I bid you welcome ...

We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things...

Ok so it's not quite as sinister as Bram Stoker would have you believe but it's still pretty cool riding on a rickety train through the Carpathian mountains. In case you are not sure, this entry comes from Romania, specifically ... Transylvania. Ahh I hear the wolves howl in the distance ... so sweet is their song ...

Romania is a very interesting region, with intense people, hilarious town names and a foreign tourism push that needs better translators. It boasts ample impressive castles interlinked by conduits of sequential pot holes they call roads. Horse and carts cruise alongside cars, driven by old farmers who are proud to belong to the country that once impaled thousands and boasts the second longest prison sentences in the world.

As English fades into an art and less of a science, it can be hard to choose which place to stay in when such awesome slogans were offered as "our hospitality follows you everywhere", "our cafe has breathtaking coffee that is priced accordingly" and my personal favourite .. " we cater to drastic demands". The latter would have proved popular with past dictators on holiday ... "bring me three innocents each morning, a knife and the newspaper!".

The food is quite different here, the main meals are usually quite simple and without going into too much detail the key to Romanian cuisine is "if it's worth eating, it's worth pickling". The desserts are far better - the doughnuts in particular are incredible.

After Timisoara came Brasov, passing through the beautiful towns of Turda, Fagit and Cunta. Look at your maps. I'm being serious here folk. Brasov is a sweet old town though, complete with a Hollywood style BRASOV sign on the hill. I love the tackiness combined with the history, it gets me every time.

On a side note I noticed that it is common for shopkeepers to stand at their doorway and flaunt their wares to you as you pass. Ok, so that is not that amazing, but what was really cool was seeing the "Neurological Surgery" in our street with the surgeon at the street door. "Labotomy, you buy, yes?".

Anyway, next entry will be after a trip through Vlad the Impaler's old stomping grounds and the region where Count Dracula was brought to life... I hear he LURVED TO COUNT! AH AH AH AH! ...

BUDA palm, eagle PEST!

This post comes hot from the charming oven of Budapest in Hungary and contrary to what you may have believed in your youth, this country was not so named because everyone here is hungry. Although it is funnier to remember it that way.

Hungarian people are quite serious looking and each seems to have the physical genetics to become a potential wrestler. Hungarian men take it upon themselves to singlehandedly bring the moustache back en force, which makes sense since Hungary is known to be the porn filming hot spot of Europe. It's a country you probably don't want to hold a black light to.

Budapest, the capital, is actually two cities in one, Buda and Pest, split by the noob (Danube) river. I liked Buda better than Pest, mainly because it gives me an excuse to walk around admiring the city while saying "Buda be praised!" in my best 70's dodgy kung fu movie accent.

I might add here that Hungarian is the craziest language encountered yet and that English actually has more in common with Sri Lankan than Hungarian. I believe that after reading the translation for "it's hot" ... "Az ido nagyon meleg" you'll see where I am coming from. You can easily spot tourists trying to speak Hungarian, they have that semi-lobotomised look that only the Hungarian dialect can deliver.

Oh yeah, if you weren't certain what the over reference was for, it has been a tad hot. It was about 45 degrees in the sun here. The wind is even hotter. As I type some of the keys have melted to my fingers like mozzarella.

A must see here, should you ever feel the need to enjoy Paprika in all its many forms, is the house of terror; a museum dedicated to the two brutal occupations (Nazi and Soviet) Hungary has gone through. Very interesting to say the least, there were some incredible things to see - like a tank in a foyer! Ironically the museum is built inside the old AVH secret police building, complete with a tour through the maze of underground cells and "confession extraction chambers" they built to boost popularity of the one party system. A museum security guard in every room is a nice authentic touch too, someone forgot to tell them the occupation is over, the prisoners are gone, you can go home now.

Last but not least I must emphasise that if you are planning to visit Budapest, make sure you go to Sir Lancelot's restaurant. Medieval music, food, atmosphere and entertainment at it's greatest. The restaurant staff service is fantastic and their sword fighting skills are second to none. For you Monty Python fans, I believe they named the place in Sir Lancelot's name due to the sheer amount of "peril" here.

