Archive for July, 2009

We left the Kinlay House mid-morning the next day. We arrived at Dublin International airport around 12:30 and then made our way through security and check-in to arrive at the terminal. We had a few hours of spare time so we got out Alex’s little Eee PC and started watching Ironman. About 3/4 of the way through the movie there was an announcement about the change of gate from D68 to D63. We packed up and moved to the new terminal, now firmly at the back of the boarding queue. We got our bags through security and headed onto the tarmack. Climbing aboard the plane we found a tight fight and settled in to Ryan Air’s signature cramped yellow seats.

The plane landed an hour and some odd minutes later in Edinburgh International Airport. Without security or customs, we walked into Scotland and entered the UK. We crossed the threshold after getting some quick internet information about the address of our hostel, bought our bus tickets and then headed into the city.

We arrived at one of the most… interesting hostels I’ve see so far. Alex described it as Granola. I’d call it artistic to a measure. All the interiors were decorated with different murals…some quite competent, some a little lurid, and others stunningly beautiful. I’ve got a few foto’s from the hostel posted in my Edinburgh album on Facebook.

After settling in to our room (complete with a long term guest around the age of 75) we headed for the common room and the computers. We’d both seen Edinburgh before and we decided to wait until the evening to get some night photography of the city. After dark we got a few shots and walked the Royal Mile. We searched out some cheap food. Rounding Princes Street and heading back into *New* Edinburgh we found what we needed and managed some chips and pizza.

We headed back to the hostel and crashed exhausted. The next next day we spent walking around the city. We managed to see the new Harry Potter flick (not too bad) and to get some great foto’s of the Royal Mile. We also double checked our booking with Wild in Scotland. Everything settled we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed in to get some rest.

I managed to find two sets of beautiful new kilt socks. But, despite being thoroughly tempted I didn’t buy another kilt.

We woke the next morning and headed to the tour. We boarded our bus and started one heck of an adventure!

After our Wicklow tour we headed back to the hostel and decided to spend the rest of our time enjoying Dublin and the folks we’d met in the hostel.

We wandered out the next day and made our way through the city with three lovely English girls we’d met before.

Alex:

And Hannah & Alex:

and last but not least Lizzie:

As you can see Lizzie became quite acquainted with Miss Molly Malone famed Lady of the Night and fish monger of Grafton street Dublin.

As we continued our adventure we discovered an amazing monument to those who fell during the Irish potato famine. With eerie bronze statues moving slowly on their treacherous route toward the port, life, and opportunity.

And last but not least: A police convention in the middle of the street

And finally the Irish predilection to keepin’ clean.

I woke up early after Alex and his first night out in Dublin. The night before we had decided to join our new found friends, the Danes, for a day tour of Wicklow county. Rising around 6am, I wandered down to the showers and prepared for the days travels. Having chosen my Norwegian sweater and jeans, with thick wool Civati cap, I was ready for our exciting journey. I woke Alex and after he had gotten ready we made our way down into the common room of Kinlay House. There we met up with our friends around 8:55 and proceeded to jump, hop and skip to catch our giant purple tour bus.

It was going to be a great day.

We started off leaving Dublin center with our guide. He cheerfully introduced us to the history and spirit of the region from the center and streets of Dublin to the ring developments and the beautiful quirks of the Wicklow mountains. In between every breath he tossed in a joke or two and when a break came along in the history, he threw in some wisdom. The Wicklow Mountains are the area where tannin has been absorbed by the natural spring waters and it colours the water a deep Guinness brown. It is the birthplace of Guinness, the set for Braveheart and holds the lake where Scrambled Eggs was first conceived and written.

As we wound our way through narrow valleys and along tiny roads we discovered the beauty of the area and its innate charm..Rolling hills covered with turf and heather just turning the first shades of purple, preparing to bloom in the coming weeks. We arrived at an old army barracks which had been converted to a child prison,then to an orphanage, and now the building is used as a site for peace talks between northern Ireland and Ireland. It was a touching site.

