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The trip from St. Petersburg to Amsterdam was the most tirirng of all, after being on a bus for 8 hours til tallinn had to wait for 3 hours to get a flight to Berlin....
When I finally got the flight I arrived in the evening and my flight to Amsterdam was at 6a.m. the next morning....so I thought I would just sleep in the airport.....WRONG......airport was closed til 4 so I stayed on the street all night and ended up meeeting some drunk russian guy that was trying to make his way to Paris but had no money whatsoever.....I have no idea what happened to him....
I finally got my flight to Amsterdam, almost die during it as well, it was one of the oldest planes I've ever flown in and the pilot was obviously not the best either, but hey.....I made it...
Once I got there I thought I would just find accommodation easily but there was this big conference on and absiolutely everything was full, they even told me to try a different town about 50 kms from amsterdam....I decided to talk to the friends I had made when I stayed there last time and one of them let me stay at his place.....he provided all the commodities....."breakfast", "coffee", alcohol....hehehehe so it was pretty good, but after 2 days of being on the road and not sleeping I was pretty tired so i slept all day....
We went out that night and the next morning I got my flight to Australia without any sleep at all....and what a flight it was....the whole flight the plane was leaking water and it was literally raining inside the plane....not very reassuring if you take into account the flight takes 12 hours....:)
Right now I'm in Malaysia waiting for my connection to Sydney, which leaves in about an hour....and once in Sydney that's it.....back to work and to the serious(and boring) life....:(
It was an amazing adventure and one that tought me a lot and that I will remember forever....thanks to everyone for the emails and the comments and "travelling" with me through this website.....
I know that I promised photos and they will come as soon as i get to Sydney......I have bucket loads of them.....and I know you'll enjoy them....
Time to go now.....another chapter in my life is over......
Arrived in Russia on the 29th of August, monday and fell in love with it straight away.....
We dropped our bags off at the dorm and went for a wander around the city....what a gorgeous city St. Petersburg is.....amazing monuments, beautiful buildings.....and most amazingly.....if you can find me one ugly girls out of ten then I'm Santa Claus....
The very first night we decided to celebrate my birthday again hehehehe went to a club called Club Metro, three floors packed with girls alcohol and good music.....what a great night it was....
At the dorms (university ones) people started to arrive for the next semester so we made a lot of friends, from spaniards to americans to frengyptians (a girl that was half french half egyptian)....and we basically hung out together all the time, went sightseeing and stuff during the day and partying during the night.....
The first week, while Simon didn't have classes we did most of the sightseeing, went to Peter the Great's Summer Palace, the winter palace, the Hermitage, church of spilt blood and a few other astonishing landmarks.....everything in that city is gorgeous....
But enough about sightseeing, some interesting curiosities about Russia.....first of all, and a very convenient thing as well is the fact that you just stop any car on the street and he'll give a ride for a price of course, but every car is a taxi....very convenient, believe me....
The other great thing is the fact that the girls do nothing else but walk up and down Nevsky Prospect, the main avenue, all day long.....all dressed up (I think they probably sleep dressed up as well) and flirting with the foreigners....of course I don't need to tell you here if I met a few and any other details...:)
A lot of fun stuff happened in Russia, the kind of stuff you can actually say "only in Russia"...in our dorms, they took our microwave to give it to the americans so we waged a war on the old ladies that work there....we taped the microwave to the fridge all the way around a couple a hundred times....hahahha....one morning we just woke up with the noise of tape being taken off, so we jumped off our beds and there were the old ladies cutting through our tape....:( we lost the war....
I read in my guiide book that Russians can seem cold but once you get to know them you have a friend for life....I already knew this but it couldn't be more true.....it's amazing how nice everyone is and how easy it is to meet them and talk to them....without prejudice or anything like that....everyone is equal.....
A lot of things happened in Russia, from being propositioned for sex by a 14 year-old schoolgirl (who tried to convince me it would be good for me because she was very experienced.....ha), to our american friend Sam being robbed by 5 cops (yes that's right, police officers...) while he was drunk on the street, they took his money and phone.....and a couple of days later Simon got robbed as well just outside our dorm.....but for the people that say Russia is dangerous....it's no more dangerous than any other western european country....they are all fucked up....I felt completely safe the whole time, and actually felt safer than in hungary for exaample....
