Krakow (and Poland, by necessity) plus Auschwitz

We were sad to leave Prague… but we were a bit over how the staff (newsagents/bar staff/waiters/ticket sellers) were mostly over tourists. Especially ’English’ tourists (which we are doomed to be mistaken for everywhere. Nick and I have said how crap it is that the two main English speaking lots of tourists are the English (bad rep for rudeness) and the americans (ditto, but for loudness AND rudeness). Anyway, trip east through Czech was a dream. Of course. Until I noticed in the lonely planet shoestring guide (thanks Kyle and Mossy) that there were only a few specific crossings into Poland that would accept foreigners. And we BOTH noticed that the turn off that the GPS had taken was essentially a dirt track through farmland in the middle of nowhere… towards mountain range. I.e. not going to be one of the sweet border crossings. After a bit of fiddling about (I.e. making executive decisions against the GPS’ instructions) we made it to the Czech-Polish border at Csesky-Tesin… and whizzed right through, past abandoned border booths. So we have no idea if we did the right thing, or if it was much ado about nothing, but we both knew that the pitted, gravel road through completely non-English speaking areas was a bad idea.

As was Poland altogether. According to Nick, anyway, but we’ll get to that.

Immediately upon crossing into Poland we found out why the GPS was giving us such an (apparently, to us) erroneous-looking estimated arrival time. Poland’s roads are crap. What is marked as a ’motorway’ in our map book, is a one lane road with no overtaking areas, doglegging through every dilapidated and miserable village heading east. And it was not scenic. Just flat, dilapidated and depressing. Poor Poland. Because the country is too poor to have… footpaths, people just walk along the side of the road (on ‘motorway’, further slowing traffic) and we discovered a phenomenon we saw reflected everywhere in Poland, but which stopped abruptly at the Polish-Slovak border on the way out… noone has anywhere to be, and so cyclists just lazily pedal on the motorway… further slowing traffic. It ended up being around an 8 hour day to travel a 540km journey. There are also shrines to Mary sporadically on the side of the road (sometimes only 100m apart, but always decked out with fresh flowers and usually on what would be a really dangerous blind corner, if you weren’t going at 40km/hr behind an impassive Pole on a bike with nowhere to be. One crazy thing we saw was an old man (70+) standing in the middle (proper middle, and STANDING) waving his walking stick angrily at every car that went past. We thought maybe it was us (German number plate, and he held a grudge) but it really was EVERY car.

In that trip we also learnt a phrase that we would soon become familiar with, heard immediately after programming your next destination into the GPS - ‘warning: your destination is located in a restricted access area’. So we arrived in Krakow. To be led to a dead end street. Or rather, we thought it was a dead end for us because of all of the crazy polish parking on both sides of the road. We never got a good pic of the streets (and we certainly were not in the mood at that point to) but they park… diagonally, nose in, and reverse parallel wherever they can find a spare both of side walk. Welcome to the real eastern Europe. Subsequently parking (in paid parking that costs more than a dinner for two with drinks in Krakow) we looked at the lonely planet guide to discover that the street the GPS directed us to, had indeed been a dead end. And the restricted access area that we were warned about… was a pedestrian area.

So we walked in to the main hostel. Got served by the most sour polish (or any type of) girl I have ever met. Got told to get passports. Went back, got packs, got passports… Surrendering my passport at that dark hell hole to that harridan was the second scariest thing I have ever done (but more on that for the Croatia blog). Then we were instructed (with a smirk) to walk back, past our car carrying our packs to the accommodation.

What a scam. Musty, 3 HUGE flights of stairs in the freezing dank hallway to get to a room without a phone, with a sofabed futon as the ’luxurious’ double they provided, hot water that ran out in the morning (but refreshed at night),with broken wifi (which I believe was just a wifi modem plugged into a wall with no paid internet connection) and with the 60 channels of satellite tv they skited about being… in Polish. Minus a news channel (which we had watched on 24 hour Pope-visit-to-England broadcast for 3 days in Prague) and a sports channel. That was it. It was cemented. Nick hated Poland, Krakow, Flamingo Doubles and the Poles. We honestly considered leaving right then. Just wiping Poland. But we agreed to sleep on it…

The stairwell to our place... Doesn’t capture the dankness. Can’t blog smells, unfortunately.

We did a spin around Market Square that night (yawn, charming, but couldn’t hold a candle to Old Town Square in Prague) but agreed that we were only going to hate on… the food, the service, the sights and Poland in totality, so beered and fooded at a café and got the heck back to our miserable little dive for fitful sofabed sleeps.

