Berlin, Prague, Budapest

I decided to group these three together because quite honestly it was kind of a continuous 5 day period.

I had to wake up early like 6 or so to make my 6 56 train to Berlin! Okay so I actually was suppose to go to Munich after Amsterdam before going to Prague. And actually, originally originally I was supposed to take an overnight from Amsterdam to Prague and just skip Germany all together until I was going to Stockholm which I had had high hopes of taking an overnight from Berlin. If you have read my past little guys, then you know that reservations are like a figment of the Eurail  company’s imagination-aka not happening. After doing some calculations (hehe, accordinggg to my calculations) that I did while in an eternal taxi ride when we arrived to Paris, like seriously, 10 miles took like 2 hours. Worst traffic I have EVER seen outside of Venezuela. The taxi driver was like yeahhh this is my last day working. After 10 years taxi drivering in Paris I think I am going crazy so I am moving to a small town in the south of France. ANYWAYS ACCORDING TO MY CALCULATIONS it actually was much better timewise as far as the time I am traveling to time I am in the city if I went to Berlin for a stop and then came back through Munich (I’m doing like a loop if you have realized). The train from Amsterdam to Prague was like 10 hours so decided to break it up and stop by Berlin. So only one day is definitely not enough for this city, but it wasn’t one that I really had plans to devote time since I had 3 weeks that were already quite packed with visitations of friends and such. I’m an idiot though and didn’t book a hostal before leaving before Amsterdam, probably because I was busy with mind numbing activities… but anyways finding one was like a 2 hour process. I was not familiar at all with the layout of the city and wasn’t really aware of how large and rather spread out it really is. Regardless though I went to some café with internet and found a hostal on the complete other side the city so by the time I finally got there is was like 15 or so? It had good reviews and was located in a cool area and wasn’t so expensive so no pasa nada.

I have this habit of not knowing at all what I am going to do in a city until I am on the train or bus or flight or whatever means of transportation to said city. So reading my handy dandy lonely planet on Western Europe, I got a pretty good list of the top sees to make the most of my short hours in the city. I felt like a Delta co-op doing a crash visit in a city haha

Reichstag in Platz der Republik

Brandenburg Gate in Pariser Platz- the symbol of Berlin! Really cool plaza.

Holocaust Memorial- it was free and I went in it. It was really depressing like basically just giving you the stats of how many Jews were killed from which countries of Europe during the Nazi regime. My favorite/most impacting room was one that contained personal memoirs and letters and diary entries of victims of the Holocaust. The things the human race is capable of doing is horrific.

East Side Gallery. Really really really cool. I actually liked it a lot more than the Lennon wall because it wasn’t like a clusterfuck of graffiti. Everything kind of had some sort of meaning and a lot were very impressive. I wasn’t sure if to like smile when taking pictures… awkward.

Walked around the museum area. I have kind of gotten to the point where I don’t really want to go into museums anymore. Especially like Natural History ones since I can do that in the United States. I love art museums but that is always close to full day commitment for me.

Ate a currywurst!With the Brandenburg Gate in the background. It was actually my only meal of the day. Oh had a milkshake too. Oops.

Hung out in Alexanderplatz and people watched some.

Berlin is really different. Like super edgy, full of young people with a very edgy style as far as clothes, piercings, tattoos, hairs etc. Then the historic part of it basically revolves around WWII. It’s a very interesting mix and I am sure the new generation is how they are due to the relatively recent events. I’d be interested to read articles on this matter.

After I started to get lonely… haha no but really after being around people almost constantly, it’s weird to have so much time on your own. Especially with a city so different, it would have been cool to have someone with me to like discuss it. Unbeknownst to me, I had an exciting night ahead of me J

Went back to the hostal and started talking to some people. I talked to Nicole about it this: now that it is summer and sooo many more people are doing exactly what I am doing (backpacking) everyone is much more open and friendly and willing to hang out. So with our group from the hostal: Darcy (American), Antoine (French Canadian), Tess (Austrailian), Ana (Slovenia). Ana, from what I understood, has been to Berlin several several times and loves it. So thanks to you, my dear, we had our night J

First we went to buy some GERMAN BEER (yummm) from some convenient store and then Ana began brainstorming on what to do. We first went to this underground (in the empty-warehouse sense of the word) where they were playing live music, everyone was high or on something, there was graffiti all over the walls, and random displays of art. Here’s a vid. I am not really sure how to explain it. Just, very Berlin.

