Prague

Wow, it's been awhile since I've updated this, but it certainly hasn't been for lack of material. I have been to seven countries in the past month, and have seen and done many interesting things, and met heaps of amazing people, and I'm only halfway through my trip!

I will say that this past week has, hands down, been the most intense part of the trip, but I feel like I should cover some things before that.

Hmmm, where to start. I guess I left off at my departure from Amsterdam into Germany. Basically I skipped Berlin (biggest regret of this trip since I've heard it's amazing) because I had no lodging booked and it would have been midnight by the time I got in. The other option would have been to stay in Hannover, but it seemed like a waste of time and money to stay there. So, in Hannover, I headed to an internet cafe, looked up some train times, and found a night train heading to Prague very shortly. So, I figured that would be in my best interest given the situation, and went back to the train station to buy another expensive ticket, this time for a sleeper.

Sleepers might sound great, but there isn't much sleep going on. You feel every bump and curve (at least on this train, which I think might have been a Czech one, German ones are likely better), and there are a lot of curves. I had the top bunk in a 4 or 5 bunk cabin, and there was only one other dude in the bottom bunk.

Needless to say I didn't sleep worth shit, and got into Prague the next morning feeling pretty out of it. First priority there was to get into the city and find some lodging since the station I came into was definitely out of town a bit. Getting to the city may sound like an easy task, but when you're in a new country for the first time, everything becomes its own little adventure. What is the exchange rate? Where is an ATM? Do I withdraw 100 or 500 krona? What tickets do I need to ride public transport, where are they, how much do they cost?

Everything went somewhat smoothly, despite having to wait in line twice because one window was out of day passes. Now what? What tram, what stop, which direction from there? Oh, I forgot to mention, everything is in Czech, which is a Slavic language and bears nearly no resemblance to English.


Prague, in a nutshell: scenic, but touristy and somewhat overrated. People (and my trusty guidebook, whose suggestions I rely on less by the day) told me to spend three to seven days in Prague. Are you serious? What the hell would I do with five days? I suppose if I wanted to see every single museum, every church, and every square, then maybe five days would be a good idea. However, in two or three days I felt I had seen enough to get a feeling, albeit a subtle one, for Prague. Charles Bridge and some of the squares were cool, but I was really impressed (and that's a hard thing to do) by Prague Castle. It sits above the city on a hill and completely dominates Prague's skyline "like a giant beached battleship" as the guidebook says. To me it would be an impressive piece of work if built within the last century, but the building is several hundred years old!

I think the most random and exciting thing to happen in Prague was to meet up with a friend from Alpena. I had updated my status on Facebook to include a reference that I had made it to Prague (if you don't know what Facebook is, it means you're old). John saw this and sent me a message saying he too was in the city! How about that, another Alpenian on the other side of the ocean, yet just minutes away! Small world indeed.

John and I covered the usual Alpena topics (unfortunately for his friend), and then wandered in the rain through the dark, cobblestone corridors of Prague's streets until the wee hours. We managed to squeeze in a shot of Absinthe (140 proof, yikes!) at a touristy pub, and eat some ridiculously large Czech sausages (they hang off the bun by a good two or three inches on each side) while John chatted it up in Russian and English with the Ukranian girl who sold us the food. I had told him earlier that my great-grandfather (last name Senchuk) had come from the Ukraine. John mentioned this to our new friend, who said she indeed knew some Senchuks!


We parted ways after some more wandering and I headed back to my pretty-decent hostel, then I think I went to Kutna Hora that day, which has this crazy church with a whole bunch of sculptures and chandeliers made out of human bones. It was interesting, but the 20 minutes I spent there probably weren't worth the three-hour round trip!

Moving on

On Sunday I concluded that there was no point in staying in Amsterdam any longer, even though I had already paid for a third night. But really, what else would I DO with another day? I already did a city tour, went to some bars and coffee shops, ate some good (and not so good) food, saw the Red Lights, and got a feel for the city and its people, history, and transportation. I am not into museums, which seemed like the only thing I might have missed, so my best option was to hit the road.

I find it funny the difference between the decisions I have to make here and those I had to make back home. In Denver it was usually "What Netflix disc should we watch tonight?" or "Where should we eat?". On the road, it's more like "What country should I go to today?". This type of traveling is the closest thing to complete freedom that I have discovered in my life. There is something slightly liberating about having to rely upon only what you can carry on your person.

On a related note I was thinking about the pattern of minimalism I have experienced in recent years: my parents' warehouse burned down a few years ago and I lost a lot of possessions, my house got broken into the first week I moved to Denver (laptop and camera: gone), I had my bike stolen last year, I lost some stuff in a work vehicle fire this past summer, and before this trip I had to part with a lot of stuff since I could only take what would fit in my car to take to Michigan. Now I am down to a backpack for the next seven weeks. What's next, a plastic bag on the end of a stick?

