Czech Republic

It was really nice to keep the cheap beer experience flowin' in the Czech Rep. and to my surprise, the beer was even better and cheaper!!!!!!!!!! I was in heaven, but we'll talk beer later. For now................


Prague

Arriving in Prague was really exciting because I had heard so much about it, and I didn't want to be disappointed. I went and grabbed a spot (32 bed dorm room) in a hostel (The Clown and Bard) that was about 20 minutes from the old town, but had everything I needed, and for über cheap. 300 Czech krowns (15$) a night including a fat breakfast, the best I've had so far, and an awesome bar. Happy hour at the hostel bar was 2 for 1 beers, meaning 20 krowns for a full Liter of ice cold, mouth watering Budweiser on tap.........Budweiser you ask? Yes, Budweiser!!! The original Budweiser that the american Busch company stole the name, and none of the taste from. You see, the name in Czech is Budvar, which represents the Budvar area, especially Cesky Budejovice (which will come later), and Budvar in german is pronounced Budweis, thus the Budweiser beer company......... Trust me! The Czech Bud is superb! and especially at 1$ a Liter in a bar, and ice cold...........my first evening in Prague and the Czech Rep., I knew I was going to fall in love with this place...........I don't need much usually, but this was right up my alley.

The first thing I did when arriving at the hostel (well before hittin the bar), I emailed Andre to tell her I had arrived, and where I was staying, hoping she would email me back her coordinates. And while I was doing that I heard the good old Quebecer accent behind me. So after my email I started talking with Imeric, and Mathieu from montreal, representing ahuntsic and hochelaga respectively. These were two stand up dudes, and we spent the whole day exploring the city as they hadn't checked it out either. We also hooked up with a super amicable dude from San Francisco that also spoke french, and another awesome guy from Malibu that turned out to blow away the super rich spoiled kid from malibu misconception, even though he had come from that world. The Malibu dude, Cody, was top drawer and I was incredibly glad to have met him. You can see the crew on the Charles Bridge (pic right), and especially Imeric with his Rene Levesque T-shirt. He specifically wears something that only Quebecers, and some canadians, would be able to identify..........a little insider fun.........


Checkin out the city, and thus old town, the recurring thought is that everything is beautiful, and there's so much of it..........It's huge!!!! Every building is gorgeous..........It's just one after another, so you walk around in sheer amazement. I can honestly say Prague is the most beautiful city I have seen thus far. The main square is massive, and the clock is really something (pic left). Story has it that it was a genius engineer that designed and built the amazing clock mechanism for the King. The king didn't want the engineer building a clock for anyone else so that he would have the best clock in the world. So. The king arranged a cheap shot and somehow got the engineer blind through an "accident". The clock builder was wise though cause he broke into the clock tower, and removed a single piece that no one could ever identify, for a hundred years to come, and the clock remained stagnant. It was only about 40 years ago that modern technolgy allowed to identify the missing piece. Atleast the clock maker had his revenge.

Walking around itself is enough, but there are particular monuments that really stick out. The Charles Bridge (pic right) leading across the Vltava river towards the Prague Castle (behind in pic on right) is quite amazing. The bridge has statues lining it all the way across, and the castle is just humungous with huge inner courtyards, guards (pic left), and even complete with its own church. Another one of those things you just have to see with your own eyes.

Well after a good first day of sightseeing, me an the boyz hit the hostel bar for those illustrious Buds (pic left), and we didn't have time to eat so we let things tumble through a liquid dinner. We were actually all fine, and had a great night. During our little man to man over beer talk (all men know this one) I had the most amazing surprise ever! My little sweetness walked into the bar as I was about to go to the WC (pic right with Imeric). We could've misseed each other over 2 minutes, but no! We walked right into one another, and I was star strucken.........maybe the alcohol helped a bit, but man was I ever happy and in awe! As I keep on telling Andre, after 5 or 6 beers, she's the most beautiful woman in the world (slurring of course)...........I'm kiddin, I'm kiddin!............I do say that to her, but it is a joke, and she knows I'm a dipshit! .............I really do love this chick.........damn she's fit ! .....in body and in mind. And she is of course the most beautiful woman in the world......stone cold sober!

After two days at my hostel, I moved down to the one Andre was staying at. More central and a smaller dorm size. We had to say goodbye to the two Quebecers as they were skippin town already, but we got a perfect montrealer farewell (pic left) especially with hockey season just around the bend. I had a lot of fun meeting the friends Andre had made over the last couple of days, and we partied and had loads of fun all together. We also went pedal-boating, and just check out the smile on this one (pic right). She just loves water! Elle etait folle comme de la merde! We were out there with our new friends (pic left). Sweetie little awesome firecracker full of energy german chickies, Ianna and Sonia, and a really cool dude from Brasil, Matteos. A was a really chill and relaxing ride, as you can see (pic right).

