Krakow!

Krakow is one of the coolest cities ever! Another Berlin-esque place, where there is lots of history but also lots of nightlife. Great combination.

It was great as soon as we arrived. We found our hostel, which had just recently opened and whose main goal was to give backpackers everything they want in one hostel (which is really uncommon, trust me). Since it was called Mundo, meaning world, every room in the hotel was themed after a country. We stayed in the India room and it had all these cool decorations - wicker furniture, wall hangings, rich paint tones, dark wood bunks - a giant leap from the sterile hostels we normally stay in. We had free internet, laundry, bike rentals, a home-cooked breakfast by the lady that owns the hostel - it was fantastic.

Bernard and I made our way out to this club called Prozzak, and had a great night. Seriously bringing back this drink I had involving vodka, Coke and grapefruit juice. For real. Try it. Met two Irish girls that introduced me to this drink involving apple juice and vodka, but in the end it tastes like apple pie. Dangerous. You Polaks know what I'm talking about. Zubrowska vodka, you will be the death of me. Also ran into a bunch of rowdy English boys in Krakow on a stag. Everyone in Great Britain takes off to a party city and host these unbelievable stags that last like a week. They know how to do it. Because of them, it's illegal to drink in public in Krakow (which for Europe is obscene!). They happened to be staying at the same hotel as the Irish girls, which was all pretty swank.

The next morning saw Bernard and I do a bike tour of Krakow to take in all the sights (look at us being touristy and not just killing our livers, what a novel concept). Probably one of the coolest groups of people we met since Munich (legendary). There was this one girl Yvonne, which was a crazy story. She said she was Canadian, then from Vancouver (cool), then said she went to SFU and THEN said she was in Kinesiology. How nuts is that?! I meet someone from my faculty in freakin' Poland. Yeah. Right. It gets even better, boys and girls! She is best friends with one of my good friends, and went to high school with my coworker of the last two years. WTF.

Also met an awesome guy named Jason, who served in Iraq for the American Army. Regardless of your stance on the war, etc. some of the stories he told me were unbelievable. We spent most of the bike tour just talking about random things - one of the coolest people I've ever met, definitely. He breaks every stereotype of an American soldier I've ever encountered (not to say they should exist, but you know). Made plans to meet up with most of our bike tour at another club later that night.

Ended up at Frantic, this really awesome club. It had a few rooms, but spun mostly hip-hop and R&B and techno. Great mix actually. Totally had the underground cave thing going for it, which is what a lot of places in Krakow are like. Met with Yvonne and Jason and a bunch of Aussies from the tour, and had a great time. The night ended with Yvonne and I going to the only open convenience store in Krakow near our hostel, and us buying bread, cheese and meat, and smoked salmon...? The pictures are there to prove it, but I still don't know what the hell we were thinking.

We ended our trip in Krakow with the only thing you should do while you're there - a tour of Auschwitz and Birkenau. There isn't much to say about these two places, except that it is definitely worth it to go. Not that it is expensive in the first place, but just trust me, don't do Krakow without doing A-B. Possibly one of the most depressing and frustrating things I've seen, but in an enlightening way. Kind of makes you wonder why such atrocities even occurred in this world, but that's a whole new ballgame. The grounds themselves are so well-preserved (what was left after the Nazi retreat, anyways) and so the atmosphere is heavy with history. On a lighter note, getting home was the biggest pain in the ass! The museum itself has a bus schedule and a map of where the buses leave for Krakow, and so we narrowly miss the last bus, and queue up for the next with a bunch of other people. Apparently queues don't really exist in Poland, as the next bus arrived, almost full, and people started climbing in the back doors, front doors, you name it. Half the people were standing all the way back to Krakow, which was almost 1.5 hours. Nutters. We finally got smart and found the origin of the bus route (we're genius) and so we were the ones sitting while the rest of the people clamored to get onto our bus. Sweet, sweet revenge.

A night train to Vienna and we were out of Eastern Europe for a bit.

Berlin

After Prague we made our way back to Germany to experience all that Berlin had to offer. We were anticipating three very full days - tons of sights to take in during the day, and tons of nightlife to take in during the night. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Berlin has to be one of the coolest cities. The whole Berlin Wall thing is still so evident (we stayed in East Berlin, and it was a world of difference compared to the West). Lots of history that I never actually knew about, but it gave me a newfound appreciation for it all. As always, we did a free bike tour (haha we are so cheap!) and our guide was really cool. Told us all we needed to know about the history of Berlin in about 4 hours. More on that later.

