Prague - Beauty and Beer

The first thing I noticed in Prague is how absolutely beautiful the downtown area is, especially high on the hill where the 17th-18th century government buildings are along with a massive cathedral. As it started to get dark, I wondered through this historic district with my group and descended down a crowded, narrow, cobblestone street to the rest of the city. We met the bus at our hotel and unloaded our luggage while our bus driver pissed off a bunch of Czechs because the coach was blocking most of the street.

Later that night, after being lost for awhile, a small group of us found a drinking establishment that had been recommended to us. It is a place that could never exist here in the States. The beer taps are actually in the middle of each table. A little digital display keeps track of how many liters have been poured at the table since the last bill was paid. When you’re ready to leave, you signal a waiter and pay the tab. Until then, pour your own and drink up. As if that’s not enough to encourage overindulging, the bar assigns each table a number and actually projects a visual count onto the wall of how much each table has consumed. If your table passes the quantity of beer quaffed by another table, your corresponding mug on the display will swap places with the other table’s mug. Yes, the entire bar is set up as a drinking contest. Even if such a place could ever open their doors here in the States, they’d quickly be sued out of existence when some drunk got in an accident on the way home. Ahhh… Prague.

I spent much of the next day exploring Prague on my own and it continued to blow me away with just how beautiful it really is. I mostly just walked all over the place including back up the hill to the historic government buildings and cathedral. It was good to see everything in full daylight. Unlike many of Europe’s major cities, Prague was not heavily damaged by either of the World Wars, so block after block of its grand old buildings are still fully intact.

I should note that while absolutely worth visiting, travelers should expect Prague to be crowded with tourists. Gone are the days soon after the Soviet Union dissolved when Prague was a very inexpensive, mostly undiscovered gem. Word is out and even in November some areas were quite crowded. It’s not what I’d call cheap either, but like I said, it’s definitely worth seeing.

Berlin

First things first. In Berlin I saw the worst use of neon lights ever. Here it is:


This sign says "All art has been contemporary". Of course that's hard to read because they inexplicably put the sign behind the pillars. Nevermind the fact that on this old building fronted by a row of pillars, I can't think of anything that would go worse with it than freaking NEON! Who's idiotic idea was this one? And why didn't they just go ahead and add a neon cowboy on the roof while they were at it? Way to ruin the front of one of Germany's best known museums, morons. For the record there was a very nice Egyptian exhibit inside.

But let's rewind a day. The coach arrive in Berlin in the evening and our hotel was on the outskirts of town. Our tour manager told us how to get downtown if we wanted to go that night, but said he'd just be hitting the bar in the Generator hostel next door to the hotel. Most of us thought that sounded like a good plan, so we joined him. It was Halloween night.

The Generator in Berlin is an enormous hostel. The drinking age in Berlin for beer and wine is fourteen years old. Hostels, with their cheap, low grade accomodations, attract mostly young people. Ergo, the hostel bar was full of drunken teenagers. That was kind of different to see in a bar, especially for an American like myself who's used to a legal drinking age of 21. I didn't think much of it at first, but when a guy who looked to be about fifteen stood on a chair and started stripping, it was just wrong.

The drinks were cheap (for Europe) and plentiful, so before long our entire group was feeling pretty good. Not much longer after that, many of us were feeling much more than that, but it quickly became obvious that the most blitzed people in our group that night would be... our tour manager and our driver. After a couple hours, our manager crumpled to the floor. A couple of us picked him up, and a little while later he crumpled to the floor again. Repeat. I learned that Berlin isn't really concerned about serving drunk people at the bar. He'd stagger back up to the bar and they'd sell him another drink.

