Ljubljana, Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam..what next?!

Ljubljana Ljubljana Ljubjana. Try saying that three times fast, or even at all! Well, Loob-lee-ahna is the capital of this tiny wonder, Slovenia. Even though it rained my first day and was cloudy the next two days, it is really a beautiful place. Maybe the rain even helped the trees and the hillsides look even more beautiful and green! I stayed with a guy I met in South America so I was able to get the local tour and slightly touristy tour of Slovenia. He took me to the Karst Caves the first day, but I felt like he took me to Disneyland. All the stalagmites and stalagtites looked so fake, but it was definitely a unique experience. The next day was the most relaxing day I've had on this trip so far. I treated myself to a spa day and had a massage! It was wonderful but not something I'm about to get used to. On my last day in Ljubljana, I hiked (hardly a hike) to the castle on the hill. It was a beautiful castle and I was able to climb the tower to get a great view of the city. Ljubljana is like a small version of Paris or London. It has a river running through it and lots of bridges, but on a much smaller scale, so I like it a lot. The only thing missing was the wonderful company I had in the previous two weeks. Lucky for me, I was soon on my way to Budapest, where some of the people I met in Croatia were anxiously awaiting my arrival :) Or I would like to think so. I took a 7 hour bus, watched more movies in a row than anyone ever should, and arrived in rainy Budapest to find that the bus driver had thrown my backpack in a puddle, thank you Mr. Bus Driver. I got in touch with Jake and he met me at the metro station which was really nice because it was a dark and rainy ghost town where I was let off. We met up with the rest of the Aussies, Rory, James and Chien, and watched some Australian Football for a bit. The next day we went to the Terror Museum in the morning and then Chien and I went on those hop on/hop off sightseeing buses which was a perfect way to see the city since I was only staying 2 nights, and to get out of the rain. After a little over two hours on the bus I was pretty eager to walk again, but it was definitely worth it. James' parents were in Budapest a couple years ago and suggested a restaurant that has an all you can eat and drink buffet dinner so we decided to check it out. Such a good idea. Great food, great wine, great dessert, great night! After the all you can drink, we wanted to see what nightlife Budapest had to offer (on a Tuesday night). We ended up at a bar, completely empty, so we asked the young guy working there where we should go. He said there wouldn't be anything exciting on a Tuesday night, but we persisted, so he went over to the older gentleman, also working at the bar, if he had permission to take us out. The older gentleman turned out to be his dad, and he agreed to let him go. This place he took us to was full of people, good music and dancing, so Tuesday nights get the green light in my book! The next day we took a river boat cruise, said goodbye to Chien who was staying in Budapest longer, and the rest of us caught an afternoon train to Vienna. There were patches of blue sky along the way so I was getting my hopes up that Vienna would be nice. We got to the hostel a little after sunset, and there was already a lively crowd at the hostel bar. The hostel even served food, so we just ate there, the guys played some pool, and we decided a red bull vodka boat was a good idea. At some point I noticed there was blood on the front pocket of my pants. "Someone's bleeding!" Then I realized it was my finger that was bleeding, oops. Jake went to the front desk to get some emergency medical equipment and went to town bandaging my finger. I was starting to look like Edward Scissor hands and I think the bandage last about 27 seconds but it was the thought that counts. Thank you Dr. Jake you are a sweet sweet man. Ended up being a really fun night and we didn't even leave the hostel. That's what is so great about hostels with a bar, as long as there is a good crowd, you have everything you need. The next day was a full day of walking. We got directions to where to meet for a walking tour, we even saw the sign that said guided tours, but it didn't start for another hour. We killed some time by walking around and when we returned to buy our tickets, it ended up being an office for tours of the opera house. Oops! So when we found the right ticket office, there weren't any tours left for that day. The guys decided to go to a museum and I decided to just walk around on my own for a while. When we met up a few hours later, we went to a cafe in a park that used to be a huge greenhouse. Coffee is a pretty big deal in Vienna. That night, we wanted to actually leave the hostel so after dinner we had a few (ha) drinks at the hostel and went out to a club. I got drunk way too quickly so I ended up just going back, bummer for me. My brother, Jason, was already on his way to Prague so the next morning I went to the bus station to find out what time I could leave and meet him. The only time was 5pm that night, getting me to Prague around 9:30. Jason got in around 2pm so I was going to be a bit late, sorry! I watched more Australian Football, one of the final games before the championship game, at an Australian bar called The Roo Bar, while drinking an Australian beer, called Coopers. Wow, when I see that all together in one sentence I look like a serious Aussie wannabe. We walked around more that afternoon and had a final photo taken before saying our goodbyes. I am really happy to have met them and I hope I get to see them again when they venture through California.

