Slovakia with Ingo! and Luxembourg/Nederlands/Sverge/England

I arrived in Bratislava, and found out that Ingo was going to be late meeting me, as he had gone out the night before, partying in Budapest, where he was staying with our other friend Rodrigo. They were meant to catch the 7 am bus and meet me in Bratislava that morning, but of course they missed the bus. Then Ingo decided he would catch the next train, which he also missed. At this point Rodrigo also became quite lazy, as he's been known to do, and decided he would just lay around Budapest for the day instead of coming to meet, too bad! So it was going to be at least until 4 pm by the time Ingo would make it to Bratislava, so I figured I would just sort out my hostel and try and find a walking tour of the city.

The first thing I always think about when I hear Bratislava, is the movie Eurotrip, where these American college students are trying to hitch hike to Berlin. The one character speaks a bit of German, and some truck driver pulls over and is speaking to them in German, telling them he is going nowhere near Berlin, that he is in fact going to Bratislava. The main character doesn't understand him properly, and thinks they are hitching a ride to Berlin, but they end up being dropped off in Bratislava instead. The initial scene of Bratislava is this miserable and dreary communist era city. The students then end up finding out that the money they have, which is about $7 or something, can buy them a massive hotel, amazing food, and a huge night out partying due to a crazy exchange rate. They top it all off by tipping their bellman 5 cents, and he then tells his manager that he's quitting and opening his own hotel with that 5 cents. The best line of the trip then comes when the character says “Love that exchange rate!”

So obviously Bratislava isn't anything like a Hollywood depiction, but nevertheless, it was a pretty cool city. I stopped to get some money, thinking that I would be using the Slovak Krona, but found the bank machine was only giving out Euros, and everywhere they were accepting Euros, so that made for an easier money transition. I hopped aboard a bus and was dropped off a mere 30 seconds away from the hostel I had booked Ingo and I beds for the night. Ingo had said he would come spend the night, whereas Rodrigo was just going to come for the day, but then didn't come, so it was just going to be the crazy Austrian and I for one night of shenanigans. I was too early to actually check in and grab a room yet, so I just threw my bags into the luggage room, and had a coffee and sorted out the walking tour. The girl at the desk provided me with a flyer for a free walking tour around the city, and said it started at 11 am and 4 pm, even though the flyer said 1 pm. She told me that they had changed the hours, and that the flyer was old, so I set out to catch the walking tour, leaving only 10 minutes before the tour started. I arrived where the tour was meant to start, but didn't see anyone there. I was maybe a minute or two late, so I was a bit confused. I found some other people nearby wearing shirts that said something about a tour, so I walked over to them and asked if they were the free walking tour. The girl didn't speak great English, and just handed me a flyer describing the tour they were offering. It was 25 euros for a 1.5 hour day tour, no thanks! So I just wandered around for a bit on my own, checking out the city, and settling in for a really tasty and super cheap lunch at a nearby cafe (4 euros for soup, chicken breasts, vegetables mmm). I hung around there until it was nearly 1 pm and decided to wander back to see if maybe the hostel girl was incorrect.

Sure enough, I found a girl there with a free walking tour shirt on, and mentioned to her that my hostel had told me it started at 11 am, and she said it was going to be starting at that time starting the next week, but oh well. I met a few other people there, and we begun the 2 hour tour of the city. I was amazed by how fast the girl spoke English, as I was having a hard time keeping up with her as she spoke, but she was an energetic and friendly guide and gave a decent tour. We stopped by most of the city sights, other than the castle, taking in the old city centre, where you were meant to pass through the one gate silently, during your first walk through, as there used to be an executioner near the gate, and it was considered bad luck to make any noise passing through where he used to be. Fortunately, I had passed through earlier in the morning, and was alone so I had no reason to be talking or making noise. We also saw a few of the interesting figures in the centre, which had provided street performers a reason to copycat, including one brass figurine depicting a man who is sticking out of a manhole. Apparently, he had been run over once by a car, losing his head, so they erected a sign near him, saying “man at work”. We also passed by an old fort wall that had a cannonball stuck in the side, from when Napoleon had tried to conquer the area, and was unsuccessful. It was the Slovakian's way of remembering when they had defeated the great Bonaparte.  

Slovakian National Hero....the author Hviezdoslav

National Theatre

Charming old town

One of the more unique street performers I've come across

The main square

Cannonball in the church wall from Napoleon's attack

We then passed through the rest of the old town, and stopped by the Presidential Palace, which was situated right near my hostel, then moved on towards the Communist Revolutionary square, where the uprisings occurred first to remove the Nazi partnership, and associate the region with the USSR, and then later on to become an indepent and sovereign state from Czechoslovakia. After that, we wandered past the Blue Church, which was basically surrounded by Communist era buildings, and surprisingly wasn't destroyed by the Communist regime, as they opposed the religious organizations, and often destroyed or desecrated the churches. After that, we just finished off at the oldest University of Slovakia, and I wandered back to the hostel to wait for Ingo to arrive. The whole time I was walking around the tour, I was in awe of all the beautiful Slovakian girls wandering around the city, wow, what a beautiful group of women they were!  

