Tim here, blogging from the small town of
Liberec, in the
Czech Republic.
BJ, Sarah, and I are currently staying here with
Ken and Linda Stapleton, longtime friends of the Smyth family.
We are at the end of a two week stay in the east of Europe (one week in
Hungary, one week here in the Czech).
Tommorow we depart for
Paris, where we’ll be for the next week, but before we leave here I thought it best to make an attempt at keeping up this blog-thing we’ve got going.
Below are 12 pictures with some semi-related stories to accompany them.
We have many more stories and pictures from our last couple weeks, which will go up sometime in the next week, but for now, enjoy this small helping of travel tales.
First off, let’s recap what’s happened so far. I began my journey two and a half months ago with a 2 week tour of Ireland, then was joined by BJ for another week on the emerald Isle. We then spent a week in Amsterdam, followed by 4 weeks in Germany, much of that at our friend Andy’s house in the black forest.. (we also saw Berlin, and Oktoberfest in Munich) Near the end of our time in Germany we were joined by Sarah. That was a little over two weeks ago, the last two weeks were spent in Budapest, Prague, and for the last couple days, Liberec. It’s hard to decide (while still traveling) which place I’ve enjoyed the most, every stop has had it’s ups and downs. Budapest reflected this trend in that, while we met good people, had great food, and saw some awesome sights, we also had inter-group conflict (!), spent more money than we might like, and had some difficulty getting around the city... Whereas Prague’s city center is dense and easy to walk, Budapest’s is quite spread out. This problem was only exacerbated by the fact that our hostel was on an Island at the edge of downtown. Again, ups and downs… The island is their version of central park, so we were located in a HUGE park that was absolutely gorgeous, it took us 25 minutes just to get to the nearest Metro station… The longer we were there the more we got the hang of their public transit, but for the first couple days we were definitely feeling it in our feet… Anywho, I’m losing focus, on to the pictures (and sort of stories)…
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As mentioned, our hostel was on a giant island in the middle of town. Joggers would run by our hostel all day long on the running track near the river, and on the weekend, locals would stream in to the park for a bit of escape from the city. This picture is of Sarah and I on the day we arrived in Budapest, right outside our hostel next to the jogging track.
One of the sights we saw first off was a place called Castle Hill, which I really couldn’t tell you what purpose it served, but it had lots of cool looking buildings that were really old, some government buildings I think, and some of the best views of the city… this was actually one of the only “tourist” sites we went to… We mostly just goofed around.
Here’s a picture of us, looking pretty average, on Castle Hill.
The
Danube, the large river which separates the city, on which our island was located, can be seen in the background.
Our hostel was dirt cheap, probably because it was so out of the way... besides putting us next to a beautiful park, it also led us towards some nice English speaking folks, who we would subsequently hang out with for the rest of the week. There were Laura and Claire - sisters from England, Phil and Austin - dudes from Iowa, and some Ausies names Em and Stu, traveling with a Cali boy named Kellen. Not to mention a gal from Bremerton, Wa named Naomi – what are the odds. We took to each other quite well, brought together by the common languages of English and alchohol. On the 2nd day we were there we all sat together on the balcony overlooking the Danube and had a little party, then when it got cold, we moved the party inside to our room. It was a merry old time and we all bonded over drinks. This is a picture of our cheap hostel, and us, sitting around in it.
Amidst all that bonding we discovered that the next day was Austins 23rd birthday, naturally, we had to go out and celebrate. We found a nice bar that had a space for dancing, where we spent the evening. Here are (from left to right) BJ, Emily, Claire, Austin, and Kellen. And we actually danced! This is quite something if you know BJ, Sarah, or I, as none of us are the dancing types, but dance we did, until the wee hours of the morning… I actually copped out earlier than them, nevertheless… this is us at the club.
The next day was Austin’s real birthday, and after all that partying, we needed to relax. Luckily, Budapest is known for their marvelous Turkish Baths. Phil, Austin, BJ, Sarah, and I went to one of the more well known ones, seen in this picture down here. It was one of the more memorable experiences of the trip thus far. We spent 6 hours bathing inside, outside, in whirlpools, and hot tubs, showers and saunas… the works. It was so relaxing that my legs felt like rubber for the next day. The people watching here was amongst the best we’ve had - all sorts of people from all over the world, and a lot of locals too. The trip to and from the baths, along with our time there basically took up all of the 3rd day.
Of course, we did have to go out for Austin’s birthday dinner. That night we set off on a mission to get down at an All You Can Eat Mongolian Grill, since we heard there was a good one in the area… The meal did not disappoint, and we partied into the night once again. However, BJ did take this one weird picture at the meal, which I just had to throw in since, well, just look at it. The meal was actually not as gross as it appears in the picture, but well, I don’t know, this is just gross…
One of the highlights of the trip thus far came near the end of our time in Budapest… We spent an afternoon eating lunch and chatting with actor Doug Jones, a friend of the BJ’s aunt. He’s in Budapest working on the film Hellboy 2. You may have seen Doug as the silver surfer in last summers fantastic four movie, or as the faun and pale man in Pans Labyrinth (Creepy monster with eyes in his hands). The day we met he’d gotten only an hour of sleep or so, but was gracious enough to spend an afternoon with us, telling us about the film industry, and just generally being a really cool guy. We’d sort of bugged him all week to meet up, and on the day before we left we were able to meet for lunch at his hotel. This is us, before departing… precious.
From Budapest we went straight on to Prague. The weather was getting colder, after an unseasonably nice fall, but nonetheless it seemed to fit Prague’s style somehow... We had such a good time with that gal from Bremerton Naomi, that we met up again in Prague and hung out for most of the week…. On one of our first days there we took a little trip to a park overlooking the city and goofed off for a few hours. This is a photo from that park, looking down on Prague.
This picture is from that day at the park, but it’s better without an explanation… you can just use your imagination.
One of the strangest things that happened while we were in Prague was the random placement of our hostel. It was in a main square where they happened to be opening a new shopping mall. All week there was construction going on and a giant countdown clock. On our second to last day there the mall was scheduled to open… there was a concert going all day, an orchestra playing at night, and when they finally opened it, a 5 minute long firework show. It was a little surreal, as we could see the whole thing from right outside our hostel window. We didn’t expect this big of a thing… there were probably a few thousand people crammed into the square that night. Czechs love their malls I guess…
BJ and Sarah hanging out at our hostel, with Naomi, Mike(from Canada), and some other guy who was a real creep (that’s another, longer story). Anyway, good times were had by all at the apple hostel in Prague.
On the final night before we left, we were able to meet with our friend Charissa. She’s from Seattle but is living and working in Prague indefinitely. She took us out to some nice local spots, and we had a ball of a time till 5:30 in the morning. This is Bj, Charissa and I dancing, with some Spanish friends of hers.
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Anyhow, that’s it for now, we’ll be in Paris for about a week, and will probably update this again a couple times before we leave. Hope all is well with you. - Tim