Krakow street in the early morning. It was very chilly - gave the jumpers a work out most days, and DEFINITELY in the night. Brrr. Was crisp and nice, I guess, although I dread to think of their bitterly cold winters.
By day....
Market Square...

The next morning was beautiful and we went and saw Krakow’s only other sight, Wawel Hill (which is their castle, but it was allowed to fall down a couple of hundred years ago and then they rebuilt it to its former glory (well, charming standard. It was pretty cool but hardly glorious). Here’s the obligatory pics…

Looking up at Wawel Hill as we stroll in.
Wawell Hill from the outside.
Nick walking under the portcullis thing.
Building in the castle grounds. It was SUCH a nice day for it. And we really just wandered around enjoying the sunshine and the views - and the substantially smaller crowds, when compared to Prague.
Above is the ‘palace’ part of the castle

We also scored free tickets to the Treasury and Armoury, which were both pretty interesting, being smattered with the occasional English translation, but mostly just falling into the category of ’cool stuff’.

Coronation sword of polish kings. For a bit.
Axe-gun. For when ’just killing them’ isn’t enough. And yes, I know those old guns took 40min to load, so it probably got some use.
Armour.

Back to regaling the crap facilities of the hostel… after castle time we thought we’d attend to our desperate need for some clothes washing. So we went back to sour puss (sigh). The hostel had said it had washing facilities… should be sweet, yeah? Which is technically correct. Having carted our stuff to the other building (in our baby backpacks, of course) we discovered that yes, it does have a washing machine. And no, it does not have drying facilities. So helpful. Needless to say, the first words out of Nick’s mouth more than adequately expressed the dismay we both felt - but then quickly turned to cursing Poland/Krakow/Polish people once more. Thank god for… (der ner ner nehhh ner nehhhhh) PUB LAUNDRY! That’s not it’s name, but it should be. It’s a place that has more washing machines and dryers than you can poke a stick at, a bar, and a café-kind-of (no food) atmosphere. And friendly staff. Which really matters when you’re trying your excruciating Polish on them (well, how else will we learn!), and they do speak English. It was bliss. And we got a bit day-time-pisshkey waiting for the clothes to wash and dry, and we were sooooo much happier. We also met a couple of aussie chicks (who had met the day before at the hostel and were also getting their stuff cleaned), who we went out with that night to a couple of places in the ’Old Jewish Quarter’ with a guy they’d met who’d escaped the Brethren cult (interesting stories there) and was doing 28 European countries in an incredibly (so I think) short time. The next day,the wryly coolest of the bunch Candyce, a lovely Melbourne chick with whom Nick and I had a lot in common in music taste and general attitudes, came with us to Auschwitz, when we drove.
Walking through Market Square after Pub Laundry. Nick’s first smile after we entered Poland, I think. I was worrying he might turn into a Pole (they’re quite impassively faced people who look like they’ve had a hard life - but they probably have).

Afternoon snack to make sure we made it to our dinner meet that night (after pub laundry). LOVE cart food. And since Nick and I only really understood 1/3 of what the lady said… and there was a queue, Nick said yes to extra sausage (unwittingly - but it was yum as).

Auschwitz - serious bit of blog. Please don't read if you don't want to

The reason we’d actually chosen Krakow was that it was the closest major town to Auschwitz. So that was the destination the next day, with our cool new friend Candyce, plus Klaus (a positive obviously), Polish roads (negative), and a GPS that thinks you can drive through pedestrian areas (a little bit of column a,and a little bit of column b) . We had it on ’fastest route’… As we drove, we passed a roundabout with a sign to Oswiecim (Polish village, Germans took the name for the infamous camp)… and took a different turn, on the GPS’ instructions. Not a great sign of things to come. Neither was the roads getting progressively smaller and smaller, and windier and windier. ’Surely Auschwitz would be signed!’ Yeah, the way without the tiny ferry on the dirt road WAS signed. What’s that you say? Yup, the GPS took us down a dirt road to a queue of a dozen smiley locals waiting for a one-car ferry (DODGEY-looking one-car ferry) to take them across the creek/river thing over to the other bit of pitted dirt road. It was a boat thing, attached to an elevated cable positioned upstream. We weren’t sure Avis (or our Mums) would approve, so it was backkkktrackkkk to the nearest tiny village and ask for directions in broken polish. Some things are beyond words and the lady managed to convey that if we went back and turned left, we’d pretty much go straight there. We also reprogrammed the GPS to avoid ferries (who knew that wouldn’t be a default? Although there‘s ferries,and then there‘s Polish ferries, clearly, just like ‘roads‘ and ‘polish roads‘) and were stoked when it agreed with the lady.

