Hangoverfest

After a beautiful train ride from Ljubljana, through Austria and into Germany, we disembarked to find people drinking and puking in the street at 11 am. We were in the right place. Munich is a really cool city, but who cares about that. Oktoberfest was all that mattered. Everyone in the city is getting plastered, including old ladies and 16 year old kids, all at the same party. The tents only sell drinks in stein form (1 litre). 20 pisses and a small fortune later and you are best friends with all 50 people within yelling distance. They are likely all Australian. I discovered it is possible to survive for 6 days on only beer and giant pretzels. And after 4 litres of beer, 10 euros for a pretzel somehow seems like a bargain. There's no better way to finish off a day of drinking beer than carnival rides. Pinning strangers in the corner of the bumper car track, and repeatedly smashing into them, is a great way to meet people.

We randomly bumped into Ed Jackson, and his pal Gord, at the Paulaner tent. Gord would polish about 3-4 litres of beer by 4 pm and then disappear, somehow making it back to the hotel. I am confident that he endured many adventures that we (or him for that matter) will never know about. Ed is Dave's dad. He would stick around till evening, introducing himself as 'Dave's dad' to everyone, whether the person knew who Dave was or not.

Our exciting overnight train ride to visit Andrew in Copenhagen consisted of people getting arrested, sudoku puzzles, ipod videos, and staring at the person across from me for hours on end. In Copenhagen we essentially watched tv and ate junk food for 6 days straight. It was fantastic.

I went to the Netherlands next, while Dave went to Sweden. After an hour or two of listening to 'One is the Loneliest Number', my separation anxiety passed. A bit of window shopping for prostitues (literally) provided nothing to my taste, so I met up with some Dutch folk (met earlier in the trip), for some delicious Dutch beer and several shots of some sort of gasoline-like beverage. They have an entire separate traffic system for bicycles there. Nobody wears helmets, because helmets are not cool, as I've always told my mom.

Now an excerpt from a conversation with a British Customs agent:

BC: Where are you going after England?

Me: Australia.

BC: For how long?

Me: Not sure, I have a work visa.

BC: Let me see it.

Me: Its in the internet. They give it to me when I get there.

BC: I'm aware how their visas work. I don't believe you when you say you have a visa. Do you think Canada would let me in without proper documentation?

Me: Umm I dunno, Yes? Why do I need to show my Australian work visa to get into England?

BC: You just do.

Me: Well, shit.

BC: You're not getting in this country. You will be sent back to Germany. They will send you back to the Netherlands, etc. You will hop through airports back to Canada.

Me: Shit.

Me: Just let me in the country you fucking douchebag.*

...

* This part of the conversation occured in my brain.

I'm in Australia now so needless to say I managed to get into the UK. This is basically the end of this blog since all I'm doing now is working and getting sunburns.

Stray Dogs & Kebabs

Recently I woke up in Bulgaria with absolutely no recollection of the previous month. The only clues I have as to my whereabouts since my last blog post are the following stamps on my passport, in chronological order: Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Bulgaria again, Slovenia, Germany. So for the few people actually reading this, excuse the lack of posts.

Is a small castle, home to a fictional character, a valid reason to take a 12 hr train ride into the middle of romania? Yes. Romania can't afford to fix the bullet holes in the sides of their government buildings, so they obviously don't have much money for skate parks. But they do have Dracula's castle, which counts for something.

Istanbul is rugs, mosques and kebab shops, and turkish men yelling at you to eat in their shop. The bazarre is the biggest concentration of useless crap I have ever seen. I bought a knife, which I'm sure I will use all the time, and was not a impulse purchase in the least. Muslims don't drink much, especially during Ramadan, thus we didn't have much in common with the Turkish people.

Bulgaria has the best beaches and cheapest beer I have seen thus far. One thing I don't recommend is leaving your pants unattended while swimming in the Black Sea. The pockets will be emptied by the pocket patrol. I contributed some cash and a digital camera. I would've liked to stay longer but Dave had to meet an ex-colleague (from the cushy government job he quit 3 months ago) on a midlife crisis trip in Slovenia. I assisted him in burning all bridges to a return to that job.

For the few people still reading this, I would like you to meet my new fiance. We will marry after Oktoberfest.

Prague Blague

I wanted to take it easy on the beer after barcelona, but the beer just keeps getting cheaper and more delicous as this trip progresses. Fortunately our accomodation in Prague was quite homey, so nights off partying were possible (still rare). Yes, I went to the 5 story nightclub. Overrated, but at least I can say I've been there right? meh. I preferred the strip club/brothel across the street from the hostel (just kidding mom!). Contrary to Dave's blog, I highly encourage drinking Absinthe.

Shoes hanging from a power line usually signifies one of two things: a drug dealer's house, or a skate spot. When no one offered me any drugs immediately upon entering Stalin Square (no longer called that but who cares, i'm an ignorant tourist), I assumed it was the latter. I was right. It resides on a hill overlooking the Vltava(?) and all of Prague, has a gigantic metronome and is a glorious skate spot. I spent a fair amount of time there, mostly because I really like metronomes. Prague is the most beautiful city I've ever visited.

Krakow was next, and I used this time for a little detox. I even saw the new Batman movie, because what else do you do if you're not going to a bar at night? Its a smaller city and there was less to see, so my stint in Krakow was relatively short. Dave and I made a day trip out to Auschwitz and Birkenau, the notorious Nazi death camps. I'm trying to keep this blog lighthearted so I won't say much about this, other than that it was shocking. We saw massive rooms full of the hair, shoes, and other belongings of the families whose bloodlines came to an end there. To understate, the Nazis were real dicks. Moving on, as I write this I realize that I never ate any Polish sausage, and now I'm pissed off. Great.



The amount of people who can speak English is rapidly decreasing as we continue to head east, making ordering meals more and more of a gamble. Krakow and Prague have castles, cathedrals, and castles with cathedrals inside. Need I say more? In Hungary now.

barcelona?

So apparently the best way to get over jet lag is to just drink copious amounts of alcohol. You don't notice it at all when you're ridiculously hung over. I might've just slept my days away, but thankfully I had Brits knocking on my door most mornings ( ~1pm) to get me skateboarding. Jog on mate. Anytime said knock didn't come, I would instead be woken up by Irish girls telling me to start drinking. Dave had already been travelling for several weeks so he was in excellent drinking shape. I had catching up to do.

So the days were a mix of skating, laying on the beach, and sometimes visiting tourist traps, though thick crowds often discouraged the last one. Between my dehydration and the absolutely ridiculous heat, I have never drank so much water without pissing in my life. Air conditioning is a glorious invention. The Mediterranean Sea is also a good invention. Way to go God.


The nights usually began with some drinks in the hostel room, mainly because of the air conditioning. Then either the shitshow that was our hostel lobby, or Tequila. Tequila, or the Dank Pit as we called it, is definitely the best bar ever. For example, when the person you're speaking with starts to annoy you, you can just grab one of many conveniently located pairs of head phones and listen to music. Next we would try to find a bar without ridiculous cover charge, or we often would just wander the streets sampling beer from street vendors (it was always delicious, they do good work).


Important note: the pigeons in Barcelona are way more haggard than ours back home! See photo. My boarding passes say that I was there for two weeks, but I don't remember most of that period so my accuracy is questionable. I'm in Prague now so in a while I'll let you know what my camera tells me about that city, because I don't plan on remembering much about Prague either. Budvar.