travel journal

Yes, I'm still alive (and dancing)

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Ok, so I haven’t really been using this thing much and I know no one really reads it anyway, regardless I’m going to write a bit.

What have I been up to? Well, the run down is something like this:

  • Left Finland at the end of September
  • Loved Tallinn (Estonia) as soon as I arrived
  • Visited Riga (Latvia) with some kids I met in the hostel
  • Came back to Tallinn and started working in the same hostel
  • Visited London for 15 hours a month later on a stopover for Amsterdam
  • Complete inability to recall my time in Amsterdam apart from knowing it was fun
  • Visited Vilnius (Lithuania) to take a photo of the Frank Zappa statue
  • Bussed back to Tallinn for another few weeks
  • Went back to London for 5 nights to visit palmy and Dilly and some other buddies
  • Came back to Tallinn and kept working

Of course, there’s plenty more to it than that, but they’re the kind of stories where you really had to be there to appreciate them anyway, so bugger that.

One thing I should mention is how cool the hostel is. Well, I think so. Unfortunately the website doesn’t seem to display properly in Firefox but it’s fine in IE, Tallinn Backpackers.

I never want to leave Estonia! It’s scary. I really dig it here.

Another thing I dig is listening to music off the Internet because I’m too lazy to keep pulling out my iPod. I started out on BlogMusik but I prefer Radio Blog Club. Enjoy it.

Bus drivers: universal arseholes

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Time for a quick Seinfeld impersonation:

What’s the deal with bus drivers? Why are they always in such bad moods? You’d think you’d be happy if you got to cruise around all day in a vehicle so big only a monster truck or a semi trailer would mess with you. It’s not like they’re frustrated with traffic; they’re not trying to get home in a hurry.

Ok. Hopefully that set the tone for this piece.

I’ve never had good experiences with bus drivers. The only memories I’ve ever had are of them being aggressive and mean, horrible people. I never really took the bus to school when I was young but I remember everyone had to have a bus pass. I also remember that the bus drivers would act as if they were working border patrol as customs officers whenever an 8 year old would hop on without the correct papers. What’s the big deal? Who the hell cares if a couple of schoolkids hop on a bus without a pass? It’s not costing the bus driver anything and the kids only need to ask their school to give them the pass and they get one. They still don’t pay for anything. The same goes for trains, but I’m not going to go into that here.

Even after my schooling days, they still run around as if they’re upholding some important station in society. I got verbally assaulted once by a bus driver because I didn’t have small enough change for my ticket. I believe the fare was meant to be $2.40. I only had a $10 note but I did have $0.40 in coins on me, so to be considerate and make the drivers job easier for me I handed him $10.40 so that he could just scrape up my $8 in change without having to think about it. Boy was I wrong.

Apparently I was out of line. I was meant to have THE CORRECT CHANGE. Taken aback, I stammered something out about how I didn’t have any change and couldn’t help it. Livid, the driver yanked the cash out of my hand and with a red face and steaming ears, went to all the trouble of picking up a $5 note and two little golden coins and threw them at me along with my ticket. He then continued to complain about how I was somehow fucking up the system because he didn’t have enough money in his till to break $10 notes… Even though he did. To cut a long description of a pointless argument short, he was a prick.

I’ve had other ridiculous experiences in Sydney but there’s no point rehashing them now. I will, however, share a brief whine about one of my Finnish bus mishaps.

Being a good commuter, I arrived 15 minutes early at the bus stop, eagerly waiting for my ride to the city centre of Lahti in order to frolick down to the main bus terminal and take a 2 hour trip to Tampere for a night of fun and alcoholism. Again, story short, the bus was 10 minutes late and drove straight past me while I stood in front on the bus stand. I waited another 20 minutes for the next bus even though it should only have been 10 and in frustration decided to simply walk to town. Of course, I’d already missed my scheduled bus by then and had to make my friend wait for me and watch our bus drive off, as he was there on time. I think he got a lift or something.
The good news is that while bus drivers may be pricks, they’re also stupid. When I finally got onto the bus headed for Tampere I managed to down a whole bottle of vodka in the back seat while I listened to my 80s pop collection on my iPod.

