Praha #1

The 12-hour train trip from Amsterdam to Prague was not 2/5 as bad as a 20-hour bus ride I once took from Los Angeles to Seattle. It was actually a lot, lot better. Whereas in the bus I felt crammed into a small, dirty seat that barely reclined, and it was futile to get up because there was nowhere to go to, I felt much more free in the train. Like with the bus ride, it wasn't one long ride stretch. But unlike the bus stops I remember from two years before, the train stops were explicitly marked in the itinerary, they were only 2 of them, not 8, and I felt free to stand up, stretch my legs, and even stumble a little bit without having to apologize to someone for having hitting their forehead with my elbow.

I had not slept the night before, so the trip was still tiresome. The train provided power outlets, and I foolishly took out my computer and organized my pictures on the way instead of taking a much-needed nap. I don't know what happened exactly, but I was asleep on a train seat, fingers on my laptop, when a train inspector woke me up at the first stop at Frankfurt. After the first 10-minute train switch, I was still foolish enough to take out my laptop again and, 5 or 6 hours later, be woken up by another train inspector at Dresden. By the third trip leg, I had learned. I found a comfy body position and fell asleep all the way to Prague. It was 19:10 (no time zone change) when I got off at Prague. It seemed so funny to me that my language barrier gradually grew: I could not read a word of Czech. Words like "Vladky" and "Nadira" were everywhere, and I was relieved to see that, on the main station level, many of the signs were translated into either English or German.

I stared into a shop window, and I saw a little souvenir trinket thing that cost "125.-". ohhhh, I knew what that meant. Currency change. Until now, I had tacitly assumed that all the currency I would be using untli Russia were Euros. Apparently I was wrong. No way that little trinket cost 125 Euro, or that the vending machine drinks cost 45 Euro.

Right on the other side of the window shop, there was a small booth with another sign in at least 5 different languages: "Change". "Awesome!", I thought, and I stood at the end of the small line formed outside it. The guy and the girl in front of me were discussing money matters, and I overheard them. I don't remember what they said, all I knew is that they were speaking Spanish! In Czech Republic! "Aweeesome!", I thought, and almost immediately interrupted them: "Español?". "Si..." they said, slightly surprised. "Yo tambien! Ala que buenisimo! Soy de Guatemala, y ustedes?". "De Espana". "Que bien!". Introductions ensued, a little discussion about how much money to change followed, and then we changed about 90 Euros each. A 5% commission charge besides the bad exchange rate left us all with a slightly bitter feeling, but I accrued the charge to the convenience of having exchanged our money so quickly, and then it felt like a fairer trade.

Ari and Susy, as the spanish guy and girl were called (respectively), were both very cool. Conversation was abundant since the beginning - we commented on our trips, when had we started, where had we come from, where we'd been to, what we'd seen, which languages did we know, how did we find hostels, did we have a plan, where would we go to next, could we maybe travel together for some time, how heavy our backpacks were, and things like that. I told them I had no hostel booked, and they told me they didn't either, but they knew the address of a hostel chain they had been staying for the last few weeks. I told them I would tag along with them since I didn't even knew where any hostel was, and they agreed. As we walked outside of the station, we were all laughing at our ignorance about what any of the signs meant. Trying to find a map of the city, we followed one of those universal Information "i" signs. We found detailed city and subway maps, but the station we were currently in was not included in the city map - apparently only downtown was shown. We didn't know exactly how to get to their hostel with only the address they had, so we decided to start walking around and wing it.

One block away, we turned left and found a hostel: "Argentinská". It looked OK, and we decided to ask just to get an idea of the prices. Ari and Susy had said their hostel charged 450 Kr (I think it means crowns), roughly 18Euro, per person per night. Which was good, considering the prices I had paid at other hostels. The lady at this hostel, however, told us it would be 300 Kr per night. We looked at each other, a little in disbelief, that a hostel so conveniently near the train station would be cheaper. We talked in spanish, trying to decide, until the lady lowered her price to 266Kr per night. Roughly about 10Euro. We were all like "OK!", gladly paid it, and a few seconds later, realized that he had not asked to see the room. "Oh god", we thought... "for this price, what kind of room will we get?" We filled out the hostel paperwork, followed the lady up to the second floor, and saw the room. It was a LOT better than we had expected. It had 7 beds, 4 of which were paired up into 2 double-size ones, a table with a TV, a couple of chairs, several power outlets, openable windows, clean-looking blue bedsheets, working lightbulbs, and a clean-looking carpet. And for 266Kr a night! Great deal.

After unpacking our stuff and taking our turns for our showers, we got dressed and walked out to explore Prague on a friday night! Upon reaching the station, we found that Prague´s subway was pretty much free. You could pay for it, but the entrance was not ticket-restricted, so we simply walked down to the platform and took the train. No inspector, no ticket stations to pass through, no nothing. Prague subway was free! We reached a downtown station, "Muzeum", and stepped up into what was obviously one of the city's main streets. A monumental building at one end overlooked a wide, down-sloping street packed with food booths, young people, beggars, guys giving out flyers, and lined with dance clubs, bars, cabarets, money change booths, ATMs, and restaurants closed for the night. We began to walk down and around the streets, looking for a place to sit down and begin drinking and partying. An initial flashy dance club with beer faucets on each table caught our attention, but we decided to look further before we stuck to any one place. Further in our search we found a restaurant/bar with an aquarium and blue neon lights. We liked the ambience and the sea star in the aquarium, so we sat down and asked for a 2L pitcher of a mixed drink. It was relatively cheap (less than 12Euro), very well-tasting, and it was enough to supply each one of us with 2 drinks. 6 drinks later, happy with our purchase, we paid the bill and left.

We walked around a few times before deciding on a place, but finally the beer faucets were too much of a temptation, and we went back to that first place we saw. It cost 100Kr each to get in, but it was rocking!! The music was mostly electronic and energetic, and the best part was that all 3 of us liked that music! We got the beer included with our entrance, sat down at a table, cheered to Europe, and drank.

I observed the place for a while - I wanted to see if Prague party girls really seemed as beautiful and easy as people said they were. Well, they very well seemed to be. German and eastern european girls readily moved their tall, terse bodies wrapped in skimpy outfits to the quick rhythm, and much semi-intimate rubbing and fondling was already occurring between several couples in the dancefloor. Yup, seemed like Prague!

The initial awkwardness of who would stand up to dance first was quickly broken. Ari was quick to begin moving his arms to the beat, and I followed with mine. Susy joined us quickly with very funny dance moves, and soon we didn't care about the other people in the dancefloor. We were having lots of fun! We all spent the next few hours dancing, jumping, hugging, yelling, and resting. I drank no more and my spanish companions did so only scarcely. We had so much fun! We took pictures, we joined some other groups in the dancefloor, and we danced until our feet HURT. It was AWESOME!!!!

It was almost 4AM when we decided to head back to the hostel. The hostel lady had told us that the subway stopped working at midnight, and she said something about a night tram, but again, we just decided to wing it, so we began walking with the city map in our hands.

