Hamburg

Time is winding down for my trip. I only have a week left before my flight back to the states. It's so sad. It's been a good ride so far, and the best is yet to come. Not in Hamburg, though. There's really nothing here. And, you know, I had hoped to escape American culture a little while I was over here. Seeing McDonald's was expected, Starbucks... understandable, but this...

...unacceptable. I wanted to burn down the building... I had my shirt... but not a book of matches... haha.

I knew Walmart was all over the world, but I figured they were in heavy suburban areas where there's more space for the typical Walmart sprawl building. With only a week left in two months, I stumble over it... in Hamburg of all places too....

But since it's here... it still had the lowest prices I could find of any store in the area... so I bought a coke, and was reminded of the IBM mainframe cluster in Arkansas through my transaction is still probably being processed. Then I went to go eat a Hamburger... now it's off to Copenhagen.

Berlin

I have no idea how best to describe Berlin. Unlike the cities that I've recently visited, such as Rome, Athens, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, etc., whose architecture and history date back to medieval times, Berlin has been the crossing point for the major historical events of the last century... events from which it is still trying to recover. There are beautiful buildings that date back much earlier, but many for damaged or destroyed by Allied bombing and left to rot in East Berlin. They only begun restoration in the last fifteen years. This, though, provided me with the unique opportunity to have a very real experience of the events of the last century.

I don't usually join walking tours because I feel like I can do a better and more efficient job of seeing everything myself, but I heard Brewer's Walking Tours was exceptionally good, and my tour guide for which was currently majoring in recent German history. He showed us all the major historical sites, but, for most of them, he had to use the phrase "damaged by bombs in WWII," a phrase which I haven't heard in any other city... including London. Most of the tour and most of the old city of Berlin were in Communist controlled East Berlin (part of East Germany), and the government chose not to repair any of the damage from WWII (except if it was an apartment building). So work has only been started in the last decade.

The most memorable sites were those where events of the last century occurred. For instance, in 1933 the Reichstag here was the site of a fire that was blamed on a crazy communist arsenist who tried to start the fire with a book of matches and his shirt and somehow managed to get flames to shoot out of the opposite end of the building. The next day the majority Nazi party convinced the Kaiser or whoever to suspend the constitution and to give emergency powers to the chancellor of parliament to counter the Communist threat. (Does anyone else hear the plot to Star Wars here?). And we can all guess who that guy was.

That guy spent the last six weeks of his life in a bunker marked by this unassuming parking lot. The white post in the back is roughly the spot of the crater where his body was burned by a couple of barrels of petro. Personally, I'm glad there's nothing marking this spot. It's further fitting that the marble from his huge palace lines the subway station through which we walked and is used in the Soviet War Memorial.

By far the greatest effect on Berlin, though, was The Berlin Wall. I was amazed to find out that the wall went up in all of four hours, not to protect the East from the West, but to keep the working class in the East. It completely divided family and friends. All to try to show that Communism was better. The Cold War here seemed so much like a fashion show... just bullshit postering on either side.

Prague

I had a pretty bad day when I first got here. The train ride was fine. Being a Saturday, though, I was worried about finding a hostel. I got into the train station, bought a phone card, and starting calling hostels. I was referred to a hostel by a guy I met in Bratislava, but it was full... as was the first few and closest to the city center hostels from my guidebook. Finally, the fourth hostel I called had a single room open, which they would reserve for me for the next few minutes until I walked there from the train station. I walked outside trying to match up the streets with those around the train station on my map. This was further complicated by the fact that Prague sparsely labels its streets. After walking around for fifteen minutes without finding any streets that matched up, a man finally came up to me to help, who informed me that I was, in fact, at a different train station and that I needed to get on the subway to get into the center of town. I got the hostel about an hour after I had called them to find that my room had been given away. And this is about the time it started raining...

Expecting to be forced to sleep at the train station, I walked back to the station at which I thought I had arrived. I found a accomodation booking office, who luckily was able to book me a room at a hostel fairly close to the city center. I've stayed at worse hostels, but I wasn't a huge fan of the communal showers they had there. It was fairly late when I finally arrived, and, since it didn't seem like I would really meet anyone at the hostel, I went to a pub crawl that had an advertisement there. The rain and an apparent Hell's Angels gathering in the city were the apparent causes for the reason that I was the only person on the crawl. In spite of that, I still had a good time on the crawl with my two guides. I met more locals than I would have if there had been other backpackers there.

I woke up the next morning to find that it was raining again (still). So for the first time on my whole trip, I used my raincoat. The cloud cover gave the city a very Eastern European feel, which, combined with the cobble stone streets and old buildings everywhere, made for a great experience despite getting all wet. I abstained from visiting any museums here because they seemed too much like tourist traps. The city itself is a open museum, though. It was great just walking through it all.

I went back to my hostel after finishing my meandering, self-guided Mission: Impossible tour to change rooms (they switched everyone around everyday or something). They put me in a room with four girls (how lucky for them) who had just got there that day. They asked me to join them for a different pub crawl they were going on, which I did since I had nothing better to do. We only visited three bars (the more historical ones) but got dinner with it too. It was geared more for older people (who were on the tour with us), meaning it finished early. So the younger ones of us went to a few more bars after. But, of course, I had the grudging responsibility of walking the four girls home at the end of the night... haha.