It’s not easy being this hardcore.

Photos!

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I have 489 photos uploaded for you to check out here.

No, they’re not all captioned.

No, I haven’t updated travelpod yet, but I did plot out my route (even though the dates are incorrect).

You’re welcome.

P.S. I’ve been staying in Lahti, Finland for the last 2 weeks. Thanks, Heli et al.

Prague.

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Ok, because I’m too lazy to update my travelpod at the moment, here’s an email I just sent to work (yes, I’m still attached).

Hello all,

yes, it’s been a while. This email will be a bit shorter as I’m on the verge of being physically ill, mainly because I’m in Prague and have been savouring the $2 pints.

I hope everyone is well. I am too (apart from my current condition) and I’ve been meeting people from all over the place (as one would expect, I suppose).

In the tradition of my last email, here’s yet another run-down of my travels:

Dubrovnik: as I said, cool. Worth visiting. Nothing really of great notice apart from the old town which got shelled in the early 90s and rebuilt. I think I mentioned this before. I can’t really remember. Anyway, definitely tick it off if you consider visiting Croatia (or Hrvatska, if you want to be down with the local language).

Kolocep: an Island near Dubrovnik (or Dubbo, as I like to call it). We visited here for a day, nothing extraordinary but it was nice. I hiked for about 3 hours and took the odd photo here and there of the views. Yeah, amazing, I know.

Mljet: Nice, foresty island. Pronounced Mil-yet. I got eaten alive by ants because I slept outdoors in a campground (too proud to rent a tent). The bites have only just disappeared (after about 3 weeks, I had scary black spots on my fingers and everything). I swam in Odysseus’ cave (ask Homer) and literally nearly had a heart attack because I was terrified of the fish in the water. I then had to climb back up a cliff in wet thongs, which is impossible if anyone’s ever tried it.

Split: Goran Ivanisevich (?sp) is from here. Cool town. I liked it better than Dubrovnik. We actually stayed in an apartment owned by a guy called Goran. One day he confronted me in his tight white underwear and a singlet asking for money for the other nights that we’d be staying. It was dirt cheap, though. About $15 a night. By the way, beer is disturbingly cheap in Croatian supermarkets. They even sell their own brand (Konsume is the store, K-Plus is the brand. 2 litre plastic bottle go for about $2.50 Australian). If anyone’s even heard of Gregor of Nin (or his “famous” statue), I’ve rubbed his toe (for luck).

In Split we met a French Canadian girl (Quebec) that I’ve ended up travelling with. My group split (pardon the pun) from her when we returned from Hvar (another Croatian resort island, apparently popular with Paris Hilton [yawn]) and we went to Sibenik.

Sibenik: small but has the largest stone cathedral built without wooden support (or whatever else) in Europe. Sounds amazing but it’s really just a small church. Still, I took photos (ask me if you really care). I also scored free Internet here because no one was around to charge me (even though I looked for someone to pay) and I walked out. Yes, I’m a rebel.

Krka national park: people swim under the waterfalls (they even made it a hydroelectric plant, thanks Mr Tesla). I didn’t swim because I was too scared of the fish.

Zagreb: the capital of Croatia. No one knows that. Well, barely anyone. It’s a nice place, reminds me of Melbourne but about 4 times bigger and with 1/4 of the people. The nightlife was pretty lame (ie, Sydney’s sad, lonely clubs are basically more popular on bad nights compared to a busy night in Zagreb) but I didn’t care that much as I can’t dance and don’t really like much beyond cheap beer and good company (hi, Andrew).

Ok, this is getting a bit long. If you’ve made it this far I thank you for persisting with my writings. If you’re still interested I pity you, but for the sake of sympathy I’ll continue with my journey.

