Mom Says I’m Running Away

Day: 57

Woke up thinking, “Wow, that was an interesting night”. I really am taking in all Amsterdam has to offer…

I went downstairs to the kitchen/bar and started my day with some toast with Nutella on it and a cup of juice. I wasn’t half way though my toast when it started being passed from the right. About an hour later, slightly stoned but still motivated to see the city, I was able to pull myself away from the group that sits there all day and make my way into some other parts of Amsterdam. I wandered around for a few hours just checking out the buildings, canals, and the Dutch. Bicycles wiz by you almost every minute in this city and if you are not on you’re toes you seemed to get clipped. Fortunately I didn’t. I made my way back for an afternoon nap that lasted until 5pm.

I took another evening walk to the Van Gogh museum and spent a while seeing roughly 200 of his paintings and learning all about his short life as an artist. I was significantly impressed. I was on a mission at this point to find an internet café because my blogging has been getting a couple of days behind and all the drug use is not helping me stay focused after about an hour of walking I found a little café that was open twenty more minutes, I was able to get my images uploaded but couldn’t get my writing online. Kind of bummed I headed back to the hostel to see what was going on.

Brooks, Hannah and I headed off for a Italian dinner and went of to the “Grasshopper” (before rthe reference to my fathers own story there) for a late evening smoke (I didn’t pass out, Dad). We walked around for another hour and when we finally got back to the hostel I just crashed hoping to get more accomplished tomorrow.

(Sorry about the bikes, they are everywhere and pose so nicely)

Day: 56

I woke up after 4 hours of sleep and realized I had to make it to the airport to catch my plane to Dortmand (Germany). I shouldered my bag and made my way to the bus station the whole time watching over my shoulder to see if the police were coming for me (as per last nights criminal activities). I made it to the shuttle stop and the rest of my day was a blur of bus, plane, bus, train, tram and walking. I arrived at my hostel (The Flying Pig) in Amsterdam exhausted thinking about calling it an early night so I can partake in everything the city has to offer tomorrow. I headed out, found dinner and went back to the hostel just after nine. Now I wanted to call it an early night but this was far to oearly for a city like Amsterdam so I headed down to the bar in the basement for a beer and just to chill out.

Before I knew it I had made some friends (two Brits, Brooks and Hannah on vacation for a couple of days) and one of Amsterdam’s primary attractions started to burn. Slightly stone the question was put forth to me.

“Do you want to do some laughing mushrooms?”

Now this is a moment of truth…

“…Sure…”

The next four hours I spent laughing my ass off eating Pringles and cheese, the world became the funniest place ever. The laughter was unending and the world was the most excessively interesting place, every texture, color, shape, surface was brand new and enlightening. So much for an early night but it was one of the craziest experiences of my life.

Now in the post script I know some of you might be astonished with my choice being that I am not the biggest drug user. But the day after as I write this I don’t regret a minute of it.

Day: 55

Another day spent wandering this magically crowded city, being trampled of wave after wave of tourists trying to get to the bridge or the castle or Kafka’s house, is not my idea of a great time. Yet it is hard to complain when the city is this spectacular and you have no responsibilities in life. The daytime passed quickly (probably because I didn’t get up until 10) and before I knew it I was rounding up a group of people to go out for dinner and possibly a few drinks.

Myself, TJ, Nicky and Sherry all headed out around eight for a night of great food and great conversation about Dick Cheney shooting somebody in the face. I am really disappointed that news this funny took so long to reach me, this is the kind of thing I really shouldn’t hear about two months later from a Canadian. So all you out there in blogland remember, next time any major governmental figure shoots anyone, Rob needs to be informed so he can laugh his ass off too. After dinner, which was a little pricy but very tasty, we started to walk back the two blocks to our hostel when I came up with a ingenious plan. We were going to have a drink at every bar all the way back to our beds. Now this being the Czech Republic means that in two blocks there are 5 or 6 bars.

