My friend's picking me up at 3 PM tomorrow, we're driving to his brother's house in MD, then taking a shuttle to BMI, flying to Heathrow, then on to Prague :)

I have a rail pass for Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Austria. This is going to be a good two weeks!

Cool! Enjoy!! :nice:

I'm sure you'll be taking lots of pictures!

Gobs of 'em.

Best of luck....

Check out the Czech Beer, don't exchange too much money in Poland (you'll never get rid of it and poles love western money besides), bring a few packs of cigerettes even if you don't smoke, avoid czech women, check out the Hoffenbrau Palace in Vienna, Karlstein Castle in Czech Republic and if you go to Krakow don't miss the castle.

Oh... if you go to Zakopanji mountains in Poland be sure to see the Salt Mine there. There is this entire salt city there. Its really amazing.

I've read about taht salt mine. It's high on my list of potentials. I'm in Heathrow now. I have a five hour layover, and had intended to go down to the tube and take a train into the District to get some lunch, but we landed half a planet away (Heathrow is extremely large), and by the time I got all the way to the main terminal, I figured the time to get through customs, get into town, walk around and find a place, get back, get through security, and get back to this terminal would be a little iffy. Since Heathrow has a giant shopping mall in it, I'm just going to get lunch here.

Then it's off to Czech. I'll be there this afternoon.

Well, we made it to the hotel with only a little trouble. We managed to find the subway, and find our stop on the subway, but we couldn't figure out where to get the tram, so we had to walk a few blocks in the rain. We stopped at Wenclas Square on the way, and it was super cool. The best part is that subways and busses cost about a dime, and they don't check to see if you even paid that.

I think we're paying the "dumb American tourist" fare at the hotel, though. It's not bad, sixty a night for a room with a kitchen, but the girl at the check in desk rolled her eyes when she looked at the price we booked at online, and then said she couldn't tell us what the normal rate is. We're probably going to try to find something closer to the city center today.

So far, I really like the place. There's every possibility that I shoudln't have even bothered with getting a rail pass for the region, because this is probably cool enough to spend two weeks in. Then again, other places probably are, too, so if I get around a little, I can figure out where to spend more time later on. Prague calls itself "the new Amsterdam," but Krakow calls itself, "the new Prague". I'll have to see if it's true.

Oh, and Czech keyboards are even more screwed up and confusing than British ones. Half these keys have four different values, and I don't know what most of the symbols on the keyboard are.

So I'm in Poland now. Whoa. This place is whack. Krakow is extremely interesting visually. You can tell it was a breathtaking city before 60 years of communist neglect. It's probably far more interesting now, though. Every time you turn a corner, there's what looks like a pulitzer prize winning photo sitting right in front of you. The tragic decay of the intricate architecture is really mesmerizing.

Not a ****ing soul here speaks english, though. Well, almost no one. Being (I guess) a Slavic language, it's completely and totally different, too. It might as well be Arabic or Chinese. In most languages, if you've learnt any Spanish or French at all, you can at least grab out bits and pieces. Almost everything is based either on Germanic or Latin roots, so you can at least get key bits of important words, but not here. I went into a place for breakfast hoping to be able to make out something, but none of the food looked like anything I've ever seen, and nothing on the menu made any sense at all. I just pointed at whatever the guy in front of me had and held up a finger for "one". She didn't understand the word cappuchino, but she did understand "coffee", and put about three large spoonfulls of coffee grinds in a glass, dumped scalding hot water on it, then gave it to me with a spoon, sugar cubes, and some kind of creme. The odd thing, i mean really odd, is that it was delicious. I had another.

I spent all day wandering around, and didn't find a cyber cafe (the do speak english here, and run Linux, and have hip-hop playing), and there's one directly across the street from my hotel.

There's something odd about the people. The young women, I mean really young, like late teens and early twenties, are really beautiful. I mean super
beautiful. And about 1 % of the adult women are incredibly beautiful. EVERYONE ELSE is so ****ing ugly we need new words to describe how ugly they are. They've found clever and creative new ways to be ugly. I mean, DAMN they're ugly. Either they have a secret mamooshka gene that turns on the ugly as soon as they hit 22 (like the Chinese and Koreans do), or they suffered some extreme dietary neglect during the iron fisted reign behind the iron curtain. Either that or all the younger ones are tourists from Czech, which isn't too unlikely.

Well, that's about that. The place is magnificant looking. I wandered around for about six hours between six and now (noon, my time), from the touristy shopping district down to the crumbling ghettos. My feet are killing me, and it's almost checkin time across the street.

Oh, when I came in, some jerk told me he had a single room in a nice, near by pension for 15 Euro. The place smelt like urine and mildew, and was obviously the spare room in this old drunks house. I got on the other side of him and started backing out the door before I said no way, just in case he was really desperate for drinking money. It was pretty creepy.

:nice:

Praha is a beautiful city.

Oh, I was wrong about the Poles being ugly. All I saw during the day were mamooska women, or gypsies, and tourists & young people who don't have day jobs. The real people don't come out until about 4 pm, then they flock in the streets and swarm the place. It's actually extremely cool. It's like a cross between Amsterdam and Florence, but older.

Oh, I was wrong about the Poles being ugly. All I saw during the day were mamooska women, or gypsies, and tourists & young people who don't have day jobs. The real people don't come out until about 4 pm, then they flock in the streets and swarm the place. It's actually extremely cool. It's like a cross between Amsterdam and Florence, but older.
I personally think Polish woman are very beautiful.