Smallest house in Bratislava

Presidential Palace

Communist Square

Blue church that managed to avoid destruction during Communist rule

I arrived back at the hostel, near the time Ingo was supposed to arrive, and grabbed a beer and waited for him. I was sitting and watching out the window, when I thought I saw him walk by the hostel on the other side of the street, but I wasn't too sure, then I saw the same guy walk past the hostel on the same sidewalk, and then 2 minutes later walk right past the hostel entrance on the right side, and I was sure it was him, so I popped my head out and yelled out to see if it was him, and sure enough it was crazy Ingo. Rather than follow my instructions to take a bus and find the hostel within 30 seconds of leaving the bus, he decided to walk over and find the place, and couldn't seem to find it...silly dude. Then he was meant to present some id to check in, but hadn't brought any with him other than some health card, which they surprisingly accepted. After getting him checked in, even though he hadn't brought a single thing with him, no clothing or anything, we sat down and had some beers and dinner at the hostel, which was a pretty good price. We ended up meeting an English dude named Paul, and hung out with him for quite sometime, while enjoying the cheap beers and flirting with the bartender who was a stereotypical Eastern European woman, stone cold faced, not laughing at all at our silly jokes, but then out of nowhere, she would then randomly laugh and smile, when we didn't find anything funny...interesting woman. We hung out there for a few hours, before Paul suggested we head out on the town for a bit and check out some things.  

Champagne with my long lost Austrian friend

We decided to walk on a nearby street that had a few cafes and bars, and first tried to go to some bar that had been recommended by the bartender, but found the place to be closed (maybe it was her way of playing a prank on us!), so we just went into a pool bar, where we found it to be packed with 17 and 18 year olds, who were partying pretty hard, as they had just finished up exams. They were all pretty nice and curious to come talk to us foreigners, and when they found out I was Canadian, they really started giving me a hard time about Slovakia beating Canada in the World Ice Hockey Championships recently. We hung out at that place for 2 hours or so, playing some pool and enjoying the dirt cheap shots and beers (about 1 euro apiece, love Eastern European prices!). When it was kind of close to 12, Paul all of a sudden wanted to go, so we said sure, we could change venues, and when we were about ready to go Ingo ran to the bathroom, and all of a sudden Paul just said he really had to go and left even though I said we were coming with him and would be leaving within 2 minutes, but he seemed to be in a rush to leave, and Ingo came back literally 1 minute later and we walked outside and Paul was nowhere to be seen! Earlier at the hostel, I had noticed he was flirting pretty hard with the bartender and remembered her saying she was done work at 12, so I had a sneaking suspicion he just wanted to go back there and have a crack at her (sure enough the next day we ran into him and he said he just came back to the hostel for a few drinks, but no luck with the bartender).

  

So Ingo and I were on our own, and decided to continue on walking around looking for other pubs, we did make a quick stop at a McDonalds while wandering around looking for some other club that had been suggested to Ingo by some of the Slovakians we had met earlier in the night. While there we found this dude (great spot to pass out at an early point of the night!). We kept wandering around trying to find this Infinity place, and kept asking people for directions, until we finally found it. It wasn't really much of a club, more of a lounge place, so we popped in there and decided to play the coaster shot game where you throw a coaster and whatever bottle it hits, you have a shot of it. As luck would have it, both our coasters happened to strike bottles of scotch, so we had two of the more expensive shots possible, damn! We grabbed another beer each and wandered around the place a bit, finding a huge group of people singing some karaoke in the back area. We wandered over there, and then a few of them started chatting with us, and we found out they were a huge group of Dutch students who were a pretty cool group. The one girl seemed to be pretty fond of me, and we were chatting for quite awhile so Ingo disappeared for awhile but came back shortly after, as the place was about to close. The students were all leaving on a bus at 7:30 am that morning, but being Dutch they were still up for a party, so they brought us along to another late night club. We arrived there and found it to be quite small but very packed. At one point Ingo asked to borrow some money, as he had a special drink for us, and I gave him 20 euros and he came back with this ridiculous huge bucket that normally cost 40 euros, but some people had ordered it and then had left without paying, so he bought it for cheap! We sat down at a table near some really hot Slovakians and I started chatting them up and was trying to get Ingo to come talk to them, but he was being a bit too shy and wouldn't leave the giant bucket! We missed our chance since there were several groups of guys constantly going after these girls, so I just gave up as well and hung out, finishing off this ridiculous bucket.  

Drunk wandering

Great place for a nap

The ridiculous drink bucket

Eventually, the place was closing, our bucket was empty, and it was already around 4:30 or 5 am, so we stumbled outside and then the night just continued to become more hilarious. Ingo decided that it would be a great way to impress girls if he had a “blue eye” (black eye he meant, but English is his 2^nd language), so he told me I should punch him and that he would punch me so we could both have blue eyes. I wanted no part of this, and said I wasn't hitting him and didn't want him to hit me. He was so insistent and told me he would hit me first if I didn't hit him...so the following video entails what exactly happened!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_qLlvS1Vng

After this hilarious event, we started wandering around, and became quite lost. I have no idea where we ended up, other than some residential area with lots of apartments, and Ingo found some apartment complex that had an open door and decided to go wander inside there, where I found a big stack of records that someone was throwing out, so I started launching them at Ingo like frisbees, and as they hit the wall near him they started exploding, awesome! After throwing a few around, he found some potted plant, and decided to take that with him, and continued to walk around the city with this plant. After about 2.5 hours of wandering around lost and being idiots, we finally found our way back to the hostel and stumbled into the room around 8 am to catch a few hours of sleep. The staff woke us up the next morning, and said we had to check out, but we were too tired to move or do anything. I had planned to take a train that morning back to Vienna, but after all the fun and silly adventures, I decided I would stay one more night, and so did Ingo. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay in the same room, so we had to check out, and wait until 3 pm before we could move into our new room. I hastily packed up my stuff and put it into the locker room, and Ingo stored his potted plant into the luggage room as well.  