Once we got tired of that, we rode the tram and or metro for about an hour before we figured out where or what to do. Lucky for us they don’t check in Berlin like at all. You’d be pretty unlucky if a worker guy randomly came on your cart and asked you to show your ticket.

We finally decided on going to this area really close to the East Side Gallery. I finally got my dinner, around midnight: a pretzel J We actually all got some noms. Kebaps, come to the United States now please.

The place we ended up going to was EXACTLY what I had hoped we would do. This underground (common theme?) rave in an empty warehouse fullll of super European young people with all kinds of hairs and colors and tank tops and jean shorts and converse. I was beside myself. I was very sober though, but with the techno/eurotrance music, drunk by contact for sure.

The tram didn’t run again until 4am meaning we had to stay at least until 4. Oh wait, my train for Prague left at 645. We left the club or whatever you want to call it judging by the video, after 430. There was a 24hr grocery store right in front of the tram, so I bought my breakfast J Got back to the hostal after 5 and made the executive decision to not blueball myself by taking a half an hour nap… packed my bag which was hardly unpacked, undid my bed that was tryinggg so hard to seduce me-it looked sooo comfortable- and back to the train station!

Needless to say I slept the entire time I was on the train to Prague. I was at first taking with this German girl that was seated in front of me for a bit but she didn’t speak so well English and was kind of getting frustrated with me and I was too tired to make any serious attempts at communications. Everytime I woke up there were different people sitting around me.

One of the times I woke up, we had stopped and it said Praha! I was like shit shit shit, grabbed my stuff and jumped off the train. It was only after I had gotten off the train that I realized I wasn’t yet at the central station. And they don’t use the Euro in the Czech Republic. Eventually, after a little more public transportation that I should of needed, made it to the Mosaic House and met up with Nicole! That was part of the reason that I was like racing across western Europe because Nicole and I had made plans several weeks before for Prague and Budapest and she had a flight so not quite as flexible as my Eurorail pass.

I loved loved LOVED Prague. I don’t know what it was about it but seriously everything was so beautiful: the architecture, the river surrounding it, the palace—even with the iffy weather. I’m in love with that city. And it is relatively cheap (for now) so Nicole and I got to eat out!

And so proud of Nicole: she finished her first full beer! Pilsner J

I had really ambitious hopes of going out that night in Prague. I had been told by a few people that the pub crawl was really fun and there was also this insane 5 story club. Unfortunately after walking all afternoon I sat in bed and knew I was done. Nicole basically had to pry me out of bed in order to go buy dinner at like 10 (we are still on Spain eating schedule): kebap! South Park for a bit and I was passed out.

Next morning, we made the decision to do the walking tour. I am normally not into the whole organized touring thing because I feel like I can get enough out of the city by reading signs and my travel book. Also, previous to this the countries that I had been to I was a little more familiar with their history. Not really the case for Prague. We got to know what the pretty things we were looking at were. Stupid weather though: it rained on and off like all day. It was cold rain too…worst.

Another full meal and then we decided to go to Lennon wall and then walk up to the mini Eiffel tower thing to get a lookout of the city. This little tower thing was built on top of a hill so it actually is the same height as the Eiffel Tower but with a little booster seat from nature. You had to pay like 5 euros to get up there, aka no. But we found another freeee lookout which was actually much nicer and there were like 2 other people.

We both agreed it was going to be really hard to leave this city. It’s really enchanting, I don’t know.

OH we went to the ice bar! It would have been a lot more fun if a) we were drunk or b) we were with a large group of people. Regardless, it was an experience. Cold as shit, really strong drink, but it felt like you were in a refrigerator freezer. Then we basically just chilled at the hostal while the people in our hostal got drunk. Neither of us was feeling too social… traveling, especially at our intensity, is exhausting.

