Back Again

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So i'm still alive.
Haven't posted anything in a while because this site crashed and all the data was corrupted. Which means all of my blogs so far are lost. If anyone happened to print them out or save them in some way, it would be fantastic if you could e-mail them me.
If not i may get round to writing a new blog about my first 3 weeks, but in the meantime:
My journey has consisted of:
- 6 countries (UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic)
- 2 flights, 4 international bus rides, 1 international ferry trip and countless number of trains
- 2 shaky incidents with border control
- 2 nights under the stars in a bush
- 1 night on the floor of a hostel
- and hundreads of beers!

Anyway, tomorrow will mark the beginning of my fourth week overseas. I'm currently staying in a pretty fancy (well fancy by my standards) hostel in Prague. This place is big, has it's own restaurant in which a pint of beer costs 35Kz (around AU$2), a pool, a sauna and best of all, really nice staff. The Czech republic is the first country i've been to which is not part of the Schengen visa system, meaning the German-Czech border has not eliminated border control. Now because, (for reasons i still don't know), i never managed to get my passport stamped when i crossed the channel from England to France. So explaining to Czech police officers how i managed to get into Germany without using my passport, when they do not speak English very well, could have turned out a lot worse than it did.
Tonight will be my 3rd night in Prague. Walking down the cobblestone streets, being surrounded by enormous 14th century buildings gives you a funny feeling when you think back to the night before when the whole town turned into a rave party!
Berlin was fantastic. It was just amazing how a city riddled with such tragedy can be up on it's feet and one of the most bustling cities in the world. Especially when the most recent of these tragedies only fell down within my lifetime(though only by a couple months)! You can be walking down the street and just see buildings with scars from the second world war. Of course they could fix up all the scratches and bullet holes, but they keep them there as a solemn reminder to "Never Forget". The Jewish memorial museum was very informative, although very depressing.

Anyway I'll probably spend a few more days in Prague before heading to Poland. Haven't decided whether to go to the Polish capital, Warsaw, as well as going to Krakow where i can go to the most infamous Nazi concentration camp of them all - Auswitch/Birkenau.
I'll keep posting now the site is back up and running, and i'll get some pictures up real soon when i get the time.

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Photos

Berlin mattress
I think this was art...
At first i thought it'd make a great place to crash for the night... until i jumped on it.
It was solid concrete, and was just on the nature strip. There wasn't any explanation at all.

Prague Castle
Largest Castle in the world

Art Pig
Like the Berlin mattress, this piece of art had no explanation and made no sense. Maybe it's metaphoric of all the fat, greedy tourists coming to Prague to experience "real" medieval culture, because deep down they are afraid to really dive into a culture and get off the beaten, touristy track.

Comments

[Pa]

old bog
I coppied your letters (blogs) and I gave them to your mother yesterday. I injoy looking up the blog every morning to see where you are. Lorrie told your mother about your first night in France and she nearly freeked out. We now own Seb and we call him Charlie. love pa.

[stef]

hooray
well i found ur blog (with no help from u, you put the stamp over the address on the postcard) sounds like you've been having an interesting time. my mum and dad went to Auschwitz and said it was something they would never forget. have fun stef