It took a long time of reading street names, finding them on the map, walking on highways, admiring the nightview over the bridge, and mainly being lost, but about an hour later, we found the main train station and our hostel a block away. A still-alive little bar curiously decorated with things such as engine parts and electronic motherboards right next to our hostel caught our attention, and we decided to go in just to see what was going on. The music was different inside - it was hardcore!! Electronic hardcore!! Psycho-style and such! AWEEEEEEEEEEESOME!!!! There was no one at the door, so it was apparently free, and we went in and joined a dancing and cheering crowd, which was still dense, considering it was already 5AM.

And there we stayed for about 20 or 30 minutes! We still had time to jump, flail, and shout until our bodies ached again, and so we all decided to go back to the hostel and CERTAINLY go to this bar the next night. If it had been great this night, how much better would it be with an even better kind of music, and only meters away from our hostel?

To be continued...

Umlaut cities & Amsterdam

I believe my last blog entry ended right after I arrived by train at Köln on Tuesday May 19th, it rained on me, I got lost, and then I settled down at the Meininger hostel/hotel at Engelbertstrasse 33-35, Köln, Germany.

Even though I got to Köln at about 19:10, I didn't get to experience too much of Köln's nightlife. When I finally found and settled down at the hostel it was around 9PM, and having been denied internet access for so long and then finally having free WiFi, I spent a lot of time on the computer. I did a LOT of stuff. Besides replying to and composing new personal emails, catching up with friends on IM, catching up with my XKCD and QuestionableContent webcomic readings (latter addiction provided by Andrea), and emptying the pics in my SD card into the computer, I was trying to figure out what to do afterwards. I had the next two days figured out: I was going to spend one night in Köln enjoying nightlife, wake up in Köln, have breakfast, check out at the hostel, and go out to explore Köln most of the day before taking an afternoon/evening train to Düsseldorf, and repeating the same pattern again (pattern cordially provided by Nadya). However, I wasn't completely sure where to go after that. Darja had sort-of told me I could visit her in Berlin for a couple of nights, but we hadn't really specified exactly which nights those were. Thus, I wrote her an email asking if it was OK to come over on Thursday evening. Wanting to plan even more ahead, I sent out a CouchSurfing request to a girl, asking her if I could stay in Prague for a couple of nights during the weekend (Prague is a weekend-stay MUST). All of that took me about 3 hours, and by then it was past midnight. I knew I had missed on the early nightlife of Köln by then, but I decided to go out and try to catch up with the late nightlife, which in my opinion can be a lot more fun.

While I was appeasing my computer addiction, many other young people had come into my 8-bed dorm room, which had been empty when I had come in. Many of them had gone directly to bed and were under the sheets and snoring, so I wasn't sure if it would be nice to start making noise by showering and getting dressed to go out, but then I saw one of the guys putting dress clothes on. Not being the only one now, I looked up bars and clubs in the area, showered, got ready, and went outside of the hostel. It was around 0040 by then. I had not memorized the directions to any of the clubs, so I just followed a couple of guys who had left the hostel before me. A few blocks later, I was on a street filled with light and laughter. Restaurants and bars were all around, and many of the formal eating places were just shutting down.

Happy with my find, I began walking down the street, looking for electronic-music-friendly-looking dance clubs. Most of the places I saw were either just drinking bars (not my type) or places to grab a bite at night. I saw one that had a lot of dance music coming out of it, but it also had many young people walking out of it, so I thought it might not be that good. I decided to ask the guy sitting in the front if I could go in, and he just said something like "Schloss", while portraying a negative gesture with his whole body. My guess was that the place was already closing, so I continued looking for more places like that.

Either because I'm not a good searcher or because it was a Tuesday, I didn't find a thing. Slightly disappointed, my mind switched priorities and realized that I was hungry. Lucky for me there was an asian food place very near to where I was, so I went in and asked for a "Vegeratische Tasche" at 3.00 Euro and for a "Frühling Rolle" for 1.00 Euro. I was very impressed with the prices, and then even more when they gave me a wrap as big as a full-sized Freebird burrito, which I then discovered was densely filled with tomato, lettuce, yogurt (yes, it tastes GREAT), and other delicious and compatibly-flavored vegetables. It was awesome! The Frühling Rolle also had very high quality/price and size/price ratios. Happy with my meal and with the moderately attractive woman who had attended me with a cute smile, I asked for a fruit juice drink with the picture of a weird berry-looking fruit that said "Lychee", and was glad to pay the 1.40 Euro she asked me for it.

Content with a meal and starting digestion, I decided to go get a good night's sleep at the hostel, so I began walking back. That's when I got lost. The way back seemed strangely unfamiliar at first, and then the street ended with a mandatory right turn without me ever seeing my hostel, and I didn't know what was the way to my hostel. I knew I could just retrace my steps and try walking back again, but that felt like cheating, so I took the right turn and began seraching.

It wasn't that bad, but I spent about 10-15 minutes walking through unrecognized streets. Not too long after, I had come into my dorm room, changed to my shorts/pijamas, and gone to sleep.

The next day I woke up early at around 6AM (I can't remember why), which allowed me to be the first one to eat the hostel breakfast I had purchased the previous night for 3.50 Euro. I thought about what I was going to do that day - the plan was to just walk around and around the city, looking for interesting stuff. The main stop would be the Köln cathedral, the city's most famous landmark. I thought of renting a bike (a special deal at the hostel offered it for 4 hours for 4 Euro), but then as I was packing up my bag in the room, I started talking to a girl who slept in another bed in the same room. After a little chit-chat, we introduced ourselves. Her name was Jodie, she was from New Zealand, and she was traveling with her brother Jean. They seemed pretty nice, so I decided to tag along with them, as they were also going to explore the city during the day. So we left our big backpacks in the hostel luggage room and began walking throughout the city. First stop was the cathedral. We took a lot of pictures from the outside, but we were only able to take about 10 pictures on the inside before a loudspeaker amplified what a priest said: "Religious service will begin in 20 minutes, all group tours are asked to either leave or participate in the ceremony". Shortly all of the tourists, including us, walked outside. Having no other ideas for places to go to, we just began walking towards the river. We passed a couple of museums, none of which we decided to go into, and then began walking near the shore. A few minutes later Jodie and Jean realized they were hungry, so we sat down at a Thai restaurant and asked for some food. They asked for dishes they knew, while I aksed only for a dessert made out of Lychees. My dessert looked like a soup of engorged toad eggs, but it tasted well enough for me to eat it. Jean paid for the whole meal, and I didn't notice until a few minutes later. That was nice of him.

We then walked less than an hour through the city before Jodie declared she was really tired and wanted to go back to sleep. Jean then decided he would do laundry, so I walked back with them to the hostel and then said goodbye as they walked to their, and no longer my, room. We didn't get each other's contacts, so I'll probably never see them again.

