where the border guard asked Andy if he ´washed` his passport. We were expected to arrive in Dresden, Germany at 2pm. From there, we had to figure out how (train or bus (or both)) and when we were going to get to Berlin.

Thanks: So many thanks to Marcin for hosting us and for giving us background and colorful stories for our time in Krakow and to Slavomir introducing us to friends Sparky, David and traditional Czech/Slovak music with a pinch of Gypsy to spice things up.

Budapest Hungary May 8

Zagrab Croatia...May 5

After what looked like a Croatian terrorist nervously figdgeting with his fingers, hair and a duffle bag below his informed us he was also going to Zagreb (Great), we finally arrived at the train station at daybreak. Only to encounter an incredibly rude welcome from a nasty Zagreb woman who wouldn´t give us coin change for the baggage locker then a guy next to the lockers who kept pointing to his t-shirt which read ´´I climbed the Great Wall,´´ and grunting ´´mmphh. Mmphh.´´

A kind woman finally gave us change for the lockers (changing Croatian paper currency for coins which is all the lockers accepted.) and it was an inspiring walk across the eerily kempt/unkempt park with massive communist-esque statues rolling by. Had coffees next to a market setting up and watching men and women down shots of brandy before the workday (a Croatian custom). 6am.

Walked all the way past the soccer stadium to find a place to stay that was in our book. Hated it. Walked all the way back towards another place and a kind man helped us find it (as the streets are confusing as hell), and actually walked with us to it! Note to self: only go to Zagreb if you´re willing to deal with little tourist infrastructure. There are very few hotels here.

Did a self-guided walking tour and ate Croatian hot dogs (questionable but utilitarian)

Next day (Saturday), tried to send a package back. Should never have waffled on the return address because they sent us to ´the back room´ to start filling out forms and ´going to windows...´hmmm. ´back rooms´and ´more windows´ never sound good. So, we just went to another post office with a firm return address. They took it no problem and it was received.

Note to self: the problem with traveling in any foreign country is that they speak an entirely different language (except in Sweden).

Went to a Croatian soccer game, Zagreb´s ´´Domino´´ team was playing in the professional league with another Croatian city. It was 90 minutes of chanting, songs, and flagwaving, punctuated by red flares thrown on the field that little firemen ran around and put out. ´´Domino`` won and thanked the fans by drinking champagne from a vending-machine-sized champagne glass and throwing red flares back into the stands. Crazy. The signs in English touted them as the ´Big Blue Boys,´ and they had blue jerseys/logo and everything, so we wondered a little why they didn´t throw blue flares.

Walked to the amazing cemetary on the outside of town (Modigloij?) and back to the train station.

At 4:45pm, we were on our way to Hungary (more specifically Budapest -- the city that has always held mystery and gripped our imaginations.) It would turn out to be right on both counts, but not before a bumpy arrival.

We got to Budapest Keleti station at about 10pm and stepped into a small nightmare. Due to some confusion about the city and country (Andy´s fault), It turns out the friend we were supposed to stay with was actually not in Budapest but another part of the country! We had to scramble to find a place. A nice Hungarian girl who spoke fluent English helped us by figuring out stuff and even calling a friend on her cell phone for us to doublecheck the contact´s address-phone number on the Internet. We finally found a place, but not before hotel hawkers kept interrupting our phone calls and trying to figure everything out, etc.. One of them said, ´´I see you rumbling around for two hours and I don´t care if you want to waste your time looking for a place to stay.´´ So, Andy said, ´´Then please, could you not care to yourself?´´

The next day, we submitted our Chinese Visas at the embassy. It will take a week and about 150 USD for double entry for both of us. The next week saw us touring the mysterious city of Budapest, and staying with Paul MacDonald who was very kind and generous to us and also gave us his time to give us a taste of the city.

A great way to see Budapest is just to walk, so that´s what we did. In Buda, to the palace, St. Matthius Church, and other requisite, or as we like to call them, ´greatest hits´sights. As well as the more random (read best) ones. Like the Hungarian bath in the public park with mulitple temperature and mineral thermal pools (from the hot spring nearby) some which shoot jets of water (and thus Hungarians) around in a circle. Here, the agenda is more soaking and healing than excersing, with some older men playing chess at the same time.

Friday night, Paul took us to a rave. People put 100 forintz into a turnstyle to enter and danced and listened to music. A nice mix of bizzare genres from the Beasty Boys Ýou Gotta Fight´ to even Billy Joel numbers.

The weekend saw a much needed retreat to the countryside. More specifically, Eger, a cute Hungarian tourist destination 2 hours train ride (15 USD roundtrip) from Budapest. There, we had what´s known as ´restaurant meals´ as well as local wines for which the region is known. More for the quantity than the quality. Although they are drinkable, the charm lies more in taking away a 1.5 liter plastic bottle of Eger Bikalaver (´Bull´s Blood´) for, like, 1 dollar.

We had the luxury to stay an extra day, thinking, ``What would it matter to pick up our visa on Tuesday instead of Monday´? Apparently, a lot. It turns out the Chinese consulate is closed on Tuesdays, which we only found out as we were walking up to it (after having bought non-refundable night train tickets for Krakow, Poland that night). A kind Chinese official, after much harried and frantic and desperate insisting by Andy, finally agreed to let us in. In a glorious moment, he pulled out our passports from the back with the Visas inside. the only problem was we didn`t have enough forintz and he wouldn`t take euros or dollars. We went to the atm and all was well.

We did some last minute house-cleaning (and shopping) but didn´t really plan our Forint use very well and, we´re not really sure how, but ended up boarding this overnight train with no money or time left to get water. Let´s just say it wasn´t our most pleasant night. It was cold, we were dreaming (when we did sleep) of taking big swigs of water and since the train was empty, we had to take sleeping shifts to make sure we kept an eye on our stuff.

Sunsets seem later and day breaks seem earlier the further north we go. Poland appeared (after passing through Slovakia in the middle of the night -- not as weird as it sounds) at about 4:30 am. Krakow would appear at 6am.

Thanks to Paul MacDonald for introducing us properly to Budapest and for Anne and Steve Miller´s continued help as base of operations as well as receivers of packages, etc and givers of moral support.