Another thing that can only happen in Russia....I was walking on the street in the middle of the day, center of the city and saw this amazing Bentley parked with an old lada parked behind it.....2 minutes later I see a helicopter flying in and landing in the middle of the city, in a park.....8 bodyguards coming out and securing the area and this guy walks out of the helicopter and into the Bentley and drives off.....only in russi can you just simply lanmd a helicopter out of nowhere in the middle of town....apparently it was some big mafia boss that can't really drive around the city most of the time cause he's get murdered, so he just flies from A to B all the time....Russia....:)
My holidays were coming to and end, and with it my mood was getting worse and worse, in the last two days got myself a really nice russian girl that lived in our dorms as well so that kind of made it better eheheh :) had to stay one more day than planned as usual, always changing the plans......
I finally ended up getting a bus to Tallinn, Estonia on thursday morning /(the 8th).....
Although my trip is over and I'm already on my way to Australia I decided to write about the rest of my trip....
The next couple of days in Prague were spent just partying, we went looking for the gipsy that night but didn't have any luck....
Friday night was Simon's birthday so we celebrated it on friday and saturday as well.....did very little sightseeing at all....but to be honest, I was kind of disappointed with Prague....there are just so many tourists and it's not prettier than the other cities we went to....
On monday I left for Krakow, I liked it so much that I decided to return, Simon didn't want to so we decided we would meet on thursday in Warsaw....
Went back to Krakow, to the same hostel and it was great, everyone remembered me, they were all happy to see me....it was really good....
Those 2 or 3 days I was there I, again, did absolutely nothing more than party, seeing as though I had already done all the sightseeing there was to do....
As usual on my last night met a really nice girl and started thinking straight away of how I could stay longer and meet up with Simon later on etc....but realised that it was stupid so left to Warsaw on thurday....
Once in Warsaw i went straight to bed because I hadn't slept since partying the night before.....the next day, friday, we went sightseeing all day, to the old town, the jewish ghetto and so on....it was quite interesting but by this time I was already kind of sick of sightseeing.....that night we got a horrible overnight train to Vilnius (capital of Lithuania for the less informed :)), the bus took 10 hours, and it was the most unconfortable trip of all the trips we had......
Once we got to vilnius the plan was to stay for one night and then get an overnight train to Russia, seeing as though on my birthday night we were going to be on the train we decided to celebrate my birthday on saturday night (the 27th), Simon bought me a 1 liter bottle of the best, and most expensive, russian vodka, and it did the job pretty well....
We went to a nice club, packed with chicks, you cold tell that we were getting closer and closer to Russia, hotter girls, more of them, different (sexier) fashion, and the fact that the girls just eat you with their eyes, they just stare at you and start flirting straight away.....what a terrible thing to do ey?? Girls should never do that hahaha
That night we met some girls, had some fun....and met up with them the next day as well to do some sightseeing.....problem was we got so distracted that we had to run to our train and barely got there, it was already starting to move.....Again I was keen on staying, as usual, met someone, didn't want to leave.....eheheh same as berlin, budapest, krakow.....
We made it on the train and I was finally on my way to Russia.....yeeeeaahhhh......we were lucky we got a whole compartment to ourselves.....and seeing as though the train was going to take 15 hours, we decided to spend most of the time sleeping, with some chess games in between....
Once we finally made it to the Russian border you could tell we finally got to Russia....our passport was checked by 5 different people, compartment got searched.....etc....
Couldn't have been happier, entered Russia for the first time in my life after wanting to do it for so long, and right on my birthday as well.....what a birthday present....
Finally made it to Prague, the city that everyone said was amazing.....but fulll of tourists.....
We made it to the hostel in the evening so we didn't do any sightseeing, just had some dinner and bought some vodkas because it was Simon's birthday.....
We drank in the hostel and went off to some clubs.....taxi drivers tried to rip us off, one even wanted to call the police but we finally made it to a club called Karlovy Lazne near Charles' bridge....had a big night there.....
On the way out some girls which we knew were prostitute came talk to us and it was strange because they talked really close and were always shaking one of their legs, every girl.....I didn't know why until I got a taxi home and I realised that while they shake their leg your leg is ahaking as well and you don't notice their hand going into you r pocket and stealing all your money, so we got robbed on Simon's birthday, another new lesson learned....
