From Bristol to Berlin (and every disco I get in...)

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Well so much for blogging from every country... I'm now 4 countries on from my last blog!

After Kiev we headed on up to Budapest. I have been there before and have a friend there so I mostly just hung out with her since we didn't have much time there. We did go to the castle again, which is my favourite bit of Budapest. There was a wine festival going on with loads of stalls and things and I came very close to buying myself a bow and arrows until it was pointed out that I wouldn't be able to take that back on the Eurostar... Boo. We also did a little cruise on the river at night when everything was lit up which was beautiful.

Then we carried on up to Bratislava, which is beautiful and very very cheap. We'd managed to convince my friend from Budapest to come with us just for one day, so it was nice to spend more time with her. We did another free walking tour which was very interesting, the guy doing it knew his stuff and so I learned loads about the history of Bratislava. We also went to some very cool bars. (Although not as cool as one bar we went to in Budapest, I think that was the coolest place I've ever been in life. It was in like an old warehouse with loads of cool stuff and fairy lights and so on).

After that we went up further to Prague which is so expensive it's unbelievable! 50 Euros got me two metro tickets, one night in a dorm room in a hostel, a baguette, a bottle of coke, a crepe, a dish of pasta and a cup of grog. Yes you read that right, I said grog. Remember how I learned what grog was in the pub quiz in Mongolia? Well when I saw it on the menu I just had to do it! I was hoping it would come in a big ale mug or dirty bottle, but instead it came in a tea cup. It was still good though. We only had one day in Prague so we just walked round and saw all the beautiful buildings, Prague really does look like the kind of town Walt Disney could have designed, it's just stunning.

Finally we have now trotted across to Berlin, which is super cool (which I wasn't expecting) and reminds me a lot of Bristol as there's loads of bicycles and graffiti street art.
We arrived yesterday so today we did another free walking tour, which again was very interesting as the girl knew loads about the history. It's really interesting how so many of the 'tourist attractions' are centered around such horrific things that happened, it's almost a shame in a way, as it means the nice cool stuff gets overshadowed by the weight of the past.
Anyway, tomorrow I'm planning to go to a street art tour, which I'm really looking forward to, it'll be nice to counterbalance that with the things we saw today like the holocaust memorial and the remains of the Berlin wall.

After Berlin we have one day in Paris and then I shall be home. That's a crazy thought. Feels like only yesterday I was in Beijing! I'll do one last entry when I get back with some statistics I've been collecting about the trip, such as how many hours I've spent on trains in the last 4 months (it's quite staggering!). See you all soon I guess!

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