The end of an Era

Well, I am done with my trip now. Its been over a month and a half of crazy adventures and it has finally come to a close. Its been one intense ride, but I have to admit that I am really looking forward to getting back to the states and starting the next chapter. Although, I have been gone long enough that readjusting to life in the States might just be as exciting as my time in Bulgaria was. Its been almost two and a half years since I was last there, and I'm sure a lot has changed.

(Polar Bear swim time in Ireland)

Just the other day I was looking back over my most of my travel blogs, and I realized that for the most part I failed to accomplish my main goal with this project. I wanted to try and give an impression of my experiences; to relate the stories of the people I met and the feelings I had while exploring all these new and amazing places. Reading back through them though, I can't help but notice that all of them are just simple travel logs. I never had the time even to put details or funny stories in the posts, so while they tell where I have been, they don't do my travels justice at all. It is true that I had a very limited time to type up new blogs, and sometimes would go a week or so with only 15 minutes or so of internet time, but its still a bummer I didn't get more of a chance to write about all my cool adventures. I feel that there was so much more that I could have related and painted a better picture of my journey.

(The red phone booths and double decker buses DO exist in London!)

Hopefully though, once I'm back to the states and I figure what is going on, I will have much more opportunity to tell all my stories in much greater detail. I have so many crazy stories to tell, and plenty more pictures to show. It has been a great time though, and I am really fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to do both my volunteer service in Bulgaria, and the subsequent trip through Europe. Maybe fortune will shine upon me and I will be out traveling again before too long. I can only hope. Until then, peace out

The Islands up north

The travels lately have been going great! I am currently in Dublin at the moment and am getting ready for a crazy Saturday night out on the town. Well, perhaps not too crazy, because the prices for stuff here is ridiculous. A pint of beer is 5 Euro, or about 7-8 dollars in pretty much any pub or bar. No way I can afford to go all night with prices like that. The city itself is great though, today we walked around for a while and ended at the Guinness brewery. After the tour we went up to the bar at the top of the brewery with a commanding 360 view of the city and enjoyed perhaps one of the best pints of Guinness that I have ever had. Way better then the ones you can get in the states.

The Canals in Amsterdam

Its been a wild ride up to Ireland as well. From Germany we rode the high speed train out to Amsterdam and spent almost a week there before catching a flight across the canal to London. London is a very expensive city, but one of its saving graces is the fact that all the museums are free. The history museums, art galleries, everything is free, so you can spend all day in the city seeing tons of cool stuff with out spending a penny. This was a great suprise to us and was probably the only reason why we didn't go broke during our 5 night stay there.

Windmills!

We couchsurfed for part of the time there, but we stayed the last few night with some friends of mine that I met during my travels in Romania this last summer. It was cool to see them again a lot of fun to spend time with them on their own turf. We also got to meet one of my dads good friends from when he used to live in London, and get some good dirt on my dad, info that we will undoubtedly hold over his head when I return home (heads up dad!).

So that about catches up things to now. There are only two more nights left before I have to board my flight back to the states, so I have to try and make the best of them. Tomorrow I hear the plan is to go join this big group of people and jump into the sea, a very Irish tradition apparently. Sounds cold to me though, but when in Rome.....

Fall of the Wall

Its cold, cloudy, and I am lucky to be inside sheltered from the elements writing this update. After spending a few party filled days in Dresden, taking the afternoons to explore the re-built old town, my travels took me up here to Berlin, where we ran in to a bit of bad luck.

(our new friends in dresden)

The original plan was to stay with these crazy Germans living East Berlin that we met in Budapest and partied with for several days. We exchanged several emails and I thought every thing was going to be nice and easy, they even wanted to come pick us up from the train station when we arrived, but as it started getting closer to our arrival date they stopped responding to my emails.

I'm sure its not intentional, merely bad memory or something, but it turn out with Braden and I arriving in Berlin with no where to stay and no phone number to contact. We had a recommendation of a good hostel on the other side of the city, so with no better plan, we grabbed the U bahn across the city to find the hostel, only to discover that it was fully booked. Not only that, but he told me that every other hostel in the entire city was booked as well, and he had turned away no less than 50 other people that night alone! This was cause for concern.

(Berlin)

The first course of action was to find an Internet cafe and start doing some searching. Sure enough, hostelworld.com (the main Internet database for hostels in any country) listed every single hostel in Berlin as unavailable for that night. Unbelievable. After about an hour of some stressful head scratching and brainstorming, we decided that the best course of action (one of the only available courses of action actually) was to try and book a hostel for the next night, see if they could hold our bags the current night, and party till the sun came up and we could officially check in. After some cross referencing we found a place that was close enough to walk to that was available the next night and agreed to hold our bags for a day.

(All Braut, no bun, the way real Germans eat it)

Luck was finally on our side. We headed out to the place and talked with the guy at the desk and explained our story. He did a bit of investigating and discovered they had one remaining free bed, and one woman that was double booked, meaning we had two beds free at the hostel! Booyah! We quickly claimed them, excited that we would not have to stay up until 3pm the next day, when the check in hours started. After that it was time for a nice celebratory dinner and a few pints.

(Brandenburg gate ready for the festival)

Turns out Berlin is completely booked out right now because tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, quite possibly one of the most significant events of our time. There will be a huge celebration tomorrow at the main center of town, including a symbolic display of 1000 gigantic 9 ft high dominoes that run along the old path of the Berlin wall that they will knock down. Excitement is incredibly high right now every where you go, and I can only imagine the scene that will occur tomorrow. Mikhail Gorbachev and Kofi Annon are included as guests of the event as well.(the Berlin wall)

Quick update

Its been a while since my last update, but I have very limited time online, and have been spending as much time as possible out in the cities exploring. Even with so much time to travel, sometimes is seems that there is never enough time to see half of the things that I would like to. The trip is still going well though, and right now we are Prague. All these cities never cease to impress me with the grandeur of their architecture, and the richness in their history. Just when you think you have seen the most impressive city you can imagine, you travel across a country boarder to yet another equally impressive city. Its crazy.
Vienna was (of course) great, and one of the cool things about it was that we stayed with a guy out on the edge of the city where the vineyards start. Our first night in we went to this little hole in the wall restaurant that serves only a hand full of different dishes, but they are all traditional and all the wines they have on tap are produced locally, sometimes less than a kilometer away. During our next days there we wandered around the town and were lucky enough to encounter several cool festivals. From there it was off to Brno for a night, and then out to Krakow.

krakow!

Krakow is totally sweet: clean, fun, lots of good bars and restaurants, tons of history, the architecture, and as a bonus, super cheap compared to the cities we visited before it. The first day, however, was a bit of a somber one because we spent the day out at Auschwitz. It is a very powerful experience, and it made me reflect and wonder how such atrocities are possible in todays world. Its so sad. The rest of the time in Krakow was much more upbeat though, and it was definitely worth the journey out there to see it.

Well, got to go now, time for dinner and perhaps a few beers. Its is, after all, the Czech Republic, the country the consumes more beer per capita than any other country in the entire world. Cheers!