Concert posters while wandering

Nice Slovakian car

Erotic City with a Canadian Flag...??

The result of a rough night

Ingo checking in his potted plant into the baggage room

Amazing twins I spotted while looking for a dinner spot

We wandered out for a bit of breakfast, found some bagel shop, and sat down there for a bit, laughing about the night before. After that, we were still completely exhausted so we just went back to the hostel, and found the couches in the common room and slept there until about 4:30 pm, then checked into our new room.

We decided to wander back into the old town to find some dinner, and looked around a bit, finding several traditional Slovakian restaurants, but since they were all in the old town, they had fairly high prices, so we stopped at one that I had seen the day before. We were talked into the platter for 2 by the server there, and ordered that, which ended up costing 28 euros (super expensive for Slovakia) but damn was it a lot of food as seen here!  

Feast for a King

While working on that platter, some American university students walked by and were in awe of our platter, so they all came into the restaurant and ordered some for themselves too. We didn't end up chatting with them at all, but did run into them later in the evening at one of the clubs. After the huge dinner, which we were unable to finish, we stopped for a few beers and some coffee at a nearby cafe and then Ingo decided he needed some clothing since he hadn't brought any, so we went exploring, trying to find a mall where he could buy a new dress jacket. After searching for a good hour, we finally found the new mega mall, and he grabbed a few things there. We had planned to join the pub crawl that night, but it started at 9:30 pm, and by the time we were out of the mall and walking back towards the hostel, it was already 9:15 pm, so we decided to just skip that and head to the hostel for awhile. We got back there, and had a few beers, and chatted with Paul a bit and poked fun at him for leaving us the night before. The hostel was having a live music night, which was quite nice, so we ended up staying there a lot longer than expected. As the place was winding down and getting ready to close, we ended up chatting to some Slovakian dude named Lobo, and he told us he wanted to go out and take us to some nightclubs. He was super high and super drunk, and super crazy all in one! We weren't too sure, but decided to go with him just for a laugh.

He first took us to some apartment building, which seemed a bit dodgy, but then we got upstairs and found a large lounge, where a lot of artistic types gathered. He was especially fond of the place, because they had poetry readings every few nights (not really my style but ah well), but unfortunately when I went to order us a drink, the bartender said they had finished serving and were closing down so I went back and told the guys this, and Lobo didn't really believe me, he just figured I didn't like the place, but said he would take us somewhere else. So we went with him and ended up in a place called NuClub, where he said he had been going for 14 years already (he was a bit older, somewhere in his 30s). We stopped in there, and listened to some chilled out music, and had a few drinks, which he kept getting us for free since he knew so many of the staff there. At this point he started to become a bit paranoid that Ingo wasn't having fun and was mad at him for taking us there, and every 5 minutes he would keep asking Ingo why he was mad at him, or would ask me why my friend wasn't having fun! We were having a good time, but he didn't seem to understand that, so he said he would take us to another more fun place. We ended up going to the second NuClub place, which was a bit more larger and also more expensive. We hung out there for quite awhile, and I ended up meeting a nice Slovakian girl there, and chatted for quite awhile with her. Eventually Ingo thought I was going to be leaving with her, so he found some girls that kept staring at him, and talked to them for awhile, then disappeared with them. The girl I was talking with had to work the next morning and was going with her friend home, so I said goodbye and then began the walk home, wondering where Ingo had gone.

I made my way back to the hostel around 6:30 am or so, and got into bed, but didn't see Ingo in the room. He started texting me these drunk and strange messages, saying that the girls were only 16 and that he was hanging at their place, and that he had no idea where he was when they had to leave for school the next morning! He returned to the hostel around 8:30 am and woke me up, to show me he had brought this huge cinder block all the way to the hostel and put it on my chest as a gift! I was pretty shocked and just moved that damn heavy thing down to the floor, and had a laugh at the ridiculousness of the guy, then went back to sleep. We were woken by the hostel staff again, telling us we had to check out, so I packed up and moved my things to the luggage room, then tried to sort out what I was going to do for the day. I was waiting to hear back from the Slovakian girl from the night before to see if she wanted to hang out later that day, but didn't hear back for a few hours, so decided to just make my way to Vienna and try and catch a night train towards Luxembourg that night. I said my goodbye to Ingo, who I hope to see again some day, and was off to the train station.

I arrived there, found my train to Vienna, and made the quick trip there, then attempted to obtain a ticket to head to Koblenz that night on a night train, but unfortunately that train was full, so I had to kill a few hours until a midnight train to Munich. Since I had some time to kill, I had to grab a kasekainer for old time's sake, so I wandered over to a stand, and rather than buying one, I bought two of those delicious sausages. I wandered over to a little grassy area, threw down my bags and enjoyed gorging myself. To some passers by, I must have looked like a bit of a bum, with my unkempt looks, and bags. Viennese people are known to be fairly cold and stuck up, so it was a good laugh to watch the shock on their faces as I sat there eating my sausages in the park. At one point, an attractive woman was walking by, and I smiled at her, and the look on her face was priceless, as she tried to smile, but was confused whether she should or not, and ended up contorting her face a fair bit until some awkward smile appeared. It was as if she had never smiled at someone before, hilarious. After my lunch in the park, I wandered over to the platform where the earlier night train was leaving, just in case there was a cancellation, but there wasn't, so I decided to find something to do for a few hours. I still had Lukas's contact info from when I was in Vienna the previous year, so I got a hold of him, and he was heading out with some colleagues for dinner and a beer or two, so I threw my bags into a locker, and hopped on a few metros and made my way over to meet him at this quiet little pizza place, and caught up over a beer. He was quite tired and was planning on having an early night, so we only ended up hanging out for about an hour and a bit, before he was went home, so I just went back to the station and hung out for a bit until my midnight train.

