Small World

To get to Cesky Krumlov from Karlov Vary you have to go back to Prague or go through Plzen. Since I had been to Prague already, I chose the Plzen route. Plzen is most famous as the home of Pilsner Uruquell, arguably Czech most famous brew, also the city’s name is where the word Pilsner came from. Also of note are the Gothic Church of St. Batholomew, and the Jewish Synagouge, one of the oldest and largest in Eastern Europe.

Upon arrival in Plzen I had a weird feeling that I was about to get lost. The bus depot was fairly large but empty, all the ticket offices were closed and not a soul seemed to speak any english. I went to the information boards and maps, but it was of no help. This is a less toursy spot, so there was minimal helpful information in my book. The problem was that I had missed an earlier bus to Plzen so I had wait in Karlovy Vary for almost two extra hours, and now I was down to only an hour and half before sunset, with no reservations for the night. After a few failed attempts, I finally found a guy who spoke english, he was from the former Yugoslavia, in Plzen to visit his brother and was on his way back to the main square. He did not know the location of the street or hostel, I was looking for, but he tried asking around, and found out that the hostel was located further out and involved a different tram with a transfer to a seperate bus. So I ditched all plans and followed him to the square figuring that there must be places to stay near the main square. The square is located just two or three stops away on the local tram, but this time I had to hop on the tram with no ticket as the ticket offices were closed, so I crossed my fingers and hoped that there was no metro police. Upon arrival at the square, I thanked the gentlemen and walked the streets to find a place to stay, at this point I did not even have a map yet. I caught a glimpse of the Church and Synagouge, but nothing remotely similar to a hostel or pension. At this point I was going to give it another 15 minutes or 4 to 5 blocks before settling on a hotel room for the night. I had tried to limit my stay to hostels which cost apx 400 Kc per night versus 800 to 1200Kc for a hotel room, in a dodgey establishment.

After a few more minutes of being lost in the city, and just when I was about to call it quits, I looked across the street and saw two guys that looked vaguely famaliar. Thats when one of them shouted out: “Hey, its the American.” Back in KV I had met a couple of people who were filming a pilot internet/TV show from Holland. And now in Plzen standing across the street were two of those guys. (Before I forget: the premise of their show, is to discover differences between people from Holland and the Czech Republic, by participating in certain events). All of us were shocked to see each other, so I mentioned to them my quandry, and asked where they were staying, presuming that they would probably be once again in a hostel. That when it got bizzare, I asked them where they were staying and they said a good distance away, and offered me to look at their map to find my way. I told them that I had no reservations, but was looking for Hostel River, at which point they cracked up and said they knew the way, and knew that there was vacanies as that is where they are staying.

I ended up checking in the room next door to the Holland Crew, and chatted abit before I went back into town in search of dinner. Plzen shuts down pretty much by 10 pm, so I just grabbed dinner and planned to return in the morning for alittle sight seeing and possibly the famed underground tour before heading to Cesky Krumolv.

In the morning the Holland Crew was loading up their vans as I was about to check out, we spoke for a moment and continued to get a kick out of the coincidence. We joked weither it was them or me, that was the stalker. So I said let’s put it out in the open, where is your next destination, and would you believe they said Cesky Krumlov. After I confirmed to them, that it was mine as well, we laughed and they said that I had ride with them, which I happily accepted.

The Holland Crew is made up by:

Lonren (never got his name exactly right, sorry) aka the Boss man.
Rueben, the accountant and business manager.
Eric, editing.
Weird, host/presentor and editing.
Nans, host/presentor.
Vince, host/presentor.
Carmen, I affectionately dubbed her the den mother, she cooked and kept after the seven others.

Their website is: www.mjuksgoes.eu

Its in dutch, but they told me to check it out, as they were going to write about our meetings in their blog, namely Vincent’s.

I sat in the van on the three hour ride to Cesky Krumlov with: Lonren, Rueben, Weird and Carmen. We talked about music, traveling, media biases, and politics. They were very well spoken and informed about world and US politics. I was impressed by their knowledge of our political affairs at home. We had some lively conversation and debates as they challenged some of our positions and views, but in the end, we agreed to disagree on some positions.

