In Paris it rained, and we sat under a tree, which is about it really.
The Sleeper to Irun turned out not to be a sleeper but just a train with people trying to sleep on it. lots of french blokes regailing us with very very (and i really do mean very) bad singing. eventually got to irun at some ungodly hour....
Then it was the bus to bilbao, which was actually slightly more comfortable than the train, despite the drivers inablility to actually drive it, but we did get there which i believe is considered to be the most important part of travelling....
Anyway in bilbao we found the youth hostal which was very pleasant, showered and went round town. The guggenheim was spectacular, on the outside, and quite interesting on the inside, despite the acute feeling of being in a theme park having to queue for the interactive art.... Bruce Nauman rooms: yay!.
emma: It appears that Owens map reading is not improving and he is now under strict instructions to attempt nothing of this kind
went out last night strolled along La Rambla ended up in a bar being talked under the table by a drunk Belgian woman who had missed her connecting flight (the rest of her life story (which she recounted to us many, many times) is thankfully ommited).
Pinky: What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Brain: The same thing we do every night Pinky.... Plan to take over the world!!! But first we have to get out of this damned cage...
the train out of barcelona was at 19:20h and it is the last train to a number of long-haul destinations including milan, zurich etc... so anyway, about 700 backpackers, all tried to get on the connection from barcelona which was a non-reservation local type train, with an effect similar to the population of a large city trying to get the last train before the bombs start dropping....
after much pushing,shoving, poking, and superhuman-like prising of train doors open we managed to get on the train, which was of course sardine city.
3 hours later (and i think i can safely say, thank (insert chosen deity here) for air-conditioning) we got to cebère. fortunately the clawing masses were all going on the other trains so we had a relatively pleasant sleeper journey to nice...
Nice is ok, although i seem to have developed an evil allergy to the sun-tan lotion we bought with us, which has had the interesting side effect of making me look like the Ravenous Bugblatter beast of Trall.... at least it means people get out of my way..... it seems to be going away now, so my days of making small children scream are probably limited.
Went to Monaco yesterday with Jake, and I won big time!!! (well ok, that would be assuming hyper-deflation had taken place and the value of the euro had suddenly been catapulted to mars.) i think i actually won about 10FF which i promptly lost in another machine... fortunately i had Emma and jake to drag me kicking and screaming from the flashy-light machines, i swear i just needed one more try.... anyway...
i digress.
tommorow we go onto milan, where we are going to camp somewhere (probably a motorway central reservation but who cares...)
Milan was like huge deserted market, and pretty much everything was closed, we only stopped for a few hours (with enough time to look at the big church thing and the really cool avenue thingies with glass on them)
we picked up a train out of milan at about 16:25, and arrived in Lugano, just over the swiss border about an hour later. Went to campsite, and went out for dinner then stayed in Agno for two nights. Apart from everything being very closed on wednesday, (saints day that only the Ticanese-swiss celebrate) and us lounging around quite a bit, nothing much happened, we did try and take the fernicular up mount bré, but it turned out to be too expensive once we had got past the second stage.....
Tonight we are staying in Zürich on our way east, with Innsbruck and Wein next on the list....
As you may have guessed the last couple of days have been nothing except typically swiss (i.e. beutifull, relaxing, clean and bloody booring...)
train this morning was ok, we are now staying at the youth hostel, waiting for emmas clothe sto dry (which is taking many hours due to 1960s industrial communist washing machine) i donät get to wash my clothes today so i get another day of "euch, whats that smell.... oh yeah its me..." will try and sort out tommorow.....
plan for tommrow is to get the train up the innsbruck valley to Achensee, which is some lake that is reputed to be part inspiration for the Chalet school books, despite the pilgramigeßlike necesisity of the trip it does look pretty cool...
Its raining, here, for the first time on the holiday, i think as rain classification goes, this would have to be austrian rain... (consisting of rigid uniform droplets of a standard size which are slightly too small to be really annoying and big enough to bring you to a state of overall depression...)
this is another one of those stupid coin meter intenet points and my credit is limited so.....
Yesterday, went to Achensee on a steam train (which the interrail pass sadly does not cover) , in search of the alleged location of the chalet school, after much walking around, and staring at patches of ground i think Emma found one that seemed to match the description...
Literary pilgramige over, we went back to innsbruck, (although we had forotten to check connecting trains so it took hours...) ate currywürst (yumm) and then back to youth hostel...
Due to much lateness on trains, we wandered up to a petrol station and bought beer, and sat outside the youth hostel drinking beer...
sat listening to other travellers horror stories about prague, there was a couple of irish girls, who had managed to come back with nothing except their car and their passports, having had their car smashed up and everything stolen in a carpark...