not one but 2 Kasekainers, love it :)

  

I had hoped to get a sleeping cabin on the train, but when I boarded, I was told I couldn't get one without a reservation, which was odd since the guy working at the train station told me I could get a bed when I jumped on the train....liar! So I just found a carriage with a bench free, went in there and managed to get a bit of sleep, arriving in Munich at 6:15 am. I knew there was a train leaving Munich for Strasbourg at 6:27, but it required a reservation, so I tried to get one, but the ticket office was closed. I just wandered over to the train and found out it was full, but that I could sit in one of the little work stations on the train, but would have to pay 25 euros....However, I would get to Luxembourg about 3.5 hours earlier than the other options, and since the websites showed that the hostels were full there, I figured I would have to get to one of them early on, and hope to get one of the beds they usually save for walk ins, otherwise I would be stuck paying for a rather expensive hotel room in the city instead, so I took the early train and was on my way. I was fairly exhausted still, so I tried to catch a bit more sleep in the tiny little sitting space. I was woken up about 30 minutes later by German officials doing identity checks, and as per usual, they were rather surly and angry. I handed over my passport and while the one guy called in my information, the other man stood over me, glaring, and then asked which country I prefer, Canada or Germany. Ha ha what an awkward situation! So I told him I preferred Canada, and he was quite upset about this, and asked my reasons why, and if it was because of the “administrative structure” of Germany, that I didn't prefer his country.....ahhh what a guy. After my id was cleared, they went on their way.

I arrived in Avignon, where I had to change trains for Nancy, and had a bit of time to kill, so I just grabbed a small lunch, killed some time, and then was off to Nancy. After arriving in Nancy, I had to again switch trains, and make my way to Luxembourg. I arrived at a small station outside of Luxembourg, where I was told that I would have to take a bus into the city, since there was construction going on with the tracks, so I hopped on that bus and finally arrived in Luxembourg City in the early afternoon. I had google mapped the way to get to the hostel from the train station, and figured I would be able to walk and find it easily, but wow was I ever wrong. Luxembourg City is extremely hilly and split by a river, so what I thought would be an easy straight line walk, ended up being quite the opposite. I ended up on the wrong side of the river, and couldn't figure out exactly where I was or how to get down to where the hostel was. It should have taken me about 20 minutes, but it ended up being about an hour and a bit before I finally found the place. I was hot and sweaty and tired, but was happy to see that they had a bed available, so I grabbed that and settled in. It was actually one of the nicest and largest hostels I've been to, with a pretty kick ass location. After cleaning up a bit, I decided to head out and wander around the beautiful city.

Luxembourg City kind of has a fairy tale feel to it, as you could easily imagine a Cinderella or some royal character living in this city, with all of its hills, winding river, a castle, and ancient stone buildings and walls. Unfortunately I ran out of battery, so I only was able to snap a few photos of the charming city, but here they are anyways.

old city walls

Bridge from the 1700s

Very hilly terrain

Old fortress

Charming old city

Hey buddy

One of the national banks

After my walk around for a few hours, I wandered back to the hostel and sat down in the common area. There was a large group of loud American students that I had contemplated going to talk with, but then I decided against it. I was just hanging out, being anti social, when a cute Aussie girl came and sat down nearby, so I started chatting her up, and we became friends quite quickly. We played a bit of pool, and were distracted several times by this funny group of Portuguese kids who were in the area for a soccer tournament or something. They kept tapping on the window and smiling and waving at the girl I think...it was kind of cute. I think they might have thought I was Portuguese since I walked outside after our games of pool and they started talking to me in Portuguese, then switched to English once they realized I wasn't...smart little buggers. After the pool games, the Aussie had mentioned some falafel place that was cheap, and that we should go grab a bite there, so we wandered back towards the city and grabbed falafels, then found an English pub where we watched the England vs Norway friendly soccer match until it was about 11 pm. She had an early bus to catch, so she wanted to head home and sleep, and I didn't really feel like staying out and doing much, so I just went back to the hostel for the night. 

The next day I was hoping to catch an earlier train to Brussels where I could then make it all the way to Amsterdam for the night, and potentially catch a night train to Denmark, but of course I slept in a bit, and then dinked around for too long on the internet, until I had about 40 minutes to catch the last train that would get me to Amsterdam in time for the night train, so I asked reception about where I could catch a bus to the train station, rather than doing the difficult walk in the heat, and they pointed me towards a bus stop, but I couldn't figure out what bus stop it was, and it didn't seem like there was much bus activity, so I started walking down the road towards the train station, stopping at various bus stops and seeing that the buses weren't going the directed I needed them to. At this point I had about 30 minutes to go until the train, so I figured I would just start walking towards the train station further, and hopefully catch one of the buses that would be going down that route...and I found a stop that had a bus going to the station from it, but then it happened to note that buses weren't stopping there (only at that particular stop), so I started walking towards that next stop, and of course I saw the bus approaching, so I began running towards the stop, but wasn't able to get there in time to catch it, damn! So I followed some signs that pointed towards the train station (although I was in an area of the city I hadn't been in the previous day) so I was already a bit lost. I walked up a huge hill, and in to an area that I thought would lead me to the train station, but then found a huge construction site, with no obvious paths or roads leading out of it, so I wandered around there for awhile, unable to sort out any path to the station, so I had to return back the way I came and try and get my bearings. By this point I had about 10 minutes to catch the train, and once I looked over my map I realized I was way out in a remote area, and that there appeared to be some path I could take, but I was having a hell of a time finding it. Eventually I found the path that lead down the steep terrain and back towards the city centre, and finally made it to the train station, exhausted, sweaty, and dehydrated. I had about 20 minutes to kill until the next train so I wandered around trying to find a supermarket to buy some water, but since it was a Sunday, and much like France, everything is shut, I had a hell of a time and was only able to find a Chinese grocery store open.