Auschwitz…

Words can’t describe the horrors of those camps. We had the best guide, who spoke fantastic English, had done it for 12 years and you can tell took his job - conveying that horror as much as possible, but affording those poor people the dignity and respect they were denied in life - so seriously. It would be disrespectful to linger on every macabre detail here (and you can look the facts/figures up yourself), so I’ll give a summary of the things that really struck/moved all 3 of us.

1) It was a beautiful sunny day when we visited, and that seemed really wrong to us, in the face of what we heard and saw that day.

2) The disgusting calculated-ness of:

I) the positioning of the camp (pretty much the middle of Europe, very convenient for transporting people from all of the German occupied areas);

II) Making the decision that children were no use, most women were no use (especially if you took their children), the sick or disabled and old men were also no use and therefore all of those people were led directly to the gas chambers upon arrival (after the Auschwitz and Birkenau started being death cams as well as ’concentration’ camps’;

III) shaving the killed women’s hair to take it to make cloth/stockings etc (taken from their dead bodies), taking gold teeth and jewellery from the dead;

3) The inhuman and deliberate sanctioned/ordered acts of the guards to strip the poor people living in the camps of their dignity, and then inevitably kill them in one way or another, through the impossibly hard work on no rations, disease, beatings, horrible punishments - and random selections just to torture the people, shootings and gas chambers.

4) That through underground information sources the allied forces knew of the concentration camp/s almost as soon as they began, and then they knew (almost directly after) that they had begun killing people (mostly Jews) in the gas chambers from September 1942. It was a long time to the end of the war.

More people were interned and more were killed at Birkenau than Auschwitz. The Nazis blew up the several gas chambers there when it appeared the war was lost for them, to attempt to hide the evidence, as well as dismantling the death walls (walls against which people were shot) at both camps. Auschwitz is the more complete camp, and I would very much recommend a visit to both. Auschwitz is the museumy bit which humanises for you the poor people who were brought there and mostly died there, and Birkenau emphasises the scale upon which it was done.

Auschwitz camp...

Stockpiled glasses of the victims of the gas chambers.
Suitcases - they made the people being taken to the camp write their names on them, even when most of those who arrived would be murdered immediately. All part of the ruse to keep them compliant.
Immense piles of shoes of the victims. Lots were shipped back to Germany and doled out to German citizens, but there were huge stockpiles still remaining when the allies took the camp.
There were rows of photos like this, showing date of arrival and date of death (Nazis recorded this info and took pictures of those they made do work - I.e. healthy men - lots of old men, the sick, and pretty much all women and children went straight to the gas chambers). We noticed of the pictures, that the later you arrived, the shorter you survived.

Birkenau - each of those chimneys was for a different building with people cramped in terrible conditions - they housed up to 1,000.

The ‘nicer’ quarters of Auschwitz. The Birkenau buildings were wooden (colder), and the bunks thinner - but the people were made to sleep 3 on one bunk - and without mattresses.
Recreation of ‘death wall’ at Auschwitz. The Nazis destroyed the original when they left.

Where, after the war crimes tribunal convicted him, they hung the head of the Auschwitz camps. He lived with his family in a house, not more than 50m from the gas chambers and cremation ovens at Auschwitz. That's where these gallows are - within sight.

The gas chamber at Auchwitz. The real deal. The guide said sometimes they killed so many in the one group, that the bodies had nowhere to fall after they died and so they were still standing when the ’criminals’ (also captives in the concentration camp, often Jews, who did the guards' dirty work in exchange for better conditions - including convincing the gas chamber victims that after their shower they'd get food, so to be quick to strip off and in getting into the 'shower') came to get the bodies, strip them of anything useful and take them to the cremation ovens.

Sorry if it seemed as if DID linger over details, when I said I wouldn’t. There’s a lot more to it, and the figures they give for people killed at the group of camps there is around 1.5 million, and I just think it’s important to remember/learn about so that nothing like that can ever be allowed to happen again.