The first bar we was a little dive with a coked out lady bartender, our drinks took her 10 minutes to make (1 beer, 3 shots of vodka, and a Red Bull), and she looked lost the entire time. We slammed the first round. While TJ, Sherry and I were waiting for Nicky to finish her beer we ordered another round (2 vodkas and a Jager for TJ), which took another 10 minutes to get. As a former bartender I was slightly frustrated. After our second round we grabbed the check because we knew we had a few more bars to go to get home. When I looked at the check it was about half the price it should have been, she had forgot to ring in some of the drinks. We gave the bill to TJ to pay (He owed us from dinner) and the girls and I headed outside to let him deal with the bartender.

When TJ came outside and we started to walk downhill he had a big old grin on his face and I glanced down at the 1000 Crown note he had gone to the bar with still in his hand, and quickly gave him a glance and realized he had just turned us all into criminals in Czech! When the girls realized this they both started to walk really fast and I just kept pace laughing my ass off. TJ had just drank and dashed. Now at this point I recalled The Plate Hurling incident and all the shit I took for making Americans look bad in Turkey, but here is this Canadian (the world loves Canadians!) that walked out on a $9 tab in a bar! Stupidity while intoxicated is not just limited to Americans, it is a universal truth.

After about ½ an hour on the run from the law, we found another bar that TJ had to pay for the shots before we were served. I was slightly relieved. Until he also showed us the Jager shot glass that he stole from the last bar! Free drinks and complimentary shot glasses, this 19 year old is a clepto. Anyway we never finished our pub crawl and just headed to the market to get a bottle of vodka and some sprite to drink at the hostel. The night passed quickly and I was asleep in no time (by “no time” I mean roughly 3 am).

Day: 54

I wasn’t quite sure how to spend the day when I woke up this morning. After breakfast I sat down at my computer and started to edit yesterday’s pictures and write my blog entry. I was in a good mood and I was able to accomplish much, so I spent until about 4pm sitting in front of my computer editing, organizing and photo-shopping a back log of pictures that I’ve been procrastinating on doing for the last two weeks. I now have, up-to-date, two hard drive and one DVD copy of everything that I have deemed worthy of importance (roughly 300 pictures). The daytime was kind of like a work day for me, and even though I was sitting in Prague I still was putting business first. I am not going to lie, I was slightly proud of myself.

Around 4pm the days rain had cleared and the sun was starting to give a wonderful light to the city. I grabbed my camera and headed out for a couple of hours of photo-ops. I climbed the tower on the Charles Bridge and captured some beautiful rooftop shots of the city. The mobs of tourists were still everywhere and moving around the city wasn’t the fastest process, but I wasn’t in a rush for anything. I found an internet café, uploaded my blog and bought a ticket to fly to Amsterdam (actually Dortmand, Germany with a train to Amsterdam) on Tuesday. This upcoming weekend is the Queen of Holland’s Birthday and the Party in the streets of Amsterdam is supposed to be intense. I made a reservation at a hostel for Tues, Wed, & Thurs, but I won’t know where I am staying for the weekend until I am there because they stopped taking any reservations for the weekend. I gave the hostel a call and they let me know there would probably be room for the weekend if I was coming on Tuesday but there were no guarantees. I’m not excessively worried, if I can’t stay in the city I’ll just head to the Dutch countryside for the weekend. I had some leftover phone time on a calling card I had bought so I called my sister and dad each for a quick chat.

I made it back to the hostel just before 8 and settled in for a beer and to watch two guys from Minnesota drink two bottles of Absinthe through the course of the night. I made some new friends and enjoyed the generally inebriated environment. We never even managed to go out, we just hung out buying beers from the hostel receptionist.

Day: 53

I woke up early this morning (around 7am) because the hostel didn’t yet know if they had room for me tonight, and they wouldn’t know until about 10:30. What they did have is a laundry service that takes 3 hours and opened at 7am. I got my clothes to them early, unsure about where I would sleep tonight but excited that where ever it was it would be in clean clothes. I spent the morning hours writing my blog, e-mailing, reading and eating my free breakfast. When I went back to the reception desk and asked about a bed for the night I was in luck because someone cancelled their reservation and I could stay here for a few more days.

The sun began to shine brightly so I headed out to look around at this city. I went directly into old town and immediately noticed one thing, that there were mobs of tourists everywhere. At times I almost had to climb over grandmothers in walkers just to get a few more feet. In just a few hours and a couple of injuries to old ladies I was able to make a complete circle of the old town square, the castle (largest castle complex in the world according to the Lonely Planet), the castle guards, the Charles Bridge and a lot of steep hills.