So then I went to the luggage room and picked up my big backpack, leaving the hostel for good. I walked back to the cathedral, trying to take a different path, and went inside the cathedral again. I took a lot of pictures, and then I decided to climb the cathedral. A priest showed me the way to the tower, I paid 2.50 Euro, and then started to climb the cathedral.

It takes more than 500 steps to get all the way up to the cathedral. I'm moderately happy of the time it took me to climb all of it - around 6 minutes. A long video clip and a bunch of pictures later, I walked back down the stairs and kept walking around the city for a few hours.

After satisfying myself with Köln's streets and buildings, I walked back to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), which was right next to the cathedral anyway, hoping to find a postal office there and send all the gifts I had bought. There was no postal station at the Hauptbahnhof, but I was redirected to one at a place called WDR, about 10 minutes away on foot. So I went there and happily began putting the gifts into boxes that they sold right there. I was disappointed when they told me that I could not send alcohol - 2 bottles of wine were (and still are) by far the heaviest gifts I had. I packed what I could, however, and paid about 25Euro to have it sent.

After sending the packages, I thought I was done with Köln, so I walked back to the train station and took the train to Düsseldorf, leaving at 18:14. The timing was just about right - I arrived about 10 minutes early.

I think that it was during the train to Düsseldorf that I realized there were power outlets beside each seat on the train. so I happily plugged my computer in and did some writing or something like that. I didn't do much though - the train got to Düsseldorf in 20 minutes.

Arriving in Düsseldorf was less glamorous than I had imagined. Whereas Frankfurt had greeted me with an impressively-sized Hauptbahnhof and illuminated skyscrapers, and Köln marked its presence with the largest cathedral I've seen in Germany (and probably also in my whole experience), Düsseldorf gave me a mediocre first impression. It wasn't 7PM yet, and people were still bustling in the daylight - hurriedly walking, waiting for the bus, ignoring traffic signs over tram rails - it made me think of Mexico City, even though I'd never been there. I wouldn't say it was dirty, but it was much less colorful than the neighboring cities I'd been to. "Must not be a very touristy place", I thought, as I began to look for a bus that would take me to my hostel.

It took me about 20 minutes to find my bus, after which I took a tram that took me on a bridge over the Rhein river to my hostel - Düsseldorfer Strasse 1, Düsseldorf, Germany. I checked into the hostel speaking in German, but it wasn't long before I had to give up and tell the hostel woman to please speak to me in English. I noticed that I got a regular metallic key instead of the magnetic keycard I'd been getting so far at other hostels. Upon reaching my dorm room, I saw that several beds were already taken. I began unpacking and taking out the things I would use that night, when two USA-accented young guys came in and began talking to me, making small chat, trying to get to know me. Their names were Phil and Robert, they came from a Jesuit college in Omaha, Nebraska. We were still chatting about general information about us, when another guy came in, a Polish guy raised in Canada called Pawel who, he told us later, had a chinese girlfriend he was going to meet right there in Germany. "How multi-cultural", I thought. He was really cool - he had already traveled a lot, so he gave us several tips about the places we were all going to. He gave me a list of chinese cities he recommends visiting and told me he could hook me up with possible hosts in Russia and/or China. As we all sat down talking around the central table, several beers and glasses of gin were downed, mostly by Phil and Robert, who then proposed we should go out to the Düsseldorf clubs, to which I heartily agreed.

We walked outside of the hostel and over the bridge the tram had taken me over a few hours before. We saw lots of lights coming from the river's shore, so we followed them and eventually found the night hotspots. Restaurants, cafes, bars, clubs, and alcohol shops were all open, even though it was a Wednesday night. Pawel explained this by saying that May 21st was some kind of religious holiday in Germany.

We went into an alcohol shop, and Pawel bought a polish beer for all of us. We all offered to pay ours, but he insisted on paying, so we accepted. As we then walked finding a club to go into, we found a moderately-fancing looking club: "Peaches and Cream". The bouncer almost didn't let us in because of my casual clothing (khaki pants, Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt, tennis shoes, long hair, & blue bandana), but he then thought about it and let us in. "Hmm", I thought, "must be kind of empty if he changed his mind". The music that came out of it was great, though (some kind of house/dance), so I happily went in.

I'm glad we did. We got again treated by Pawel to two rounds of beer for all of us, after which I felt my mind go light and my feet nimble. Behind the bar, several LCDs displayed the Alien movie. "Weird", I thought. A bar-club-cinema. That was a new one to me. There were several girls dancing on the dancefloor by themselves, and I began talking to Pawel about how it's hard to get a girl to dance with you if she's dancing with her girlfriends. He began telling me how it was easy, that all they need is a little attention and confidence, being a gentleman to them, and how that was enough with girls who are looking for a guy. I had not been too worried about girls for a while now, but the music was pretty good and I wanted to dance with one. Phil first took the dancing lead. He told the DJ he wanted one specific song, so then the DJ played it and Phil began dancing. He knew some spinning breakdance moves and he displayed them on the floor. They weren't excellent, but he impressively kept at it for a while, and then came back with us and continued with his beer, now eyeing girls who had possibly seen him dance and who would now like to dance with him. He tried to ask a couple of dancing girls out, but they all either ignored him or furtively told him off. "Poor him", I thought, "I know how that feels". Like being a beggar, and a crappy one at that. He didn't dance much for the rest of the night.

It was around this time that I didn't care if I got a girl to dance with or not - I just wanted to dance to the music. So I did. The music was a little faster now, so my feet paced up. My feet began following the melody, the rest of my body followed the rhythm, and then in a flash, I was dancing with all I had: flailing arms, rhythmic jumps, spins, air punches! Euphoria struck! I soon noticed several people looking at me, especially a couple of cute blonde girls in the middle. Now in the mood, it was fairly easy for me to go and dance around them. But then I noticed that they had liked my dancing, but not my appearance from up close - disappointment was evident in their faces as the tallest one gestured "no" to me and danced away with her friends. Uncaring, I did the same.

The second group of girls whose attention I grabbed looked younger, prettier, and unlike the first group, they giggled and whispered between themselves when they saw me get closer. I saw this as a good sign, and a few seconds later I was rubbing lower body parts with the prettiest girl in green. We twirled around salsa-style a few times, we got down, we got close, but when I rubbed my hands up around her waist, sensual-dance-style, she really began giggling and moved back with her friends. "Oh, too bad, she panicked", I thought. I managed to get her back on the dancefloor, but she danced less now, timidly, and it wasn't long before she put on her coat and said goodbye. I näively told her we should keep in touch, to which she responded "no" and walked away. "Too bad", I thought, and kept on dancing.

It was now around 3AM, and Pawel had already gone back to the hostel. Phil and Robert, quite a bit drunker (do people use this word?) than me, told me they were going back too. I still stayed for about an extra half hour - I was enjoying the music so much. But then I too felt the need for sleep, so I walked back to the hostel too.

It was pretty hard to get up the next day early enough to catch breakfast before 9AM and check-out time before 9:30AM. At about 9:20AM we all (Phil, Robert, Pawel, and me) said goodbye in the room. Pawel was staying in Düsseldorf, Phil and Robert were going to Berlin, and though my plans were to go to Berlin too, it wasn't a sure thing that we would meet. They had booked the night train, which I required payment for to get into so I didn't. Then I went into the bathroom to take the shortest full shower I could manage, came out, and I haven't seen any of them since.