Upon arrival at Cesky Krumlov (CK), I again had no reservation, but had two hostels that I wanted to seek out, so I bid a temporary farewell to the Holland Crew but promised to return later in the evening to break some bread with them. I arrived at the first hostel of choice but found it locked with no one at the door. After waiting for 15 minutes, I went searching for the second. Upon crossing the bridge I asked a girl if she spoke english and knew the way to Roosevelta. She turned out to be Canadian and staying at the same hostel, can we say: deja vu! (This is bizarre considering the significanct number of hostels in CK, I had picked mine, as they are considered to be less party and more relaxing and with laundry.) After trekking literally from one end of town to the exact opposite end, I found that the Krumlov House had no dormitory vacancy for the night, only a suite for tonight and a dorm for the following. So I took it, unpacked and went off to explore the town.

Cesky Krumlov (CK) is a town built around the castle, although most of the town is only on one side of the castle. The town looks as if you have stepped back in time. I got a famaliar feeling that I once had in Cinque Terra, Italy: a place that is rapidly changing due to the growing amount of tourism, but still functions as a a place where the locals live and work. I think the vibe that you feel the most, is that most everybody is there for the same reason, and that is too turn it down a notch and let some of environment soak in, which I needed badly after the numerous late nights and the numerous changes in zip codes. Words are hard to describe CK, and I hope to download pictures soon, but the streets are cobbled and narrow; stores, pubs and resturants line the first floor of all the buildings with the upper floors functinoning as living units. The buildings are mixed in sizes and colors, and have a medival feel. The town was once two seperate towns, split by a river, but now joined by the bridge. And of course there is the Castle, with two bears in the moat, and the historical theatre as the main attraction. Additionally similar to other historic Czech towns/cities, there is a local brewery, Eggenbrauer, named after one of the former families that owned the castle.

I spent the next two days in the CK, slept in, took in a couple guided tours, walked the town, and hungout with the Holland Crew. I would highly recommend CK as a stop to everyone visiting the Czech Republic. The cost is less than Prague and very easily accessible. While I had some down time, the task at hand was to determine how I was getting to Copenhagen to meet up with the tour group to Russia. Of course, you know by now, that I had chosen the bus route, but to make that decision required narrowing the field down based on an individual’s priorities, namely: time and cost.

Flights are not an option without combining with bus and rail, as you could only realitically catch a flight from Prague or Berlin. The most afforable options, that I could find were: Ryan Air or Easy Jet, but they do not sell flights with layovers, so you had to combine tickets to get to your destination. Example to get to Copenhagen from Prague, I had to buy a ticket from Prague to London, and a seperate ticket from London to Copenhagen. This then became an infeasible option due to cost and time. Keep in mind, there are numerous carriers that I was not aware of.

Train/rail is the primary option for many backpackers. But in my research, it was at least twice as expensive and actually took longer in most cases then bus. This was the case for the internal trips with Czech, as well as my route to Copenhagen. That ticket would have cost me around 4500Kc and taken over 16 hours.

Whereas my bus ticket cost 1550Kc and was going to take 14 hours (stops at major cities are minutes for a bus, whereas hours for a train). Comfort is the main downside of the bus route, but hey I wanted to see the country-side. So I decided to leave CK, go to Prague for a day, where I would buy my ticket for Copenhagen. In Prague I went back to the Old Prague Hostel, but wanted to keep a quiet night, so passed on the inviation from my new room mates for a wild night out. Instead I went to a Bohemian String Orchestra which was awesome, and did my own walking tour of Prague by Night. After the orchestra, I went back to the hostel to grab a bite, and change before heading out for my own night tour of Prague. I wanted a chance to see the major landmarks at night and maybe take a few pictures. Just as I was leaving the hostel, I saw another familiar face, as we passed each other we both turned around and said: “Don’t I know you.” It turned out to be Ashley, a real estate attorney from Cleveland, that I met, my first night in CK. We chatted for a minute, and she decided to join me in my self guided tour of Prague at night. We spent the next few hours, learning/practicing to take pictures at night. Both of us are novice photographers, and that is using that word very loosely, but we messed around with shutter speeds, and settings on our respective digital cameras. We learned that the night setting doesn’t really work will for massive structures far away, but the Manual settings, with flashed turned off worked best. We also messed around with the ISO feature, but never quite figured that out. So if anybody can help me out, I have a Canon Elph SD 600, let me know. It turned out to be a great evening, and we bid each other a farewell and safe journeys, but what a Small World!!!