Meanwhile our driver was smashed out of his gourd too. The following is second hand from the only other American on our tour, a Georgian named Bo who hung out with our driver a lot that night: Our drunken driver, after hitting on a girl that Bo warned him was too young and proclaiming that if you go two of the girls that made 28 (years old), insisted that he was staying in the hostel that night. They were skeptical, but Bo and another guy helped him up to the third floor of the hostel, where he proceeded to try to open one of the doors with what turned out to be his hotel key card. Yeah... it didn't work. They tried to explain to him that he was staying next door at the hotel, not here. He didn't get it. He collapsed on the floor in the hallway and started yelling incoherently. It was about 3am. They convinced a couple kids staying there not to call the front desk, and then they tried to get him to get up and leave with them. He told them to fuck off. They left him on the third floor of the hostel and went back to the hotel to get some sleep. He seemed alright in the morning. Somehow.

So anyway, I did my touring of Berlin the next day. The Third Reich walking tour was interesting. The aforementioned museum was kind of cool. It had a bunch of obese looking statues in front of it. No, really. There was a fat cat, a fat horse, a fat woman or two, and other fatties. Blame Botero. It's what he does. Quite frankly though, I thought Berlin was a depressing city. It looks like it still hasn't fully recovered from the wars. Germany has made a bad habit of starting and losing wars, and Berlin took much of the resulting damages. I'm sure the overcast skies didn't help.

The second night in Berlin we did a fairly forgettable pub tour. Then it was on to Prague!

Sex and the City, Dutch style

After meeting my tour group, which was comprised mostly of Aussies (23 of the 32 people), we left London the next morning. By evening we'd crossed the English Channel at the White Cliffs of Dover, passed through Belgium, and arrived in Amsterdam. Along the way we found out that our day song -- the day song being a Contiki tradition where a song selected by the tour manager is played pretty much ever day -- was "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. Our manager, nicknamed Nemo, said many people don't seem to like the song at first, but they usually love it by the end of the trip. For the record, he was right.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city featuring more canals than Venice. That night our tour manager took us on a different sort of sightseeing though. We took a stroll through Amsterdam's infamous red-light district with its plethora of "coffee shops", prostitutes in the windows, and swarms of tourists. Just a note, many of the coffee shops don't serve any coffee. Our destination was a small, garishly lit theater. Yes, it was time for a good ol' fashioned Amsterdam sex show. Ok, so there wasn't much good about it and I really doubt it's ol' fashioned. But anyway, for too much money we got a couple beers and watched people going at it on a raised, rotating stage. There was a certain novelty to it at first, then there were the laughs we got from the startlingly bad dancers, and finally a couple acts where they picked people out of the audience and embarrassed them on stage were amusing. However, we then became perhaps the first Contiki group to stand up and walk out early en masse. We just got bored with it. Oh look, it's yet another couple having sex. Yawwwwwwn. So we want to a bar instead.

The next day I started hoofing it around Amsterdam, determined to see as much as I could see. Of course knowing which attractions were closed for renovations would have been nice. A long walk to a naval museum ended at the "closed for renovations until 2009" sign. On the opposite end of downtown, my sojourn to the Heineken Experience came to a halt at the "closed until 2008" sign. Gah! Oh well, Heineken kind of sucks anyway. I just heard the museum was fun.

En route to the Heineken Experience that wasn't, I passed a couple of buildings surrounded by police cars and trucks and dozens of police in riot gear. The first building had all its windows shattered and there was some sort of grey crap all over the ground. I wondered if a bomb had gone off. So naturally I stopped and took a couple of pictures. At the next one, it looked like police hadn't gone into the building yet. Inquiring with a local, I learned that these buildings were full of squatters and the police were clearing them out. The grey crap on the ground was paint that had been hurled at the officers. Fun!

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I wandered around, took plenty of pictures, went out for dinner and drinks, and eventually crashed back at the hotel. The next morning we left for Berlin.

London Calling

I recently spent three weeks in western Europe. It was spectacular. Before I forget too much, I'm going to start a sort of belated travel log. I'll begin at the top with my first destination, London.