My Own Movie Tour

Women pay some company in Salzburg to take them up outside the city so they can twirl around like Julie Andrews on the same hill she did in The Sound of Music, but I can't find anyone here in Prague to let me jump out of an aquarium restaurant that I've just blown up with a piece of gum as the water comes crashing down behind me and I go running off into the night. So, after seeing most of the sights in Prague, I decided to walk around and try to find as much of the scenery from Mission: Impossible as I could.

The easiest was the Charles Bridge, where Jon Voight's character staged his own death and fell into the river. I came across this in my normal sight seeing, but I wasn't sure if this or another bridge was used in the movie at the time.

At the western end of the bridge are these stairs, which Tom Cruise went running up to help Jon Voight and from where he supposedly watched the car explode in this square.

This is the square at the base of the stairs. It seems like they might have used another square and edited the movie to make us think it was right next to the bridge, but this one is close to the small amount of scenery I could see around the car.

Literally just to the left of the above square is the bank of the river with this door where "The package is in the open." I think they used different doors for the movie, though.

Walking to the left of the above door, I found the river embankment where the drunk couple was stumbling and I think where we're meant to believe what's-her-name and that-guy got stabbed, but I didn't see the big wooden gate from which they were hanging. So maybe that was filmed elsewhere.

From right about here is where they placed the camera to film Tom Cruise running away from the water spilling out of the Aquarium he just blew up with the gum. They also filmed him walking to the restaurant with St Nicholas' Church in the background (the white church on the left in the picture). The actual restaurant doesn't exist in this square, though, but we're made to think it does (I was disappointed). The square is actually the Old Town Square of Prague, with the astrological clock tower to the left of the picture and the statue and another church off to the right.

Lastly, the email from Max in the movie explicitly states the corner of Prikope and Nekazanka. Fortunately for me, this corner actually exists and is the scenery they used for that scene in the movie. "Can I trouble you for a match?"

I think I actually enjoyed stumbling across all these spots on my own rather than having a set tour that would just point them out (not that anyone would actually go on a tour for Mission: Impossible). It was fun just being looking and thinking "Oh my god, I remember that scene."

Bratislava

I looked into opening my own hotel here. Turns out that it costs a little more than a nickel. The train ride here took me through the very eastern European, Communist, concrete block apartment buildings in the massive suburban sprawl around the city. I didn't find a old man sponge bathing himself or a dog guarding a human hand for food, though. So that scene from Eurotrip could be accurate (aside from the twenty year lag in pop culture).

The historic city center is actually quite different from the communist influence that sprawls out from it. Consisting of mostly pedestrian cobble stone streets, the center has cafes, bars, museums, churches, and landmarks. The most prominent of them is the Bratislava Castle perched above the historic center. The best part about this town, though, is that it is, except for us few backpackers, practically devoid of tourists. The castle was deserted while I was strolling through its courtyards, and the streets and cafes were full of locals. I hope the word doesn't get out of this place. Nothing can suck the culture out of any place better than massive amounts of tourists, especially tour groups.

After seeing all the sights here, I went back to my hostel to find one of the best atmospheres of any hostel at which I've stayed. The few of us English speaking backpackers pretty much all gathered in the back garden of the hostel for a few beers before the mass of us went out to see what nightlife Bratislava had to offer. Aside from having many of the hottest women I've seen in all of Europe, there were some decent bars including the Irish Pub there and the dance club on which we ended up on a boat in the Danube. It was a lot of fun.

Budapest: Day 2

We went up to the Terror Museum here in Budapest yesterday, which exhibits the atrocities committed by the Hungarian government while under Nazi and Communist control. It was a little disturbing. We locked Alex in the tiny, shoulder width solitary confiment cube in the basement for ten minutes for a few moments of humor. By far the most disturbing thing was the wall listing pictures and names of every officer responsible for what happened over that time. It's the ultimate punishment, but I can't imagine anyone whose life's work was that...

We spent the rest of the day at the Thermal Baths across the Danube in Buda (Budapest is devided into Buda on one side and Pest on the other side of the river). Housed in some beautfiul architecture are several swimming pools and these heated pools for each sex. The outdoor pool had a wave machine for body surfing too. All in all it was very relaxing, but I saw way too much cock. Why are fat, old men the first to disrobe all the time? The place did offer these loine cloth type things, which looked like a g string from behind. So it didn't really help much.Luckily, we met a few girls at the hostel bar last night to balance out the day.

Budapest

I met a girl on the train to here yesterday telling me that I have to visit all the eastern European countries, including Serbia (hers), the next time I come over here. I would have done that this time if it was on my Eurail pass, but what can I do. I'm told told that Poland is an interesting (and cheap) place to visit. We'll see what I have time for.

I met two guys getting off the train, Rob and Alex, who were eventually headed to the same hostel as me. Alex was just starting his trip over here. I felt bad watching him confront the language barrier for the first time when we went out last night, a situation to which I've become accustomed now. It definitely makes things more difficult.... not impossible, though. Communication is 93% nonverbal. Hungary has some good nightlife, and the cover charge was only 50 cents (US).