Emma has injured her knee, although it seems to be
revised plan for the next few days is, Innsbruck -> vienna this morning, then vienna to somewhere over the hungarian border tommorow then on to budapest for a couple of days, then bratislava, and then somewhere in then chech republic, then prague for a day, then up to poland.... we decided that we definately wanted to head up to copenhagen at the end which should be possible from berlin.....
anyaway. adios....
so anyway we left Budapest with lots of bites, and phobias of both grasshoppers and waiters with interesting senses of humor...
we kind of timed bratislava all wrong, so we basically had one night and one morning there, which was a shame because it looked like it might have been a really nice place to have stayed for longer. The former-communist workers hostel we stayed in also had ants which was kind of wierd (waking up to see half a bag of crisps wandering with purpose across the bedroom floor....)
now we are in Kutna Hora (excuse the lack of ás, ús and øs) which is nice, we are going to see a church made out of human bones.... You are the weakest link, goodbye..
Emma: I have seen the insides of internet cafes across europe but strangely no sightseeing yet...
Anyway, digressions aside, we went from Praha several hundred kilometers east north east to Krakow, where we are now, succeding in travelling first class for the first (and it seems only) time. the sleeper was relatively short 21:00-05:40 and was (thanks, and no I reallly mean it to some visa-less foreigners) gracefully delayed for nearly two hours, which let us get something resembling some sleep.
in Krakow we stayed in a chic little backpacker joint (where chic indicates a lack of vomit, and drunk backpackers) which was fairly grovy, and ate at what can only be described as the best salad bar in the world.. .
Saw churches,square, synagogue,university and at least one dragon... we managed to not see aushwitz, due to missing the train, and then not having enough time.
Emma: This is a fine example of a late 90's internet cafe. Again without any coffees. It is perhaps larger than those seen in other cities which may be attributed to the amount of lost english people in the square outside. The decor is subtle but the timer system remains primative (ickle bits of paper). I feel that I have fully enjoyed this internet experience and would certainly recommend it to others. Owen is hitting me... :(
having rung berlin and been assured of a room at the youth hostel (we arrived there at 08:00!!) we were met by lots of other people who had similarly been assured rooms and a poor manageress who nothing about the room assurances. fortunatly she did go and poke the people in the double room and they did leave, so we did get a room... There must have been a problem at the Trampoline and Bed Corp. AG because our beds were definatly trampolines... perhaps this means there are some very sore trampolinists about....
Berlin was nice, although it did seem largely to been under construction (they started it in hundreds of years ago and its still not finished!) all of which meant that there wasn't a whole lot to see which didn't have prohibitive queues. We did visit the berlin guggenheim Museum which is really just a small gallery and a shop, the whole thing is patronised exclusively by deutsche bank as well, so the art was strictly of the "hmmm this will look nice in a bank" variety. Then checkpoint charie and Topography or terror (memorial/museum on the grounds of the SS/SD buildings. etc. etc.
From Berlin we went to Aaaachen, apart from lots of boring things, we also managed to find a games bar, (the kind that roleplayers whisper excitedly about meeting at... anyway) and they had Mastermind, which neither of us had played since were at school so basically we had to go there, much beer was drank (or is it drunk) (probably the latter) and we ended up playing quickfire chess with a strange german person laughing at how badly we were playing (he then proceded to recount a story that probably had something to do with saunas that probably wasn't fully understood.
From Aaaaaaaachen a short train journey up to brussels, where we did lots of tourist stuff over two days, (very good modern art museum (subversive weirdness is apparently something that belgians are good at)) for the finale I dragged Emma on a 2 mile trek from the outskirts of Brussels to my old house, through very very belgian weather (like english eather but more consistantly miserable) got there took photo (it seems to be occupied by a dutch family although we ran away before they could call the police so i couldn't be sure)..
Got back to the bus stop in Overijse (through even more belgian weather) just in time for the next bus back, only to have it drive past without stopping (apparently the trick is to look like you might throw yourself into the road (bot not actually because they can run you over without liability)). so anyway we had a whole hour wait for the next bus (this was on a sunday) in the ever present belgian weather.... fortunatly Overijise has had a macdonalds since we lived there (it also now has pizza hut (ooooooh)) so we went there. 1 coffee, 1 Appelgebaak (don't ask) and 1 happy meal later we were at least in the dry, if not actually dry.finally got bus back to metro, and metro back to hostel , and there was much rejoicing,. last night went out for a meal, which had excellent character (and many free drinks due to us being the first persons there) if not nice food, then today manage to get through customs (which was looking a bit dodgy given the size and shape of presents etc).now back home. phew.