Hungary

The next stop on my Christmas trip was to go to Hungary.  I took the train from Brno and after a bit of wandering I Hostel.  I even ran into two Canadian guys in the street before finding the hostel.  As it was nearing both my birthday and Christmas I had only booked a couple of nights (Hoping to find a fun crowd to spend the two with).  After checking in and meeting the awesome folks there, I quickly decided that I would stay until after Christmas.  We all worked on creating more than a few empty bottles, and the Australians cooked a great risotto for Christmas dinner!

The hostel crowd:

 

Budapest is actually two cities "Buda" and "Pest" which are on opposite sides of the river.  Here is a view of the "Pest" side from up on the hill: (also someone's Christmas welcome!)

The hostel was called HomePlus and had a really neat common area with a multi-level platform common area:  (Picture stolen from google)

We all hung out lots, cooked a batch of mulled wine with about 20 bottles of wine, and then we went to the Turkish baths for Christmas day:

(I stole this picture from national geographic since I didn't want to be that creepy dude in the bath with a camera!)

We also did a walking tour and saw lots of cool sites.  I will definitely be going to Budapest again as it is an amazing city!

A couple more pictures from the walking tour:

The Czech Republic -- Christmas Trip Stop 1

Well as many people know I have a firm belief that if you're going to get what you want for Christmas, you should buy it for yourself.  So with that in mind I decided I would get myself an interrail ticket.  I had 24 days off and a 21 day interrail ticket.  Since there was a night train from Copenhagen to Prague,  I decided that Prague would be the best place to start my trip.

Prague is an amazing city, it has great beer, amazing food, and a beautiful castle.  I stayed in what was one of neatest hostels I've ever stayed in.  With lots of great activities including baking some traditional cookies in the evening, and I love eating free cookies!  I took the usual free walking tour, and then from there went for lunch at a traditional restaurant with some new friends.   After eating the fresh homemade cookies I met another Canadian and we went to go explore Prague at night and wandered up to the castle and back. 

As some of my close friends weren't in town I decided I would keep the Prague visit short and went on to Brno to visit friends there :)

Brno was very foggy, although I did find a great Christmas tradition there! I would like to encourage other places to start the same tradition.  In the Czech Republic you will often find large pools of water set up around Christmas.  In these pools will be tones of large carp because Czech people like to have "fresh" carp soup for Christmas.  The trick is that if you want really fresh soup you should keep the fish in your bathtub and feed it each day!  (I'm serious: http://www.myczechrepublic.com/czech_culture/czech_holidays/christmas.html )

After a great night out I was off to the next country: Hungary!

Some Pictures:

 Cathedral in Prague

 The Opera House

 The Bridge and Castle in Prague

 Another picture of the Cathedral

 A picture from wandering around at night.

 The bridge and castle at night (The amazing castle lights were provided by the Rolling Stones! http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/504571/stones-light-up-prague-castle.jhtml)

 

Another Cathedral

Me an Katka in Brno

England

Well this post is way overdue.  Thanks to Cecilia for calling me out for not writing it.  Last year I had gone to the UK to visit an old buddy of mine I'd met in Australia.  I started had started in Manchester, took the train to Birmingham and then we went to Hinckley which is where my buddy actually lives.  Its tricky to write about Hinckley as we went out and my memory is a little fuzzy.  Although I did run into someone else I had met in Australia!

Due to the fuzzy memories I'll have to plan another trip to the UK soon!

My one and only picture from the UK:

Latvia

The last stop in my little mini trip was Riga.  When I was on the walking tour in Vilnius I'd met a couple of cool girls from Riga who'd offered to show me around.  They wouldn't be back in in Riga until my last day there, so I'd also have to do some of my own exploring. 

I arrived in the evening and quickly started by checking out a couple of bars and finding some dinner.  After an early night, I decided to kick off the next day with the walking tour.  The walking tour was great and was almost entirely outside of the old town. 

We then decided that we had to see the beach.  We took the train out and wandered down the beach a some, but it was a little cold and windy.  Luckily we had seen a bar while walking from the train to the beach, so we went there and enjoyed a couple of nice pints.  The beach however, was amazing and I will definitely have to go back to Riga in the summer to enjoy it!

After arriving back at the hostel I discovered that Team Briton had arrived (unexpectedly), so we all sampled the "Tipsy Sally" drinking game, which was rather entertaining.  (Also rather effective!).  After another night on the town I met up with my new friend from Vilnius who gave me the personal tour. 

The personal tour was great! We wandered around the old town, went to a great bakery, and I enjoyed some traditional food and a glass of traditional Riga black balsam.  After all this I managed to grab my bag and only had to run about 2 blocks to make it to the bus for the airplane.  (The bus passed me and I had to chase it down)

 

Stalins Birthday Cake (yes... another one)

 

Freedom Statue

 

A really nice beach near Riga

 

 Me on the beach

 The usual hostel crew.

 The Opera House

 

A cool building I saw someplace in the old town.

 

Me and my Black Balsam

Curious how many countries I've been to?  You can follow progress here:Current Progress

*Note that only countries I have written the blog post for are posted as done!.

Lithuania!

Next stop is Vilnius.  I was joined by the two British guy's I'd met in Poland.  There are so many different things to like about Vilnius, its a nice little town, the beer is cheap, and the mayor is awesome!

Example of awesome mayor: http://en.ria.ru/strange/20110803/165538168.html

Thats right ... don't park your car in the bike lane or he will run over it with a tank!

 After people started parking in the bike lanes again he decided to provide the local citizens with stickers to put on any cars they found in the bike lanes:

In addition to an awesome mayor Vilnius also has an arts district that issues passport stamps.  The district is called Užupis and is full of statues, signs, and all sorts of other artwork in addition to an interesting constitution and a law that you have to smile.