OK, so, the next day, feeling very lucky to live in a safe country in a safe time for us we drove to Budapest. This involved 3 countries (I still count Poland), and 2 vignette (prepaid motorway passes) purchases. These being a lot harder transactions than you would expect, OK? We found this section of Poland’s roads… a bit better. And a bit newer. Though still… not great, and still dotted with slow cyclists (slow to the extent that the front wheel wobbles from lack of propulsion) and the inevitable shrines to Mary. Poor Poland (as I had come to say to interrupt Nick’s periodic rants on Poland/the Poles/Krakow/Flamingo Doubles). As we approached the border, we came to a strange roadside market/fair. It was just a random Tuesday morning, but there were thousands of people and hundreds of stalls, all selling… well, what we could call, ’weird’ things. Their version of garden gnomes, next to hats (on the same stall), animal pelts, unfamiliar foods… it was fantastic, and would have been great to explore and score some cheap mementos, but we faced the Slovakian roads with some trepidation (having learnt the hard way, from Poland) and so we scooted on.

Slovakia was a pleasant surprise. Roads were heaps better, although still quite slow (80km/hr for a lot of the way) because of trucks and because the roads were winding along valleys between huge, green mountains. Which are awesome snow fields (complete with chair lifts directly from town filled with chalets and hotels - MUST go back, it’s beautiful and would be cheap as) in winter. And check out what we saw when we turned a corner into a fresh valley in Slovakia…

Now THAT’S a castle. Or rather, a Hvar.

Next time = Hungary/Budapest, and Nick’s turn. As even I am sick of the sound of my own voice. Arghh! Why can’t I be brief? At least you can just look at the piccies if they look to daunting I guess.

Hugs,

L.

Europe and Prague-i-licious Prague stuff

Ahhh. Qantas. How do I love thee (comparatively)… let me count the ways. I love you to the height, depth and breadth of the extended leg-and-seat-room of our premium economy seats (random upgrade, I might remind you) and to the baby-less curtained section (of premium economy) and to the extent that I ‘savoured’ (relatively, of course) your tiny airplane dinners.

Sigh. Lufthansa… no good. Well, definitely not great, and because the company is german… filled with real German people (not Australians who have the last name ’Schneider’. Unfortunately. Because we‘re mostly awesome) who think they own their seat, your seat and the whole plane. Word to the guy in front??? You can’t beat a headrest into a comfortable shape. It’s not made of that kind of substance. You’re just knocking the drink of girl behind you into her lap every 5 minutes. And when it came to “put your seats into upright position” time, a certain two obedient (POLITE, rather) Australians complied. As did the people behind. But the germans in front… nein. Which left us SFA room between our faces and the inflight screens. Which meant that every time that damned german man bashed his seat, I was obviously at risk of getting a black eye as well as an even-more-saturated lap, and Nick doesn’t want TWO continents thinking my occasional (note: not ’rare’, per se) accidental (toilet doors, car doors, and potential air-plane-headrest slam) black-eyes mean woman-beater…

Munich - the efficiency of the germans (how this was taken an incredibly sinister/evil turn I will describe in the Krakow post) meant that even though we were early for our car booking, they thought they could do something for us. That’s when the usual extra gee-up of car rental prices came out… we thought we’d booked for 2 drivers… but apparently nein. Being that it was going to be an extra $700 plus AUD we thought we’d stick to one. Which had to be Nick, because I was keen to try out every wine region in Eastern Europe, and my Slovene for ‘I‘ve only had one glass‘ (hiccup) is not so good. So we picked up our beautiful Mercedes (they’re cheapin Germany obviously, EVERYONE has new beemers, Mercedes, Vws… so shiny, and FAST) and headed the one hour to Deggendorf. Our ’close-to-Munich’ place of choice for a night to gather our wits after the flight. NOTE: bad planning meant we were flying into Munich at the start of Oktoberfest. Which sounds awesome, except when you realise cheap accommodation books out a year in advance and… well… you planned badly (well, 'poorly', whatever).

The Autobahn was… a place of contrasts. Cool-as-a-cucumber Nick, and crying/scared/white-knuckled-bracing Lauren. I know where I get that (I know from my driving lessons, that is). Completely undeserved on Nick’s part Imight add (I.e. that I would be scared) but it’d been a long flight and it’s weird sitting in the ’driver’s seat’ by Aussie standards, and seeing a corner hurtling towards you but having no control over preventing your seemingly-inevitable death. Anywhoo, so clearly day one (and let’s not mention days 2 and 3) of Europe were… challenging. For both of us. But let’s leave that alone.