Time to wrap up and find a pool of water that ISN'T a hot thermal spa ...but before that, some quick facts on Hungary.

1. Pedestrian crossings are purely for decoration the further east you travel. I actually think it may indicate to drivers that "you should speed up here, and if you can, try and get the back to spin out a bit over this white shit".

2. Info booths speak little or no English, although they surprisingly know "You so stupid".

3. There is detergent brand here called Fagipoy. OK sure it uses some weird accented characters but I knew Stuart and I were worthy of that triple point word score in Scrabble so many moons ago!

4. Just as in Austria, it is entirely acceptable and plausible to go to a restaurant and just say "MEAT" as an answer to both "what would you like to eat / what would you like to drink".

5. Buses here run on overhead power lines. Cool!

6. Buying Fruit and Vegetables at a supermarket here is hard. There is some sort of scales and labelling computer that is not in English. Back to the meat section....

7. The train from Ljubljana to Budapest is in need of air con. Badly.

8. Hungarian people rarely say just "Hi", it's always "Hi" followed by some completely random sentence that is different every time and not in any book. I do believe it all means the same thing however ... "Hi, it is a nice day, would you like to wrestle?".

9. Hungary needs to master the concept of cold/hot drink rotation in their fridges.

10. Hungarian toilet design, while unique and artistic, is not entirely functional. Unless of course you prefer the option to analyse your own crap in detail as you TRY to flush it.

A Breath of Fresh Air...

Next up. One of the most favourite places I've ever been. Bled, in Slovenia. A break from cities was much needed and Bled really did the trick with its beautiful lake and little church on an islet in its centre and surrounded by very impressive mountains. It is easy to fall in love with the place. Slovenia has managed to keep much of its natural forests and rivers intact and have quite a lot of it to show off.

Bled is surrounded by the beautiful Julian Alps, rivers waterfalls and amazing blue lakes. The mountains glow white as if they are capped with snow thought it's actually exposed limestone. And the river's rocks and boulders are also white limestone which makes the water looks like the aquamarine colour similar to Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays.

Whilst on a trip to the mountains, the guide explained to our group about how he grew up here and how much he loved it. He also shared some of his crazy stories, one where he and his buddies were drunk and stole a boat (well borrowed it) in the middle of the night and rowed to the islet which they thought would be deserted. Instead they were greeted by men in black robes with knives who told them to leave. So they did. Shame, the story could have been much better if they had have stayed.

Beautiful Lake Bled isn't any ordinary lake, its protected by law. You would think that this would just exclude fishing and the like, but no even swimming is banned. Which is a shame, because it truly is stunning.

Bled also now holds the title for the best pizza in Europe, courtesy of an Italian ex-pat chef. If you ever come here, get in touch and you shall also share the glory!

Slovenia, F&%# YEAH!

Dobredan from Slovenia!

I write this from the capital Ljubljana, which was supposedly founded by Jason and the Argonauts ... who were a really great band. Thrash metal seems really big here so that works for me at least. Slovenia claims to be the home of democracy too. Apparently Thomas Jefferson cited the Slovenia model when creating the declaration of independence though I am pretty sure there are many places that claim that whole democracy thing.

The first issue I face with this entry is the lack of apostrophe on this keyboard. Contractions and possession must be avoided in this entry. Wish me luck.

It is really amazing how green Slovenia is, it has something like 70% tree coverage. It certainly makes for a pleasant train ride. Although the weather has now gone from cold and wet to insanely hot. Which is fantastic when you only have one pair of shorts. Europe: 1, Australia : 0.

Upon arriving in the nation capital Ljubljana on a weekend, you will be greeted by a ghost town as everyone pretty much packs up and heads for the hills. It reminded me a little of our wondrous Australian capital Canberra, albeit with less adult product and fireworks shops. Instead of a tourist bureau you can instead be welcomed by the crazy people that tend to loiter around train stations.

