East to West and Home

Well it's been a long time, again, and this time I won't even attempt excuses. It's been a whirlwind of adventure.

When I last left you I was in Greece over 3 weeks ago, and let me tell you it's been a long time since then; we made it through Eastern Europe (Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Hungary) back into Western Europe (Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium) and back home to London to touch base before continuing. 

More or less there wasn't a place that I definitely did not enjoy, even though I for sure had my favourites in Budapest and Prague with Vienna and Amsterdam not too far behind. In fact the only place we went to that I didn't fancy in effect was probably Berlin and that wasn't the city's fault entirely. There was more wrong with my disposition that day than just the fact that the city was a bit miserable. 

Things were relatively of the same sort of aspect, with minor dramas, hurt feelings and issues cropping up no matter who we were. The strain of travelling for so long with the same people without a break isn't easy, even if you still love your friends. Even travelling with people you already knew, as I did back in 2011 with Al and C, can be hard without enough time split up to refresh and recuperate. If you can spend more than 30 days at once in the company of the same people without wanting to kill at least one of them at least once, then you're some kind of superhero that man-kind is going to want to capture and test like some sort of mutant x-man that's DNA will save the world. Case in point, it's not easy.

But by no means does that mean that I would trade the time that I spent with my amazing new friends for anything in the world. Life isn't perfect, and contrary to popular belief travelling is still life so it's not meant to be like floating through some dream on a cloud or whatever. You get your fair share of moments that make you angry, frustrated or just plain miserable.

After leaving Greece when I last posted, we started our glory path through some of the major parts of Eastern Europe – without actually facing the scenes that you may assume when you think of things that Eastern Europe is known for like when they go to Bratislava in Euro Trip. Maybe you could say that we didn't go to the truly poor or desolate parts of the East, but then the first stop our our adventure led us to Tirana in Albania.

Tirana, Albania

I'm not sure what I thought Albania was going to be like, but it wasn't really what I encountered. I suppose I did expect something much more miserable, and though it surely was, being there was still just as fun by the people surrounding me. We had lovely big apartments to stay in for the night and I scored a big bed in my own room (sorry Jen and Alex!). We had a memorable night at the hotel, no one was really too keen to venture out into the streets of Tirana for the night, and probably the cheapest, best pizza that I've ever encountered (can you feed 5 people for 15 euros? Tirana can!). Plus one of the most impressive cake-consumption efforts that I've ever seen – and I don't mean by myself, that was all B.

As for my overall impression of Albania, well, I didn't really see much of it to really form too much of an opinion. We sailed on through and Tirana was really not a city that I was left with a longing to explore after our bus tour of the downtown area concluded. I didn't really give Albania much of a chance to entertain me, and rather I just felt so bad for the people for being the poorest country in the world (or was that just in Europe?) that I just let it be.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

We passed out of Albania, through Montenegro for lunch (pretty, very beachy) and finally into Croatia in the afternoon to make it to the medieval city of Dubrovnik. Now, if you're a fan of Game of Thrones – as many people on tour were – then you probably know Dubrovnik as King's Landing and it was kind of fun to think of it as that for a little while until I really started to not care if certain spots were filming locations for certain scenes. Not one of my favourite shows, so after the intial fan moment wore off I wasn't too fussed.

We had a great night out when we got there – partying on in what seemed like a club built inside the dungeon of a castle – and a very relaxed day in the old town. Of course we spent most of the morning outside the city walls at the nearby island because it was so hot it felt like being inside a kiln (walls of concrete, go figure). We wandered around the island, wandered through the markets, bought some pirate candy at one of the stores (Croatia loves pirates it seems) and finally hiked the full way around the city walls when the sun started to drop and take the temperature with it. It was really nice actually, and it was good to have a relatively relaxed time sightseeing as opposed to the usually push to see everything as quickly as possible. That in mind I much preferred the old town at night. It was so much more magical then.

Sarajevo, Bosnia

For a historian and archaeologist, my World War I knowledge is pretty low (ashamedly, I know) because it's never been my preferred area of interest – come on, wars are miserable, I prefer to study Vikings and Aztecs and Greek mythology. So anyway, when we made it to Sarajevo I made the mistake of asking someone what made it so famous only to have them part shocked and part scathingly reply that it was the city that the Austrio-Hungarian heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, had been assassinated alongside his wife and thus potentially acting as one of the (many) catalysts that sparked the Great War. I felt bad I didn't know when I realised, and had a sombre moment by the bridge where it happened, but after that the extend of my knowledge about Sarajevo ended only to be enlightened shortly after with even more sombre history about the wars and terrorist attacks much more recently.