Prague is the city that I had really high expectations for, and it didn't disappoint. On the contrary! It was even better than I could've imagined. It was also good to have seen Prague after, Budapest, Krakow, and Bratislava (as some people had pointed out) because it is the ultimate. Seeing the other cities after Prague would've maybe lessened their beauty, as I would've been comparing them to Prague all the time. I think it is easier to enjoy yourself because everything is cheap.........especially the beer. In a supermarket, you can get local "crappy" brands that are actually really good and much better than the commercial stuff back home, and here they are 5 krowns........that's right! 25 cents for a 0.5L.......simply amazing.

Even going out to bars doesn't hurt the wallet at all, so you can have an extra beer and not worry about all of the money you are spending. We also tried a little absynth but nothing crazy. It was fun to have some, but it's nothing like it was back in the day. The thujone content is around 10 mg/ml, not the 40 and above it was in yesteryear.

Prague kicks ass, and I would go back anytime...........ANYTIME!

Before we move on though, I have to show you the amazing can of sausages, I guess, for sale in a supermarket in Prague. I mean seriously! Check out the drewl! It didn't really give me the interest to buy some and try it out.

Kutna Hora

Just outside of Prague is the town of Kutna Hora. This place is famous because of the Bone Church. It is actually an oscillary but amazing nonetheless. The priest at the time had gone to Jerusalem and brought back sand from the holy land and sprinkled it all over the earth of the surrounding cemetary so everyone wanted to be burried there. The problem came during the Plague as bodies piled up, and after time, there were 40,000 bodies in an area about the size of a basketball court. So...........a later priest had the idea to put the bone remains to use. He hired a designer or architect of some sort, and this was the end result (pics left + right). The mini oscillary basement is littered with well-organized human bone ensembles. It is kinda macabre but incredibly beautiful at the same time.

There were 4 massive pseudo-tombstones, one on each corner of the church, and they were all different, but individually built with a specific bone theme (example with skull pic left........other with leg + arm bones). It's still eerie though to see and realize all of this was made with remains of people that once lived (pic right).

The masterpiece is the chandelier, that is made with every bone in the human body atleast once (pic left), and the chain links are made with jaw bones. There's also the royal family's emblem (pic right), complete with the bird on the shoulder of a man. It's all so clean but dirty at the same time. Weird yet cool!

That' s the extent of Kutna Hora. And then..............


Karlovy Vary


The wonderous spa and thermal bath town. No wonder there's lots of money rollin around here. People coming for weekend getaways and shopping and stuff.......don't get me wrong, it's actually a gorgeous town with the canal running all the way through it, the pastel coloured houses, (pic right) and the guesers right down town (pic left). We scored a great hostel that was a full appartment, and shared it only with an awesome Taiwanese girl named Belle. It was a little expensive but it gave us time to relax a little.

back to Prague 2 hours and then take a bus 3 hours to get there instead of going through Plzen cause of the lack of bus and train connections......but but but........very important, on top of the travel challenge was the fact that the Pilsner Urquell brewery is in Plzen. The origins of beer in europe and some of the tastiest beer around. We wantThen we streamed on down through forbidden zone towards Cesky Budejovice in the southwestern part of the Czech Rep. I say forbidden cause it is usually faster to go all the wayed to stay a night in Plzen and do the tour of the brewery but there was no room left so during the connection we high tailed it to the brewery for one beer (pic right). There was 1 hour and a half stopover in Plzen but it's a 45 minute walk from the bus to the train station, so just enough time to run to the brwerey, down a beer and run back to catch the train. There was also a human size chess board (pic left) with massive heavy pieces and Pilsner propaganda.....I wanted to play but no time of course.........imagine getting a little tipsy at the brewery and trying to lug around big wooden pieces and actually making smart moves........actually sounds like a lot of fun.

and then straight to.............


Cesky Budejovice

This was supposed to be a nice quaint town with the old town again, but it became more important as a silver medal for another awesome brewery.........The BUDVAR or as the yanks and germans call it, BUDWEISER ! That's right..........if you go back to the Prague description above, you'll see all of the info. So we checked out the town.......very nice old square (pic right).....but the brewery tour was like Disney World for me..................BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR !!!!!!!!!!!!............I loved it, and Andre actually really enjoyed it also.