London, Oct 27th – I got into Heathrow around 11pm. I was lucky enough to book the only ticket that started in Fort Wayne and ended up in London without being an overnight flight. I despise red-eye flights as I find it impossible to sleep on the plane. Once I got my luggage in Heathrow, I was hoping to take the shuttle bus to my nearby hotel. Unfortunately it had stopped running for the night and I had to take the cab. That's when I learned that London cabs are shockingly expensive. Eighteen pounds (over $36) for a 10-15 minute ride is just crazy. That's quite a racket they've got going. The important part was I got a good night's sleep for a change upon arriving in Europe.

The next day I caught the Piccadilly line into London, dropped by Contiki headquarters near Russell Square, and checked into my hotel next door. Then it was off to Tower Bridge. That proved challenging as the two main Underground lines that go to the heart of London (Parliament, Westminster, etc.) were shut down for the day. Eventually I found the route that put me as close as possible and walked. It was cloudy with a light rain and crowds were definitely down.

Tower Bridge is very cool. Forget London Bridge. It's frankly kind of ugly. If it did fall down, I wouldn't miss it. But Tower Bridge is wonderful Victorian architecture. It's beautiful and definitely worth a visit. From there I headed south of the Thames and walked into Borough Market. I was looking for a particular pub (Market Porter) that I'd heard had excellent cask ales. En route I got distracted though. I came upon a crowd of at most a couple hundred people and a small stage on which a man in an indeterminate animal costume was playing a violin and was joined by other musicians in period costumes while people in the crowd danced. A sign behind the musicians said, October Plenty (I just found the linked page. It's for this specific festival, which is put on by a group of London actors). I'd stumbled across a local harvest festival. I watched for awhile, strolled past booths selling fudge, breads, and other foodstuffs, and had a chat with a man in a purple robe who told me a little bit about the festival. Then I headed a couple blocks down the way to the pub.

It was a nice pub and I had a couple pints. Then I was drawn back to the festival. I found a booth selling some wonderful hard cider (New Forest cider, if you're ever in the Borough Market and want to look for it). A man dressed like a tree or maybe a lush, fruity bush was dancing around and no, I wasn't having a fever dream. The musicians wound up their performance and the purple robed guy I'd spoken to earlier took the stage. He explained that they would be making a procession to the site of an old cemetery a few blocks away where prostitutes and other undesirables had been buried centuries ago. The walking tree led the way, purple robed guy strummed his guitar, and off we went. Yes, we. I just had to join this one as did about fifty other people.

About ten minutes later we reached a fence festooned with ribbons, twigs, onions, and other festival symbols. Behind it was where the cemetery had been. The purple robed guy led some songs that are perhaps best described as some combination of Druidic and hippy. A very simple, short one that all were invited to join in singing went like this:

The green man has come (x3)
To bless our garden.
The green man has come (x3)
To bless our garden
With flowers and trees (x3)
For future children.
With flowers and trees (x3)
For future children.
(repeat the whole thing)

The tree guy still wandering around was the green man. Here's some background on the green man mythology. Apparently he's found in many different traditions and is likely an amalgamation of them. As a result, no single origin can be pinpointed.

Finally purple robed guy told us about how he was visited by the ghost of some lady (one of the prostitutes buried in the cemetery?) ten years ago and it changed his life. Okay, so he was a bit crazy. The festival as a whole and especially this last procession was one of those weird, memorable experiences of traveling though. I thanked purple robed guy for his efforts and went on my way. I'm glad I found this little festival.

Later I returned to Contiki headquarters for the evening meeting and met some of the tour group for the first time.

dayton last month, summer trip booked

My trip to Spain is now officially booked. I leave in mid June and spend 2 1/2 weeks there, including 7 nights on Ibiza. After arriving in Madrid in the evening and crashing for the night, I'll catch a flight to Ibiza and spend 3 nights there. Then I'll come back to Madrid and hook up with the Contiki tour. The tour will include time in Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastian, and elsewhere, as well as 4 more nights on Ibiza.

