Day 45 - Berlin

We had a very lazy start to our day. Neither of us got out of bed till 10:30ish and basically did nothing till 1ish. Well, we had a coffee, messed around on the net for quite awhile and we both burned the pics off our cameras to cd. Huge relief to get that done knowing the pics are now somewhat safe.

Finally we left the hostel and headed out for Checkpoint Charlie again to check out the museum located just on the west side. It used to be a safe haven for people escaping from East Berlin.

On teh way we stopped at an AMEX spot for Rob to cash his travellers cheques and i randomly ended up in a conversation while waiting for him with two Canadian girls, Crystal and Amanda, and an Aussie guy, Matt, and soon enough were meeting them for dinner later on at 8.

Aftewards me and Rob stopped, had a curry sausage with fries drowned in ketchup for lunch. I don't think i've ever felt grosser after eating. Pretty much ruined my day. Then we finally made it down to Checkpoint Charlie and went through the museum. It wasn't a bad museum, but definately could've been better, but still was very interesting. It went through the whole histeory of the Wall from going up in '61 to down in '89. There were alot of exhibitions and stuff about different ways that people would try successfully and unsuccessfully to escape. I definately have a hard time getting my mind around the fact that the communists actually could do something like that and the fact that it stayed up until 1989 without anything being done by the rest of the world is shocking and sad. Really messed up.

After the museum, me and Rob headed back to the hostel. We'd planned initially on doing alot more today, but just didn't happen. A very slow day. And the other thing too is that Berlin is soooo spread out and huge, so going anywhere takes a long time. Its a big of a shame because there is so much to see and do in Berlin adn we really only touched on the surface. Just have to come back another time i guess!

When we got back to the hostel i headed to the post office to send a package home and then showered and me and Rob headed up to meet the three from earlier for dinner.

We found the place after awhile of looking around and sat down with the three of them and these two new guys, Nick and Greg, from California. They looked like the biggest hippies ever. Greg had a huge tuque on covering his dreadlocked hair and Nick had a humongous black beard. I'm sure the two fo them get stares wherever they go. Turns out that Crystal just graduated from undergrad and then a one year master's program at Queen's (we didn't really know anyone in common though) and Amanda went to Acadia and knows my buddy Kevin Ogilvie and was at his wedding reception two years ago. Crazy small world.

So we ate and then headed to the Circus Hostel (where we'd been the night before) where some of them were staying and we had a pint and met up with some of the boys from the night before. From there we headed to this other bar that the girls had heard about. It was abit of a walk, but we finally got there. It was the weirdest place i've ever been i think. The place we went to was this old abandonned concrete building that was half demolished at the back so you could see into the different floors from the outside. The whole thing was also covered in spray pain and there weren't many people around making it seem pretty sketch, especially after dark. At the back of the building, where the rest of the building should have been anyways, there was a bit of a small shanty village and a projector was projecting all kinds of weird images on the wall of the building opposite. It was very weird and creepy. We climbed this staircase all the way to the top floor to a room with a bunch of couches, very dimly lit, and a DJ was spinning house music in the corner. It was a cool and weird because the other half of the floor we were on was just simply gone. We were on the outside of the building basically, 5 storeys up, looking down on the shanty houses and the wall opposite with all the weird images flashing on it. I felt like i was in a Rob Zombie movie thinking that everyone in the place (who were staring at us) were all going to all of a sudden show fangs and turn out to be vampires or something. There was an art gallery on the floor beneath us that was open and free. I think the story behind the place has something to do with a bunch of artists hiding out there during the war and then when the war was over they were told they could keep using the place as a studio on the condition that they have to keep it open to the public at all time. It was very liberall too with people smoking weed everywhere. I doubt if it was even a licensed bar. The Aussie guy scored some green later on and the Cali guy took his dreads out when he smoked and he looked just like Bob Marley. They were the craziest dreads i've ever seen.

Finally sometime between 1 and 2 we all took off. Me and Rob had the best location for a hostel ever bcause we had no clue where we were, but all we had to do was look up and find the TV tower (kinda looks like the CN tower) adn walk towards it because our hostel is basically right at the base. Tooks us about 45 minutes to walk home, then we both passed out.

Off to the Netherlands tomorrow.

To be continued...

Day 44 - Berlin

We got up around 9:30, had some breakie, then at 10:30 headed to the base of the huge TV tower to the Fat Tire office and signed in for the 11am Fat Tire Bike tour. We'd met a few people who highly recommended it to us so we went for it.

We met our guide, Enda, from Northern BC and the rest of the tour group (about 25 people) and we got our bikes and headed off. Our bikes were big beach cruiser style bikes. Mine was big and black with white flowers and a big basket on the front.

The tour was really good. We stopped at a ton of historical places like the place where they had the famous Nazi book burning, the old imperial palace, the Schlossplatz, Checkpoint Charlie, the place where Hitler's bunker was, the new Jewish monument, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag. So much history in Berlin that its insane. We stopped for lunch in the Tiergarten, this huge park which looked gorgeous with all the leaves changing and falling, near the Brandenburg Gate.

The tour went from 11 till almost 5. Definately good times and a great way to get acquainted with the city and where things are. And riding a bike around was fun as shit.

After the tour we headed back to the hostel and cleaned up and relaxed for abit. I had coffee down in the hostel cafe/bar and met and hung out with this girl, Taylor, from NYC. Quite the 'interesting' girl. Very young, 'free-spirited, and naive. Afterwards, we went to a Hong Kong place around the corner for dinner.

We'd met another Aussie from Melbourne, Andrew, who was travelling on his own and we'd planned on going out to try to find something to do later that night because our hostel bar was always very dead. So we met at 9ish and headed to the Circus Hostel which is one of the 'World Famous' ones and is supposed to be one of the better ones in town so we went to the bar there and hung out. We met an off-the-wall English guy, a couple of Aussie's and another English guy who talked out of the side of his mouth and had the craziest accent; i hardly understood a word he said.

We hung out there drinking beers and shooting the shit for awhile and then me, Rob and Andrew went home, grabbing a dirty Doner along the way.

Day 43 - Prague to Berlin

We got up at 7:30 and packed quickly, said goodbye to everyone, and met Kim and Meg downstairs in the common room. They're heading to Berlin too, so we thought we'd ride together. They already had tickets and since our Eurail passes don't cover the Czech Republic we had to get tickets so we went ahead and planned to meet them on the train.

Me and Rob just made it onto the train on time and figured the girls had been too slow and missed it but we ended up finding them a couple cards down and helped them move their stuff down to our compartment. The train ride was okay, again with some great fall colours and scenery. Rob and Kim slept most of the way, so i took out my mini-speakers and me and Meg rocked out to some good old country music and chatted. They're both studying in London so I'll maybe hang out with them abit when i'm in London at the end of my trip.

When we got to Berlin we said bye to the girls since they were heading to one hostel and we'd booked another one. Then me and Rob tried to figure out how to get to our hostel, the City Stay Hostel.

We failed.

We couldn't even find an information booth anywhere. We literally wandered for over an hour with no clue where we were going adn even when we found a city map we still couldn't figure out where the hell we were supposed to be. We ended up making a huge loop and then finally found an information point right back where we'd first started. An hour of our lives we'll never ever get back. Then when we did get instructions, Rob got u s onto a train going in the wrong direction. The joys of travelling. I was so happy when we finally got to our hostel and go to take our packs off.

The City Stay is a very very nice place and very central. We're right across the street from the huge, Swedish designed TV tower and not far from Checkpoint Charlie, the famour border crossing between East and West Berlin. Our hostel is actually in East Berlin, so 18 years ago we would've been in the heart of communist Berlin before the Wall came down in 1989. The square where Hitler had one of his famous Nazi rallies is about 3 blocks away. Very crazy to be in the middle of all this history.

We screwed around for awhile and walked around the neighborhood abit on our owns. We ran into James, the guy from Tazmania again and hung out with him for awhile then we hit a steak house around the corner for dinner, then to bed early.

Pretty slow day....nice for once.

Day 42 - Prague

So 3 hours of sleep really sucks. Was up by ine becuase it was so loud and bright and so i headed down to breakie feeling like shit. Met up with Olivia and ate with her and hung out in the common room. Me and Rob didn't have anything planned other than wandering around for the day. Nice relaxing day and then hockey at 6:30!

After the game in Vienna we decided that we had to go see a game if we could i Prague so we'd checked ahead and saw that Sparta was playing at home in the T-Mobile Arena Friday night and decided we had to go. I mentionned to people that we were going and within an hour we had 6 others coming with us, all of whome except for Kate had never seen hockey before and they were pumped to be going with two Canadians to their first one. Its up to us Canadians to spread word of the greatest game in the world and we've been doing a good job so far. I'd already picked up 8 tickets for our group the day before so we were all pretty pumped.

Olivia had made drunken plans the night before to tour around with Kath so she was waiting for her, but she must have forgotten lasat night that she was leaving for Krakow the next morning and by the time we went looking for her she'd already booked out. So since 'Liv was now all alone and i had nothing to do anyways, i walked around town with her doing pretty much the exact same tour as the day before, seeing the change of the guards again, and then around back to the hostel by 2ish. Rob was with us for a bit, but the took off shopping on his own. We (me and Liv) had a good time together and she was pumped because her Mom, Dad, boyfriend, and Grandmother were flying over that afternoon and meeting her at 5ish and then headig back to Florence with her.

We chilled in the common room with Kate and Rob after hitting a grocery store for a snack and I passed out on 'Livs shoulder (lucky girl). I woke up around 4 and Liv took off and we all got ready for the game.

