Being in Budapest

To get the hydrofoil boat to Budapest requires one to be at the checkin for the boats about 8AM. This is a minor problem if you don't really know how far it is to the harbour because it's not on your map. As a result, I got up at 6AM after a couple hours sleep, dragged my bag onto my very tired shoulders and started heading through the dawn to the metro station. Turns out I was about half an hour early, and then after the checkin there was still a wait until 9 for the passport control guys to get their act together as well. Eventually I got through their gates and onto the vessel, named a hydrofoildue to a large wing it has attached to the underside of the hull. This allows the boat to rise out of the water as it gains speed, reducing the water drag on the boat and making the whole thing more efficient and capable of greater speeds. I think I heard the captain say that our vessel averaged around 35 km/hr.

Catching the boat from Budapest to Vienna was one of the things on my original itinerary that I wanted to make sure got done. It may be observed that I've actually reversed the direction, but the journey is much the same. Just, you know... backwards. I planned to check out the sights coming out of Vienna, marvel at the wonderful scenery down the world reknowned Danube river, the second longest in Europe. Unfortunately due to my previous late night shenanigans with the Irish and my hellishly early start that morning, I was basically drifting in and out of consciousness for the first couple hours of the six hour journey, so much so that I missed going through the first lock. Essentially I missed any wonderful parts of the Viennese end of the river, and the rest of the trip, except for a castle or ruin here and there was actually quite bland.

It was not possible to stand on deck during the journey (except when going through the locks, which was quite interesting to see), however it was possible to sit on the top portion of the stairs going up to the deck and poke ones upper body through the sliding hatch. I spent the last hour and a bit of the trip in this configuration, listening to some music and enjoying the breeze. I must have chosen the right music, and in combination with reminiscing of Vienna and my trip so far, a fresh Hungarian beer and little packet of pretzels, I had an extremely potent "life is good" moment. I've had this happen to me a couple times during the trip, but none quite as powerful as this one, and it was an excellent feeling.

Not too long after, the massive parliament building of Budapest came into view, followed by several other of the cities famous landmarks, including the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. The boat pulled into dock, and after retrieving my bag I had a quick chat with a couple of other backpackers standing around the exit building and we arranged to meet later on that night for a drink.

Luckily there was a bunch of maps available in the exit building of the dock, and luckier still it was only about a kilometer to my hostel. I found my way through the extremely busy streets down to the location, which was in a large building complex with a square central courtyard. I got buzzed in through the main door and checked in. The place was a dingy converted 2 storey apartment, with a lounge and kitchen on the first floor and a couple of dorms on the second, quite a way removed from the refined, professional look of the previous hostels I'd been staying in. The dorm I was in smelt of something I can't describe, and people had their crap all over the place. It was what I expect living in a share house of about 20 people would be like. Fortunately the other patrons of this establishment were all quite friendly, and over the next few hours I got over the initial shock and it actually began to feel quite homely.

I didn't have much time, save to drop my bags, check my mail and leave to meet Rebecca and Bruno, the backpackers I met off the boat. Bruno had dissapeared elsewhere to find a friend of his, but Rebecca had found a new Spanish companion, David, and he was keen to head out with us also. We plucked a few bars out of Rebecca's guide book and attempted to find them, only to get continually lost through the streets of Pest, the east side of the city. Eventually we found one of the bars we were looking for, a place that ended up feeling pretty local as a result of the Roma/Gypsy music playing in the background, the lack of any English on the drinks menu's, though the bartender was able to speak a little.

It is now that I will mention that Hungarianis one of the most frustrating languages I've come across so far, completely removed from anything I'm used to. With the Romance languages, it is usually possible to work out what some of the words mean and get the general gist of what a sign is trying to communicate. In Hungary this is essentially impossible, as it seems to have no correlation with anything I'm familiar with. This makes ordering food, drinks, asking for directions or anything of the sort an impossible task unless you've mastered the art of psuedo sign language, a skill which I'm pleased to say I've developed a good ability for.

We ended up hanging out in that bar until sometime around 11, at which point my stomach, starved of any sustenance apart from beer, started to inform me of the situation. Rebecca decided to head back to her hostel, and David and myself made our way down to a restaurant not far off, thankfully with English translations on their menu. The service was slow, but I was happy that we'd actually found a place to eat so late at night. We were finished shortly before 1, we payed, and it was about then as David was flicking through his wallet, that he realised he'd lost his credit card. After a moments panic and a few more moments cursing we went back to my hostel where the Internet was free and he could cancel his card. He headed back to his hostel, and was supposed to meet Rebecca and myself at the ferry to the Sziget festival the next day, but I actually never saw him again.

The following day I did a bit of wandering around Pest, geeked out on the Internet for a couple of hours and uploaded quite a number of photos. It is rare that you find Internet cafe's with relatively lax security that will allow you to install software (such as Picasa), and I refuse to upload photos using their "pick 5 at a time" web upload method. Therefore, when I do find the opportunity to install such applications I jump at them, and the result is a mass upload of hundreds of photos as seen a couple days ago on this very page.

Come about 6 I made my way down to the river where the Radio 1 ferry was taking people over to the Sziget festival on Óbudai-sziget island in the Danube. I'd managed to get to Budapest in time to see the last day of the 7 day festival which had (this year) over 370,000 visitors, 25 different music stages and over 70 more other stages of various types. It included bungee jumping from a crane, rock climbing and ziplining across a good portion of the festival grounds, all types of food stalls you could think of (from Mexican to Serbian to fruit juice).

I have said, and believed, that I would never see as big a party as I did at San Fermin in Pamplona. I will now officially amend that and say I will never see as big a party as I did at Sziget in Budapest. The whole island was used as a party ground, separated into a few different sections with thousands of tents littered in between. Many tens of thousands of people were camping around the island for the duration of the festival, but how they could possibly get any sleep with the noise around them 24/7 I have no idea. It was a fairly hippy crowd, but there was most types of music imaginable, from blues to world music, to mainstream pop to dance/techno. Rebecca, Bruno and myself wandered around the island, snacking on some mexican cuisine and drinking cheap pints, hanging around the main stage for some of Juliette and the Licks. They were ok, but apparently we'd just missed the Eagles of Death Metal, a band who doesn't actually play death metal and one I'd have been interested to see. The Killers were the main show and coming up next, so we checked out the blues stage which was awesome and got a feel for the rest of the stages.

The Killers started about fifteen minutes early, but luckily we'd made it back to the main stage in time. There were countless thousands of people all crowded around to check out the main stage grand finale, with flags and banners being waved through the air, various people crowd surfing over the masses and plenty of chicks on shoulders. Now I'm not a huge fan of the Killers, not because I dislike their music, but it's simply not something that makes it into my regular musical repertoire. That said, I was able to recognise and even sing along to more than half of the tunes they pumped out, which must say something for how far their influence reaches. Speaking of reaching, Rebecca is only just over 5 foot tall, and was barely able to see over the shoulders of the people in front of her, let alone the stage. Deciding to get into the spirit of the concert like everyone else, I got her up on my shoulders to a couple of their tracks. The whole crowd was going pretty crazy, the throng basically moving as a single giant entity in time with the music. The atmosphere was incredible, and they put on great show with no less than 3 encores. They wrapped up about 10:30, which gave Bruno and I time to see Rebecca off at the ferry and then head over to the Nokia Party Arena where Deep Dish were to start playing at 11.

Wanting to last a few hours here I decided to get off the beers, opting for something involving an energy drink. Jagerbombs would be my usual drink of preference in this context, but they had neither Red Bull, nor Jagermeister. Their energy drink was "Burn", and I decided to create my own cocktail of that and Bacardi. It goes down ok and after a few has the desired effect. I recommend two shots of Bacardi to one Burn, a drink I will christen the "Burning Rumball".

Apparently I'd been fed false information, and the DJ opening was not Deep Dish, but rather someone named "Chrisss", who I'd never heard of. He was ok, and was followed about an hour later by a French DJ, "Cedric Gervais". I'd never heard of him either, but he was supremely good. Very deep electro synths over some good basslines, and his mixing was top notch. He went on for a couple hours before Deep Dish took over the reigns, and I managed to get talking to a couple of Hungarian girls who had only just discovered dance music about a month previously. They seemed to dig everything equally, but in my opinion when Deep Dish came on they just couldn't keep the vibe going as well as Cedric did, and their mixing was a bit off. They Hungarian girls left, as they had to work in about 5 hours, and I stayed through most of Deep Dish's set, but when the clock rolled past 4 and I just wasn't getting into it anymore I headed off, had a hot dog for a snack (worst idea yet) and got a taxi back to the hostel.

In order to relax from the big party the previous evening, I'd planned to go to the Széchényi baths. I dropped by the station on the way to get my ticket to Krakow, a place not originally on my list, but after several independant recommendations one that made it. The station was absolutely sprawling with the thousands of Sziget'ers trying to get home. People were asleep or just waiting around throughout the platforms and out the main entrance. I got to the international ticket window, or rather, about 100 meters behind it where the queue started, decided that this was not going to fly and resigned myself to coming back later that evening when hopefully the crowds had died down.