Prague and Karlovy Vary

I am now sitting on a bus headed for Copenhagen, when it is all said and done the bus trip should take about 14 hours. Therefore I have given myself the assignment of writing the next blog entry which will hopefully catch me up to current time. First I would like to thank everybody for sending me emails, as it has been nice to hear from you and getting updates on events back home. As many of you may know by now, I did get a Blackberry, so that I can access emails and have limited internet access without having to be in a internet cafe. It has been extremely helpful, in researching hostels, bus/train schedules, looking for some translations, and even looking up medicinal instruction for a friend who couldn’t figure out what the pharmacy gave him. You get unlimited international emails and internet, for one monthly fee. So keep those emails coming. Lastly, I am putting this disclaimer out for all past, current and future e-mails and blogs, for misspelling, the spellchecker does seem to work as well overseas, go figure.

Couple of quick facts: the Czech Republic joined the European Union in 2004, the Czech currency is the Czech crown (Kc), currently exchanges around 22Kc to each US dollar. The Czech Republic is in no hurry to convert from the crown to the Euros, as they have seen and learned from the economic effect it has had on the poorer parts of countries that have made the transition, example would be Italy going from the Lira to Euro.

After an eventful first full day (should that have been Day 1 or 2?), I wanted to explore more of the castle, including a visit to the top of the St. Vitus’s South Tower. The top offered an awesom view of Prague but to see it required conquering the 267 steps up a narrow spiraling staircase. It wasn’t that bad or difficult, only problem is there is only one way up and down. So you had to constantly stop to allow people moving in the opposite direction to pass, normally the people going down had the right of way. So if you ever get the chance to do it yourself try to do it while it is still cool as that can hopefully reduce the amount of sweating (of others) and hopefully the amount of BO that permeats the tight quarters. Additionally be selective as to who may be just ahead of you as you will be butt to cheek for a good portion of it and make sure they have the stamina to not take to many breaks for no reason. Same applies on the way down. But seriously, worth the hike.

The Castle courtyards and gardens are free to visit and only a ticket is required for the designated portions of the castle. I got the B ticket which allowed entry to the 1000 y.o. St George’s Basilica, Golden Lane, and Powder Tower. Ticket A allows entry to those areas and more, but I am not one for looking at other people’s furniture. This may help explain why I didn’t make it to your last house warming party

After the self guided tour, I had alittle time before Jordan and Toby was meeting me across town at the Museum of Communism. Ki, Mark, and I had gone our seperate ways after a visit of the Powder Tower, where the gun powder had been stored and also where the 1st prisoner had been held a revered individual who was similar to Robin Hood.

The Museum of Communism is interesting and actually amusing, when taken lightly, which can only happen since they did not succeed. It is housed, close to W Square, appropriately next to a McDonalds and across from a Casino. The most interesting materials are all the anti-America propaganda. The one that I found most amusing was a colored cartoon poster that showed a group of people march with pride, they were all chisled like athletes, chest propped high in the air, with a tank top showing their allegence to the Communist Party. The kicker is that it included an Asian and a Black individual amongst the many blonde blue eyed marchers. Most of the posters would display the American (identified by US or stars and stripes) as a greedy (shown with dollar signs) or a as fat or as evil (with sharp teeth) or all of the above.

The Museum is self guided with translated text on each wall explaining the exhibits. There is also a gift shop counter at the entrance/exit where you can buy copies of the propaganda material or even a candle in the shape of Lenins head. I passed on making any purchases, and my souvinor counts still remains at zero. I do think that the Museum, is a worth while visit if you are in the nieghborhood, and maybe later that night you can light a candle in the shape of a former Soviet leader while signing the Star Spangled Banner.