Anyway I'm going there tomorrow to find her because when I realised what happened I went to the police station and they asked me what she stole, I said money and they asked if Passport as well, I said no only money and they just shrugged their shoulders as if they were saying "there's nothing we can do"......so I said ok so tomorrow I'll go to the same place and if I find that girls I'll break her face and the police officer said "ok, perfect I wish you good luck".....so tonight we are going to have a few drinks and go back to the same place and find those Fuc**** gypsies and make them use our money to pay for their hospital bill.....should be fun......I'll tell you all about it in my next article.....
Til then....
Last night in Bratislava was an interesting one....for different reasons....
We decided to try out some clubs in Bratislava and we found out about the biggest club there....after partying in some of he best clubs in Eastern Europe we went to a tiny little boat called Circus Barok where you could only fit about 100 people max.....and that was supposedly the best club there....not that I want to criticise Slovakia at all but we were there for 4 days in total, 2 in Liptovky Mikulas in the mountains and the other two in the capital....and to be honest...no offense to Slovak people....it's just boring....it's a dead city in comparison to the other ones.....
Anyway a word of advice...be very very careful in Eastern Europe....at the end of our night we were buying some food at a little hamburger stall and out of nowhere a hot girl walked up to us (there were 3 of us) and asked if we spoke german.....because I speak a bit I started talking to her and she said she was a german tourist travelling on her own but her accent was not german.....
After a couple of minutes I ended up buying some beers for everyone and as soon as I bought them she grabbed the other guy that was with us by the hand and left with him.....after thinking for about 2-3 minutes about it, me and Simon thought it was a bit strange and went after him....she was already on her way into a dark alley with him where I'm sure he would have been robbed or even worse....and as soon as we called him back...the german tourist (yeah right) got all angry and left in the opposite direction than the direction she told us her hotel was....so always be careful in Eastern europe....
Anyway the next day we were going to Vienna, so we woke up in the morning and we had to get a tram for 3 stops until the train station.....so we did...and to our luck as soon as we got to the last station the ticket inspector showed up and we had no tickets.....so this little NAZI wouldn't let us out of the tram unless we paid 35 euros each but our train was in 7 minutes and we had no money with us......he said " OK YOU STAY HERE AND FRIEND GO TO BANK...." I ended up finding some money and we paid the stupid fine (ticket was only 0.5 euros) and got the train to Vienna....
When we got there, the stupid hostel gave us wrong directions so we had to walk around the city for a long time with the bags, hungover, trying to find the hostel.....finally did....
To be honest, Vienna is a beautiful city but it is a very dull and kind of lifeless city so that kind of describes our two days there.....not a lot to do although it is a beautiful city.....
From there we left to PPPPRRRRAAAAGGGUUUEEEE......
I got quite a bad impression of Budapest when we arrived cause it was 11 pm and we arrived at a station that is in a less good area of Budapest, dark and daunting....
Later on realised that there is a huge difference between Hungary and the other countries we've been to in Eastern Europe, not only the language which is obvious but the way people dress, act etc...
They can be very rude in Hungary but at the same time they are very "friendly", more the girls than the guys but still very friendly.....they also speak a lot more english than in the other countries....
Made our way by bus to our hostel (actually a university dorm) which was ok but a bit worse than w expected....
Wednesday we had to of course try out the famous bath houses....went to the second most famous one which was huge....about 9 or 10 pools indoors and 3 big ons outdoors....it was good fun, spent about 2 hours there....
When we left we discovered there was a castle right next to the bath house so we decided to go check it out....while we were doing that we met a couple of Ukrainian chicks (yeah I know....there's a bit of a pattern starting...:) ) but they were quite snobbish and basically told us to f*** off so we did.....
After buying a nice bottle of Hungarian vodka and haveing gone through it quite quickly we decided to head out to a club called Cafe del Rio....really really good, so good we went there every night for the following four nights....
While we were there that night having a few drinks who do we see??? The Ukrainian chicks....now for the size of Budapest, to see someone accidentally twice in one day it's a phenomenon, and they realised that too so this time weren't snobbish at all...and we had a few drinks with them til the place closed....
