the blue horizon

Riga, Good. It almost knocked off Krakow as my favourite city on this trip. I stayed at a hostel called Friendly Fun Franks. Almost everyone I had met had recommended it. I wasn't disappointed. It run by an Australian bloke by the name of Frank (not a coincidence) and he had Sky Sports so I was able to watch a replay of Ports win over Geelong. The next day in between sporadic bursts of rain I managed to see quite a lot of Riga, all a bit same same, but the markets south of the city were pretty cool. Some were housed in four old Zeppelin hangers. In the afternoon I payed way to much money to fire some guns. A group of us from the hostel went to an old Russian underground bunker in the suburbs. We were met by three shady looking blokes who looked like they had enough guns and ammo to start a coup (or stop one). After a safety briefing which consisted of 'wear these ear muffs', 'hold it like this' and 'point it that way' I fired a clips worth from a Glock, a p...

I caught the 6am train to Klaipeda straight from a nightclub and although I made a point of not getting really drunk I was still dead tired so really just wanted to sleep the whole way, but the conductor had a sense of humour and thought it necessary to wake me up after every stop. Wanker. I got to Klaipeda in a shitty mood and wasn't impressed when I got to my hostel to find a derelict old building next to the bus station. It said hostel above the door but I could have sworn it had been uninhabited for the past twenty years. The hostel occupied a few rooms on the second floor. I've stayed in worst places but not much worse. My reason for visiting Klaipeda certainly wasn't to see the old town, I might have slit my wrists there and then if it was. The draw card was the Curonian Spit just a short ferry ride a way to Smiltyne. I caught a bus 50km down the spit to Nida and hired a bike for the ride back. The spit is home to the largest moving sand dunes in Europe. At an average...

I caught the overnight bus from Gdansk, luckily I got the whole back 5 seats to myself so was in relative luxury compared to the cargo carriage and spot next to the broken toilet door I had to endure on my last to trips. My guide book was comparing Vilnius to Krakow so I was expecting big things but all I got was the same old, same old. It wasn't that bad I just didn't get the comparison. Or maybe I was just getting bored. The only thing that separated it from the rest was the Genocide Victims Museum housed in the former KGB headquarters. To summarise it showed how the Lithuania's were really fucked over by the Soviets from after the war until the break up of the USSR. The basement held the former prison and gas chamber. Wankers. I made a little day trip out to Trakai to see another castle. The castle itself wasn't that impressive but the surrounding lakes were quite scenic. Obviously a popular spot for weddings as I must have passed maybe 2 dozen parties in various sta...

The train to Gdansk was packed again only this time I wish I had the luxury of my own cargo carriage. This time I was stuck next to a toilet, only the door was broken of its hinges and the smell was hideous. Gdansk was excellent and was a welcome cure to the travellers apathy I had been developing since Wroclaw. You know the drill, old town square, church, cathedral, etc etc etc. I guess Gdansk wasn't that different but it had a harbour and that always seems to make things a little more interesting. The maritime museum was really good. It never occurred to me that Poland would have such a rich maritime history. I did a little day trip out to Malbork which apparently is the largest brick castle in Europe. I don't know, either way it was kind of ok. The line up for tickets was huge and I was really interested waiting or paying to to see what was inside something which was probably pretty similar to what I had seen before. cheers, schuey

The train ride from Warsaw to Torun was a little different as I spent the entire journey in the Cargo carriage, old west stole away style. I would like to say that this made it more exciting but it really didn't. The train was full and even though I had a ticket with a seat number and everything on it this really wasn't enough for rather large man who was in my seat and was two thirds of the way through a six pack (at 8 in the morning no less). The conductor wasn't getting paid enough to care so I found myself sitting on my backpacker surrounded by bikes and other unfortunate souls who were unlucky enough not to score a seat. My first problem with the Hostel I stayed at in Torun was that the directions were from 'a' train station, just not 'THE' train station. What was a 5 minute walk was actually 50. Once there I was greeted by no one. A few knocks on the door, a yell up stairs, a ten minute wait while looking through my guide book for some where else and f...