The baths were also quite busy with people, a lot of them having the same idea as I, that a nice day in the saunas and pools would be a good way to wind down after a big party. There are two main outdoor pools and at least 10 different saunas within the complex, a couple of steam rooms, massage is available and various other "well being" treatments. There are many different indoor pools, all with a slightly different temperature, ranging from about 28 degrees and increasing in 2 degree increments up to 38 degrees. I'm not sure why they are so specific about it, but I'm sure there are therapeutic reasons for each.

Each of the saunas has a cold drop pool just to the outside, which must be somewhere less than 10 degrees. The first sauna I went into happened to be the hottest, the needle on the wall reaching the 70 degree mark. Now I like my saunas, and I like them hot, but this one made my legs feel like they were burning. Needless to say I didn't last terribly long in there, and jumping into the cold drop after that was quite an experience to say the least. I found a much more reasonable sauna after that, somewhere in the 60 degree range, and the interesting thing about this particular sauna was the ice bowl just near the entrance which was continually dispensing ice flakes. The custom is to get a few handfuls of these ice flakes and compress them into a type of ice ball with your hands, which you then use to cool different parts of your body whilst in the sauna itself. It was a great concept and allows you to sweat a deal more before having to jump out into the cold drop.

I spent a good 3 or 4 hours in the baths, alternating between the saunas, steam rooms and outdoor pools and come about 5 I decided I should dry off and get out to meet up with Rebecca and Bruno again for dinner. I made my way back to the station and waited for an hour to get my night train ticket for Krakow. I nearly missed the window, as the rather grumpy lady behind the counter was ready to pull the curtain shut just after serving those in front of me. I had my map of Krakow ready in my hand and quickly whipped it in front of the window, pleading with her to let me get just one last ticket. This seemed to melt her ice heart, and I was able to just sneak through the closing time.

Once I made it back to my hostel, the next thing on my list was to organise that evening's accomodation. I had tried moving hostels earlier that day, but they were all booked out, apparently it is common that after Sziget a lot of the party goers use the opportunity to check out Budapest. I asked the current hostel what could be worked out, but they were full also. However, this being a fairly relaxed place they agreed to let me sleep on the couch downstairs for half price and having no alternative I agreed.

Bruno and Rebecca were waiting for me at a bar about 20 minutes from my hostel, and after getting changed I made my way to meet up with them. Bruno regaled us with very interesting stories of his month spent on a tall ship somewhere in Scandinavia, something I would be keenly interested in trying someday. It is another thing that has made it onto my list of things to do in the next couple of years. He couldn't hang around, however, and ran off to meet one of his friends after an hour or so. Rebecca and I had a wander around and chose out a restaurant, deciding we should check out some authentic Hungarian food before leaving. I got a goulash soup (one of my favorite meals) and some kind of curry, Rebecca choosing some form of pasta dish. I also decided that due to Paul's very strong recommendation we should try a bottle of the Tokaji wine, one I've described before as being incredibly sweet due to being made from a certain type of grape infected with noble rot. I can certainly attest to it being a very very sweet white wine, nearly like a syrup, but still quite nice. It probably wasn't the correct choice for a main meal, as I would imagine it is normally drunk as a dessert wine. We enjoyed our food and chatted until midnight, after which I walked with Rebecca back to her hostel, saw her off as she was leaving the following morning and made my way back to my couch.

As I expected, there were a bunch of people in the living room drinking and having fun, so I joined them for an hour or so putting down some more Hungarian beer, after which they all headed off to a club somewhere in town. Having been in Budapest for a few days now, and having done next to no sight seeing, I decided to pass on the club to get at least a few hours of sleep to enable me to do some walking the next day. The couch ended up being quite comfortable, and I slept through until early morning when the cleaners started their shenanigans downstairs.

Being the day of wandering around Budapest, I made a list of the things to see. The first thing was the train station, where I deposited my bag in the luggage storage, as I didn't want to head back to the hostel to pick it up later that afternoon. My sight seeing then started with the Jewish Synagogue, apparently the biggest in Europe and most impressive in the world. I was not impressed. It has a couple of small towers, and a main hall, along with a museum and some memorials. Compared to even average Christian/Catholic cathedrals, the place just doesn't have anything going for it. Later in the day I would see St Stephens Cathedral, which is by far not the most impressive I've seen, but I felt it a far more impressive structure than the Synagogue. One of the memorials was interesting, however, being a steel tree with each leaf of the tree having a name engraved on it.

I stopped at an outdoor restaurant for another taste of traditional Hungarian Goulash which while nice, didn't seem to have the richness of flavour I'd had previously. In fact, to this day the best goulash I've had has actually been back home, cooked by Andre's mum, herself Hungarian. The next stop was the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, which is an impressive structure with some funky lion statues on either end of it, crossing the Danube river. I made my across the bridge and up to Castle Hill on the Buda side of the river, where I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to find Andy and Will, two of the guys I'd met in Munich a week or so earlier. We had a brief chat, but they were there with Andy's parents who were waiting for them to go up the furnicular to the top of the hill. Being the thrifty tourist I am, and not wanting to have to get more Forints out of the bank, knowing I was leaving that afternoon and they were useless anywhere else, I decided to walk up the hill. It wasn't to steep, but it was long and I had definitely burned off a few calories by the time I reached the summit. The view from here was quite impressive, you get to see a good chunk of the Danube, along with a great vista over the whole city. I wandered back and forth along the hill in front of the castle before heading back down.

I checked out the cathedral, mentioned before and the went to the House of Terror, the location in which the Arrow party of Hungary, and the secret police during the Soviet occupation were housed. The place is now a museum to the modern history of Hungary during the communist era, starting with the occupation by the Nazi's in 1944(which didn't last more than six months), followed by the Soviets after that. The last Soviet solider only left Hungary in 1991, and the period of occupation sounds like an incredibly frightening thing to live through. There were plenty of descriptions of the treatment of Hungarians and how the country was governed, the propaganda along with some lighter areas, one that contained a whole bunch of very bright and funny posters from different areas. It ended with a walk through the prisons underneath the building and descriptions of the rather horrific things that happened to people there.

My time in Hungary had drawn to a close, and I had to quickly make my way to the train station to get my night train to Poland. I retrieved my bag and found my sleeper carriage, which ended up being quite nice. I was in a three bed sleeper, of which I was the only occupant. I had a chat to some other Aussies in the compartment next to me, and tried to get some beer of the conductors. It said there was such availability on the wall, but apparently the menu was off for the night. After a couple hours of chatting I tried to get some sleep, but to get to Poland it is requird to cross the border into Slovakia to the north, and then out of Slovakia into Poland. This results in two passport checks, and consequently two rude awakenings.

Budapest was great fun. Making it in time for the Sziget festival was an incredible stroke of luck, and it is definitely something I would come back for, and would want to spend more than a day at. I struggled a fair bit with the language, but luckily most people knew at leat basic English. The city is quite big, and every street seems to be extremely busy during the day. The sights themselves are good, but coming from Vienna I think some of their splendor was a bit lost on me. Given some more time I think I would check out the parliament building, which is quite an impressive piece of architecture and I would be interested to see what other type of nightlife is around. My next stop would be Krakow, a place where I would find a great hostel with some of the most fun people I've met so far.

The photosfor Budapest are available as well!

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Battling Bratislava and Beautiful Vienna

I'm sure they were gaining retribution for me waking the room up at about 5AM with my shenanigans the previous night, but at about 7AM the Korean girls in my room went about doing their morning routine. I'm sure my lack of sleep contributed to the time dilation, but these chicks took at least an hour and a bit to get their shit together. I know girls have a reputation for taking a while to get organised, but this was simply ridiculous. How many times do you have to open and shut that locker door woman? Needless to say, I was pleased when they finally left. About an hour later, say, 9AM, they returned. I assume they went to have breakfast, had a chat and said "Let's go wake that guy up in our room again, he kept waking us up during the night". They proceeded to open and close lockers and generally fart about for another half hour before they finally left the room properly.

I peeled myself out of bed shortly before midday and ran into Jan, a Dutch guy who was quietly reading his book in the hostel bar area. I was still a bit grumpy, a well known trait that anyone whose seen me in the morning will attest to, but I persevered with the conversation and ended up going out to get some food with him. This turned out to be a great decision, as he invited me along with his Dutch buddies for the day/evening trip they were making to the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava. I went back to the hostel, napped for another hour and met the Dutch boys down in the bar playing pool. It was probably the longest game of pool I've ever witnessed, and anyone watching would have assumed that they don't have billiard tables in Holland. Eventually they gave up (didn't even finish), and we walked down to the train station to get our tickets.

The trip only took an hour and a bit, and during this time I bantered some messages back and forth with Paul, whom I knew had enjoyed the city not long previously. He updated me on his current status in South Africa, apparently in a fenced off compound which I found slightly disturbing. He also gave me the names of a place to eat and a bar to track down, as well as the contact details of some random girl who was a friend of a friend of his. When we had arrived in Bratislava, we grabbed a taxi to get into the center of town, as we'd arrived in one of the stations on the outskirts. The 5 of us crammed into the little taxi, and it is probably a good stage to point out that 3 of the 4 Dutch guys I was with were at least 6"5' each, and that it was a very cozy little trip. We spent a couple of hours wandering around and checking the place out, downing a couple of beers and then deciding it was time to eat. We found the restaurant recommended by the big P, however seeing as it was in a basement sort of area and wanting to have a good old view of the Slovakian scenery of which we'd heard so much praise, we opted for an outdoor restaurant instead. We all ordered various "Slovakian" dishes, all of which were fairly ordinary. I'm willing to put this down to being at an ordinary restaurant, I'm sure there is better cuisine to be found around the place.