My day exploration of Düsseldorf was a lot less than I had expected it to be. I wasn't sure whether there were any important landmarks in the city, so I just aimlessly walked around and around the streets. It wouldn't have been so bad, you know, if it hadn't been a national holiday and ALMOST EVERYTHING was closed. I walked around the city, barely meeting a person every now and then. The highlights of my day were eating at McDonald's, walking through a park filled with lagoons, bridges, and statues, spending my last (in coins) 0.30Euro to call Darja for like 15 seconds before the phone cut me off, and finally, finding an open Internet café! How I got to it I'm not sure, but I spent another two hours there that day, figuring out what to do. Darja had sent me an email about being busy and not being in Berlin until Sunday. Dang. My plans to go to Berlin that night were cancelled. The question now was where to go. If I stayed an extra night in Düsseldorf, I could try out either the same club or another club - the experience the previous night had been pretty good. But my roomies were gone, and there was no holiday the next day, so I didn't expect as much of a crowd in Düsseldorf that night. How about my next destination - Prague? Too early - I was meaning to spend my weekend in Prague. Then I remembered something Pawel had said "How can you come to a trip around Europe and not go to Amsterdam??" Amsterdam. Hmmm. I took out my map, and it was fairly close. It was already 14:30PM, but the short distance made it possible. Where to stay there? No idea. Hostel, for sure. So I looked online - there were lots of them, but I discerned two main kinds: the ones in the center, apparently cheap (18 Euro a night), but in a dorm room shared with 7 or 11 other people, and reported not-so-clean by previous guests. I considered cleanliness a healthwise-important thing to consider, especially in a city with a sex reputation like Amsterdam's, so I booked a hostel of the other kind: not central, but slightly cheaper, rated much cleaner, with free WiFi and a normal 11AM check-out time. I was very, very reluctant to entering my credit card details on an internet café computer, but the place had no available WiFi for customers and I really needed a place to stay. So I booked it a bed in a 6-bed dorm at Hotel Slotania, about 7.8km away from the Central Station and the infamous Red Light District.

Then I checked my Eurail timetable - the next train from Düsseldorf to Amsterdam left at 15:14 and arrived at 17:25, the one after that left 3 hours later. I checked my iPod clock - it was 14:55. I sent out the map for the route from the Amsterdam central station to the hostel to print but it failed, so I had the guy running the place come and help me. He told me I had to change my browser, so I did, and then I was able to print. I paid 5.10Euro for the whole time I was there, a printed page, and a cup of coffee. I took the change from the 50Euro bill I gave him, and while I fumbled it into my wallet I asked the guy where the train station was. He pointed and said "You go on that street, then you turn left and go straight". "How far away is it?". "About 10 minutes on foot". I looked at my iPod clock: it was 15:08. 6 minutes left. I smiled at him, said "Vielen Dank", and ran.

Running can be harder when 20+ extra pounds of weight are hanging on your shoulders. I had 6 minutes to reach the Hauptbahnhof, find out what line number the train that went to Amsterdam was at, find that line, go up the steps, and get on the train. As I ran across the first street I began chanting "I'm not gonna make it, I'm not gonna make it", but it was more a challenge to myself than a declaration. "I'm not gonna make it, I'm not gonna make it". I could see the station after the first block. I was so lucky to have found an internet café so near the Hauptbahnhof. Good thing it was a holiday and car traffic didn't impede my street crossing. Even the amount of people at the station seemed a little low, which allowed me to run straight in without hitting anyone with my backpack or having to awkwardly zig-zag anticipating people's movements. I stopped below the table of departures. "Amsterdam: Line 17 - 15:14". I saw my clock: 15:11. I then looked for a direction to line numbers: I found one that pointed up some stairs to lines 1 and 2. Then about 25 meters farther away, a sign for lines 3 and 4. I ran past each sign: 5/6, 7/8, 9/10... I thought it was interesting that that Hauptbahnhof only had 17 lines - I had to run to the farthest end of the station to catch my train. And there it was - the 15:14 train to Amsterdam. My clock said 15:12. I thought "YAY!", and got on the train with a lot of satisfaction and a lot of perspiration.

Computer enthusiast as always, I sat down beside a little girl because the seat had a table to use in front of it and a power outlet nearby. She didn't like my presence there, though, and after a few seconds of her looking scared, she walked over to her mom (I think), who was on the other side of the table, and lay her head down on her lap. I said nothing and just used the computer.

After the little girl left the train at an early stop, a fat blonde guy sat next to me and we began talking. He was from Canada and was Euro-tripping like me. He started out in Turkey and would finish in London. He talked a little bit too much, though, and I was sleepy, so I subtly and gradually ignored him more and more, and I think he eventually got the hint, because he took out some kind of portable game console and began playing with it. Me, I began this blog entry.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Amsterdam. I had already been there once, but that was 15 years before, and at that time I knew next to nothing about the infamous Red Light District, or about drugs being legal there, or even what drugs were... or even what sex was. To me, Amsterdam was noteworthy because of it was the coldest temperature I'd felt (in November 1994 as I experienced it) and because it had a neat little bridge I wanted to go across but my dad wouldn't let me because of something related to something about red lights that my older siblings were talking about. Now I was finally going to find out what was on the other side.

Upon arriving at the station, I tried to follow the signs to find an exit. And then I realized that I did not understand a single useful word from the signs - whatever was slightly similar to the little german I knew didn't make any sense, and most of the words were just plain weird. So I let common sense take over and simply followed the passenger stampede out the station.

When I arrived at about It was cool, about 15C when I arrived, but that was nothing compared to the freezing temperature I'd felt there before. The central station was streaming with people - backpackers, business-looking people, young kissing couples, beggars, all of them scurrying between each other, all trying to cross the tram rails and streets without getting hit. There was an obvious difference from the orderly, utilitarian-looking german cities I'd just recently been to. Though many basic building shapes were mostly the same, they were much more ornamented, more colorful - sculptures were at least 5 times as plentiful, many of them were gilded, and were seemingly of better quality. The city organization, however, was a mess in comparison. Signs were not as clear, streets twisted and stopped unexpectedly. It must've been much harder to build an organized city around and between canals (Amsterdam) that to organize a city around a single river (Frankfurt), of course, but it was interesting to note the difference.

I initially got lost trying to find my way to the hotel. I had a printed Google Map in my hand, but that only told me how to DRIVE the 7.2km from the station to my hotel, not how to take the bus. "Dang it", I thought. After deciding that walking the whole way would be too much of a hassle, I found a city mpa on the street, decided that bus 21 was the correct route for me, and took it. A nice italian girl I talked to on the bus (with difficulty - she knew neither spanish, english, german, or dutch) helped me find which stop to take. Upon reaching Hotel Slotania, I saw it was very nice. A big chandelier and many couches decorated the large lobby, and the presence of an elevator raised it high above a budget hostel. And I only paid 20Euros for the night.