We went through all of the steps of the process and saw all the various rooms, including the malting room where the malt is added to the water, and the bitter brew is made in the huge bronze vats (pic left). And then the cooling rooms after the yeast is added and the now alcoholic mixture is chilled (pic right), and we get an ice cold taste test straight out of the mega kegs........several of them, and one to take on the road towards the packaging area.

The pacakging area was really impressive too with all the automated areas, and the engineering that goes behind it.........the recycling of bottles as filling and capping........really impressive and I loved it. Got some cool pics too (right).


So, other than the brewery, the town was cool, the hostel was a perfect cheap student dorm, and we got to relax a bit again.

and then we came to the perfect little town of..................



Cesky Krumlov
This is actually an amazingly beautiful town. The hostels are good and cheap. Good night life. And it is all surrounded by water. The river actually forms a loop and almost cuts back on itself. There's also a cool castle a top a hill (pic left), and overall gorgeous cobble stone streets and all that jazz. We really enjoyed it.

The highlight was the float down the river (pic left)..........That's right !.......I pity the fool that mess with Mr. T.. I got me a mohawk.....Andre did it for me with some clippers....Good fun..... We took a lift up the river by car, and rented a raft to take us back to Cesky. It was so relaxing and perfect, except for the mini falls to cross as we made our way down. It was another gorgeous day, and we had a lot of fun going under the tree leaves along the way (pic right).


The biggest surprise, but incredibly good one, is the fact that Andre is really becoming part of my life and everyday thoughts. I wasn't sure what I wanted before since I kinda was scared to start a REAL relationship while travelling, especially since I had been travelling independently for 4 months. Now I do know that I need her.................in my life...............She's a dipshit just like me, and she's my ray of sunshine ...............I am so happy, and incredibly lucky to share this experience with her.

Well................you see I'm happy, and things are great, so I wish everyone the same, and stop bitchin if it ain't!

ciao,

Raf

Hungary


So...........in order to get a decent loop in eastern europe, we decided (more like I decided and Andre was nice enough to bend) to go through northern hungary so that we could come back towards Czech Rep. after, and then follow towards Austria in order to be close to Munich for Oktoberfest. While dipping through northern Hungary, we stopped at Eger for a night since it was supposed to be nice and it has great wine cellars. It would've been even better to stop by lake Balaton but it is too far south, and we didn't want to get off course. The itinerary was to do a short clockwise loop from Poland to Prague, so only a quick stay in Hungary.


Eger

We thought it would be a small, not too touristy town with lots of accomodation, especially at this time of year, but ney! We finally were appraoched by a little lady offering to stay in a private room at her place, and for a decent price, 5000 forinth a night. Money is large bills in Hungary, 1$ is worth 160 forinth so no worries (pic left). We hadn't tried the "zimmer frei" yet, and it seemed like a good option, but it turned out to be rather shitty, for various reasons. The town itself was nothing exceptional.........granted it was a nice old town, kinda medieval with the big castle fortress, and nice square and cobble-stone streets but I think our context made it a little less spectacular.

The little lady that took us in, Maria, didn't speak any english, that's fine but she just said our names in an annoying high pitchy tone and pointed to things and always said "problema, problema", and when Andre was in the shower, Maria kept on knocking on the door, and saying "Andrea, Andrea" and speaking Hungarian so obviously Andrea just kept on saying, "I'm in the shower, I'm naked" and Maria kept on knocking..............so kinda annoying. Most of the little ladies with the private rooms is not exactly that. It is a room in their house so you have the family or little lady in your face all the time. Some of them know how to receive people and give them their space while others like Maria was on our asses the whole time, and you could see it was just for the extra cash. Not hospitable at all. So that put a damper on the Eger experience, and we decided to hit the wine cellars in the afternoon, and then go straight to Budapest. I keep on seeing my future car everywhere in eastern europe. I don't even know the make but it looks so rough and old and tiny, but man it's got character........and check out the eastern station wagon version (pic right) so cool! Not the friggin huge north american cars we're used to.

The wine cellars were really cool! You walk out of town for about 15 minutes, and you're on the vineyard countryside. There's a nice statue of Bacchus sitting on his wine casket, welcoming you to the wine cellars. There are about 20 or so little cellars with the merchants there, ready to serve you their wine for a taste. It's dirt cheap and really good wine. Have a glass for about 70 forinth, and then fill up your nalgene bottle (1L) for about 300 forinth. 2 bucks for a liter of really good wine straight from the maker himself is the way to go. So we tasted a few wines (pic left), each filled up our nalgenes, and took off to Budapest..........pretty happy!......meaning tipsy...........


