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Published: September 24th 2005
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Damn. Its been a busy few weeks and this blog is in serious disrepair!
Well i left off last time as i was departing for a week-long event called Footbag Camp, at a resort some 20 hours by bus from Prague at a place called Baska Voda, Croatia. Its located on the Croatian coast, with a backdrop of stoney grey mountains, crytal clear water and seemingly permanent cloudless blue skies. The camp was organised by the Czech footbag crew and welcomed people from Czech Rep., Australia, Germany, Austria, France, Russia etc. We camped in comfortable 4 man tents, the most important feature of which was the fridge to keep our beer cold :0)
The week was spent largely on footbag training on various concepts every day, led by the 4 time World Champion from the Czech Republic, and in between these trainings we also had morning jogging (that idea last about oooooh 1 day hahah), and workshops on juggling, massage, bar flair, frisbee, yoga and various competitions and stuff. When we werent doing this we were relaxing in on the pebble beach, drinking the odd beer (haha) and partying all night at the local bar, Oseka. They played the
Home sweet home
Our tent in Baska Voda same music every night but after a few cold ones, its aaaaalll good :0)
Its hard to make this interesting to non-footbaggers but it was a really great and relaxing week, i worked on a nice tan and got to hang with alot of people ive met at various times during my travels. One day we also took a boat trip to a small inlet across the bay and had a BBQ fish and salad lunch with unlimited red wine (!) There were so many picture postcard views there, and all over the area actually. I couldnt get over the mountain the most, i took so many photos of it without realising!
Of course these great times have to come to an end, so it was a gruelling 20 hours in the bus back to Prague once more and a night in a hostel for me. The following morning i found an email from a friend in Prague who had just gotten back from Helsinki, so i went to stay at his house for the week, as i was due to go to another camp at the end of that week. He really had a great setup at his
Baska Voda
The view from the coastline place, an apartment to himself and sufficient funds to entertain us for the week! He also happens to be the World number 2 footbag player!
He was a really awesome host, showing me the sights of Prague and some stuff i hadnt seen when i was there the week before, and showing me his parents awesome house where we played some footbag on his purpose built surface. He even drove me out to Plzen; for him to visit his cousin and for me to see the town and the old underground storage tunnels, and more importantly, take a Pilsner Urquell brewery tour. The tour runs through the old brew houses and the underground cellars that were used before the new faciity was built on the premises. The tour included a free sample of course, of beer tapped straight from an old style wooden barrell and which hasnt been pasteurised or treated something for commercial sale, which means its cloudier but contains even more flavour than the final product.
After a week seeing the sights and chilling in Prague, we headed off to Hip Hop Kemp in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. Its a long story but in short was put
on the guest list for this event as a friend of the Prague footbag team, who were supposed to do a demo at his 3 day event. The demo was cancelled but we all still got free admission and VIP passes, so we could camp in the performers area which was nice and clean and not crowded. I was in two minds as to attend this event or not, having just been on another camp, but as things turned out i didnt have so much choice and wanted to check it out a bit anyway. Most of the acts were in Czech or other language, only a few UK or US groups were there, so i spent more time listening to the beats than the lyrics. Language proved a struggle all weekend so i was largely by myself checking out the acts and whatnot, but it was ok. Overall though im glad i got in for free.
The day after returning from the camp i moved on to Dresden, Germany. I spent about 1.5 days there, and 1.4 of it was in the rain :0(
There was the odd gap in the rain so i was able to wander around and see a few things in the day, and also the beautiful riverside city view by night which was really impressive. The architecture in this student town is really cool and the town is lit up really nicely in the evenings. During the following day i wandered the streets checking out old historical monuments and buildings including the old palace and a huge church, but with my spirits (and my shoes and socks) thoroughly dampened by the rain, i left in the afternoon to make it up to Berlin for the evening.
Berlin rocks. I arrived around 8pm or so and was immediately in contact with a good friend who had offered to put me up in his apartment. Naturally i accepted heheh!
I got to his place and was thankful to get rid of my nasty socks and shoes, then we headed round to another friends apartment where a small birthday celebration of beer, pizza, chocolate fondu and cool people was in swing, accompanied by the odd Tequila shot :0P Was surprised to find another good friend from Canada there too, it was great seeing him again, the last time having been in Poland. The Berlin footbag crew are all really great people who are always up for anything really. You are always guaranteed to find someone who wants to go check out some music, grab a beer, play some footbag, or hit up a drum n bass or reggae party any night of the week. Which is just what we did. Repeatedly.
I had originally planned to stay in Berlin for around 4 days, to see the sights and hang a little bit, but not wear out my welcome. As it turned out i stayed 2 weeks in this adictive city, where there is always something happening. During this time i got to experience some awesome historical stuff like the Brandenburg Tor, Berliner Dom, the ancient history museum with the famous Bust of Nefertiti, the Berlin wall, the giant Jewish museum and more. The archictecture in Berlin is quite amazing, both the old stuff and the more modern developments like in Potsdamer Platz. Also got to join in some of the regular Berlin footbag training sessions in their gym (3 per week) and some really nice Waffle Parties, drum n bass nights, graffiti film nights and rockin house parties, like one where two apartments that were opposite each other in an apartment block, opened out to form like 4 rooms of various music full of people and bucket of Sangria for the thirsty (if you like that kind of stuff!)
Part way through my stay one of my friends roommates moved out for a week, so i inherited a room all to myself, which made it even harder to leave. Not helping that was the Berlin schedule; Tuesday is footbag training (cant miss that), DnB night on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday is training aswell, and well then its the weekend and you cant miss a weekend in Berlin, then Monday you recover and suddenly its Tuesday training day again!
While the temptation (and the offer) to stay and work in Berlin for a few more MONTHS was there, i knew there was so much more i wanted to see in Europe and a schedule to maintain (roughly), so eventually i had to say NO and really leave Berlin. Its the city i feel so far that i could live there. The mixture of different people and the style of the city is quite unique, the feeling of walking or pedalling through the suburban streets in the afternoon sun is something i hadnt felt before, there is always something going on and people who are keen for a good time, the history of the city is self explainatory, its fairly cheap and all the people i know there are great.
Despite all this i said my goodbyes to my good friend and host (theres never enough time to say what you want to say!) and was soon on a bus headed for Hamburg in the North.
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