The most helpful thing I've found here so far, though, is the WiFi hotspot in range of my hostel room. I've been disappointed with the quality of my blog here. I've only been able to post summaries of my stays lately rather than anecdotal stories. I guess those will have to wait until I get home.

Vienna

This is one of those cities that you hear about, one of the big cities of Europe, but you're not quite sure what's there to see or do. Some group of boys from here is suppose to sing decently, but what is there beyond that? I set out to find out.

I couldn't have asked for a better couple of days here (look at that sky). I first got here on Sunday to find a calm, peaceful atmosphere among some absolutely spectacular architecture. At some point in time, the city decided to tear down its outer walls and construct streets and public transportation to encircle the city that they call "The Ring" and inside of or around which lie many of the sites. I walked most of the day to see them all but wasn't really compelled to visit the museums here.

The calm, peaceful air about the city all but vanished on Monday, giving way to a busy, hectic capital city. I headed first for the palace above (you're looking at the back of it) and found a montrous property with this gorgeous garden behind it, complete with a maze and labrynth. I then went and found some famous ferris wheel, but I forget why it's famous at the moment.

The nightlife here is pretty much like that of any other place to which I've been, but a lot of us ended up just staying and drinking at Wombat's (where I stayed). I'm allowed to have one or two boring nights... haha

Vienna is definitely known for its opera, though. I had the opportunity to go see an opera called Werther, about a man, Werther, and a woman who fall in love after a few hours, but the woman is engaged to another guy who she promised her dying mother she would marry. It was a more contemporary opera but still very moving. My problem was that I couldn't get passed the fact that no woman would be attracted to a guy who started telling her he was in love with her after a few hours.

The Perfect Hostel

Being that I've spent the last month and a half living in them, I've come to have a perspective on what makes a good hostel and what makes a bad one. Here are all the services, amenities, and considerations that a good hostel needs to have.

Location. This is subject to debate. Ideally, the perfect hostel is only a short walk from the train station to prevent the backpacker from having to carry his pack a long distance. However, the perfect hostel is also close to all the major sights and city activity. Lastly, the hostel is simultaneously situated in the heart of all night life activity in the city.

This can be difficult to achieve since the city layout may not allow for an ideal location. In this case, locality with the train station is favored followed by locality with the night life (the shorter the drunken walk back the better). Complementary or discounted transportation is then offered to other points of interest is offered by the perfect hostel.

Facilities. The perfect hostel offers a cozy and friendly atmosphere. A lounge area is offered on the first floor just off the path from the stairs to the door. In addition to the number of couches, it also has a widescreen TV, DVD player, and a huge collection of DVDs (in English) that bored travelers can watch for free. Adjoining this room is the internet room with several stations offering FREE internet access with open network cables for the few backpackers who carry a laptop... not to mention the free wireless access offered throughout the building. Walk through a door and find the self-service kitchen with an array of tables and chairs, where backpackers can make their own lunch and dinner if desired (free breakfast is provided). The refrigerator and cupboard here have a simple and easy labeling system to ensure that food is known to be private or common and recent or old. The bar joins these areas but has it's own tables and chairs. It opens at night to offer backpackers cheap drinks (apart from its happy hour(s)). And by cheap, I mean that it hardly benefits a backpacker to visit the local grocery store to by beer. The perfect hostel also provides a self service laundry room. Here backpackers can buy a small quantity of detergent to use with the free washers and dryers (I find it hard to believe the fixed and variable costs of these really require as big a fee as they do in most hostels). Lastly, a secure left luggage room is provided for all day use by backpackers checking in that day or checking out.

The Reception Desk. The perfect hostel has 24 hour reception that accepts all major credit and debit cards (Those that aren't open all day should at least provide a luggage room while not open). A young, enthusiastic staff is must. They are the face of the hostel. Upon arrival, they are responsible for informing the backpacker of the times and location of all the services available from the hostel. They are knowledgeable about everything a backpacker would want to know about the city. Moreover, they can make excellent recommendations for places to go, things to see, and inexpensive shortcuts to visit the city as well as provide free booking capabilities for such activities.

Rooms. The perfect hostel offers rooms ranging from single bed rooms with showers to dorm rooms with communal showers. In suite showers would be in the perfect hostel but aren't completely necessary. Regardless, the shower stall is equipped with adequate fixtures to secure the shower head above the person taking a shower and provides abundant shelving. The stalls of communal showers are segregated into a shower and a changing area, which contains clothing and valuables while the person is taking a shower and is locked from the inside. It is also designed such that no water splashes or spills out of the shower into the changing area.

The rooms, themselves, are spacious enough. The beds are comfortable and bunked, but one power outlet is provided for each bed. In addition, a big locker is provided for each backpacker to secure his backpack while staying in the hostel. Each locker also contained a power outlet to allow battery powered devices to be securely recharged during the night or day.

Services. The perfect hostel provides all the basic services like free internet and free breakfast. It also provides time tables for all major methods of travel, with prices. It's capable of booking travel arrangements and hostels, and knows the best way to get to all nearby popular destinations.