We then headed to an ancient monastic town straddling two lakes. We wandered about and explored the graves embedded deep into the turf before deciding to tough out the rain and walk to the upper lake. we met the bus then and after some chips and malt vinegar we headed on.

One of the crosses is known as a wishing cross:

We broke for lunch in a small village along the way with a beautiful cathedral and great fish and chips. We shared the fish and chips and a 1/4lb hamburger special.

As we climbed back aboard it was time to adventure back down out of the mountains. We stopped at Thomas More’s meeting of the waters:

Between napping and enjoying the driver’s humor we arrived in Dublin, took a breath and then prepared for the evening.

The hostel had a bed available for me but it wasn’t free until 2pm. Everything locked up I headed out for a walk about the town, came back, checked up on e-mail and then started chatting and meeting people in the hostel. The common room was great. Open, relaxed and with a constant queue of people waiting for internet it was easy to strike up conversation.

I walked down to the local Spar, picked up some spiced chicken breast and some wonderful meatballs (from which I made a sandwich) and then took a rest before heading out.

That night I met three Danes traveling, two Israelis and some Brits. We headed out to a local pub, armed with free sample waivers and ready for a good time. We did some pretty funny dancing, had a wonderful night and returned to the hostel around 2am. It had been a long day.

I woke up the next morning, caught breakfast of toast and jam with some hot coffee and then waited. Bored I decided to head outside and went for a little walk around Christchurch. I returned to the hostel and waited for Alex to arrive. Around 12:30 he showed up and armed with a flying tackle I welcomed him to Dublin. From there we found a bit more food and Alex took a nap to fight off the jet lag. After a brief walk about and the discovery of a local pub with some great older Irish men catching the Irish football game, we headed back to the hostel. I made dinner and then we headed out for a brief run around the pubs with our new Danish friends from Kopenhagen.

That night a huge group of German highschoolers arrived. They provided a great amount of noise and entertainment.

I headed over to the Cologne train station after saying farewell to Michael and packing my luggage at the hostel. I grabbed the evening train to Charleroi finding that the first class ticket was cheaper than the 2nd class seats…most unusual.

I bought my ticket for the three hour ride and then waited on the platform. I was joined by two others for the first leg of my journey, a young Bulgarian man, and another gentleman he was traveling with.

In Liege we changed trains and headed on toward Charleroi Sud…the south station which had connections to the airport. From Charleroi Sud the Bulgarian man and I headed on our way toward the airport while his friend caught a connecting train to Brussels.

From the station we caught the bus to the airport and arrived just after 10pm. The final flight arrived at 11:15 and the airport shops went silent around 11:45. I’d made friends with the young Bulgarian and we decided to swap music. He had has laptop out. I opened my Ipod and transfered a small selection of the music I have to his HD. We spent the next three hours comparing bands and favorite songs. He shared a few Bulgarian bands with me with some pretty neat traditional tunes.

Around 3am the cleaning crews started in…sweeping, mopping, and working their way slowly through the small terminal. It was tedious work and slow at best. By 5am they reached our spot where we’d decided to take a nap. At 6am I shook my friend’s hand, headed to check in and got through security without a problem. Excited I passed through passport control and customs to get my EU exit stamps and then waited at the terminal gate for the boarding to begin for my 6:35 flight to Dublin.

Boarding started and together with a young Belgian couple we began down the steps toward the aircraft and open air. Unfortunately someone had forgotten to inform the ground crew that we were boarding, as they had forgotten to unlock the doors leading out of the tight, unventilated stairwell. Cramped and heating up rapidly as more and more eager passengers pushed themselves down into the stairwell we finally managed to get word up to the desk to unlock the doors. A crew member ran through the crowd and opened up the stairwell and we breached into the fresh cool air. We made our way up the ramps to the plane doors and found seats for our short journey.

The plane ride across the sea was even and short…only 30 minutes at altitude and around an hour and fifteen minutes total for the flight.