I'd told everyone we'd meet in the common room at 5 to head over to the game together adn by the time our group all met up we'd grown to over 20 people. Me and Rob felt like sheppards leading sheep. It was pretty awesome that we could influence so many people and they were all pumped to see hockey (17 of the 20 were going to their first game). So we headed to the station and jumped on the subway down to where the area was supposed to be. When we got there though there was no arena to be found, but I saw this kid (about 12 years old) with a jersey on so i asked him if he was going to the game. He didn't have perfect English, but he did pretty well (probably from learning at school) and told us to follow him and his parents. We had to jump on a tram for one stop to get to the arena and we talked to him about hockey along the way and he told us how his favorite team is the New Jersey Devils and how last season was much better than this season in Prague because guys like Havlat and Nedved came back and played for Sparta during the strike. His parents spoke no English, but you could see how proud he was and especially how proud his mother was because he could speak English with us. Maybe his first time ever to anyone outside of school. It was a pretty cool experience and he seemed to enjoy it and made sure we followed him right to the gate.

The arena was bigger and nicer than the Vienna one, but the crowd definately was nowhere as crazy. And that wasn't for lack of beer because a pint (half liter) was only 25 Cr! That's under a Euro a pint and well under $2 Canadian! I couldn't believe it. That's like a fifth of the cost at an NHL game. So we sure as hell weren't going to let the opportunity go to waste (because we obviously haven't had much beer on this trip so far) and took full advantage of the economics of the situation.

I sat between Sophie from down under and Meg and Kim from the OC and explained the key rules and what was going on in the game as it went on. I'm pretty sure they all had a blast and we cheered hard, but Sparta lost 3-2. Good, close game though with some very nice goals. We had awesome seats right at center ice and the tickets only cost 115 Cr, or less than $6 Canadian. Rediculously cheap and it was the same cost for any seat in the house. Great, great time.

After the game we headed back to the hostel and chilled out in the common room for awhile and had a few more beers. At the end of the night, me, Rob and Meg hung out in the office with the owner (don't remember his name) who let us hang out behind the desk and serve ourselves our own beers. He was a really cool guy and we just shot the shit about differen stuff and made fun of Meg. He decided that the walls in the office were too bare since the place is less than a year old and he let me and Meg be the first two people to sign the wall which he eventually wants to fill. I wrote something down about his hostel, his girlfriend, and Czech beer all being awesome which he loved.

Definately was a great hostel with great beer...and his girlfriend was probably the sexiest European girl I've seen yet...haha.
outta time...to be continued....

Day 41 - Prague

We got up at 9ish and met Kate, the girl from Mac (grew up in Oakville) in the common room then we headed out for a day of sightseeing. We stopped at a place near the hostel and had a coffee and egg sandwich on a bagel (my first egg in Europe i think). We hit up the main square first, then wandered, crossed the bridge north of the famous Charles Bridge, then headed up the hill to the castle.

Like so many other places i've mentionned, Prague is absolutely gorgeous. All very old, Soviet type architecture and churches and mosques everywhere. Its also way cleaner than i would've guessed and has a great atmosphere and feel to it. Definately a great place to come to and i could easily stay and hang out here for a week or more.

So anyways, we walked up the hill and stairs to the castle, took some pics looking back down over Prague and then headed up to the square in front of the palace. We got there around noon, so it turned out that we'd gotten there just in time for the changing of the guard, which is similar to the changing of the guard in London. So we watched the ceremony which took about 20 minutes adn we saw the new guards march in, then the band played some music, then the two guards who were standing on guard out fron were replaced by 2 new guards who would be there for the next 24 hours, standing in the same spot, not moving at all.

From there we wandered through the grounds of the presidential palace in the castle and paid 50 Crown to go down Golden Lane which ended up just being a small road with tiny shops with 5 foot doors. There was a really cool, small, medieval weapons museum though that had a ton of crazy looking weapons that i've definately never seen or heard of before. From there we wandered back towards the river, had a Thai food lunch (good and cheap), then walked back to our side of the river across the Charles Bridge. Its a pretty cool bridge with statues all the way across (pedestrians only) and is definately the sight of pretty much every single Prague postcard because of the vies of the tops of the many churches adn mosques. Soooooo many tourists though and small souvenir stands and buskers everywhere. All part of the atmosphere though i guess.

We took a peak in a few of the many many many shops on the other side of the bridge and then back to the hostel. We chilled for awhile at the hostel and me and Rob moved our stuff. Since we didn't have reservations and since the place was almost completely booked, we had to switch roms each night; not ideal, but no big deal since the hostel was so good.

At 8ish we headed over to the main square with the Cali girls Meg, Lauren, and Kim, Bridget from Minnesota, and Kate (Mac) because they'd paid for a ghost tour of Prague. So me, Rob, and Kate decided to go along but didn't end up paying the 250 CR and thank God, because it sucked. So we laughed at the rest of them for wasting their money on it, grabbed some street meat, then back to the hostel for some more beers.

I ended up wandering into the 1st floor common room (we were all on the 2nd floor) and met a group of 6 people playing drinking games before going out to some bar and, of course, soon enough joined them. There was a Finish guy and an Aussie guy (both strange) and 3 girls (Olivia from the States somwhere but studying in Florence; Kath, from Aussieland; and another girl, not sure of her name and i think she was with Kath). Rob hung out with us at the hostel, but wasn't in the mood to go out, so when we headed out he stayed in.

I'm not sure which direction we headed out in, but the bar we ended up at was pretty good. Kind've a pub upstairs and a club with dancing downstairs. It was great times and I'm not sure what time we got home at, but i know that i was up till 6am. Late, but definately a good night.

Day 40 - Budapest - Prague

We got up at 8, packed up and made it down to the station just on time for out 9:30 train. Since our train pass doesn't work through Slovakia we decided to take the train from Budapest to Vienna and then from Vienna to Prague, although we still have to pay for part of the ride because our passes don't work in the Czech Republic either. We got to Vienna at 12:30, to the Westbaunhof station, but then only had an hour to make it to the Sudbaunhof station across town, then buy a ticket and make it onto our train.

We got to Sudbaunhof by tram and made it luckily with time to spare. The train ride to Prague was very uneventful and we just read and listened to music the whole way. It was mostely just flat farmland from Vienna all the way to Prague. Its pretty crazy to be heading into the Czech Republic like this knowing that 10 years ago it wouldn't been next to impossible and probably very unsafe. Its absolutely crazy to think that if my grandfather had done the same route as me through Italy, Austria, Hungary and up to Germany, etc, when he was my age that i'm doing today that he would have been fighting Nazis. Maybe 60 years from now my grandkids will travel freely through the places like Iraq and Iran and the rest of the middle east. Who knows.

***

K, i take that last part back about just the farmland out the window. As I was writing that on the train, it changed instantly from farmland to a gorgeous forest. Probably the best scenery we've seen yet except for maybe when we were in the Alps. The forest was a ton of different colours with all the leaves changing colours and there were a bunch of small streams adn rivers with old houses mixed in. And on top of that, the sun was going down adn we were on the west side of the train, so we got a great view of the sunset and the sky turned crazy pink and purple. Anyways, it was a pretty awesome train ride.

WE got into Prague at 6ish and found the hostel we were told to go to. Turns out it was full though so we went to another place around the corner called the Old Prague Hostel which turned out to be one of the best places we've stayed at so far. The hostel is owned by this young guy and him and his girlfriend run it. His other employee had just left and another was on holidays so him or his girlfriend were there the whole time and we ended up hanging out with him quite abit. Another thing that made the hostel so great was all the people we met. Especially after not meeting anybody in Budapest. The second we walked into the hostel we met a bunch of people; 2 American guys studying in Rome, 3 American girls studying in London (Megan, Kimberley and Lauren), a girl who just graduated from chem eng at Mac (Kate), and an Aussie girl (Sophie).

We dropped our bags off in our room, grabbed some very cheap Budvar (the 'original' Budweiser and much better) and hug out with everyone in the common room, then we all headed out for a bar. Prague is awesome at night with clubs and people everywhere. We went to one Irish pub, had a pint and watched soccer, and then went to this club where the American guys knew about a party going on for foreign students so we headed there. It was in a really busy club with a huge line, but somehow we got to skip the line cause we were with those guys. The club was pretty crazy and straight out of the movies with girls dancing on platforms hung from the ceiling and up on tables and stuff adn only played hardcore dance music. SO we hung out there for a few hours, then grabbed some sausages from a vendor and headed back to the hostel. Some of us stayed up for another hour or so hanging out in the common room then headed to bed.

Day 39 - Budapest

We got up at 9ish and headed straight out, picked up some pastries for breakie, and then headed over to the Soviet Terror Museum. The museum is in the old communist police station where they used to torture and execute prisoners. The museum was pretty amazing and really well done with every room having its own music (creepy Soviet instrumental music) and pretty much every room had flat screen televisions with old black and white video ranging from Jews being killed and their bodies disposed of to Hitler giving speeches and Nazis marching to the destruction of Budapest during WW2 by the Nazis and then again after the war in the 50s by the Soviets when they took over and occupied Budapest and Hungary. The museum went through the last 100 years in Hungary and showed all the shit they've been through. It was alot of really terrible, terrible crap and i can't help but looking at the seniors around here now without trying to imagine what their lives have been like. Makes you realize just how incredibly lucky we are in Canada and just how sheltered our lives have been compared to alot of the rest of the world. The stuff we heard that the Soviets did to the Hungarians makes the Americans look like gods with what they've been doing around the world. A matter of perspective i guess. We got to go down into the dungeons and see the original cells where they held and tortured prisoners (often innocent ones) and killed them. It was crazy and disturbing.

After that we grabbed some lunch, then went back to the hostel and napped for a couple hours. Around 3 o'clock we headed off to the Kirali Baths, something mentionned in my guidebook as one of the top 30 things to do in Europe. Budapest is known for its thermal bath houses that are supposed to heal and rejuvenate you. So we figured we couldn't come to Budapest without trying them out.

So we got there (it was on the Buda side) and paid to get in and changed. Surprisingly bathing suits were mandatory because at the Kirali Baths they have women and men only days, so we figured it would be all old, naked, fat, Hungarian men (like Rob except for the Hungarian part). So instead, it was old, fat, Hungarian men with speedos on. The place was pretty cool though. It was kind've like an underground cave which was lit by small holes in the ceiling that let small rays of sunlight in. The main room had a large, octagonal bath in the middle (about 10 meters across) and had a few 2-3 person baths around the outside adn then also a couple of saunas. The large bath was luke warm and the smaller ones varied from much hotter to ice water. So we relaxed and sat in teh big bath for awhile. This one old Hungarian man kept trying to talk to me (although he spoke no English at all) and was very touchy whcih weirded me out and made Rob laugh alot, but we figured it was just Hungarian culture, so we got away from him, jumped in the ice water, then into the sauna. When we were in the sauna, my buddy from the bath showed up and sat beside where i was standing and rubbed my calf a couple times at which point we took off again to the bath.