Thursday we were supposed to change hostels but the night before was so long we couldn't wake up so ended up booking another two nights at the same place (but only sleeping one there though.....get to that later)....
We finally woke up and went sightseeing, saw the St, Stephens Basilica which was nice and walked around the city to the Parliament which was an enormous and gorgeous building....an overall good sightseeing day.....
Thursday night we decided to go out to that club again....with the Ukrainians and after a big night out we were invited back to their place because they had seen how bad our place was and were feeling sorry for us, so we finally spent a night in a proper hotel....with a nice shower etc....It's amazing how they get attached quickly.... Simon was already married after the first day.....
On friday we decided they were getting a little bit too attached so after waking up (very late) we decided to go sightseeing alone so we set off to see the central shopping district and the castle (BUDAIVAR), speaking of BUDAIVAR, a name that I liked was BUDAFOK....it's an area of Budapest....I guess who lives ther are BUDAFOKKERS.....
Friday night was gonna be our last night so even though we were tired we knew we had to go out....and thank God we did.....went to one of the best parties I've ever been to.....at the same club but with so many people.....about 20 dancers....some of them naked....lights everywhere....colours, everything.....and the music....oh the music.....it was amazing.....logically that party was so good that after another good night's sleep at the Hotel ( cause we left our hostel after partying on thursday night to move to their hotel...) we decided we had to try a saturday night out in Budapest.....so after the girls left for the Ukraine we went to change our tickets and get a hostel.....
We didn't do much on saturday, we were very tired after 4 days of sightseeing during the day and partying at night....we decided to go for a swim at the bath houses again, but got sidetracked to the House of Terror, a museum that showed all the atrocities that the Communists and the Fascists did in Hungary,....
Our last night in Budapest, we decided to try a different club.....ended up in Cafe del Rio again.....it was really good as usual but we were just too tired, and although we were in a bigger group, with two brazilians and an american, we didn't really do much and for the first time actually ended up going home before it even closed....
Thanks to our new hostel not having a checkout time we managed to finally get a good night's sleep, Simon got up a bit earlier than me and went for a wander while I slept.
We then made our way to the train station and got on a train to Bratislava....where we are now for two nights....but that's something for me to tell you about later....
Boys.....got plenty of stories....but I'll tell them to you either when I get back or if you want, email me and I'll tell them to you then.....here is way to public :)
Ne3xt stop Vienna....I'll try and write from there....
It's amazing what human beings can do to other human beings....just the sheer size of the camps was terrifying....
We wandered around for about 3 or 4 hours and saw things I didn't even think were possible to be done to other people....
Saw both camps, Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz 2-Birkenau, started off with the first one and were horrified at what we saw, from gas chambers to rooms with no light to starvation rooms and to what I think was the worst, Standing Rooms where they put 4 people in a room that was 90cm by 90cm so it was impossible to sit or lie down....
After seeing all that we moved on to Auschwitz II - Birkenau.....which was about 5 or 6 times the size of the first one....just to give you an idea, it was about 15 football fields.....they killed over 2 million people there....:(
It was really a shocking site...
When we got back it was going to be our last night in Krakow so we had to go out....We decided to try Faust again and it was even better than last time....
Simon decided to leave earlier but I stayed until about 10 in the morning because I met some very "interesting" people....so interesting that I decided to stay another night and meet up with Simon only on Saturday in the next stop, Zakopane....
Friday night I was by myself so I had to go and meet people, and meet people I did....99% just of one gender heheheeh.....got some indecent proposals but ended up not taking them up because I had to leave early next morning....
SAturday morning....time to check out a get my bus to Zakopane, a small ski city right on the Tatra mountains on the border between Poland and Slovakia....not a lot to there except go to the top of the mountains for some sightseeing....Different story at night though....went out again and surprise surprise....it was like and invasion of gorgeous girls...:) Very good night that night....
On Sunday we left for Liptovky Miculas.....a tiny little town already on the slovakian side but still on the mountains......actually in a valley in between mountains....came here for two days intending on doing some white water rafting and maybe hang gliding but the weather has been terrible so haven't done anything. It was still a well needed break in the sightseeing and the drinking, two nights just sleping and doing nothing,....
Today (Tuesday 9th) we're leaving for Budapest and the adventure starts again....