We touched down in Dublin on Greenwich standard time at 7:00am. I headed out of the airport to enter Ireland. Ready and excited to stay in Dublin and eager to meet my brother the next morning I hurriedly walked through bag check, passed through customs, and then stopped to have my passport checked to enter Ireland.

At the passport control office I ran into a little flack. Unfortunately, because I am young and traveling, the immigration officer did not believe I was going to leave Ireland. Instead they began to hassle me about how much money I had on me, how much I had direct access to, and when I was leaving Ireland. Now keep in mind that they are asking for these very personal details whilst nosey and quite impatient passengers are striving forward, as if crowding me and the immigration booths would hurry their decision.

Finally the immigration officer asked me for my return ticket home. I told him that I didn’t have it. That my ticket for leaving Ireland was on the 16th (I’d arrived the 11th). Because it was an online check in from Ryan air, I wouldn’t print it until the day before I flew out. I then noted that if he’d permit I’d be happy to show him the flight confirmation on my email. After a grimace and a frustrated look he grabbed my passport from the desk, slapped it down, stamped it and wrote me a four day visa expiring the 16th of July. He then noted that should I ignore that exit date I’d be subject to court and heavy fines and told me to pass along.

Happy with what I had, I grabbed my passport and headed through the doors to freedom. I caught the bus into the city and with hostel address in hand I hit the hostel and dropped my bags in a locker.

The words following are a selected account from the Balled of the Boot: a story of a young man searching for a pair of boots in the wide world. Starting in Bosnia and continuing through Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Germany, and Belgium to its end in Koln Germany.

The actors in this ballad are:

Mr. Berger – Our Hero
Mr. Ludy – Customer care and Quality assurance (Savior)
Mr. Bruce – Wise man and guide from Mr. Berger’s home in the USA

Our balled begins with Mr. Berger singing and dancing down a mountain from a quiet overlook in Sarajevo, Bosnia. His joy was cut short however when unbeknownest to him his beloved and trusted boots began to Fray and separate. As Mr. Berger finished climbing down the hill and made the kilometers long trek back to his hostel he began to feel a little bit of a breeze on his toes. Unsure of what could be the cause he inspected his shoe to discover that the leather upper of the boot had begun to Fray and was separating from the solid Rubber Sole.

Worried and unsure, Mr. Berger contacted his father immediately and asked him to contact the wise man Mr. Bruce. Mr. Bruce contacted the manufacturers and made sure that the warrenty on the trusty boots was still good.

Unable to continue hiking with his boots coming apart, Mr. Berger searched Sarajevo from top to bottom seeking Resin and Epoxy. He found what he saught and carefully glued the frayed and separated materials back together using the inner magical Goretex sock as a backing to make sure they wouldent separate further.

With the decay of his boots halted Mr. Berger continued his journey across Croatia and into Slovenia before crossing the terrible mountains and forests to reach Budapest Hungary. In Budapest Mr. Berger was contacted by another representative of the Fabled LOWA boot company. They told him that LOWA was a german company and that he could find a replacement once he Reached Germany. Strengthened by the news and with his temporary fix holding his boot together, Mr. Berger continued on through Poland and into Czech to visit the famed city of Praha. From Praha with a fresh coat of Epoxy Resin he made his way into Munich.

But LO! In Munich his pleas for help went unheard and the great treasury of boots was kept closed to him. In this time Mr. Berger again called out to Mr. Bruce and the fine young woman from the Fabled LOWA. They found for him a man who would take up his cause and fight the great bureacracy of the Giant. After much deliberation contact was finally made with Mr. Ludy. Mr. Ludy, a Mage of Quality assurance for the Fabled LOWA asked Mr. Berger for Photos of his boots and a detailed description of what had happened. These provided Mr. Berger made his way to Hamburg leaving Munich and its high walls behind. It wasn’t until Mr. Berger reached the Netherland and entered Amsterdam that Mr. Ludy was able to craft a solution to his problem.