So we were enjoying ourselvs, relaxing in the bath, when we noticed these two guys being very touchy with each other across the bath from us. Then we noticed to our right a guy whispering pretty closely in another guy's ear. This was weirding us out a bunch, but again, just Hungarian custom because by rule, European men are much more affectionate with each other than North American guys, always kissing each other on the cheek and stuff. So we headed back into the sauna where two men were sitting up on the top row of benches with one guy rubbing the inner leg of the other. Very weird and we were both glad we aren't European at that point.

So we finally took off after about an hour and a half and walked back to the hostel checking out the Parliament buildings from up close on the way back and joking around with each other that had we been anywhere else, we would have just been at a homosexual bath.

We hung out at the hostel for awhile, then hit an Italian place around the corner for dinner. Rob really wanted to go to the casino, so we went for an hour or so where i quickly lost my 10 Euro adn then took off (i hate casinos and don't know why i walk into them....never again on this trip).

On the way back to the hostel, we ran into our old buddy who'd been trying to convince us every night to go to his table dancing club, and since we were leaving in the morning and had a few Forints to burn, we went with him. We weren't really sure what we were getting ourselves into, but we figured it would be an experience. We got in the front door where we met the ape working the door, paid the cover which included our beer and went in.

Wow.

Not like any place I've ever been for sure. It wasn't anything like establishments back in Canada. The place was very tiny and the only stage was around a pole in the middle of the room, and we were the only ones there. So weird. The girls all stood up from there couches when we got in adn we had no clue what to do. We both, i think, wanted to just turn around and leave, but we'd already paid, so we figured we could at least just have our beer and take off. So we headed to the bar; a girl got on stage and started dancing and we got our beers. So we talked to the girl behind the bar for abit and she asked what we'd done in Budapest adn we told her about going to the bath to which she said 'Not the Kirali one though right?'.

Shit.

'The Kirali Bath is just for homosexuals...you're not homosexual are you?' asks the girl.

Apparently all of the touchy-feely stuff we saw wasn't 'Hungarian custom' as we'd hoped. She explained to us how that place is known to be a homosexual hangout and she laughed at us alot. The look on our faces must've been priceless at that point. We'd just spent an hour and a half at a homosexual bath and didn't have the faintest clue. And now, here we were, thinking we were going to a big joint to watch a couple of ladies dance and have a beer before bed, but instead end up at a brothel and were the only guys there. The girls figured out in a hurry though that we weren't there to buy sex or anything else, including beers for them (they asked a couple of times). We finished our beers, said bye to the girls and got the hell outta there.

We got back to the hostel and i took a cold shower and cried (a la Ace Ventura). Then i went down and chatted for big with the girl, Stef, at the desk and i told her about our day. Before i told her what bath we'd gone to she said, 'Not the Kirali one though right?'.

Thanks guidebook for recommending a homosexual Hungarian bath as one of the top 30 things to do in Europe.

What a weird, weird day. Started out with being in an old Soviet torture and death house, followed by bathing with a bunch of homosexual Hungarian men, and then finishing up with hanging out in a brothel.

Gotta love Budapest!

Off to the Czech Republic tomorrow morning.

I'm sure nothing weird will happen there...

Day 38 - Budapest

We got up late, then justu kinda lazed around and took out time eating breakfast. We got out money back for the last two nights that we were supposed to spend at the Marco Polo and put on our bags and headed down to another hostel we found yesterday closer to the river and down more in the middle of everything. The Marco Polo just was too far out and wasn't a great place for meeting people.

So we got into our new place, hit an internet place for abit (caught up on my hockey stats...go Lindross, McCabe, and the Leafs!) then headed across the river again to Buda. Budapest I guess is broken into two cities on either side of the river, Buda and Pest; we're staying in Pest. Buda seems like the older part of town and is built up on a bit of a hill and the old part of town was built with huge walls as a fortress i guess to keep attackers and invaders out in the middle ages. So we got within the walls and wandered around going to the palace and the castle looking part with the big church behind it. Pretty cool part of town. We took a bunch of pics from up on the fortress walls looking back at Pest over the river with the two main bridges connecting them (a pretty big suspension bridge and what they call the chain bridge, which is the most impressive looking of the two bridges with two big lions guarding each end of the bridge). I think of good old Kevin MacLean everytime i walk across the bridges.

After hanging out in Buda for the whole afternoon, we came back to our hostel, the Mellow Mood Hostel, and slept till 8:30ish, then went looking for dinner. We could tell we definately weren't in Italy anymore (i miss Italy) because it took forever to find anywhere to eat. It felt like there just weren't any places around at all.

Finally, close to 10ish, we found somewhere to eat. We ate our dinner watching football (soccer) highlights, when all of a sudden the Avalanche/Canucks game from the night before came on! We had been about to leave, but decided we had to watch some, even though we already knew who won, but it was still our first post-strike, NHL game, so we grabbed a beer and watched the first period and a half of the game. At one point Avril Lavigne came on the music in the restaurant and we felt like we were right back in Canada for a few minutes while sitting downtown Budapest...haha.

Afterwards we just came back to the hostel and hung out for a bit, then went to bed.

Can't think of a single funny or otherwise story about today at all. Well, i guess except for the random people trying to get you to go to their strip clus. They're very persistent that you should go with them to their clubs with 'Big tits, big beers, small price'. We're not those kinda guys though. And broke. But if you're reading this and you're a rich dirtbag, this is your kinda place. Not to mention the hookers walking around non stop asking you if you want to buy them a drink...

Day 37 - Vienna to Budapest

We got up at 9ish and rushed down to the station to catch the 10:03am train to Budapest. I slept most of the way except for being poked by the Hungarian border patrol about halfway there. We got to Budapest around 1pm and found a map and walked down to our hostel that Rob had reserved for us; the Marco Polo hostel.

Its an alrite place, clean and everything, but not really an ideal place for meeting people because the bunks are completely separated from each other by half walls and there's no common room, so meeting other people is tough. We're going to try to get our money back tomorrow morning and switch to another place closer to the river.

So anyways, we dropped our shit off, then took off walking for the rest of the day. We were trying to find an internet place at some point, but EVERYTHING was closed. We thought it was just because it was Sunday, but apparently today, Oct 23rd was the day that Hungary became completely sovereign from the Soviet Union back in 1953, so its a national holiday and everything was closed (again, my history may be off; take a course if you wanna learn history). We pretty much just wandered around everywhere on this side of the river, then came back to the hostel and dozed for awhile, then headed back out in the evening and crossed the one bridge, wandered abit, then came back across the other bridge adn back to home to bed early. The only eventful thing that happened today was that Rob stepped straight onto, and almost slipped and fell (very close) into a HUGE pile of dog shit. Other than that, just another day of sightseeing.

Day 36 - Vienna

We slept in abit and then took off for the palace of the emperors of Austria up until about WW1. We were supposed to meet up with Erin at the subway station just outside the palace, but didn't end up seeing her so we went ahead without her. James, an Aussie from Tazmania came with us too.

James was in our room, but crazily enough i'd sat next to him on a train from Florence to Milan back over 3 weeks ago before meeting up with Rob. Its crazy just how small is for that. Its happened to me a bunch of times now. I had two English brothers in my room in Rome (my first time in Rome) who i met again in the Cinque Terre on the trail; Phil, the Aussie we met in Innsbruck we ran into again in Interlaken; the brothers from Bowmanville who we shared a room with in Innsbruck literally bumped into us in the Sistine Chapel; and that jackass who told us to get off the train early in Innsbruck ran into us again in Naples (he's lucky we didn't beat him up). Pretty nuts.

So anyways, the three of us did the palace tour and wandered around the gardens outside. The palace tour was alrite, but not as good as the one in Stuttgart probably because this one was much more modern. It was home to Maria Theresa, mother of Marie Antoinette, and lots of the tour focussed on her and her husband and family. It was the same place, in this huge beautiful ballroom we got to go in, where the famous meeting between Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev took place during the Vienna Summit where Khrushchev said to Kennedy "Its up to the US to decide whether there will be war or peace." "The decision to sign a peace treaty is firm and irrevocable, and the Soviet Union will sign it in December if the US refuses an interim agreement.", to which Kennedy responded, "Then, Mr. Chairman, there will be a war. It will be a cold winter." So the place where the Cold War started. Feel free to correct me though if my history is off.... The gardens were pretty sweet too and i found it nuts how they made everything so huge, yet so perfectly symmetrical. It was pretty awesome.

We got back to the hostel around 4 and lazed around abit, and then hit happy hour (2 hours actually) from 6-8, and then wen went with James to this really cheap schnitzel place he'd heard about. For 5 Euro we got a huge schnitzel, fries, and a salad. Great deal. Soon as we got our schnitzels, i was digging into it when all of a sudden my plate did a perfect backflip and crashed and broke at my feet. The table we were at was really small and i guess my plate was only half on the table so when i went to cut, it flipped it off. The lady running the came right over and was really nice and kept telling me not to worry about it adn gave me a free one pretty much right away.

After dinner we went back and hung out with a bunch of people from the hostel and played a bunch of foosball. Me and Rob beat a few teams, but got our asses handed to us by two Austrian local guys (they beat us 4 games to 1) and we also got embarassed by two butchie Austrian girls(using the word 'girls' loosely).

Off to Budapest tomorrow!