So, Deggendorf was cute and pretty typical (I imagine) of a german 'dorf' (look it up…) It was pretty much German Lismore. We went out for tea to the local pub, which was packed with locals (what a surprise,but that meant we knew it was good). Waittresses were very kind with our crap german, and the locals pretty much ignored us until (reading from my “Lonely Planet German phrasebook”) I said (at a coincidental lull in conversation in the room) “Huh. Condom is just Kondom is german”. Awkward.

Anyway, the next day we drove to prague on German and Czech super-duper-awesome, eat-your-heart-out-Australia roads. So it was fast. And safe. And surprisingly flat (surprising to me, at least). By the time we got there, we’d forgiven Lufthansa (or put it aside, at least) and had nicknamed the car ‘Klaus’. Very reliable, safe and cute as a german button. GPS… details to come in ‘Krakow‘ episode.

Nick had a baptism of fire in terms of ’ancient street driving’. You know, narrow, crazy turns, and for large portions of road, Prague trams SHARE YOUR LANE. Yes, the tram tracks are in your lane for trams going both directions for sometimes a couple of hundred metres. Everyone else seemed unphased (which we later learned is actually just the primary blank expression Eastern Europeans use) so we just kept on truckin to our hotel. Thank god for the GPS (beerrrh baaarrrh - for later…) Anyhoo here’s the view from our window!



Prague is HUGE, there are just suburbs upon suburbs of 150+ year old equisized, but differently coloured buildings…here’s a shot (with a tram. We never took one, figured we’d fail epically in the discussion about how much it costs and where we’re going).



The next couple of days are a bit shady (we’ve been to 2 places since then!) in the actual order of things, but I’m pretty sure we went to a place called the Beer Factory on the first night. A place where the beer taps are in the middle of your table, and you pour your own beer and get the bill at the end. I’m almost sure it’s that we’ve been to two places since that I don’t remember much… apart from that Nick had his first taste of Gulyasleves (Gulash) there and I had a half a duck with some cabbage, which was surprisingly delicious. Beer factory was on Wenceslas Square (one of “the sights”) of Prague, but it’s really just a looooooooong square of shops/cafes/casinos/bars/nightclubs/markets/strip joints/food stalls. And it’s awesome. And by Australian standards… very cheap.

Top of the square looking back up our hotel's way. They have those smarmy politician posters too. Since then, I have found they are common to all countries. Yay.

Looking down Wenceslas Square. And yes, he is the 'Wenceslas' of 'Good King Wenceslas' fame. Obviously the Chrissy carol was sung constantly under my breath. Nick had prevouslybeen unaware of said carol, but... now he's definitely not.

We later found out that the two main tourist drags (Wenceslas and Old Town Squares) offer food and drink about 3 x the normal price, bu sometimes that’s worth it, depending on how keen you are to try your luck with Lonely Planet phrase-book and the waiter’s patience. Nick described Wenceslas as Times Square on valium. With sweeter local laws re drinking… or rather, all of Prague has these. Please see my pic below of the next day’s ’cart food AND BEER’. And of me looking like someone who is really enjoying their cart-food, which was the barbequed paprika chicken skewer placed in a roll (so you get the same amount of chicken as everyone else, and it‘s all cooked perfectly… how smart is that!!!!), with mustard. Yuuuuuuuum. Nick loved his huge Czech sausage (tee hee) hotdog too. There’s people just walking around at 9am with cans of beer, or cups of beer (cart beer) and at lunch, it’s part of the culture to be having a beer with lunch. So all of the food/beer carts are going off, and the sitting areas and well-positioned tables (I.e. next to cart J ) are filled with people eating and drinking. There’s a slight problem of cute old men (and less-than-cute/dirty/angry men) hitting you up for your change, in Czech, but the locals ignore them and you kind of have to as well or there’d be a bit of a swarm.

My most attractive eating face, clearly. Although to be honest I was of the impression Nickwas taking a picture of the beer (piva) and food.

Anyway, back to the sights. Old Town Square. Amazing. Our first experience of the real true amazing historical parts of Europe. Even the walk there, through tiny cobblestone lanes, was really touching. It’s a cool place, and I’d already long decided that I could live there. Something I would later re-emphasise… and then state more strongly about other places on the trip, to-date. Argrggh.

The pic below is the Astronomical Clock, which is really old (can't be bothered looking that up or finding the Tourist Guide for Prague) and to the right is the streets on the way to the Old Town Square.

To the right is a view of the Square itself. And there's us there (I like to include a few mugshots, vain as I am).

