The tailbone is creepy

prague is amazing.


think about that.


it is so beautiful. because czech got over taken before ww2 got too far in, it is very untouched. i went to an 11th century church. there werent as many people in it as notre dame, so the environment wasnt as crazy with people and it seemed airier. i made the mistake of wanting to go up to the top. which i didnt realize how much of a pain it would be. 287 spiral staircase steps. and the night before i went out and tried shots of czech vodka which tastes like christmas. but all the one-way spiraling was out of control. in the staircase, it was two-way and at one point, you hit a dark spot, where you are trying to feel your way up and around without falling down or knocking someone else over. but the view at the top... wow. just wow. coming back down definately wasnt as bad as up. i got wicked lost that day too, which is always good. but there is some sweet people in this hostel. not to say there hasnt been before here, but i'm staying longer since prague is awesome. i went to kutna hora too where the bone church is. it was a lot like the monestary in rome, except here they disinfected the bones first, making them real white-washed. also i think the bones are that of black plague victims instead of monks. the cleaness of the bones was kind of crazy though becuase it disattaches you from thinking that the bones were once humans. like you could be looking at plastic molds or something. most people there thing that it is a little weird, but i rather think bones are really cool. except the tailbone... that bone is just plain creepy. the way it curves and has those holes in it.. yuck. there was this chandelier that was made up of all the bones in the human body, but i wonder if they included the ear bones too. those are really small. i dont even know what an ear bone looks like. the train back took 2 hours instead of an hour and seemed rather local, they didnt even check my ticket! i just pretended i was czech, not sure if it really worked or not though. we went to the market the other day, it was ok. i need a scarf, and didnt really find any orange ones i wanted (need to be orange). and the canadian was psyched about a punk rock concert, so thats where we went last night. the first band played american covers of songs, lost of ac/dc. when they started we were like, what is going on here! i'm not really into punk, but it was good. i'm staying another two nights before i go to olomouc, czech. and then to warsaw poland. there is an old polish-austrailian guy staying at the hostel and he taught me how to say hello. "Chest" that's how it sounds like anyways. he gave me good tips on travelining in poland and said in zyweic, they would be helpful in looking up family. it's also pronounced differently than any of us think, but i cant remember exactly how. and then we had to talk politics. great. and apparently, austrailia has some wild animals. like house cats taht are huge from living in the wild, and boar hunters that go out with dogs and knives and kill huge 150kg boars for fun, and big eagles of prey, and 8 of the top 10 most poisonious snakes. one of the guys here hunts boars. he just has these real crazy stories about it, but i dont think i ever want to get around a boar since apparently if you are hurt and cant move and are alone, they will start to eat you. that doesnt seem like a very pleasant way to die, if you ask me.

i have 7 new german roomates... they have begun smoking like crazy in my room. i really dont like my clean clothes to smell like smoke. needless to say, not in the best mood about it.

wicked cold

i left berlin early and went to leipzig. which just so happens to be where johannes sebastian bach lived and worked. so i saw his grave and everything- which i wasnt expecting. just happened upon on the first day. it was really nice to see a german town taht isnt all new buildings. i met three american girls at the hostel. one was lear ning german in berlin and the other two were teaching english in germany. they me t in college. but what was cool (besides their sharing the mini-keg they bought) is taht they had this weird fluiditly between german and english. even the girl still learning german. i k now people do it, but it isnt too often that americans do it. the german woman who worked the front desk, was cool and told us that we needed to travel while we were young and that we should see all parts of countries. the big cities and small cities and villages.

but right now, after a crazy train ride, i'm in prague. i got off in dresden too earl y and was at the other train station, and not the main one. so i had to wait two hours to catch the next train. i would have explored dresden in the meantime, but i (of course) didnt have any map. so the lacek of knowledge as to where i was, prohibitied me. and my pants ripped. which is just plain annoying. at any rate, prague isnt as cold as germany. germany was wickeed cold. i had to buy leggings and some more long sleeved shirts. which i proceeded to wear all at once and was still cold. i think i definately need a scarf. everyone say s that poland the the coldest. i now understand why women weear leggings, boots and leg warmers! i kind of want leg warmers now, i wont lie. also, chunky chunky sweaters.