Budapest


So, another lady approached us at the train station offering a room, but not just a room, a full appartment that was in between bookings so we got it for 35 euro a night. A real good deal, super clean and spacious, and check out the inner courtyard (pic left). It gave us a good base to check out the city.

And what a gorgeous city it is. You have the Buda and Pest parts of the city that are divided by the Danube river. The Pest side is the more flat, business side, with shopping and more modern stuff, but still great architecture and huge buildings. The Buda side is more hilly, and green, and older with more monuments, and churches, and great views of the Danube and Pest side (pics left + right). I really had a great time walking through the whole city.





One full day of walking and checking everything out. A church in a cave, the castle, the amazing church with, again, a mosaic colourful roof (left), and the parliament (right)........kinda kicks Ottawa's ass hey! Then, as the sun was setting, I was able to get some really nice pics of the Buda side (bottom left and right).





It was really ironic, and thus shitty, that Andre and I reached our personal space limit in Budapest. It had been 3 weeks that we were together 24/7, and we told each other that we needed to plan ahead and take some time each on our own in order to keep things fresh and sane, but it was hard cause we wanted to see all of the same things, and you kinda don't want to break. I say ironic, of course, cause Budapest is divided into the Buda side, and Pest side. I ended up being, of course, the Pest and Andre was the Buda. Fitting I guess. The space bubble had been lagging for a few days, and it errupted in Budapest, and we knew it would come some day soon. It was a little rougher than I let on, but in the end we visited Budapest each on our own side, and then talked about everything we had seen when we got back to the appartment. It felt good to talk about it like that. "Hey check out what I saw today" type of thing.



Bratislava (Slovak Capital)

We then took the train together from Budapest, direction Prague, but I got off in Bratislava, and Andre kept on to Prague. It was a weird train ride, and when I got off, I didn't know when and if I'd see her again, cause I kinda gave her the impression I needed my space, and honestly it was hard to be with someone all the time after travelling alone for 4 months (not alone alone, but on my own and meeting people...........more independent). We had the stereotypical little kisses through the window as I got off the train.

Bratislava is a pretty nice city with the old town, and castle (pic left) ...........AGAIN............it's kinda lack-luster after a while.........old town.........castle......It's beautiful but I guess cause I was there alone, and had a lot on my mind, I couldn't enjoy it. It's cool though cause it's the capital of Slovakia, but it feels like a little village...........but so friggin touristy. Of course all of the nice places are touristy but it kills the atmosphere seeing all of the corporate signs like Nike, and McDonald's in the old town luring tourists to spend their money. So I checked out the city, and walked across the cool bridge (pic right) to see the castle from the other side of the Danube river again. It is worth the visit, but one day is enough. I would've stayed more than a day but it was a little expensive, especially for Slovakia.

It was really nice to get back to hostels and meet people cause alone in the private rooms and stuff, Andre and I were always alone, no alterior interaction, and that's what sped up the detachment. I met some super cool people at the hostel, where we were watched by another bust of Lenin, like in Krakow. It was awesome, but that's all I needed, contact with others. I wanted Andre to be there so bad and meet these people, and we could have fun meeting others and talking with others but together. That's all I needed.........we just can't always be alone together all the time. It would never happen like that in any other setting so it's only normal. So I realized I absolutely needed her with me on this trip and in my life! One day away and I was almost sweatin'! She's like a pusher...........one little taste and I was hooked..........I needed more!

So after my night in Bratislava, I took the bus to Prague to hopefully meet up with my sweetie. It was actually cheaper to take the train to Bratislava from Budapest, spend a night there, and take a bus to Prague, then to just take the train straight to Prague from Budapest so it was a perfect stop over. I saved money!

So atleast I have a little more direction now, and can't wait to see Andre...............

See you in Praha people !

SLOVAKIA

Stary Smokovec

Well, we made it over the Tatra mountains, and thus over the border into Slovakia. It was a short 50 minutes minibus ride through the mountains. Not too scary. Actual roads! Andre and I went straight to the perfect base camp town of Stary Smokovec. A really cool little town right at the foot of the mountains, leading to a vast amount of trails, which also host an array of pensions and refuges all throughout. We scored a very crass hostel, but it was very cheap.......Perfect! It was only for two days anyways.