As this was going to be the last night for most of the Old Prague hostel Posse (OPP), we decided to all dinner together and see about a possible Pub Crawl, which did not rank high on my list. But as they say: when in Rome do as the Romans, when in Prague, drink. The dinner posse included everybody I mentioned before except for the Aggies, but we added: Dan and JC, new roommates to Room 8 and Sara, who Jordan befriended in the hallway. After dinner we were joined by Amanda (Aggie) for the pub crawl, no need for details, I again had plenty of pop and met other backpackers from England.

The next morning I got up bright and early and caught a bus for Karlovy Vary also known as Karlsbad. This area is known for its hot springs and spas. Legend has it, that the area was discovered by Charles IV during a hunting trip where his dog fell into the water. Many make the trek to drink the mineral water for its medicinal powers (which you are suppose to drink from a special cup, think irregular shaped pipe, I will attach a pic on Flickr later) , the natural surroundings and the leasure environment. Before I forget: the bus ride took just under 2 hours, starting from the Florence bus station in Prague, the ticket cost 120 Kc. When arriving in Karlovy Vary (KV) there are two main stops, one is the KV main local bus depot, where you connect to all KV buses, the second 300m up the road is the regional bus depot which connects to all outbound buses out of KV. I hopped off at the local depot asked for some assistance and hoped for the best. This was the first time I was going somewhere with no directions and reservation, this is also further off the beatened path of overseas visitors so the language barrier just changed from wood to brick. At the direction of an older gentlemen who spoke no english, I hopped off the fourth stop on Bus 2, and walked to the hostel I read about on the internet. The hostel was easy to locate, but a bit far from the Spa Center at KV. For those less adventurous, recommend staying in one of the main hotels, easy to find and access to the facilities. They had plenty of vacancies, so I found a home for the night. A walk through the main spa center of KV takes you from the Grand Pupp Hotel to the local bus depot I previously mentioned. Its a scenic walk, with the varying architecture and the wilderness in the background. You can walk one end to the other, in less than 40 mins, but may take hours if you are looking to shop or stop at one of the many cafes. The buildings were something else (I will try to upload), was surprised that this place was not more well known. But, I was mistaken, it is well known, just not to me.  Their claim to fame, second to the water and spa, is that there is a film festival every year, which starts late June or early July, not pn the same level as Cannes, but supposedly still a big deal. As I walked through the Spa Center, other than the buildings, I was not impressed. Not that you couldn’t enjoy KV, but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to enjoy it. KV is filled with nice hotels, chic cafes, pictures of movie stars who have visited their establishment, fancy SUVs… Not exactly what I was looking for, so I went back to the hostel and caught up on some sleep. Later that night I spoke with the Hostel manager to see if I missed any sights or if I had KV pegged wrong. He said nope, and that is why he is the only hostel in town, most that visit are interested in the four star and above hotels, and the backpackers are usually here for the hiking. He did recommend at least one hike to the Diana Tower overlooking KV and a half day trips to Locket and Becov to see the local castles.

Later that night at dinner, as my Canadian friends like to say: “I got Hosed!” I went to a local resturant and ordered a Czech favorite: duck with dumplings. The menu included no english, so I just order it. What should have cost around 150 Kc, per the hostel manager, they charged me over 250Kc. I was going to make a stink, but thought otherwise since it was still less than 15 USD, and it was a local establishment where no one else spoke english. But man, I could have had steak, instead.

In the morning I hiked up to the Diana Tower and as the manager said it was great. You can take the hike up the marked path or cheat by taking the hill trolley. I basically ran up it and back down, as I wanted to head to Locket and come back pick up my bags, and head for Plzen before sunset. Forewarning sidenote: I have found it helpful, since my Italy trip, to be in a new City a good few hours before sunset, this helps provide enough time to establish a sense of direction and hopefully an oppurtunity to get to their chosen destination for the night. Back to the story, I didn’t see a sole until I reached almost the base of the path back into the Spa Center.