Budapest: Massive, masive city (two cities in fact, which I found strange and didn’t learn until about 2 days before I arrived). Monuments are spaced out everywhere and I bought an AWESOME Spider-Man t-shirt in a supermarket there, then started wearing it as I sat around the Danube. Apparently the night-life is really fun there but my trio failed to discover it. We still amused ourselves and I met some other Aussies, which is always nice. Most are from Melbourne though, which is always a little depressing. ;)

Krakow: Nice, nice city. I had two nights here in a really good hostel, unfortunately there were a big group of Americans staying so I didn’t bother socialising (I had early mornings anyway). I went to Auschwitz, which I thought was very… interesting. It’s very touristy now, unfortunately, so it lost (at least, I felt) a lot of impact. Still, I’m glad I went there.

Olomouc: Billed as “Prague without the tourists”, this place is about 5 hours west of Krakow by train, in the Czech Republic. I loved it here even though I only had 1 night to explore it. An Australian couple ran the hostel I stayed in and although they were somewhat inexplicably timid they still gave us some good advice, so I ticked off basically everything in town within 6 hours. One day I’d definitely like to return, though.

Prague: This is were I am now. I’m staying in an Anglo-friendly hostel called the “Clown and Bard”. Mainly it’s Canadians and Americans but it’s not so bad. ;) The Quebec girl I’ve been travelling with is leaving for Berlin tomorrow so I’m going to have a few nights alone (ahh!). It’s a nice enough city, I guess. I’ve heard so many stories about it but I certainly think there are better ones out there. I’m probably going to end up knowing it better than Paris, as I have to stay here until Wednesday as I’ve booked a flight to Helsinki that evening (for only 120 Euros!). Hopefully I don’t get quite as frequently inebriated as I have tonight.

Well, that’s about it so far. Thanks for reading. I’m sure you haven’t. If you have, you’ll probably have been given a warning for not doing enough work (I’ve heard the rule have gotten a bit strict lately, you poor folk).

As always, I’m delighted to hear from anyone that can be bothered emailing me (but no, this isn’t a desperate plea for attention, even though it may look like it). Don’t be shy! :)

Bah, I’m still dizzy from all my cheap beer. I haven’t used the spell checker on this email so if I’ve made mistakes forgive me. If I haven’t made mistakes it’s simply testament to my meticulous spelling and typing ability. Hurrah for me.

Ok, I’ll stop now, this is getting ridiculous.

All the best!
Ollie. :)

Krakow.

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Yeah, yeah. I’m a lazy bastard. Whatever.

Actually, no, I’m not lazy. The reason I’ve been so slack is that I’ve been busy and I’ve also been spending time running around with people, so it’s hard to get enough time to update anything properly.

If anyone’s really keen, I’ve put a gallery up on my site (although not all the photos are uploaded yet [it takes a lot of fucking work, you bastards]) at www.redknob.net/gallery. Ignore Kat’s, she’s not me and I was being nice.

So, who’s missing me? Come on, I know you love it.

Hi!

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The good news is that I’m alive.

The potentially bad news is that I’m trying to update my travelpod again and it’s going to be a lot of reading (and writing).

These whacky Italian net cafes don’t ever seem to want to let me copy my photos off my camera, so they’ll be coming later.

The end.

P.S. I love you all.

Plush in Parugia

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Our hostel in Parugia was cheap, massive, had an amazing view of the town from its balcony, was immaculately clean and had a funny old man running it (that took 40 minutes to check the four of us in as he checked our passports and stuffed around doing something that I’m sure he thought was important but only seemed to make everything slower). It was also strict, with a cleaning lock-out from 9:30am until 4pm, the kitchen open from 7:30pm until 10pm, the balcony and upstairs area closed at 12am and a lockout at 1am. We called it the Hitler Hostel.

Parugia’s another university town. It’s beautiful and has a vibe similar to Bordeaux. We went exploring up and down the main street on the Saturday night when we arrived, nearly drowning in the sea of young people who seemed to only be walking up and down the road, eating gelato or sitting on the massive set of steps in front of some building that I never determined the purpose of.

We decided to treat ourselves to some pizza and beer on our own set of stairs before we practically crashed in our beds from travel exhaustion. It was probably a good thing that the curfew was 1am as it meant we made the effort to get to sleep earlier than we had been for the last few nights due to partying in Riomaggiore.