 Overnight trains are always an experience. I had actually forgotten, but I took an overnight train one time when I was in Russia with my rather when we were going… somewhere I think the Siberia region of the country? Or actually I think it was when we were going from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

I didn’t remember it being so uncomfortable. First of all, you are in a closet, more or less, with five other people. You have about half a meter of space between your bed and the bunk above you. The beds themselves are actually wooden boards with some fabric over them- I think it’s to prevent splinters. I could only sleep on my back because if I tried to sleep on my sides, my hip bone would start digging into the board/bed. Then, if I tried to sleep on my stomach, my boobs were uncomfortably squished and again, hip bones digging.

Whatevs, I was pretty tired so I slept more or less the entire time-minus some Holocaust dreams which were more or less terrifying... Woke up, and BUDAPEST! We arrived an hour later than we were supposed to. I vaguely remember waking up once and was almost certain that we weren’t moving.

Budapest is very different than Prague. We had just been in this small centric town were everything was so pretty and now Budapest was more city like so I think we were both a little disappointed. Granted our first day was a bit interesting since we were told to take the tram and then walk to the palace area which was in the Buda portion of the city. We had a walking tour we wanted to attend at 14 of the Pest side so perfect use of our morning. We got off the tram. And walked. And walked. The map of the city streets literally looks like spaghetti and most of the street names weren’t even on the map we had. Everytime we asked someone how to get to the palace (which you would think would be a well-known landmark), they would always tell us to go back to the tram station we had gotten off at and take a bus. So we gave up after like two hours of aimlessly wandering the jankety streets of Buda… Oh but it was still a memorable morning stroll. We were walking behind this very large large largeee woman, and I am not trying to be rude or anything  but this woman probably weighed more than 500 pounds. All of a sudden, she starts to wobble and shaking and falls over and starts convulsing and turning purple. Nicole and I were like, shit this woman is having a strong or something. So here we are, two tourists trying to wave down a car to call a police because we don’t have phones nor do we know what number to call, oh and we don’t speak Hungarian and not many people in this area spoke English. These two guys stop and call the ambulance while the other holds down her tongue cuz now this woman is having a full on seizure. Nicole and I are trying to see if we spot a police or ambulance, but we see few and those that we do see don’t seem to see or care about our frantic waving. Eventually, maybe after 20 minutes or so, an ambulance finallyyy comes. Slow response time… she was recovering by the time they got there but I was a little worried she was going to like, die. We kind of retired from that scene once the ambulance came. Good deed of the day?

Our tourguide for the Pest area was a really spunky 40 something year Hungarian old women that was born in the US [her parents moved during the whole communism era]. We saw pretty things in Budapest! And learned a lot about the history of the Czech Republic. They were basically a toy passed around from the Hapsburgs, to the Nazis, and finally the Soviets. Poor little guys had lost several of their attempts to freedom along with huge portions of their country. It is really interesting though that the tour was so focused on the recent ish history. When I was in France, the history was all about the royalty and stuff that had happened from like the middle ages to the 1800s. In the Czech Republic, it was much more about communism. It was really cool to hear first accounts, but also a little worrying since a lot of the things that happened during the soviet period is almost a mirror reflection of what is happening in Venezuela now… Pray for the best :/

We went to a nifty little cafeteria type restaurant for some Hungarian lunch/dinner before heading back. We were both soooo tired… Okay this time I REALLY REALLY wanted to go out. I had heard amazinggg things about the adventures of Nate and Neal in Budapest. Nicole was not budging… and after a walk around, I realized that I was really tired too… but also it’s not necessarily funnn to go like party by yourself. I mean, meeting people is really fun but I was kind of too tired to make a real effort to befriend people, those at our hostal were all really chill, and the hostal I wanted to go out at was not so close. Took the high road and decided to take it easy as well. Afterall, I was headed to Vienna the next day to meet up with Thomas and Stefan and then Croatia to meet up with Neva after that…. The party will find me no need to go searching in a city I don’t know.

Next day we did the tour of the Buda side. I am so mad. I have no idea how Nicole and I could NOT find the damn palace area. All we had to do was cross a bridge and it was RIGHT in front of you! Why the eff did our hostal lady tell us to take the tram.