If this wasn't enough they also have a castle, on an island! The castle technically isn't in Vilnius but is in Trakai a quite close on the train.  We made a day trip of going to the castle and found a really nice restaurant near it to enjoy some traditional Lithuanian foods.  My favorite was Didžkukuliai which is a bit of meet surrounded by potatoes (always good!), we also sampled the rye bread (bread bowls for soup seemed popular), Bulvinai blynai which are potato pancakes (and a close 2nd for favorite food).  We also tried Gira which is some kind of fermented drink made from bread (non alcoholic).

I stayed at a hostel called Jimmy Jumps, it's owned by a Canadian guy and is really awesome.  Great atmosphere and also amazing staff!  We had a fantastic time here!  Link if you want to stay there too: http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Jimmy-Jumps-House-Hostel/Vilnius/43131

After one of the rather fun nights I decided that I should do something cultural and did the walking tour.  Highly recommended as it even goes up to the top of a large hill and you can climb a random old tower.

Pictures:

 

Vilnius Town Hall

 

Trakai Island Castle

 

Trakai Island Castle

 

The art republic

 

My favorite sign in the republic. (Apple republic Sign)

 

I love when I see old trucks still being used.

Next stop: Riga! 

Curious how many countries I've been to?  You can follow progress here:Current Progress

*Note that only countries I have written the blog post for are posted as done!.

Poland

I had decided before leaving Malmö that I would stop in Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.  I hadn't decided yet where I would stay, or even which cities to visit.  After inquiring at the Stuttgart train station I decided that the night train to Warsaw sounded good.  Taking the night train would allow me to save one nights hostel plus it would get me out of Munich (which is very expensive to stay in during Oktoberfest).  The night train had a short stopover in Vienna but I had already decided to save Austria for later when I could visit some friends and see the country properly.

I managed to book my hostel while on the train (it had wifi while it was in Austria).  I booked here: New World Hostel this turned out to be a great hostel in a really good location.  I definitely recommend it, if only for their policy that guests shouldn't bother to wash dishes but instead just leave them in the sink for the staff!

I decided to start my trip in Warsaw with a free walking tour: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g274856-d4025523-Reviews-Orange_Umbrella_Free_Tour-Warsaw_Mazovia_Province_Central_Poland.html

The walking tour was great and as a result I made some new friends to go for lunch and drinks with.  I was also shocked to find out that there are apparently perogies that are made with blueberries... didn't expect that when I ordered perogies for lunch!  This was also the first time I've gone on a walking tour that ended at a bar with a snack and a free vodka shot!

The Warsaw rising museum was also great.  Also the cheap drinks and food were amazing!  I was also shocked to find out that my buddy was living in Warsaw working at the hospital.  It was great to catch up after about 6 years and have a few beers!

A few pictures:

 

Stalin's Birthday Cake (None that there are 2 of them, one is a gift from Stalin, and one is a gift for Stalin)

 

A really cool mural dedicated to Marie Curie 

 

The old town wall

 

I saw this cool little car, so I took a picture.  Lucky there was also a nice building behind it.

One of many cheap beers!

Next stop Vilnius!

Germany Round 2!

Well I managed to get 10 days off to do a little mini trip.  I had decided to head to Oktoberfest again this year, as it was too much fun last time to miss it when I live so close. 


I started this trip through Germany by flying to Stuttgart.  I spent a couple of days visiting a couple of great friends(Annie and Anna), Annie is currently living in Stuttgart and she was kind enough to host me!  I got to explore the Mercedes Benz museum and also experience Wasen.  Wasen is a smaller more local version of Octoberfest, that is mostly attended by locals and Germans.  Not so many tourists but the idea is the same!

Some pictures from Stuttgart (Mostly from the Mercedes museum):

 

Great way to enjoy an afternoon in Stuttgart!  (Also the food was awesome!)

 

If you see little signs with blue socks, follow them! They lead to a great beer garden on top of the biggest hill in the city.

 

A really cool church surrounded by a horseshoe shaped lake/pond.

 

One of the oldest Mercedes Benz cars in the museum

 

 A great example of how cars used to be designed to look nice not just for utility.

 

One of the coolest car transporters I've ever seen! 

 

Ever wondered what a clay car looks like?  These are used to prototype how the final car will look!

 How often do you see rally lights and headlight guards on a car like this?

 I don't know why this sign is here, but I feel better for sure!

Next stop Munich! Why Munich you ask?  Well clearly because it was time for Oktoberfest!  Since Oktoberfest was on, almost all of the hostels/hotels/ect where really expensive or full.  We did manage to find a small hotel room that was not too overpriced (100 euro's for a night) so we decided we would take the train from Stuttgart early in the morning, drop our things at the hotel and then go straight to Oktoberfest.  I love Oktoberfest, a festival where I get to drink lots of beer and also wear my lederhosen.

 

See! Lederhosen!

This is the second time that I've been to Oktoberfest.  As always it was great!  If you've never been you need to make it one of your life goals if you like food, beer, and dancing on tables!

Pictures: 

 

I've Arrived! 

 

One of the "Tents" the tents are huge! 

 Annie and I!

Waiting for Beer!

New Friends!

These are my favorite! 

Just an idea of how big the tents are on the inside!

Of course there's a lot in Munich aside from Oktoberfest.  I only had a day to check it out before I left to go to Poland.  I decided to do the free walking tour ( http://www.newmunichtours.com/ ) and then we went for soup.

 

These two towers are one of the only things that were not destroyed during the war.  The allied air forces kept them so they could use them for navigation.

The "New" townhall.

Next stop Warsaw!