Jakey Jake

Caught the bus 3 days straight again, going through vienna then to munich and on to Venice. I met up with lizzy again in Munich, she was all upset cause she had to leave her man behind again and she had no cash, but she had an unused busabout pass so i said come to venice and keep catching the bus back up to london and use the money youve spent. The next day we drove through some pretty spectacular scenery, the austrian alps were stunning, i must get to Switzerland and see their mountains and do a bit of baording. Anyway we made it to Venice, or at least the camping ground, which was pretty quiet, although it looked like it wouldve been a lot of fun during summer. Id heard stories of people staying at the camp ground for 3 days straight without ever making it to venice. CRAZY!!!!! Venice is the most STUNNING city i have ever seen by far. Nothing is like it, with its majestic old architecture surrounded by canals and waterways. I went snap happy with my new camera here. Lizzy and i did a gondola ride which was awesome, 40 minutes for 70 euros!!! what a job!!! I definately want to come back here with someone…. i have to say that not being able to share all these things with someone really special sucks…. ahh well.

We caught the night train from krakow with a bunch of people we met at the hostel. One guy wed met the night before who caught the train to Prague SMSed su saying he was gassed and all his stuff was stolen, so we hopped a sleeping car just to be on the safe side, little did we know that we would drink the train dry!! we pulled into prague pretty dehydrated and looking for accomodation. Philly and i found a place around the corner from the centre of town so we stayed there for a night, but the next day we had to part as i was going on busabout to get down to italy and phil was heading north to berlin…. DAMN COLD up there this time of year. so we had a bit of a big one… it was pretty fun, but to be honest im finding it tought keeping up with philly, hes a mean party machine with a worldwide reputation!!!!! seriously!!! we did have a great night though, although im sure the american woman who was staying in our dorm didnt think so.

Arrived at 5am, having slept almost 10 hours. Phil and i were bleary eyed but we managed to fight our way through the crowd of touts and found our way to nathans villa hostel. When we arrived we met up with about 8 blokes and we all decided that since we were up so early in the moening wed go to auschwitz. Bloody sad is all i can say. There were actually 3 camps that made up auschwitz, the first having been around long since the second world war began, it housed political prisoners since the mid 30s. There were 2 main walls with electrified barbed wire which enclosed the camp. The atrocities that took place there were horrible, its were the angel of death (cant remember his name) performed brutal mutilations of young children who were twins. Due to the ’success’ of the camp, and the distance from any of the allied countries which made it much less likely to be bombed, the nazis began to build auschwitz 2, 3km from teh original, designed to house 200,000 but built only for 100,000 this is where most of the jews were gassed. I have to say how haunting it was to be standing in the coumpund where 5-6000 people a day were gassed and incinerated. The tragedy that something like this ever occured is beyond anything you can imagine. It certainly reminded me of Pol Pots devestation in Cambodia, but on an even grander scale.

Budapest is a very big city, in fact its actually got two parts to it. Buda and Pest, hence its name… if you dont beleive me do a quick google. Dont know much about the history, in fact i dont really care anymore… Phil and i caught the 6 hour train from salzberg and for some stupid reason we were in a hurry to get off the train, unfortunately i was in such a rush i didnt check all my stuff, and my camera was stolen…. DAMN IT. Then we got ripped off at the money exchange because all the banks were closed, and to top it off the hostel we were booked into was miles away and inhabited by strange ugly old hippies…. so much for the good tip hey??? so we got out of there on some load of BS and headed down to the marco polo in the city. Put all our stuff away and ventured down to the hostel bar. Everyone down there was dressed like goths and listening to ramschtein, some weird punk band who like to sing about death and murder…. Top place to be when youre looking for a party!!!! Needless to say we were out of there faster than phil can hook up with a tart (beleive me its quick). Next we were venturing around the streets in search of something to do, we came across a group of little kids who looked like they were off to a birthday party, then we walked past a bunch of girls and started to have a chat, they asked us to a bar called alkatraz. The rest of the night is rather sketchy but i do remember there being lots of good music and dancing and loads of HOT girls. We spent the next day relaxing at the thermal baths in the garden
INFORMATION ABOUT BUDAPEST

