the end.

Istanbul was brilliant. It's only fault that it took 20 minutes to take five steps. At first, that was really really intimating. absolutely, everyone wanted to talk to me. apple tea? turkish tea? buy carpet? they just wanted to sit around and talk and talk and drink tea and sell me carpets and then ask me to go out with them that evening. so between 3 and 5 i'd go back to the hostel worn out and complain to the turkish bartender who would laugh at me. but man, the city was gorgeous! and so different from the rest of europe. the architecture, the people. quite the welcome change because i gradually traveled through europe so things gradually shifted, which meant that i didnt notice as much. haga sofia and the blue mosque were monsterous. so much huger and architecturally different than the churches like notre dame. and the grand bazaar was crazy. everyone calling for you, trying to get you in there shop. there would be a strip of vendors like where you from? want to buy a carpet? let me help you spend your money. i'd ignore all of them. and the guy on the corner of the strip would be like it's crazy, isnt it. i'd agree. and then he'd ask me to look at his shop. i'd walk away. everything in that bazaar was so overpriced and they knew you were a tourist, so they'd have a completely different set of prices. although, bargaining was entirely reasonable. but there was so much to look at! the stuff they were selling, the people, the vendors, the buildings. one day, i walked to the top of a hill. and decided on the way back, i didnt want to go down the main strip and went down the side of the hill. the real people lived there. twisty, turny, wiendy streets. a few antique shops where i tried to buy a camera, but since i stink at bargaining, i couldnt do it. oh, i wanted that vintage camera though. it was the kind that was medium-format and you looked down to see the view finder, instead of holding it up to your eye. no one really called to me either to come into their store too. they just gave me a funny look like you're not a turk, what are you doing here? At the spice market was fabulous. the colors, smells, people. one guy saw me taking photos and told me to take photos of his shop. at first i resisted, because i dont like getting stuck. but turns out the shop sold perfumes in these pretty glass bottles as well as spices and tea. so there was a lot to look at, and i got some yummy apple tea. i decided taht instead of taking a train (honestly, i was tired of them) to greece, i decided to take a bus to a ferry in an attempt to island hop. the hostel travel agency booked me a bus to a town where i would need to find the shorter bus ride to cesme on the coast, and the booked me a ferry to chios, where i'd have to figure out where i was going from there. on the first bus, i met two peace corp vollenteers who worked in uganda where they didnt feel as if they were really helping the people. more that the government was using the money mroe than them. i slept most of the way, where i woke up at about midnight and the bus was on a ferry. the three of us werent really sure how that happened, but were glad for the break because while the bus stopped and it seemed to be possible to get off and use the restroom, we werent really sure. and definately didnt want the bus to leave us. i arrived at my stop in the pouring rain and talked to three people to find the correct place to buy a ticket to cesme. when i got on the bus, another girl was there and the busdriver told me to sit by her even though the bus was completely empty. odd. i slept most the way. the guy kept asking me where i wanted to be dropped off in cesme (or at least i think so) in turkish. of course, i had no idea. i just kept saying 'ferry'. luckily, the girl next to me knew a bit of english and was from cesme so she arranged for me to be dropped off close to the port. without her, i'd be rather lost. the day was beautiful... until it rained. so i ducked into a resteraunt where i was imediatly served tea. turkish hospitality. and ate a huge dinner that took me an hour and a half to finish. i was going to island hop, but when i talked to a travel agent, they told me that i would have to go to athens, and then take another ferry. i figured that was silly and wouldnt save me any on money, so i booked just the ferry to athens. on the ferry out of cesme, i met a lebanese-american woman who went to lebanon every year, and hated to fly, so she took a lot of boats and trains, and she talked and talked and talked. she wanted to go to santorini with me, but it was 30 euros one way, so i declined the offer and told her to have fun. by taking the night bus and the night ferry, i actually saved money on accomodation, but definately smelled worse for it. and since i got into athens real early in the morning and couldnt actually check in until 1pm, i continued to smell. but i saw the acropolis and the theater of dinosis and the acient agora. the ancient agora was definately my favorite since it was a huge space where you could just wander through out the ruins. it was rather unbelievable that they were so old. the acropolis was covered in scaffolding. i met three guys from seattle at the hostel(one was an industrial designer, one worked for starbucks) and we attempted to go to the port because they liked water and were under the impression they could swim. we got off a metro stop early and decided to walk. but we didnt know how long the walk would be. the beaches were disgusting. but two of the guys decided to go swimming. of course they forgot their suits. and so after they got out, proceeded to strip down and throw their boxers out. after a while, we realized that the port was real real real far away, and decided to take a cab. the cab was so cheap! but the cabbie misunderstood us and took us NOT to the port but rather one stop away from the hostel. that night, i met a guy named sam. and i told him i liked him already since my cat was named sam. my last night in athens, i stayed up really late so i wouldnt miss my flight. really though, i just slept for an hour and then woke up again. it was a bit painful. at the metro station, i met a family from virginia who were very enthusiastic that i knew where i was going - i was just following the signs that said 'airport'. they were nice and the wife jsut talked and talked and talked the whole way there, which was about an hour. i figure that she was in need of female company since she was with her husband and son. at the london airport, my flight was delayed three hours, so i missed my flight at jfk to columbus. british airlines rebooked my ticket and bought me a hotel to stay in. very posh in comparison to the hostels. double beds. tv in english. shower that i didnt have to wear flip flops in. and food that i couldnt afford otherwise. it was fantastic. and now i'm back in ohio.

