The Final Days...

So it is hard for me to believe it but I am currently enjoying my last full day in Europe today before I start the long trek home tomorrow! Yesterday I was busy taking train after train in order to make my way up to denmark (I fly out of Copenhagen). When I was last in Denmark my relatives told me when I made my way back at the end of my trip I would be more than welcome to stay with them again. So being a student and always interested in free food, lodging, and good company I acepted the offer!

Last night I stayed with Micheal's Father and got to see their family farm (in the family since 1860). Today After the morning at the farm I moved over to Mie, Micheal's mothers place for the day. She has a beatiful place right on the sea with lots of space and a private beach! I am unsure what I will do tonight, all I know is that by tomorrow at 2:00 local time I will be in Copenhagen leaving on my flight home (via Iceland).

Please stay tuned to my blog for the next day or two, as I plan to do a final post or two talking about my favorite (and least favorite) parts and places from my trip! I would also like to thank everyone for their support and comments over the past two months, it means a lot to me!

For now it is time for this world traveler to fly off into the sunset until I find the time (and money) for my next adventure.

Castles!

So as I previously said, I am spending two days in the Rhine River Valley. Primarilly the allure for the region to me is because of its Castles! Well I arrived in the Rhine Region around 8:00 this morning and took a train to Bacharach which is in the middle of the Region. It is a beatiful little town of 2,000 people. The town is full of Wine Cellars, local shops, old buildings and local resteraunts. Today I went down river and tomorrow I will go up river on the Rhine.

To the major point of this post, I am staying at the coolist hostel ever! It really is a Castle! It was built in the 12th Centrury and has more recently been converted into a hostel.



If you want to check out some more pictures check out this link, Jugendgästehaus Bacharach.

Hotel Eurail

So for the second time this trip I will take advantage of Hotel Eurail. Thats right I am going to save time and money by taking a night train. Considering the fact that on the 30th I fly out of Copenhagen and I am currently in the eastern region of the Czech Republic you can see that I have some serious distance to cover.

So this afternoon I will take a train from Ostrava to Vienna. I realize it is in the wrong direction, but I must go back to a country where my rail pass is valid, aka not the Czech Republic. From Vienna I will travel to Frankfort, a seven hour train ride during the day. So instead of wasting a perfectly good day on a train I will spend the night on the train going to Frankfort. Unlike last time I was on a night train I booked in advance and payed extra to have my own bed. I will arrive around 6 local time and then head on to the Mystical Rhine River Valley.

Ellen

So for the last couple of days I have been in the Czech Republic staying with our family friend Pavala and her husbend Pavel. It has been a couple years since I last saw them, and now their is a new member of their family Ellen. So of course now you will be bombarded with Pictures of their 16 month old child, enjoy.





During my visit I have been in Ostrava, which is the third largest city in the Czech Republic, and Moravka, a small rural town where they have a weekend place. It has been a lot of fun to see the area as much has changed since I was last in Ostrava in 2003, it is also great to see everyone here again.

Mushroom Quest

No I am not back in Amsterdam, I am actually in Austria staying with a family I have never met before in my life (always a good time)! Like most families I stay with I get asked the question of what I would like to do in their country? My answer is always the same, I want to do what they do or enjoy about their country (a.k.a not tourist stuff). What normally happens from their is each family will show me some of the local tourist stuff and then we spend the rest of the time doing local things (you get to see the culture more that way).
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My first day in Austria I was taken all around the city of Graz to see all the various sites. It is a very nice town and relatively untouristed. Today we turned our attention to local things, which is where my Mushroom Quest begins!
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Turns out the Barth Family along with many Austrians love mushrooms. The best mushrooms are of course wild and you have to go find them high on up on hills or mountains in the forest. Normally it is best to go early in the morning or after it rains. No rain was to be had and they told me I did not have to get up too early, so we went mid-morning. We drove quite a ways to a remote area which is one of their favorite places to pick mushrooms.
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Those of you who know me (especially those who know what I like or do not like to eat) know their is a strong irony when it comes to me picking mushrooms, which will later end up on my plate! But I am here in Europe to try new things and enjoy local customs so I threw myself at the task full heartedly. Granted being new at looking for mushrooms I was not very good at it.

Searching for Mushrooms

Bad Mushrooms! As they say in Austria you can eat all mushrooms at least once! (it just might be the last thing you eat)

Good Mushrooms, one of the four types they like!

Then you have to clean them and make sure they are not full of worms.