Kate’s Lonely Planet had a few suggestions for activies to try in Parugia for the next day. We ignored them and spent time sleeping in the shade by a church while a wedding went underway, then Al and I shared a big fat pizza then had a quiet beer from a vantage point overlooking another part of town. We thought the drunken South American we’d all met on the bus during the day who continued to try speaking to us even though we told him we couldn’t understand him would be the only oddball we’d run into. To our delight, Al and I got to witness an older man who’d come to the same overlook for a peaceful read in the shade. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t begin without a cigarette. He cheerily walked up to every single invidiual that passed by and did his best to beg for a freebie but time and time again he was refused a nicotine hit. Eventually, after spying two young girls who’d just sat down and lit up, he snuck up towards them using trees as cover until he casually walked past them and asked for a cigarette like it was sheer coincidence that they’d ever met. A little scared, the girls gave in to his request and lit him up. He sat down and contently read, never again bothering to move the whole time we were there.

That evening we all ended up drinking beers on the balcony in front of the amazing view. More people from the hostel ended up joining us and by accident we’d started a mini party. We chatted away the hours with more Americans, Swedes and Brits until midnight when we were kicked off the floor. I’d polished off the perfect amount of 660mL, 0.90 and 1 Euro beers so I walked up and back on the main street to clear my head and made it into bed before the curfew.

The Cinque Terre

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Our train out of Nice was one of the few dozen that were affected by the Italian train strike. We had to wait a little bit longer for our first train, wait three hours just inside the Italian border in Ventimiglia and then wait again in Genova but we finally made it to La Spezia around 8pm.

Still lacking accommodation, we managed to randomly bump into a guy that Kate had met during her last stay at Riomaggiore, the town we were intending to stay in. He called ahead for us and organised the infamous Mamma Rosa to meet us at the train station. She led us to one of the hostels in town and took us up to what we called “the cave”. Most of the other rooms in the hostel were quite nice and clean, even newly renovated. Ours was like a remnant of the old world but it at least had that flea-ridden, rustic charm that people like to read about but not actually experience.

It turns out the hostel was actually great fun and was packed with other young folk. We met Aussies, Canadians and Americans from all different areas and made the most of the cheap wine whenever we could. We even scored some email addresses to keep in touch with a few lucky people.

The Cinque Terre is made up of five towns running along the coast and Riomaggiore is one of them. It’s quite popular to hike from one end to the other, so we did. Well, we kind of did. Jibby, Kelly (a girl we met who tagged along with us) and I stopped at the fourth town and didn’t feel like progressing on foot after we felt the effects of pizza and gelato at lunch. The three of us took the train and looked around the fifth town before returning but Kate and Alex soldiered on for another 2 and a half hours on foot. The weather was swelteringly hot and the walk was damn hard work. This, of course, means that it felt rewarding, sweaty, dusty and gross reaching each town.

After four nights we decided we’d visit Parugia, a town inbetween La Spezia and Rome. Trying to be sneaky as it was only one stop, we hopped onto the train without a ticket and within 2 minutes had a ticket inspector enter our carriage. We tried putting up a bit of resistance and playing the confused tourist card, but he fined us 50 euros (even though he wanted 100 originally) then pocketed the cash.

Confident our terrific train karma would continue, we reach Florence and had our connecting train cancelled after we sprinted to our platform from the other end of the station. It took another hour before we were on our way to yet another train swap and finally we arrived in Parugia.

Nice is nice

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We had difficulty at first in finding a hostel. Good old Chez Patrick’s was full to the brim so we had to walk down the road to what turned out to be a better hostel.

Nice was as or more expensive than Paris so we again relied on the friendly prices of Monoprix and a lot of baguettes to get by. We hiked around, exploring an old ruined fort above a cliff looking out to sea and sucked up some of the view before relaxing under a tree in a nearby park for a few hours.

Down by the coast there’s nothing but rock beaches and a million vendors selling overpriced junk, like hats and knock-off sunglasses. Our only adventure was a trip to the delicately titled Chez Wayne’s pub for a happy hour pint and the first half of the England vs Sweden football match. Expense and the sardine effect deterred us from remaining, so I again navigated our party to a bottle shop and we returned to the beach and killed a few hours talking about nothing.