Sarajevo was a much more sombre place than I really anticipated overall – but after all the history and sightseeing was done (including a lot of blast areas imortalised with red concrete) things picked up to a happier note and we had a very lovely evening in the city out for dinner. It's actually a beautiful place, the Ottoman influences definitely helping my appreciation of the place. Plus it was the one night in the whole tour where we were treated to a fancy hotel – not that I usually care for that when I'm travelling (unless it's Disneyland) but it was kind of a nice treat. Even if there were some shady characters lurking around at the time.

Belgrade, Serbia

On the way through Serbia to get to Belgrade, we first stopped at the old town of Mostar to check out the famous bridge and watch the famous jump. I recalled the time that Hamish and Andy tried it out, and found that the real thing was actually not nearly as exciting as watching those two comedians do it. I'm sure its impressive, but it actually wasn't so amazing at the time. But the food was good in Mostar, that's a big plus, even if B tricked me into eating liver. Jerk.

When we got to Belgrade I found that I actually preferred it to Sarajevo – I couldn't really pinpoint exactly why, but it was rather just lovely – a lot of cobble stone streets and a big beautiful fortress overlooking the area amidst the main park made for a certain picturesque image of the place that I was loath to resist. Although a lot of the history was almost as miserable of that of Bosnia, there was something a little magical about Belgrade – maybe it was just that Sarajevo had been so beaten down by misfortune that the spark wasn't as strong anymore, or maybe it was just that I felt so much more sombre there. Either way, we enjoyed ourselves more venturing around the city after dark and exploring in a way we didn't do the day before in Sarajevo.

Budapest, Hungary

I loved Budapest. There was something just so completely wonderful about this city that dazzled me from the get go, and I didn't even really sample the nightlife except to almost kill myself with the world's biggest schnitzel. Al finished hers in 2012 and I decided that anyone who can eat that much schnitzel in one sitting just really can't be human. Freak. That first night I got into bed early to agonise through the pain of eating so much (I know, first world problems) and just curled up to watch a movie while I worked on some much needed laundry, but it turned out to be just as well when the next day was probably one of the most regimented tourist days in my recent memory.

As far as major sights go, I'm willing to bet we saw almost everything although in the grand scheme of things we didn't crack the shell of Budapest. We went through the heroes square, past the palace, through the fisherman's wharf (castle?) and halfway up the mountain in Buda before figuring we couldn't be bothered and climbing back down. It was an amazing day; hotter than hell, but filled with so many dirty jokes, hilarious photos, exciting sights and magical looking buildings just ripe for the avid traveller such as myself. Plus we had an altogether sombre and confusing time at the House of Terror when what we did understand about the awful events it memorialised we found sad, and the rest we just found damn befuddling. I still want to know what the significance of the plush Soviet car was if not just dramatic effect and to insinuate that Stalin's men were probably pretty rich. But I'll probably never know unless I learn to speak Hungarian.

Budapest was my favourite city since leaving Venice and Rome behind, enchanting me with it's gorgeous architecture, fairytale ambience and the fact that stuff was so damn cheap including a particularly adorable tea cup I bought near the palace. I'm definitely looking forward to heading back there for another day or so in the next few weeks.

Vienna, Austria

Vienna was beautiful, but then I knew it would it, and every moment of being there felt a little like stepping into a world of grandeur that I gleefully wished I could better afford. Simultaneously it also heralded our return back to Western Europe, the first thing we did on arriving being the visit to the Summer residence of the Hapsbergs – a beautiful yellow palace with vast gardens that they wish was as glorious as Versailles. Having already been to Versailles I couldn't help but to compare it and find it slightly lacking (only in comparison), but when you consider that Louis XIV was kind of an ass and more or less emptied France's treasury to build his amazing overly-gilded home outside of Paris, then the palaces in Vienna are by far much better. But Versailles is still prettier.

Since we only had the second half of the day to really see Vienna before moving on again, it was like a repeat of the day before and our sightseeing fell to a schedule. Of course best laid plans are often broken and I begged to be let into the National History Museum for 15 minutes after discovering that the Venus of Willendorf – something that I studied in detail as part of my honours project was just beyond the walls. For most people that wouldn't be so exciting, but having awed over the 30,000 year old figurine for years coming face to face with the original was so not something I was going to let just pass me by if I could help it.

It didn't kill our schedule and we still had plenty of time to see everything else we wanted to see including settling down at the Hotel Sacher for coffee and torte, and doing a quick bit of shopping before heading to a classical concert to spend a very classy evening. It was glorious – and very much what I enjoyed – but the midnight trip to the amusement park that looked like something out of a Stephen King novel was not my favourite part. At least there weren't any clowns.