thor & willy wonka

so it has been four dazs in Berlin. It does get better and better each daz though. I still think that it is too new for all the historz though. I've seen almost all of the sights: Bradenburg Tor, Reishang Parliment, Jewish Musuem, German historz museum, Checkpoint Charlie, Jewish Memorial, Contemporarz art musuem i cant remember the name of, east side gallerz, tv tower, berliner dom, whilhem-kaiser church... The comeporarz art museum was one of the best Ive been to. i went with an argentian girl, who enjozed it heaps, so i think i had to go slower than i normallz would, so i liked it a lot. the east berlin gallerz is the remaining portion of the berlin wall with famous graffiti bits of political outcrz. it was amazing to think that this huge wall surounded the entire citz at one time. it was also a little disappointing since people had tagged and wrote all over it. i know that it is a wall of grafiti, but its historz. and honestlz, i dont care about peoples 2002 european trips. what is a lot disappointing about berlin especiallz in visiting whilhelm-kaiser church and checkpoint charlie is that because berlin had to rebuild, around these verz historical sights, it is heavilz commericalized. its a little disppointing. here is history: now buy something. the wilhelm-kaiser church was prettz amazing though since it was so heavilz bombed in the war. inside, there are these beautiful mosaics in gold. I think that I am rather historied out. It's reallz good though to see the perspective in things that isnt the US perspective.



Last night, I found a photobooth! We were on the waz to a club and i spied it. i asked the guzs that i knew if thez would join, but none were game. but the aussie i hadnt met was. his name was patrick and is from sydney, austrailia. that is all i know about him. but the strip is really good. veronica, persuaded the guzs to join in the booth with us later. so we have a real squeezed one. the club was sopossed to be "amazing". it was real far away, and we got lost a bit. it was in an old water plant that may also be moonlighting as a jail. it definately had potential. too bad they only played house and techno music. where is dj-nerdery when you need it? verionica saw a kiwi she knew who was with a guy from iceland. icelander? icelandic? his name was thor. the kiwi loved it, he thought it was the most masculine name ever. the name reminded me of a cartoon from the 80s. at the time, thundercats, but that is wrong. thor told me i could call him thundercats if i wanted to though. the kiwi informed me that berlin is the best place for house and techno music. it's just so hard to dance to! there was this one girl who was eating it up though. she kept dancing and dancing and dancing.

And today I did laundry. a german man who looked like willy wonka basically set up the machines for me. he told me that "germans are helpful people". but he confused me on the the spinning thing and the dryer. i didnt understand the spinny thing explanation where he asked me if i understood english. so he kinda was like willy wonka with that split personality thing going on. maybe theres also a back room that he can put his hat on half a manican (because he wore one like willy wonka)

i can't understand you

i rented a bike. it was awesome! i dont think that i really did it right though. because if you can do it wrong, i sure can. i rode down pedestrian only ways, didnt understand bike lanes. oh, and i hit another biker and got jeered by the tourist crowd passing. great. but other than that, it was fabulous. the bike didnt have a basket though. i got rediculously lost on that as well. its not such a bad thing though, i rather like getting lost. i saw a few museums including the sjidickmuseum-I cant spell it- and the anne frank museum. the one i cant spell was pretty good. they had a huge exhibit on warhol. the anne frank one was a little disappointing though. i was hoping that the apartment would still ahve all the furniture and everything... it didnt. and it was packed of people. i guess it would be better if i hadnt read the book a bajillion times before. but mostly in amsterdam, i just wandered. the last night i was there, i went out. the girls i was with decided to go to the red light district and coming back the girl leading-who had only been there for a day- took us back from east to west and then south. oh well though.

