Buses this time

The trip on the bus was a day in itself so in my mind it constitutes its own little section.

After being an hour late in starting, probably caused by the fact that it was pissing down with rain all afternoon, the bus got underway and was a long trip. I got literally the last seat on the bus but was fortunate in the fact that it was against the window which meant leaning over to get some sleep was that little bit easier – sleeping on buses is something I am proud to say is becoming much easier than it used to be all that time ago when I started. Sleeping on and off for a few hours saw the time fly by and before I knew it we were at the border between Hungary and Ukraine

(Not “the Ukraine” – it pisses off the locals).

This was probably one of the worst things about my fucking long 22 hour bus ride into Ukraine. We, the bus and everyone on it, were stuck waiting at the border for an eternity – 3-4 hours is the guess that I would make for them to check all of the passports/visas etc. I have to say that having the British passport in this situation was an understated bonus. If I was on the Aussie passport I would have needed a visa to get in but with the EU passport it wasn’t needed and I unlike at least 4 other people on our bus, got through the border with no problems at all.
Had to give a slight snicker at the people who got turned away at 5 in the morning in the middle of nowhere on the border, but it freed up enough seats for the woman next to me to move so I could have the pair of seats to myself and that made getting some sleep so much easier.

The wonder of Ukrainian roads is something to marvel at.... or not.

They made getting sleep while we were on the move a challenge to say it lightly.
The entire day was a combination of broken sleep and looking at the very poor rural areas that we were passing through.

Ended up getting to Kiev around 7 pm and then got a taxi to the hostel.

I was in Kiev, Ukraine after all this time.

And to think, I had no intention of going even as east as Krakow, Poland when I started all of this travel.

Down the Rabbit Hole and off to Carpe

Budapest, Budapest, Budapest.... where to even start with Budapest and the people that were there.

This city was by far some of the most fun I have had in all of my travels. The hostel while giving you the opportunity to go and sightsee and play tourist is not geared towards that type of traveller in any way shape or form.

Carpe Noctem (seize the night) is a party hostel and the people working and living there make it some of the most fun you will have in Europe provided that you are willing to be open and join in on all of the fun. Every night has a destination and usually a good drinks deal.

My first day there I had only had a bed for about 30 minutes when I was invited out in passing to Mongolian BBQ, which was 4000 florins and included unlimited food, beer and wine. The guys I went with turned out to be staff for the most part and this led to some great impressions of them as I learnt the wonderful back stories of a few of them. The day progressed quickly and then before I knew it tequila had been ordered, much to Suzi’s dismay. The three guys who were hitting it hard got some shit for their antics to put it lightly, in the end one of them even lost the battle with his stomach at the table and resulted in me making a hasty retreat while it was dealt with – not my problem is the phrase that came to mind.

That night was, like all at Carpe, one for going out, the exact specific destinations on that night eluding me at this point but there was drinking and more than one bar that we went to over the course of the night.

The drinking specifics is something that will come in a later post, after I grab the schedule from Carpe’s site.

More importantly is the fact that some sightseeing was enjoyed. On one day I went with three other people to the House of Terror/Horror which is based in the old headquarters of first the Nazi secret police and then the Soviet secret police. It was an experience to say the least, I had no real idea about the role that Hungary had played in the second world war, other than the fact I knew they were in it, and then the information about what the Soviets had done in their time in the country was a bit of a shock.

I recommend to anyone who heads to Budapest to go there, but at the same time make sure you have something to do afterwards that is a bit more uplifting as the museum in the end is depressing in the reality that it portrays.

After the museum I headed with one of the other guys to Hero Square which is one of the quintessential things that most people see in Budapest and it is on almost all of the post cards that you will get. It was nice and made, like so many sights in Budapest, for some nice pictures. We then wandered around for almost 3 hours in Budapest and took in the main tourist street, one that we were warned not to go near at night, and also the market hall and one of the main bridges in town which gave some nice views across the city.

The other main chunk of sight seeing that I did, embarrassingly, was not done until the day I was leaving, very hung over from the Shit Pub Pub-crawl, to be explained another time, I wandered quite some distance in a random direction and ended up at some of the sights I had not managed to get to the time before and even with the mediocre weather that day it made for some nice pictures and being able to get to almost all of the sights on the Pest side of Budapest.

This leaves the other city, with respect to my experience, unexplored and will probably prove to be the excuse for me going back there at some point for another drunken week of Carpe madness.

The time I was going to be spending in Budapest was only 4 nights, this number quickly changed once I checked the time tables for the buses and discovered that the bus to Kiev that ran on Fridays no longer existed – I had to stay till I got the bus on Monday night. This meant a weekend in Budapest which in the end was the best way to have it and it was just as fun as I expected it to be but once it was over the bus on Monday to Kiev was looming and it was not something I was going to miss.

After a goodbye that was almost on par with when I left Australia from the people at Carpe I went to the bus station and wait is something that I certainly did. The bus was scheduled to arrive in Budapest at 9 pm. Waiting there early as always 9 pm came and went, and with no bus in sight, concerned to say the least I waited, and waited and then over an hour late the bus arrived much to my relief. I go the last free seat on the bus and then we were away.