Prague, Czech Republic

On the way to Prague we stopped somewhere really awful in order to better understand the area we'd gotten to: Mathausen concentration camp. Whilst I don't know all too much about WWI, the holocaust is one aspect of history that I could never forget or really come close to understanding – if the little conversation we had about the fun ways we would have made Hitler suffer was any indication, that guy was a total monster. But the visit to the concentration camp, one of the few not totally destroyed by the Nazis when the Russians and Americans came for them, really brought the horror of the situation home for a lot of us – even I succumbed to tears more than once. It was the most solemn morning of my entire life and I whispered silent words to all those that were destroyed by the 20^th century's worst tragedy, and thanked my lucky stars that I grew up both without experiencing that horror myself and to not become an insane serial killer.

It took a while for spirits to rise again that afternoon, but by the time the fairytale towers of Prague finally came into view we were generally feeling a lot better and the collective moral had risen. From there Prague very quickly became my favourite city of the entire trip. We spent a whole day wandering around through the streets and it was without a doubt the first time, even despite Budapest, that I felt like I was walking through the world of a princess. Plus, the spires seen from the main square were the inspiration for Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle and when you combine them with the view of the actual palace from across the water what could legitimately look more like a fairytale world? Well, outside the Black Forest anyway, and that's an entirely different kind of fairytale.

Prague also had a very special exhibit on that I, like I seem to do with the best things, stumbled across and was all too chuffed to enjoy: the art and concept design of Tim Burton! If you're not a fan then just skip on ahead to Berlin, but for someone who loves dark comedy and the beauty in things like the Grimm fairytales, the wonderfully bizarre and twisted works of Tim Burton are definitely things that I enjoy. Who doesn't love the Nightmare Before Christmas? And Corpse Bride? I could go on through all the other Tim Burton works I love, but for now those are the main two and considering I spent so much more time admiring the works than I had initially intended I would greatly recommend it to anyone interested and heading to Prague in the next couple of months. I'd say it was the highlight of my day, but I had such a good day it was just one of many.

Berlin, Germany

I'm sorry for all this offends, but I didn't fancy Berlin half as much as other people did. In all honesty I never really thought I would, and whilst the pub crawl was plenty fun the night before – maybe one of the best – it didn't improve my opinion on the city itself. The best part of my day was learning more about the Nazi party I didn't know but a very knowledgeable Irishman that knew so much about folklore I couldn't help but pick his brains during the tour, and then a very sweet time at the Ritter Sport factory making my own blend of chocolate bar. Oh yeah, I did that. And I totally recommend that anyone who goes to check it out tries the gummy bear and biscuit combination (thanks Al!).

There was a lot to see in Berlin from the Reichstag building to the maze-like holocaust memorial and the randomly placed Berlin bears all over the place. It's a pretty place; there's a lot of alternative and artsy sides to the city, not the least of which is the colourful remnants of the Berlin wall in the East Side Gallery, but for whatever reason Berlin just really didn't do it for me.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

This little place, on the other hand, really did. It wasn't just the gorgeous canals, small town appeal, bikes, sex, drugs, and tulips that did it – but all of them combined and mixed with windmills, clogs and another very emotional few minutes in the Anne Frank house. I loved Amsterdam – every little minute of it from thinking I was going to die on my bike tour to freezing in line for the Anne Frank house with a very grumpy B, to getting a marriage proposal from a handsome Dutch man and cringeing at the sex show. Whatever magic was lacking in Berlin came back and hit me tenfold in Amsterdam, leaving me with so much more I wanted to see and do with not enough time to do it in warranting a return trip, hopefully, in the near future.

Back to London

We went home via Bruges, but with only about 45 minutes to run in, grab some waffles and chocolate and run out there isn't too much to say about the city that I'm sure is more than just visibly appealing. Regardless it was a long day busing through Belgium, through France to Calais to catch the ferry to Dover. We got back home late and thus launched into a series of saddened goodbyes to our new friends, promising to stay in touch with those we were the closest to and going our separate ways. I was lucky enough to not have been parted from my favourite people straight away, but the next few days was a chain of saying goodbye to one friend after the next including more than one teary goodbye at a train station and some last suppers until there was just me left.

I made a lot of friends during the month and a bit that I was on tour and I was sad to see them all go, but I had to remind myself that just because one chapter was over did not mean that I shouldn't take a minute to get ready for the next one. And the next one, as I later found out, would be a challenge and a half.

 Sam xox