One interesting story: While I would never recommend anyone paying for sex, I did see several Polish prostitutes working the hotels. They were very forward in fact. They could not speak english but would corner you in an elevator and, using the international language of body talk, lift up the hems of their short skirts.

Krakow was once the capital of Poland and reached its Zenith under Kasimir the Great, king of Poland who expanded the empire into Ukraine and as south as Hungary. In the 18th century the capital was moved to Warsaw.

Krakow was until WW 2 a lively trading center. It also had an enormous Jewish ghetto. Most of the jews were killed by the Nazis and nothing remains of the old jewish culture.

Krakow can best be described as being like Prague but on a smaller scale. It is less cosmopolitan than Prague, but is a very intimate city and Poles can be really kind if you get to know them.

I left Krakow this morning. Yesterday I went to Aushwitz and to an old salt mine thing that's a big attraction as a day trip from Krakow, then went back into town and ended up staying the night. Today, I made it to the train station JUST in time to catch a train to Warsaw, then I have an over-night trian to Budapest tonight. They tried to trick me again and tell me I didn't need a reservation, but I remembered after I'd left Krakow that I need one for a sleeper car, so I just got one. I paid the BIG MONEY for it, so I could have a single room on the train -- oh, luxury. It was 60 Zlotty for the room, but that's only about $20 USD. I love this place. I just got a really nice meal in a swank joint in Old Warsaw for like ten US bucks. Damn, now I know what it was like to travel back before the Dark Times, before the US dollar became a joke in Europe. In Czesky Krumlov, my travel mate and I got one of the better meals I've ever had, and I've has some good meals around the world, for a little over five bucks.

Anyway, I have a few hours before my train. I'm going to get into Budapest tomorrow at about 8 AM, get a room, and spend the day. I'll have a better idea how long I'll be once I'm there. I should have left yesterday, but if I had, I wouldn't have been able to see Warsaw.

Oh, speaking of Warsaw, it's really pretty nice. It gets a bum rap in all the travel books. In the city center, it's miles and miles in each direction of shopping and stores and resturants and bars, clubs and cafe's. It's like the Manhattan shopping district, and possibly bigger (I only walked around a little, so I'm not sure how big it really is. I wussied out and got a cab into and out of the Old Town). Old Town is really quaint, too. Very enjoyable. The weather is ****, though. It's like Chicago, only more so.

Man, I love this post-communism, struggling economy, low-value currency East Eruope thing. If I didn't already have things i want to do next year, I'd definately like to come back. (I'm considering Spain, Germany, Russia and Mexico for next year).

And yes, Polish women are beautiful. When I posted the above, I had just spent the first morning here wandering around an out-of-the-tourist-area, pretty run-down part of town, and was seeing all of the worst that Krakow had to offer. I assumed, rather incorrectly, that it was a good example of Poles. I was oh-so wrong.

I left Krakow this morning. Yesterday I went to Aushwitz and to an old salt mine thing that's a big attraction as a day trip from Krakow, then went back into town and ended up staying the night. Today, I made it to the train station JUST in time to catch a train to Warsaw, then I have an over-night trian to Budapest tonight. They tried to trick me again and tell me I didn't need a reservation, but I remembered after I'd left Krakow that I need one for a sleeper car, so I just got one. I paid the BIG MONEY for it, so I could have a single room on the train -- oh, luxury. It was 60 Zlotty for the room, but that's only about $20 USD. I love this place. I just got a really nice meal in a swank joint in Old Warsaw for like ten US bucks. Damn, now I know what it was like to travel back before the Dark Times, before the US dollar became a joke in Europe. In Czesky Krumlov, my travel mate and I got one of the better meals I've ever had, and I've has some good meals around the world, for a little over five bucks.
My ex is from Cesky Krumlov and my daughter goes there every summer to visit her grandmother.

Its really is an amazing place.

Oh, speaking of Warsaw, it's really pretty nice. It gets a bum rap in all the travel books. In the city center, it's miles and miles in each direction of shopping and stores and resturants and bars, clubs and cafe's. It's like the Manhattan shopping district, and possibly bigger (I only walked around a little, so I'm not sure how big it really is. I wussied out and got a cab into and out of the Old Town). Old Town is really quaint, too. Very enjoyable. The weather is ****, though. It's like Chicago, only more so.

Man, I love this post-communism, struggling economy, low-value currency East Eruope thing. If I didn't already have things i want to do next year, I'd definately like to come back. (I'm considering Spain, Germany, Russia and Mexico for next year).
I was there in 1988. I guess a lot changed since then. When I was there I could not even find film for my camera.


And yes, Polish women are beautiful. When I posted the above, I had just spent the first morning here wandering around an out-of-the-tourist-area, pretty run-down part of town, and was seeing all of the worst that Krakow had to offer. I assumed, rather incorrectly, that it was a good example of Poles. I was oh-so wrong.
Polish woman are beautiful, and not all that expensive ether. :D

Hahaha. That's funny about Warsaw. It's like non-stop shopping madness in the city center, now. Lots of international companies. Lots of English, too. I'm in Budapest now. I'm going to try to flee tomorrow as soon as I can get through the castle district and statue park. A friend of mine is supposed to be going into Vienna, so I'm going to try to meet up before I have to go back to Prague for my return flight.