While I was on the beach I found a rock. I liked this rock in particular and adopted it as a pet. I washed off the white, powdery crap that seemed to be on every rock in the region and carried him back to our hostel, where I planted him in the garden so that he could long be seen and remembered by other travellers as my favourite rock.

Bumming in Bordeaux

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I made it out of Paris with Al and Kate but not before seeing an African albino in a Monoprix shopping centre. He looked a bit like Harpo but with a bigger nose. Weird but cool.

The three of us took a speedy train to Bordeaux which only took 3 hours. We downed a few bottles of low-alcohol cider and munched on lollies, arriving on a sugar high. The rush was required in order for me to carry my 3 tonne bag from the station to Al’s share house without passing out from exhaustion, as I’d already lugged it around Paris trying to find their hotel and then to the train station.

Bordeaux’s a student town and it has a much more relaxed atmosphere than Paris, probably due to the abundance of young adults and the lack of tourists who seem to fill all the Parisien restaurants. We spent the evening relaxing on the banks of the Garonne and listened to Clemént (I think it’s spelt), one of Al’s housemates, playing guitar and singing songs in English, French and even Japanese.

Our little trio took time out for lunch the following day as none of us had had a proper sit-down meal since being in the country. I managed to fluke myself a nice turkey curry (odd, I know) even though it was overpriced like everything else around there. Al suggested we get some chips to share so I bravely went off to order some from the most popular kebab shop in town. Eight people pushed in front of me and the staff working there didn’t really care, then ignored my order of large chips and gave me a kebab with chips in it (which is common in these parts). Too frustrated and impatient and lacking in French linguistical ability to argue, I returned to our table with my head down and tail between my legs before cutting the chip-kebab in half and sharing it with Al.

That night Jibby arrived on a delayed train and brought some violent rain with her. We walked back in the soaking rain, arriving back at the house looking like four drowned rats. I looked more like a drowned rat in extreme agony, as I had previously drank about 600mL of Yop, a yoghurt drink, in about 2 minutes and it didn’t want to sit peacefully in my stomach. It took about an hour in the bathroom and two rolls of toilet paper before I’d recovered enough to be able to return to the lounge room.

The next day I was feeling rejuvenated enough to participate in the organising of our train tickets to Nice. We wanted to have everything sorted out before the party that was being held that evening (Saturday). God knows how many people showed up, but I’ve never seen so many individuals crammed into a house! I don’t know how I ended up doing it (it was probably the beer) but I managed to mingle with the partygoers until the wee hours of the morning when I finally got too tired to attempt speaking in slow, clear and concise English and went to bed.

Sunday was (as is the tradition) a day of rest. We spent most of our day bumming around waiting for the Brazil vs Australia game in the world cup. There were some outdoor restaurants set up down the road, housed in tents, with big screen televisions broadcasting the games so we went to one called The Frog and Rosbif (“rosbif” is apparently a French bastardisation of “roast beef” applied to the English, in the same way we call them “poms”). One of Al’s friends was working there, a guy called John. We chatted to him for a while but we couldn’t get any free or cheap beer so we decided to leave not long after Australia lost.

On the way back we were confronted by a proud Brazilian draped in his national flag (there seems to be a lot of them around France at the moment) who laughed at us when we told him we were Australian then ran off, singing to himself. That night I had a horrible sleep due to the army of mosquitoes that decided to pillage my ankles but I didn’t really mind as I knew I’d need to be tired if I was going to get any sleep on the night train to Nice the following evening.

The night train was certainly interesting. We had food with us to eat and kill some time as it wound its way slowly to the south east of the country. I eventually dozed off but awoke when it was reported that the train had broken down and that it’d take an hour or two to repair. The four of us sat at the train station we’d pulled up at and ate biscuits while we drank cheap sangria after I walked barefoot onto jagged rocks and a bit of train roadkill (wait for the photo). Eventually we got back underway and I managed to sleep in the most uncomfortable positions imaginable for the remainder of the trip until we pulled up in Nice at 10am the following morning.