Lastly and most importantly, the perfect hostel also provides the small and gentle means to force the otherwise independent and chaotic group of backpackers into a community (only the best of hostels have done this). Day trips, free drinks, games or competitions, independent transportation, or interesting daily activities can all do it.

Any other suggestions?

Linz

I came here because I had an extra day to use before I had reserved my room in Vienna. The only reason I considered coming here was the fact that Linz is on the train route from Salzburg to Vienna.

As it turns out, though, this place has an amazing VR/pervasive computing museum. There's a VR flight simulator where I was suspended in the air and controlled my flight with hand motions. It wasn't all that user friendly, but it was kind of cool to be flying over Linz. They also have exhibits of modern research into RFIDs, human-computer interaction, and digital imagery. One floor had several that involved small plastic "memory devices." For instance, these small green cubes could be inserted in to a video recorder, which would then record five seconds of video "into the cube." When I then took the cube back to this table, the video would be shown in the 3D virtual world at the location of where the cube was placed on the table. In reality, the video would be saved on a server and associated with the pattern on the top of the cube. The cool thing is the software that can, in real time, analyze the video from the camera above the table to find the location of the cube at which to put the video in the display on the wall.

Another exhibit showed several actors who were asked to smile for a camera for like an hour or some god-awfully long time. Software would analyze their facial expressions and beep at them any time they put no feeling behind the smile. (Check out the pics of me flying... ;-))

The bad thing about Linz, though, is the hostels here. There are two: one good one way out in the suburbs, and a smaller one closer to the city center. They both are only open after 5pm... which I didn't know. And I carried my pack all the way out to the good one in the morning to find that out (I hid it there for the day, though). I came back later to find that it was booked for the day, which left me with the other hostel. My first clue was the fact that it was only open for two hours at night. The sketchy (but nice), old man took up me to this room, and, when he opened the door, I was immediately hit with the rancid smell of BO, which I think came from the fat guy who was apparently living in the room. I did my best to keep my mind off of what could possibly living on the shower floor and facet handles while I took a shower before going for a walk to use up the rest of my night... I was hard pressed to find anything to do, though. Needless to say, I left for Vienna as soon as I could this morning.

Salzburg

Salzburg has a subdued charm to it. Most of everything there is to see here can be seen in a day, but there are some amazing day trips from here, including The Sound Of Music tour that visits all the scenery in the background of the movie. Coincidently, my hostel has daily screenings of the movie, which I attended having never seen the movie before. I'm not really a big fan of musicals, though.

One place that really caught my interest was this chess board. Some old, retired locals, along with some others, seemed to spend all day here playing each other. One seemed to be the kingpin, who spent way too much time there.... I think I could have taken him. Instead I spent a couple of hours just watching the games and listening to the Mozart and Vivaldi coming from the street performers playing in front of the cathedral to the right of this picture. It was fun. My company will definitely have something like this on site (if there ever is a site).

I met quite a few people at the hostel here. We all seemed to be on the same path doing Salzburg to Vienna to Budapest or the reverse. I'll probably run into them again, which would be cool. Despite all the places I've gone so far, I haven't run into anyone I've met again without prior knowledge that they'd be there.

Munich

Munich has a diverse and eclectic mix of sights and activities that I haven't found in any other city. There are numerous religious and historic sights to visit both within and surrounding the town, there are countless places to relax or sunbath, and Munich drinks better than any other place on Earth.

I started my first day there as I do with most cities by walking around, getting a good idea of the city's layout, and seeing the sights. All of these churches have really started to run together, though. One interesting sight I did find were these lion statues. As I was there looking at them, everyone who passed by them would rub his hand over the golden part towards the bottom and say something in German. I have no idea why they do that or what they say, but it's an interesting tradition. I'm glad I witnessed it.

I found my first anti-american sentiment while I was here. Ironically, the 'S' on USA on this sign is a swastika. Imagine that... The Germans of all people criticizing the US with a swastika... haha. I can see the point, though. The Patriot Act is like step one for creating a Gestapo, and Hitler spread Fascism in much the same way we're spreading our ideas across the globe. Although, I think the US is slightly more benign... for now.

I found this on a posted map guide for the English Garden here, the largest (or second largest) urban park in Europe, a portion of which is clothing optional. Why are these areas always mainly old people? I don't know. In any case, the truly unique establishment to Munich is the beer garden, open bar/restaurants among trees, plants, and picnic tables. Several are located in the English Garden, where I was headed when I found this. I definitely felt German sitting, gaint beer glass in hand, amongst the jovial Munch crowd.

I joined another pub crawl the second night I was here. This one was slightly larger, about 40 people or so. Along with the many stops we made to bars and beer gardens, our guide would stop between places to pour shots for everyone. The pics are priceless. Some Austrailians got angry, though, that there weren't getting enough alcohol for the money they paid... angry enough to almost start a fight, which caugh the attention of some Munich police. Luckily no one got arrested, but most of the group left after that. Six of us remained, which turned out alright. The Irish Bars here are great. Those and the beer gardens have got to go on your 'must visit' list if you ever come here.