After our meal was done we attempted to find the nightlife (it was a Saturday), ended up wandering around for a while poking our heads in different bars without really coming across anything that grabbed out interest. I'm not sure exactly what we were hoping for, but we didn't find it. We also couldn't find the bar that Paul had recommended, and decided that 5 guys calling a single random Slovakian chick recommended by a friend of a friend probably wouldn't go down terribly well. The first place we checked out was more of a restaurant bar, with most people sitting down to eat. We had a round there then ended up wandering around for a further twenty minutes, including one of the Dutch guys poking his head into what was surely a gay bar judging by the pink lighting and the rainbow flag hanging in the corner. The rest of us decided to let him scope out the place before venturing in ourselves; a wise decision as he came out shortly afterwards and confirmed that this was not a venue we'd probably want to patron.

Eventually we ended up in a dodgy little cocktail lounge, sunk a few more brews there before the big midnight bell sounded and we had to start thinking about getting back to the train station. Before we did we ran into a group of cool Irish girls travelling with one Irish guy, had a quick chat and snapped a photo. I worked out between the girls that we were all headed to Budapest within the next couple of days, and they asked their male companion to swap numbers with me. I could see that he was having none of it, and in an unspoken agreement we assured the girls that we had and the Dutch boys and myself all left the building. Eventually we found a couple waiting around, and after bartering a price finally made it to the main Bratislava station. One of the Dutch guys had some Slovakian currency left in his wallet which he wanted to get rid of, and attempted to get some of the homeless people around the station to dance for it. It was in rather bad taste really, and Jan and myself managed to convince him after a couple of his little attempts to go spend it on a burger or a drink instead.

We made it back to the hostel around 2'ish and promptly hit the bar downstairs. Just as I walked in, I had an Irish girl, Mary, come up to me and ask if I was looking for a fight. She informed me that I was holding my shoulders back in a way that made me look like I wanted to rumble, and not realising that she was also slightly taking the piss I floundered a bit and tried to convince her that this was not the case. She dissapeared and one of the Dutch guys bought a round of punch, which was apparently the only thing left on the offering. It was strong stuff, but shortly after the barmen decided that they could sell bottled beer as well, and a round of Becks was followed shortly after. Jan started working his Dutch magic on some of Mary's Irish friends around the bar, and I decided to hit the pool table.

It was about then that I realised that the Aussie guy currently playing was one of the dudes I'd sunk a few beers with back in Salzburg. Eventually they finished that game and the coin I'd thrown on the table came into it's own. I spied Mary loitering around the table and told her that she was going to play as well. Apparently I hadn't been quite clear in my intent, and after breaking the setup, she was about start playing against me before I informed her that she was actually on my team. Apparently she was all ready to "beat my ass", probably because of the awkward encounter we'd had back at the bar, but once she understood that we actually had to win the table she decided to befriend me instead and we got to talking. It turned out it was her birthday this particular night and after some general conversation we got to chatting about what was going on previously at the bar.

She described my previous posture as someone that was "Lookin for a foight!". I couldn't help myself, and had a reasonable amount of Dutch courage by that point and replied with "Foightin? Oi'll be foightin round tha werld!", a random quote from a Southpark episode featuring Russel Crowe. She picked up what I threw down immediately and we began singing the theme song from Russel Crowe's show in the episode. We were both aghast that we actually knew what each other was talking about, and a bit later on in the game as we were struggling to pot the last few she queried what we were going to do about it. I replied "Well, by our powers combined..." to which she responded "We are Captain Planet!", and then we both started singing the theme song to that fairly obscure tv show as well. Her friends started shaking their heads out our extreme display of combined geek, but we were both to wrapped up in finding a kindred spirit to care.

We ended up winning the game but losing the next, at which point the bartender started to call last drinks, and threw on some "dancing music" for anyone that might care to get up on the bar, particularly singling out the Aussie I had run into in Salzburg. He wasn't the smallest of men, but got up on the bar anyway and started moving about. I made my way back over to the Dutch guys who had surrounded one of the Irish girls, and then Mary decided she'd throw her hat in the ring, jumped up on the bar and shortly after was trying to remove the guy's top, of which he was having none. Eventually it got all a bit to steamy for him and he came down and left Mary up there to enjoy the bar dance to Joe Cocker's "You Can Leave Your Hat On" by herself. The whole thing was hilarious, and I'm pretty sure she got a few free drinks out of it. After she got down from the bar, the bartender decided to put on a slower blues track to get some more people involved, offering some free drinks to the best dancers. I caught Mary by the hand and showed her a few steps of my own.

The bar shut around 4, and we all called it a night. I went back to my room and tried not to wake the Koreans again, lest I incur their vengeful wrath again the next morning. Unfortunately apparently I did, and they again spent an hour or so stuffing about getting themselves sorted for their next day in Vienna. I couldn't sleep in either, as I had to check out by 10 to move to the other Wombats hostel down the road, both because I wanted to see if it was any good, and the current one had no openings for that night. I left my bags in the new place and headed out to actually see the sights of Vienna.

In a nutshell, everything in Vienna is huge. I got the metro out to the start of the main part of the city, and as I emerged from the underground tram I was confronted with the parliament building which is absolutely huge. I checked it out from a few different angles then headed up the street to pass one of the theater houses which was also huge, and then to Hofburg Palace, which is absolutely gargantuan. I checked out the Rathuas, which is basically the town hall of the city. It was surrounded with stalls and booths selling all sorts of food, and had a mammoth projection screen set up in front of it. All of this was for the film festival that was currently being held there, however I didn't actually see any of the flicks on offer. I picked up some Japanes food and continued to wander around the city and quickly realised that pretty much every building is massive. I think the Austrians must have had a lot of money at some point in their history and just went crazy building stuff in the city. Whether it's a theater, a government building or just something residential, in the city center everything is opulent and huge.

I made my way down to the river and purchased my boat ticket for the next days journey to Budapest, and then finished the sightseeing tour with a visit to the House of Music. It was an interesting place with a lot of interactive exhibits that would make strange noises and music when you played with them. There were a few areas dedicated to different classical composers that were important in musical history and had some significant attachment to Vienna. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and others all seemed to do a lot of their work in Vienna, and this has led to Vienna being known as the city of music. I think this should be altered to the city of classical music, as those looking for something a bit more modern may be left wanting. The best part of the museum I found was a cool interactive game they had where you wave a stick around like a conductor would, and a video in front of you shows an orchestra playing whichever track you may have selected in time with your movement. I saw one guy who managed to wave the magical little wand around in a manner that actually resulted in the orchestra finishing the song. Everyone else, myself included, ended up having the orchestra stop halfway through, say something in German and all start laughing. I'm sure it was less than praise.

After my sightseeing trip I got myself back to the new hostel, checked in my things and made my way down to the bar. I chatted to an American couple for a while before realising that the bar in this hostel was quite ordinary compared to the one back at the original hostel, and come about midnight I decided to make my way back there. I found Mary and her Irish friends there and hung out until the bar closed with them. It was not quite as raucous an event as the previous night, but it was great to hang out one more time before I moved cities.

I had one of the best stays of my trip in Vienna. The city itself is incredible in and of itself, but I'm fully aware that my positive experience was largely contributed to by the people I hung out with and the shenanigans that followed. I've found that I get along supremely with Irish folk. This has given me thoughts of applying for the Irish working visa once my UK one runs out, which would extend my possible stay in this European region by a year. At the very least, I intend to make sure I visit the land of paddy's and guiness sometime while I'm living in this area of the world.

Seeing Salzburg

The ice caves near Salzburg sounded like a good day trip, and I decided that I'd rather work out the transport for myself rather than paying the 30 odd euros to have it done for me. I got to the train station sometime around midday, got the train to the correct stop, but being a bit slow to get out of my seat and the door failing to open before the train pulled out ended me up in the next one along. Thankfully it wasn't too far away from the first, and a 20 minute walk down the tracks and directions from a guy who didn't like that I was headed directly for his house found me at the bus stop to get to the ice caves themselves. This was another 20 minute journey, followed by a 20 minute walk up to the cable car which would take me through the final ascent to the top of the mountain.

The mountains in the area are huge and beautiful. It's an incredible site, and one that my photos (yet to be released) simply do not do enough justice. The Austrian ranges really are incredible, and I can understand what all the fuss is about. What was not quite as beautiful was the hour and a half long wait for the cable car up the mountain. Whilst it was possible to walk, it was an ascent that would take an hour and a half by foot, and I decided that I'd rather preserve my energy for walking through the caves themselves. It was during this tedious wait in the line that I got talking to some guys that had come over from Kuwait to see the sights, and they had some interesting bits of information about their home country, the most ridiculous being that it is not uncommon for the weather in their fair land to reach into the 50+ degree mark. Insanity!