Well even if you are not the best mushroom finder you can at least enjoy the view.

Finally after we could find no more mushrooms, we headed off to a local pub! It was very authentic up in the foothills in an old log home.

The day take, not great but not terrible.

Tomorrow I am off to do more hiking in the local area here near Graz Austria, and then Friday I will spend the day in Vienna before heading on to Ostrava in the Czech Republic!

Into Thin (and expensive) Air...

Perhaps you already have guessed where I am based on the title, but in case you did not, I am in Switzerland!

Yesterday I set off from Carcassonne France with the goal of at least reaching Geneva. I made it there around 3 pm and spent a few hours exploring it before I got back on a train to get deeper into the mountains. To be more specific I went to Grindelwald, Switzerland, home to some of the largest mountains in Europe. The train ride was beatiful and the time passed by quickly as I wtched Lake Geneva and the mountains fly by. Like a backpacker of old I had to set off to find lodging for the night (no pre-booking this time!). I was in luck and got the last bed at thr first hostel I tried.

Here are some pictures of Grindelwald (not mine), but like in the pictures the mountains are snow capped right now!



Today I set off to climb a 3,000 meter high mountain! Unfortunately due to a poor map and very cloudy conditions I got lost a few times and only made it up to around 2,300 meters. I actually ended the hike on the other side of the mountain and was able to take the bus back, my legs where shot after 5+ hours od hiking on the mountain. None the less it was a beatiful hike in which I saw tons of mountains, glaciers, mountain streams, and cows (with their swiss cow bells of course)!

Tomorrow I am off to graz to stay with a family in Austria. It will be another long train ride but I am sure the scenery will be excellent again!

Carcassonne

So I decided to take my fathers advice, from his comment on my blog, and traveled to Carcassonne, France. I was not disapointed at all in what I found there. In Carcassone there is a new town and an old town. I was interested in the old town because it sits within a massive medievil fortress! This is by far one of the coolist castles I have ever seen (only Warick Castle in England comes close). The fortress sits on top of a huge hill, has a moat (although their is no longer water in it), and has two massive outer wall rings, and a huge keep inside of the outer walls. The hostel I stayed at was within the castle walls! indeed I almost never left the castle as their were so many things to explore.

The original castle was built by the Romans as a defense aganst invading barbarians. In fact you can still see parts of the castle that were built almost 2000 years ago by the Romans. The castle is also famous because it hosted members of the Cathar religious sect. The Pope declaired the Cathars heritics and ordered a crusaid against them. carcassonne was then sacked by the crusade and fell into french control. The French King Louis IX had the castle strengthened and expanded to its current size in order to defend France's southern border with Spain. Eventually France gained more southern territory and the castle was no longer of strategic importance and fell into disrepair. In the 1800s the castle was restored to its former glory by the same archiologist who restored the Cathedral de Notra Dame de Paris (not a bad resume, eh?), Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Well I hope this history lesson did not bore you too much, I found it all vey fassinating, there is tons more history about Carcassone but I figured I would just share the highlights!

Triumphant Barcelona

So after taking a morning train back to Barcelona and then laying around on the beach all afternoon, it was time for me to head to the main event! The FC Barcelona game at Nou Camp versus Wisla Krakow.

The stadium was little over half-full for the game....so there were ONLY 56,000 people there (the stadium holds about 100,000). I of course enjoyed the game from nearly the worst seat in the house for the "budget" price of 18 Euro (about $30). Of course all the real fans sit in the cheap general admission seats so it really is the place to be!

The game quickly turned into a route with Barcelona scoring two goals before halftime on their way to a convincing 4-0 win! Three of the goals were scored by two of the teams stars, Eto scored two (picture) and Henry scored one! So I was excited to see them do well. I must say I was a bit disapointed with the Barcelona Fans, while they enjoyed the game and were happy to see their team win, by no means were they extatic or overlly excited by the result. Really to them it was just another day at the office, Barcelona should win and did win, good job. The Barcelona fans did not really have any really exciting cheers or chants. They did have a song they would sometimes sing but no one really ever seemed to get that in to it. The biggest thing the fans did was the wave, and lets be honest even Twins fans at the metrodome are capable of that. The KRAKOW FANS on the other hand were much more entertaining! They was just one small section of them at the stadium but you could hear them chanting and chearing all game long, even when they were down 0-4. They had many different organized cheers and songs and ALL of their fans were doing them together. If the competition was between fans, Krakow would of won for sure!