Day 35 - Venizia to Vienna

So things got worse in our little train compartment of fun. First off, a sixth and final person joined our overnight gang making us 'completely' uncomfortable, rather than 'mostly' uncomfortable. The seats didn't recline for shit, there was no leg room at all, the seats were narrow, it was smelly, and steaming hot. Me and Rob had the two window seats (ie: the two seats as far away from any possible escape from the claustrophobia), but it didn't matter because you couldn't se anythin gout the windows anyways. We had about 3 L's of Heineken each in our bags, so i did the only reasonable thing to do and started drinking. Soon enough finishing all my beers and one of Rob's.

We'd gotten on at 8, left at 8:44, and then finally, around 2am, there was some luck for us, because 3 people all of a sudden got off (not sure where they went, but didn't give a shit). The 3 people getting off was probably one of the top 5 things to ever have happend to me. We then figured out that you can shift the facing seats together to make a kind of bed. Wow! So we set it up, and after the beer, I passed out in no time. It still wasn't a great sleep though. I woke up a bunch of times, one time with my arm around Rob, the next time with my arm around the poor little Asian girl on my other side. Even though the seats made beds of sort, they were still VERY narrow (and i'm not very narrow) and way too short. So they didn't work for me at all beacuse I was too long, but i couldn't sleep on an angle or pull my legs up because the seats were so narrow.

NEVER AGAIN!

So we finally rolled into Vienna at 9ish; 13 hours after getting onto the train. We'd booked ourselves 2 nights ahead of time so we headed straight for the hostel to drop our stuff off. We're staying at the Wombat's hostel here in Vienna which is a member of Europe's Famous Hostels (it was ranked 4th in the world in 2003). It's a really sweet place with great rooms; our is a 4 bed dorm with an on-sweet washroom with shower (very rare). It's a great place, clean, friendly, and has a not-bad bar in it too with happy hour from 6 till 8 with 1 Euro pints.

So we checked in, but couldn't get to our room till 2, so we put our bags in the luggage room and thought we'd wander for the rest of the day. Right before we headed out, i asked the guy at the front desk about the local Vienna hockey team, to which he responded "Hockey???", when out of nowhere, this Aussie girl who was walking by cut in and said that she'd looked up the local team and they were playing tonite, but didn't know anything other than that. So i told her that we were heading out for the day and would find things out and hopefully run into her later.

So me and Rob took off, bought a 24 hour Underground pass, then rode downtown into the old part of town. We spent the next few hours wandering around. We checked out the main church in town which was huge, but all kind've stained black (maybe from coal or other forms or pollution) so it looked pretty creepy. All the German churches looked like that too. I don't trust them. They always talk like they're pissed off, they're drinking all the time, and they worship in black churches....with Christian and Anke being exceptions of course.

We wandered around and saw a bunch of other impressive looking buildings, although we had no clue what we were looking at half the time. Its been kind've funny like that in alot of places where we'll see an awesome looking building and then take pics of it or in front of it, but have zero clue what it is.

Eventually we made our way back to the hostel and i jumped on the net and found out that the pro team here in Vienna was playing tonite, so i wrote down the time and got instructions from two ladies in the Underground station on how to get there. Afterwards we hit the grocery store for meats for dinner then Rob took a nap and i did laundry and hung out with 3 Aussies and an American guy. Right after finishing laundry, i ran into the Aussie girl from earlier, Erin, and she said she still wanted to come to the game and was really excited to go because she's never even seen a game on television. So me and Rob ate, cleaned up, then met Erin at 6 out front.

The ride to the arena was about 25 minutes from the main station near our hostel and there were a ton of people around wearing the black, yellow, and orange or the Vienna Capitals. We got tickets for 12 Euro each, which got us seats in the second level and we had a great view. The arena wasn't as big as an NHL arena, but still would sit about 7-8000 probably and by the time the puck dropped the place was packed solid. So i guess we were lucky to have gotten tickets.

Now, as most people know, i love hockey as much or more as any Canadian and still say that Canadians are the best hockey fans; but Austrians are definately MUCH crazier. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I've been to alot of hockey games including a second round playoff game between the Leafs and Sens that went to second overtime, but that seemed tame now comparing that with this game in Vienna. The fans were nuts and didn't sit hardly at all during the game...and the beer was cheap (i wonder if the two correlated at all?). The main section that led everything was right behind the home teams net where there were two huge drums pounding out different beats during the game depending on what was going on and then depending on what beat was being pounded out, ALL the fans would sing different songs. And it didn't stop all the way through the game. It was pretty awesome. We had a great time and Erin is now a hockey fan. The home team won 2-1, so it was a close, exciting game, and it got pretty rough, but everytime two guys would square up, the refs (who were wearing blue, white and red stars instead of stripes) would jump in right away which sucked. There would've been at least 5 fights back home. It was pretty cool too because both goals were scored by ex-Leaf Mike Craig.

After the game, we headed back to the hostel and hung out with a bunch of people in the hostel bar for the rest of the night.

Day 34 - Venezia

We got up around 10 adn cleaned up from the night before, then checked out of our room. Dave was heading back to Florence to see his mom and sis for a few more nights and Anna was taking a late train, overnight to Nice. Me and Rob were booked on a 8:30pm train overnight to Vienna. The hotel let us leave our bags so we didn´t have to lug them around all day.

The day was really shitty weatherwise because it was cold and drizzled softly basically all day long. We still had a good time though, spending the day just basically wandering around town. Venice was pretty much exactly what i was expecting with narrow, narrow, streets with canals and bridges everywhere. It was really weird not seeing one car the whole time we were there. I guess really there were no ´streets´ at all, just walkways all over the place. We walked to the main square, which was pretty impressive, and just wandered, checkign out lots of stores and shops along the way. It was amazing how many of the shops sold the same old shit, but obviously must do good business otherwise they wouldn´t be there. Florence was big on leather shops, but Venice was huge on glass (anything made with this special glass that i can´t remember the name of) and masks. Tons of shops had masks, like glass or porcelaine masks, all over the place. The shops actually seemed kinda creepy cause of the makes everywhere.

Near teh main square, there were HUGE packs of pigeons, and i bought a packet of birdfeed from a vendor and holy shit, the birds literally attack you. As soon as they see you getting the pack they start following you and trying to land on you. I opened the package and it was game over. They were all over me. Landing on my head, shoulders, back, arms, everywhere. Everyone else was laughing and taking pictures of me (even strangers), at which point i took a small handfull of feed and stuffed it into Rob´s jacket hood. It was HILARIOUS. The birds attacked him, landing all over his back and head trying to get the food and Rob screamed like a little girl. He was making this really weird noise that was like half a scream and half a laugh. His eyes were full of terror mixed with severe embarassment because at this point there was a large group of people watching me and now him, have these pigeons land all over us. I gave some seeds to a little boy and girl with their parents and they handled the birds much much better than Rob did (you´ve got yourself a real macho man Marissa).

So we walked for a few hours, took lots and lots of pictures, and then took a waterbus back to the station area close to our apartment. We grabbed some lunch at a buffet restaurant and then went with Dave to the station so he could catch his train back to Florence.

We said our goodbyes to Dave and tried to convince him to extend his trip and come with us, but he has to get back to Canada, so he took off. Me, Anne, and Rob did some shopping for the next couple hours, bought some groceries for the train, and then hung out in the station till our train arrived.

We said our goodbyes to Anne, and then me and Rob jumped on the train. We were going to get beds for the overnight train, but to reserve them cost 25 Euro each, so we decided we´d chance 2 seats instead. We ended up finding an empty compartment which had no reservatino signs, but sure enough, 1 minute before the train was about to leave, we lost our empty compartment of heaven, having to share now with 3 people from Taiwan for the next 10 hours.

Day 33 - Firenze to Venice

We got up and checked out by 10am and then garbbed Dave and walked around abit and grabbed a Doner at noonish. They have awesome Doner´s here in Italy (shaved meat off a huge turning slab of meat, veggie´s, with a special sauce wrapped in a pita). Afterwards we just wandered abit more, then caught the 1:30 train to Venice.

Dave decided that he wasn´t ready to say goodbye to us yet and decided he´d ditch his mom and sister for the night and come with us to Venice. We caught a train and got to Venezia at 4:30ish, and again, got picked up right away by somebody looking to fill their hotel. So we went with him and the place ended up actually being an apartment with a washroom, kitchen and table, and one bedroom. The bedroom had a king size bed and a single, so us boys took it, and there was also a single bed in the kitchen/dining room/entrance for Anne. He gave us the whole place for 80 Euro; pretty sweet deal. The apartment wasn´t even in the hotel, but down a couple blocks and down an alley. The location was actually really sweet cause it was right off one of the major roads. The alley was kinda cool too.

We dropped our bags off and went to the grocery store to get a bunch of food for supper. Since Dave is a chef by trade, we let him grab whatever he wanted and then we´d all just spit it 4-ways. He came back and Dave started cutting veggies, Rob went to use the internet, and me and Anne had a beer. We decided that we couldn´t eat and drink all night without tunes and Dave had noticed an electronic store on the corner, so i went down and bought a small pair of speakers so we could rock out to the ipod all night. They were worth every penney.

The rest of the night we spent hanging out in our little apartment, eating, drinking, and singing. Dave made us a chicken cacciatore type meal with wine sauce, veggies, and anchovies, and we had shrimp and salad as appetizers. The whole thing was really good. We drank a whole bunch of vino, a bottle of champagne, and a bunch of beers. Was a really fun night. At one point us 3 guys went out for a walk, and it was kinda creepy cause the streets were completely deserted and there was a small mist or fog over the canals. We messed Dave up really good during our last night together, then me and Rob went to bed. Anne made it through dinner, then passed out, so it was a boys night.

Day 32 - Firenze

Me and Rob slept in till about 10 and then went out for a walk around Florence. We just kind´ve spent the day wandering around all the churches and squares. There was one really cool square that had a bunch of replica statues including David. We also took a stroll down along the river and across the famous Ponte Vecchio that was full from end to end with jewellery shops.

We came back to the hotel to shower around 2 and then went to get a light lunch. On the way we decided we´d leave a note at the front desk of the hotel where Dave (Grant) was rolling into later on in the day, but it turned out he´d just just checked in, so we went up to his room and said hi to hi mom and sister and then he came with us.