After grabbing some water and a snack there, it was back to the train station, where I caught the next train to Brussels, arriving a few hours later. There was a high speed train heading to Amsterdam within 15 minutes of my arrival, but when I asked about it, they said the reservation fee was 35 euros, and that I should just wait an extra 45 minutes for the slower inter city train, so I did that. It took me to Antwerp, and I had settled in watching a movie when we arrived there, and I figured that the train would continue on to Amsterdam from there, but then everyone got off the train. I asked some staff if it was continuing on to Amsterdam, and they said no I had to go over to the train on the next tracks that appeared ready to be leaving, so I hurriedly packed my things and ran over to that train, jumping through the door as it was closing, jamming myself in it quite hard.....there was a couple sitting there watching in a bit of surprise and I asked if it was going to Amsterdam to make sure I was on the right train, which I was. For all my rushing, I soon found out it wasn't leaving for another 8 minutes, so I had run and jumped on for no real need. I also soon found out that I was actually on the high speed train that had required the reservation fee, as it arrived in Amsterdam much sooner than the inter city train was meant to, but no one checked tickets (a common occurrence on quite a few of the trains in Europe if you ever want to possibly save some money), so I arrived in the 'Dam.

I wandered over to my hostel where I was greeted by the obligatory bum on a bike offering directions in return for money, which I shooed him away (seriously why do they think showing a tourist directions to a hostel will get them money? Plus the guy was riding a fairly nice bike and chatting away on a cell phone so I don't think he was starving AND the Dutch gov't takes care of their citizens quite well with regards to food and shelter). I arrived at the hostel shortly after, and checked in. I wandered out to find a bite to eat, grabbing some chips with mayo (classic Dutch meal), and just hung around on a corner people watching for awhile, which in Amsterdam, always provides a good form of solid entertainment....open drug policy, numerous stags, costumes, drunks, bums, etc etc. After hanging around on a step near a shop, I was shooed away by the owner and had to move on (I would walk past that shop the next day and realize I was standing in front of a sex toy shop, not knowing ha ha), so I just wandered back to the hostel. I came in and found it to be quite rowdy, with lots of young drunk Americans, and just wasn't really in the mood to socialize with any of them. I grabbed a beer, and watched a football match for a little bit, but didn't chat with anyone and couldn't be bothered. I had gotten in touch with a Dutch girl I had met in Cambodia a few months earlier, and she said we could meet up that night when she got back into town, so I waited to hear from her, but it was already nearly 12 am, and I decided I would just go to bed early and relax, since I was hoping to head to the train station early the next morning and figure out if I could take a night train or would have to book another night at the hostel. I was pretty much settled into bed, when Lisa got back to me and told me to come meet her and her friends down at a pub in the "Pijp" area. So I gathered myself out of bed, and asked the staff how to get to that area, which looked like a 20 minute walk or so.

I set out and tried to figure out if I could take public transport to get there, but unfortunately they were mostly finished running since it was 12, and a Dutch girl I asked for help didn't really know. So I continued to set out on foot and got completely turned around and lost, even though I had a map. At one point I realized I was actually walking back towards the main train station, albeit down a different road from the one I came. I stopped at a larger scale map, and a friendly Dutch man stopped by and asked if I needed help, and provided me with some help, which was quite good of him. I finally made my way down towards the Pijp, but was running low on phone credit, and hadn't heard back from Lisa as to what pub she was at, so I wandered around for awhile, after having taken about 1 hour and 15 minutes to get down there instead of 20 minutes! I finally received a message from her letting me know what pub she was at, so I had to ask around a few stragglers about the location of this pub since it was a Monday night, and everything was shut down except for the one place they were at. I received some directions, and wandered over to Maseltov, and entered inside to find a packed place. I actually couldn't remember exactly what Lisa looked like, as we had only really met once in a really drunk state, so I just wandered over to the bar and grabbed a beer, and then started chatting with a bunch of random Dutch people, until she spotted me and wandered over. We ended up catching up for awhile, and I met a few of her friends, who were all pretty nice, but the place was only open for another hour, so we didn't hang out too long. Her one friend said she had a boyfriend now, so I didn't really think I would get anywhere with her so I figured I would just head back to the hostel for the night. Interestingly enough, she said we should have dinner and hang out at her place the next night if I didn't take the night train to Sweden, which seemed a bit odd for a girl with a b/f, considering our previous history in Cambodia, but oh well. I said goodnight and walked back to the hostel for the night.