It was a nice continuation of the eastern style just like Poland. The people are rather rougher and not as welcming in Slovakia though, but who cares cause the beer is even cheaper! I can't believe how good and cheap the beer is around here. Like 40 cents canadian for half a liter of beer, and that's what's cool too, a regular beer bottle is 0.5L. I really feel like I'm missing out if I don't have atleast one beer with every meal and then as a digestif, and then atleast another for good measure.

I kinda got carried away one night though (pic) with some bad people it seems. I woke up the next morning missing a liver. It's all good though, I still have three more! And check out the cashmoney! Dollarbills baby! I kid, I kid......... It was a montage for shits and giggles, but our money is worth 25 Slovak crowns so we got big bills. It was fun to roll around in bed with all the money!

What was really impressive about the area is that there was a horrible tornado and storm, that the Slovaks call the "calamita" only two years ago. You can see the devastation in the alley of the cyclone as huge amounts of trees were completely derooted and it rendered the path of the tornado into a sort of wasteland (pics left and right). It's a kinda weird oxymoronic or bitter-sweet type of beauty. The illuminating oranges of the sun-burnt grass just screams out at you in the daylight, contrasting the greens of the trees left behind. It was quite beautiful.

Well we came here to hike so we went on an amazing day hike up a relax path, and decided to go until we couldn't take it anymore. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we couldn't ask for anything more. It was seriously just as nice as the Pyrenees in terms of scenery and lushness of the greens. So breathtaking! We decided to follow the river and waterfalls (pic left + right) all the way up. Just amazing! There were so many good pics taken cause the whole area is just perfect so every picture is gorgeous.......hint hint.....go check the other pics on snapfish if you're interested.

Of course I had to get the best spots for some pictures as everyone else just watched and laughed at the stupid monkey man work his way over, but hey, it was worth it (pic left). And the pic on the right also gives a sweet impression on the disgusting backdrop we had to put up with. You can see the massive waterfall just starting near the left bottom of the pic. I mean seriously! When the hell is someone gonna invest in some condos or something. Ransack the whole place and get some soft-wood lumber action going. And I couldn't even find a McDonald's anywhere.........Dispicable!

Getting back to the trek. It was an easy lazy day but we were both a little under the weather so it was perfect. It was actually the warmest day we had seen in over 3 weeks, and we were up in the mountains! It felt so nice to get some heat, some Vit. D, and bask in the wonders of nature (pics).

We finally got to our final destination as the sun was setting behind the mountains, so we decided to enjoy the view and relax a little before heading back down (pics). Again.........check out the sweetness that's on my arm. And anyways it's only fitting in this gorgeous scenery........look at the word "gorgeous", I have it all in this picture, the "gorge", and the "ass". hehehe!


Kosice

So we went straight to the 2nd biggest city in Slovakia after Bratislava, Kosice. It fit nicely for our itinerary, and we wanted to see some caves not too far away. Not much to see in Kosice other than a nice but very small old town, one day max is enough there.........but atleast the people of Kosice are very secure and know how to avoid dangerous situations as exemplified by this sign outside of a bank (pic left) NO JOKE! The old town is quite nice though, and the church had a very nice colourful mosaic style roof (pic right). Seems to be a common theme throughout the former Soviet oppressee countries, as you will see in later blogs.

The main reason to stop over here though was because of the caves in the town of Jasov, just 45 minutes away. They didn't disappoint! Oh man, I felt like such a Japanese going through that place taking pictures of anything and just aweing at every corner. Really really really cool! (pics......go see snapfish!) The caves are called Jasovsky Jaskyna, and are stalagmite caves with the rocks being fomed one drop at a time but that's as much as we understood since we could only have the tour in slovak............goes along well with my Jap analogy since I wasn't listening to anything the guide was saying.

I immensely enjoyed that experience! It was fun too cause you felt as if you were in another world, and as soon as you step behind closed doors, you feel the cold and dampness right away all over your body. Kinda spooky! There was actually a bat that was flying back and forth between me and Andreanne right at the beginning. It was so exhilerating seeing come towards my face with its wings spanned. Andreanne didn't enjoy it as much I believe.

We then had a little time before the bus went back to Kosice so we went to check out the town. It really looked like a very simple southamerican village in the middle of buttcrack nowhere, and the villagers even looked peruvian or something. Kinda eerie in Slovakia. We also found a really peaceful field, and had fun doing the stereotypical kitchy things (pics). Right shmoopy kins! It was actually really fun (ketaine style calisse!) I love this girl!

Next stop...........Hungary!........until next time............

love ya.............masdroveeya (pronounced not written........means cheers and good health in Polish, Slovak, and Czech)