So, I know you can see how old Town Square would have blown our mind. Perfectly preserved buildings, and a several-hundred-year-old clock that are just fairy-tale to a simple Aussie girl like myself. What blew my mind just as much was a couple of hundred Belgian bikers (I.e. a middle aged motorbike appreciating club, by the looks) rolling up, doing circles, parking in the middle of the square and then heading into various cafes for beers and lunch, one of the days we were there.

Re the astronomical clock, we discovered that night (after we’d piccied up) that the clock does ’something’ on the hour. Something about apostles and bells, and Nick said his mum said something about a monkey. So anyway, we went back the next day… nick sat in the nearby bar having 2-4-1 (saying, incorrectly, that he could ’see from his seat’) and 5 min before I joined the crazy throng developing in front of the clock to see what the fuss is about. Ummm. Maybe I have high standards for things that are supposed to do things… but I saw 2 statues ringing bells, and then there was a guy at the top blowing a horn/trumpet. I think I was looking at the wrong part or something, although the clock itself is a thing of immense beauty, and it’s really incredible to think that any kind of mechanical components made that long ago have lasted so long and still can hold the attention of a crowd of 1000+ on a random Tuesday at 11am.

Anyway, we also visited Prague castle (how could you not) and as we rose the steady climb of stairs Nick turned and said “Look at the view… it’s almost breathtaking”. And it was. And he wasn’t talking about me, ha ha. Prague… when we got to castle, the view was something to write home about.

Check it out…

Looking up at the castle on the way there.

Just a third or a quarter of the view you get up there. It just wraps around.... streets and streets and suburbs and suburbs of beautiful old buildings and churches. And from up here you can see how maze-like the streets are.

See? We were here too.

The one above is taken in the 'village' part of the castle, so inside the castle walls from when they used to bring everyone inside when sieges were going down (or when the town was smaller...or both).

One of the churches within the walls. A few generations of polish royalty from wayyyy back are in a tomb here. We went to the free tomb bit - which appears to be some more recent additions, cos there was a lady in there sobbing on her knees in front of a big sarcophagus thing as people traipsed through. We made a quick get away.

On the way to Prague Castle we visited the Jewish Cemetary, near the Old Town Square. This was on the recommendation of Donna-sky, and a bit of additional google research. It’s one of the last jewish cemetaries left in Europe (or rather, the area that was occupied by Nazis during WWII, which we learned at Auschwitz was most of the continent…) because Hitler ordered them destoyed. The tombstones are all higgledy piggledy because in the Jewish religion you cannot/do not touch a headstone after someone is buried. And they’re so close because people are buried up to 12 deep there. It’s not a scary cemetery, if anything… it’s a beautiful, communal use of space. :)

We did the obligatory walk along Charles Bridge on the way home, as the weather just turned from beautiful and slightly hot to slightly threatening. It’s an amazing piece of architecture, having been built in 1357 (I looked that up) but it is THRONGED with tourists. And market stalls. And hawkers. And pickpockets, they say, although Nick and I have figured were among the few tourists they wouldn’t target first up as a) we’re of an age where we’d probably have diddly worth taking; and b) we’re able-bodied enough to give them a good chase, and perhaps a clip around the ear. I would have liked a quiet moment with the bridge (to really enjoy it) but the thought of a dawn tip across town (about 5km) was beyond me. Here’s Nick on the bridge.

One photo I’m proud of from Prague (not being artistic, myself) is this one, looking up to the Charles bridge from the bridge closer to the castle…

Two more note-worthy (but I have problems with keeping things concise,so see what you think) things are that Prague people are… or Czechs are (not having explored the Republic at all beyond Prague, I can’t say how far this extends) really into Marionette Theatre. And, ergo, there a lot of marionette shows. Freak-a-deaky, in my book. I’m sure we saw around 10 such shops in our wanderings. But I think ONE is too many. Supply and demand, I guess. Check this out:

The other thing (sans picture, but just imagine our confused faces) was that Nick and I attempted to use Czech poker machines in Wenceslas Square to try and use up our spare Czech coinage. Yeah. I know they call them ‘money takers’ in Australia, but if you can’t understand the Instructions, and the buttons which normally would make it ’more lines’ don’t do anything that you can discern… that’s what it was. It was a long and painful attempt to become Czech millionaires (which wouldn’t make us anything of the sort in Australia) but it was all for nought. And the small number of calories used in pressing every button on the thing trying to get it to work. Cart food, cart beer and half a duck? Everything helps.

Cheers for now,
L.

