http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/carterface/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from carterface en-us Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:00:00 +0000 Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:00:00 +0000 From Galway we caught a bus to the Dublin Airport. Another part of our traveling cheaply involved sleeping at the airport when appropriate. We got to the airport around 10 had some food and tried to find a nice place to lay our bodies. This part didnrsquot work out so well. In most airports there is at least a sitting area that at night turns into a sleeping areahellipin Dublin this is not t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Dublin/Dublin/blog-431715.html The Cliffs of Moher were named one of the world's New Seven Wonders and thus packs in a lot of tourists each year. They raise to about 394 ft and are at the highest point 702 ft...needless to say they are quite impressive. I don't really have a lot to say about the day other than we explored the cliffs and saw some of the most spectacular things we'd ever seen. We broke the rules and walked along http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Clare/Cliffs-of-Moher/blog-431417.html We got to Galway midafternoon. We started the search for hostels after going to a few to check rates and then the tourist information we decided upon the Kinlay House. It was a really nice hostel and not very expensive either. We got in our hostel and felt the emptiness in our stomach and went for on a search for some food. We found the Irish equivalent of Walmart Dunne's. We first were introdu http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Galway/Galway/blog-431412.html After staying the day with Richard and pitching our tent in an old famine warehouse we tried to hitch to Clonmel again. But it wasn't going too well....the traffic was bare and no one stopped. We waited for about thirty minutes before we said Okay let's get a bus. It is not that we can't take a bus it is just that they are expensive to do all the time...but the longer the distance the less you http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Clare/blog-431404.html After leaving Nina's Ivana and I had the intention of hitching to a town called Clonmel and getting a bus from there to Ennis and from there hitching to the coast towards Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher. We got to the highway I made my sign up and we waited. At first we had little luck first of all we kept thinking we had been through enough of the roundabouts...but there were four or five and we http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Kilkenny/blog-431388.html Kilkenny comes from two words of the Gaelic language language of the Irish before the English came one meaning Church and the other being the name of the saint that it is named after. Instead of translating this directly they just made an English equivalent. In Kilkenny we were couch surfing again this time with a 33 year old Polish girl named Nina. As soon as Yoel brought us into Kilkenny we http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Kilkenny/Kilkenny/blog-431338.html We decided even after our success to take the bus to Youghal because we had to be there by 2 PM and didn't want to risk it. We were going to be couch surfing with Victor and his roommate Yoel in Youghal. Yoel is pronounced like you would say Yole and Youghal is pronounced like you'd say Y'all. This strange mix of things became a highlight of our trip....Yoel from Youghal. Neither was a native http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Cork/Youghal/blog-431317.html We went from Cork to Ballycotton by hitching but in order to get to the right highway we had to go to Midleton the town that holds Jameson Whiskey distillery. Our hitching virginity was broken by a man who lived a little before Midleton a free form mountain climber. He said he was in Switzerland and no one picked him up when he was hitching so he felt like he had a responsibility to get us. He w http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Cork/blog-431305.html I flew into Kerry Ireland from Frankfurt Germany on the 11th of August. Canrsquot say I really saw Frankfurt I mostly used it as a spot to wash clothes and get some rest. I got sick my last day in Venice and continued t be sick for the rest of my trip but the toughest days were in Frankfurt so I just laid in bed and drank tea and soup. I wasnrsquot too sick outside of these two dayshellip http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Cork/Cork/blog-431299.html I couch surfed with a kid named Marco at his parentrsquos house in Treviso. Treviso is a small medieval suburb near Venice Italy. It used to be under the rule of the Venetian Empire and is built around and somewhat on top of two rivers. I learned quickly that the Venetians loved building in places they knew they shouldnrsquot namely water. I was again going to avoid Venice but after 6 time http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-431285.html Pazin is the capitol of Istria yet it is probably the least important city of the bunch. I found the city of Pazin to be relatively uneventful but the fun is not in the city but in the natural wonders around the city. I must have walked 10 miles throughout the whole day. The bus from Pula dropped me off about halfpast noon and the first thing I did was look for a bus back. In the summer it seems http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Istria/blog-430736.html Rovinj pronounced roveen is a small beach community and Mediterranean fishing port. It was mostly built by Venetians when they controlled most of Istria and so the town follows a similar structure to all Venetian cities just walk around the alleys looking at all the beautiful houses and windows and then eventually you will find the main area of the city. The idea is that no matter where you st http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Istria/Rovinj/blog-430733.html Elvis was some I met through Ivana. They met at a xenophobia prevention workshop in Zadar. I searched for weeks on CouchSurfing for people in Istria but either they were not responding to anyone or they were not hosting. The night before we left for Zadar she said oh hey I have a friend in Pula maybe he will host you. She contacted him and everything was set up. I got into Pula and met Elvis a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Istria/Pula/blog-428593.html Labin is a small mining community that is divided into two sectionshelliplike most places in Europe. There is the new town which is full of apartment buildings despite the small population of 7000 and the old town. The old town as you can probably guess is the one I was visiting. The old town rests on a hill that overlooks the new town as well as the beach town Rabac. From the new town tree http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Istria/blog-423842.html I followed Ivana down to Zadar for her flight to the Netherlands. She was enrolled in a summer exchange for two weeks in several cities around the country. I still hadnrsquot seen Zadar so I figured I could kill to birds with one stone and stay a night there. I stayed in a hostel something that is not very cheap in Croatia but manageable and a guaranteed bed. I left Ivana for her very first fl http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Dalmatia/Zadar/blog-422398.html As may notice Generalski is extremely close to the word General which is exactly what it means and stol being the word for table thus making Generalski Stol translate to Generalrsquos Table. It is south of Karlovac the major military base in Croatia and thus was a hot spot during the war in rsquo91. Most every adult in the town was enlisted to help in the battle and the other side of Mre http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Central-Croatia/blog-422399.html This castle is one if not the best preserved castles in Croatia. It sits atop a hill that over looks the northern region of Croatia and a man made lake below. The castle held a lot of owners in its early years but was later acquired by the Drascaronkovi263 family. They were not kings or queens but simply an aristocratic family that led a good military career and was given the castle as a to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Central-Croatia/blog-422396.html Another day trip was to Medvedgrad. Not exactly far from Zagreb the town is easily accessed by a quick bus ride and maybe 20 minutes of hiking. It is placed on the mountain that towers over Zagreb called Medvednica. Medvegrad built in the 1250rsquos was used as a castle to protect the kings and queens of Croatia during the middle ages. One popular story orated to me by Ivana is of Queen Jele http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Central-Croatia/Zagreb/blog-422395.html Nela a friend of Ivana invited us to a village that her grandparents lived. It was just outside of Zagreb maybe an hour and a half drive. On the way we kept seeing stork nests. Recently the Croatian government made a law to pay people for having a nest on their house I think then to remove it but we only saw them on telephone poles. When we arrived we were instantly fed and a lot. Food kept http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Central-Croatia/blog-422389.html Brasov is said to be the most visited area in all of Romania but you would never know. The town is tiny and is easily explored on foot. The train ride from Bucharest to Brasov is pleasurable you wind in and out of mountain villages in the Carpathian Mountain Range. The mountains like back home are covered with trees but are relatively low because of their age. But there were still ice cream c http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Romania/Transilvania/Brasov/Brasov/blog-421996.html