Innsbruck

I got a camera again!!! Thank you, Innsbruck. Walking around I found several little shops that had piles of electronics in the window, used DVDs and games lining the walls, and different stereos stacked all over the place, and I knew this would be the place to find a good deal on a camera. I'm the new owner of a Kodak EasyShare 4.1megapixel camera. It's decent, but I can't change the size of the pictures it takes until I download them to the laptop. Other than that, it's nice to have a camera with a zoom on it. And I talked the guy down to a decent price for the camera. He just didn't include the wall charger with it, so I'll have to figure something out.

Rachel, I know you'll get a kick out of this. I found a store with this statue on the top of it. I'm assuming they meant for that to be Michael Jordan, but I wonder if they know that they screwed up the number on his jersey. The cool thing about this, though, is that it's nice to be in a place that is far enough removed from American culture to make such a mistake. I laughed a little at their mixup, but at the same time I say, "good for them."

Anyway, Innsbruck is kind of boring but has amazing scenery. I don't know how this small little city hosted the olympics... twice. Maybe outlying areas are more developed, but the city center seems small and quiet. Every direction in which I look there is a view of the moutains in the distance. It's beautiful. While I was walking around, I came to this pedestrain square, which didn't seem all that special, but there were a bunch of Asian tourists taking pictures of it. I didn't know what was pictureworthy at first, but it turned out to be this:

It's called the Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof), which I expected to be more impressive than just a tiled facade.

I had wanted to spend two nights here because (a) I've been burning through the Swiss towns, (b) it'd be nice to just take an easy day, and (c) it's cheaper than the towns I've just come from (the reason why I burned through them). I wanted to take today to go hiking in some of the nearby mountains (a guided hike is free), but I screwed up making reservations for my stay in Munich, making them a day too early. I consequently made my reservation for Salzburg based on that too. I generally don't make reservations, but both Munich and Salzburg have a "famous" hostel that I want to check out (they are fun places to stay). And I never know if the day I'm saving now is going to come to good use later (it probably will).

Zurich

It's the little things, really, that can make my day so annoying. I got to Zurich around noon and walked down to only hostel close to anything to find that the reception desk didn't open until 3pm. This happen to me in Bern too, but the hostel there was smart enough to give any arriving backpacker a place to temporarily store his or her bag. No such luck here. Attempting NOT to waste my time, I walked back to the train station to store my pack in a locker for a few hours while I went sightseeing. The Zurich train station has the narrowest lockers ever, though, which are still actually big enough to hold my pack, but the hinge for the door is buried into the opening (for security) and prevented me from being able to stuff the bag in there. All of the larger lockers were taken because the only people who will pay that much to store something at the train station have something really big to store. Honestly... what were they thinking putting in a million tiny lockers. If you have something that small, it's not that big of a deal to just carry it with you. Anyway, I didn't want to drag my huge pack around the city. Instead, I camped out at a Starbucks between the train station and the hostel for a two hours until the hostel opened.

Once I finally got into the hostel, I ended up having to split a more expensive room with two brothers from Canada, Dan and Dave, who were also waiting for the hostel to open. That actually turned out for the better, though.

It seems like everyone and their grandmother heads for the shore of Lake Zurich on Sundays. I spent most of the day walking along both shores of it. I must say that the street performers I found here are far better than any other city I've visited so far. A family of gymnasts/acrobats were putting on a show of tumbling and human pyramid type stances, the strength needed for which was fairly impressive. I have to wonder how much of their lives are devoted to training for sidewalk shows and the loose change of passers by. I would have to think they have a day gig. There was also a magician/clown putting on a show for children, but he wasn't too good at staying on the one wheeled bike while juggling the fire battons. It was kind of funny to watch him fall, though... Mostly, though, people lay in the grass, sun bath, play pickup soccer games, or go for a stroll along the shores. A lot of tourists buy the overpriced ice cream from stands along the way, which, combined with the scenic mountains in the distance, strangely contributes to the calm peacefulness of atmosphere. It was a good day.

Zurich also has its assortment of churches and sights, but none really impressive enough to mention. Although, they do boast the largest clock face in Europe on their tower. Anyway, I walked back to my hostel in the evening, collected my two roommates and a girl we met in the lounge, and headed out for the Zurich nightlife. Turns out Sunday nights are fairly sedated here, but we made the best of it. One bar actually had decent margharitas (a little watered down, though).

The oddest thing I found here, though, was the five or six girls handing out for samples of OB applicators to the women in the train station this morning. I SO would have taken a picture if I could have. Oh well.

Bern

Much like Geneva, Bern is a fairly small town (unexpected for the capitial of the country). I'm finding that it seems like most of Switzerland is covered with WiFi hotspots (it's not too hard to find a free one, thankfully). My laptop is definitely saving me a little money (at least offsetting its cost a little anyway)...