Ljubljana is a compact capital. The old town is about 4 blocks wide - step away from it and you are pretty much in former communistic housing come ghetto. The castle and old town really are cool, but the sheer contrast from tourism and poverty is disarming for Europe. Even playgrounds are surrounded by barb wire and exist only to house homeless people.

There also seems to be a strange fascination with morbid statues of dragons eating people, people beating dragons to death and people beating each other to death. Some statues are so distorted in appearance that they are virtually guaranteed to become the stuff of your nightmares. Ahh the sweet memories of travel.

Off topic, I would like to highlight how I was once hopeful of learning as much language as I could as travels continued. In reality, once you hit the fourth or fifth country it becomes a fool's hope to do so. I know the locals really do appreciate it when you at least make some effort to communicate with them in their tongue but my brain has kind of melted all the words into one super language. Now when a local offers greeting, some strange murmur is the only response. The language barrier truly reaches new heights.


In case you have no idea where Solvenia is (fair enough really), it was once part of Yugoslavia. In case you still don't know where that was, just throw a rock over the water east of Italy. Slovenia still shares much in common with the other former Yugoslavian sister states and other countries around it. One thing being the love affair with meat. In fact one restaurant conversation with a waitress went like such
Me: "What is this?"
Waitress: "This is a meat."
Me: "What is this?"
Waitress: "This is a meat too."
Me: "What is this?"
Waitress: "This is also meat."
Me: "Ahhh what is this?"
Waitress: "This is a platter. Of meat."
Me: "I guess meat it is then!"
Waitress: "OK. Perfect! Would you like salad?"
Me: "THERE IS SALAD?!"
Waitress: "Yes, of course!"
Me: "Yes, salad please. Yes."
Waitress: "OK."

Shortly thereafter the plate comes out, covered in meat. The salad, a mound of raw onion. Welcome to Slovenia.

Vienna, Very Vienna.

Servus!

Through Bavarian lands to Austria, more specifically Vienna! I'm told that Austria has given us such unknowns as Mozart (he made some music apparently), Beethoven (he also wrote music and I think he was a dog), Sigmund Freud (sounds like SUCH a superego), Einstein (a hair stylist), Arnold Schwarzenegger (a Greek Olympian) and Adolf Hitler (who I am told had a real way with making words beautiful). I find that latter story hard to believe when the language just sounds like a string of curse words.

In the interests of cultural learning, I'll be putting the Austro-German translations of key words in this blog in brackets. You may learn a thing or two. Whoever said reading a blog wasn't educational.

The weather (wetter) has been wetter here (hier), but there is some more sun (sonne) too finally. All and all (alle und alle) it's been pretty good (gute), I am in a T-shirt so that's always a positive sign.

A few people mentioned that Vienna wasn't really that cool (kool) a place to go, but I beg to differ. Assuming your camera (kamera) doesn't get stolen or you don't wake up in a water fountain (wasserbad) it's really a very nice and vibrant place. It is a little pricey compared to Czech Republic where beer was cheaper than water, but the wallet is doing OK (OK). I am also pleasantly surprised to find how many awesome buildings and churches there are here, having been led to believe it was bombed to the shit house (scheisse hut) in world war 2.

Vienna (Wien) has a lot of parks too in which Vienese people can walk their government issued sausage dogs (wienderhunde). The fresh air of a park is a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of city streets, it is especially a welcome break from being forced to sit in a smoking cabin on the train here for six hours; a cruel and unusual form of torture.

Unfortunately the parks are now bereft of swan based life forms ever since Austria joined the EU and opened their borders. It was at this point that gypsies poured in and quickly capitalised on the big, fat, tender, succulent ground based bird life that had not learned to get the hell away from them as had their feathery foes in other heavily gypsied countries. If you have never met a gypsy before, come to continental Europe; they are everywhere and after several discussions with them it has become apparent that the vast majority, if not all, of them require life saving operations. One Euro will make or break said operation ... your Euro. This operation must be performed tomorrow. Their lives are therefore always in tourists hands.

