TravelStream™ news feed for member leahandgreg on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/leahandgreg en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:06:02 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1218106320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1218106320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1218106320/tpod.html Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:06:02 -0500 Backing it up - Eastern Europe and Scandinavia

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Bovec, Slovenia

Our ETA was blown out of the water when we arrived in Bovec at 7:30 and got pretty excited to see the tourist agency still open - especially since private accommodation is arranged on the day and the day was nearly over! Luckily for us the tourist agency was open until 8:30 which turned out to be necessary as it took that long to find a place for us to stay - even including a little investigation on foot to find Olga where we got the whole street on the case. Ended up just getting a place for the night (and we were charged for the inconvenience of us just staying for 1 even thought it was not available for more - grrrrr) but put all of that behind us to go out for a nice tea and listen to some local bands. We got prime position in the beer garden at the restaurant which over looked the stage where we caught the last half hour of the local folk band and enjoyed the enthusiasm of the Austrian jazz / oompah band over pizza and our first steak in months! Joined in the conga before heading for home.

A quick start in the morning which was a bit of a shit, as we needed to check out of our accommodation at 10 but could not check into our new place until 2. Went for a walk around the town but made it back just in time as it began to pour with rain and about half an hour later it started to hail! Went back to our new house at 2 and caught Australia walking in for the opening ceremony of the Olympics! A cous cous salad for tea and a bottle of Bovec vino before giving up anchorman with Slovene subtitles to watch 'the 2 jezeks' an original Slovene play concerning the split personality of a famous Slovenian comedian. Greg thought he heard the word Ljubljana in there and there was a song that went something along the lines of "no no no no no no no no no" with a lot of head shaking which I thought I got the jist of but other than that it was an hour and a half of being pretty lost on the concept.

Greg
Up early for our 0930 rafting trip. We got kitted up with wetsuit, shoes, lifejackets and helmets and piled into the van with our guide Gregor. The water was 3 times higher than the previous day thanks to all the rain the day before so we were able to start further up the river. The rafting was pretty tame for most of it but we all got wet and passed the test of climbing into the raft while floating in the water. The Soca river was very scenic and we rafted just downstream of where Prince Caspian was filmed as well as past some WW2 battle sites.

Our next task was to decide what to have for lunch. No matter where we are we always seem to spend very long periods of time hanging out in supermarkets. On this particular day we eventually got a couple of massive burgers for lunch and bangers and mash for tea. We had originally planned on catching the 1535 bus out to where there was a good walk to a waterfall but the sound of the 2nd beer opening put an end to that. Instead once the beer was all gone and the burger starting to digest we made our way down to the café down the road with free wireless cheap coffee and we discovered even cheaper wine. We then went home for some more wine and tea and made some very good drunken decisions. 'We should definitely catch the overnight bus from split in order to make it to Belgrade in time for the beer festival.'

The next day we caught the bus back to Lublijana and had a few hours to kill before our bus to Bosnia. Had a niced walk through town and then decided to relax with a little beverage in a beer garden on the river with big screen olympic gymnastics. 5 mins later Luke Collett and Joe Boylan walk past. Enjoyed a beer and a chat before venturing into the burbs for a delicious horse burger. mmm horse berger!

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1218492780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1218492780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1218492780/tpod.html Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:32:48 -0500 Backing it up - Eastern Europe and Scandinavia

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Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

We arrived about 9 am and caught the tram into the old town where we both somehow got an immediate morocco vibe. With a little help we found the haris hostel agency where the girl said she would just need to call her brother. She then took us to a taxi and paid him to take us to the hostel. We were getting worried as to where this place was. "If they have to get us a taxi and have a separate office where is this place?" It was only a 10 minute walk away but straight up the hill so they got us a taxi - what service. When we got in we were met by a lady and shown to our rooms but she said "I still need to clean, but my son he very busy he come later to see you" any questions were answered with a short but good attempt at English then, "my son he come" or Leah getting a pat on the back. We hung around a bit so we could both get a shower as we were both feeling pretty disgusting after our 12 hour bus ride with the smokers.