the train to berlin cost so much money-100 euros. on the train, a guy asked in german if he could sit besides me and i thought that maybe he asked if anyone was sitting there. i said no. he left and then i realized what was going on. i'm not quite psyched about berlin yet. everything is so new. and i recognize that berlin was rediculously bombed out during ww2, but still... so very new. i think i need to find the residential part, but i have a sinking suspicion that i've been walking through that bit. i tried to wander today, and did. i saw the parlimentary building, berlin dom, the tv tower, and the national history museum. at the national history museum, i kept being told things about my bag. at first, i had it on like a backpack and they told me that i couldnt do that. so then i had it normally, and for somereason, she told me that i had to carry it in my hand. at least i am presuming that they told me this through hand motions. they didnt speak english as regularly as in amsterdam. i am rather looking forward to going to the bahaus. but i think that i might try to cut out of here early and go to dresden or something. some city rather on the way to prague, but im not sure which one yet.

a bike with a basket in front, please

so... the tour is over! and i have a whole bunch of timmmmmeeeee to write a proper entry (that, and I'm behind oodles)

slavenia.... wow, i can hardly remember what happened there. we walked up a really big hill to see some castle that wasnt very cool since it was built in 1905. but after slevenia, was budapest. i was able to go to buda with the group to take photos and see the gorgeous view of pest. it was rather disappointing that the church with the neat roof tiles was underconstruction. they were all multi colored. but on the lookout, shan and i tried to go to the second level of the thing. it rather looked like a castle, but not because it was more like a wall with lookouts and windows. but we tried to go to the second level and there were turnstiles there, so we jumped them and got yelled at in hungarian. we, of course, just looked at the guy blankly. they were also shooting a movie there in buda, so we couldnt walk directly behind the shot. in pest, i wanted a day to myself to buy some jeans and some alone time - a huge tour is not a good place to want alone time. but instead, i met up with some of the guys and we went shopping. they bought more than i did and we had to wait for simon to get his hair cut while the other two were looking at trashy magazines. that night, we went on a cruise down the river with hungarian food. golash soup and and stuffed cabbage type thing. soo soo good. vienna was the next stop. gorgeous. i tried sactre-tarte (taht is so not right, but it is really famous choclate cake). it was very rich. and cindy (the tour manager), came with us and told us about the turkish baths. where they was you completely clean and you get massages. and on the cealing are little pricks of light. needless to say, i'm excited to go to istanbul. after the cake, the girls wanted to go shopping. becasue, that is waht girls do. so instead, i waited for them and was talking to other tour people and got distracted by assessories since i lost my favorite red beaded necklace in slovenia. and i lost everyone when i got back. so instead, i roamed and took photos. in vienna, they have basically free bikes. where it only cost 2 euro for a tourist to use it their entire stay and residents can use for free if they only ride for under an hour. i've noticed that most cities have a deal like this. on the plane, i read about ti. to encourage residents not to drive cars and use public transportation and stay heathy. i think that it is rather good. we had a pretty posh hotel that night too. but the next day we headed into the mountains! ...where we mountain biked... after a night of going out. it wasnt the most fun. you don't feel quite awake and i remembered taht i didn't like hills after a incident in pennsylvania. i took the short cut and walked my bike up. and your butt hurts so so much afterwards. oy. but the ride down was fabulous. we rode through pastures of cows and little farms and just cute austrian countryside. there was paragliding that day too, but i didnt go. instead, i watched my first rugby match. australia v. britton. they lost. i didnt really understand what was going on either. white water rafting was amazing!! i had never gone before, so it was real good taht the water was too high to get mad white water. i also picked a raft with all boys so the guide had us do all these silly exercises. like standing up on the side of the raft. flipping the boat back over. swimming like a salmon. we were the only boat that did those things and we were the pirates because we overtook other boats. muahahaha. however, after that, i was sore. real sore. and not only sore but also bruised to no end. my thighs have all these little black spots and one big one that is about 2" x 6" that looks suspisciously like it may have come from an oar when someone piled upon me. there was a dog pile in the raft as well as lifting people out of the water just generally. that night, we went to oktoberfest. it was nuts. record high numbers of people attended. and you just start standing on tables and meeting people already at those tables because there is no way one big group can get their own. lots and lots of germans. and many of them had their traditional clothes on, leiderhosen and all. after oktoberfest, we went to st. goar in the rhine valley. it was boring. we did a wine tasting in a cellar that looked to be eons old, and it probably was. there was one red, three whites and a ice wine. the red was ok. the first white was good. but everything else was way way too sweet. on the way back to the crummy hotel, we passed a halloween shop. some people stopped in and one woman the enxt morning swore that she had been hexed by a witch. she is also rather crazy normally. so it was no surprise that she was the one makeing these outlandish remarks. she also told me straight in the face taht she doesnt like americans, so we arent on the best of terms. after germany is amsterdam! where i am right now. during the drive, it was interesting to see the farmland. most was for livestock. and there were no fenses! everything was seperated by little channels of water and the occasional gated bridge. we stopped in a little village where we rode girly bikes! i was really hoping for a little basket, but that was a no-go. we rode to a dijk and a windmill and it was fun for the girls. the boys thought less so. we also watched a wooden shoe be made and learned how they make cheese. the chessy samples were so very good. amsterdam has been fab so far. the first night we toured the red light district. it just makes you feel awkward and there are rumors that most of it will be closed down in a year or two. that night, we went out. i met some guys that were aussies too. hoping for someone dutch, but i get more aussies. anyways, he took a contiki a few years ago but rathers like backpacking. so i'm hoping that i will too. and we agreed taht the tour is a sort of manufactured experience of a city. you dont really get to see the city for what it is, just the touristy things. the full day, we went to the post office. oh, that was quite the trip. none of us had any idea as to how to fill out the forms to get them sent and they dont take credit there! however, the boxes are orange polka-dotted. we went to the van gogh museum and the heineken experience. van gogh was nice, there were a lot of famous pieces there. the sketches were quite my favorite though. especiallty that of his figures. today, everyone left, and it is just me. i checked into my hostel. and because i'm cheap, am in a real big room. with mostly boys, i am assuming this because it smells like boys. great. so i think when i go to other hostels to ask for smaller rooms, less chance of boys maybe? but i've just been wandering around today, taking it easy. i think that tomarrow i shall rent a bike. bikes here are awesome! for one they are girly, and i like that. but there are so many options on these bikes. mothers have wheelbarrow-esque attachements int he front that their kids can sit in. there are also small seats behind the handlebars for kids. and there was an absolutely adorable older couple taht the guy was pedeling and they converted the luggage rack in back inot another seat that his wife was sitting sidesaddle in. cute. cute.

