TravelStream™ news feed for member finntopson on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/finntopson en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:45:53 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/2/1220027640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/2/1220027640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/2/1220027640/tpod.html Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:45:53 -0400 Europe 2008

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Krakow, Poland

Didn't do too much today, walked around a lot and went to the Krakow equivalent of the arndale near the main train station, bought some swimming shorts and booked our beds for the night train we were getting to Budapest. Worried about money and bugeting for a bit then went for dinner in a nice Italian place not far from the main square. Loz had a spaghetti carbonara which will surely go down in history, the amount she's talked about it! And I had a pizza (again..) Bought some vodka, went back to our room and played some cards for a bit.
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Krakow, Poland

Enjoyed the privacy of having our own room by enjoying a lovely lie in. My first for what felt like far too long. We wondered around Krakow for a while, had lunch in a cafe near Wawel castle. I had fried eggs with massive slices of bacon fried into them and fried tomatoes. It was damn tasty if a little fatty..

Walked up to and around wawel castle for a while then sat down by the river and had a drink and chilled out for a while. Had dinner that night in a cool underground restaurant thing. Wish we knew some good places to go and get proper Polish food but its difficult when a lot of places seem directed towards tourists. I had meat pierogi which were tasty and loz had a salad again I think (she loves greek salads, apart from the olives and tomatos..)

Hit the legendary per-ga-min for some drinks then walked back home. Nearly went to a 70's,80's and 90's club but decided against it after we got back..
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Krakow, Poland

got up stupidly early and got the tram then the S-Bahn to to Hauptbahnhof to catch our train to Krakow. We got there quite early so i went out to buy some food for the journey with the funds we had left. The train journey was fairly uneventful..It was boiling hot for the first hour or so before someone had the bright idea of opening the window. It was also an 11 hour journey so it wasn't too much fun, just got a lot of reading done and listened to a lot of music.

Arrived in Krakow and it took us a fair while to find the hostel, also none of the cash machines we tried seemed to be working which stressed us out a little bit. We asked a nice man where the road was and he told us we were basically right next to it. We checked in and found our room on the 4th floor, and it was massive! we basically had a small apartment for ourselves, with our own kitchen, bathroom and big room. And it worked out at about 9 pounds a day each. So we were very happy with that!

We went out for soom food, I had a pizza which had something to do with dracula (might have been the amount of Garlic on it..) and Loz had a tasy greek salad. We went to buddha bar off the main square just for old times sake. It's easy to forget how cheap Poland is, a good meal with a few drinks each comes to easily under a tenner. Bonus!
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Berlin, Germany

Woke up lateish, and had the hostel breakfast (bread, cheese and salami, which i'm growing tired with very quickly) and pretty much just chilled all day. I went to see the Berlin wall at the east side gallery. It was very interesting, wasn't too impressed with the tourist tat they were trying to sell there though. Who could possibly believe that the random pieces of brick they were selling were original pieces of the Berling wall?!?

In the evening we had a few drinks with some new friends called Matt (possibly Dave), Olivia and Antonio who loved Scooter! and couldn't speak a whole lot of English. Went upstairs and packed in expectation of tomorrow's travelling.
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Berlin, Germany

Today was ridiculously hot, something like 31 degrees. We got up and had breakfast (4 days travelling, and we are both sick of the standard hostel breakfast of bread and sweaty salami/cheese) unaware of this fact.. Left the hostel to get the tram into the centre of Berlin and it was like a sauna. We made it to alexanderplatz on the tram, then got the the u-bahn to potsdamerplatz; got an ice cream and then walked to the tiergarten (the main park in Berlin centre). Sat down in the shade there for a while before getting attacked by massive ants.

We made the walk over to brandenburg gate, which was good but not as impressive as i expected. The holocaust memorial was also nearby, which is a kind of big sculpturey kind of thing, quite impressive. Tried to find the site of Hitler's bunker but didn't have much luck, we didn't really know what to look for..

In the evening we got chatting to a cool guy called hermano who was from brazil and staying in our dorm. He said 'come oooon' a lot and was a good laugh, we had some drinks with him in the bar downstairs, he decided to down a glass of absinthe for some unknown reason. Got rudely awoken by two italians being a bit obnoxious (standard) and some guy accusing everyone of stealing his shirt..
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Amsterdam, Netherlands

Got up, checked out then stressed our way to the train station 40 minutes earlier than we needed to be there (we were worried about not getting seats as its a very popular route), got some food, got onto the train and got some seats with a table. The journey was fairly uneventful, the scenery was quite beautiful, all rolling hills and the like. Even saw a few windmills!

Arrived at Berlin hauptbahnhof, a different station to the one expected. Spent a while working out how to make it to our hostel from the unexpected station. Got the S-Bahn then the tram up to East Berlin where 'generator hostel' was. It looked like something from the crystal maze or something, proper cheesy design and all the rooms have names like 'turbine' etc. Strange place but cheap and quite a decent hostel. We were on the 7th floor which proved a bit tricky for liftaphobic laura, it just meant lots of trawling up and down stairs.