It was almost midday and getting pretty hot by the time we got into town, we walked around the old town and down to the outdoor market where we got ourselves some walnuts and fruit and then back along the river scoping out nice places to sit and drink beer but thinking at the same time it was a little too early. I kept looking at buildings covered with bullet holes and thinking, 'wow I have no idea about what went on here and not even any idea about the whole Yugoslavian story. This feels like it should be really interesting but I just don't know anything about it.' We went into the old town for a small cevap each which consists of 5 cevapici's in a nice big soft pita bread with fresh onion and we were told yoghurt. It was very tasty but so filling. We then went and sat in the park and said "it's lucky we are going on Haris' tour tomorrow or I'm not sure I would get that much out of being here". We then went to the Sarajevsko pivo brewery for a couple of beers. It was very nice and cool inside and the beers went down a treat.

When we got back up to the hostel we met Haris and spent the evening out on the terrace drinking beers and talking to some English guys before the lack of sleep on the bus the night before eventually caught up with us.

After another bad experience trying to buy milk for cereal we went out on the tour at 10. first stop the tunnel museum. We entered the tunnel and walked a small section of the tunnel that people used for transporting food, people and weapons in and out of during the 40 something months Sarajevo was surrounded. We then got a bit of a rundown on the war from Haris which was very helpful in understanding what went on. We then went up to the mountains to see the old bobsled track for the 1984 winter Olympics passing the people searching for landmines on the mountains on the way up. It was pretty cool and had a few holes bashed through to use as a shield when shooting through. The Olympics is obviously a huge source of pride for them and a memory of better times. "we bid for the Olympics again but the say not safe enough and too many landmines" said Haris. We stopped for an amazing view over the city and when you look you realise what an amazing location Sarajevo is in. right in the middle of a valley surrounded by mountains. You then realise that this makes it very vulnerable and picture it completely surrounded in a very hard position to defend from. We also went into the Olympic stadium and walked around. Then onto the old parliament house and new parliament house which was still being built but looked much more impressive and less bullet ridden than the old one, but not as bullet ridden as sniper alley where we went next. it was basically where the people of Sarajevo could come to collect UN aid and the surrounding hills full of snipers picking them off. We then went back into the old town to a very old Bosnian house converted into a museum before going for a cevap for lunch. We asked if there was something else we should try as we had it yesterday and Haris said "not really, did you have it with cream cheese"
"no"
"then you need to have again anyway"
And it was pretty good.

We also went out to the main street where the town hall is. it was used as the national library during the war but was bombed and about 2 million books destroyed, "they wanted to destroy history and information" Haris reckoned. We also went to the spot where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated leading to the start of WW1.
After the tour finished about 4pm we went to city pub for a drink and then wandering through the old town shops we ran into Shona from our tour that we did in Ireland. We arranged to meet up with her at the brewery later and went off to do some souvy shopping. After the brewery we found a place for the group of 11 for some dinner where we were both in need of a break from cevap so I got what was translated to Bosnian Crock which turned out to be a stew in a big crockery pot and leah got stuffed peppers, both of which were fantastic.

During the day Haris had called majda in Mostar to let her know what time we would be getting in and to ask if the much talked about tour would be running on the 14th or if we needed to catch the 0645 train to get there early for the tour on the 13th. Verdict was come early.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1256321640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1256321640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1256321640/tpod.html Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:19:45 -0500 Backing it up - Eastern Europe and Scandinavia

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Los Angeles, California, United States

After making a quick escape from Heathrow at midday with the authorities after Friz, we arrived arrived at 3pm 10 hours later. Found the right bus and made the change to the metro system that took us all the way to our hostel. A quick check into a vacant 6 bed dorm, a guided tour around our new hostel and then the challenge of staying awake! Headed out to Sunset Boulevard for a little walk and stumbled right into the Kodak theatre and the hand prints of the stars. Ate a hot dog for tea which really hit the spot and headed back home for an early one - well not early per say as it was 5am in our bodies - but I'm sure everyone else thought we were lame as calling it a day at 9!