NYC

Our 1 star luxury.










The train ride from philly to new york was luxury. I wish it could of lasted a bit longer because I think I needed a bit more chill time before I entered the rat race. As you probly know, we had a big one, the night before in philly so I wasn’t exactly on my toes for this one. As we made our way up the escalator from penn station to the street (the Madison square garden entrance for anyone who knows what that is), there would have been a crowd of maybe 500 people with varying sized luggage milling around waiting for buses. Thank christ we didn’t need a bus. Im not riding another bus in my life anyway but that’s another rant for another day. We had our backpacks on and we missioned it northward up 8th street towards what would be our place of residence for the next nights. The thing about new york is that no matter what you look like or what you are doing, or carrying, or dragging, no one blinks an eyelid because either a) they’ve seen it all before, or b) theres a possibility you might stab them.
So we hiked the 9 or so blocks to the hotel, weaving through the torrent of bodies. Not expecting much from the 1 star joint that we booked. We didn’t get much either. Although as it turned out, it did the job. Hotel carter. One thing its definitely got is personality. I liked it and eventually it ended up being like ‘home’. although I didn’t mention the mouse I saw on the second night to lauren until we were in the shuttle bus to the airport….
Anyway, I hate doing laundry at the best of times, and personally I could of got away with anther month or two without seeing a washing machine, but it seems we needed to do some laundry. If I thought laundry was hard when we actually own a machine in our own place, its gonna be a nightmare in new york. But a nice way to acquaint ourselves with the city I spose. We managed to find a Laundromat and get the gear clean. It was interesting to see the residents of hells kitchen go about their daily business. Definitely not threatening. Just interesting. And surreal.
Speaking of surreal, after we finished up at the laundry we had the rest of the arvo/night up our sleeves so we thought wed check out times square. It was literally a minute from our hotel so before we knew it we were right in amongst it. We both agreed that it was absolutely mind blowing. It was complete sensory overload. The lights, the people, the sounds and smells, the hawkers trying to flog either tickets to comedy shows or for the big red buses, the challenge in negotiating the pedestrian crossings. It was crazy. It was a natural high. It was exhausting just standing there. We walked around for god knows how long but it seemed like somewhere where you lose time, hence the name I spose. It was thee most challenging when trying to cross the roads because you need to not only make sure you don’t get bowled over bythe tsunami of people coming towards you, you’ve gotta make sure you don’t get cleaned up by one of the million taxis or limos that frequent the area. amazing place, and something that needs to be experienced to understand.
We bought tickets to this hop on- hop off bus tour in times square the next day, that lasted 3 days and took you on 3 different loops of the island of manhatten. it’s about 50 big red double decker buses with open tops that have guides giving you the lowdown on all the different sights and sites you pass on the way. You pretty much pass them all too I must say. It does the job if you can put up with the other tourists and the knob head guides practically begging you for a tip. Its pretty funny because they remind us ignorant touro’s at every stop, most people from other countries choose to ignore this custom and breeze right by while theyre holding their respective hats out. The only one that deserved a tip was the first dude that we had. He had charisma and a sexy new york twang. Unlike the new york squawk we got used to. Although we tipped every time. Because lauren is so nice. I would of told a few of them to stick their tip hats in their gobs and do everyone on the bus a favour.
Went to central park the next day, using the bus again, because even if the guides are a pain in the arse, it’s a good way to get around. Wed be stuffed otherwise. And by the way, this isn’t to say that we didn’t enjoy the buses. they were great. The guidess just tried a bit hard sometimes. Anyway, so central park was nice. Saw strawberry fields which is the memorial to john lennon and just cruised around, watching the funny crowds playing softball and generally enjoying the last days of summer. Twas a beautiful day. Although we had to get on the bus and do the uptown/harlem bus loop to get home. We cooked up there on the top deck of the bus so that zapped us big time.