Jason texted me that he had met some people at the hostel in Prague and were ready to go out when I got there. Oh man, I was really looking forward to a good sleep. I got to the hostel and had a hell of a time getting my room because the guy at reception wanted to be nice and put me in the same room as Jason. Yes, that is nice of him, but Jason already told me when he checked in that his room was full. I decided to trust the guy at reception and 3 phone calls, 6 people's questions, and fidgeting through 162 keys later, he took me to Jason's room and guess what? It was full! This baffled him, so I just asked if I could put my bags on Jason's bed and figure out my bed later because I just wanted to go see my brother! We hung out downstairs in the smokey dungeon bar before heading out for a drink with these two Polish guys. We met a girl from the States who has been living in Prague for 5 months now, teaching English. Seems like a pretty cool gig. We were back at the hostel around 1am and I was excited for a restful night, but what I got was an angry group of Irish boys who insisted on yelling about their problems in the room. I realize that I paid very little for a big dorm and loud people come with the territory, so it's not really a big deal. The next morning I moved into a 5 bed dorm, muuch better. Jason felt sick, not from drinking, actually sick, so he stayed in bed until noonish while I went downstairs and enjoyed some cereal. I was finally able to get Jason out of bed by telling him his vacation was too short to spend it in bed! It worked, and we were out the door. Prague is a maze made to confuse tourists, or so we both agreed. On our way to the main square, we ended up on Amerika street and while looking at the map, a friendly chap pointed us in the right direction. I bought another coat since it's not getting any warmer, and we walked all over. We had a great dinner at Cafe Louvre and on our walk back to the hostel we felt like we were heading in the wrong direction again. Soon after expressing this to each other, we were on Amerika street again! So we got lost twice in one day and ended up on the same street, called AMERIKA street. Weird if you ask me, or Jason! The next morning I woke up feeling sickly :( I was getting so close to making it all 5 months without catching a cold, but just like the weather getting worse, I can't expect perfect conditions the whole time. Our second day out, we avoided Amerika street and made it to a tourist office to ask about tours, either walking or by boat. We found a boat tour for later that afternoon so in the meantime we walked around and had a really good lunch. I ate really well while Jason was here, and that doesn't necessarily mean more expensive, just lucked out by finding really good restaurants. After the boat tour we went to see the new (new for me) Batman! It was a fun experience seeing a movie in a different country. I could get used to this :) Another great meal for dinner and it was back to the hostel to nurse my cold, which was not getting better like Jason getting over his cold in less than 24 hours, jerk. The next day we went to the bus station to figure out where to go and when. We played with the idea of Oktoberfest, but I think it was for the better that we didn't go since I was sick, so we decided on Leipzig. I don't really know how, but we heard it was a nice city. When we got to the bus station, we found out there were no buses to Leipzig, soo change of plans. Jason went to Berlin years ago so I felt bad going to a place he has already been, but he said he didn't mind and would actually enjoy going back. So Berlin it was. The bus didn't leave until 6pm so we had time to go to Prague Castle and I'm so glad we did. The castle is up on a hill and there is an entire city up there. The gardens are beautiful and the buildings are immaculate. We saw the changing of the guards and a small hot air balloon that carries no more than 3 people up above the river for a 360 degree view of the city. Back to the bus station, we found somewhere to spend the last of our Czech crowns and I collapsed in my seat on the bus. Being sick just makes everything harder. We arrived in Berlin after 10pm, hopped on the S ring train (Berlin is supposed to have the best public transportation), got off at Landsberger Allee, but that's where our directions ended. I heard music in the distance, and there wasn't a lot around, so said to Jason, "that might be it." He wasn't convinced so we kept walking. The music was coming from a massive building, like a 7 story hotel, but it had lots of blue lighting that caught my eye. When I booked the hostel online, I looked at the pictures and there were two pictures from the bar that had blue lighting. When we