We grabbed a slice of pizza, then tracked down the post office so i could send some presents home. What a disaster. Customer service in Europe sucks. And i don´t just think its teh language barrier. They really just are rude, slow, and really just don´t give a shit. It literally took me an hour to send 1 package, adn there were no lines holding me up either. Just stupid people. I had 2 Americans trying to do the same behind me and tehy were just following me around hoping i´d figure it out for them; and eventually did. The one lady from California offered me dinner, but i had the feeling she meant more than just dinner, so i kindly laughed it off.

After that, i walked back to the hostel (Rob and Dave left me cause it was taking so long), then the 4 of us and Dave´s sister, Shelley, met in their hotel lobby. We´d gotten the last possible reservation at the Academia to see Michaelangelo´s David at 5:30. So we found our way down there and just made it on time. It was awesome to have the booking and just get to walk right up to the front of the long long long line. We went through security, then got to go right in. The museum itself was pretty small and not really that great except for the one room that was full of statues and then, of course, the main room with David in it.

It was more impressive than i thought it was going to be. It was in a huge foyer all by itself and it was much larger than i thought it was going to be too. The detail Michaelangelo put into it like veins on his arms and stuff was very impressive. You´re not supposed to take any pics and i got caught with my camera out by the camera Nazi, but i still managed to take one, and Dave got a couple really good ones from the floor where we sat. After about an hour in the museum, with 45 minutes of that looking at David, we went back to our places and rested for awhile, then met up for dinner.

We ended up walking around for about an hour before finding a place and we ended up at a restaurant right beside the one from the night before. After dinner we grabbed a bunch of 1 L Heineken´s for 1.70 Euro each and drank on the Duomo steps for a few hours, then hit a small pub at 2ish before crashing for the night.

Day 31 - Rome to Firenze

We got up and packed and were outta the hostel bz 10ish, then spent 2 hours at the internet place adn then grabbed a quick breakfast adn made it to the station by 1ish and ran into Fabienne, Dave, and his mom and sister. We didn´t chat for long cause we had to reserve our train which ended up being a pain because we were tight for time for the 1:30 train and ended up missing it, but then grabbed the 2:30 with no problem, but still got stuck paying a 12 Euro reservation fee (never taking a EuroStar train again...).

We got to Firenze by 4:30ish, and just like in Riomaggiore, we were met by a guy running a hostel near the station and so we went with him to see the place adn then booked in for 2 nights. Afterwards, we went for a walk around a bit and grabbed a beer in the piazza where the main Duomo here in Firenze is. Florence is an absolutely beautiful place and you can feel the atmosphere like no other place we´ve been yet. It just feels so artsci and cultured (unlike myself).

We split up for a couple hours and then met at 8 and found a place for dinner. It was okay, but definately not the same old place back in Rome (we called the place in Rome Ali Baba´s cause that´s what the manager always called himself to the girls). I know one thing for sure about Italy, and that´s that i will miss the Italian food so much. We´ve both been spending way too much money on dinner´s, but we can´t help ourselves.

After dinner we grabbed some beers from the store adn went to the main Duomo piazza again and sat on a bench, had a drink and just admired how gorgeous and big the church is, and people watched. Home to bed by 1ish.

Tomorrow weér off to see David (both the one from Canada, again, and Michaelangelo´s).

Day 30 - Rome / Napoli and Pompeii

To bed after 5am, and then up at 8:36; slept through the alarm for 30 minutes.

We were supposed to meet Dave at the usual meeting place in front of Termini (by the monkeys near track 1) at 8:30. Everyone else was sleeping too, so i jumped up, woke Rob and Anne and we ran down to Termini, just as Dave had given up and was about to go home to bed and then the 4 of us ran and jumped on the train to Pompeii just seconds before it left.

The 3 of us (excluding Rob cause he stayed in to make some phone calls...or maybe just one long one) felt like we were going to die. Especially Anne. I would've put money on her getting to Pompeii and then turning around and going back to Rome to bed. She didn't though. The train we took was actually to Naples, adn then we jumped on another local train from there to Pompeii.

What a shit hole the area was. I'd always imagined Naples to be a luxurious type place, kind've like a resort town, but actually it was extremely dirty and very poor. There were gypsies everywhere looking for money and the people in general seemed very sketchy. The train from Naples to Pompeii was the worst with crazies, drunks and it stank horribly the whole way there.

When we finally got there, we found where we had to meet our guide, adn then grabbed some pizza and freshly squeezed orange juice. Our tour started at 12:30 and lasted for about 2 and a half hours. Our tour guide was okay, but hard to listen to at times because of her thick Italian accent. Pompeii, the city frozen in time when it was buried by the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius, was incredible. The Roman Forums were good to visit, but there's not alot left of them, whereas Pompeii, because of being buried by the volcano and then excavated by archeologists, is so well preserved adn most of the original town is still there looking alot more like what it once looked like than Rome. The streets were still lined with the original rocks and 'stepping stones' and most of the shops and house frames are all there too. The roofs were basically all that was totally missing in most places, but some of the buildings like the old bath and sauna house still had roofs with decorated ceilings. The whole place was pretty amazing and was worth the train time.

We finally got back to Rome around 8pm and then showered up. I went over to Termini at 9, called my Mommy, adn then headed to the hotel to meet Dave and his mom and sister who'd just got to town. I left them at 9:30 to go pick up Fabienne, adn then met up with Dave, his mom, sis, and Anne for dinner. Rob was supposed to meet me at the same time and place (under the monkeys) as Fabienne, but he didn't show, i guess because he was on the phone with his sweetie...or he'd been stabbed and there was nothing i could do about it anyways.

So we waited for him for a few minutes till about 9:45, just to make sure he really wasn't coming, adn then went to meet the rest of them at a new place for dinner. Dinner was good with the conversation led by Dave's sister who loved to talk and had all kinds of interesting stories anda few embaressing ones about Dave of course. Dave's mom was very very nice to me, Anne and Fabienne and paid for our meal.

After dinner, we walked Fabienne to her bus, and then the rest of us went home to bed.

We're heading outta Rome to Firenze (Florence) tomorrow whenever we get our shit together. I'm pretty sad to be leaving Rome. It's been so great over the past 5 days, probaly has to do especially with the people that we've been with, especially having Dave come to Rome unexpectantly. Fabienne was also great to run into just by chance at the Vatican of all places. She's 28 adn works in London downtown somewhere basically running the office for some type of consulting company. She was just in Rome for a week or so by herself, so she seemed happy to meet people and was great to have around. Anne has been good too. She's from Vancouver but hs been living in Japan (she's Japaneese) for the last 3 years teaching English and acting as a translator. She's here by herself for a month and was going in the same direction exactly as us from Interlaken (Cinque Terre, Rome, Florence, Venice), so we've been staying at the same places along the way and hanging out. She's also older than us, 29, and has been kind've like having an older sister around (although i don't have one to compare against).

Emilie reminded me of exactly what i expected from a French chic. She smokes, has a great accent, and is bitchy in a sexy kinda way. She's in Rome for 3 months looking to get a job and learn Italian.

I guess we'll be around with Anne for 4 more days, Dave is supposed to be here in Firenze tomorrow night, so we'll meet up for the night, and I'll maybe see Fabienne when i head to London at the end of my trip.

Either way, its been great in Rome. G T squared.

Day 29 - Rome

Got up at 10ish and picked up Fabienne across town, caught some breakfast with her, and then walked to meet up with the rest of the gang (Dave, Rob, Anne, and Emilie). We ended up hanging out outside of Termini for about an hour waiting for everyone to be ready. It ended up being kinda fun just watching the craziness that is Termini in Roma.

Once we finally got everyone together we set off for the Catacombs a few kilometers south of the city. We jumped the Metro and then waited for teh 660 bus, which didn't seem to want to come. I was in a great mood all day and serenaded the ladies all day with stories of potato trucks, hockey games, getting stinko and forgetting about Inco, a girl who loves 'the way it feels, driving snowmobiles', and of course, a guy with a girls name. I'm postive that both Fabienne and Emilie will be wearing the heels off their boots stomping to the songs in their heads in both London and Paris by Christmas.

We got tired of waiting for teh bus, so we decided we'd try to walk it to find the Catacombs. We were well out of the heart of the city, so there were no tourists around and it turned out to be pretty tough. We let the girls take charge all day, so us boys just wandered behind the whole day and besides, its alot easier getting directions around here when you're a pretty girl rather than one of us boys.

We ended up on this narrow road/highway with no sidewalks and traffic flying by in each direction, it was quite the time. We finally got there and figured we'd wasted too much time walking and wouldn't even be able to go in, but ended up getting a guided tour of the Catacombs of San Callisto which was used to bury over 500 thousand Christians during the times when Christian's were being persecuted in Rome around 200 AD. The whole thing was underground adn we only to see a few small sections because, as you can imagine, with half a million bodies buried in underground tombs, the place was unimaginably huge and a HUGE maze.

After the tour, we all jumped a bus back into Rome and then all went back to get cleaned up for dinner. We went back to the same place for the 3rd night in a row. With Italian restaurants they say if you go once, you're treated great, but as a guest; you go twice, you're treated like a friend; you go back three times though, and they treat you like family. Definately was the case for us anyways. Again though, I think they just really liked the pretty girls.

They were full when we got there, so the manager made the crew put out another table for us right away while we drank free champagne on the sidewalk. The meal and service was great again, as well as the company. We got another free bottle of champagne and wine and the manager at one point after the meal, turned out all the lights adn the staff came out with a piece of cake with a candle and sung Fabienne happy birthday; I think i remember her saying her birthday isn't till January.

After dinner, the original plan was to go home to bed, but Emilie wanted to go down to this bar to see about getting a job for 3 months, so everyone but Rob went with her. On the way to the club, we came around this corner into a huge square with people EVERYWHERE. I've never seen anything like it. The whole square was lined with bars, and people were everywhere drinking and hanging out. Its hard to estimate, but i'd guess there were AT LEAST 5000 people just partying in the middle of the street. It was awesome. After that we got to this club where Emilie had met a bartender who was going to hook her up with a contact for a job and i figured we were only there for a drink. Then Dave orders a round of tequila shooters. Game on! Then the whole night went to shit. We were there till 4:30am and then me, Dave and Anne took off and the other two girls left on their own (well, Fabienne went home alone, i heard other rumours about Emilie though). By the time we got home it was after 5.