SOUND OF MUSIC….. i felt like i was in the movie with my gran. It was sooooo kewl being there. I couldnt stop singing all the songs from the movie… loved it. We stayed at a place called the Yoho, it was another of europes famous hostels (of which there are 15, and ive stayed in 8 so far) So anyway i paid for 1 month of Busabout and so far ive used about 14days but it doesnt seem like im going to get much value as im going the opposite direction with phil, out into eastern europe. oh well…. Salzberg is awesome though, its very very scenic with loads of churches and a beautiful green river flowing through the middle. Its also the birthplace of Mozart

So here i am at Oktoberfest, the biggest beer party in the world… and i can tell you its a serious party. But i just cant seem to get myself into the party mood these days. I met up with Chrissy G at the Euro youth hostel. Hes been living in a small town outside Salzberg called Mundsee, working in a restraunt/hostel and learning austrian/german. We went straight down to Oktoberfest for a few beers and to check out what all the fuss is about. It was pretty damn wild, there are 12 main tents that are huge….. and most of them were very very full (of drunk people) Chris and i did our fair share of partying before the rollercoasters called us. Rollercoasters when youre drunk are very very fun. anyway after the grounds closed we went back to the hostel and i piked after having spent the last 7 days or so on the cus i was knackered. Chris managed to go out with some guys we met up with on the street. The next day we spent the afternoon at Oktoberfest again, somehow we managed to be drunk again… im not quite sure how. chris managed to piss his dad right off by being 2 and a half hours late to meet him to go to Mondsee. It took about 2 hours to get there and when we arrived we decided to go out again… i dont think we got home unjtil 4am but we had a really good time. The locals were great and we played mini golf pool, puting bar stools and ash trays on the pool table, just to spice things up a bit. Hung out in mondsee, staying at Chris’ work which was a hotel/restraunt. We mucked around mondsee for those few days, geting up to mischief. I think i broke the local hamburger eating record…. drank a lot of beer and jeigermeister… Chris’ surrogate family were great and they were very nice for putting me up and feeding me (as well as getting me boozed). I left Chris on the saturday in time to get down to the last 2 days of Oktoberfest. I checked into the wombat and managed to talk my way into getting free accomodation when it was their busiest time so once i was checked in i checked out the local bar, but everyone was already wasted so i had an early night. Tomorrow was to be the big one… the last day of oktoberfest. I met up with some people at breakfast and we got down to the hofbrauhaus tent at 9am to ensure we got a seat. We started drinking Steins at 9.30 when the bar opened (thats 1 litre of beer)… and from there on in the day got messier and messier. At about 12 Damo, Silks and Stokes arrived. We met Phil at about 3…. I was smashed by 5 and went home for a nap, getting back by 7 to see everyone falling off the tables and generally having a bloody good time. SO i got back on the steins only to be seriously drunk again by 8… i tried climbing up onto the main music stage but managed to get pulled off and almost pummeled by the bouncers except that phil knew them and talked them out of it. Then things went crazy as everyone started to leave, we tried sneaking out the steins, whcih we managed to get out of hofbrau but there was secuirty on the outskirts of oktoberfest taking them off those who were trying to steal them. Well we had our taken off us, which i wasnt happy about, so i let the bouncers know what i thought of them… probably not the best idea knowing the psycology of bouncers, but under the influence of alcohol i felt invincible… hehehehe. so what does someone who had their stolen stein taken off them??? try stealing it back of course….. BRILLIANT IDEA….. so having more than enough courage to go around, i bolted at the chance when i saw them put the glasses down, swooping in and bolting off, clearly forgetting that im more like a lead legged fatso than a ben johnson on steroids, so it didnt take them long to catch up with me.. One of them trying to break my arm with his baton. But it was so much fun at the time. Anyway the cops came and ended it all and we headed off to the pub to go and do some more drinking. Brilliant day all in all, i shall definately be going back to Oktoberfest in future… oh and if you go the half chickens are the BEST…. i think i ate about 10 chickens in the time i was there.