Eventually we made it into the cable car, which whisked us quickly up the side of the mountain, at which point there was a further 20 minute walk to the entrance of the caves themselves. It was at this point at the top of the mountain that the views became truly spectacular, which took the edge off all of the waiting for a while. Up this close to the caves had reduced the temperature significantly, and once we were within the large open mouth of the entrance, it was time to don jackets and jumpers. The tour took us into the caves, apparently which run about 42KM through the mountain, however we were only to see about 2KM of this. Another fact that the guide threw at us was that we were to expect a walk consisting of 1400 steps. The cave went into the mountain, but also continued to climb vertically. The interior temperature of about -1 degrees helped contrast the amount of work done actually walking through the place.

Every fifth person or so was given a lantern to help light the way, and the guide for each group holds a roll of magnesium which is lit to provide a very intense point of lumination that reflects off all of the naturally formed sculptures inside. Very impressive. As we walked through, the guide would describe the various different ice formations and how they had developed, along with bits of interesting history about how the place was found and when. The tour continued through, with various stops and at least a couple hundred people scattered through on their own tour; the Austrians, like the Germans, seem to be very efficient at getting people through these kinds of exhibits. About an hour or so later we were coming back out of the entrance, everyone pleased to be back in the outdoor temperature again. I didn't stuff around, as it had already reached the late afternoon by this stage, and I'd made plans to be back at the hostel to meet up with Brody from Innsbruck by sometime around 7. To my detriment, the queue for the cable car back down was another hour or so wait (which to me doesn't make sense logistically, how do they get them up there faster than they can get back down??), and after a near jog down to where the bus was, I was able to flag him down just as he was leaving and make it to the train station. All told, by the time I got back to the hostel it was past 8PM, and the whole excursion had taken about 9 hours. Was it worth it? The ice caves were pretty cool in and of themselves, but coupled with the incredible views of the alps while I was standing in those god forsaken lines, then yes. Yes it was. I found Brody and some new friends he had made in the hostel bar which I joined for dinner and drinks. I also ran into an Irish guy at the bar who, upon hearing "Roxanne" on the stereo decided to show me a drinking game of the same name. It basically involves taking a swig everytime the word "Roxanne" is said during the song, and anyone who is lyrically inclined will reliase that this is quite a number of times. My beer ran out just near the end, but it's definitely one I recommend. It's not conducive to conversation during the three minutes of play, as most of the time you'd be talking through a pint mug. Warning to the brave: Don't do this with shots.

The following day I decided I'd better actually see some of Salzburg itself and began my own walking tour of the place. I saw some nice gardens one my way down to the main area, the fortress being my primary destination followed by the Hellbrunn trick fountains. I got the furnicular (a word i've only become familiar with since getting to Europe, it's like a cable car but along the ground), up to the fortress and had a wander around. It offered some great vistas of the city, and there seemed to be a massive queue to get into the actual castle section itself. Deciding to see if that would die down, I went and had a coffee in one of the restaurants set up in the place, however this didn't seem to make any difference to the length of the wait. What it did change, however, was that I ended up standing next to an American couple, Eli and Jamie. They were on a couple of weeks holiday, and I was to spend the rest of the afternoon checking out the sites with them. They were both great to talk to, with that really eager and positive American attitude that some of them possess. This made wandering through the castle quite entertaining when the audio guide failed to deliver. Honestly the place wasn't much to speak of, interesting to hear about some history, but by this stage unfortunately regular old castles don't do much for me.

We left, got some food and beers down in the market area and made our way to a place nearby known as "Hellbrunn" which means "Fountain of Hell" or something along those lines. Basically it is a large park-like complex with several different "trick fountains". The first of these is a rectangular outdoor table made from marble. The owner of this place used to invite his upper class friends over, and have them join him at this table. This was replicated with the use of children on our tour, and once they had all taken positions, the guide flicked an out of sight switch, upon which time water sprayed out of all the seats save the one at the head of the table (where the host would sit). The kids, understandably, jumped out of their positions extremelly quickly and the crowd got a good chuckle. The rest of the park continued in this manner, where we would be taken through various interesting small buildings with fountains spraying at us from any possible direction. There was also one quite large animatronic display powered by water pressure depicting an old style town, with everything from a butcher taking off a pigs head to wenches being chased around in circles. It was all very interesting and well put together, and I was curious from an engineering standpoint about how they would have accomplished all this water pressure a couple hundred years ago. My interest was not satiated, even though there were some plans and drawings in the museum that we checked out later. We also checked out a stone theater that was nearby which was pretty neat. Basically imagine a stage carved out of stone with various stairs and levels carved into it as well. Very cool.

Getting later in the afternoon, I had to make it back to get the train to Vienna. I bode farewell to Eli and Jamie, picked up my bags and went down the station. It was only a few hours to Vienna, though I absent mindedly started in the smoking cabin which was horrible. I can't imagine how people can sit in a cabin full of smoke, and once I realised what I'd done, I grabbed my bags and wandered all the way up the train to find a seat in the non smoking section.

Eventually I made it to Vienna, checked into Wombats hostel (the Base) and dropped my stuff in my room. It was only about 11PM at this point, but the 3 other people in my room, a group of Korean girls were just getting into bed. I wasn't ready for that, so I quickly dropped my bag and headed down to the bar. I got my free tiny beer and found an American guy, Dan, that I'd met in Munich talking to a couple of American girls, Melissa and Alex. I sat down next to them and ended up spending the rest of the night in the bar till close with them.

Salzburg was cool, but I definitely didn't need any longer than I spent there. I missed going to the salt mines, but I'm not terribly dissapointed at that, it didn't sound that fascinating really. The ice caves were awesome, but I recommend anyone going to do the tour from Salzburg rather than pushing through themselves, as you will get to skip the cable car line that way, and the money you save is not worth the wait. Looking around Salzburg itself doesn't take too long, and they take every opportunity to let you know that Mozart was born and spent time there. Statues and buildings dedicated to the guy are everywhere. The following few days I would spend in Vienna, one of the coolest place I've seen so far.

Inspecting Innsbruck

I checked out of Wombats and was on the train to Innsbruck by about midday. After a heavy few days in Munich I delighted in just being able to relax for a while on the train, and sunk myself into some hardcore Nintendo for a couple of hours.

I arrived in Innsbruck about 3:30, got a map from the station and headed to the hostel that was recommended in my guidebook, one of the few times I've actually used the thing! I'd asked the guy at the station where the hostels where, an he had provided me with a list. The interesting thing was, the one I expected to go to wasn't on this list, however I decided to head to the location anyway. After a half hour trek with my bag, I eventually found where the hostel should have been and quickly realised why it wasn't on the list provided me by the information booth. Basically it had been completely gutted and was in the process of some pretty severe renovation. Cursing my poor forethought I wandered back into the city and went to the first place on the list recommended to me by the info guy. This turned out to be a great decision, and whilst it was quite a small hostel, the beds were nice and the lady running it very friendly. She provided me with a bunch of pages about what to do and see whilst in Innsbruck, which restaurants were decent and a better map. I had a chat with the couple that had checked in at the same time as me, and then set about organising the canyoning excursion; the primary reason that I had come to Innsbruck. I found the mob that were responsible for organising it and booked myself in for the next day.

Once I'd made my way back to my hostel I found there was another guy in my room now, a German by the name of Christian. We got to chatting and then decided it was time to get dinner and something to drink, and ended up at the local beer garden known as "Hofgarten". Austrians speak German, so I asked Christian what the translation of the name would mean, after seeing the term "Hof" in quite a lot. He couldn't come up with a literal translation, but it seems that "Hof" means essentially encircled by something. So "Hofgarten", as best I could figure it, was an encircled garden. At any rate, we sat down and ordered a couple of the local brews, and Christian then proceeded to translate the menu for me. We both settled on the ribs, which were absolutely brilliant. Well roasted with a great sour cream dipping sauce, we were both treated to a rack and a half of excellent meat, a meal that had us both bursting. We had another beer at the place and then moved to another bar known as "Treibhaus", that had a small salsa dancing section downstairs, but we felt comfortable enough sitting at the bar in the large upstairs area. We were there until close, at which point we both stumbled back to the hostel.

This particular hostel provided breakfast in a different manner to most. The owner of the hostel was also the owner of the cafe on the ground floor, so rather than eating in a common area, we were simply given a ticket to exchange at the cafe. This resulted in the best hostel breakfast I've had yet, of cereal, coffee, bread rolls with some incredible home made jam followed up by a freshly made pastry. Christian and I met up in the morning and enjoyed this bountiful meal before I headed out to the rendezvous point where I'd be picked up for the canyoning excursion.

It turns out that the group was all American, and the pickup point being a university dormitory housed 250 American students currently studying abroad. I quickly realised this is why I'd seen so many yanks at the Hofgarten the previous evening. They were studying all sorts of stuff, from engineering to arts, and the group ended up being me, 10 american guys and one american chick. A minibus was required to get to the canyoning area, which wasn't in Innsbruck itself, but a nearby town about half an hour away. We payed our fee (85 euro, not cheap!), were handed out wetsuits, harnesses and boots which, despite the cold weather, had us all sweating almost instantly. This proved for another short, but uncomfortable bus ride to the point at which the canyoning tour was to start.