The sage wrote out a very specific Email and included contact information for Mr. Berger, Proofing his claim and authorizing dealers to directly replace the boot instead of sending it to the LOWA HQ and having it mailed back (taking anywhere from 2-6 weeks).

This done it was time for Mr. Berger to head out on a new adventure, to seek out LOWA distributors that had his size and make of boot. Mr. Berger searched high and low in Amsterdam, Antwerpen and finally found one in Koln.

Mr. Ludy then authorized the exchange of Mr. Bergers shoes and an Upgrade to the LOWA Renegade GTX MID for all the trouble caused to Mr. Berger.

Mr. Berger’s faith restored in the quality and strength of the LOWA Brand, as well as his commendations to the great Mr. Ludy who went far and beyond to ensure his customers satisfaction, our ballad ends with Mr. Berger sitting happily with two fresh, unbroken boots wrapped around his little toes.

So happy,

So exciting, a true Legend.

Antwerpen is a large belgian arts community on the northern border about an hour from Brussels. It has a significant diamond culture and is home to some of the most concentrated diamond shopping I’ve ever been exposed to.

There is also a very strong and thriving orthodox or Hesidic jewish population living in Antwerpen. I arrived at the central station and wandered down to my hostel just a few hundred meters away. For the first time in my stay I had a dirty run in with bed bugs, which is part of the reason I stayed only one night in Antwerpen.

The city itself is beautiful, full of wealthy buildings, a port culture including a thriving red light district with very bold inhabitants – one chased me down the street trying to sell – and wide open pedestrain walkways down to the water and port.

I enjoyed my walks through the main shopping street, and continued my search now three weeks in the making for a pair of replacement boots for my LOWA KODY GTX MID boots which had a defect and needed to be replaced. I found much to my discontent that the closest distributor to antwerpen that carried my style of boot was approximately 120 kilometers away.

That quest put on hold I wandered through the Diamond districts of Antwerpen and enjoyed the beautiful displays and strong Jewish culture. Each shop came complete with orthodox jew wrapped from head to foot in solid black, with a belt line tinged white by their prayer shawls and long curls coming down from a partially shaved head concealed by a wide brimmed black hat. interesting the level of separation from the rest of the community. Automatically singled out by their appearance they were insiders facing a wave of shopping outsiders.

A strange phenomenon to witness.

I finished the day and then returned to my bed, to be eaten alive (18 bites) before leaving early the next morning for Koln.

We pulled into Amsterdam at 6 am, we wandered through the closed streets, to be faced with thousands of Dutch dressed in Pure white and wearing fairy masks, ears, sparklers and who knows what else. Sensation White was in Amsterdam and the arena was packed to the gills with Dutch and visitors enjoying the Blacklights and city wide rave that SW brings to bear.

we walked the city with these white denizens searching for a hostel and a hotel. after three hours we gave in and used the tourist information office to help us located and book our hostel rooms. they found us one hostel, the WORST hostel (really they’ve won awards) for 22.50 a night. Small towels, no air conditioning, rooms with barred windows that open 2.54 centimeters and dirty floors, graffitied walls, but clean sheets.

The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel has been open and providing the worst service and accomodation for the lowest price in amsterdamn since the 1950s. I dont think they’ve repainted or cleaned since it opened either.

Luckily for me I wasn’t destined to spend much more time than the two evenings I had booked actually in the hostel. Instead I spent my time on a leisurely bike tour, a walk, Heineken tour, and kick butt Zoo tour.

I did enter two coffee shops, however I did not partake. I had a really nice Bananna smoothie and a cigar (straight tobacco).

I then went out and adventured through the streets finding clubs and bars to visit in the night.

Taking thorough documentation of the city I snipped pictures here and there as I wandered and then spent th rest of the time simly enjoying the atmosphere of the city. Although ditry and really strained the city istelf is still a mirror of its seventeenth century beauty.