Bern has a few sights including The Ogre Fountain, which portrays a gaint fat man eating a few children... Yeah, I don't know why they'd make a statue of that... except it vaguely reminds me of a nursery rhyme, which could have been written here (if it exists) ??? The clock tower is kind of interesting too. But if you're ever in Bern, visit the bear pits. They're a couple of holes in the ground where captive bears live and seem to be constantly fed fruit from viewing tourists. The funny thing is that the bears seem to have become incredibly lazy. The tourists generally through the fruit right at them, and the bears have been pretty good at catching it in their mouths. This happens so often that they don't even get up for the fruit that isn't thrown within the catchable space but still lands within a few feet of them. These pieces become the scraps that the birds then fight over. Some fruit even lands on the bears' asses and they don't seem to care... I feel bad for them. They seem so.... human.

My guidebook said that Bern was supposed to have some good nightlife, which I was determined to check out since I missed Geneva the night before. Unfortunately, the better hostel was full when I tried to check in, forcing me to stay at the worse of the two hostel in town. It also seemed to have gotten over run with high school kids and older women running in a marathon that took place this morning. Consequently, there weren't many people who wanted to go out. I met one guy from Hong Kong who decided he'd rather sleep and a girl named Heather, who was "taking a night off" (I didn't want to take sand to the beach anyway... haha). So I ventured out on my own.

As soon as I got closer to the center of town, I started hearing music, but it didn't sound like it was muffled by a building or anything. Turns out there is a bar called Pery Bar that plays music out into Kornhaus square (or something like that), which had attracted a fairly huge crowd. And right below this there was a huge bar, Kornhauskeller, with really high ceilings and painted frescos on all the walls (similar the Raphael rooms of the Vatican but with a more yellow color). It was quite impressive, and I guess you can make a place like that when you don't have a subway.

The outdoor music cut off at midnight and moved inside Pery Bar. Most people seemed to move to the underground tables in Kornhauskeller. We went to check out another club called Liquid to see how the Swiss did things. There really wasn't anything special about the place except that, rather than play prerecorded music, they had a girl singing to the tracks being played... And this is when I realized from where these one-hit-wonder, no name, gets-stuck-in-your-head, European dance music songs comes.

Geneva

There really isn't much here. I got here early in the afternoon yesterday, checked into the hostel, and went sight seeing. I went to the UN European headquarters for a tour, but a huge labor conference inhibited what we were able to see. It was still interesting. I walked around town and found a few places dedicated to Jean Jacques Rousseau, who I admire. I also found the church where John Calvin preached. So I found some of the roots for both my philosophical and religious beliefs in one city. Impressive. That was pretty much it all the city had, though.

I headed back to the hostel to finally check into my room. I met a girl in the reception room who I'll refer as A and who was "looking for something to do [yesterday night]." That should have been my first clue. I went up to my room and met one of my roommates, let's call him M, who seemed pretty cool. I wasn't sure what he was doing just sitting around in the room, though. I put my pack away, and headed back down to the lounge where I found a free wireless hotspot. So I camped there for awhile and uploaded my Interlaken pics. A little later, both M and A showed up on their own. Having heard that there's supposed to be some decent bars in the area, I was hoping to head out and find some of them later, the idea of which I tossed around with these two, who both seemed interested. So we watched The Green Mile, which the hostel was showing at 8. After which, though, they both were "tired" and headed to bed... but not before agreeing to meet at 9:30 this morning. I probably should have just gone out on my own...

I woke up this morning at like 7, got a shower, and headed out to the grocery store for breakfast. M tagged along. I spent the rest of the morning surfing the internet waiting for A to get up. When she finally came down, we checked out and spent like an hour trying to figure something out to do. They had told me that they already saw everything, but I learned didn't visit the UN or see any of the landmarks in town. I don't know what they did all day yesterday, then. After finally locking our luggage up, we finally started wandering aimlessly towards the city center. We walked by the Jet d'Eau, which is a fountain that shoots water 140m into the air. It wasn't on when I came through yesterday. It's kind of cool to watch the water shoot that high. As we kept walking, I felt more and more like I was babysitting and I was ready to move on to a different city. I had to get away from them. So we finally walked back to the hostel and then to the train station, where I got on the train to Bern.

Don't get me wrong, A and M were nice and cool people but neither made for any interesting conversation. And the clingy indecisiveness tended to pull me down to their level, which I kind of resented. I'm sure they couldn't have enjoyed hanging out with me much either. I probably should have just gone off and done what I had wanted more than just be polite and accomodate their (lack of) desires. Oh well, we'll see what Bern has to offer.

Interlaken

Welcome to the extreme sports capital of Europe (if not the world). At this small town, situated between two lakes in the center of Switzerland, you can do any adrenaline pumping activity you can imagine. They have hang gliding, paragliding, sky diving, canyoning, white water rafting, bungy jumping, kayaking, mountain/rock climbing, ice climbing, and let's not forget base jumping. Now of all those, I'm sure you're wondering what the heck is canyoning. Basically, it's throwing yourself in a river and floating through a gorge... with a bunch of waterfalls along the way. You stop at each one and jump, slide, or repel into the pool below. I'm told it's a good time, but my poison was the white water rafting. I would have gone sky diving, but it costs twice as much as when I did it back in the states (I know... I'm sure jumping over the alps is twice as good). Anyway, rafting was still a blast. The river was a little low; so the rapids weren't the best they could have been.

