Woke up disoriented on the bus

for some reason for a moment, Andy was thinking that the sun rose in the west -- which didn't make reading the Stockholm map any easier. turns out the trashy chain in the u.s., 7-eleven, turned out to be our savior. it had internet hookup, traditional stockholm pastries AND the best cappucinos we had since Italy. We didn't question it. We just drank them. Lots of them.

The place we were supposed to stay who said, "no problem, call us at 9 on Monday" wasn't answering repeated calls OR trips going there on foot buzzing their door at 9, 9:10, 9:15 and 9:30, so we decided to try another place. So we checked out "The Red Boat" -- which is exactly that. A little hotel on a red boat in the river there. They had a vacancy and we grabbed it. Everything else was booked and we can no longer rely on 'dropping in' as much as tourist season starts to heat up in every country.

Biked in a beautiful park in the East that jutted out to the water and had random world-class sculputures in the gardens there. There was even another Rodin, "The Thinker" (How many of these are there?). Somehow Andy managed to flatten his tire again as well. Twice. Both times he assured the guy that it wasn't intentional. Chalk it up to reckless driving or, perhaps more likely, massive weight gain.

Attended an 'international' food festival, which means they had everything there but Swedish food. Even 'Tennessee' ribs made it seemed by arab immigrints which was quite respectable and surprisingly good.

Checked out the modern art museum and got caught in the middle of the 'Sweden Day' parade, an ecclectic mix of people (yes, there are black people in sweden) -- piled into the backs of big flatbed trucks with a fence and dj hooked up to huge speakers playing r. kelly and everyone "wooing" to people below. It also bore a eerie resemblence to the graduation flatbed trucks, with freshly minted high school grads, drinking to hip hop on these trucks and also 'wooing' to pedestrians on the street as the trucks zoom by. We also think some were wearing toga-type white sheets with some kind of 'plant life' like leaves and branches of trees scattered around them, but this could not be confirmed. The trucks of people for the Sweden Day Parade were wearing yellow and blue, the national flag's colors.

As with Denmark, there's fantastic design everywhere here, and most everyone speaks English. Although whatever you do, never, ever try to burn a DVD in Stockholm, Sweden. You will end up cursing as much as the day is long -- as people/photo studios/internet cafes who have burners (which is very few to begin with) mainly only can write to cd's, or, if they have a burner for DVD's it always seems to be, from the three shops we went to, mysteriously "broken" and in need of repair.

So, we will have to Frankenstein a solution by burning some cds now, making sure they are recieved by Anne and Steve, then delete photos to free up memory and try to find someone with a dvd burner in Finland (Helsinki) -- Andy is emailing different contacts there -- it seems to be the best solution to instead of going to a store, just find someone at home with a damn Mac! It's now getting to the point where we might be missing shots because of low memory. We have 4 gigs and it seems to always be full!

Great design goes hand in hand with interesting shopping so we tried a bit of both on our last day. Our ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki leaves at 4pm so time passed quickly and before you knew it, we had to pick up our packs and head to the dock.

It was beautiful sailing through the almost 20,000 islands that protect Stockholm from the Baltic Sea, then into the open water. The ferry was a mix of restaurant, lounge with singer, a random magician, sauna, nightclub ("disco" as they say) and makeshift casino with a roulette wheel and a black jack table thrown in a seedy corner.

We thought it would be like the Greek ferry, where everyone just sleeps out in the open, but they were not Greek and they only had limited areas in which to crash, which we learned our lesson the hard way. Sleep was hard to come by, but at least Andy scored 30 Euros at the tables. Woke up a little wrecked, but looking forward to chilling in Helsinki as the 10th place we had called, finally had an availability. Even better news was the sauna at the top.

After getting ourselves oriented, we found that, not unlike its Scandinavian brothers, Finland had an amazing design scene. Absolutely inspiring. We went to the Design Museum, The Cable Factory (old Nokia Headquarters now turned into industrial-type art spaces) The Contemporary Art Museum (which was hosting its every 10-year arts festival ARS '06 -- showcasing some of the most exciting work in the world of modern art going on today), and visited the "Marimekko" headquarters where they also make the fabric through enormous 'silk screening'-type machines into giant rolls sent all over the world to be turned into the famous Marimekko handbags, pillows, clothes, etc.

Went to the Sauna bar, but the Sauna was only functioning for groups. Watched some world cup matches. Seems like it was on everywhere. And of course, rented the requisite bikes -- a must for seeing Helsinki. Went out to some beautiful islands and of course along the southern bay. Also rode on Sveaborg Island, an old fortress, but definitely has to be one of the few remaining that will still let people ride bikes on top of the (now) grass-covered giant walls!

Crazily and suckily, on the 2nd day there, though, Andy dropped the digital camera. We didn't know what to do. The image was blurry/blowing out now and it was our only descent camera. Our option was to have it fixed, which we were told would take 3 weeks and cost as much as the camera. Or buy a new camera there, but we weren't sure if the charger would fit coming back. Or have Steve buy a new camera in Canada and overnight it to where we were staying. Amazingly, we found out we could bump up the three week time because they had the optic part that was broken there in the only (we were told) place in Finland that could really fix a camera. The bad news is that it would cost 240 Euros! Unbelievable. We decided to go for it as it seemed the only option for also allowing us to enjoy the rest of our time there trip. We got the camera back in two days without having to pay rush fees. Miraculous.


The night before leaving, Andy went to the Grand Casino for fun and to see if he could defray part of the cost of fixing it. After 2 hours and (scarily) going back to the cash machine for one big bet, he came back with, you guessed it, exactly 240 Euros.