I was up fairly early the next morning, to run down to the train station and check out trains, and found I would be able to take the night train that night, so I ran back to the hostel and checked out and stored my bags in the crappy lockers that were way too small. The system was pretty shitty actually, as they offered both small and large lockers, but you had to put your money in first and it wouldn't let you know that there were no large lockers available, so I put in money for a large locker and found that I could only access a small locker and that I couldn't get any money back, so I had to pay for 2 days storage in a small locker....stupid system! It was at St. Christopher's hostel, so beware of that if you do stay there. Anyways, after storing my stuff, I was chatting up a Taiwanese girl from my room a bit, and we decided to go wander around the city a bit since it was a lovely day. She wanted to go check out a few markets, and I just wanted to wander around. We looked into renting bikes for the day, but they wanted like $25 for the day, which is a bit nuts, so we just decided to walk everywhere.

Swans...a real classy bird in Holland

A nice day in the canals

I find it odd that in Holland where they use double vowels for so many of their words that they would spell "Bazaar" with one A....strange!

Giant chess match

We stopped by a few of the obligatory stops including the park with the big IAMSTERDAM sign, and went to a few smaller areas I've never really explored before, including the Pijp and parts of South West Amsterdam, where we found some cafe that had the city's best Apple Pie, which Sylvia was quite intent on having. I don't eat dessert, so I just hung out and had a coffee while she had the tasty looking dessert. After finishing that up, we just continued to walk around and then had to head back towards the hostel since I had to catch the train at 7 pm and wanted to grab a bite to eat at the hostel before heading off. We wandered back and I grabbed my stuff and a quick burger, then was on my way to the train station, and off to Copenhagen on the night train. The night train was actually pretty boring, as the sleeping area was really tiny, and there was nowhere to really sit down and socialize much, plus there were no plug ins for laptops, phones, or anything, so we all just ended up basically laying in the bed and sleeping most of the way to Copenhagen. We arrived there in the early afternoon, and rather than wait around 3 hours for a few of my Danish friends to finish up their exams, I just hopped aboard the next train to Goteborg, Sweden.

I arrived in Goteborg, and quickly found my way towards Liseberg Park area, where my bed and breakfast was located. Checking in at the place, I was told by the friendly owner that I had been upgraded from a simple double bed to this family room, as seen here...

Win!

So after settling into this gorgeous loft room, that was really cheap by Swedish standards, I got a hold of Hilla who said she would come into Goteborg to see me, but that she would be a bit later than originally expected, so I just lingered around and caught up on some internet things. Eventually Hilla was on her way, and I went down to the train station to try and meet her, but then realized she was at the tram station, which I had no idea where it was, and I didn't have any phone credit left to contact her, so I just started following one of the tram tracks and somehow ran into her. It was so great to see her pretty little face, and it was close to dinner time, so we decided to go find a bite to eat somewhere, and there happened to be a Thai place near my B&B so we just stopped in there and caught up over dinner a bit. After dinner we wandered into the city and walked around for a few hours, just enjoying the lovely evening, and exploring some parts of Goteborg I hadn't seen before, although it was a bit cold and I wasn't quite used to cold weather after the past few months of hot weather all the time. We eventually just stopped for some hot chocolates, and then she said she had to go home, which was unfortunate, since I had booked into the more private bed and breakfast instead of a hostel in case our romance from Asia was to continue, but then I was surprised when she told me she wouldn't be spending the night with me and had to go home....bummer but oh well! So I just walked her back to the train station and went on my way back home, kind of wondering how come it wasn't the same as it was back in Asia. I later found out it was more of a family and personal related matter, nothing that I had done wrong, but it was still a bit surprising to me at the time. I just sauntered back to my little loft and had a lonely sleep. 

Wandering the streets of G'berg

The next day I was thinking about going to Boras to meet Hilla or see if she would come into town, but she was busy doing things that day, so I had no real plans. Fortunately, I had another friend from Goteberg, Annie, whom I had met in Vietnam that was back in town for the summer, and managed to get a hold of her and try to figure out some plans. She was out of town for the day, but was meant to be returning in the evening, and said we could meet up for some drinks. I ended up just killing most of the day watching some tv and bumming around, before going for a bit of a walk to try and find the supermarket to get some food for dinner, but I wasn't able to find that so I just stopped by some small Asian restaurant and had some food there. Interestingly enough, out of the 2 days I had been in Sweden, I basically ate Asian food the whole time...weird! After dinner, Annie got back to me and told me to come meet her at a pub in the city, so I went in and found her at a pub that had some pretty cheap beers, but a lot of young and very drunk students who had just graduated from high school. Since the drinking age is a fair bit lower in Europe, you'll see lots of high schoolers out in clubs and what not, and this was a big occasion for these young students, since they were celebrating their graduation. The place was pretty loud, and we didn't really fit in there since we were just sitting at a table trying to have conversations while everyone around us was slobbering drunk and dancing around. Eventually we moved over to another part of the place that was a bit quieter, and just hung out there for a few hours, and before you knew it, it was getting pretty late, and there was only one last train for Annie to catch to head home. I had contemplated seeing if I should go with her, since we had also had a little thing in Vietnam going on, but opted to just go home instead, since I had to check out in the morning. 

The next day I woke up and was a bit late checking out, but the guy who owned the place was gone, so I packed up all my bags, and decided to head over to my friend Annie's place, whom I had been hanging out with the night before, as she said I could leave my stuff at her place for the day, as I had a 9:00 pm flight that night. So I made arrangements to meet her by her house at a tram stop which actually ended up being the same tram stop I used to get off at when I was last in Goteborg and staying with a couchsurfing guy. Hilariously enough, as we drove towards her apartment I soon found out she was in one of the apartment blocks right next to the one I had stayed at previously, fun stuff. We ended up just hanging around her place, chilling out, before heading off to meet her bisexual girlfriend for a drink before heading off to some gay festival that she wanted us to come along and support her at. So we stopped at the pub from the previous night for a few beers, and then wandered down to the park area, where we saw some pretty awesome and hilarious gay musical acts. A few of them were in English, and were pretty decent musical talents, and then of course there was some improv and acting skits in Swedish that I didn't understand, but all in all it was a pretty good time. Before walking into the festival grounds I did manage to grab this hilarious photo

Spice Girls spicing up my life!