The third day was dedicated to the statue of liberty. And it was meant to be a simple excursion. But as ive learnt now after 5 weeks on the road, nothings ever easy. I sound jaded but im not. its just a fact. We got on the bus again and took the same tour we did on the first day to get down to the ferry. We got herded through security that was tighter than any airport and onto the ferry and got a sweet view of manhatten, the statue and the other boroughs. It was pretty hard to get a good photo though, with every other person on board doing their best to block every one of our shots with their heads. Ended up with some good ones though. Being on the island was another surreal experience. It was as if she was watching everything you did. Shes even more impressive than we both imagined, even in the bad weather. The wind was picking up and the rain was coming so we decided to battle the ferry back again. That was a hoot! Sitting with an old couple from Hoboken, Long Island? Who were about an hour or two away but hadn’t seen the statue before. The old bloke was a classic and practically took over the boat, letting everyone know that we were Australian and that mel gibson is an aussie and hes in a bit of trouble. He couldn’t figure out Mel’s name for about 10 mins and we kept trying to tell him he was talking about paul Hogan.we got there painfully in the end. His wife was practically deaf so she never really bothered trying to listen to him anyway. Although youd pretty much have to be deaf not to hear him. It would-be pretty funny home they have because he never shuts up yet she never listens. Quite the contradiction to the norm, some might say…..It was pretty funny because hed ask us a question, then wed try and answer but he wouldn’t listen to a word of our answer and just either ask us another question or try and tell us a completely irrelevant fact that was so obviously not true. His wife forced us to take some of her snacks that she’d prepared. After refusing to take them for 5 mins she got quite adamant and was letting half the boat know. She practically unzipped our bags and stuffed them in. nice people. Made the ferry trip go pretty quickly.
it started raining as soon as we got off the ferry and we were a long way from home with no umbrellas or whatever. So the big red bus it was! But lo and behold, the only seat left were on the top deck of the open top doubledecker. We gave it a crack, but with the rain getting heavier and the bus sometimes hitting 60km/hr we got hammered. They gave us ponchos which helped a lot but it was bloody miserable. I could even see the dogs that were chained up in Chinatown laughing at us and shaking their heads. But we made it back to the relative comfort of the hotel carter and all was well again.
Did I mention that I had had a raging cold for the last 3 days? If not, I have now.
The next day was just a shopping day were we picked up afew things that may or may not have been cheaper because theyre bought in new york. But at least we can say we bought them in times square if anyone asks! After this we went down to the lobby of the hotel to check emails etc and realised that this day was our only chance to try and get tickets to be in the crowd for the live recording of the show ‘the Colbert Report’. its on abc2 every weeknight at 7.30. Hes a hilarious political satirist weve been watching for ages. Im sure hes right up a lot of you guys’ alleys. Anyway we jumped online and found that amazingly, there was 11 tickets available for that night! We got them and had to be there 2hrs later. We were so stoked! We had a few celebratory beers while getting ready then ventured off to find the studio. Which was only 10 blocks away. Should ofbeen easy but we made it hard and got there only to be told that we needed a print off of the confirmation. Already being late, we hailed a cab, who took us straight into the slowness of times square so we jumped out in the street. We ran back, got the thing printed and cabbed it back in time to be 60th and 61st in line. Perfect seats in the end. It was a funny episode as always and we even managed to get our mugs on tv, so weve been told. I caught a goose too. This was the perfect way to finish up a big 5 days. Or more to the point, a big 25 days.
New york though, was definitely amazing. it really is alive. so much soul and character. we'll beback.
Its been a whirlwind but the usa is behind us now and im writing this in Europe. Theres already plenty to tell you guys and that wont be far way at all.
Its been such an eye opener. Stay tuned for one of our next entries which will be tips for future travellers to the states. Ive got some important things that you will need to jot down if you plan a trip to the boss country of the world!
Cheers!







this is honestly a grandstand set up for people watching and generally taking in the craziness that is times square.































the famous 'flat iron' building.















the police pipeband doing their thing for 9/11 memorial.













this thing was in the lobby of world trade centre before the attacks. its now set up in battery park, still with the dents and holes from the day.
















we couldnt go through central park without going to strawberry fields. we also went past the steps where john lennon was gunned down.














this is a hobo's can collection. i put it in because if you look carefully, theres a manequins head, complete with long brown wig and light blue beanie on a stick. freaky...













times square at night.

















on the boat tothe statue oflibert. you can almost see her over the top of red-shirt's head. and dogger, this boat was one boat thatyou werent gonna get into the wheel house of. unless you were interested in a few bullet implants.



















i was sad coz i couldnt get any good hotos that didnt have other tourists heads in them.















the grand old girl.














nice shotof us and manhatten.

this was what our trip from the statue of liberty back to the hotel was like. 45mins of it!

can you see us two thirdsofthe way up, right between the numbers? this was an electronic billboard in times square.

even the subway signs were blingin' in times square.

oh yeah and i met the real elmo. well thats what he told me. his voice is so different when your hearing it straight from the mans mouth....

our prized tickets..... awesome!