We stayed in this crazy hostel called the Generator - 900 beds, not a big deal. This place was unbelievably huge. We were in a dorm with four Italians, one German and one Romanian (and a partridge in a pear tree). The minute we got to Berlin, we literally had dinner and were approached about a pub crawl - of course we jumped all over that. Met some very cool people along the way, and reunited with some of the boys we met in Interlaken (and saw again in Prague!). Events included free shots everywhere, 1 EUR shots of Jaeger (trouble...) and yours truly not spending a single dime all night - absolute mayhem. We ended up at this pretty cool club called Matrix, and stumbled home eventually.

The next morning I was missing my partner in crime (haha longggg story), so I decided to trek out with this guy Nick from Australia, who was also staying in the hostel. Did that cool bike tour again, and met some very cool people from Cali. By the time I got home, I found Bernard (yes!) and we then proceeded to meet up with Nick, this guy Adam from London and this cool chica Tatiana from Brazil. After searching for this one club for awhile, we ended up at this lounge with one of the best DJs I've heard in a long time, wish I could've gotten some audio on it. Anyone who can mix Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake and still keep people on the dance floor is in my good books. Add another sunrise to my list of accomplishments after this night (oh dear).

On the last day we had in Berlin, we took in some pretty crazy sights. Checkpoint Charlie told stories of ridiculous escape attempts over the wall and the history behind it all. I then checked out this museum (I know, who goes to museums) that had a lookout onto the next block, which had an entire section of the Berlin wall preserved, death strip and all. It was all very surreal thinking that this object kept people separated for so long - I can't imagine the fact that anyone actually traversed the whole thing. It was a perfect pre-cursor for the East Side Gallery, which is a section of the wall decorated by artists and graffiti artists alike. Some very cool interpretations going on there.

Another night out in Berlin and all of a sudden we were leaving for Krakow the next morning.

Berlin: a true test of a backpacker's ability to get ripped and still get up at a reasonable time to see the sights the next day. Good lord.

End of July - Beautiful, Beautiful Prague

Prague is one of those cities that floors you the second you get to it, and we got in at 11:30pm off a nasty ass train. Pretty impressive, I'm telling you, after all that happened to us on the train. Somehow, on a train with ten or so compartments, the air conditioning stops working, and lucky for us, it is absolutely pouring rain so opening the windows isn't an option. Delicious. The train was so full that people were sitting on the floor...I'm glad we had seats.

We end up meeting this American guy Kevin and a German guy on the train, the latter being a German businessman that travels every weekend. Turns out the American is from Bellingham (what!?) and that all Germans think that Bavarian beer is actually the worst. Cool bits of information there, I guess.

We (Kevin, Bernard and I) are all on our way to Praha, and at some point we stop at a German train station (where lots of people get off) and they start removing the cart we're in from the rest of the train. Hmm...that's good, right? We luckily get onto the rest of the train that is actually leaving that station, and otherwise have a decent trip to Praha. Long, but decent.

Our hostel more than made up for it when we got there! Plus Prague, I'm telling you guys...amazing place. It had a pool, sauna, huge bar and restaurant, free internet, breakfast, ensuite bathrooms even in the dorms, kitchen, its own market...it was sheer insanity. My favourite part might very well have been the fact that they had a Girl Zone, where they gave you fluffy towels, hair dryers and big cosmetic mirrors to get ready in front of. Straight up awesome. We had a quiet night drinking overpriced beer in the bar (1 EUR for 0.5L of beer, just awful) since we were so beat.

The next morning was crazy - we go to breakfast and who do we see but Lucia and Frank, of the Munich crew. Just happened to end up at our hostel. We spent the day doing this sick walking tour (Paul's Walking Tour, if you're ever in Prague) with an awesome guide named Mikael. For the rest of you Canadians, we had a heated yet hilarious debate as to why Canadians are so much better than the Czechs at ice hockey...it was glorious. Went to this bar called the Cross Club, which is made entirely of car parts...for serious. It was kind of obscene, and the crowd was pretty rough but it was a fun time. An air-conditioning appreciation session took place, but otherwise it was pretty uneventful. Kind of wish I got an audio clip of the music they were playing in the club, kind of like untz, untz, untz. For four hours. Great times.

Other random encounters with the people in our hostel, including drinking beer in the pool and sauna with one of the staff members, who later invited us all to her massive house in the city to party it up. Sick times in Prague.

Off to Berlin, where the liver keeps getting tested, more on that later!