Understandably we were awake at 6 but this worked out well as we were the first one down for the free all you can eat pancake breakfast. Well those seppos don't mess around! There was a 30L saucepan choka block full of mixture which made pancakes the size of Friz! 2 of those topped with butter and mayple syrup and we felt like we had had all the calories allowed for that fortnight and with very big tummies we headed out for a walk of the area. Found a very nice area of town all decked out for Halloween before heading out to Beverly Hills. Walked past some very nice houses, each with signs in their yard supporting different political propositions. Made it to Rodeo Drive with flash backs of pretty woman and window shopped the length before plucking up the courage to enter. Strolled over to the Beverly centre buying a huge bag of fresh fruit on the way and casually ran into Orlando Bloom getting off his motor bike on our way back to the bus stop. I think he looked a little star struck when he saw me and nervously asked me if I wanted a lift but I had Greg with me so I had to refuse. What a shame. Another long walk and a bus back to the hostel before heading out on the metro to staples stadium. The people at the hostel said it would probably take us ages to get there - especially as it was game night - but we arrived with about 2 hours to kill! A beer and a souvie shop later we were in and after a quick snap with the clippettes and some very weird and disappointing nachos we were ready for the game to begin. It was a pretty unreal experience but I think it showed us more what it would have been like in the real season. The crowd was at about 25 percent capacity and we were in the nosebleed section. Half the players (or certainly all of the players that Greg had primed me on) weren't there and so both the crowd and the game were a bit lack luster. But still a worth while American experience. Home by midnight.

Some real TOOLS checked in at 1am and decided to be real WANKERS in our room. As it was just greg and I we had our shit all over the place and I had all my stuff ready for the next day on the bed above mine. So when these guys come in one of them decides that the best bed was the one above me. And he goes to work setting it all up and gets really confused when he finds all of my stuff. So he jumps up and down off the bed a few times, looses his keys and get the hostel staff to come into our room and look for them so by the time they get organised and have showers ect its 3am. Not happy.

A quick decision the day before got us up at 5:30 to have pancakes (poor tummy!) and catch the earliest bus out to DISNEYLAND!!! Left the hostel before 7 and after about 2 hours on the metro and bus we were at the home of dreams by 9:30. At the gate we were greeted by possibly the happiest person on earth who gave us tips, tickets and all the information we could possibly need to enjoy our day. Entered via main street and headed straight into adventure land. Fast passed the Indiana Jones ride, checked out Tarzan's tree house and wondered straight to the front of the line of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The lighting and sound were pretty amazing and was probably a nice ride to ease us into the day. Next we headed to the night before Christmas ride which was a pretty scary introduction, lowering us into a haunted dungeon to start with! And the ride after was pretty cool with loads of animation, holigrams and special effects with the cart spinning us this way and that to see everything. We still had some time before we could go on Indiana Jones so we called into splash mountain in Critter Country which because of the time still didn't have the line ups we were expecting. The kids who got out of the log we were to get into looked a little damp of the side of their t-shirt so I got a bit worried. But there was nothing to fear. With Greg in the front and two fat ladies behind me we were COMPLETELY soaked and in hysterical laughter by the end and having a marvellous time. The camera however was not. We jumped onto the Indiana Jones ride and Greg got to be the driver of our whole cart! It was an amazing ride with all of the special effects and we even got chased by the rolling boulder. I tried to take a photo of Greg behind the wheel but the camera decided that it was too wet and gave up. Oh dear. After that we took everything out of our pockets and everything out of the camera and sat on a bench to let us and everything we owned dry. After half an hour and an enormous ice cream we were ready to hit the track again and wandered straight into Fairy Land. After a quick burn on Mr Toads wild ride we jumped into the beautiful tea cups for a spin, which turned out to be the most sickening ride of the day with Greg trying to spin our tea cup the fastest! Idiot! Luckily at this point our camera started to get some strength back and by the end of the ride it was willing to stick it out for the rest of the day. After passing Tinkerbell's garden with all the little girls lining up to meet the fairies we strolled into Mickey's Toontown. After checking out Goofy's playhouse and Miss Daisy's boat we went for a burn on the Inspector Gadget ride which was quite sweet! Looked in Chip and Dales tree house and popped into Mickey's house but there was a bit of a line to meet the mouse himself. After that little adventure we wondered into tomorrow land to fast pass Autotopia and enjoy a space burger while watching the jedi's masters train young jedi's in the ways of the light saber. Autotopia was next and was quite sweet. It was like driving semi guided go carts which would have been amazing for kids and pretty fun for us to. After using that fastpass we headed to space mountain where we realised that this was a very popular ride and couldn't get our fast window for almost 3 hours!!!! But not to worry!! There were plenty of rides to do in the mean time! First we went on the Buzz Lightyear ride where we had ray guns to shoot targets on alien enemies and Zurg. I thought greg always had the best spots to shoot the baddies until I realised that the crank in the middle of our space ship spun us around and gave me much better angles. Unfortunately after such a disadvantages start Greg got more points than me. Grrr! Next we went back into fairy land and we popped into a surly looking caterpillar to go on the Alice in Wonderland ride which was a slow twisting and turning ride through her adventure. We got out just in time to see the start of the Disney pageant so we ran to the castle walls for a high view of all the dancing, songs and festivities of Cinderella, tinkerbell, beauty and the beast, pinochio, the little mermaid, Alice in Wonderland, The Lion King, all princesses and all the classic characters. Great show! Mosied into frontier land where I met Woody and we went on thunder mountain which was just a country inspired roller coaster. Back in Adventure land we went on a dingy cruise around the south American canals where we saw animals frolicking in their "natural" environment. The best bit about the tour was the guide who was pretty funny in a dry paying us out kind of way but towards the end I think he was just a bit over it and hated all the tourists! Ate the most ENORMOUS turkey leg for dinner as the sun was setting over the castle and with still an hour until our go on space mountain we headed back into Mickeys Toontown to go on Roger Rabbits Ride. We still could not fastpass the ride and thought the estimated wait of 50mins was inaccurate judging by the line up but we shortly found out that they were very right. A very painful wait for a ride that was not that great which was a real shame as it was the first annoying thing for the day. Needed some fresh air after queueing for an hour inside so headed for the classic Dumbo ride. Probably an acceptable 20 min wait for this but it was so cute it was totally worth it plus the lovely attendant offered to take our picture when she could see we were getting no where trying to capture the vibe. FINALLY after hours of wait we were able to enter space mountain. Space mountain was debatably the best ride of the day. Its amazing how much more fun a rollercoaster becomes when you take away the ability to see where and when the next turns are about to happen! We were loaded into a space rocket and loaded into the exit tunnel for outer space where we were blasted out into a black and star strewn sky. We floated around for a bit until we went into hyper speed and our rocket was quickly following the waves and currents of space. This way and that, up and down we had no idea where we were going or when it would happen and we were nearly wetting ourselves laughing having such a good time! AMAZING! The one ride we had not yet gone on was the finding nemo ride which did not have a fast pass so we faced the challenging prospect of skipping it or qeuing again with a very unappealing wait time of 45 mins. We waited and while we met a nice guy who used to work at Disneyland who had some very funny babies and was quite cute again it might not have been worth nit, athough the hollidgrams, underwater scenery and information was done very well. We got out just in time to catch the end of the fireworks. It was after 10 by thus stage and while we had bought no souvies or post cards yet we ran to the shops to get there in time before the last bus at 11:10. We just made it on the bus and fell asleep for most of the hour long ride back and then a metro ride we were home in bed by 1. WHAT A DAY!!!