Since I didn't have a camera, I purchased the picture CD of our trip, which I'll post up here soon. There were two rafts in our group: one was called team Korea (you'll understand when you see the pics), and the other was us (we didn't come up with a name). I volunteered to be in the front of the raft, meaning I got the bird's eye view of all the rapids as we paddled through them. I also got splashed the most (the water was only 4 degrees Celcius). Our guide was Austrian, and I so wanted to make him say "I'll be back," but I figured he got that all the time. I was a little disappointed, though, because he was so cautious, and would always make us get down in the boat for any of the larger rapids rather than let us paddle through them. It would have been really difficult to collect one of us if we fell out, though, given the speed of the river. It was still an amazing two hours. By the way, my helmet in the pics says 'Snipers', the girl behind me stole 'Yoda'. haha.

My original plan was to get to Interlaken and hang out for the first afternoon, then go rafting all day the second day, and leave the day after. But I got there to find that the rafting trip took three hours and one was leaving that afternoon. So I didn't waste any time and jumped on it. Consequently, I had my whole second day there open, but my budget didn't really allow for another trip... I was definitely considering canyoning, though. Instead, I decided to make the 1500 meter vertical hike to the top of a nearby mountain. Fortunately, I didn't have to wear my entire backpack this time. The journey up was fairly easy (they have a beaten path). And there is a restaurant at (nearly) the top of the mountain, the view from which is utterly breathtaking. From there, I could see both lakes, the flat green valley with the small town nestled between them, and the huge green and black mountains rising all around, snow capped and glacier ridden. It had a quality I can't even describe.

Interlaken is also home to one of the "famous" hostels, Balmer's Herberge, at which I stayed. I've found that these places offer the most services (for a price, of course), and generally have the best nightlife on site. The bar here was a little strange, though. There was an air of uneasiness. The people here only interacted tenuously. There was no carefree (or consequence free) behavior. I expected differently from people who had just jumped out of a plane... lol.

I met one girl, Jenny, from British Columbia, who was travelling with a guy. She didn't interact with the guy as if he was a boyrfriend, but he still hung around her like a puppy dog and definitely played the part of the cock-block to a 'T'. I couldn't tell if she was annoyed with that or enjoyed the safety that came with it, though.

If I ever do this kind of trip again (I'm thinking about it), I'm definitely coming back here to do some other activity.

The Glacier Express - Zermatt

I really wish I hadn't broken my camera. I took the train up to a small town (or just a train station) called Andermatt, which was one of the stops for The Glacier Express. This runs across the south half of Switzerland; eight hours of some of the best views of the Alps ending in a town called Zermatt at the base of the Matterhorn. I caught it half way through its trip. The company that ran the train seemlessly integrated the only means of transportation for the area and this amazing tourist attraction. I was quite impressed (by both the train company and the journey).

Imagine the sky filled with huge cumulus clouds, the big fluffy clouds that roll through the sky. Now imagine huge dark rock, snow capped mountains that fade to a deep rich green at their base piercing these clouds and you'll have an idea of the Swiss Alps. It's truly amazing; none more amazing that the picturesque Matterhorn (shaped like a more craggy base of the Eiffel Tower). The clouds even seemed to slide down the slopes like the glaciers that permanently covered the upper slopes of the mountains and melted as they slid down to the lower altitudes, creating countless streams and waterfalls along the train ride.

Zermatt is a beautiful town. Completely car free and a hopeless ski and hiking resort, it nonetheless is situated among beautiful scenery, the likes of which I have never seen before in my life. I really wish I could show you guys a picture or two. I'm definitely going to have to get another camera soon....

P.S. Another interesting thing is the cemetary in the town, which is filled with people who have died climbing the huge mountains in the area (it's a pretty big cemetary).

Milan

Milan wasn't exactly what I expected. Fashion and shopping had their place here, but they didn't dominate the city like I had expected. The main attraction that drew me to the city was Leonardo's The Last Supper. After reading The Da Vinci Code, I had to check out the actual painting rather than just a picture of it.

The city had other plans, though. The museum where the painting resides is closed on Mondays. Even on other days, though, I would need to make an appointment to see it, and it was booked until the end of the June or something. If I had wanted, I could have joined a city tour of Milan, which shows the painting at the end of it (I wonder why it's booked... haha). I didn't want to spend Tuesday here, though. So I checked into my hostel and went on my own walking tour of the city. The main landmark of the city was supposed to be their Duomo (church), which has an amazing marble face. Unfortunately, restoration work covered and hid the face completely. Great...

I walked along the main shopping street just to see what the whole 'Milan' fashion and shopping thing was all about. Interestingly enough, the mall type area was a fairly beautiful building that ironically had religious paintings in the ceiling.

And I'm done with Italy. Onward to Switzerland...

Venice

WOW. I can't believe this city exists. I must say that my camera breaking is your loss more than it is mine at this point. The minute I stepped out of the train station, with The Grand Canal right in front of me, the narrow passageways hiding places yet unknown, and the busy arched bridges over the "streets," a smile came across my face and hasn't left since.