Up at 8am to head to Pompeii.

Day 28 - Rome / Vatican City

Me and Rob got up really early (7ish), got slightly dressed up, then took the Metro west to Vatican City. Our tour guide from the day before had been so good that when she told us she was running a 3.5 hour Vatican tour the next day that we definately had to go. We figured out where we had to meet her and then had a cappuccino. While we were waiting for the 9:30 tour to start, we met this very pretty English girl from London who was taking the tour as well, Fabienne, and when the tour started the guide grouped the whole group into 3's, so she put the two of us guys and her together. What a lucky girl! And lucky guys...

We had to 'queue', as Fabienne would say, for about 30 minutes in order to go through security, but that was the only line all day, so not so bad. The tour was great and I definately think its the only way to fully get an appreciation for the history in the place, otherwise it would just be a series of statues, paintings, and frescoes that you wouldn't understand really at all. None of the art is labelled at all, so you wouldn't know really any of the hidden things in the paintings or know the Michaelangelo's from the Raffael's unless you were a mega art buff.

Every room in the place was jammed with priceless works of art and just seeing it all was mind boggling. Of course, the most famous being the Sistine Chapel where conclave took place not too long ago. It was really nice and the roof and the main wall were amazing, but i have to say that it was smaller than i imagined and definately was a bit of a disappointment compared to what i was kind've expecting.

The tour finally ended in St. Peter's Basillica which again was mind-boggling. After the tour, the 3 of us bought and sent postcards and then Fabienne left for her hotel to get ready and me and Rob climbed up into the dom of St. Peter's and took some pictures of Rome from the top. It was pretty crazy being able to look down over the whole inside of the church from the top walkway and then down over Rome and the main square from the top top of the dome.

In case anybody doesn't know, Rob is afraid of heights. He was hilarious walking/crawling up the steps to the top of the dome. If it wasn't for the fact tha the stairwells were one way and so narrow, I would have put lots of money on him turning around...he would've put the cash on himself too.

Afterwards, we walked around the main courtyard for abit and then took off. I picked up Fabienne at her hotel near the Vatican and brought her back to our hostel where we'd planned on meeting up with Dave, Anne, Rob, and this French girl, Emilie from our hostel room. She also, unfortunately for us guys, is very pretty. She definately also has the attitude that i'd expected girls from France to have and also does not speak or understand English fluently, so i did alot of translating here and there, although she still got on very well on her own.

We went for dinner again at the same place as last night and the manager and waiters were very happy to see us again, and even more so because of the pretty girls that we'd brought with us tonite on top of Anne. They treated us like gold again with more free champagne and wine. We ate much earlier and quicker than last night because of the big pub crawl.

We paid for dinner, then jumped on the Metro to the Spanish Steps where we met up with the start of this big pub crawl we'd been told about. Ever night, this company hosts this pub crawl starting at the top of the Spanish Steps where for 15 Euro we each get a free t-shirt, then get to drink as much beer and wine in 1 hour as we could and then we went to 3 bars where we got a free shot at each place. As far as i remember, it was a good time. Went to bed at X o'clock adn have a faint memory of 4 black, transexual hookers fondling me and Dave through our pants and one of them taking their boobs out and playing with them before we could avoid and get out of the situation....gross and weird.

Day 27 - Rome

We got up at 8:30 and hit the shitty little feeding that they call breakfast at the Stargate Hotel where we're staying and then set out for the Colosseum. Soon as we got there we got nabbed by one of the tour groups who convinced us that for 8 Euro more (plus 10 Euro entrance fee), we could skip the line, have an English guided tour, and then at one o'clock have another guided tour at the Palentine.

The Coloseum tour wasn't great because our guide kinda sucked (didn't speak great english), it was also really loud and hard to here her. The Colosseum was pretty awesome though. It was crazy to try to visualize it seating 70 thousand people because it was in such ruins inside.

After the Colosseum we hung out for abit and then met the tour guide (a different one) and did a tour of the Palentine. This tour was really good beacuse our tour guide spoke perfect English (she was from the UK) and she did a great job of explaining the story behind everything with all the history. She was great. The Palentine was pretty awesome too, but really I guess it was just a bunch of stones and some half walls and stuff. Not much left at all.

After that we walked through the Roman Forum (right beside the Palentine at the bottom of the hill). Again, same as the Palentine, not a ton left, but still really cool and some great photo-ops.

After that we wandered around some of the other big landmarks in Rome and ended up at the Spanish Steps. We actually did the exact same walking tour as me and Faye when we were here back on the first day of the trip.

We got an email earlier from Dave Grant saying that he had such a good time with us in the Cinque Terre that he woke up the next morning and decided to jump a train to Rome to try to find us. So we wrote him back and told him where we were staying and he met me, Rob, and Anne at our hostel. We found a place to eat near our hostel and ended up there from about 8:30-12:30. It was a typical Italian restaurant in Rome and we ate outside on the patio/sidewalk. The servers were all young and fun adn they loved us and we got free glasses of champagne and a bottle of wine. We ended up drinking more than enough bottles of wine and had a great talk with two Irish girls who were eating there too and were just right pissed and hilarious. And if that's what all the girls in Ireland look like, then i understand why the Irish guys have a reputation as being drunks...haha.

We decided after the last bottle not to go out anywhere else cause we didn't want to be hungover in the Vatican the next morning. Dave was stupid, but really nice adn felt bad for us poor students adn paid for all our dinners. Great guy.

Day 26 - 5T to Rome

Slow day today. Slept in till almost 10 and then caught a train from Riomaggiore to La Spezia to Rome. Train ride was almost 5 hours and not very exciting. Got into Rome at almost 5, so Termini was pretty busy and we had our eyes on the lookout for potential pickpocketers, and there were plenty of them, but we were fine.

We were hoping to stay at Alessondro's Downtown, but they were completely booked up, so they recommended us a place around the corner and we got into a dorm room fine (6 man).

We hit a internet/laundromat for 2 hours and i did laundry for the second time this trip. After that, me and Rob found a spot for dinner and then we wandered to the Colosseum to see it at night. It was well worth the 20 minute walk there adn we took a bunch of pictures from different angles and stuff. It was Rob's first time seeing it. I still love it.

We walked back, hit the phones in termini, and then crashed early. Big day of touring tomorrow. Hopefully taking a tour inside the Colosseum tomorrow.

Day 25 - Cinque Terre x 2

We got up at 7:30 so that we could hit the trail early before it got too hot. When i hit it with Faye we didn't start walking till noonish and I think it was the heat that killed us the most that day. It was definately worth getting up early cause it was a beautiful day and in the 30s by mid-afternoon. We walked it from south to north this time (opposite of me and Faye) adn it was MUCH easier. It seemed like me and Faye were always walking uphill, whereas the other way was much more downhill, although there were still a few tough climbs. The trail was also alot emptier because we were there later in the season adn on a Tuesday, whereas me and Faye did it on a weekend. Was well worth coming back again because its just so gorgeous. I'd say its a must stop when visiting Italy for anyone.

We got to the last town, Monterosso at just after 1 (4 hours of hiking in all), and had a beer and a sandwich on a patio looking out over the sea, and then went down to the beach and went swimming. Me and Rob floated around for awhile and then Rob went in and i was out there all by myself for awhile when this guy floats by and asks me where i'm from. Turns out he's Canadian too and told me i wouldn't know where he's from (ends up being somewhere near Jasper), and I say the same, that he wouldn't know where i'm from either, Iroquois Falls.

Well.

Turns out he was born at the Anson General Hospital and lived in Iroquois Falls till around 95 and knows a ton of people i know and was actually just there a few weeks ago for a family reunion. He even remembers Mrs. Boudreau from the public school...haha. His name's David Grant.

So we chatted for awhle and then we showered the salt water off and told him to come to Riomaggiore tonite for some drinks, but he said he was just gonna chill for the night and go to bed early. We took the train back to Riomaggiore, cleaned up, and i went down near the station to write in my journal a bit. All of a sudden i see Dave and he says 'Shit, i was thinking about it, and how could i stay home and miss out on a night out with a fellow IF boy'. So me, Rob, Anne, Dave, and two other Canadian girls from the west coast (both staying in our hostel) and an Aussie girl (also from our hostel), got a table and watched the sunset and drank a bunch of red wine for 1.50 Euro a glass (big glasses too). After the sun was gone, we headed for dinner. The 4 girls ate at one place and the 3 of us guys went back to La Lampara and we had a huge seafood feast. We got a huge appetizer, mixed seafood plate that had all kinds of crazy crap on it. I don't have a clue what half of the stuff i was eating was, but it was great.

Right before dinner when we were standing with the girls trying to figure out where to go, this really good looking lady standing with her husband and another couple (both men must have been rich cause they were both about 60 with 40 something year old wives; both hot and blond) stopped me and said 'Aren't you Todd's friend!?'. To which i blankly lied 'Oh come on...i can't believe you don't remember me! I'm insulted!'. And then she grabbed me and gave me a huge hug. I made sure i gave her a good squeeze just to see if THEY were real or not. After the hug, i stepped back and confessed 'I'm sorry, i don't know Todd.'. The look on her face was priceless and everyone died laughing. Lucky i didn't get smacked...haha. Then i apologized to her a few more times. Anyways, we ended up sitting right next to them at dinner and she kept bugging me about it saying that i owed her some wine. I told her i was just a poor student, but would happily giave her another hug.

After dinner we hit the bar with everyone. Was a great time, met a bunch of people, even two people who just finished Phys Ed at Queen's. Dave took off around 11:30 to catch the last train back to Monterosso where he was staying and then me and Rob had a couple more drinks and headed back for the hostel. We had to help the other 3 girls from our hostel back cause they were so drunk. They had a bunch of weird Aussie's hitting on them all night. The one Aussie girl was so drunk i basically had to lift her up the stairs to bed.