If I could have posted some Red Light District shots, I would have. Unfortunately, in the interest of remaining anonymous, the ladies don't really appreciate having their photo taken, and they will remind you of that if you try otherwise. I saw one dumbass guy try to get a shot in, despite the "No Photo" stickers on the windows, and the girl completely freaked out on him, hitting the glass and proving the extent of her English vocabulary.

Oh, and by the way, if you have the same preconceptions of what prostitutes are supposed to look like, you are probably incorrect. I anticipated a row of dirty, cracked-out East Colfax types clinging to life by a single desperate thread. What I saw, however, were women who belonged not behind a window but on a magazine cover. They were probably some of the most beautiful women I have seen in my life (most of them anyway), and it was amazing that they would choose such a profession.

Also, to give you an idea of what I saw, our tour guide described the Red Light as the "Baskin Robbins of Prostitution". Every size, shape, ethnicity, age, and specialty (i.e. a dominatrix to punish you or a nurse to take care of you) seemed to be present behind the windows. And for 50 Euros, any one of them could be yours for 10-15 minutes.

Some final Amsterdam notes: I did try another coffee shop, wisely skipped the tobacco this time, but concluded what I have known for years- that marijuana just isn't for me. An anxious introvert will only become more anxious after a couple of puffs, so what's the point? I appreciate the effects it has on the mind, but not the tension, which is usually to the point of physical discomfort. I have a drinking personality, probably always will, so I think I will stick to what I know best.

To create a perfect framing effect for this post, I will wrap it up with my decision to leave Amsterdam. My original plan was to head to Berlin, but seeing as how I wasn't up to a six-hour train ride, nor did I have any lodging booked, I opted for the shorter destination of Hannover, Germany, a decision I made literally on the bus ride to the train station.

I'll tell you about the train ride next time...

http://Internet.situation.sucks!

Unfortunately I haven't updated this thing because the internet situation has been ridiculous. For example, there are about 8 computers at this hostel here in Prague, 6 of which are actually functional online. So, if i want to do anything at all on the internet, i have to sit and wait in line anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour because there is a queue of other travelers waiting to do the same things. I sit on the couch behind the computers and watch people go to Facebook, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, HostelWorld, HostelBookers, Skype, bahn.de, RailEurope, uploading photos, all the exact same things i do. It's amazing how popular the online world has gotten!

So, long story short, it has been really difficult to do anything online so far. There are definitely internet cafes around, but so many people have laptops these days and wi-fi is so popular that i think internet cafes are dying. Basically, if you don't have your own computer, it's a huge pain in the ass to do anything. If you start wondering why you haven't heard from me, that's why! Trust me, I have so much stuff I would like to say (I'm about two days behind actually), and many photos to go with it, but there are about three people waiting to use this computer. so frustrating!

Be patient....

AmsterDAMN this place is different

At the suggestion of a fellow blogger, I'm going to try some smaller, more manageable posts...

The majority of Saturday was spent on a Free Tour (if you ever get a chance to do one, go for it, they're great) of Amsterdam. I got the scoop on weed, prostitution, why some Dutch houses are leaning (can't tell you why, you have to take the tour), and some strategies for minimizing public urination:
(click on any of the pictures if you can't see them well enough)




On a less humorous note, we also got a relatively concise history of Holland. I was impressed by how tolerant their culture has been throughout most of history and, obviously, still is today. One example- Amsterdam is more ethnically diverse than any other city in the world, with something like 170 different ethnicities in the area. Considering there are only about 195 countries on Earth, that's pretty impressive!

Some other random Amsterdam notes:

- Psychedelic mushrooms (the real thing, not the High Times crap) are completely legal here (at least until a certain law is in effect due to a French girl's recent death from mushrooms), while marijuana technically is not.

- If Amsterdam doesn't have the best public transit system in the world, it has to be close. There are countless trams, metro lines, Sneltrens (high-speed), bus routes, and bike lanes on nearly every street. There is almost no reason to drive a car, especially since finding (and paying for) a parking spot is often a fruitless endeavor. On a related note, almost every vehicle I saw was far smaller than your average American automobile, and that's coming from someone who drives a small car.

- From what I gathered Amsterdam has an almost identical climate to that of Vancouver or Seattle: cool and rainy most of the year, but with decent summers.

- The prices I usually encountered for food, drinks, etc., were very similar to those in Denver, only in Euros. Not exactly a steal if you ask me!

- With the amount of diversity I spoke of above, you can imagine the variety of restaurants and bars in Amsterdam. I only had some Indian and Turkish food, and went to a solid Irish bar where I don't think I heard a single Dutch word in two hours, but evidently such exotic cuisines as Indonesian and Surinamese are prevalent as well.

