Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Update from Budapest!

So right now I am in Budapest and am currently waiting to board a night train to Prague. These Eastern European keyboards are a little different than what Im used to so if anything is spelled wrong I blame it on that. Unfortunately I tried to upload some pictures but the computers here are not the greatest. So Ill start off where I finished off yesterday and see how far I get before my time runs out.

Venice Day 3 Continued -

So After the police kicked us out of the train station we started wandering around Venice trying to find a place to crash. We found a heated room with a bunch of vending machines in it that was open 24 hours, unfortunately two other homeless men had already beaten us there so we had to continue our search. You know that you are really roughing it when you are competing with homeless men for places to sleep. After wandering around Venice's many little passageways awhile longer we headed back to the train station where we met two other backpackers that were also waiting for the station to open. I thought that our trip was pretty cool but these two put us to shame. They had been wandering around Europe for the last two months without any real itinerary. They had just got back from a week or so travelling through Bosnia and Croatia, the pictures they showed us were absolutelz amazing. We ended up spending the rest of the night talking with them on the steps and took an early train with them to Milan. Our train to Milan was delayed so we ended up missing our connecting train to Zurich, so we had a couple extra hours to explore Milan. The highlight of Milan was the free public bathroom in McDonalds where I took my shirt off and took a bath from the waist up in the sink. It had already been nearly two days without a shower and i needed it!

Switzerland Day 4

We arrived in Zurich a few hours after leaving Milan, the train ride through the Alps was spectacular. I am definitely buying a house on a lake in Switzerland when I grow up. On one of our connecting trains before getting to Zurich we sat next to a cool young couple from Vancouver B.C. who was living on the border of Switzerland and Germanz for work. They gave us lots of advice about where to go and what to see, we are even facebook friends now! That has definitely been one of the best parts of this trip, meeting so many different people and hearing their stories and about where they are from. We then took off to Lucerne from Zurich, Lucerene is buy far the prettiest place we have seen so far. It is this amazing lake up in the alps. We climbed a hill next to it and took lots of cool pictures. There was lots of cool bridges crossing the river that ran into the lake also. After exploring Lucerne we headed back to Zurich and got some good Swiss chocolate and crashed at a Starbucks. I appreciate america so much more now, nothing like free bathrooms and wifi to make you feel at home! Im sure the people at starbucks didnt apprecaite two smelly americans taking up one of their tables, but nobody said anything so we stayed.

Vienna Day 5 -

Easily one of the funniest experiences of the trip so far was our night train from Zurich to Vienna. In the second class sleeper compartments there are six seats that can fold down to make a bed, so if you are lucky enough to get one to yourself you can have your own bed to sleep on. As soon as we borded the train Brian and I put our stuff away folded the bed out, turned off the light, and pretended to be asleep to try and deter anyone else from choosing our cabin. This worked like a charm until we stopped somewhere in Germany at about 1:ÓÓ in the morning. There was a knock on the cabin door and it opened all of a sudden. Im a little groggy when i first wake up so the door opening scared me and without thinking I almost kicked the guy coming in in the face. He said something in German that Im sure wasnt nice, and we unwillingly folded one of the seats up for him. Brian and I scooted over and continued sleeping on the other two unfolded seats. After sitting down for awhile the German man folded his two seats down and joined us, so there were pretty much three of us full grown men sleeping on what might be equivalent to a double mattress. It wouldnt have been two bad except Brian has a tendency to stick his butt out to the side when he sleeps pushing me uncomfortable close to the German man and Brians butt as well. I wasnt opposed to a little spooning action in Europe I just never thought it would be with Brian and some random German dude. The best part is when the guy first walked in Brian started laughing uncontrolable and I followed suit, that continued on for several minutes. Im pretty sure we freaked that guy out pretty good, I know for a fact that guy will never forget the night he spent in a sleeper car with two very smelly laughing face kicking american kids. Again I mention how bad the sleeper car smelled, I have no idea why after opening it that guy didnt just turn around and leave. Both Brian and I were on our third day without showering, that is the first thing we did once we got to Vienna. Well our train to Prague is about to leave so I will try and finish catching up sometime tomorrow, hopefully we get the car to ourself this time!

2 comments:

  1. I'm jealous, I served my Mission in Switzerland, easily my favorite place in the world. - Greg Daines

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  2. Switzerland was amazing, definitely one of the more beautiful places I have ever been to.

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