Our bus to cross the Russian Border bound for St. Petersburg left at 12pm the next day.



Thanks: To Nina at Marimekko who took time out of her busy schedule to take us on an absolutely fascinating and inspiring tour at the headquarters.

``I don´t really like people with backpacks...´´

was the impression we were getting from the woman at the info booth. After all our questions, all she really gave us was some interesting looks. Dresden was a beautiful city, but for us at this time it was pretty miserable. Raining, we tried in vain for 2 solid hours to find somewhere to crash for the night to give us our ´out-of-the-city´ experience, which was slowly turning into an ´into-the-city´´ experience after failing online, on the phone, and on foot to three hotels. Everything was fully booked due to its being ´Ascencion Weekend Holiday,´ we learned. Oh yeah, guess that woman DID give us some info.

We rushed back to the train station as we knew there was something in the vicinity of 7pm leaving for Berlin. (No one had yet we asked knew if there was a bus station -- including info woman). Sarah deftly navigated the treacheries of the train info and somehow got a ticket from being 55 euros each to 35 for both of us. Turns out it was kind of a ´commuter´train, orange/red double-decker, which we had a mad dash at one station to change across the platform, but was actually quite fast and comfortable at the end of the day.

Got into Berlin Ostbanhauf late but didn´t have time to call our contact, Henryk Speiss beforehand to let him know. After 10 mins of international phone crap, giving up and asking 6 people for euro coins for the phone booth, we got in touch with him, thank godness and he was going to pick us up. While waiting, we checked out the Saturday night scene at the train station. We had never seen so many people with open containers in a major transportation hub -- security guards gently strolling by.




The next day we hit the major sights of the wall, the reischtag, brandenburg gate and inner city. The rest of our time was filled with being paraded past (thanks to henryk) some of the most fascinating, inspiring design and street art spaces/galleries of the trip.

Had a minor blow though when the tour group for russia said that mongolia doesn´t give visas at the border. nice. ´´hmmm, let´s waste more time handling this at the embassy here, we thought, and miss more of this amazing city. ´´ we said we would handle it on our next stop, and had made sure there was a consulate in copenhagen. images of that prick official in prague came back to andy....-- now that i think about it, he looked a lot like ´mao tse tung.´ -- a horrible image that was difficult to shake.

spent some great time with henryk as well but we had to leave on thursday if we were to get to copenhagen, then stockholm, then helsinki without driving ourselves insane. -- i.e. it didn´t look like we were going to get much ´out-of-city´time as well! Geez, who´s idea was it to do this stupid ´overland´ thing...

got up thursday 5:30 am to catch the bus. Sarah got us seats in the 2nd level in the front of the bus -- kind of like our own chauffered bubble. alternated between sleep and rain until we found out the ferry taking us across to danish waters at rostock, germany was 3 hours late. nice.

we thought we´d make the most of it, ´hey, we´re traveling, right?´we´d say, then at the end we were kind of hating life and needing showers.

Luckily Nan Na Hvass, who doing design in copenhagen (and will be in brooklyn this summer) was our contact here. She and her flatmates welcomed us with fish soup, which went down nicely as we were feeling the day.

The next day we said screw it, we´ll do anything to get that stupid mongolian visa here, so andy went out to the suburb which is where the only consulate we could find -- it was in a sea of cookie-cutter houses, the only thing giving it away was a small plaque on the wall. After 3 rings and a series of knocks, the only one home was a dog. Andy went back to the city (there were no pay phones for miles out here) and called Sarah only to find out that the Visa woman had called back.-- you can leave everything in the mailbox and for an extra fee, process it tonight! Hmmm, take a passport with two priceless visas (one chinese and one russian) and about 200 dollars cash into a seemingly annonymous mailbox? Sure! We picked them up that night no problem. When asked about the czech official. she said, ´´no that doesn´t sound right. The only countries i can´t give a visa to are a few from the Middle East.´´ Mystery solved!

Copenhagen is surreally flat and has a ton of bike lines so we rented bikes the next day. Andy got a flat at 5:15 pm. The bike shop was 30 mins walk away and they closed at 6. he tried to get bike shops nearby to fix it, but they said the earliest they could get to it would be wednesday. this was FRIDAY. apparently there was another long-weekend holiday happening-- where´s the info woman when you need her? -- So andy put as much air in the tire as he could and rode it as fast and furious as he could (before the air ran out again and he was riding on rim) back to the bike shop to exchange for another bike. he filled it up again halfway, luckily, it turns out there´s a bike shop it seems like on every corner, the only problem is that none would repair a flat at any price. in order to get back in a timely fashion, he had to forgo the ´nice-i-ties´ of danish cycling and pull total New York City moves on everyone-- going fast, cutting across lanes, riding the against traffic, etc.. This, they did not like, but it had to be done. And yes, it was fun. There was no time to even stop and watch a protest with police fighting and arresting demonstrators. Made it back with, like 3 minutes to spare.

Copenhagen was a unique beautiful city, but we had to start making our way to Sweden (specifically stockholm). Only two more weeks in Sweden then Finland until we cross into the (relatively for us anyway) unknown of russia then asia.

At 9pm we boarded the overnight bus to Stockholm (no one seemed to really know about the bus station here either) -- into the perpetual bright orange sunset that seems to last til midnight -- and are supposed to arrive at 6am.


Thanks: Deepest thanks to Henryk for hosting us in grand style and showing us his art and the real Berlin. And many thanks to Nan Na for hosting us in Copenhagen and for showing us our first asian food in 3 months!

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.