turned a corner, we could see the front of the building and sure enough, it was the hostel. I have never seen a hostel the size of a 7 story hotel, so it looked pretty exciting. Well the only exciting part about it was our roommates who were 24-28 because everyone else in the hostel was on a school trip...probably freshman and sophomores..in HIGH school! When we walked into our room, our roommates were drinking some beers and offered us one. It was so nice being greeted! We went downstairs to the bar, had another beer and then the guys joined a poker game. Still trying to get better, I went upstairs to sleep. The next day was rainy, but we only had two days in Berlin so we forced ourselves to go out. We walked to the Reichstag, the Brandeburger Gate, The TV tower, the world clock the East Side Gallery (the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall. Back at the hostel, I took a much needed nap, but woke up feeling worse :( I got it together and we invited our Irish roommate to go get dinner with us. Another successful meal and more walking. The next day we went to the bus station and bought an overnight ticket to Amsterdam, the reason Jason came out here in the first place. Our second and last day in Berlin consisted of exploring off the beaten track. We walked through a big park and ended up behind the zoo, so we saw a lot of the second string animals. While looking for a restaurant for dinner, we were discouraged by the first two menus we read, and started walking down a street that looked even less promising until turning the corner onto restaurant heaven. The first menu we saw looked great, and again, it was. I've been drinking all the hot tea I can get my hands on, just trying to make myself feel better whenever I can. We were anxious about the overnight bus, in a good and bad way. Soo excited for Amsterdam, but dreading the 10 hours. At least it marks the last of the extremely long journeys for me, until my flight home :) The two guys behind us kept going to the bathroom to smoke which was annoying, and I had a minor coughing fit around 3 or 4am, but we made it and couldn't be happier. We checked into our hostel around 7am and went back to sleep until breakfast at 10. We relaxed for a while, made it out of the hostel early afternoon and were pleasantly surprised by the great weather. I met a dutch guy, Robin, in Cusco, Peru who lives in Amsterdam so we had plans to meet up that night. It was Thursday night, so just like Santa Barbara, it was college night. Jason and I sat at an Italian restaurant to have some wine before meeting Robin and his friend Luke. They took us to their usual Thursday night bar which was a lot of fun, before heading to their usual Thursday night club. The club is an old converted church so it's huge and it was really fun! We danced the night away and I fell through a door. Ok, let me explain. When Jason and I got back to our hostel, we were talking in the hallway before going into our room. I leaned against the wall and well, it wasn't the wall, it was a door and it wasn't latched shut so I went right through onto my bum into someone else's room. Probably startled them a bit, it startled me too! The next day we changed hostels to a more lively one, The Flying Pig. We checked in pretty early, so a lot of people in our room were still sleeping. Jason tried to get more sleep, but the cleaning people came in and tried to wake him up to tell him to check out. He was like "no no, I just checked in." Just let him be man! When we finally got ourselves out of the hostel, it was lunch time so we sat alongside a canal to eat. We had read about a non-profit group that does canal tours in a small boat (10 people max) that is based on donations. We liked the sound of this, so we got the last two spots on the next boat leaving and away we went. The people on our boat were so nice, offering us beers, wine, strawberries, etc and our "tour guide" if I can even call him that, was more like a friend telling us interesting facts about the city. We learned about the bridge that is most popular for proposing, the twin sisters bridge that was built between the houses of twin sisters because they were too lazy to walk any more than they had to when they met for tea, the controversial architecture of the opera house and more. That afternoon was once again nap time. Being sick is not fun! We wanted to do something outside of Amsterdam so on Jason's last day we took a tram, train, bus, ferry and another bus to get to Texel, and island in northern Holland. There was only a little bit of information in my guidebook about Texel, so we didn't know exactly what to expect. We told the bus driver we wanted to go to town, where ever there were shops and restaurants, and close