Most of the people I met coming the "otherway" said not to bother to much with Warsaw but a combination of great hostel (free sweets on Thursdays, free beer on Saturdays and an absolute princess working at the reception (If you plan on going its called Hostel Helveltia, say Hi to Ania for me)), great weather, a really interesting museum, a pretty old town and an increasing affection for Polish food made wish I stayed longer than the three nights I did. The first night I was there I went out with a few Aussie blokes from Brisbane. Wouldn't have mentioned if it wasn't for one of the blokes who almost became a surrogate Phroosh. Both played guitar, both liked You am I, both had an unhealthy fascination with cricket and both would have being competing for Timmy Rogers / Brett Kirk look a like of the year. But this bloke really loved horse racing and once that I mentioned that I was friends with Mick Whittles nephew and went on summer holidays to the town that Kerin McEvoy...

I never cease to be amazed at how popular some bands are in places that you wouldn't expect, For example on the train trip from Wroclaw to Krakow a lot of young people got of at a place called Katowice. At little suprising as Katowice looked like the worse side of Elizabeth (my apologies to the people who have actually been and\or lived there, I wait to be corrected) turns out Tool and Chris Cornell were playing there. My loss, or not, I'm not sure these days. I was told Krakow is a beautiful town and it has a lot of history. But its really hard to confirm these things whens it bucketing down with rain. You virtually have to put the proverbal gun to your head to force yourself to leave to confines of the hostel and make the most of it. In the process of getting soaked I checked out the Castle (overrated), the Jewish quarter (under rated) and the old Jewish Getto from WW2 (by this time I was sick of the rain so sat in a cafe for 3 hours waiting for the rain to stop). I went to t...

The first thing I noticed about Wroclaw is that it's not pronounced how you think it would be (it's more like 'vrotslav'). I found this out the hard way. There was some miss understanding, they finally got what I was talking about, they laughed, I was embarrased. The second was that there were a lot of stunningly attractive women. Its like every girl over the age of 18 had there boobs set to 'oh, my god' (Come on, I'm only Male). The hostel I stayed at was one of the smallest I've stayed at, just 12 beds in two rooms. It was just some guy with a three bed room apartment who let travellers stay at his house. For this reason it was pretty good start to my stay in Poland as the guy was willing, insistant really, on givng as much as an induction on Polish culture, food and drink as he could. There are some real pretty churches in Wroclaw but being a Sunday I had to make do with admiring them from the outside. The main touristy thing in town is the arguably t...

Dresden was the least favourite of the trio of German cities that I went to. It had the same things that made the other two great just not to the same extent. The only thing of real interest in the city was going out on one of the nights with two british girls and an American. We went to this jazz bar and the music that the band played there was the kind of stuff I would produce when Phroosh lent me his electric guitar and effects pedal, that is to say it was crap. But you could see they were really getting into it and so were the other half dozen people in the bar. I can only assume they were all really, really.... really stoned. The next bar we went to we got kicked out of before ordering a drink after one of the girls though it would be a good idea to take a hat for each of us from the coat rack (interesting as we were the only people there). This was obviously a gross insult to the establishment as the barmen came from the behind the bar yelling some German obcenities snatching the...

Where east met west and I met Schneiderweiße. Who knows which will have a bigger impact on Berlin. Judging by the number of monuments and museums dedicated to the former vs the later, approximately 1,000,000 vs 2, it will probably be the cold war. But I think I made an impact. I would have loved Berlin, if i understood it. The museums I were looking forward to most were panifully short on English translations and I found myself skirting through exhibits that otherwise would have had me engrossed for hours. There were a few exceptions. The Jewish museums, one of more interestingly designed museums you will come across, and the Allied museum, Ronald Reagans answer to Monica Lewinsky. Most of the first day I spent looking for the Soviet war Monument but instead found that tourists maps are not always to scale and omit important information such as said monument isn't where the dot is but is in fact another 5km off the map. Atleast I got some exercise and found a pretty cool beer garde...

Its hard not to say how much I liked about Hamburg without contradicting what I said about Denmark. It had the bars and clubs, but it also had graffiti on the walls and dog shit on the street. It had a buzz to it. And strange things happened. Among other things, I was in a net cafe near my hostel when i got a tap on the shoulder. Turn around there's a bloke I had met in Jordan 4 months earlier. Creepy. Turns out he had just flown in for the weekend to meet someone he met randomly in Poland. I could have just as easily been in Bergen. Other than catching up with random friends I checked out a few of the museums and churchs around town. Highlight was probably the History of Hamburg museum which had more model cityscapes, planes, boats and trains than a boy at heart could poke a stick at. I got lost looking around a harbour that seemed bigger than the rest of the city. I also found myself in the middle of a joke when two germans, two indians and an Australian went out until dawn on t...