After a couple of long days we treated ourselves to a slightly later start. More monster pancakes swimming in syrup, that we were both glad to be leaving behind at the end of the day before packing our bags for the trip home and checking out. As our flight wasn't until 11pm we put our bags in storage and caught the bus out to Santa Monica Beach. A very helpful and informative bus driver told us all we needed to know about changing busses and how to get home from the beach however 2 thick as brick Seppo's still could not figure out the whole public transport thing. The pier was fairly pretty with a bubba gump shrimp company on the edge of the jetty and lots of little souvenir shops the whole way along until the end which turned into a theme park with loads of rides. Had a little wonder up and back before asking a life guard how to get to Venice Beach. We could either drive, take the bus or if you're keen it was about 20 mins walk! We walked. An ultimate beach frisbee comp along the way caught our eye but our eyes were quickly taken with the spectical which was Venice beach. Hippies everywhere selling all kinds of wares. We walked all the way along already eyeing off what we would have for lunch as well as keeping an eye out for another one of those fruit stalls that was so good the other day. We eventually made it all the way to the Venice beach basketball where 5 or 6 white men cant jump style games were going on. We watched for a while but then decided to get some sunglasses, lunch and come back. This is where slight problems started as none of the little atm stands seemed to want to accept any of our cards so we had to walk back from the boardwalk where we found a bigger bank which allowed us to get some cash out. Now we were quite hungry which was lucky because the Mexican we got was absolutely massive. Back to the basketball to watch the black guys and one weedy old white guy talk trash while we took our time getting through the ridiculous amounts of food they had given us. We walked back past a street performer demonstrating how white/asian/black/spanish men dance and past the man holding a sign that said "support your local alco" singing "jingle bells jingle bells help me get drunk" (leah got very annoyed when this song got stuck in her head) and eventually got back to santa monica pier. After picking up some bits and pieces we went to catch the bus and after quite a few false alarms a bus with our number on it eventually actually stopped. Made it back to the hostel where we caught our pre booked shuttle bus to the airport. After losing each other in the shops we used up the last of our US dollars on 2 cheeseburgers and a Mcflurry and boarded our plane for home.
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London, England, United Kingdom