Quiet an enjoyable and high energy constantly in party mode few days.

Hamburg, Hamburger, haha.

We drove into hamburg around 11:30 pm 23:00… a rough hour. My new friend a talented photographer and videographer name Thomas Zothner took my had, gave me a strong pat on the back and asked me to keep in touch. We’d been driving near 9 hours and had some pretty rough traffick to get through, but we were both energized to be in Hamburg.
I shook his hand once again and started off down the Main bulevard outside the Hamburg Central station. I wandered around a bit until I located a few local police, who offered me a map, and drew my hostel on it (really nice, polite, very cool). I found my hostel (neck deep in a 10-14 year old cheerleading conference that was there) and discovered that it was northern central Germanys holiday times and that the hostel was flooded to the gills with highschool aged Germans and Swedes. I climbed through the masses of children (many of whom with litre steins) and crashed in my room, wiped out from the long days journey.

The next morning I awoke and did a walk along the canals and the lake captured in the heart of Hamburg, walked the docks and the great big central shopping street. Found the red light district and a computer cafe and then finished by purchasing a ticket to Amsterdam for that night at 10:30.

I walked about a bit more, ordered some turkish Adana Kabab, shocked the owner by saying thanks in turkish and then wandered back to gather up my bags.

I cought the bus that night and rode to amsterdam with a Dutch Israeli, 2 Swedes, a Brazilian and 2 24packs of Carlsberg. At 6am we pulled into the ring station just outside of Amsterdam

I left Prague early the next morning. Taking a comfy bus across the border and into Germany. I was on my way to Munich. To explore Bavaria. I arrived at the bus station outside Munich and walked down toward the central station. the Metro system has been under rennovation and reconstruction and as such has limited running availibility. I took a picture of the rail map with my camera to use as a reference guide as I walked toward the HoptBahnhof and set off.

I arrived at the Central station around dark, I wandered about the streets packed to the gills with people from every corner of the world stuffed with Bavarian beer. I wound my way around the station and into a dark side street. wandered down past the empty and forboding parking garages to find 4you youth hostel.

I checked in and dropped my gear. Munich it was.

I woke up early the next day and decided that it was time to get some exploring it. I headed out on a day trip my brother had suggested to visit Neuschwanstein castle. Its the castle that Swan Lake was based on and overlook both the river and waterfalls. Its absolutely beautiful.

Getting there was a trip. I woke up early but still managed to miss my rail connection for the tour of the castle. Instead I wound up jumping in a Black Dodge Ram with two americans who were from the Frankfurt base and taking off on a driving adventure to find Fussen and Neuschwanstein.

After experienceing the castle and its surrounding area, complete with an introduction to the mad Ludwigs we headed back to munich, grabbed a nap and then headed out for a few cold drinks. We went to Hofbrauhous and to Augustiner and then wandered about, ending up in the Atomic Cafe and finishing the night in a Hostel bar down the street and across the station from our own.

Alot of interesting people and more so alot of first time travelers.

On my third day, I took advantage of a bit of a lull in the atmosphere and headed out to the BMW WELT exhibit… which was spectacular, from there I wandered my way to the Olympic park with a canadian friend before we headed back to the hostel and prepared for another full night out and a about.

German atmosphere and drinking culture is a whole new experience. The most starteling part of the experience was Englischer garten. More so the straight up nud sunbathing in the Central park.

We were even fortunate enough to have a live show as a drunk man ran up to the bus naked and did his rendition of meatspin.

Truly frightening.

After a day relaxing and witnessing the beauty of BMW and Olympia and German Fraulines, we returned to Augustiner for our last night out. I woke up the next morning and arranged a car (there are agencies in Germany where you call in and ask if anyone is driving your direction). There was a man headed to Hamburg but no connections to Berlin. The train ticket to Berlin was 120 euro and the car was a pleasant 30 euro even.

Eight hours, some Iggy Pop and a few bagels later, we arrived in Hamburg.