The beginning was a downhill hike (in wetsuits, quite a bizarre sight) through some pretty rough terrain. There were a lot of steep hills to climb across which involved us attached our harness to a steel cable that had been previously slung across the cliff face. Eventually we made it to the stream that was cutting through the mountainside, and our first entry into this was down a naturally formed rock-waterslide into a pool of (very cold) stream water. This was a very welcome relief to the hot wetsuits, and from this point forward the temperature maintained a much more reasonable level due to the constant jumping or sliding into pools of water. The excursion lasted for about 3 hours which involved small amount of hiking, climbing, abseiling down rock walls and jumping and sliding into pools of water. The most exhilarating bit would have been the 15 meter jump into a deep pool of water. This was originally going to be a 10 meter jump, but some of the Americans found a high vantage point, and after a bit of convincing the canyoning guides allowed those who were interested to jump from there. Standing at the edge of a cliff face looking many meters down into what seems to be a very small target was quite a harrowing experience, and despite what you may thing, hitting water from that height isn't the softest of landings, but it was definitely worth it!

The whole time the two guides were snapping photos and taking videos. I have a dvd full of them in my bag, and assuming it doesn't get snapped in two itself during my travels, I'll be sure to upload some. The whole thing ended with a schnapps and a beer back at the base camp, and everyone agreed it had been an awesome experience.

I ended up back in Innsbruck around 6, hobbling a little bit as I'd jarred my left leg slightly whilst climbing out of one of the pools. I met up with Christian and two other guys who'd moved into our room while I was out. An Australian guy, Brody, and a Finnish guy by the name of something that sounds like "Yoho". We went out to a very small Indian restaurant with about 3 tables for dinner for what was basically a home cooked meal. The lady serving and cooking the food did so from the counter behind us, and we would have been able to watch the whole process unfold before our eyes if we weren't concentrating on our beers and chatting about each others day. After the meal we headed to an Irish pub for a round and then to Hofgartens for more drinks. Hofgartens had an excellent deal of 6 beers for 10 euro or something similar, so we were able to get through a few of them. Christian and Yoho left around midnight, but Brody and I terrorised the local womens of the place, albeit unsuccessfully, for the next few hours before calling it a night.

Being my last day the following morning, I had a quick breakfast with Christian and Brody and then said my goodbyes. It happened that Brody was to be in Salzburg the next day and we made plans to meet up there.

My day was essentially the Innsbruck sightseeing day, and I wandered around the town taking in their tourist attractions. Their most famous being the "Golden Roof", which has got to be the lamest most famous tourist attraction I've ever seen. It's a fairly small roof that, whilst being fairly gold in color, is made out of copper and is certainly not that large. Why it has become their most famous attraction I have no idea, and I think their tourist PR should take a good hard look into how they're promoting it.

I also checked out the "Schloss Ambras", a fairly unimpressive castle in a very nice park. I saw a variety of duck fowl in the park, including some black swans that they had imported from Australia. From here, running out of time, I quickly made my way in the lightly falling rain to the Alpine Zoo which was pretty cool. The part that wasn't cool was the kilometer hike up the extremely steep hill due to my missing of the bus. The Alpine Zoo in Innsbruck is apparently the highest in the world, a fact made abundantly clear from this little trek. I arrived extremely damp, and not primarily due to the rain.

I only had an hour and a bit to get through the whole place, but managed to do so. There were a lot of mountain goat style animals and some absolutely massive birds, various types of eagles and hawks I think (all of the signs where in German). There was a farm area with cows, pigs, regular goats and the like, which I can only assume are there for the Europeans which may not see such animals very often. Certainly this area was fairly boring for myself, as these animals are all very common back home. They had a couple of bears and some wolves that were pretty neat, but I got the biggest kick out of seeing some moose. I've never seen one in real life, and I may have been heard to utter quietly "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!".

I caught the last bus prudent back to the hostel to retrieve my bag and made my way down to the train station to catch the next available locomotive to Salzburg, my cabin populated with some Germans having a very loud and apparently hilarious conversation. I got there around 8PM, checked in and spent the rest of the evening chasing up some food and doing my washing whilst chatting with an American chick waiting for the dryer to finish. I managed to get to sleep about 1AM, which has become an early time for me over the past few months, and got about 2 hours in before 5 extremely large Russian guys came bursting in the room, switching on lights and creating quite a ruckus. There seemed to be one guy in control of the group (ironically the smallest of the bunch), who cracked a beer from the slab they had in the room and after half an hour of a lot of noise seemed to tell them to go to bed and left the room. Then, at about 7:30AM, the same guy hammered on the door a few times, and obviously having been given a key from one of his crew, burst back into the room, switched the lights on and proceeded to crack yet another beer. I have no idea what this guy did all night, but he looked exactly the same as he had the few hours previously, and I don't think he was the kind of gentlemen for whom sleep was very high on the priority list. The ruckus started all over again, and deciding that I wasn't going to be able to sleep further that morning I gathered what I needed to have a shower and headed up there.

I organised some breakfast at the hostel. They offered an "Austrian Breakfast" that involved for a couple euro some great scrambled eggs with ham, tomato and various herbs, and by the time I got back to my room an hour or so later the Russian mob had departed the hostel. It also appeared that one of them had dropped some kind of important-looking documentation, not a passport, but similar kind of identification. There was also a fifty euro note and some currency I wasn't able to identify. Being the good citizen I am, I made sure that the ID got to reception for safekeeping.

Innsbruck was fun, but unfortunately for the most part, except earlier on the first day it was either cloudy or raining. This meant I couldn't get any decent photos of the incredible mountains surrounding the place, but at least I was able to see them for a short while all the same. It truly was spectacular, with enormous peaks surrounding the little town. The canyoning was great and I recommend anyone interested in giving it a go, although apparently Interlaken in Switzerland is a little better (but probably also a lot more expensive!). There aren't a lot of sights to get through, and I get the feeling that Innsbruck and its advertised surrounding "Holiday Villages" is more for those looking to chill out for a while. There are great hikes available around (not that I did any), and apparently it's a great base for those wanting to go skiing and snowboarding during the winter months in the Austrian alps.

Italian Pics

Are available.

More of Munich

I met up with Kyle around 9AM the next day as agreed, but first attempted to book myself in for another night of Wombats hospitality, only to be told that there was absolutely no chance of that. Luckily the next two doors down were both hostels as well, and the one next to us, Jagers, had an available bed. I booked myself in there, packed up my stuff back at Wombats and about half an hour later Kyle and I were on our way to Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp.

After walking through the gate with the ominous sign "Arbeit macht frei", which means basically "Work brings freedom" (hah!), the whole place opened up into a huge (huge!) rectangular area, with a large square horse shoe shaped building that housed the museum section of the memorial site, whilst a hundred meters away or so there were a couple of large rectangular buildings, replicas of the housing structures used by the prisoners during their incarceration. The trip started off with a twenty minute video describing the camp and how it was used, including the details that it was essentially the prototype concentration camp that the rest of them were modeled after. Once the video was finished, Kyle and I wandered around the museum exhibits which contained copious amounts of information (I probably didn't read through half of it) on everything from the types of prisoners to how they were treated, to the human experiments that were performed (I found this the most disturbing), etc. Some of them were particularly brutal, such as "pole hanging" which involved hanging thr victim from a rafter by their hands tied behind their back, and "standing cells" which were cells so small that the victim was forced to stand for days at a time. They had various artifacts such as a uniform that one of the prisoners wore, various chains and whips and the like that were used and many, many quite disturbing photographs. There was also a Christian monument and a Jewish monument both within the memorial site, the Jewish one had an Israel flag and a candle in it, I expect put there by some recently passing through Jews. The whole thing was not depressing as such, but certainly a very sobering experience.

Making it back to Munich proper, I bode farewell to Kyle, who was about to make is way to Nuremberg, put away my bag in the hostel and hurried down the main walking strip of Munich to where a free bike tour was about to start. I decided that this would be the best way to check out the sites, as previous bike tours I'd attended were very enjoyable. After gathering the group, we had an English guide, John, from Manchester take us on our way around the main points of interest. From parliament buildings to where Hitler had marched his attempted coup (Munich was essentially where the Nazi party started), to various grand looking buildings, John was able to explain in very entertaining detail the reason a certain building was there, and how many times it had been rebuilt do to bombings or various other destructive influences. At least 65% of Munich was levelled to the ground during the WWII, and one particular building, I can't remember the name, had been rebuilt no less than three times in the past century.

We continued into the largest park in Munich (and I think the largest in Europe), the English Gardens, which, similar to Zurich, was where the locals went to sunbake and do their beachy-style activities. There is also one section of the gardens which is known as the "Nude Gardens", where the patrons are encouraged to drop their kit and enjoy the sun au naturale. Unfortunately the only members of the community that seem to take this offer up are the elderly gentlemen of the region, which will probably dash the perked up hopes of most of my readers. Nude soccer and other sports are popular, but I was happy just to get through that area with my vision intact.