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All in all I really enjoyed the game and the expearience of getting to see some European futbol! I still will admit I would love to go to a game in England particularly at Old Trafford in Manchester should I ever get the chance. Tomorrow I am on to Carcassone and from there I have no idea, so stay tuned!

Flamenco and Toledo

So the last few days have been like an intensive lesson in Spanish Culture for me. After roaming the streets of Madrid for a day (which is sufficient, as far as I was concerned) I was ready to get into the more meaty parts of Spanish Culture. My second evening in Madrid I met two girl from Australia (of course, where else), who were going out to see Flamenco! This was one of the things I really wanted to see in Spain so I tagged along. The show was great, from the guitarist (the real star) to the singers to the dancers. We saw a show in local bar as opposed to some tourist monstrasity. So I like to think we got the real Spanish version! The flamenco show involved dancers, guitar, piano, drums, multiple singers, as well as different rythmic noises from snapping to clapping. It all creates a really neat and unique show!












The next day after I saw the flamenco show I went to Toledo (a certain sister of mine suggested it). The city was really neat. When you think of an old city in the Spanish country side, Toledo is what you imagine. It has old churchs, mosques, and synagogues scattered all over the city. In addition the city is still completely walled in and on top of a hill surounded by a river! The city as well as the land around it is beatiful.

I must say that Span in general is quite different from the rest of Europe. The music, landscape, architecture, and way of life are all unlike anything else in Europe I have seen. The effects of Morish culture is very obvious here. I found the change very refreshing and enjoyable. I am sorry I will not make it to Sevilla and Granada as I originally planned, but at the same time I am really excited to head back to Barcelona for the futbol match.

Are you ready for some Futbol?

Like any good backacker I had the next week or so planned out with hostels selected and ideas about what I wanted to see....but like any really good backpacker I threw out my schedule when I bought a ticket to FC Barcelona vs Wisla Krakow!!!!! While the Futbol season does not get into full swing until September here in Europe, qualifying for the Champion League (most prestigious futbol competition in the world) happens in August.

Barcelona is my favorite futbol team outside of England, so I am really excited to get a chance to see them play at their world famous stadium Nou Camp! Wilsa Krakow is a much smaller club, and should lose to Barcelona, but you never know, thats why they play the game!

With my changing plans I will now go spend three days in Madrid and Toledo before making my way back to Barcelona to see the match. From there I have no idea where I am going to go, except that I know I need to start making my way east. If you have any sugestions about places in southern France, Switzerland, or northern Italy let me know!

The wide world of Hostels...

So I decided I would do a little reflecting on something that I tend not to talk much about on my blog....HOSTELS! I figure normally they are really not that exciting compared to the places and people I get to see, but really hostels are a huge part of my trip! So I thought I would just put together some random thoughts and highlights concerning my hostel stays!

Originally I booked all my hostels on HI, Hostelling International. They guarentee a certain quality of Hostel, plus I am a member so I normally save about 10% on any given night. My Trips to Ireland and Spain have forced me to switch to www.hostelworld.com, which I must admit is WAY BETTER! It still lists any HI hostels but also lists tons of independant or other associations. I also have found that while some of the hostels I stay in are not as nice as HI locations, they are often much more fun!

The other night I actually used my spanish....to talk to a Czech Girl, she does not speak english and I do not speak czech so we were able to use spanish as a common langauge, granted he both had limited vocabularies!

Often going out to eat will cost between 10 to 15 Euro if one wants a decent meal. One thing I do quite commonly as do other hostel people is go the store and buy food to make your own dinner. For half the price you can get twice the food! About a week ago in Ireland I made a bunch of people really jealous when I made BBQ Chicken wings, which were amazing by the way.

Finding your hostel is always a bit of an adventure, especially in Spain. Normally I get directions and allow GPS on the Nokia to lead the way! That of course assumes though that you get the right directions/location. Here in Barcelona I wrote down directions to the wrong hostel, whoops! I had to find a local internet cafe to correct my mistake.

What is that I hear? Is someone else speaking English??? Well chances are they are probably an Aussie! It is absolutly unbelievable how many Australians there are backpacking (especially considering their population), and they are hard core lots of them are going for close to a year! Their are also plenty of people from Canada and England as well at the hostels.

The truth is you never know what you are going to get till you show up at the hostel. A good or bad hostel makes a huge difference on how much I enjoy any given city! I have had plenty more crazy hostel stories and I am looking forward to many more over the final three weeks of my trip!