Trains, I tried but no

The transit to Budapest was an…. Interesting day.
I had every intention of getting my first train since I had left Austria.
This didn’t happen.
I had packed my stuff and left for the train station with about 45 minutes of buffer time, lots or so I thought. Heading down the pedestrian zone to a spot where I had seen lots of taxis before I was greeted with a grand total of NONE. Unperturbed I continued walking on as there was a shopping centre in the distance and where in the world is there a shopping complex that doesn’t have a taxi rank somewhere on its periphery – I was wrong, apparently Banska Bystrica is a place where this concept is completely abstract. So I walked some more and then some more and then back tracked to the spot where there was meant to be taxis initially and this time there wasn’t just one, there were two.
By this point there was no point trying for the train connection that I wanted, bus station.
Got to the bus station, waited almost 40 minutes and then got a bus back to Bratislava.
Once in Bratislava I was presented with the idea that there are only three buses a day from there to Budapest, so I had two hours to kill. That too passed soon enough with the help of a book and some food.
The one thing that was a great surprise was that when I got on to the bus to Budapest, it cost me a grant total of €2 for my ticket, and €1 for my bag. Getting into Bratislava from Banska had cost me almost €10 so it was a pleasant shock to say the least. Had an uneventful bus ride and then got into Budapest at around 9.30 and made my way to the go between hostel I had booked – Carpe Noctem was booked out for that night.
Got in slept got up early and bailed out ASAP to the other hostel where I was greeted with a coffee and one of the most laid back atmospheres I had ever seen in a hostel.

My new friend - Buses

It has been quite some time since I’ve managed to get around to thinking about doing all this stuff to do with the blog. After being either stone walled or being told that advertised jobs didn’t exist I got pissed off and left the joyous town of Sankt Anton and travelled to Bern in Switzerland with no real idea of what to expect considering I hadn’t even heard of the city until then – it’s the capital of Switzerland by the way. It was a nice town...very old and had a cool museum and stuff. I enjoyed my quick stay and moved on after a couple of days with the intention of going to Lyon in France.

I got myself to Lyon and it was a bit of a drab day.... and I was far from in the mood for actually caring about it, I got myself a train ticket to Paris straight away and got there around 7pm at night.... after spending an hour finding an internet cafe I managed o get online and find a hostel that I had recommended to me. It wasn’t that good and was probably the worst “included” breakfast I’ve had so far. The day after getting myself to Paris I was still in a shit of a mood and I didn’t like the vibe so made my way along to the bus station (my new friend). When I got there I had a choice of going to Rotterdam, Brussels or Amsterdam. What do you think I chose?

Amsterdam was the way to go.

The bus there was pretty par for the course, until we almost left some one behind in Brussels, I thought it was hilarious at the time but in retrospect it wasn’t but it all sorted itself out in the end. On the trip there I got chatting with a group of American art students who where based in Paris and were tripping it up for a couple of days. Managed to work it so that I could stay with them as they had a hostel organised with an extra bed in the room and that way the overall cost was less. Ended up spending the next two days hanging around with them and they are by far the best people I have met in my travels and it made the days that much better. To be honest it was the most fun I’ve had since I got over here.

After spending a couple more days in Amsterdam I figured it was time to move on again, I was going to hop on another bus and go somewhere....but they weren’t being cooperative so I ended up having to catch a train. Was going to go to Dusseldorf but that changed when I saw that Köln (Cologne in English) on the list of destinations after that one so I paid the extra few Euro’s and went there.

The main reason for me wanting to go to Köln was to go to the Cathedral, the Dom. It was opposite the main train station so I got to see it in all of its glory pretty much straight away...and it was fucking awesome. Got to the hostel and did my usual part. The next day I went into the cathedral and had fun with my camera, and then I paid to climb the tower..... Fucking hell is that thing massive. After that I wandered around for a while.... there are Christmas markets every city I’ve been to and all of them are cool....great food too which is always a bonus.

After much walking I made my way to the bus station again and got myself ticket to the destination that looked different, so I got on a bus to Krakow, Poland.
At this point I should mention that it cost me less to go from Köln to Krakow by bus than it did to go from Amsterdam to Köln by train – buses are my new friend.
After spending 17 hours on a bus I got to Krakow.... got to my hostel about half hour after that (10.30 am) and got myself a bed ASAP. This is the bit where this hostel is one of the best so far. Normally at a hostel they have a lock out from around 11 am through till about 2 so they can clean up and stuff....this place didn’t. I got in, got my bed and then after making it....crashed for four hours.

Did a free tour around town yesterday which was good, got to see a ton of stuff I wouldn’t have even known was there. Last night was fun....it was shots tasting night.... between four people we polished off a big bottle of vodka and I had already had three beers so I crashed out before I got too messy. Today I got up feeling very fuzzy around the edges but I still managed to get myself on a bus and out to Auschwitz....it was hard to describe, moving is one word but it doesn’t quite give it justice.

Tomorrow I was going to go to a seven hundred year old salt mine.... but Daniel happens to be in town so we’re going to some random markets in the morning which should be cool.

The fun topic of searching for work which I have been avoiding is no fun at all. In Sankt Anton I’ve applied for about a dozen jobs and gotten a few negative replies and a more no responses, which gives me the impression that the entire fucking town doesn’t check their fucking emails which I'm not liking very much. I’m going to go back to Innsbruck soon and try searching a bit more. If I have no luck there I’m probably going to move on to a German city and search there.... and if all of that fails I’m thinking that I might go and lean on my relatives in England and try and get myself a job over there....I’m just not sure....with the way my money is burning through I’m probably going to run out soon... failing at this endeavour is not what I want to do.

In a wrap....since last time I chatted to you I have been to Bern- Switzerland, Lyon and Paris- France, Amsterdam- Netherlands, Cologne- Germany and now Krakow- Poland.

Who knows where I might end up next...it's awesome.

I'm trying to stay positive in all of this.

-CJ