In roughly the center of the gardens (past the nude bit) there is a Chinese Tower where traditional German music is played in the middle of the second largest beer garden in the city. We paused here for an hour or so to get some food, and of course some beer. I managed to put down a couple of liter steins and a bratwurst before getting back on the bikes, and luckily they didn't have too strong an effect on me to send my bike more than slightly veering along the path. Before leaving the gardens we saw the fake wave that is also quite famous in the city. Basically when the allied occupation was in Munich, a lot of the soldiers from California missed being able to surf, so they put a bunch of large blocks and wooden planks underneath a quickly flowing part of the river to creating a standing wave upon which the soldiers could surf. Apparently the Germans also liked this concept, and the standing wave has been there ever since, usually with at least 4 to 5 people all taking it in turn to have a crack at surfing on a river. They're in full body wetsuits, mind you, as the water is extremely cold.

The bike tour continued for another hour or so, showing us a few different sites, and after it was all said and done, the tour guide tipped (it was a free tour, but you're expected to tip the tour guide whatever you thought it was worth), a few of us then went down to the Hofbrauhaus to check out Munichs most famous beer hall. The place was absolutely packed with at least 3 thousand people, and after having a quick look around and listening to the German band briefly, we found a table and waited to be served. This waiting took a considerable amount of time, and after about half an hour we finally were able to place an order for some beer and food. This then arrived not less than another half hour later, and whilst the beer was good, it certainly wasn't worth the delay. I didn't stay too long in the place, as the waiting and crowds were excruciating, but one of the more interesting parts about the place is that the hardcore locals actually have their own stein and a little locker where they keep it in the place. Another bit of history is that this establishment where Hitler enjoyed to have his beer, and was essentially the place where the Nazi party was founded.

I went back to the Wombat's bar, where live music was supposed to be kicking. This was true, but it was the second band of the two which had been billed as "Alternative Metal Emo", which from the sounds of it wasn't really my bag. They weren't too shocking at the end of the day, and I had a couple of beers and chatted to one of the other people who happened to be on the same bike tour as me. After an hour or two of that, I wandered over to the Jager hostel bar where I ran into a few Irish girls and struck up conversation with them. We had a few drinks, chatted a while and then went next door, back to the Wombats bar, where I got distracted by some other people I'd met earlier. I ended up chatting to one of the girls travelling around with the band, and before I knew it the bar was closing and I had to go back to Jager's, at which point I decided going to sleep would be in my best interests.

I'd decided that the Deutche Museum was my primary focus for the following day, and after checking out of Jager and checking back into Wombats (nothing wrong with the Jager hostel, but Wombats was simply awesome) for my final nights stay, I headed across the city and was walking through the door of the museum about 11AM. I would be there until it closed, about 5PM, and I still didn't get to fully see the whole place. It is simply huge, and the whole thing is essentially a technology museum, a subject of which I am particularly fond. The entire basement area is made to be a mockup mine, with live size puppets and such pretending to drill into the walls and copious examples of the huge pieces of machinery and rail techniques used to do various types of mining. It was brilliant, and felt very authentic, until you tap the rock walls and get a very plastic sound back out of them. I recommend leaving the walls alone!

The rest of the museum included an aeronautics and astronautics section, various mechanics, power generation, an extensive computer science area, a marine technology section and a nuclear physics area just to name a few. The exhibits were about 50/50 in German and English, unfortunately the nuclear physics section was pretty much only in German (a subject that I'd become particularly interested in after hanging with the good people in Freiburg). However the displays and experiments they had running were all fascinating even just to look at, and most had some kind of interactivity available. The whole place was just incredible, and I would definitely recommend anyone heading to Munich to check it out.

After I was kicked out of there I headed back to Wombats to sort out my bed in the room (you can't actually check in until after 2PM), and I met an Irish couple there who were taking it easy with a beer and some music. They were from Belfast and two of the friendliest I've met. We sat around and chatted for a while, after which a young Australian guy who was also staying in our room came in and joined us. He was very drunk, but not in an altogether bad way, and after another hour of shooting the breeze we all went down the bar for a round. The Australian guy didn't last long, and headed back to our room to sleep off his stupor, but the rest of us stayed for another hour or so, met a couple of Americans and generally enjoyed ourselves for the evening.

Munich is an awesome place to go. There is plenty of historical buildings, interesting architecture, incredibly rich history added to the very nice English gardens and the best beer in the world (sorry Belgium, but you're awesome too!). The beer gardens and beer halls are great fun and the food is brilliant. I can understand why the Bavarians are a little bit more rotund than most, but I'm sure if I lived there I'd quickly end up in the same position. I spent 5 days there and could easily do it again, and it would definitely be the best place to go with a bunch of beer drinking buddies.

Managing Munich

I got to München / Munich in the mid afternoon and fairly quickly found the hostel (Wombats) and organised my bed and bag. I would say that Wombats was the best hostel I've been in so far. The rooms are huge, with six beds to each, and their own bathroom. The beds are made of good strong wood which means they don't make too much noise when people are climbing up and down them. It also has an awesome bar downstairs with a pool table which is full of English speaking backpackers. Happy hour runs from 6 till 8, and then again from midnight until 2AM when they close up. It's also got a really funky indoor terrace thing with a glass ceiling full of beanbags and such. I'm trying not to sound like a pimp for the place, but it really was that good.

After having a shower and getting myself freshened up, I went down the bar to check out happy hour and ended up playing some pool and chatting to a couple of Americans who had also just arrived. They were intending on heading out to a pub crawl that night, and with very little convincing I decided to join them. We actually weren't able to find the one we were after, as we happened to be a couple of minutes late and it seems that they had left already. After a bit of asking around, however, we were pointed in the direction of the internet cafe across the road where it was said that another was in the beginning stages. We waltzed over there to find a row of tables with about 40 or so people sitting around having a few drinks, and after finding the organisers were allowed to join. Being an hour late, we had missed the first hour of free drinks included in the cost, so we were charged a lesser rate for the crawl and given a few beers and Jagermeister shots to catch up on. The group was fairly mixed, and I got chatting to an Australian guy and a bunch of Irish girls, and about half an hour later we were on our way to the first destination of the tour, the Augistiner Brauhaus. This is the oldest brewery in Munich, started by monks (München means 'Monk' in some way), and they pride themselves on having the longest running brew, and apparently the best in Munich. The best beer in the beer capital of the world? You'd hope it's a good drop. We lined up for our liter steins and I also bought a pretzel (a photo will be available soon), and I will attest to it's high quality. The group found itself a large bunch of tables within the other two thousand people (no exaggeration) in the garden under a chestnut tree. The chestnut tree has special significance, as they were planted to keep the beer in the shade, as the brewery would not brew beer during the summer for reasons I can't remember, and so they would store huge quantities of it for that period, and the chestnut trees were planted to ensure its safekeeping. All of these things were explained to us by the tour guide, however most of the time he was drowned out by the sound of the Irish girls singing and carrying on. This wasn't a problem for the rest of us, as we were enjoying their shenanigans immensely, however the guide insisted on trying to get the rest of his story through.

After an hour or so at the Augustiner, we moved onto the Lowenbrau haus, also one of the top five beers in Munich, of which more liter steins were brought out. These were also very good, however we were indoors this time, and by now all the Australians had gotten up to the raucousness of the Irish, and the volume of our combined voices near on drowned out the whole place. Several times the guide pleaded with us to keep it down lest we get kicked out, but certainly to no avail. After a while we left (could have been kicked out, not sure), and ended up at the Euro Youth hostel bar, literally two doors down from Wombats. By this stage the group had dwindled to about 15 people or so, and some of the Irish girls had started to fall over, so after a few more drinks there I went to my bed. I was very drunk at this point and what exactly happened next I don't quite recall correctly.

Basically I got into bed as quickly as I could, lay down for an indeterminate amount of time, could have been half an hour, could have been fifteen minutes, but after this period had expired I sat up on my bed (lower bunk) and curled up in the fetal position near the end trying to convince my vision to stay still. At this point some other guy who was standing around our room lay down and appeared to try to go to sleep right there on my bed, and even after a few foul words and some shoving didn't want to move. I was at a loss for what was going on, however two Korean girls that were also staying in our room had gone downstairs and brought up one of the staff, and were pointing at this guy and making an awful fuss about something I didn't understand. It was at this point that the guy finally got up and was escorted out by the staff member. I managed to reclaim my entire bed, and quickly lost consciousness, but the whole event left me very confused.

The result of this ambitious drinking session was that the next morning I slept in, fitfully, until about 11AM, at which point I got myself ready as normal. After my usual ritual of showers and food, followed by a quick email check I still didn't feel part of this earth, and long story short I accomplished very little that day.

What I -did- accomplish, however, was that the previous day I had found that there was an English cinema in Munich that showed original versions of current movies. I had bought myself a ticket to the 3:30 showing of the Simpsons movie, and by the time I had arrived for it, I was more or less back to normal and was able to enjoy the flick thoroughly. For those who haven't seen it yet and are Simpsons fans, I recommend you go and see it. Right now. I thought it was great, and the whole "Spiderpig" thing was awesome. Ooooohhhhh, he's Spiderpig!