So off to Locket. Locket is located apx 15km from KV a 30 min bus ride from the regional depot. When arriving by bus, the Locket Castle just shows up on the right side, its the third stop after your first visual of the castle. I almost took the 2nd stop at the direction of a local, but it looked too far away, thats when an English couple eyed me to stay on the bus and said that its the following stop, otherwise it would have been a long walk. Again, amazing is the adjective that comes to mind. The town that surrounds the Locket Castle looks like something out of a storybook. The Castle itself is fairly small and can be explored within a couple hours. Admission into the castle is 80 Kc, if you want to take pictures its another 20 Kc. Locket in Czech means elbow and describes how the river elbows around the Castle. Hrad is Czech for castle, so its actually Hrad Locket. The best thing about Locket is seeing it for the first time looking from down at the river and seeing how the castle, shoots out of the ground/rocks into the sky.

As I caught my bus back to KV, I had a dilemia on Becov. I heard the castle was amazing but different than Locket, and they had recently unearthed a golden coffin. But I really did not want to spend the night in KV and take the 5 hour trip to Cesky Krumlov, my next stop, in one sitting. So I decided to skip Becov, head back to KV, and take a swim in the Thermal Spa pool, which is the one of the only pools you can go when not a guest of that hotel/spa. The Thermal pool is half mineral hot springs water and half still. The resulting water temp was 30 degrees Celsius, same as the air temp that day. After the swim, I picked up my bag and it was of to Plzen, where things got bizarre.

Ahoj

Ahoj from the Czech Republic. As I am writing this in my journal, this is day four of the trip. Hopefully I can upload this soon on the blog, but I have had a hard time on deciding what to write: daily events,thoughts, experiences…  So this first road entry, well serve as a guinea pig.

Obviously a lot has happened since the inital blog. At T-minus 2 weeks from departure, I was feeling relaxed and prepared. I had set a good pace with work and getting out my apartment. Most of the vaccinations were taken care of and my Visas were on their way back. This was the calm before the storm.

With only a couple days left at work and one week before my flight, I started to feel emotionally and mentally exhausted. Initally I could not explain it, other than the constant packing and moving every night. But now I realized that it was probably more attributed to the pending transition from a life that I know to one that is unknown. Even though I somewhat expected it, I didn’t take into consideration that moving itself, can be a stressful and tiring experience, but then add to it: leaving your job, family and friends, no matter how temporary it maybe.

I will touch on some of the preparations in future blogs, in case anyone wants to learn from my experience, such as: medical insurance, malaria pills, vaccinations, forwarding of bills, ATM uasage overseas for a prolonged duration… All I know, is that with the accessiblity that the internet provides, it must be 20 times easier to do this today, than before.

Now I will fast forward to my flight to Prague. I caught a redeye to Prague, which included a short layover in Zurich. Since leaving work on the previous Friday to the flight on Wednesday Night, I had probably slept only apx. 16 hours. Some was intentional, as I wanted to pass out on the plane from lack of sleep, and there was still much to do (in fact, I was making last minute preparations, on my way to the airport), but the fact was that I couldn’t sleep much. The flight went smoothly, at least for me. Delaine, a single mother of four grown daugthers, sat next to me on the plane. During our general conversations, I noticed that she seemed uncomfortable at times. Thats when she shared with me that she is deathly afraid of flying. She has learned to control it most of the times, but can’t control her fear when the plane experienced turbulance. The thing that I wanted to share most about Delaine, and which I most admired, was that: believe it or not, this was not her first flight to Europe. Even though she was seriously scared of flying, she had been to Europe at least on three other occassions, this time to meet her sister who has been living in Italy for the last year. Delaine was on her way to Munich, where she and her sister will drive to and through the South of France, she said that the fear and discomfort was a small price to pay for what she was about to see and experience. Another interesting story/lesson: whenever the plane rocked back and forth, up and down due to the turbulance, Delaine would squeeze her eyes shut and clinch her fists. After finding out that I was an engineer, the next time she would add to her fear routine, a list of questions to me: how does something this big stay in the air and not drop like a rock, why does the plane have to rock every which way, why does the pilot have to fly this route. I tried my best to explain the little I knew about: lift, turbulance, and wind currents. But in the end she didn’t care what I said, only that I was there to listen and understand her fear. I may have been told that lesson before, but it was a good refresher course.