Meat dishes are awesome here, you just want more, more, more! And by golly you'll get it. You'll have dreams about it, nightmares about it, you'll learn to become one with it, you'll be comforted by it, you'll be angered by it, you'll be loved by it. Meat is a stalwart companion in central Europe that will never leave you behind. It will also never leave your behind sometimes; your digestive systems dies a little every day here. Bring prunes, lots of prunes.

Next up, Slovenia. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and remember some die's der's and das's.

Ahoj!

Jak se mate!

This entry comes from the quaint, medieval town of Cesky Krumlov. I believe the name translates roughly to "town of quintessential ye olde awesomeness". It is like a little fairytale kingdom, small houses all aligned along one main cobbled street which winds with the river around a big castle and cathedral in the middle. It is amazing that something so fictional and cliched like this can exist.

It is absolutely the panacea to the crowds of London and Prague and as icing on the cake you can even hire a tyre tube and float along the river while drinking a beer. Beautiful.

Krumlov's cobbled streets are home to all sorts of weird and wonderful bars and restaurants, though perhaps the most quirky is the Horror Bar. A 400 year old cellar lined with candles, skulls, coffins and a bar serving all sorts of colourful concoctions. It was straight out of a B-Grade horror flick and consequently I was expecting the door to be shut at midnight locking the tourists in for the locals to feed on.

On that note, a local proudly informed that part of the movie "Hostel" was filmed in this town. I'm not so sure they have actually seen this movie. Personally I'd be keeping that on the down low if I were them.

At this point I'd like to digress a little and talk about my fake wallet. It sits in my back pocket and is made of leather; it looks like it should and would hold things worth stealing. My theory is that the thief will identify this easy target and ignore my real, decrepit looking travel wallet wedged uncomfortably in the front of my pants.

I have heard all sorts of great things about Europe's amazing light-fingered population, being home to the best pick-pocketiers in the world. I was expecting my fake wallet to not even last this long, but it has. It is becoming somewhat of a joke that I couldn't have this thing stolen no matter how much I tried.

Challenge accepted.

Anyway, again this entry is short and sweet. I am still trying to get into the blogging groove and it can be quite a challenge to find the time in a packed itinerary. I'll end on some practical and very basic travel tips on how to look like a tourist and guarantee yourself a pick pocketing and inflated prices everywhere you go.

1. Wear a really brightly coloured shirt.

2. Drape a MASSIVE camera around your neck, it must have at least five separate lens attachments.

3. Buy a local hat with a catchy phrase like "CZECH ME OUT"

4. When you speak to anyone, always assume they speak English. If they don't understand, shout the words louder until they understand English afterall.

I will take one of your tears now gypsy ...

Jak se mate!

I write this Bohemian rhapsody from the wonderful land of the Czech Republic, specifically Prague! "The City of a Hundred Spires" is very much that; a truly amazing place littered with so many beautiful architectural relics that luckily survived World War 2. Needless to say no matter how amazing a place is, I have noticed that morons still have to carve their initials into the stonework. Something I am guessing we'll have to get used to. It's sad to know that "big dog was here" when you are enjoying a thousand year old monument.

The first word of advice, it probably pays to organise a place to stay BEFORE you leave for a foreign country that does not speak your language. It certainly makes your arrival flow a bit better. I have a feeling this is to become a golden rule of travel.

The Czech language is not easy by the way, even if you know the words you can never seem to say them in a way that satisfies a local to return communication attempts. Even English, when understood, is not understood unless you say it with a strange accent.

There are plenty of things to see and do here, all absolutely rammed with tourists. It seems the advice that "you MUST see Prague" is quite common. As enjoyable as it all is, the hordes are pretty intense. Especially around that cool clock they have (even if it is a bit of a non-event)

The museum of communism is the real highlight of Prague. Full of awesome history and information on what life had been like here untl very recently. In fitting with authentic hard line socialism they had brochures, but if you try to take one outside the building I think you are shot on site. There is also a sex machine museum here, which I was disappointed to not see one tribute to James Brown in. Get up-ah!