After seeing that delightful movie I had a great cheap sushi dinner and then wandered around the streets of Munich a little bit, hoping to find the Australian bar to see if they were showing any AFL matches over the next couple of days. On the way I saw a series of buskers, the first being an excellent group of 3 violinists and a bass, who played a series of classical pieces. After that there was another guy with a guitar who was doing a more musical / comedy act, and he was quite good also. He probably spent a bit too much time hustling for cash rather than performing, but over all it was pretty entertaining. He made a point of guessing everyone's nationality as they walked past, and seemed to know a word or two in most languages.

Eventually I did find the Aussie pub, but it was already deep into its party throes and in the midst of a karaoke session, something I didn't particularly want to participate in at the time. I never did find out of they were showing AFL there. I wandered back to the Wombat bar, had a couple of drinks and a game of pool and crashed out for the night.

The following day I had planned to go to Neuschwanstein castle, better known as the Disney castle (or at least the one on which the Disney castle is based). I went down to the Wombat's tour desk and asked for some information on their tour, only to find it wasn't running that day. However I was pointed to another guy, Joon, who was also keen on seeing the castle and was looking for companions. The type of train ticket we were to get could take up to 5 people for the same price, so the more people we were able to get together, the cheaper it would be for all. Unfortunately we couldn't find any takers at the hostel, and ended up making our way to Fussen, the closest town, by ourselves. It was on the train that I ran into Kyle, one of the Americans I had hung out with at the pub crawl, and his new found traveling companion, Corey. We spent the 2 hour train ride chatting away, and once we made it to Fussen we met an Aussie girl who tagged along with us for the rest of the day. Once the bus had taken us to the little village at the base of the mountain the castle is perched upon we got our tickets, but had to wait for 3 hours for entry time to come up.

In very typical German fashion, the ticket you get for the castle isn't a free walking trip, but rather part of a guided tour of the place. There is no way to wander around by ones lonesome, so you are assigned a group number and a time, and are expected to arrive at the castle at that time. This requires a half hour walk up the hill, or a cheap bus fare or even horse and carriage ride if you are so inclined. With three hours to spare we decided to walk, but unfortunately it was at this point that it started to rain. We whiled away the next couple of hours at a little cafe just near the base of the castle, mostly just trying to stay out of the weather. Thankfully by the time our number came up the rain had all but stopped, though the overcast weather still loomed dangerously.

Also in very typical German fashion our tour started at the alloted time to the second, and the tour itself was quite good. I'm sure the guide had a tape recorder in her head that she pressed a button on every time we went into a room, and I feel sorry for her that she has to say the exact same thing about 15 times a day. The interior of the castle was interesting, with a lot of frescoes on the wall, though a good percentage of the place was never finished. The parts that had been completed were very opulent, though terribly gaudy. Most of the frescoes had some relevance to Wagner's opera's, of which King Ludwig II, the designer and commissioner of the castle was very fond. The views out of the windows over the town were spectacular, even in the cloudy weather, and after the 45 minute tour was over we hiked up further around the hills where a bridge had been situated to get a nice view of the castle as a whole.

We took some photo's from the bridge, which turned out great, and then high tailed it in back into Fussen to get the 2 hour train ride back into Munich. Unfortunately the train was broken and we ended up getting a bus for the first half of the journey, and we ended up getting back to Munich about 9PM. We shared a pizza between the group of us, then went our separate ways for half an hour before regrouping at the Jager hostel bar next to Wombats. We had a few drinks and I arranged with Kyle to go with him the next day to the Dachau concentration camp memorial site. We bade farewell to Corey around midnight as he left to go to Paris, had a couple final drinks at the Wombat bar and packed it in for the day.

Neuschwanstein was a good trip, very picturesque, and was a good use of a day. The next would see me checking out Dachau with Kyle, followed by the Munich bike tour.

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A Lesson In Hospitality Part 2

We awoke to another great breakfast, this time prepared cheifly by Christof and Simon (Nicole and Peter being away on their excursion), packed our things and headed down the station to head to Freiburg. We arrived early in the afternoon, and Christof took us up to his apartment. Three floors up, with a rack of shoes outside the door that would make one envisage a family of 10 living there, it was a nice place with a wood style of floating foor, a nice kitchen, three bedrooms and a living area. After checking emails and Simon cooking up a quick pasta lunch, with artichoke and anchovies (the latter of which I politely declined), we headed out into Freiburg city to see what was what.

Unfortunately the weather didn't seem to want to cooperate too well with us, and before long it was gently spitting away. After catching the tram to the outskirts of the black forest that Freiburg borders, we started to trek through the not-so-dense forest area, through a winding path and then up a fairly steep hill which opened up into a beautiful grassy area that could see over the whole city of Freiburg. We marvelled at this, and took the requisite photos before piling our stuff in a heap and throwing the frisbee around in the swift mountain air; an activity not without its peril, especially close to a large bunch of blackberry bushes. An hour or so later we decided to start to make our way back down to the city, but not before a father with a couple of his kids had decided to fly a kite in the same general area. The wind by this point was extremely strong, and I'm surprised the kite withstood the pressure applied to its structure. It was hovering in the air for sometime, at which point we noticed a real hawk in the sky not too far off, seemingly hovering in the strong wind also. Edging its way closer, the hawk eventually took a swoop at the kite, before the kites mad flutterings in the air sent the hawk quickly out of the area, no doubt terribly confused at the strange actions of this unusual bird.

Making our way down to the city, the rain that had lightly peppered us earlier in the day began to make its presence a lot more pronounced, and as we made our way into town more and more swiftly, we became increasingly more damp as the minutes drew on. By the time we'd actually made it back to the city proper, my hair, upper shirt and lower pants were thoroughly soaked. We decided to take refuge in a mexican restaurant until things eased off a bit, and treated ourselves to the strangest nacho's I've ever seen (nacho's without much cheese or salsa, and no gaucamole? Insanity!), some other corn chips and dip that were quite nice, and I ordered a mexican coffee. Thijs had ordered a 'sweet coffee', which arrived in a little espresso cup with some cream on top and a shot of kahlua added to the contents. My mexican coffee arrived in a large glass tumbler, also with cream, kahlua and tequila added to the mix for a good right wake up call. The stuff was pretty ordinary, and I would advise my more eager readers to reconsider adding tequila to their coffee in most circumstances.

Eventually the rain died down to a reasonable level and we started to make our way back to Christof's place. This involved walking through the (empty) market area, past the main cathedral. The cathedral was pretty awesome, as it was still lightly raining and the various gargoyles looked as though they were spewing water onto the ground below. I spied one particular gargoyle that was fashioned to look like a person hanging their butt out and mooning the world. An image can be seen here, but I must admit that it was much more hilarious seeing it in person.

By the time we'd arrived back at Christof's place his first roommate, Natalie had arrived home, and after introductions we set about solving her problem of a rumbling belly by cooking up yet another pasta dish with tomato and tuna. Not long after, Christof's other roommate, Regina, arrived and we all whiled away the evening over a few bottles of wine and vermouth.

That time of night arrived, and we packed it in. The following day we slept in until around 10AM and headed out to check the market whilst it was open. It was primarily a food market, with several "Wurst" or sausage stands, filling the area with the pleasant aroma of a good German barbecue. There was one stand selling at least 10 different types of mushrooms, including truffles, and many other vendors selling all manner of meats and vegetables. We didn't have a lot of time to check it out carefully, as we were to meet Christof who had headed out to a physics conference to help with the organisation, for lunch.

He took us to a nice asian restaurant, which was a great change of pace, as I'd not had a good asian meal since I'd arrived in Europe. What they didn't tell me is that while I was visiting the gents, Natalie had arrived with a couple of her friends from uni and they'd all switched tables before I'd gotten back. After a minute or two of bemusement I eventually found them out the front and settled down to eat my spicy satay chicken with rice, which was delectable. It was at this point that Thijs had to leave us back to Holland, and after saying goodbye to him we made our way to the train station to head to Titisee, in the Black Forest.

The place was extremely touristy, with every shop selling a variety of cuckoo clocks, various other souveniers, a few types of schnapps and other liquor. One shop even had quite a large christmas section, selling the once a year festivity decorations all year round. It was, however, an extremely quaint little village, and we delighted in taking a boat out into the main lake. Unfortunately we didn't find out that this was a pedal powered boat until we'd paid and got in the thing, and this particular pedal boat wasn't terribly efficient. We didn't get much speed up for the effort it required, but we were able to slowly paddle out to the middle of the lake and get some nice photos. Taking the rare opportunity, we were sure to announce several pirate references and star trek jokes, with Paul shouting "Ahoy!" to one boat of Germans who replied with a blank stare that would kill puppies.

After finishing our boat ride and taking a few minutes to relax our stressed leg muscles, we wandered through a few more of the souvenier shops and then made our way into the forest itself. It is true to its name, in that the canopy is quite dense of a certain type of pine tree. The pinecones aren't what you'd expect back home, but are a lot thinner and longer, and litter the ground everywhere. We walked for a while, found some good scenery photos and eventually made our way to a beer cafe near the top of one of the hills. Whilst I was in Italy, Paul was able to do most of the talking in Italian when it came to getting a meal or a drink, and I took the opportunity to flex my very basic German knowledge to order us a round of beers as we sat down. My "Drei große bier, bitte!" was replied with an acknowledgement, and then a rabble of German which I had no hope of understanding. Unfortunately the waitress didn't understand English at all, and after a bunch of linguistic gymnastics, she enlisted the assistance of a gentlemen at the table opposite, who informed us that she wanted to know if we would like cake also. Deciding it was time for a snack, I walked in with her and selected a few different types. One of them was black forest cake of course, a strawberry one and another I can't describe. She brought them out and we enjoyed cake and beer, something we all agreed was an odd combination, overlooking a very picturesque part of the German countryside. The conversation continued for some time, and we got to discussing the limits of my German vocabulary, at which point I informed them that I'd been told the only thing I need to know in German is how to order a beer, "Ein große bier, bitte!". Something we didn't realise was that a German lady in her fifties behind us must have been listening, as this remark caused her to roar with laughter, and after she regained her composure to add "It's true! It's true!". I think especially so in Bavaria.

