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Published: August 26th 2005
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Well what can i say, there isnt really any excuse for me not blogging, except that ive been INCREDIBLY BUSY having an AWESOME TIME!! Sorry to anyone who missing the updates but i was a little to busy living the holiday instead of writing about it!
Well right now im in a hostel in Prague, in the suburb of Zizkov about 15-20 min walk from the centre. But let me fill you in on before that....
I left Wales on the 7th of July following a nice couple of nights with friends from work, the first being a big dress-up party at a good friends house (Whose parents happened to be in France hehehe), where i got blind drunk for the first time in a while and had an awesome night. I dressed as a clown in my stripy purple leggings, red suspenders and wifebeater. EVeryone else had excellent costumes too, and the party was well rated by all!
The night before leaving i went there again but for a quiet night of beer and food and chatter, it was really nice. Sian (whose house it was) bought me this great book that she had told me
about, and she knew (as many others would) that i wouldnt remember to go out and buy it. Thanks so much Sian! You rock!
So i stayed at cousin Julie's house the day before i left, and she took me to the Newport bus station so i could travel to Stansted airport, as my bus was way too early in the morning for Uncle Len to take me (ahem, 5.10am)
I said my goodbyes and left a letter and some framed photos for my wonderful hosts, Aunty Marion and Uncle Len, without whom i could never have had such a good experience in Wales, and such a good start to my holiday.
I got to Stansted in one piece, despite having to duck into Heathrow airport during my bus transfer, to pick up my flight tickets between Warsaw and Tallinn. I was also fortunately not anywhere near London when the explosions occured, and i didnt actually find out about it until a few days after i arrived in Wroclaw, Poland. (At Stansted they just announced that the Metro was out of service)
In Wroclaw on July 7th i was met by Szymon Kalwak, a footbagger from Poland,
at the airport, and he took me to where we were all staying for the European Union exchange program. I had met Szymon in Berlin but only shortly, so it was cool getting to know him and he has turned out to be a really cool and friendly guy and one of my favourite footbaggers!
At the Exchange i met up with old mate Dylan Fry who backpacked in Australia during 04-05. It was sweet catching up with him again cos hes such a cool bloke, and we spent some good times in the following days drinking and talking shit, it was tops.
I also met a bunch of new people like Sebastian Duchesne and Caro Bourgoin from Canada, whom i would later travel through Poland with.
The exchange program in short was a week of workshops in footbag, video production, multimedia, juggling, footbag net and golf, yoga etc, to which representatives from Austria, Germany, Czech Republic and Poland were invited. I was fortunate enough to become an honorary Pole for the week so i was able to attend. We all stayed in this big student house which was simple but very cozy and we had some awesome
parties and hangouts there. It was sweet catching up with old friends and meeting new ones, drinking lots of cheap Polish beer and playing footbag.
Following the exchange was the European Championship directly after, so we stayed at the same place and the event site was about 15 min walk away. Only difference was about 100 more people arrived!! Euros went off for 4 days, i competed but not well, but had a great time although the parties (this time at various clubs around Wroclaw) werent quite as cool as Euros perhaps. Most of this you wont be interested in as its alot of footbag stuff, so ill move right on...
Following Euros i went with 2 other footbaggers mentioned above, to Krakow in the south. I stayed here for 3 days, checking out the Old Town mostly and Wawel castle, both of which are beautiful. I particularly loved the Market Square, it was so awesome with big old buildings, a massive open area and people everywhere, old skool piano occordions playing, it was very typically Europe summer i think.
I went to Auschwitz with Seb and Caro, it was a depressing experience but well worth it. It
Me SEWING my pants together
After tearing them in Wroclaw wasnt quite what i expected, maybe i thought it would be a bit more run down and raw than it was, but its quite well kept now for the tourists. The exhibits are very confronting.
Seb and Caro had enough early on, but i went through Auschwitz, missed the bus to Birkenau (true to my form) and had to walk the 3km or so.
As i approached the camp, you could see it layed out across the horizon, and despite the dark rainclouds all around, there was rays of light shining like, right down onto the camp. It was really strange, i took photos but dont know if they came out.
Auschwitz shows you how badly the Jews suffered, but Birkenau shows you the scope of it. The camp ruins stretch out soooo far, and i walked right across the camp to the demolished oven-buildings and its like 700m distant. The shear size of the place and the precision with which it was constructed is both astonishing and disgusting.
We did some busking with footbag in Krakow for like 30min but made only enough to buy a beer each, but thats cool in my book hehehe We also made a trip to Wieliczka salt mine, about 1 hour from Krakow by bus, this salt mine stretching well under the earth and home to huge man-made caverns and underground lakes, cathedrals and everything. It was pretty amazing stuff but expensive and crowded.
We took a train to Warsaw for 4 hours to a hostel that we booked through our hostel in Krakow, because when we had tried to do it ourselves, nobody spoke English at any hostel! We arrived in the evening and i had to contend with the non-English speaking receptionist, but i was quite pleased with myself when we got it all sorted and had a room for the night. Caro left at about 3am to fly to Amsterdam and then Helsinki, so me a Seb stayed the next day doing a little sight seeing around town. Seb left in the afternoon and i continued my cruise of Warsaw, of which i found the old town was the only really nice thing to see, and it of course is completely rebuilt since being destroyed in WWII.
I was happy to leave Warsaw the next day, and despite setting my alarm clock wrong, getting up late, the bus being slow and a massive queue at the airport check-in, i flew on to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia...
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