If you didn't know already, Czech Rep makes mind-blowingly good beer. It takes me to a very happy place, far away from the distant and VERY bitter memories of bad Australian lager in its many labels. Here is the bountiful and rich bosom of central European pilsners. Take me now oh lord.

Now go south to Cesky Krumlov, there to find a gypsy tear to cure my cold. Do not curse me gypsy.

Grey Clouds on the Horizon

A blog of a thousand words begins but with a single near-cliched statement.

The adventure begins and this chronicle comes from inside the comfort of a good friend's house, who put us up for our first leg of the journey. I am now looking at my wet towel on the window as I write, hoping that it might dry somewhat in preparation to absorb more rain.

Logically this post comes from none other than England where the weather has been rather decidedly English; rain, drizzle, rain, five minutes of sun, rain, hail, wind, rain. There is so much rain here that the locals chortle when you mention the fact we have to wash our cars back in Australia. It actually hailed so much here the other day it looked like it had snowed.

It's not proper rain either, not the kind that falls heavy and splashes on the ground. It is just a kind of unrelenting misty rain that makes everything and everyone always damp, regardless of whether you have an umbrella or not. Although it appears that a man with an umbrella invites doubts of homsexuality, so it's best to just get more damp and man up.

Many days have been spent walking the length and breadth of the sprawling beast that is London. Brushing amongst the millions of people that call this amazing city home. They rush to and fro, ignoring amazing historic buildings that they have undoubtedly seen so many times before that they no longer register. The daily grind here is particularly grinding, especially for the haplessly visitor caught on the underground metro system in peak hour.

Actually, you simply cannot get by without the underground metro system. Better know as the "Tube". It can really take you almost anywhere, but there is a danger of trusting the tube map more than common sense. Just because the tube map says a station is really far away, it does not mean that the station is only a 100 metre walk away in real life. It pays to use your head! That and you definitely want to limit your tube exposure, the air down there is thick and filled with bad busking music. The black snot you inevitably end up with after a day of tubing is not brake dust from the trains like you would hope. It is actually millions of dead skin cells from all the other people, permanently circulating. Sometimes you get a whiff of fresh air as it is sucked past you in hurricane velocity as if you are in the lungs of some giant living breathing monster.

Perhaps the greatest welcome to England is the beloved pint glass. It's wholeheartedly satisfying to order a pint of the house ale (each pub seems to always have their own brew) and sip it quietly knowing you won't have to go back to the bar for some time. The pubs are cosy and social and the perfect way to end a day, or sometimes start it, or break it up. Actually, any flimsy excuse to go the pub and knock a pint down seems to be the way of things here.

Anyway, let's leave the first entry at this. I'll wrap things up with some interesting facts about London.

1. When you get on and off trains you must MIND THE GAP. In fact no less than 4 different announcements remind you of this. You can also buy t-shirts and coffee mugs with this phrase on it. Amazingly, despite this epic and concerted effort to warn the public of the dangerous and despicable gap - people still fall down it. Go figure.

2. If it hails in London, it is critical to cover your kitchen and bathroom sinks to stop hail flying out of them. I really don't know how this works but I am serious.

3. If you need advice on trains, don't ask rail staff. Even, if you do manage to find one not cowering in a known CCTV blackspot from their boss, the chance of receiving an intelligible response is low.

4. Elevensies is real.

5. England just lost to the West Indies in cricket. Cool mon.

6. Londoners rush everywhere with a look of steely determination chiseled onto their face. I believe the fact public toilets cost money contributes heavily to this.

7. Harry Potter premieres in Leicester Square are overrated.

8. Trains over here are powered by the rails as there are no overhead cables. When the track is wet, the train becomes a giant moving Tesla coil. There is something very awesome about a train emerging from the misty, grey nether in a miasma of crackling lightning.

9. Beer comes in pints. I'm getting one!

10. Berries are incredible here. Mangoes are absolutely pitiful.