For two days, I did nothing more than walk the streets here, and nothing could have been more enjoyable. Like Rome, the narrowest gap between two buildings can be one of the major thoroughfares. They open to wide bustling squares with kind people and a lot of culture. The first, Campo delgi Santa Margharita, had a number of bars, cheap pizza places, the best gelati I've had in Italy, and a hostel right in the square (it was booked full, though). I walked from there to the Piazza delgi San Marco (I might be screwing up these names), which, despite the enormous amount of tourists and stores surrounding the square, didn't lose its charm. The stores were recessed and unseen from a distance under the magnificent building into which they were built, and the basilica to San Marco rose from the eastern side.

The streets were filled with street performers doing everything from water glass symphonies (Beethoven's ninth) to statue imitations. Kids played pick up soccer games in the streets while accordion players, young and old, filled the air with the classic music you'd expect for Venice. I even found a man telling a story to a group of school children using props and wild movements.

Not even my laptop falling could dampen my spirits in this town. I definitely have to come back here someday.

You've Got to be kidding me...

My laptop took a dive today... I can't god damn believe my stupid luck. My backpack wasn't fully zipped when I went out, and I noticed the difference. When I went to take it off, the weight of my guidebook and laptop pulled the zippers down and provided a decent chute to hurtle my laptop towards the street. Thankfully, it still works... except for possibly the network port which is positioned on the corner that took most of the impact (and has left me with a nice reminder of the incident). But, since I no longer have any pictures to upload to my webserver (aside from the ones I haven't gotten up yet), I don't necessarily need the network port for the remainder of the trip..... after that, though.... mf.

What the hell is up with this... God is like systematically destroying my belongings. It's all leading up to the plane crash or something...

Does anyone know how good Sony's warrenty program is?

Florence

I'm not sure what to make of Florence. I didn't get in until the evening, and the first of the two hostels to which I went (the good one) was booked full. After getting lost trying to get there, the second, thankfully, had a free bed. I woke up dumbass early to make it over to the Galleria del Academia, which is really just Michelanglo's David. Getting there early was actually a godsend. I stared at it for almost and hour... just in awe, with only a small crowd around. The detail taken to sculpt it is just amazing; even the blood vessels running down his arms and backs of his hands are just fascinating in that they can so easily deceive the eye into forgetting that this was once a piece of stone and not a man. Just wow.

I went to the top of the Duomo after my camera broke. The view was much like every other high place to which I've ventured (I'm just making you feel better for not being able to see the pictures I would have taken). There wasn't really anything else in Florence I was dying to see except for the Palazzo degli Uffizi, which supposedly had a two to four hour wait. So I spent the rest of the day walking the streets of Florence. The city is quite beautiful, but overrun with tourists. I would have loved to have been able to take more pictures for everyone to see... but life (and my trip) goes on.

I woke the second day to get over to the Palazzo delgi Uffizi early and hopefully beat the crowd. I got there an hour before it opened to find there was already a decent sized line. I still ended up waiting a total of two hours to get into the place. It seems like the mean to keep the building relatively empty and force people to wait in line. The waiting sucked, but being able to freely walk about the building without the crowds of tour groups and old people was kind of nice. Although, I'm not sure the wait was really worth it. There was only one painting I recognized (I don't remember the name).

Once I got out of there, I picked up my pack, and it's onward to Venice...

Man Down...

My beloved, crappy digital camera died today due to injuries sustained in a 3 foot fall. In a momentary lapse of focus, the camera slipped out of my grasp and plummeted to the stone street next to the church of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) in Florence, Italy. It is speculated to be the karmic result of the two pictures of Michelangelo's David I was caught taking earlier this morning that are now trapped on the SD memory card contained within the camera.

Ironically, there were a number of street hustlers in Naples willing to sell me a Sony Cybershot for like 20 euro, which I turned down... repeatedly... no such luck as of yet finding anyone like that here (if I see another fake LV bag... I'm going to scream, though).

I'm not sure what this means for my blog here (I'm not sure that anyone is still reading this anyway). I have no way of taking pictures anymore, but I still have about a month left in my trip... I guess the good thing is that it wasn't my laptop...

Patra

I wound up in Patra, Greece for the afternoon waiting to catch the ferry for Anconda. There really wasn't anything worth doing there. I spent most of my time trying to find a grocery store to buy some fruit and snacks for the ferry ride, which proved exceedingly difficult. They conveniently have the shopping district within a 4 or 5 block section next to the ferry port, through which I meandered for a few hours. I eventually found a fruit stand and made due. Beyond that, I really couldn't wait to get going.

I was dissappointed to find no other backpackers on my twenty hour ferry ride. In retrospect, it probably would have been better to take the ferry back to Bari instead of Anconda, which had a stop near The Pink Palace. Consequently, nothing all that interesting happened on the ride. The boat actually had a swimming pool, and a "disco bar." But, with so few people on the ship, the bar did nothing more than prevent me from sleeping for a few hours (I didn't get a cabin).

I got into Anconda at 3pm, and spent a half hour or so following some rather confusing street signs to get to the train station before asking for directions. I got on a train to Bologna, which had a connection to my preferred destination: Florence.