A side note; I have begun to notice that since I carry around what is usually the biggest camera to all these tourist locations, everyone seems to think I am their private photographer. I must have taken fifty pictures of random people in front of random things of historical interest. Not that I mind to much, but at one point today I had a line of three couples waiting for me to take their pictures!

Anyhow, around 2 it started to rain and I just headed back to the hostel for a siesta so I would be in top shape for a Saturday night in Prague, which everyone has told me is a great time. When I woke up I showered and went to the common room which was full of people drinking beer and hanging out just avoiding the rain, I bought a $0.95 beer and joined them. After a couple I set out to find some dinner, everyone else had eaten so I was alone, but the plan was to meet up around 9pm to head out on the town.

Dinner was great, stuffed pork and soup, and I was back drinking beers with everyone by 8:30 and soon after we began a pub crawl around the eastern part of Prague. I called it an early night when half the group headed back around 1 am. Not too intoxicated I slept like a champ wondering what I should do with tomorrow.

Day: 52

I woke up this morning late, and at first I though any hope of leaving Krakow was gone. It was near eleven by the time I was showered and ready to think (as hard as it was) about what to do with the day. I had missed the free breakfast so I settled on starting my day with just an orange from my pack. I got to talking to two Brazilian guys and I told them I was thinking about heading to Prague today. They let me know that another guy, Tomas (from Denmark) was also trying to get there today. I wondered into the other room and found Thomas doing all the work on the computer of finding the train schedule for the day. It looked like we had about one hour till the next train left and it would take us most of the day to reach Prague. This was wonderful news, I wasn’t really in the mood to do anything other than sit on a train all day.

We made it to the train and as we bought our tickets the woman let told us to hurry because the train left in two minutes, damn the online schedule for being wrong. We shouldered our packs and set out on a run across the train station, barely making it before the doors closed. The afternoon was uneventful, just sitting on a train (with a couple of transfers) for roughly eight hours.

When I arrived at Prague, Thomas set off to meet some friends of his and I set out to find a hostel, which was only a few blocks away. About this point I realized that I hadn’t taken any pictures today and after settling I would have to find something photogenic so I don’t let you, my viewers, down. I got a comfy bed and set out to find something nice to photograph. I walked around for about an hour and took some cool pictures then just went back to the hostel for a beer and to listen to some other traveler play his violin. I went off to bed a little after midnight, with a sense of accomplishment for actually making it out of Poland.

Day: 51

Another wonderful day in Krakow, I am pretty sure everyone out there in blog world is getting tired of more pictures of this spectacular city. On my sixth day here I really didn’t have any huge plans, except see if I could motivate myself to move on tomorrow.

The day went according to plan, or the lack thereof. I spent the morning just chilling out in a café reading with a coffee for a couple of hours than ordered a beer and salad for lunch, without ever getting out of my seat. I enjoyed another beer and all the people walking by and before I knew it was running on 3 pm. I hadn’t showered yet today so I made my way back to my hostel for another afternoon nap and a shower. I had been hoping to do my laundry here but of course their machine is broken! After I cleaned up and settled down from my exhausting day I meant Johanna who had just arrived and had a Polish friend here who was taking her out for a night on the town, she invited me to join and we set out to find some dinner before we had to meet her friend.

Now, with full knowledge that if I had another night on the town with no pictures, I would hear it from my brother, so I grabbed my camera and 50mm lens as we headed out. I went to take a picture and it wouldn’t auto-focus… funny. I played with it a little and it looks like my lens is jammed. Damn. Now I had no pictures of the evening and I can’t get it fixed (it is under warranty) until I get to a major city.

The night on the town was like a vodka tasting session (the Polish being vodka coinsurers, and the place where the drink originated). Drink after drink of different flavors and colors kept coming. At one point the Poles we were with brought out a tray with 30 shots (for the six of us) and called it the White Death. While I think they were accurate in there appraisal, because soon after the White Death, I don’t really remember much of the rest of the night.