First leg of Europe

After 18 months on the road, I finally made it to Europe. My delirious flight from Kuala Lumpur to Vienna went smoothly, after fortunately realizing at the last minute that it left at 2 am on June 3, not 2 pm. Missing that flight would have been such a pain in the ass, not to mention costly. It was a little sad and, oddly enough, a bit intimidating to be leaving Asia. But of course at the same time I was also really excited to get to Europe and it hasn't let me down.

It's pretty cool to have a couple of months to do whatever the hell you want on an entire continent. The mentality of travellers in Europe is a bit different than Asia though. Most people in Asia/Australia/New Zealand are long term travellers and most people in Europe consider 6 weeks to be a fairly long time on the road. But getting into the different flow and pace of travel took me about 5 seconds. It's total overstimulation and I love it.

It's also been easier to stick to a budget than I feared. I've spent most of my time in Eastern Europe where it's no problem at all, but even in more expensive places there are plenty of good and cheap places to eat. Or just go to a supermarket and pick from all kinds of fresh breads, cheeses, meats, and wine and you get a king's meal for just a few Euro. Can't complain about that. It's generally just accommoadation and transport that the bulk of the money goes to.

So I started in Vienna. What a beautiful city. It seems that everywhere you turn is another ornate building or cool street. Lots of people eating outside at tables with white tablecloths and bottles of Perrier. But also plenty of down-to-earth nightlife and friendly people.

Next I headed to Bratislava, capital city of Slovakia. I was with 3 Canadians and an American. We spent some time swimming at a lake, visiting the castle and other sights, drinking steins of beer, and meeting locals. Let's just say their gene pool leaves absolutely
nothing to be desired. Good lord. Also ran into a Scottish guy I met in Vienna who was travelling with an Australian and a Canadian. So now we were a squad of 8, and 7 of us wound up heading to Budapest together.

Budapest was a really interesting city. We visited the hungarian baths, went to a crazy annual food and wine festival, and explored the city as usual. I went to an amazing museum about the Nazi and Communist occupation of the city, since Hungary was geographically caught in the middle of the two. It's appropriately called the Terror House, since the museum is in the building that served as the headquarters for both parties. First Nazi, then Communist. Seeing videos and pictures of hordes of Nazis goose-stepping down the street
right outside was pretty surreal. As for nightlife, the best places to go seem to be kind of hidden. A great bar may be behind a non-descript door in an alley. Or on an island in the middle of the Danube River. Very cool.

After Budapest we went to Sarajevo, Bosnia. Different schedules reduced our group to 4 - me along with Edinburgh, Halifax, and Perth (aka Kenny, Matt, and Adam). Sarajevo is quite an intense place, what with the 3 year Serbian occupation between 1992 and 1995 which was more or less an attempt at genocide, leaving over 11,000 people dead, including 5,000 women and children. Basically the Serbian army took up positions on the hills surrounding Sarajevo and used everything from tanks to snipers to destroy buildings and kill anything that moved. Every other building is full of bullet holes and the streets are full of scars
from bombshells. We stayed at a place run by this awesome 19 year old guy named Haris. He lived there with his family during the onslaught, and one day 9 rockets connected with the top floor of his house and completely destroyed it. He still lives on the ground floor with his family but has since rebuilt the second floor as a guest house for travellers. He took us on a
tour of the city, showing us about the war history, the Olympic stadium, and the bridge where Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated to start WWI. He showed us an 800 meter tunnel built buy the Bosnians to get in whatever meager supplies they could, and explained how people survived in a city cut off from the world, in a place where showing your face on the street could easily mean death.

However, these days Sarajevo is a very lively place. Great food, great people, great nightlife. We stayed there 3 nights then went to Dubrovnik, Croatia. What can I say except it is
spectacular. The 4 of us got our own apartment for a few days with a balcony overlooking the city. We walked on the old city walls and went swimming off the rocks. We cooked great meals and sat on the beach and went out at night. And that's really it.

Next stop was Zagreb, capital city of Croatia. Adam and Matt went off to Italy so it was just me and Kenny, we stopped there just for a night on our way to Slovenia. Just enough time for a good meal and to sample some of the local schnapps. We then took the train to Ljubljana, Slovenia. Another capital city and lots of fun, with more beautiful people and beautiful scenery. Spent time wandering the streets and going out with some Slovenian people who worked at our hostel.

From Ljubljana I headed to Trieste, Italy for a night. It's the hometown of my roommate Lino from Auckland and he put in a call so I was hooked up there. His friends met me at the train station and showed me a great time. Lino, you are the man.

Right now I'm in Ferrara, Italy. I came to visit my friend Marcello for a few days, another of my friends from my days in Auckland. It's amazing to have someone show you around their hometown. So we'll be here a couple days more, then hop in Marcello's car and drive up to Innsbruck in Austria, then Munich.

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