After I said bye to Delaine, I caught my 2nd leg and worked my way to Prague. Got from the airport to the City really smoothly, from Bus 119 to Metro A (third stop) and another 15 minute walk, through Old Town Square. A record time for me from the airport to where I was staying in a foreign country. I took it pretty easy that first night, and just walked the City to get my bearings and grabbed a bite to eat. At the hostel I met Jordan and Toby who were going to be just a couple of my 7 roommates for the next few nights.

On the first full day in Prague, I signed up for “The Ultimate Walking Tour,” this was a 6 hour tour of Prague, including: lessons of the history of the Czech Republic, W Square, New Town, Old Town and Square, Charles Bridge and Prague Castle. The Czech Republic combined with Slovakia was previously known as Czechoslovakia. Czech Republic’s current form of government is fairly recent, established based on the events of the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Historically, the Czech Republic has been occupied by both the Nazis and Soviet Republic. In speaking with the tour guide, the citizens of Czech never had a say, and felt they were opressed by these stronger World powers, and were eventually passed from Hitler to Lenin. There was a gap in between of apx 20 years. The Velvet Revolution was named such, because sometime during 1989, apx 300,000 Czechs gathered in the W Square each day with keys on a ring, rang it louded and asked for a democracy. The did this day after day, and never tried to instigate any violence, eventually, led by their soon to be President they were granted their independence by the Communist Regime. An interesting story that the Czech people are proud of, is that they never liked being associated as Communist party, but this was not very well known to the rest of the world, in their eyes. A 19 year old and 20 year old, on seperate occassions went to the W Square, poured gasoline on themselves and lit a match. The symbolism was that death even by this means, was better than life without democracy. The second one to do this gesture drank a form of alcohol that actually burned his vocal cords first, so that when he was a ball of fire, he could not scream. During the communist rule, these stories were not recognized and were not allowed to be spoken about. But since 1989, the citizens recognize these young adults as heroes and return to the site with flowers.

Another interesting fact is that within Prague most of the Jewish people were sent to concentration camps, with few surviving. There is a historic Jewish Ghetto, which includes a couple key sites: a Synagouge and the Jewish Cementary. Amazingly the Synagouge survived even through the Nazi rule, when I inquired why, the tour guide explained that it was the Nazi’s intent to use as a mueseum of the extinct race. The cementary is unique as, there are tombstones everywhere, literally on top of each other, because when they ran out of room, they just added more dirt and created a new plot for the next few years, they could raise the tombstone, but not remove it completely.

During this 6 hour tour throughout Prague, I met the group I affectionately call the “Aggies Crew”, they are studying abroad in Bonn Germany for a 8 week program, but go to school at Texas A&M. Justin, Joel, Amanda, Madison and Rebecca, made the trip fun and entertaining, and they dubbed me the adopted Aggie for the day. I really admired the fact that they had an appreciation to see the world at a young age, and sacrifice part of their summer to do it. In many cases they didn’t even get any school credit. We continued to hangout the rest of the tour, planned to meet up later that night.

Back at the Hostel, while planning for the next few days, met: Mark, who is going to Loyola and studying abroad in Rome for 8 weeks); Sonja from Minnesota who is teaching English in Slovakia, and her cousin Ki USC film student studying abroad in London. I invited Mark since he was solo, to hang with me for the night as he just check in and seemed abit lost, then got Sonja and Ki also to join for dinner. After dinner, Mark and I met up with the Aggies Crew, and we went on a Ghost Tour ( which was not worth it, and it was free) and finished the night at the Beer Garden in th hills, where I had plenty of pop, of course.

And that concluded my first full day in Prague. I don’t expect the following entries to be as detailed for your sake and mine. I have uploaded some pics on Flickr, link is to your right. Enjoy.