I have a lot more to say, but not enough time to do it. I think there will be a bit of lag time between when things happen and when they get posted, otherwise I'm going to get burned out from writing too much! Most of it is in my journal, though, so I should usually have something in queue for the next post....

This place smells like college

I am officially in Europe for the first time, Amsterdam to be exact, and am so far enjoying the whole deal. The architecture is incredible, people here are a more smiley and helpful bunch than I expected, and EVERYONE I've talked to so far talks English real good. There seem to be as many signs in Dutch as there are in English, and when they're in the former I can still do some decent translating since Dutch seems considerably similar to German.

The process of getting here was an extremely mixed bag of ups and downs. My first flight was delayed, so I would have missed my connection, BUT THEN I got switched to a direct from Detroit instead of going through Newark yet somehow saved two hours, BUT THEN there was a possibility that my bag wouldn't make it to the other plane in time, BUT THEN I was told my bag would make it, BUT THEN it wasn't there when I got to Amsterdam, BUT THEN someone made a call to someone else to try and find it, which they didn't, BUT THEN as I was filling out the form to have them ship my bag to me eventually I was told they finally found it. It was a glorious early-morning reunion between me and my backpack.

After I got that mess straightened out, I took a ridiculously smooth, fast, cheap, efficient train from the airport to Station Centraal (if you can't figure out what this means in English, just give up now, there is no hope for you). Since I'm at the latitudinal equivalent of roughly mid-Canada, the sun was still on its way up despite the fact that it was nearly 8:00 a.m., but I could still make out some definining features of the city's outskirts, which actually reminded me of a larger version of Anchorage in a way.

From S.C., which is absolutely gigantic, I began a chilly, long and aimless search for my hostel. And why not? I checked my schedule and it turns out I have no plans until, ohhhhh, November 20 when I have to fly back to the States. So, after successfully avoiding the many, many bikes/trams/cars and kind of figuring out the crosswalks, I concluded that my best comparison of American cities to this one would be a bigger Portland with canals.

I finally found the hostel, which is also huge, but is unfortunately in a somewhat lame area far from downtown in a slightly plain neighborhood (just like the reviews said, ha). Well, lame by Amsterdam standards anyway, but not lame enough for me to score some borek at a Turkish bakery three blocks away. It was my first borek experience, and I must say it was met with positive results.

Other than that I haven't done much, mainly because I've only been here for about four hours and am basically just biding my time until 2:00, at which point I can check into my room and hopefully proceed to a solid, afternoon-long nap. I know what you're thinking- why waste time sleeping when I could be out checking out one of the coolest cities in the world? Wellllll, considering I slept about 4 good hours the night before I left, plus the zero hours I slept on the plane because the kid behind me was fulfilling his life purpose of kicking my seat and because the people on each side of me immediately claimed each armrest for the majority of the 7-hour flight and because middle seats should just be illegal, then I guess I've slept about 4 hours out of the last 48 (on a positive note I sat next to a Michigan guy living in Bucharest who gave me some great Romania advice). I'm pretty sure my body still thinks it's six in the morning right now (or maybe even 4 since I only left Denver a few days ago) and basically I'm completely exhausted and in need of a recharge before I can go out and fully appreciate this amazing city.

Oh, I DID go to one of those, what do you call them, coffee shops this morning. For those of you 493 years old and older, these establishments are some of the only ones of their kind in the entire world. Where else can you go and point out on a menu what strain of marijuana you want to buy? If any of you have the idea that I did a few years ago about the Dutch reefer situation (i.e. it's a total free-for-all and everybody is stoned all the time), you're completely wrong. You can't just light up anywhere you want, it's mainly confined to coffee shops, and there is a surprisingly large number of people that don't even smoke.

So, it being my first time in Amsterdam and all, I had to see what this was all about. I didn't WANT to, you know, since drugs are bad, but it was just the obligation I had to fulfill. Anyway, the place had an entirely different feel to it than a normal bar (no alcohol there, by the way, just really really good pot & hash), but I can't really pinpoint what it was. People just sit there, sip tea, and smoke away. I opted for a cigarette, which really is more of a cigarette than a joint since they pack it full of tobacco in addition to the you-know-what. I was aware of this unappetizing fact (I hate cigarettes) before I made the purchase, but I was unaware of the horribly low ratio of hashish to tobacco. Sadly, the tobacco was just too much, and I did not meet my responsibility of finishing the product, but I am all the wiser now and optimistic about a more promising experience next time around.

Well, that's all I've got so far, and I'm starting to question how often I will be able to post stuff since internet use is charged by the hour (I really took those Argentina freebies for granted), but I will see what I can do.

1 day to go...

ALMOST packed up and ready to go. Hasn't sunk in yet that I'm leaving for seven weeks!