to the beach. This seemed ok, so when we started seeing hotels and lots of other people were getting off the bus, we joined them. We were pretty hungry by this point, so after some lunch we asked where the tourist information center was. Well, the english in Texel is not as great as in Amsterdam (Dutch people speak almost flawless english), so the girl started to tell me "yes, you can get information on yours and excursions." She knew the word 'excursions' but she couldn't explain where it was. She started to say it was miles away. Miles!? Oh no, kilometers. Right, ok, but where? Her blank stare made me think she had no clue what I was saying. We decided to go find a hotel and ask them, but they must have been on Dutch siesta because no one was around. Our next plan was to get back on the bus because maybe we didn't take it far enough. I did a kartwheel while waiting for the bus and little did we know, this would be our last photo in town. The bus drove in cirlces and ended up taking us back to the port. We could have taken it all the way back to town or where ever we were, but it was getting to be late afternoon and we didn't know when the last train was back to Amsterdam. We just went to the beach near the port, and that was fine with us. I chased some birds, some german shepards chased me and that was our day in Texel. After the ferry, then a bus, train, and tram, we were back in Amsterdam and hungry again. I feel like that's all I do, or write about at least. We had thai food and the night before we had mexican food. I guess Dutch food is pretty bad, but I'm not really sure what it even consists of. Robin was telling me it is stews and mash, but he doesn't care for it. So after our thai dinner, it was back to the hostel for Jason to pack :( I'm lucky to have a nice brother who agreed to take home a lot of my hot weather clothes, thank you! So my bag is now lighter and I am happier, except for the fact that I would rather be wearing the clothes I sent home because that would mean warm weather again, oh well. So, bye bye Jason and hello country life. Well, not really, I was just leaving Amsterdam to stay at Robin's family's home in Amstelveen, about 30 minutes outside of the city. I was greeted by his two energetic dogs and his bubbly parents. They offered me lunch and we sat out back in the sun (it was the hottest and last warm day I had in Holland). They asked me tons of questions, so I'm afraid that might have been a preview of what it's going to be like when I get back in 3 weeks. I think if anyone starts asking me too many questions, I'll just write the link to my blog on their forehead. Just a heads up! That afternoon Robin took me to a stretch of river where they have preserved 6 or 7 windmills that has become a touristy destination. They have a cheese factory, souvenir shops and boat tours. I just wanted to see the windmills, so we walked around for less than an hour so I could get some photos. Next, we went to a fishing village, Volendam, where I tried some traditional Dutch food like raw herring. It was really good and the village was really picturesque. We drove back for dinner with the family and his sister was home now. She just moved back from Italy and is working for KLM airlines. So, they are a very nice family and I'm very grateful that they are putting me up, or putting up with me for 4 nights. Robin is taking journalism classes during the week at a University about 75 minutes from his home and his parents and sister all work, so I lounged around yesterday morning, started this blog, then went back into Amsterdam to see the other side of the city that Jason and I didn't explore. I accidentally passed through part of the red light district, which they actually do tours through so it probably wasn't that weird that I was there, but I definitely wanted to keep moving since there were dirty men lingering around. I walked through the huge street market that stretches about 2 kilometers, went to a couple different squares that Robin's dad had pointed out to me on the map, walked through a flower market filled with tulips, oogled at some shoes that I want to buy but didn't, and came back home. FINALLY I am up to date. Today I went with Robin to his University town, Utrecht. He had class and I walked around until it started raining a bit too much for my liking. It is a smaller version of Amsterdam so it was love at first sight. I love that everyone rides bikes here, I love wooden clogs, tulips, dutch cheese, tall people, and most things Dutch. What I don't love is that it rains a lot here and the beach isn't 3 blocks away, so I could never live here. Well, this blog has exhausted me and I'm sure you are as well, I'm sorry but it had to be done :) Until next time..

Prost!