It was a shared room, of course - I shared my room with 5 Australians who had just taken a mushroom dose when I arrived and who I played a whole round of UNO with - Simone, Emily, Chris, Niki, and Cole. Chris won that round. I doubt I'll ever see them again though.

Since the doped australians would be staying in the room for a long time, I decided to leave for the central part of town quickly. I took my camera, wallet, and iPod with me, and took a tram back to the central part of town. I fell asleep on the way a few stops after the Red Light District, so I got down and began walking around, looking for whatever the city had to offer. I thought Amsterdam was a very colorful town, seemingly very explicit of its sexual and drug liberalism (at least the touristy area), filled with sex shops, cabarets, live sex shows (the Australians mentioned a rotating stage show where the audience watches a couple have all kinds of sex), groups of young people in boats and on the streets drinking, smoking, singing, and shouting, and many signs, both large and small, which said "XXX". I wondered whether the original meaning of "XXX" was about the city, or if it had always been about sex, because some of those signs even seemed to date from the 19th century.

I had an early train to catch the next day - at 7:10 towards Prague, so although I was curious to try some locally legal mushrooms or LSD, I did not want to risk going crazy alone in the Amsterdam streets, get lost, miss my train, get robbed, and wake up to find myself stranded and penniless in a strange city. So I just took out my camera, walked around, and took a picture every time I saw an image that attracted my attention. I took special notice of the plentiful bridges and of several side-by-side buildings tipped to the side. They almost looked like domino pieces, one little push would make them all topple over.

I was vaguely trying to find the Red Light District, trying to remember which one was the bridge my dad had not let me cross. I don't think I pinpointed it exactly, but a few twists and turns in between empty/dark and packed/lit-up streets took me into a little alleyway, where all of a sudden I looked left, and a girl dressed in colorful underwear behind a glass door looked at me, winked at me, and signalled me to come in with her finger. Right next door another one did the same. I looked up at the alleyway, and there they were - little red lanterns lining up the whole alleyway. "Ah", I thought. THIS is it!

I have to say that many of them were very enticing - they displayed graceful winks and sensual, rhythmic hip movements. I had not the slightest intention of buying their services, but it was quite an interesting sight to see. Walking through it looked very hygienic and harmless, but still very real. I would've stayed and watch (the place, not the action - they put a curtain whenever a customer came in), but I didn't feel very comfortable just standing and watching in an alleyway filled with overused sex professionals and aroused guys walking around me. So I walked through, and came in to a cross-street parallel to a canal with very frequent bridges and more frequent sex shops. Across a bridge and through another alleyway I went. Also filled with prostitutes behind glass, I walked right through and found a plaza, where I saw the building I owe my best Amsterdam pictures to. It looked like an old building, three-storied but stout, it was neon-lit, and it had been made into a fancy Cafe-Restaurant. A marble reflecting bench on the plaza in front helped me achieve a reflection effect of the building for my photographs. About 15 minutes taking pictures of that building satisfied me, and then I walked back through the alleyways and to the main street. While I was crossing the bridge, I saw one of the prostitutes open her glass door and shout out something like "Keep walking, fat guy!!". I don't know why she did so - maybe there was a fat guy trying to get some pictures of her or something (there was a no-pictures sign on each glass door) - but her voice was shreakingly horrible - it reminded me of harpies and Medusa. Happy to have seen the Red Light District and happy to leave it, I walked back to the central station.

I took one of the last buses to my hotel, packed up my stuff, and decided I would stay awake the whole night to avoid missing my early morning train. I took my computer down the lobby and tried to blog and plan my next several days, but my body did not cooperate. I fell asleep many times, sometimes for as long as half an hour, and the lobby receptionist thankfully kept waking me up, happy to have someone there as company.

It was a very long night, but at the end of it, I was at Amsterdam central station, buying peanuts, cookies, and 3 kinds of milk for the way. Twenty minutes later, I was getting on the train that would take me to Frankfurt, where I would connect to Dresden, where I would wait almost a full hour before taking my last train of the day to Prague!!

To be continued...

Mit Nadya durch Frankfurt nach Köln!

Just to set the context, I'm currently on a train in Germany, and it's May 19th, 18:50 local time.

Nadya was a truly great hostess/tourist guide! As she said herself, it was very liberating to speak Guatemalan again! As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, she let me stay at her apartment last night.

So this morning I woke up at her apartment on her comfy yellow couch, covered by two cozy blankets. It was about 6AM and noticed that both my computer and the room lights were still on! :O I quickly got up to turn them both off, and happily agreed to my body's petition to go back to sleep.

Not 2 hours later, I semi-heard one of Nadya's roomies come out of his room and make hiself some breakfast. I sat up to see what was happening, and I sleepily babbled "Guten Tag". He cheerfully said "Buenos Días! ¿Quieres té?" "Ah", I thought, "that must be Nadya's spanish roomie she told me about last night". I just sheepily said "No, gracias... tal vez en un ratito", and laid back down on the couch.

About an hour later, I heard some more noise, and heard another guy come out of his room. This time it was a blonde guy, and I inferred "hmmm, that must be the german guy!". I said "Guten Tag", but he didn't respond, so I just stopped talking. I began walking around, looking for some milk and bread to eat, and we both walked around the table a couple of times. He seemed either really shy or silently hostile, so I tried to make my presence small.

A few minutes after the german guy left the apartment, Nadya came out of her room, already dressed up and ready to go out. I thought it was already 1030, time to leave for Darmstadt and Frankfurt sightseeing, but luckily it wasn't that late. It was only a few minutes past 9, and I still had at least an hour to get ready.

She offered to make me a Guatemalan breakfast: eggs and beans! I was delighted! I gleefully said yes to the eggs but no to the beans (thinking she would make whole fried beans), and told her I would take a shower while she cooked breakfast.

The shower was a little unexpected experience. Unlike some other showers I've seen in Europe, this one had enough space for me to freely wash my body without bumping into the walls, and had a fixed "shower faucet" instead of the kind you have to guide with your hand. I was delighted. I turned the hot water knob a whole lot, and gradually cooled it down with the cold water knob until it felt just right. Then I got naked, got in, and showered to my heart's content.

It wasn't until I finished shampooing, lathering, and rinsing off that I noticed that 1) the curtain was made out of cloth instead of plastic and I had soaked it completely, 2) the shower faucet was at an angle that let a small amount of water out of the shower area, and that I had soaked the floor around the toilet and the sink as well, and 3) the water wouldn't go down the drain. So then I thought "oh oh".

I dried myself off as best as I could with my towel, then used it to dry off the floor as much as I possible. I had to squeeze the water out of it into the shower area at least 5 times before the bathroom was semi-dry.

*****

Will speed entry up from here on... not in train anymore.