jhg
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Budapest, Hungary

We checked into Home made hostel and leah was extremely happy with her choice. It was a pretty funky place.
We had planned to go to Kiato, the pub/restaurant across the road with out Portuguese room mate and as it turned out, the rest of Home Made were there as well making a very social table of about a dozen. The next day we got up bright and early and made our way down to the bus stop for the Sculpture Park. Apparently a real bastard to get to by public transport with many a horror story told around the dinner table the night before we decided to take the safe option and get the tour bus.
After the expense of the bus we didn't go for the guided tour but after wandering around the statues we saw that it would have been quite useful. All the same the statues were pretty cool and some of them quite different to modern statues we had seen around various cities. We then went across to the building where we read about communism in hungary and then watched some amazing old communist spy training videos. We learnt how to search a house of a target and how to follow a target unseen. Very useful skills! Unfortunately our education was cut short as the bus was leaving.

The next day we did the free walking tour around the city. It was pretty good but seemed to focus more on the old history and the rich and powerful families of the time rather than the more recent history, which we thought would have been much more interesting, all the same we heard some interesting stories and some sights we would not have known about had we not done the tour.

After some research about which thermal baths to go to we ended up at the most famous of them all the Szechenyi baths. With the help of various staff members we eventually found our way to our lockable change booth where we changed before going out into the pool area. We went past about 3 pools of varying temperatures we found our way to the quite spectacular outdoor baths. We hopped in the first pool which almost burnt your feet as you got in after walking around barefoot on the cold pavement but once you were completely in was probably a bit cooler than a hot shower. It had jets that did a pretty good job of a back massage but leah wasn't satisfied, she still wanted the real thing. The outdoor area was pretty spectacular and very grand. We went over to the next pool which had a whirl pool in it which was pretty fun, I cant really imagine any health benefits but we zoomed around with all the old people in there before catching up with some American girls from our tour the day before. Then it was off to the massage area for leah where she got a pretty inexpensive half hour massage. I went to check out the gym and we met back in the pool. We tried out the sauna which was extremely hot. We tested the waters of a few other pools before deciding it was time to go. Went home and then back out to the souvenir street to get the required gifts and souvenirs. A few babushka dolls some magnets, pate, paprika etc etc were all purchased without too much pain (thankfully)

We went out to tea at a nice little Hungarian place but we were obviously a bit late as many of their dishes were sold out for the night. Very good all the same.
Woke up early to walk across to the train station where we caught the train 2 stops (15 mins) to the airport.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1224006660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1224006660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1224006660/tpod.html Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:04:54 -0500 Backing it up - Eastern Europe and Scandinavia

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Eger, Hungary

Got off the train and walked into the town looking for the tourist office hoping to find some private accommodation for a few nights. We got there and they gave us a book and said "have a look and take your pick" - it was obviously not high season anymore. Too many options make for long decision making process' so we eventually just said "that one - it's close to the wineries". And we were off. all too easy, was a very nice room with a fridge but no real kitchen, they did however have a BBQ and a backyard. I was excited. We headed straight out to the wineries fearing they would shut at 5-6 and it was already 4. Found our way to the big ring of wine cellars with some in the wine making process just outside their cellar. We picked one with outside tables, went in, tried a couple before purchasing a glass each for a lofty 70 huf (less than a dollar). We worked our way through a few varieties and wineries before finding a winner and taking our glasses across into the park. Our fears about closing time were unwarranted, but unsurprisingly after only about 3 hours of this drinking very nice cheap wine we were pretty pissed and responsibly decided it was time to go into town for tea. We passed home to get a jumper first (luckily) and arrived in town to find that there was really only one restaurant with anyone in it at all, and it was pretty packed. We got a table outside which got cold fast but luckily some people on the table next to the heater finished up so we relocated to somewhere a little warmer.