This momrnings bus took us through chesky, a picturesque town in the czech republic. I did another run through the town, taking some happy snaps, before having to get on the bus again. We headed off towards Vienna. It is yet another stunning european city. Yes i feel like im in a revolviong door. I would really like someone to share this with, alas it seems impossible. ANyone up for some travelling? After we left Vienna we were on our way to Oktoberfest… YAY!! but before we get there we are stopping in Salzburg, the home town of “The Sound Of Music”. Yes its one of my favourite films, and i bought it in China so we watched it on the bus. It reminds me very much of my gran as we used to watch it together quite often. It made me sad and happy all at once (seems to be the story of my life at the moment).

Todays buss was headed down to Prague via dresden. We stopped very briefly in dresden and continued on our way to Prague. I had heard so many good things about prague, but on our way in, i thought this place is dodgy. It looked like a rundown hole. Luckily things here were cheap and we managed to get a pretty good hosel connected to a very nice hotel which had wireless internet access so i managed to update what little i had updated and added some more photos. We had a night walking tour of prague to go on tonight, and i had no idea what i was in store for, but it was beautiful. I definately have to come back here in the day time… not to mention its by far the cheapest of the european countries i have been to.

Spent the day on the bus sleeping, although the German service station stops are great with some delicious buffet food, not like the slop you get in australia, but more like something from an upclass department stores food court. We took a detour to a concentration camp but unfortunately there was an accident whihc meant traffic was so bad we had to turn around. We arrive in berlin at 5pm again. After checking in i was on a mission to see as much of berlin as i could. First up was the church that was bombed out and left as a monument to deter wars in the future. Next i walked into the main park to see the victry staue where the berlin love parade is held. The park is huge and very very beautiful, then i walked down the main road, past the reichstag building and on to starbucks. Next up was the berlin wall, and finally i went back to the reichstag to have a walk around, they have a huge glass dome over the top of the parliment so that citizens can always see whats going on so the past wont repeat itself. Unfortunately my fear of hieghts stopped me from going to the top Berlin is a very beautiful city and one which i will definately go back to, considering the history one night is cerntainly not enough to do it justice.

We pulled into amsterdam at about 5pm and booked into our hostel. It seemed a bit poxy but i wasnt too concerned as i was only staying there for 1 night anyway. There was a few of us and we decided to go out together and see what amsterdam had to offer. We walked into town but it was raining like crazy and we got drenched. Amsterdam is a bit dingy and seedy, not really my kind of style although the whole idea of all the canals was awesome. But the red light district was sooo distatsteful wiht ladies (ahem) displaying their warez from little rooms with a bed through a window with a red light out on to the street and to passers by. anyway after about 10 minuted of looking at the freaks we decided to find a “cafe”, although i dont smoke dope i thought i would check out what all the fuss is about. Considering marijuana is not really my style, i found the cafes really dull and full of wasted dull people. Surprise surprise… anyway by this time we had managed to ditch a few paopel and it was just Glen and i. We decided to hit some more local nightlife. We went to a place called slamanca. It was a funky club/restraunt and because we got there early we didnt have to pay the 25 euro entrance fee. It was pretty dead and there were really only diners there when we arrived. But after a few drinks and an hour or two the place started to jump. We met some pretty kewl people but suddenly i was alone… i had no idea where Glen had gone. Anyway upstairs they had a dart competition, and i had nothing else better to do so i thought i would give it a go.. I won!!!!! i got 4 tickets to the VIP room with free alcohol, cigarettes and food. What else am i sposed to do if i have 4 free tickets to the VIP room?? ask all the hot chicks to come upstairs with me Had a great night, although when i finally got to the hostel my duna and pillow were gone so i had to sleep on the matress with nothing, and beleive me it got damn cold. So when the girl underneath me said in the morning “i couldnt find a duna or piloow, so i just took yours” i was mighty pissed off.