*****

I then got out of the bathroom, Nadya served us both breakfast, we went outside and walked around the main things to see in Darmstadt (a russian-style church and the Hundertwasser building were the things I liked the most), we walked back to the apartment, I met Nadya's indonesian roomie, we then walked to a bus stop, we took the bus to the train station, we took a train to Frankfurt, and we walked around Frankfurt aaaaall day! It was great! (It helped that the weather was very sunny!). We took lots of pictures, saw an evangelical church and the main catholic church in Frankfurt and noticed how different they were from the ones I had seen in France and Spain, crossed a bridge over the Main (I think that's how you spell it) river, ate some Bratwurst and had some Pils beer, and I drank some Apfelwein. It was very lucky that that very day there was some kind of celebration going on in the central city plaza - there was a stage all set up, musicians, and stands with typical german food everywhere! "Quite lucky", I thought. After I bought a couple of souvenirs, we walked back to the train station and we said goodbye. Nadya went back to Darmstadt and I came to Köln! And now I'm heeeeeeeere! And I saw the cathedral (IT'S HUGE!!!! but very similar to the one in Orleans... I was almost disappointed by that - seems Köln's is lacking in originality... or maybe Orleans' is). I got a hostel (I had a hard time finding it, but I found some city maps posted on the streets) here in Köln for like 20E, breakfast included, WiFi included!!!, I'm so happy with the hostel! It's almost like a hotel! Except that I'm inside a dorm room with 8 beds, all of them occupied now with my arrival.

I'm charging up my camera batteries and will soon shower, find out about Köln nightlife, dress up, and then walk out to find some European party going on! With good pumping electronic music! (I hope :P)

Plan for following days: tomorrow: see Köln, travel to Düsseldorf in the evening, spend one night and one day there as I will here in Köln, then travel to Berlin and meet Darja!! :D

Thanks Nadya so much for your touristic guide, you're awesome! :D

To be continued...

P.S: This is the first time in my Eurotrip that my blog catches up with my trip! :D

Frankreich -> Frankfurt

Germany baby!! May 18th in the morning at about 6AM, I was in the Paris airport, waiting for my sisters to leave in their respective flights, and having no idea about where to go exactly afterwards. A few hours later, I had issued 4 couchsurfing requests: 2 to Rome, 1 to Bern, and 1 to Zurich, aside from a personal one with an old friend from college in Frankfurt. A couple of hours later, one of my sisters had left for Chicago, and my Bern couchsurfing request was rejected. An hour later, Zurich and a Roman rejected me as well, but a response from my friend Nadya from college had given me hopes - she said she lived near Frankfurt, had nothing to do next day Tuesday, and would be happy to have me around. Just before my other sister left, I got anoher message from her: she had agreed to receive me in Darmstadt!! I was happy.

A few hours later, I was walking around the airport, trying to find the place where I could validate my new Eurail pass. I finally found it, was given a free trip to Paris station "Gare du Nord", reserved the LAST AVAILABLE SEAT from Paris to Frankfurt at 19:05 for 5 Euros, and went outside to find some wines to send to some friends.

I found the post office outside the station and wrote/sent a few postcards.

***

I ended up not finishing this blog because I fell asleep in Nadya's couch. To make the story short, I got on the train to Frankfurt, I met and exchanged emails with a nice lady on the train who also likes to travel, I arrived at Frankfurt and met Nadya at the station, we walked around Frankfurt for an hour, ran back to the train station to take a midnight train back to Darmstadt (cost me 6.95 Euro but should've been free for me because of my Eurail pass (DUH!)), walked through the city because it was too late to catch a bus, got to her apartment, ate some dinner, and tried to blog on Nadya's couch until I fell asleep.

To be continued...

2nd blog!!!

Man!!! It's so freaking hard to find time to do aNY blogging in Paris!! On the road, anyway, but ESPECIALLY in Paris!! That's because I was staying at a hostel with NO internet access, my laptop's battery finally died out 8it says "irreplaceable damage", and the battery level won't go over à5, and besides, the only power outlet in the room was located in the most blogging-unfriendly place possible: 2 meters up in the wall, far away from any of the beds. I would've had to lay down right beside the bathroom floor to do any blogging! and that, only if I had the time... which I didn't...

So now that I'm done whining about how I couldn't blog during Paris (such a catastrophe :P), I can start actually saying stuff.

I'm currently at an internet cafe about 20m away from our hostel - the cheapest one we could find open on a Sunday (3 euros an hour!@#$). we just checked out of the hostel about an hour ago, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do for the rest of my trip (yay!) :0

So let's see... I already sort-of narrated what happened from Madrid to Orleans, though Dublin, the rest of Orleans, and Paris are still untold. Ok then... I'll start with Dublin.

Dublin was COOL. It wasn't mind-stunning or jaw-opening, but it was a nice place to visit. Our hostess, ania, attended us superbly even though we couch)surfed with her on weekdays. Isabel and I shared the living room, we had internet access, nice bathrooms, and we got to see Dublin's main attractions during the day (the Dublin castle, the Christchurch cathedral, the Dublin Spire, the bridges, the National Gallery, cars driving on the left side of the road, and so on. we spent two full days and nights there, after which we took an 18-Euro taxi to the airport at 4:30AM (GMT), had my red scissors removed by one of the security guys at the airport, and flew to Madrid.

In Madrid we were hosted by Equatorian Eve, who let us sleep on the living room for two nights and in her room for the third night (she double-booked us with other couchsurfers... kind of an awkward situation),  and we got to see a bunch of monuments, eat Tapas and drink Calimochos at night, and go through its very complicated but very nice Metro system. Full description later.

Then we took the night-train ("going aanyywheeeeeere" :P, just kidding) going to Barcelona, where we were hosted by fellow Computer Scientist anton!! He had a VERY small apartment! and he hosted us very kindly - he also let us stay in his living room (smallest livin room I've seen), and we got to see Bracelona - a really awesome city - Gaudí buildings, Tibidabo, and the awesome city structure and people made the experience quite a nice one. Ummm... oh and we went' dancing too! Compliments of Isabel's friend andre, his uncle, and their friend Isis! - she likes other girls so we wen't to a gay bar very close to France, not high on the ladies' side but with very good music!

*MORE TO COME LATER, HAD TO GO LOOK FOR A POST OFFICE*

All right! So, to anyone who read this entry before I corrected it, so sorry, french keyboards suck! They put the "a", "m", "z", "w", "q", ".", ",", ":", ";", "-", and all the number and symbol keys in the wrong places! Just imagine having the "a" and "m" changed! Just writing "I am mainly" is a feat, not to mention "www.gmail.com"!! So I decided I would just write everything consistently wrong, and then replace the misplaced characters. I haven't done it yet, but it hope it goes smoothly.

Just as an example, this is what part of my blog entry looked like:

Iù, currently qt qn internet cqfe qbout éà, qzqy fro, our hostel ) the cheqpest one ze could find open on q Sundqy 9" euros qn hour12340: Ze just checked out of the hostel qbout qn hour qgo; qnd noz Iù, trying to figure out zhqt to do for the rest of ,y trip 9yqy10 M0

Bad, isn't it?