Off to Roma tomorrow!!!! I can't wait to go back there.

Day 24 - Interlaken to Cinque Terre

Got up at 7:30 and hit breakie then walked to the train station to catch the 9:23 train to Spiez and then a train from there to Milano, then Milano to Monterosso, then Monterosso to Riomaggiore (both towns in the Cinque Terre).

We travelled with this girl Anne from Vancouver who's travelling alone and was heading to the Cinque Terre as well, so we all rode the train together, adn are going to hike together tomorrow.

All of the connections were fine, except in Milano where we had to run as hard as we could to catch our train and just just made it. Running with all of our stuff isn't fun to say the least. So we rolled into Monterosso (the furthest north of the five towns) adn then caught another train to the southern most town of the Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore. We weren't booked anywhere adn were abit nervous about finding a place, but the second we stepped off the train, this old Italian lady grabbed us and gave us a sheet in English saying basically 'Clean rooms, hot shower, free kitchen use - 15 Euro each', so we went with her the 50 feet from the station to her place, and after seeing it decided to stay there. We threw our bags in our rooms, me and Rob got a private double, and went up to the same place me and Faye had gone to watch the sunset. We had a couple bottles of vino between the 3 of us, and then we went through the tunnel to the other side of town and went to La Lampara for dinner. Meal was awesome and hilarious because its a family run place and Grandpa was there, helping a bit, but more just causing shit. He kept coming over to our table, winking and singing to Ane. Everyone at the restaurant was cracking up laughing.

After dinner we went for a walk down by the beach, and then shut're down early for the big walk tomorrow.

Day 23 - Interlaken

We both slept in till about 9:30 this morning (its crazy that i now consider 9:30 'sleeping in') and picked up our rations of 1 bun, 1 slice of bread, and a small chunk of cheese, that they call breakfast (i feel like i'm in jail), and then just hung around the hostel till 1:30.

There's a ton to do at the hostel, and alot of people left Sunday morning, so the place was pretty empty and me, Rob, Phil (the Aussie), and 2 American guys from Boston had the whole movie room/games room to ourselves. So we signed out a few movies, laid around, and played some foosball and pool. Was the first time in awhile that we just hung out like that.

At 1:30 our guide for canyoning picked us up (5 of us from the hostel) and brought us to their home camp where they hooked us up with full wet suits (overalls and a jacket) and water proof boots, and another jacket for overtop, adn then a lifejacket on top of that and a helmet. Putting all that crap on was pretty crazy adn then the two Swiss guides took the 12 of us (5 Americans from the airforce base just to the north in Germany somewhere and a girl from Vancouver and another one from Hamilton) up into the mountains and then we got out of the van adn walked up even higher up a trail along the edge of the canyon. So we got all the way up to where this canyon started and then climbed down into it.

So for the next 3 hours, we basically climbed down through the canyon. The canyon was about 2 feet wide on average adn was fed by 2-3 degrees Celcius glacier water, and had 20-40 foot walls basically all the way down, so there was definately a feeling like you were in a pit the whole time. So one at a time, we'd go down the canyon through different obstacles like jumping over waterfalls, jumping off cliffs into small pools of water, and repelling (with full rock climbing gear) down rock faces to the bottom of waterfalls. It was the scariest thing i think i've ever done, but also one of the funnest. The adrenaline was pumping so hard through the body that you could hardly notice that you were doing all this in glacier water, in October, in the middle of the Swiss Alps. The scariest part was this 8m (about 25 foot) jump off this one cliff into a small pool of water. It wasn't the jump that was the worst part, it was the 4-5 foot wide landing area between the two rocks that was the problem. So you had to jump hard so you made it far enough over one rock, but you also had to make sure you jumped in a straight line so you wouldn't hit the rocks on the sides (I'm sure if it was in North America they wouldn't let you do it). So they explained this jump to us before we got to it, but we couldn't see it. Then the first 6 people who climbed up to the ledge were so afraid that they couldn't do it right away (Rob included). Five other people jumped and then i climbed up to the cliff, pissed myself, then decided that if i didn't go right that second that i wouldn't be able to do it. So i stepped up, closed my eyes, and jumped. Partway down, i opened my eyes and saw just how tight a jump it was (I could've touched the rocks on either side if i'd spread my arms), but luckily hit the water. The guys at the bottom said that when i jumped, they thought i was going to smoke the one rock for sure, but all ended well, luckily. Rob wen tsoon after and was fine too.

The whole rest of it was awesome too. I sucked hard at repelling (they harness you up and you walk down a cliff). The worst part of that was when you stand at the edge of the cliff, face the guide (who's holding the other end of the rope) and then lean back over nothing but a shallow rocky pool below you. Then you walk backwards down the rock face as he gives you more and more rope. I didn't walk so much, it was more him basically just lowering me down. The other really cool part was right at the end where we laid on our stomachs and stuck our arms out like Superman and went headfirst over two small waterfalls.

Once we got to the bottom, they picked us up and brought us back to camp where we got to take hot showers, and then they fed us a couple beers in the yard looking out over the mountains, adn then took us back to the hostel. It was an inredible experience adn we're both really happy that we did it....and didn't break anything.

The rest of the night we just hung out at the hostel, caught some dinner, and hung out with Phil and the 2 Americans from earlier, and watched some NFL in the bar downstairs. Ended up talking for about an hour with this crazy looking pilot from Belarus. He was pretty interesting and kept saying how much he loves hockey. He smoked cigarettes non-stop and was double fisting a beer and straight vodka.

Heading back to the Cinque Terre tomorrow.

Day 22 - Zurich to Interlaken

We got up early (again) and hit the train station with the boys from Wake and caught the 10am train from Zurich to Interlaken. The train we were on was pretty sweet and was a double decker. All the trains in Europe have actually been really nice and modern compared to Canadian ones. Same as the buses and subways too actually.

Anyways, we got to Interlaken around 1ish. Once again, absolutely gorgeous place. Zurich was nice, but i was a little disappointed cause it wasn't surrounded by mountains like Innsbruck was. Interlacken, though, is exactly what i thought Switzerland would look like. Interlaken is a small town in the middle of the Alps and its the central hug for extreme sports in Switzerland.

We're staying at Balmer's hostel. It's a pretty sweet place with 400 beds, two bars, and all kinds of shit to do. Soon as we got here, we dropped off our stuff and the 4 of us hit the grocery store and then wandered around town. Interlaken only has a population of about 15 thousand, so walking around town is no problem. We decided we'd head for the big white mountains and so we found a path and headed up into the mountains. Some pretty incredible views and tons of cows with huge bells around their necks. Everywhere we went, all we could hear was the sound of bells. We walked through the mountains for about 4 hours, and then headed back to the hostel just in time for happy hour at the bar.

The hostel has 2 for 1 beers from 6 till 7 in the bar upstairs and then from 9 till 10 in the bar downstairs. We happened to run into this Aussie, Phil, that we met in Innsbruck, so we had some pints with him, adn then grabbed some Thai food with him, and then back and partied downstairs for the rest of the night.

Canyoning tomorrow!

Day 21 - Zurich

Slept in till almost 9:30 and then got up, showered, and after breakie me and Rob headed out and juse wandered around for 3 hours. Around 1, we went to the Schweizericsches Landesmuseum and toured around. The museum is in a big castle and had artifacts from basically the beginning of human existence in Switzerland right up until modern day.

We walked back to the hostel after and both laid down for 5 minutes, which turned into 2 hours. When we got up, we had 2 new roommates from Wake Forest in the states (school in North Carolina). We went with them to a nearby grocery store and picked up some 1 FRC tallboys of beer and pasta and salad for back at the hostel.

I got an email from Paul Gagne (x-NHLer from IF) who's coaching a pro team in Switzerland and I'm going to try to swing by his place after Rob leaves and catch a game.

We ate at the hostel, and sat around drinking beers from the grocery store with the Aussie from the night before, the two boys from Wake Forest, the two Winnipeg chics, and 4 other new guys. We kept getting shit from the guy in charge of the hostel for being too roudy and eventually went out drinking in the square outside.

Around 1am we went out looking for a bar, but i stopped for a pit stop in a back alley and then couldn't find the crew when i got out, so i found my way back to the hostel and crashed for the night.

Off to Interlaken tomorrow.

Day 20 - Innsbruck to Zurich

WE go tup and met the Western boys for breakfast at 8:30. The night before I'd told them how my friend Russ and Colleen had recommended for me to bring a jar of peanut butter, so i have a kilogram with me. I promised the boys a bit of the Kraft Canadian Paradise in the morning and brought it down with me. They were willing to give up their sister's and girlfriends they were so thankful. We made plans to email each other and hopefully meet up in Rome for next weekend.

Me and Rob packed up and got to the train station one minute before the next train heading towards Switzerland left, so we ran to the trakc, but the train was a few minutes later, so we had lots of time.

There was flooding recently in western Austria and parts of Switzerland and it turns out that it destroyed part of the tracks between Zurich and Innsbruck, so we could only take the train as far as somewhere around Bludeny, Austria, where they had a bunch of buses waiting for us to Bregenz where we then jumped onto another train that took us to Zurich.

The bus ride was pretty cool because it took us threw these super long tunnels. Some of them must have been at least 10km because i saw the speed limit was 50km/hr and I timed one tunnel at 17 minutes. It was nuts.

We got to Zurich at 4ish. Another gorgeous city. Supposedly its one of the richest cities in the world, so it might be peanut butter and jam for the next two days. We're staying at the City Backpacker's Inn located right in the middle of the old part of the city near the river. We're in a 6 person dorm, so far with just me and Rob, one guy we still haven't seen, adn an 80 year old man who looks like he's been here for weeks and speaks zero english or french.