And a small sample of some of the entertainment provided at the event. http://youtu.be/xmYa6A2JGyk

After the event, I had to run off to the train station where I was able to catch a bus to the airport and hang out waiting for my flight. For probably the first time ever, I was able to get rid of all my foreign currency in a country before leaving, so no hauling around a boatload of coins, win! 

I made the quick flight over to the UK, and I didn't have Karen's home address, where I was going to be staying, so I just marked down N/A on my immigration form, and of course, as per usual, the immigration guys were giving me grief. Every time I enter the UK, it seems like they always grill me so hard, and it's only the UK that I ever have issues entering, and this time was just more of the same, as the guy didn't like the N/A on my form, and told me he wasn't legally supposed to allow me to enter the country, blah. I told him I had Karen picking me up at the airport, and that he could call her to get her address if he wanted to, but he eventually let it slide since I had an outgoing flight booked for the first time. After that minor hassle, I entered into the arrivals hall and walked around and couldn't find her anywhere. I also hadn't seen her in a year, so I wasn't too sure if maybe I just didn't recognize her, so I wandered around a bit, until she kind of snuck up on me, and grabbed me. It was really super great to see her, and we went off to grab her car, while I picked on her a bit, asking how long they've let women drive in the UK for, and how I should probably drive, since I was going to be scared for my life with her driving. We made the hour and a bit drive back to her house in Lordswood, which is in the county of Kent, and we had a quiet night in. She had to go to class the next morning for a bit, so we just hit the sack and then she was off in the morning, returning a few hours later to wake my lazy ass up. We just hung around the house for a bit, where I met some of her family members, then we were on our way down to sunny Brighton. 

A few weeks earlier, Karen had found out about a Fatboy Slim concert down in Brighton, and grabbed us tickets to it, and had a friend living down there, so she made arrangements for us to go camp in his garden! We arrived in Brighton after the nice drive and found the streets to be tiny! We were able to find a spot near Ben's place, and were kindly greeted, and told we wouldn't have to sleep in the garden as a few other guests had cancelled, so there would be room in the place. We ended up hanging out there having some drinks and chilling out, until it was getting time to head down to the stadium where the concert was being held, but we had a few too many people for one cab, so we had to go in separate vehicles. I was in the first taxi to leave and we arrived at the one entrance, but realized one of the girls with us had her ticket with one of the guys from the second taxi, which had gone to a completely different entrance point, and we couldn't get a hold of them for awhile, so we had to just sit around waiting and waiting, while watching several very drunk British people stumbling around and puking their guts out. Eventually Ben showed up at the one entrance with the ticket for the one girl and we were able to enter. I had to laugh at the security check point as they had an "honesty bin" where you could put any drugs into it, since there wasn't meant to be any drugs in the stadium. Of course there appeared to be no one using the bin, and the security didn't even check any of our pockets or anything, so it wasn't very secure. We entered inside, and found that they had very few beverage stations to accommodate the 15 or so thousand people there, which was a bit frustrating, so we had to wait in line for quite sometime before we could grab some beers. After about 45 minutes of waiting, we finally had a few drinks, and were on our way inside to the open air stadium, which was quite nice. Carl Cox was starting off the night, and was a pretty good opening act. 

After hanging out and watching him spin some tracks, as well as witnessing a whole lot of obviously high people, and smelling several people smoking marijuana (what happened to the honesty bin!), it was time for Fatboy Slim to kick off. Before he started his set, we decided to grab a few more beers, and asked if anyone wanted any, and a few people did, so we told them to stay put and that we would be back with the drinks, so we went off to grab several more, which again took forever, and then made our way back to the area where none of our group remained...so much for standing still! So I went for a wander around, while Karen looked after the drinks, but the place was packed and I couldn't find anyone, so when I got back to her, I decided to put her up on my shoulders so she could see if she could see our group. At this point, one of the funnier moments happened, as she was pushing down on my hat over my eyes and I was holding on to her legs, when some gay man came up and kissed me on the lips and I couldn't fight him off! Brighton is well known for being the gay capital of England, and this further cemented its reputation! I was a bit taken aback but couldn't really do much and the guy just left... After this rather interesting incident, Karen came back down and we just stuck to the same spot, having to drink all the beers we had bought for the others, and just enjoyed the rest of the concert, until one of the others came over and grabbed us and showed us where they were all standing.  After the show was finished, everyone was keen to head on out back into town to find a pub for a few hours, so we waited in a ridiculous line for cabs, for about 45 minutes before they suddenly said that the cabs were done running, and that we would all have to take the buses instead (which were free anyways) so we piled on one of them and were on our way back into town. We found some pub near the train station, and spent 2 hours there or so and it was an alright place with some good live music and a decent dj as well. Eventually the night was coming to an end so we were back to Ben's place. 

Entering the rugby stadium for the big concert

Carl Cox turning the tables

Fatboy makes his appearance

Intense partayyyy!