Lou-bee-ana, rhymes with banana

soooo... internet is at times awful hard to get to.

after the gorgeous swiss alps we went to cannes, france and monaco. in cannes, i mostlz lazed on the beautiful beach and got burnt. we had dinner at a monaco resteraunt which was absolutelz fabulous. followed bz a visit to the famous monte carlo casino. where everzthing was overpriced and all the guzs who tried to gamble lost monez.

italz... we saw the leaning tower of pisa. most amusing were the tourists who were trzing to hold up the tower in the zard and the african men running awaz with their fake designer bags. florence was amaying. we went out to a night club our first night which wasnt filled with anzone besides our group and another contiki group. we saw how thez made leather in the citz. and manz girls bought things. i was going incognito in mz sunnies. rome.... the vatican line was hugelz loooong. cindz, our tour manager, taught us a trick to get in faster, so we onlz waited an hour. haha. an hour is long enough! the vatican was nice. everzthing going on in it was rather overwhelming. but we saw the sistene chapel. followed bz the colleseum. and i made the guzs i was with see this chapel taht the monk bones were decoration in it. thez were like what in the world are we doing here while i was like COOL! venice was beautiful. we saw the onlz place where thetz still make lace and hand blown glass. a group of us got lost (because thats apparentlz how zou see venice). we ended up on the other side of the citz at the train station! we eventuallz met up with some of the group again and i split off with the guzs again. unfortunetlz it was mz turn to shout some beers and we ordere ˝grande˝ beer, which means 1 liter beer. greeeat.

todaz we are in sleveina and it is absolutelz gorgeous. i tried octopus! and it was zummz! but i need to email james.... and sorrz about the tzpos, again, foreign kezboards blow.