We woke in the morning to find that we had left the power adapter in Budapest, oh well we can buy one today, it will come in handy.

We walked into town and had a look around before ending up at the local market. After checking out all the local produce we got ourselves a few veggies and some absolutely massive sausages for our BBQ that night. We also got ourselves a couple of little burgers for lunch from the stalls. We asked quite a few places where we might find a travel adapter and everyone said you need to go out of town to the tesco superstore and there is also a big electrical hardware store out there. We took our food home to the fridge and started to go out to the superstore. We checked the tesco but unfortunately no go, I then went on to the other store which turned out to be a bunnings type shop and I managed to find converters from EU to UK but not the other way. Oh well. The cool change had come across in a big way and I was starting to feel a little cold and unwell. Eventually the bus arrived and we were on our way back to the warmth of our home. The lady from the house had set us up with all the bbq gear and even though the sky was still quite dark we hoped that the rain was over and decided to go ahead with the barbie. I was still feeling a little weak so leah volunteered to walk down the winery and fill up the water bottle with wine while I would get the charcoal going. This proved to be pretty difficult without firelighters but with effort I eventually got them glowing. Food was great but strangely the sausage that started hard got soft when cooked and the sausage that was hard turned soft when cooked. Both good though.

Time for the self guided walking tour. With the help of various books provided to us by our lady made our way around the town to the many cathedrals and old buildings, the highlight being the 'camera obscura' built way back in the day which through various mirrors and lenses reflected the 360 degree outside view onto the table in the small dark room we were in. we decided the bbq was so good it was worth repeating, so back to the market to get some more of those sausages. We spent another afternoon at the wineries, topped up the 2 water bottles with good stuff and went home for another BBQ. Another great success but unfortunately we drank too much wine and had to duck back to get more the next morning. We got a lift to the station and got on the earlier train to Budapest which required us to change train on the way. We changed on to the train that we were told was going to Budapest but when the conductor came around he wanted more money. There was a brief moment of panic when the conducter said, "you need to pay more, this is a Russian train".
"Where does this train go!?" It was going to Budapest and we only had to pay a little more as it was a better class of train. Lucky.. yip yip!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1223833680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1223833680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1223833680/tpod.html Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:50:37 -0500 Backing it up - Eastern Europe and Scandinavia

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Budapest, Hungary

We got in to Budapest without a booking but with so many hostels we assumed we would have no problems. Thankfully we were right and we rocked up to red bus hostel and got a bed no worries. We went out and bought a falafel for tea and ate down on the Danube and it was very easy to see why this city is so highly regarded. It really was just beautiful at night, with buildings and statues on both sides of the river lit up. We walked around very impressed before returning to bed. After a night filled with car alarms leah woke up and decided a run was a good idea. I didn't. We met up for breakfast and then ventured out into the town. After spending a little while searching for the eger tourist office or then any tourist office, they all seemed to have moved or closed. We walked down the souvenir shops street, which got Leah very excited, "so many good souvenirs, how much does that cost in Euros?" we then went on to the market hall which for the most part was more souvenir shops but we managed to put together a nice little picnic and start moving towards the park. We walked down the heritage listed Andrassy Ut Street past many nice big buildings and down to heroes square. Picnic was good but by the time we walked back to the hostel we were pretty stuffed. We went to the café next door for a couple of beers and to do some internet, which as always took much longer than planned. We cooked in the hostel kitchen but no one else was really around so we went out for a coffee at the Parisian café nearby.

We planned the next couple of days to be in eger and made a hostel booking for when we returned to Budapest.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1223746380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1223746380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1223746380/tpod.html Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:48:02 -0500 Backing it up - Eastern Europe and Scandinavia

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Kosice, Kosice, Slovakia

We arrived into the bus/train station at about 7pm with no idea where we were going to stay and any information places were as could be expected closed. After standing in the bas station for a while looking at a map and trying to work out where we should go to to find a hotel leah asked the girl at the little cigarette stand where we should go to find accommodation. She was very helpful and tried very hard before she eventually remembered that she had a friend who's dad had a pension, so after a couple of calls we were in a taxi to a bed for the night. We checked in to our very nice room (although leah was a little put off by the neon lights) and got directions to the main street. We wandered down and through the main street that was very nice with musical fountains and a couple of cathedrals in the middle of the main street and checked out a couple of restaurants at varying costs but still all very cheap before eventually settling on moid Molina (golden raspberry) which was very nice.