Got some food and a drink at the bar downstairs in the hostel then went to bed, travelling is tiring!
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Amsterdam, Netherlands

Woke up in our hostel, i was on the top bunk on a raised platform so i felt slightly as if i was surveying my kingdom or something..we went to a shop to buy an apple each for the walk to vondelpark. The apples were good, the walk wasn't. It was very hot and for a variety of reasons, we managed to get ourselves a bit lost.

After a good hour or so of walking round we finally found the legendary bakery which i've hit both times i've been to Dam before. The shop across the road also sells very good houmous, so we got stocked up on snacks and headed to the park. We again managed to get a little bit lost before finally finding the park. Had our food in there and chilled out for a bit before heading to a coffeeshop to get a little bit more chilled out. Had a pretty nice coffee and then headed back to the hostel (I think..things are a little hazy). We headed out again that evening for another look round the red light district and a chill somewhere.

p.s. I need to write these more regularly, i can't really remember much of what we did :S
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/2/1216731600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/2/1216731600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/2/1216731600/tpod.html Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:29:08 -0400 Europe 2008

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Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

So here is the first entry into my travel blog, i'm writing from the hostel we're staying in, which is decent enough, pretty decent showers and a nice view from the window next to my bed onto centraal station.

We left Manchester at about 10.30 yesterday morning and arrived in amsterdam at about 5.30, so a fairly full days travelling wore us out. We got the train from the airport to centraal and then made the short walk from the station to our hostel. We got checked in and settled into our room then went for a wander round Amsterdam.

We spent a fair while just walking around until we decided to hit a coffee shop, 'basjoe'. The enormous rasta guy behind the counter seemed to be having as much fun as any of the customers. So we stayed there for a while, had a few coffees and funny fags then had a little gander around the red light district just for a bit of a giggle..

Eventually just ended up back at the hostel where i had a beer and loz had a mango juice (which was very tasty!), then hit bed for a well deserved rest. Got to sleep eventually despite the strange noises from upstairs and my apparent wriggling (according to loz..)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/europe_2006/1155487380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/europe_2006/1155487380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/europe_2006/1155487380/tpod.html Mon, 21 Aug 2006 12:52:22 -0400 My personal account of my trip around Europe in the summer of 2006!

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Paris, France

The girls (including Amy) got up early and went "vintage clothes shopping" apparently, whilst the three of us stayed in bed till about 12.30, we were all absolutely shattered and needed some rest to catch up on the last few nights lack of sleep. We pretty much woke up when they came back from shopping, and we all got up and ready to go out. Tom and I caught the metro to the train station to book some seats for the train tomorow. Turns out France and Italy have a policy of not putting on enough trains for the demand, so it was looking like we were stranded again.

We put this to the back of our minds and met up with Nick and Iza at the Louvre, and went inside and looked at, amongst others - The Mona Lisa, Venus De Milo and The Raft Of The Medusa. It was good fun to look at some quality art, lots of it was very impressive, so the entrance price was worth it and I'm glad we did it.

Went back home and had some sandwiches at the hotel before meeting Pearl and Amy near Amy's flat that she was staying in. We went to said flat, had a few drinks (some had more than others), some food and just generally chilled. We went out to find a bar nearby, Tom in particular was very drunk, he had 10 absinthes before we had left, so things were a bit messy. We found one called "Indiana" and had a couple there to wind down.

Ventured back to the hotel in the rain, Tom and I packed as we had to leave in the morning, we all had some more Creme De Citrone and went to sleep.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/europe_2006/1155413100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/europe_2006/1155413100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/finntopson/europe_2006/1155413100/tpod.html Sun, 20 Aug 2006 16:30:35 -0400 My personal account of my trip around Europe in the summer of 2006!

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Paris, France

Got up at 4.30 which was ridiculously early, as Tom and I had had about 6 hours of sleep in 2 nights. We got a lift to Nice station, and we got onto the train shortly before it left. The train ride was ok, they all kind of blend into one to be honest. Changed in Lyon to go to Paris, the train was a high speed one and much nicer, so we taught Iza and had a few games of poker to pass the time (I lost).

Arrived in Paris, got the metro and walked a bit to the hotel, which was a bit of a dump really, but was cheap as hell and the location wasn't terrible. Our beds were all lined up in a row with no space in between, so it was a bit like all sleeping in the same bed. Iza and Pearl went to meet Amy Hepton who was in the city as well at the time, whilst us boys went to try and find an internet cafe to no success.

We met up with them at a bar just down the road. Predictably, Pearl was slightly drunk, but it was nice to see a face I recognised from home. We went back to the hotel, then to meet up with Lauryn at the nearest metro station, who had many stories to tell about her time in Paris.

Went to the Eiffel Tower, where we queued up and walked up to the second floor in the rain (you have to pay more to go to the top). It was tiring work but worth it, and the views were spectacular (see pics). We were going to go out on the town, but it was lashing it down and we were all wet so we didn't bother. Caught the metro home minus Lauryn, the girls went for a drink, the boys had a pizza, we went home and slept like babies.
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