At 6ish, we went out for a walk on teh town and to find somewhere to eventually eat. We're staying in the old part of town, so we wandered aroudn the narrow, cobble stone streets, adn then headed across one fo the many bridges to the newer, financial and shopping district. It was incredibly nice (again). WE felt pretty outta place even just walking around. The stores were incredible adn the banks all had guards outside adn the entraces looked like the foyer's of super high class hotels. We saw a thousand dollar zippo in one window. The Swiss Franc (they don't use the Euro) is about the same value as the Canadian dollar, but most things, especially food and booze, is WAY more expensive. WE had a hard time finding ANYTHING under 20 Francs for dinner. We ended up getting Gnocchi adn a beer at one place for 23 Francs, but the girl felt so bad for us that she knocked 5 Francs off that. Pretty sweet.

We walked back to the hostel after hitting a grocery store then spent the rest of the night in the hostel common room with 3 Canadian girls (2 from Winnipeg and 1 from Vancouver), one Kiwi girl, and an Aussie guy. We sat around, had a few beer, and shot the shit. They loved our train story. Me and Rob were a two man comedy crew all night...haha.

Just hanging out tomorrow, walking around the city.

Day 19 - Innsbruck

We got up for the usual European hostel breakfast of buns, meats, and cheese where we'd planned to meet upwith the Western boys and from there we met up with this guy, Zed, from London, England who knows the area (knows it just well enough to get us into trouble anyways) and he agreed to take us hiking. We took the city bus from the front of the hostel that took us to Igls, a place just south of town (i think). From Igls we took the Patscher Kofelbahn cable car that took us from 870m above sea level up to 2246m. The hike up the moutain was beautiful, but not too rugged as there was a service road heading up to a weather station on top. The hike up took maybe an hour and a half. We sat up top for a bit and had a drink and snack while looking straight down over Innsbruck. From there we headed onto a very rugged trail around the mountain that brought us to a little shack on the back of the mountain where this Austrian guy lives and sold us coffee and struddles. From there we kept hiking around, allt he while stopping often to tkae tons of pictures. The trail continued around the mountain eventually bringing us back to the cable car, taking us back to the hostel. The two trails we took were called the Jochleitensteig, which tooks us to the guys shack at Boschenben, and the Zirbenweg, which brought us back to the cable car.

The boys we went with were two brothers, Shawn and Brent, and Shawn's buddy Adam. The Western boys were cool and we're going to try to meet up in Rome in 5 or 6 days.

While up on the mountain, I told them i was from IF, which blew Shawn's mind because they know a bunch of people from town. Turns out that Shawn's girlfriend Daniella is best friends with Sheri Denault and she's actually been to IF and played on my sis' baseball team. Crazy small world.

We also shared a room with 2 brothers from Bowmanville. Turns out that when i played in the Chimo hockey tourney in Cochrane when i was in Bantam hockey, I played against him. He was the goalie for the other team. I specifically remember playing against them because they were a bunch of dirty bastards.

Anyways, we were pretty tired after hiking, so we just hung around the hostel all night and played some darts, then to bed by midnight. Off to Zurich tomorrow.

Day 18 - Munich to Innsbruck

We both got up at 9ish feeling like hell from Octoberfest. There's a descent chance we won't drink again. We packed up, locked our bags together upstairs and headed out to find out about trains to Austria. We booked ourselves onto a 13:30 train from Munich to Innsbruck then walked around Munich abit, bought some Oktoberfest t-shirts, had some breakie, mailed some postcards and our burnt picture cd's back home, then made it just on time for our train.

It was our first time on a train with the compartments like you see in the movies. Was pretty cool, and we met up with a guy from Halifax who'd just spent 4 days in Innsbruck and told us how much he loved it. The train ride was good and got really nice when we got into the mountains.

Our train was actually an express to Milano with a quick stop in Innsbruck, so we wanted to make sure we were on the ball and didn't miss our stop. The other Canadian guy, Andrew, all of a sudden said "You're here!" and the train stopped, so we were rushing to grab our gear and I pushed the button to open the door and jumped off.

Then i looked around.

There was no way this was a train stop. I was on a very narrow service walkway with a 12 foot wall on the side.

Definately no way i was supposed to be here. I looked up and Rob was looking at me saying he didn't think this was the stop either.

Then the train started moving and the door started closing. There was no way I could climb up onto the moving train with all my gear, so i started yelling at Rob to jump off. So Rob hesitates, lets the train pick up speed, then jumps off.

Train leaves.

We're alone.

12 foot walls on both sides of the tracks. No doorways out. So we start walking. Couple trains go by. We hug the walls. Everyone on the trains is staring at us. We're definately not supposed to be where we were. SHIT!

We keep walking and pass a factory of some kind. A guy is staring at us. Calls over a few more buddies. They're pointing at us and yelling. Can't understand a word they're saying. Probably something like "You idiots! What're u doing there!?"

All of a sudden, coming from the direction that our train went, here comes a single engine train car with two guys hanging their heads out. They stopped and started questioning us in German. Definately not supposed to be here. Next thing you know, Rob's climbing up, into the train. Next thing, I'm up there and we're with the conductors. We figured for sure we were getting charged or something. But instead, they drove us the 3 or 4 km to the station and dropped us off at the main station; in front of everyone. There were a couple hundred people just staring as this engine car rolls into the passenger train area and out climbs these two 25 year olds, still smelling and hungover from Oktoberfest, with big Canadian flags draped all over our bags. What an experience. We musta looked like the biggest idoits. I got some pics from the inside of the train as proof.

So anyways, from there we found our hostel easy enough and met up with 10 other Canadian kids. I've hardly met 2 Canadians so far, and all of a sudden there's 10 of them. Plus 3 Aussie's, 2 Kiwi's, and a Mexican guy. Our hostel is okay, but the lady running it is crazy. She reminds me of the crazy one at the end of Eurotrip who tells them that if they don't want their stuff stolen to "Break them now, or shove them up your ass"...otherwise they'll be stolen.

We went out for food and a drink with a bunch of the people then home to hang out for awhile, then to bed by 1.

Innsbruck is gorgeous. So clean, beautiful buildings, and surrounded by mountains. Definately the "nicest" place i've ever been. Heading into the mountains hiking tomorrow.

Day 17 - Munich (Oktoberfest)

Woke up at 7am. Walked to Oktoberfest. Drank beer and ate pretzels. Stumbled back to the hostel. Went to bed.



***********



Pretty much it. We were in the Schottenhamel Spatenbrau tent. WE lined up around 8am adn they opened the doors at 9. The rush into the tent was crazy with everyone trying to get the best tables. We snagged a sweet table right in the middle of everything and right in front of the stage. It was pretty quiet for the first 3 hours with everyone busy trying to get drunk...not very hard. At noon the band started playing and things were nuts from then on out. As soon as the band starting, people were up on their seats. The band was similar to the one in Stuttgart with a bunch of brass instruments. They played a bunch of traditional Bavarian music and then as the day went on busted into a bunch of American music and even played some Canadian (Summer of '69)....haha. Of course there was also all the chanting like in Stuttgart, with some new chants too that all the locals sitting around us taught us happily. Again, it was very German dominated, unike what we'd read about there being about 50% tourists. The reason probably was because Oktoberfest (which is only in Munich and not all over Germany as most people think....myself included before i came here) is always over on teh first Sunday of October, butu this year was extended for one more day because apparently the 3rd is a national holiday celebrating the unification of Germany. So we were lucky to just happen to be here when the 3rd fell on the Monday after Oktoberfest.
The tent we were inwas pretty much the same as Stuttgart (just alot bigger). Our tent had seating and standing room for over 10 thousand people and therew were over 300 thousand apparently between all of the tens and the fair grounds. Insane.
We sat with all kinds of different people during the course of the day and ate chicken and humongous pretzels. We ach had 6L's of the beer which was very strong at 8% alcohol. We made it within 1 hour of the end fo the night but were definately KO'd and had to leave. Out of the people that started the day at the tables aroudn us, we were the last ones to leave.
Great time and I'm glad we did it, but after Saturday in Stuttgart and then Monday in Munich, I've had enough beers for a long time and am glad that its behind us.
To the Alps tomorrow to Innsbruck, Austria to see mountains for the first time in my life. Hopefully do some hiking!

Day 16 - Stuttgart to Munich

Woke up at 10ish to Christian's beautiful face telling me its time to wake up (not pretty). Having a big German guy wake you up like that was something right out of a bad dream and i was pretty afraid until i realized i wasn't chained up and realized that nobody had any leather on and no whips were in sight.
I didn't feel too bad, but Rob was definately in rough shape and looked like he wanted to die. We cleaned up and packed and I spent a solid hour or so updating my blog and Christian burnt all my digital pics so that i can mail them all home.
Christian and Anke made us a traditional Bavarian breakfast, although Stuttgart is not in Bavaria. The breakfast was freshly baked pretzels from the bakery and 'white' sausage. I've never seen white sausages like that, but they were very good and the pretzels were great too.
All fo the food all weekend was fantastic. Christian and, especially, Anke were teh best hosts that I could imagine and we had a fantastic time staying with them. Anke was even nice to us this morning after us being so loud and waking her up last night. Either she is genuinely nice, as she seems to be, or she just puts on a really good act and then lost her shit on Christian after we left. I think she was just that nice though and was really happy to have us. Rob thinks that she was happier than a pig in shit to have us leave...haha. Maybe a little from column A and a little from column B. Either way, she was fantastic to us.
They dropped us off at the train station and we took a 15:58 train to Munich. Train ride was okay adn we stayed out of the smoking cars (live and learn). Seeing the countryside from the train is pretty cool and the forests here in the south of GErmany are pretty cool and almost look kind of enchanted or something, not sure what it is. They're not dissimilar to Ontario, but there's definately something different about them.
We got to Munich in the rain, but we thankfully found our hostel quickly and it was very close to the station.
We were both still exhausted so we hit the phones and internet for about an hour, and then grabbed some quick pizza and then back to the hostel to bed early.
Over pizza we decided we will leave Munich Tuesday and head for Innsbruck, Austria to do some hiking, and then probably to Zurich, Interlaken adn somewhere south to see the Matterhorn, but nothing beyond Innsbruck is of course set in stone.
Up at 7am tomorrow to hit Oktoberfest, Munich! Drunk and in bed by noon i'm sure!