We trekked back down through the forest, stopping for Simon and Paul to play with Simon's tricked out camera and tripod to get some swish photos, and made our way back into one of the cuckoo clock shops. Paul was intent on purchasing one of these items, and in fact ended up buying two, having them delivered straight to Melbourne. One of the interesting things we found out is that this particular store actually had a service center in Melbourne, which made the two year warranty actually mean something valuable!

After making our way back through the town to the station, we met back up with Christof and went into the convention center where his conference was being held to attend one of the public lectures given by a nobel prize winner in chemistry. His talk consisted of how global warming works, with the last third dealing with a novel idea of injecting large amounts of sulphur into the upper atmosphere to reflect light and cool the planet, should (and he stressed this was a last resort measure) current attempts at reducing global warming fail. The whole thing was a bit dull really, as his presentation wasn't terribly well done, and he essentially just read large chunks of text off his slides. However, the man does have a nobel prize so respect was deserved.

We woke ourselves up by the end of that, went back to Christof's place to gather some bbq supplies and headed out to a nearby park where Natalie and the friends she had brough to lunch were getting the portable unit fired up. Christof had chosen some great steaks and sausages, and after throwing the frisbee around for a while, we all enjoyed a great meal, including an interesting dish that involves wrapping up some fetta cheese with onions and tomato and sitting that on the hotplate for a while. I broke out the couple of bottles of schnapps I'd bought from the black forest, including one very nice honey based one, a peach based liquor and another bottle of some horrid stuff that just tasted like fuel. Christof, Simon and Natalie took to wrestling in the grass, at one point simon ended up half in the creek by the park and also getting slid along the nice green grass by his butt as Paul dragged him around. I felt sorry for those jeans.

A couple hours after the sun went down, and we went back to Christof's place, shortly after Regina had arrived home from her lab duties. She is currently studying some form of cell based biology and often gets stuck in the laboratory waiting for things to happen. She quickly devoured the remaining salad that we'd brought back with us, and then joined Paul and I in finishing off the schnapps (except the fuel stuff, I politely left that as a gift in Christof's apartment), whilst we trawled through a bunch of youtube videos and giggled the night away.

The next day after a bit of a sleep in, we checked out the market in a bit more detail with Christof and a couple of his friends, grabbed some wursts for lunch and parted once more. Simon, Paul and myself then hiked up the 300 odd steps to the top of the tower in the cathedral. Walking up that many stairs wasn't the biggest problem, as much as you had to contend with the people walking back down the stairs on a spiral staircase that was really only built for one. After a lot of squeezing and apologising, and then being informed once we had nearly reached the top that there is actually stair climbing etiquette, which states that those going up should stick to the inside, and those going down to the out, we finally made it to the top. It offered quite a nice close vista of Freiburg and the market below. We briefly checked out the church bells hanging slightly above from where we were, the largest weighing in at a whopping 7 tons. We squeezed our way back down the stairs and decided it was the right time to go get a thank you gift for Christof and his folks.

After a bit of walking and a couple asks for directions, we found ourselves downstairs in a very nice little wine shop, where the owner was taking a couple of potential clients through some tasting. Eventually he finished with those and asked what he could do for us, at which point we explained the situation, Paul and Simon (who know far more about wine than I) gave him some indication for what we were looking for. Paul was dead set on getting a particular type of Hungarian wine from the region Tokaji, that specialise in creating a wine cultivated from grapes with a type of noble rot, basically an edible fungus. Simon picked out a nice sounding Australian wine they had, "The Laughing Magpie", from McLaren Vale. After these wines had been selected, the gentlemen then decided to take us through a tasting of a bunch of wines he was keen to share with us, and Paul later on in the day made an excellent observation on the character of this man. Basically he gave us a tasting of 4 different wines (opening one new bottle for the occasion), and after all of this Paul and I selected one of them that we'd like to add to our purchasing collection, at which point the man confessed that he didn't actually have a bottle of the stuff available. Rather than taking us through a tasting with the intent of selling us wine, he simply wanted to share a few of his favorites with us, which we all found very cool, and something Simon attributed to the magic of wine in general, and his reason for being so fond of the beverage.

After leaving the wine store, we headed up the hill behind Freiburg a bit to a beer garden to have a brew, after which Simon left us to go check out some of the physics conference where Christof was at. Paul and I continued up the hill to the top, where a tower offering a different vista of the town was situated, and after some conversation and a few photos we headed back down to the beer garden to continue where we had left off.

We actually hung around the beer garden probably about half an hour too long, and ended up walking on the point of running back through Freiburg to get back to Christof's place to collect our bags. We picked up our belongings, and then had to do the same brisk pace to the station to get to the train back to Basel in time. Running with a 20KG pack on your back isn't terribly fun, and we made it just in time to get ourselves on the train and moving back to Christof's parents place.

Nicole and Peter welcomed us back into their home where we presented them with the gifts we'd procured, and were promptly treated to another incredible dinner of roast chicken legs with rice and a great vegetable dish which I can't describe. Some more of Peter's wine was poured and the whole dish was followed up with a delicious dessert of dried, caramelised figs with mango ice cream and sliced oranges that Christof had prepared. After an hour or so of chatting about wine and things, Christof drove us into Basel city to participate in the celebrations that were happening that evening.

Basel had a public holiday the following day, and to celebrate the people crowd the streets where beer serving tents are set up, and a massive fireworks display starts off at about 11PM. There were thousands of people all over the place drinking and having a good time with different styles of music being played all over the place.

We got ourselves a couple of beers, which took a good 20 minutes of waiting, and found a spot along the Rhine that Christof was convinced would be a good vantage point. Not long after, small long lasting fireworks (more like flames really) started being released into the air attached to helium balloons, and soon the sky was full of bright red flaming stars hovering around which looked incredible. About half an hour later, two large barges lumbered their way up the river and one took position right in front of us, thanks to Christof's good positioning. Some more time passed and suddenly the biggest and longest fireworks show I've ever seen in my life started erupting off the barge in front of us, and also from the other a few hundred meters up the river out of view. The whole show went for 30 solid minutes, and only a few minutes in we were being rained on by spent firework paper, clouds of gunpowder smoke filling the sky amidst some of the most intricate, bright and huge fireworks explosions I've ever experienced. Each burst of light from some of the larger fireworks were accompanied a second or two later by a thundering crack that you could feel in your chest. The whole thing went in stages of different styles of firework, and ended with a whole bunch of floating fireworks being relased into the river and quickly floating downstream. I still don't know how they managed to fit so many fireworks onto even a barge; it was that intense. The crowd erupted in applause after each section, and when it was over everyone tried to disperse back to the beer tents and streets.

This proved a slight problem as the crowd simply didn't move further than a meter a minute for the first few hundred meters. My problem with this was that the couple of pints of beer I'd ingested over the past couple of hours were making their presence known in my bladder, and there didn't seem to be a toilet in sight. About fifteen minutes of pain later and I found a semi-respectable place to relieve myself, much to the taunts and hollering of Paul and Christof.

Finding our way back to the carpack presented us with another 15 minute queue to pay for our ticket, apparently everyone else in Basel decided to use the same carpark joint as we did. This wasn't a major issue, as the grassy park right next to us was presenting us with another, albeit much smaller, fireworks show at either end. It was almost like some kind of jousting match, as one of the fellows at one end would shoot off something, and then the people at the other would try to outdo his performance. The craziest part about it was that one of the guys held onto one firework the whole time it was lit till it went off, and I could have sworn it would have severly burnt him, and when it exploded I thought he was done for. Apparently I was wrong, and this guy actually did know what he was doing, as he calmy walked away as if nothing had happened. I still don't know how that was possible, he must have been wearing a protective glove and jacket of some sort, not to mention the danger he put his face and eyes in.

Christof drove us back to his parents place where we sat around and chatted for a short while and then hit the sack once more. The next day would present us with another exquisitely prepared breakfast, and Christof's father drove us back to the station near their home. Christof and Simon were heading back to Freiburg, Paul to Geneva to check out CERN, and my destination was Munich. There was a round of goodbyes, and not long after I was trying to catch up on some sleep on a train through Ulm to Munich.

The days I was with all of these people were awesome. I've never experienced the kind of hospitality shown to our group by Christof's parents, Nicole and Peter, and there has never been a host and guide as gracious and thoughtful as Christof was during that time. It was really cool to be able to hang out with the same people for a few days and share in a bunch of awesome travelling experiences, and I sincerely hope I have the opportunity to meet up with them again.