Anyway, so that was pretty much Barcelona. Lisbon was kind of a surprise destination - we weren't really expecting to go there, but a friend I had made at CMU Open House earlier this year, Filipe, had offered to host me if I ever went to visit. I thought he had merely said that as an afterthought, a kind gesture when I told him I wanted to visit all of Europe, but he really meant it! When we arrived at Lisbon airport, he was already waiting for us at the terminal! Then he led us outside, where his father picked us up and took us ALL the way from the northern-most side of Lisbon to the south side of the Tajo river, beyond Lisbon, to his old house, which he completely gave us to sleep while we stayed in Lisbon! And when we came in, they had bought food and bathroom supplies for us, they moved in two beds for us UPSTAIRS, and they brought in silverware, glasses, and bowls for us to eat with! And THEN they took us to their real house to have dinner with their whole family! They were SO GREAT!! They then took us back to our "old house" and went to sleep.

The next day was a Sunday, and they took us on a daytrip! All day! Filipe's dad drove all of us (Filipe, his parents, Isabel, and me) ALL the way to an area near Lisbon called Sintra, apparently recognized as "World Heritage" by UNESCO. We walked through a moorish castle, two palaces, and an amazingly well-preserved monks' convent, all of them requiring a long drive up the mountain and a moderate-to-long walk into the forest. They invited us to everything, and they even brought food for the trip for all of us!!! And we tried Portuguese "queixadas" (which are excellent, by the way). They were so nice!!!! Most hospitable family I had met so far!!

During the next days, Isabel and I walked through the actual city of Lisbon, seeing tourist centers such as the "Castelo de San Jorge" and the "Sé Cathedral", buying postcards and souvenirs, and taking lots of pictures as always. One thing we noticed about Lisbon was that it seems to pride itself on its tiles. A great number of buildings in the center of Lisbon have tiles covering windows, doors, and even entire walls, usually creating pretty designs that allow quite an astonishing effect.

Another nice part of Lisbon was the Oceanarium. We paid 11 euros each to go in, but I think it was worth it. The main area is a great cylinder filled with water and lots of exotic kinds of fish - sharks, school fish, eels, stingrays, and a huge lethargic fish called the "sunfish". You can see this cylinder from many angles as you walk around the Oceanarium, and secondary displays filled with water all around show other species in display: penguins, jellyfish, coypus, and the one that impressed me the most: the seahorses! They weren't the typical ones you think about when you think about a seahorse, not like the Pinnochio-Disney-movie kind of seahorse (yes, there is a seahorse in the Pinnochio movie, when Pinnochio plunges down into the ocean) everyone knows about. This seahorse looked more like a little sea dragon, with a body that looked like a stick, and extremities that looked like leaves. They were awesome! I'll post some pictures later.

So then we eventually left Lisbon and left for Paris, where we were hoping to spend the night and then take a train to Orleans in the morning. We arrived at late afternoon, with still plenty of time to see Paris by day. A train took us near downtown Paris, where we walked beside the Seine river all the way to the cathedral of Notre Dame. It was an awesome first sight, but after about 30 or 40 minutes, we both realized we wanted to go to the bathroom and could find no "toilettes" around.

We walked at least 10 blocks, looking at each cheap-looking restaurant, trying to find somewhere to excrete our waste fluids. I spoke my first complete french sentence in a real situation that night to a hotel manager: "Bonsoir, excusez-moi, je pou d'utilisier die toilette?". He replied with a cold "non" and lots of other french words I didn't really understand.

Not too long after that, we found a small shop that said "patisserie" (French bakery that specializes in pastries and sweets) and sold bananas. It was run by a man from Sri Lanka who very kindly told us we could use the bathroom without having to buy anything. I was too grateful with him, however, so I at least bought two bananas from him. Besides, I was hungry.

A few blocks later we found a walking bridge loaded with young people eating, drinking, singing, and playing guitar. It was past 11PM already, but people didn't seem to mind. At this point Isabel was very tired for walking, and decided she was going to sit down for a while. We also realized at about this time that since we didn't have a place to stay for the night, we would have to find the coziest place possible, and that bridge might prove to be a good candidate.

While Isabel sat down and dozed off for a while, I wandered off to see what I could find in Paris at night. I was surprised when not two blocks away, I found the entrance to the Louvre museum. The big entrance archs, the famous glass pyramids, and the monumental Constantine arch on the opposite side were hard to miss - I had most certainly found the Louvre. So I took lots of pictures of me and the Louvre and then went back to Isabel. She was already sleeping under a blanket, and the night was getting colder, so we decided to find somewhere else to go.

So we tried the closest Metro station. There didn't seem to be anyone inside, and after a few minutes of waiting there inside where it was warmer, a few noises suggested that we had been locked up inside the Metro station. "Oh well", we thought, "cozy Metro station is better than chilly bridge". But our refuge lasted for less than an hour, as some workers finally found us, and with many apologies and some hesitance, kicked us out of the Metro station.

So we kept on walking, finding somewhere else to stay. We then found the Notre Dame cathedral again, and noticed that the park in front of the building was vacated, including a few long stone benches that we at that moment only saw as beds. So we put our backpacks down, found cozy clothes to put on, and lay down to sleep for a few hours.

Around one or two hours later, the cold woke up us both, and it was already almost 4AM, so we decided that a nearby station Elisa had told us about, the Gare de Austerlitz, might already be open. So we walked, and walked, and walked... what before seemed like 10 blocks now seemed like 30, and it seemed to get colder and colder as we walked on. We finally got there not 5 minutes past 4AM, and sure enough, the station was just opening. We got inside, grateful for the newfound heat, and took the Metro to the station "La Défense", where we had told Elisa we would wait for her at a local McDonald's.

About 4 hours after waiting for her at McDonald's, she arrived, accompanied by a Costa Rican girl she referred to as Diana. After a big breakfast and a lot of chatting, we went and touristed around the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. Took lots of pictures, then walked back again to the Metro station, where we rode back to Gare de Austerlitz, bought three tickets to go to Orleans, and took the train.

***

I couldn't finish this blog entry because of lack of time, will summarize below:

We arrived at Orleans, a guy Elisa knew took us in his house where he was living with his mother and they were both SUPER SUPER SUPER SUPER SUPER SUPER hospitable with us, and we saw a light show projected on the cathedral because of the annual celebration of Jeanne d'Arc, went to an electro-techno concert that same night, saw the Jeanne d'Arc parade on the street the next day, walked around the city for a couple of days, met Elisa teacher-friend Sophie and her two children Nicolas and Charlotte, rented a car, drove around the Loire river area for three days, touring the most famous castles and towns in the area (Chambord, Chenonceau, Amboise, Blois), during this time bought a global Eurail pass 2nd class online and waited for it to get to our residence in Orleans but there was a mishap and the mailman put the package in the wrong mailbox and they told me about it and I spent a whole day worrying about it and trying to get them to get it back for me which they did at the very last day I was in Orleans so in the end it was awesome, then drove to Chartres, Versailles (I got so lost for like 3 hours before getting there), got to Paris, found our hostel, gave back the car at an Avis agency in Paris, spent 3 days in Paris looking at the cathedral, the museums, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysées, and a lot of other places, and then we went to the airport the night before my sisters left Europe to sleep in the airport so they could wake up ready to board early.