zywiec

It took forever to get to Zywiec. My first train was late, so I ran around Katowice looking for the correct one. I found the right platform and there was a train leaving, so I assumed that was the one I wanted... I almost went to Prague. My actually train though kept stopping for 30 minutes at a time for whatever reason. I got to the town later than expected. But I got there, thinking "what now". I was in a city I knew absolutely nothing about and wasnt sure what I was doing there in the first place. I went left. Bought a map. Found a sign for the town center. It was almost a km away, but I didnt know how to take buses at all, so I walked. There was a gigantic park and some older buildings. One had a museum. The cathedral in town was built in the 1500s, but the outside wasnt too exciting. I went in and everything was gold-gilted with lots of statues. It also smelt like old people. I eventually reached the town square and saw the town hall which is an amazingly pink building. Honestly, i think that is a little bit of an odd color for a town hall. pink doesnt bring to mind prestige or anything like that. I started heading to the library since i wasnt sure where excatly I was starting, and figured that the library would have research about its residents. I found the tourist information office first. A polish woman pointed out a few cemetaries that i could visit, but told me the best way would be to go to the cemetaries office which was near the cathedral so i wouldnt be wandering so much. I couldnt find the office, and went back. So she called for me and it seems that the offices were closed for the day. just my luck. but i gave her my email so that she could call on another day for me. she said that she wanted to "help solve the mystery". but what mystery was it, i wasn't sure. she also said that i should get more information on my family. i'm actuallly not too sure if there is any more information on my family. but i headed to the further cemetary. there was a funeral going on. even though i had visited a cemetary in warsaw on all soul's day, i forgot how cemetaries in poland worked. the cemetaries are not grassy fields in which you only have to avoid the headstones. but rather, the graves are raised, so you have to avoid all the marble. and they are very very close together. and this cemetary just so happened to be on a hill so with the rain and the mud, it was slippery and dirty. and naturally, there were candles and flowers everywhere from last week's holiday. needless to say, i did not find my great great grandparents graves. before catching my train, i gave in and had a cheeseburger. i'm not sure why, but poles dont believe in grilling burgers and hot dogs, they nuke them. the woman in the resteraunt found it a novelty that i was american. although, she kept asking if i spoke italian, so i'm not sure she exactly understood.

warsaw is like cleveland

so not too too much more happened in prague. i extended my stay since i liked the people there. and the 7 germans bought weapons so that they could become even more scarier. switchblades, brass knuckles, a wand thing, masks that covered their whole faces except the eyes. the other people in my room didnt like it either. after prague, i went to olomouc, czech republic for a few days based upon the recomendations of a guy i met in amsterdam. it was really nice except that i got sick. i didnt do too much except go eat with an aussie a lot. i also tried cherry beer. and i think that beer cannot be beer with fruit in it (sorry jess). it was gross. the couple that ran the hostel were really friendly and were in absolute love with their city. and the hostel felt like a home. so, naturally, i feel rather bad that i didnt do anything except eat a little bit.

warsaw is cool because it really reminds me of cleveland. well, actuallly the park by my aunt dorothy's that is a bit raised from street level and has a lot of trees and a playground that i used to play in. but the trees shed yellow leaves in the fall and there are heaps of trees, but no low branches to run into. warsaw is like that. although with in about seven seconds of being intown, i went the wrong way on the bus and ended up at the airport. so i took a taxi since i didnt even know where the buses parked. the taxi driver didnt speak any english. but after he dropped me off, i was about to go the wrong way to get to the entrance (it was in the back of the building), and he stopped me from getting lost again. poles are friendly. the second day that i was in town, i decided to walk to the polish poster museum. bad idea. i should never again attempt to walk to a place that is nearly off my map. i didnt make it and took the bus that i should have taken there, home. i also noticed that many many many places were closed that day. i had absolutely no idea why. when i got off the bus, i was hungry from all the walking. so i stopped at the only place open, a bar and had tea and made new friends from all over the world. americans, canadians, albanians, british... one woman worked at the us embassay and absolutely loved me. she claimed that because of me, there is hope in america's future. which, actually, i seem to be getting a lot. havent quite figured out why though... i also learned that it was all saints day and the next was all souls day. which were the days that all the poles dont go to work and light candles on family members graves and remember them. so the next day, on my way to the poster museum, i happened to stop at a cemetary. and people were still doing it. in front of the cemetary, there were vendors selling candles and flowers. and inside the cemetary, there were little old ladies in their sunday best. and so many candles! with all the candles, you kind of feel bad for the ones with only a handful of candles on their graves. the polish poster museum was a little disappointing though because the exhibit was on japanese designers. which is all and good, but i was really excited to see polish designs. oh well.

in krakow, i ran into a guy that i had met in berlin. i walked in, and was like, HEY! I KNOW YOU! apparently, after berlin, he came to krakow, and never left... it's been two weeks. i slept in though this morning and just barely made breakfast. i started to talking to some irish blokes, they seemed nice and asked if i wanted to go "girl carting"... which i eventually figured out that i misunderstood and they were going go carting. sounds more pleasant than girl carting for sure. so i agreed, only to learn that it was a stag party. so there were 20 irish blokes and myself. definiatley fun, just a wee bit intimidating. i was the "young lass". and i couldnt touch the pedals of the go cart, which was annoying because the silly thing kept going out of control for me around the curves.

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.