If you would like to see some of the last few hostels I have stayed at check out these links!

Barcelona http://www.hostelworld.com/availability.php/SantJordiDiagonalHostel-Barcelona-13017

Dublin http://www.hostelworld.com/availability.php/DublinCityBunkhouse-Dublin-23896

Killarney http://www.neptuneshostel.com/

And this is where I am going tomorrow in Madrid! http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/MadHostel-Madrid-13326

Ring of Kerry

It has been awhile since my last post. The reason beeing I wanted to wait till I could post some of my pictures of the Ring of Kerry. Unfortunately I seem to be having a lot of tech problems when it comes to posting them (I wonder if blogger is having the problems). Nonetheless I have had an amazing time and some awesome pictures to share with you (when I get home I guess)! I rented a bike in Killarney for two days and with it I rode over 100 miles, conqured several mountains, and even fought some unrulely sheep! The end result? I got really wet but met lots of people and saw tons of beatiful sights!

Ireland wasa very relaxing place to be and I really enjoyed my stay there. After the week though I was ready to move on to my next destination, Barcelona, Spain. I took another Ryanair flight today (I got a whole row to myself!). I am a bit travel weary and I am hoping to just enjoy the beach tomorrow in order to relax! My plans as to where I am going and what I will do are a bit unorganized, but I plan to spend at least a week or more in Spain. Hopefully I will be able to turn it into some good blog posts, so stayed stuned!

IRELAND!

So after a lovely trip on Ryanair (only delayed an hour, and the seat was the skinniest airplane seat I ever have been in), I arrived in Dublin! I proceded to my hostel and arrived around 12:30 am. Being a saturday night in Dublin I of course wandered the city a bit to see the Irish pub life in full swing. I was quite tired though and headed back to the hostel by around 1:00 to hit the sack.

Today I saw many different aspects of this lovely green and beer happy country. I met a girl from southern England at breakfast, and I ended up spending the morning with her. We took the Dart (a commuter train) to a small coastal town outside of Dublin. It was BEAUTIFUL! We walked along the coast on hiking trails that were literally right along the cliffs. We even saw some Irish folks swiming in the sea (it was not warm out!). Check out these pictures!






As I said beautiful! So in the afternoon I did my own thing and checked out some of Dublins major sites from Churches to the University. Of course the big thing I did in Dublin was go to the Mecca of the Guinness Beer Production. Thats right I went to the Guinness Storehouse Museum in Dublin where they tell you everything about their black beer and the finish it off with a free pint! I downed the pint talking with two other Americans I met in the pub ontop of the storehouse where you have an amazing view of the city of Dublin!


After the Storehouse, I did something completely unirish....I went to a movie! I went and saw the new batman. I was in the mood to do not much for the evening and I have wanted to see it since it came out some I took the evening off from tourist attractions and saw the movie which was amazing. Tomorrow I will have some more time in Dublin before I take a train to Killarney, in southwestern Ireland, where I will be spending the next three nights.

Hoeg's Visit to Parliament proves more exciting than Obama and McCain!

After McCain and Obama were done visiting the United Kingdom as a part of their presidential nominee world tours, it was time for the Political Juggernaut Carl Hoeg to arrive in London. While McCain arrived to little fanfare and Obama arrived too much, it can be certain that the most thrilling reception was saved for Hoeg. Such is the concern that Hoeg, a major rising force in the US political scene, will rise to unprecedented levels of power within the US in the coming years that his opponents deemed it necessary to attempt to bump him off during his visit to the British Parliament.

No sooner had Hoeg set foot inside one of the Parliamentary office buildings and met his private tour (Ruth Larkin), then he was being told to move away from the front of the building due to a suspicious vehicle. Only Minutes later Hoeg along with the rest of the people in the building had to be evacuated from the building due to the concern that the abandoned vehicle outside the office building could be a car bomb. Indeed all adjacent buildings were evacuated, the nearby subway stations were closed down and London’s finest were called in to deal with the situation. The cavalry police were controlling the civilians while bomb squads, police, and other authorities dealt with the suspect vehicle. The situation defused when one very surprised looking British chap tried to make his way back to his abandoned car with a small can of gasoline. When the situation had concluded Hoeg, like Obama and McCain before him was allowed to go on his tour of Parliament. While it appears that Hoeg managed to steer clear of disaster in this instance, as his assent to power continues one can only wonder if their will be more instances like this in the future.

(Picture - Police on Horseback dealing with the crowdcontrol after the situation defused)