To be continued...

Email copy-paste/Trip summary #1

I've been meaning to write and publish a detailed version of all that's happened in the last few weeks during my trip, but when I actually began to write it, I could see it would take too long. I spent about a full hour yesterday trying to write about my first day in Dublin, and I haven't gone past the first half day!! Isn't that excessive?

So I decided to postpone my book-like narrative ambition for a later time, and right now publish a more practical summary of the past events. Luckily, I just wrote an email to my first couchsurfing hostess, and my description of what has happened to me since seems very conveniently blog-like as to mostly copy-paste. So... here it is (it skips the Dublin part, but I'll add that in later on):

Sorry for the long delay in responding - this last week has been a nonstop sequence of walk, walk, walk, eat, walk, walk, take pictures, take pictures, sleep, eat, walk, walk, walk, train, sleep, walk, walk, walk, walk, take more pictures, airport, fly... it's been awesome!! :D

Madrid IS amazing!!! Its monuments are HUUUUGE!! And they're EVERYWHERE!! It's like they built a huge park with statues and everything and THEN paved all the streets between them! Speaking of huge parks, isn't Parque del Retiro HUUUUUUUUUGE??????

After leaving Dublin, we flew to Madrid and stayed there with a couchsurfing contact from Ecuador for 3 nights, from April 24th to 27th. She was great and very kind, and one night in Madrid we went to eat Tapas and drink Calimochos at the La Chueca area. We were amazed with almost everything we saw: the Parque del Retiro, Puerta de Alcalá, Plaza de Cibeles (although always surrounded by buses), all of the huge palace-like ministries, the Atocha train station, the Metro rail network!, the Palacio Real OMG!!!, the Almudena Cathedral OMG!!!, and the Museo del Prado WOW!!! Every time we thought we had reached our maximum awe level when seeing one thing, something else raised the bar even higher!

While in Madrid, we bought night train tickets to Barcelona for 41.50 euros each, and got there on the 28th in the morning. When we got there we were kinda lost because everything was written in Catalán, and though it's very very similar to spanish, things are not as intuitive as in plain Spanish. There we stayed with another couchsurfing contact, this time from Russia, who let us to stay in his living room. He was also very awesome and hospitable, and though he had to work during the week, he told us the key points in the city to go to and the best ways to get there.

While in Barcelona, we focused on visiting the architectural uniqueness of Barcelona: the Gaudí buildings and Parc de Güell. Those buildings are AWESOME - I hadn't ever seen buildings like that before: bizarre though natural. We also saw the cathedral called Tibidabo on the top of a mountain, from which you can see all of Barcelona. The origin of the name is pretty cool - it's a biblical reference to when the devil and the Jesus were at the top of a mountain and the Devil was tempting Jesus to worship him and, in exchange, own everything that he saw from the top of the mountain. Here is the Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibidabo :P

I also met a friend from college who is now studying in Barcelona, and my sister also met an old friend who was living in Vic, a town near the French border, and who took us partying to another town called Figueres with some of his friends from yet another town called Girona. The party was awesome, and we returned to Barcelona only to sleep a few hours and then see the remaining main checkpoints in the city.

Then on May 2nd we took a plane from Barcelona to Lisbon, Portugal, where a friend I met in February this year offered to host us if we visited the city. He and his family were all super-hospitable and kind, and since luckily one of the days we were there was a sunday, we were able to drive all the way to Sintra, a protected town marked as "World Heritage" by UNESCO, where several old palaces, castles, and convents still survive pretty much intact. Very impressive. That day we also drove to Cabo di Roca, the western-most point in continental Europe!! That place is on a cliff with beautiful views of waves hitting the jagged rock cliffs, and it's even more impressive when the sun sets! (on the west, conveniently :P)

We spent the next two days walking around Lisbon, taking pictures of pretty tilings everywhere (on the sidewalk, walls, ceilings, signs, plazas, everywhere!), another castle, a few parks, the Lisbon oceanarium (it's a pretty good oceanarium!), the Cristo Rei statue, and other main checkpoints of the city. Lisbon also has a REALLY long bridge, 14 km long, called the Vasco de Gama bridge, but I didn't go see it :(. I really wanted to go see it, but we quickly ran out of time and it was kind far away, so I only saw it from far away. Even so, it's pretty impressive.

We then flew to Paris on May 6th, and confirmed what everyone says: Paris is EXPENSIVE. It cost us 8.60 each just to go from the airport to Paris downtown, and the smallest meals are not cheaper than 10 euros where we looked. Even so, it was very cool to walk around Paris for a while. We got to see the Notre Dame cathedral and the Louvre, and then we had to find a place to stay the night.

But we didn't have a CS contact or any hostel reserved, so we decided to just wing it. We tried to sleep inside a Metro station, but we got kicked out about 40 minutes after having snuck inside. We then found a nice little bench in front of the Notre Dame cathedral. It was about 5C outside, but hey, it was hard to beat the view! :) The next day in the morning we met at a local McDonald's with our other sister who has been living in Orleans for 7 months now, and after breakfast, she took us to see the Arc de Triomphe and the Tour Eiffel, both packed with hundreds of tourists and keychain sellers.

We then took a train to Orleans, FR, where we have been staying at a friend's of my sister since May 7th. Very luckily, we got to see the "Fetes de Jeanne d'Arc", the festival of Joan of Arc, who historically reconquered Orleans on May 8th. These days have been very festive! Joan of Arc parades, hundreds of people dressed in medieval French clothes, I saw kings, peasants, buffoons, queens, gypsies, soldiers, horses, and flags of all kinds all around! Very colorful, a lot of local pride! The bad thing is that the stores closed and it was kinda hard to get the food and supplies we wanted to buy for these days. But we're good now.

So from today until wednesday, my sisters and I are driving to the castles that are built next to the Loire river (Les Chateaux-sur-la-Loire), which everyone says are quite beautiful. We made a car rental reservation, but it's also possible that Olivier, our current host in Orleans, will agree to lend us his car for our little day trips. He says it's no problem, as long as his insurance company agrees. I hope it agrees - it would save us 200 euros!

And as for my plans after Orleans, we're going back to Paris and staying at a youth hostel for about 3 nights until the 17th, getting to know the famed Paris as much as we can. My sisters are then going back to America (as in the continent) on the 18th, and I'm left to keep traveling on my own. I just bought a global eurail pass too, which should arrive on the next few days, and with which I plan to travel for 3 weeks around continental Europe!

Yay! Finally!! Now, at 4:58AM, I can rest :).

P.S: I hope the original recipient of this message does not get upset at my usage of my message to her.

Sorry

I am utmostly sorry :'(.

UPDATE: Apparently, the reason I was sorry for is not really true. Good.