After getting back to Ben's, we all just hung outside for awhile, but I was falling asleep on one of the chairs, and it was getting late, so it was time to call it a night. I went outside to fill up our air mattress with the electric pump plugged into Karen's car, and seemed to be making such little progress...the thing was so loud and at 4 am it was a bit interesting to witness I'm sure, especially considering two separate groups of people stopped by while I was pumping it up, asking if I could sell them drugs...apparently someone on the street at 4 am, inflating a mattress looks like a drug dealer ha ha. Eventually we realized that there were in fact two plugs, not one, so that's the reason it was taking so long to fill the damn thing up. Once that was sorted, we hauled it into the house, and grabbed a few hours of sleep. Everyone was up and about in the mid morning, so we wandered down to a nearby cafe to grab some breakfast, and had some damn good Eggs Benedict, before heading back to Ben's place to say our goodbyes. Karen and I did a little walking tour of the city, including checking out the world famous Brighton pier, which has a similar pier in Los Angeles modelled after it. Brighton is actually a very lovely city, especially when the weather is nice. After wandering around the pier awhile, but not stopping for any of the rides or arcade games, it was back to Ben's place to pick up the car and hit the road.

Hilarious name for a pub

Brighton Beach

yes English people sunbathe in clothing ha ha ha

Are you sure I have to be over 18 to get in? Pretty please?!

Hanging on the pier

Joined the Royal Family for a pic!

After our little afternoon wander around Brighton, we were on our way back to Lordswood, where we had to get ready for a wedding reception that Karen had been invited to. For the first time on my trip, I actually had a chance to go to a wedding, so I figured that would be a fun little experience. We arrived back at her place, where I met a few more members of her family, and then got ready for the wedding. Unfortunately, I only had a dress shirt, and nothing else presentable to wear to a wedding, but fortunately Karen's younger brother was a similar build to me, so I was able to borrow some dress pants and a belt for the event. We got ready for the wedding, then took a drive to a nearby town where we grabbed our hotel for the night, and then taxied it to the wedding reception. The reception was in a fairly expensive looking countryhouse, down some crazy small backroads. We arrived at a large house, and it didn't seem to be very wedding like. Our taxi driver spotted one guy sitting in the house watching tv and lamented that the wedding looked rather dull and unexciting ha ha. We were dropped off and tried to get into the building, but were unable to. After looking around a bit, and hearing some music coming from an area of the yard, we wandered down there and found a reception in a temporary tent, but Karen didn't initially recognize anyone, so we had to ask one of the groomsmen if we were at the right wedding, which we were.

So we tucked into the reception tent, just in time to avoid the rainfall that showed up shortly afterwards, and Karen spotted a few friends from school, so we grabbed some chairs and joined them. They were all pretty nice people, and people were quite friendly and interested in meeting the strange Canadian guy that showed up at the wedding. The guys there were particularly friendly and were pretty keen to poke fun at my Canadianess, often asking what's that all "aboot". They kept on with it throughout the night, but they were all pretty good and just joking around, so we had a pretty fun time for the few hours there. Unfortunately, the party was shut down around 11:30 pm, and some of the group were going into one of the nearby towns to a pub, but we were kind of tired and decided not to join them. The rain had become miserable, and several of the people had ordered a large taxi van to come pick them up, and the guy had decided to drive down the hill to the tent to pick them up...then hilariously, he only had front wheel drive and wasn't able to drive back up the grassy hill, due to the slipperyness.....after watching them struggle for about 15 minutes, I ran back down to help them push the vehicle up the hill, but to no avail...eventually they somehow got the vehicle up, but had done a real number on the grass, tearing it all up....too bad for the people who owned the place and rented it out for the ceremony! Eventually our taxi showed up, although he was fairly lost, as his dispatch had given him the wrong address, so we were the last ones to leave the venue. We got back to the hotel and that was a night.

Sketchy and hairy Canadian at a wedding...normally a recipe for disaster!

The next day, we checked out and headed back to Karen's place for me to pack up all my stuff and head into London to meet some of her friends for the Queen's Jubilee celebration. We hopped in the car with her mom and were driven to the nearest train station to grab the train into London. We arrived and the city was absolutely buzzing! They sure do love their queen there! There were cutouts of the Royal Family's photos, and people were wearing them, or else just carrying around Union Jack flags. Even the major buildings throughout the city seemed to have flags hanging everywhere, I even spotted a Scottish flag (didn't think they were too fond of the Queen, but apparently not the case). We had to fight through the huge crowds, which was a bit difficult considering I had my big bags with me, but we managed to eventually get into a less crowded street and make our way to the pub where several of Karen's friends from school were hanging out. We joined them for a drink, and I was able to get a nice 18 year old Scotch for about $8, win! After enjoying the Scotch, the whole group had plans to head off for dinner, as it was the birthday of one of the chaps. We wandered through the pouring rain to the nearby tube station, and I pulled out my Oyster card from my previous trip to London, thinking I might have just enough for a one way ride, but was surprised to find that I had 10 pounds on that thing, another win!

We hopped on the busy tube, and got off at Picadilly Circus, and wandered over to Chinatown where we found a pretty great restaurant, and were able to eat quite well for 12 pounds each. After our tasty dinner, Karen had to head off with everyone else to continue on with the birthday party, but I had to start making my way over to Heathrow Airport to catch my flight to Iceland, so we had to part ways, which was too bad, as I had an amazing few days with her, exploring southern England a bit. I hopped on the train, and arrived with plenty of time to spare. Soon enough I was on my way to gorgeous Iceland, where I'll finish up with my last post from.

Ciao,

Rye