I'm such a slacker. I meant to post something here about Dayton a few weeks ago and didn't get around to it. Maybe I'll throw in a few pictures later today. Anyway, the weekend road trip was to Dayton, Ohio. I met a bunch of farkers there at a Frickers bar. There were 50 or 60 of us and after a few hours probably about 40 of us were feeling pretty good. They made a great margarita and of course you can't go wrong with Guinness on tap. We closed the place down and those of us still going headed back to the hotel for a little after party gathering. There I got my first taste of moonshine, which I'm told was a fine example of the craft. It was very classy in its 1 liter plastic water bottle. :p All I can tell you is that it was remarkably smooth for being firewater. I hear the proof was likely 140 or more.

Early in the evening I'd arrived and had a little trouble with the hotel. They told me that even though I had a reservation, a group from the previous night decided to stay an extra night, so there was no room for me. They said that by law they couldn't kick out the previous guests even though the rooms were reserved for others (e.g. ME!). I don't know if that's true or not, but if so, what the hell is with that law? If you decide to stay past your reservation at some hotel, logically finding a room should be YOUR problem. If someone else booked your room, they get it. Why on earth would there be a law that the hotel has to give the room to the person who didn't reserve it? That makes no sense at all...

But anyway, end rant... because the south Dayton Holiday Inn handled it very well. They sent me to the Crown Plaza hotel in downtown Dayton, about 10 minutes away, and paid for my room. Moreover it was a nicer hotel. So I don't get this supposed law, but cheers to the Holiday Inn there for giving me a free room.

Indiana state parks and summer plans

I'm starting a separate blog to keep my travel reports separate from my odd news, political rants, and other weirdness on my main blog. I'll try it this way for now and see if I like it.

I'm still planning whether my biggest trip this year, probably in June, will be a two week tour of Spain or a half dozen different countries in Western Europe with stops in Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Lucerne, and more. Either way I'm going to include some time on the Spanish island of Ibiza. It's a beautiful Mediterranean island that happens to also be the house/trance music Mecca of the world. The tour would be with Contiki. They specialize in tours for 18-35 year olds.

Then a couple days ago I realized I haven't been caving in seven or eight years. I don't mean caving like walking through a big, touristy, well lit cave for an hour or two. I mean the tours that are a few hours or more of hiking, climbing, and crawling. They're harder to find, especially if you aren't reserving a group trip. I did have some luck though. There's an overnight cave tour in Wyandotte and Merango caves in July, and a very cool sounding weekend called Crawlathon held once a year in Kentucky in January devoted to all skill levels of caving.

My latest road trips have just been little weekend afternoon runs to the nearby state parks. We've finally had some warmer weather in northern Indiana, so it's time to get out. So on Sunday, April 3rd I headed up to Pokagon state park. It was a nice day in the upper 50s though kind of windy. I hiked around eight or nine miles. The forest floor was just starting to get a little greenery and a few bushes and trees were budding. Pokagon has some wetland areas, and any of these spots where there was standing water, there was a loud chorus of countless frogs. I passed a couple dozen people on the trails, which is more than I usually see. People were just glad to be out in pretty nice weather after another Indiana winter.

This past Sunday I was at Chain O' Lakes state park. It was our warmest day yet, sunny and in the high 70s. There were many more plants sprouting and trees budding than the previous week, with the spring flowers making their appearances. I don't know what this park does with their water though. I didn't take my own because it's usually easy enough to find in the state parks. Not so here... in about six miles of hiking I found one drinking fountain which had no faucet and clearly wasn't functional. Then there were one or two water faucets outside... with no handles. The buildings were locked. So given the heat and lack of water, after a couple hours of hiking I had to cut it short. It was still a nice hike though.

Now I really need to take an overnight trip to Turkey Run or further south. It's just too flat around here.

If I can find the vacation time after my Europe trip, I'd really like to spend a few days in the Smokies too. I've got this urge to climb Mt. Leconte again. What a great hike... and this time I'll remember to take the camera!