After breakfast we went back into the town to check out the archeolgical dig undaer the city and a few other sites before catching the train to Budapest. Unfortunately Sunday had arrived again so pretty much everything was closed including the archeological museum. So what does one do with 3 or so hours to spare before the next train? The answer is eat a shit load of coffee and cake (all at ridiculously cheap prices), then buy an ice cream and go catch the train. Very nice town if only everything was open. And a very cheap place to buy cake.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1223571840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1223571840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/leahandgreg/5/1223571840/tpod.html Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:31:04 -0500 Backing it up - Eastern Europe and Scandinavia

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Zakopane, Southern Poland, Poland


We arrived in zakopane and found our hostel that was a nice big alpine house with steep roofs and balconies and as we were both feeling a little sick we decided to take the twin room. We spent the next couple of days in our room watching movies and feeling very sick and congested. Despite various plans for walks that sounded great all we really managed was to walk around the town, which started out looking like a pretty nice town with lots of wooden hunters cabin type restaurants serving up large portions of meat but by the time we had made our way to the end of the main street we had decided that the millions of signs advertising every single shop and restaurant had sapped all the charm out of the place. When we ventured out of our room we met some nice people and the hostel was good but we just weren't able to do the activities we wanted which is pretty much what zakopane was supposed to be all about. By the time we got on the mini bus to the polish Slovakian border we were feeling a bit better until we started driving through the high Tatras mountains and seeing the things we had missed out on. We got to the border and walked into slovakia, but the next bus wasn't for an hour or more so we were going to go check out the shop across the road but after the shop keeper got us to move our bags about threee times until they were basically sitting in the middle of the car park we decided we really didn't need anything anyway. We caught the bus to another town where we changed on to another bus that eventually got us into our destination of Kosice at about 7pm.
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Krakow, Southern Poland, Poland

We arrived in to a blazing beautiful warm afternoon in Poland. Our first introduction to Poland was a fight on our bus, but after getting to the hostel I cracked out the shorts and tshirt and we went straight into town. The town was very nice with about a million restaurants and old buildings but before long it got pretty cold. Well for those without proper attire anyway. We went home and met paul the drunk american who loved my jack daniels tshirt and got us motivated to get going again out of the hostel. Out to dinner for the first time in what seemed like months, drank beer (again it seemed like so long) ate bread and lard and some nice meals of stuffed cabbages and chicken, mozzarella, sundried tomato etc etc. we stopped at the Dog in the Fog pub for one more before going home to bed.

Turned out Paul was in our room but he was having a day off drinking I think so didn't seem too bad.
It was a bit of a threatening looking sky but we did the bike tour and amazingly never saw a drop of rain. The tour was good for info and included about a million churches, a few synagogs and oskar schindlers factory but was not amazing for the hefty price. We had a big slab of frozen pizza and some beers for tea.

We got away early to get to the 11am auswitz tour. A fairly basic 15 minute film and then out into the camp. Auswitz 1 was surprisingly pleasant looking with trees and brick barracks. Each barrack was dedicated to something different and the guide was quite good. We went inside the small gas chamber that was later used as a bomb shelter and saw displays of ridiculous amounts of hair, shoes, suitcases, combs, shoe polish and pots and pans. All brought brought by the jews who thought they were simply being relocated.
Auswitz 2 was a different story though. It was massive, the scale of the place was just amazing. We had previously learnt that only about 25% of people who arrived in auswitz made it into a barrack - the rest went straight to the gas chamber. On top of this people generally only last a few months in these places before they died of overwork and poor living conditions, so the amount of people here is really just ridiculous.
Also strange was that there were houses just nearby, people had decided this was a good place to live, we just assumed that after something like this no one would want to be anywhere near this place.
We got back to Krakow in time to do a bit of shopping before going out for tea. On our way out we heard what sounded like drunk Paul but didn't think too much of it. Another great dinner but the pork knuckle didn't have crackle and both of us had this feeling in the back of our throats. A cold was coming.
At breakfast in the morning we were greeted by a still drunk Paul who was amazingly, more annoying than the first day we met him. We left after paul decided to throw one of our hard boiled eggs in the bin.
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