16 countries down, 3 to go...

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WARNING: Longest blog ever. If you make it the end, there´s a reward. If you don´t, I don´t blame you.

Hey all,
So, I realize it´s been a long, long time since our last blog...many apologies. Except probably no one cares, but I´ll pretend that we have an avid readership.
I think Liz left off on our first day in Krakow, but in her half-awake state, she forgot to mention that on our very first tram ride in Poland -- from the train station to the hostel -- we had an unpleasant encounter with the tram police. We each had a transit ticket, and had validated them and we were keeping an eye out for our stop when the ticket inspector gets on. We handed him the tickets and after a few seconds he started sort of yelling in Polish. When he realized that we did not, in fact, speak Polish, he summoned some other guy to come and tell us that we also needed tickets for our backpacks. At first we were just like, "what the hell?" and made it clear that we´d had no idea about this (lame) rule, but he made us get off the bus and told us we each owed him 72 zloty, which really isn´t that much, but still! Liz then managed to produce a few forced tears, and I begged and begged, and he ended up only making us pay for one ticket. Which was still one too many, but you take what you can get at 6:00 on a Monday morning in Krakow. I´ve added that guy to my enemy list, right beneath the Italian ticket inspector and that horrible Romanian convenience store lady.
Once we moved past that first unpleasant incident, we discovered that Krakow is a really beautiful, charming city. That first day we did a lot of wandering around the old town -- checked out the most fabulous and blingy church I´ve ever seen -- and went to sleep really, really early.
The next day we went to Auschwitz, and, well, what can I say? It was brutal. The day we went was actually the 65th anniversary of the first day they transported prisoners there, and there were a few survivors milling around. We went in a group and a tour guide showed us around...it was severely disturbing, especially some of the exhibits. One was a room filled with two tonnes of the victims´ hair, and another was a display of eyeglasses. Anyway, it was upsetting, but I´m really glad that we did get the chance to go there. That night we were both sort of sick -- I think our bodies were recovering from all of the partying we did in Budapest -- so, again, we went to bed before 10.
The next morning we did all sorts of administrative work (does that sound impressive?) and in the afternoon I was illin´, so I stumbled back to the hostel and slept, and Liz checked out the underground salt mines. Here is what she has to say:

"Salt sculputres, salt churches, salt pope. Salt is surprisingly sparkly. Oh, I also met twins with twin tattoos. Peace."

Thank you, Liz. Very enlightening. That evening, we took an overnight train to Vienna, and I think the ticket lady messed up and put us in first class, because that train? Swanky. Seriously, nicer than some of the hostels we´ve stayed at. They gave us bottled water, and face towels, and in the morning they came around with chocolate croissants. I never wanted to get off, but at 6 in the morning we got to Vienna and didn´t realize it because we were sleeping. I woke up with a start, thought the train sounded rather quiet, and just then, the train man came bz and told we had one minute to get off. We panicked and bolted off the train -- me holding one shoe in my hand -- and just a few seconds after we got off, it rolled away. Then we had to navigate our way through Vienna´s confusing underground system -- not an easy task; we asked three people and got three different answers -- but we somehow made it to the other train station and onto the train to Salzburg.
Salzburg was nice, but very, very touristy. I really doubt that we saw any actual locals there. The coolest thing about it -- besides the H&M that we went crazy in -- was that the Sound of Music was filmed in and around the city, so when we watched the movie that evening (our hostel played it nightly at 8) we recognized a lot of the landmarks. Pretty freaking awesome. The next day, we were taking full advantage of the breakfast buffet when our friend Hunter walked in, tired and haggard from his long train ride fom Berlin. It was so nice to see a familiar face, and we immediately made dancing plans for the evening. He slept during the day, and liz and I went on an expensive Sound of Music tour. We saw some cool things (my favourite was the gazebo that Liesel and Rolf sing "16 Going on 17" in) but I liked it best when we were just on the bus, and thez turned on the soundtrack and we all sang along at full volume. It was horrifying and cheesy and awesome.
That night we got all dressed up in our new clothes (Hunter let us put eyeliner on him...just one reason why we love him) and headed out in search of 80´s night. Unfortunately, we soon realized that we were not posh enough for the club with 80´s night happening, so we wandered from bar to bar to bar (probably 6 or 7 in all) trying to find anywhere with a dance floor. We were spectacularly unsuccessful, though we did exchange pleasantries with a group of goth 17-year-olds. We headed back to the hostel at about 2 a.m., stopping only for a gyro/kebab/donair hybrid from an Austrian-Indian restaurant.
The next day we were up bright and early so we could make our way to Hinterthal, a teensy, tiny town (more like a village, really) a few hours away from Salzburg. We had a week at a timeshare resort there (Thanks, mom!) and it was -- and I know we totally overuse this word, but so be it -- fabulous. We had a kitchen, and a TV, and a huge bed, and we were surrounded by mountains that totally looked fake. The room was for two, but we smuggled Hunter in, and then a couple of days later, our friend Pauline (who went to Bowness High also; coincidence or fate?) came up from Italy and joined us. We had a couple of close calls with the housekeeping staff -- "busybodies", as Hunter bitterly called them -- and our friends had to hide in the closet once or twice, but we pulled it off. We spent the week sleeping, swimming, drinking wine, and going on the occasional nature walk.
So, we woke up at an inhuman time yesterday, and spent the day training it to Prague. We arrived last night and basically ate and went to bed, but we´re going to spend today wandering around the old town. After this, we head to Cesky Krumlov for a few days, and then our backpacking days are pretty much over. Weird.

Okay, here´s your reward for making it this far...one of my favourite jokes:

Q: What did the buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
A: "Make me one with everything."

Ha! Ha! Ha!
Are you laughing?

Love,
Pia

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Comments

[Liz]

hello Prague-goer!
Hello ladies! My name is (also) Liz, and I was staying in the same hostel as you all back in Prague! (I seem to remember a quite fantastic night that involved an attempt to go to a club, and a taxi ride back.) I Googled you two just now because I'm listening to Dar Williams, and as I remember, Pia is quite a fan. Awesome! I'm wondering how you two are doing now, where you are, how your trip was, what your favorite stop was etc. Hit me back if you get the chance! -(another) Liz