We will probably have a big celebration night tonight....cause I just found out I passed the exams I needed to get my permanent residence in Australia....YYYYEEEEEAAAAHHHH
Write more from Hungary....
It took a while to find an internet cafe in the mountains here between slovakia and Poland....
Anyway picking up where I left off, on friday and Saturday just went out at night and did absolutely nothing during the day...
On sunday we went to one of the most beautiful cities I've seen, Dresden. We decided to go thee because Simon had a friend so we could stay for free.
That city is absolutely amazing, it's like it's got more old beautiful buildings than people....it's just palaces and churches and castles everywhere even though most of it got destroyed during the bombings in the second world war they've restored everything and it looks awesome....
From Dresden we got a train to the border with Poland where we would have to change to a Polish train to then make our way to Krakow. Again, at the border, we almost lost the train because Simon's passport was confusing the Polish border guards.....
Once we got to Krakow, also a beautiful city, we quickly made our way to the hostel to drop off our bags, it was already 23:00 so it was time to go explore the nightlife...
We wandered around and finally found a club called "Faust", we saw a couple of chicks going in so we assumed it would be good, and it was....
Even on a tuesday night it was packed....and amazingly enough, Poland was the first place where I've seen way more girls than guys....there's like 3 or 4 to 1 ratio.....what a shame eh??hahaha
The next day we decided to do some sightseeing around town, weather was shit but we still got to see quite a bit.....that night we didn't do anything because we were going to Auschwitz, the concentration camp the next day.....
After a couple of days in Berlin you can easily realise that there an enormous amount of history here....
We went on the bike tour yesterday, it went for 5 hours but it was great, we got to see all the historic places and hear stories about it from a really informative guide....
We went to places like Checkpoint Charlie which is where the border was between the American side of Berlin and the Soviet one, went to the Wall, to the Reichstag and a few other monuments and memorials.....it's amazing how much has happened in this city in the past 100 years or so....
Along our tour we stopped at a beer garden to have the traditional sausages and beer.....after that we had to get back on the bikes which wasn't as easy because obviously we were under the influence....not only of the alcohol but also of the gorgeous girls that kept walking past us....
Today we had to change to a different hostel because we had only booked 2 nights at the other one....this one is even better....has a really trendy bar and restaurant, but haven't seen the rooms yet, cause it was too early to check-in....
Anyway today we are gonna go do some shopping and more sightseeing....and tonight we are gonna try out the bars and the famous clubs, with the best techno in the world...
I recommend Berlin to everyone, it's a really historical city, and at the same time filled with young people and thousands of things to do....
Sunday we are off to Dresden for a couple of days and from there we cross the border to Poland...
Til next time.....
The trip has begun, and what a way to start it...
As we were about to leave Porto we realised we didn't have the confirmation number and stuff so we couldn't do the check-in....had to go to the counter and get it....
As we got back to the check-in counter...we had excess weight so we had to carry our shoes and stuff with us as hand luggage....
All sorted...we thought it was over but as we were going through passport control I had to wait about 10 minutes because my friend Simon got "interrogated" about where he got into europe and when etc....
Once on the plane..... a very unconfortable one by the way....we took off, and the flight went alright....on our arrival at London, the plane almost flipped over as it landed, everyone got scared but again....everything turned out alright....
Our first night in Europe was spent at the Airport waiting for the flight at 6 am to Berlin, so why not have some vodka and play cards all night?? Because then we would feel like shit on the plane and have to wait 4 hours in Berlin til we got our beds....that's why?? Anyway we got to Berlin....again a terrible landing,,,,I don't recommend Ryanair to anyone....
We got a train to Alexanderplatz, one of the main squares and then we would have to get the U-Bahn (Metro) to our station....when we got to the U-Bahn, we saw everyone getting in so we assumed you bought the ticket inside...
We walked in and 2 minutes later the ticket inspector came.....40 Euro fine, but we're obviously not gonna pay it.....:)
So as you can see our trip started off really well.....now we're in Berlin and we're going on a bike tour, yes bike, around the city tomorrow....should be fun....
German people are realy friendly and have been helping us out heaps even though as incredible as it may seem we often have had trouble understanding each other....but a bit of English here and a bit of German there and everything is fine....
Should go clubbing soon and I'll take some photos....
Til next time....
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