It. Was. Beautiful.

Both of us were like walking zombies though so after exploring the palace area quite thoroughly, we went back to the centre for lunch. Went to a DELICIOUS hummus bar that we had walked past the day before and sat there for like 3 hours. It was really nice to just chill and talk and relax. The weather was finallyyy nice! A lot of the things we talked about, if not all, were about going home. At that point, she only had 9 days left to back in the states, and I had 16. So crazy after being in Europe for SO long it’s such a small amount of times. We were talking about what we were looking forward to the most…. Food. Haha chik fil a, dunkin donuts, Mexican food, Panera, ahhh I am getting hungry just thinking about it. And also, just being able to not do anything and not feel guilty about it. Like when you are sitting at a hostal resting, you feel guilty because you are only in the city for like 2 or 3 days max. Hmmmmmm

Anyways, Nicole! It’s been sooooo wonderful being able to travel with someone that knows me more than just a few months through a different continent. You are one of the few people that knows what its like to actually liveee in Spain and I plan on having plenty of reminiscing outings when we are stateside to help cope with our reverse culture shock. It’s so funny because each time we said goodbye it was like, okay see you in Barcelona or Prague or whatever. Now, see you in ATLANTA! 6 cities, 3 countries. It’s been real J Love you 

Amsterdam!

Okay finally getting around to documenting my recent travels! Crazy, have already been at it for ONE WEEK! I don´t think these will be quite as detailed as my normal posts. Mostly because I see A LOT in quite not a lot of time and a lot of is more seeing the touristy things than random [drunk] adventures so I think pictures will be more or less self-explanatory.

My getting to Amsterdam was quite a story actually… First of all, when I left VLC, I had packed 2 bags: my big backpack containing the clothes that I have been wearing the last few weeks, and my miniature suitcase that contained everything else which my dad and brother were taking back to the states.

Two interesting things happened while I was traveling with the fam:

1)      I came to the disheartening realization that the reset of Europe is not as warm and nice as Spain. It actually rained the last like 4 days we were in France-the two last days of the biking tour where therefor very wet and very cold. S’cool though. Felt like a badass biking 60k a day in pouring rain J seriously I am doing this for fall break. DO IT WITH ME. Anyways, so coming to this realization, I actually had to like repack my backpack because most of the clothes I had packed was summer clothes-shorts, short sleeve shirts, no jacket… would have been a rookie mistake.

2)      I wore a lot of my clothes the weeks I was traveling, so most of my clothes was dirty or at that place where it may or may not be able to be worn another time. Taking into account that I would be hostal hopping, I wanted to wash my clothes before embarking. So I spent my last day in Paris  doing laundry and preparing for my adventure. Unfortunately, my father took it very personally that I had to do these things… oh well

I think I may have mentioned that I have a Eurail pass and reservations for long distances, aka overnight trains, are basically all full-consequences of backpacking during peak season. Well Paris is.. well part of France.. so they make everything as difficult for tourists as possible and it was actually impossible to get out of Paris with the trains unless I wanted to pay the full ticket. Even Belgium, which they have like 16 trains daily requiring reservation, ALL FULL. PARIS YOU”RE NOT THAT COOL sheesh.

 Just kidding, love France, but since I was unable to book a train, I had to take bus. I knew it was going to be a little less “comfortable” and “efficient,” but barely covers it.. I left at 1330. I did not arrive until 22. BOOOO it took like 3 hours more than it originally said. We stopped in Belgium TWICE. That country is tiny like wtf?! And then in Rotterdam (Nederlands) and then somewhere else. I was seriously considering getting off the bus and taking a train haha but the bus drive was quite scenic and I slept some such. Still.. just got to Amsterdam muchhhh later than originally planned.

Lucky for me, I was meeting Fleur. The unlucky thing… she didn’t have a phone yet since she had just arrived from VLC the weekend before or something like this. It was quite difficult to contact her. I was very lucky to have found a hostal, although it was shit, but after putting my stuff there and waiting for Fleur to tell me where to meet, decided to walk around. Got offered weed about 3 different times within half an hour. Welcome to Amsterdam!

Finally met up with here round midnight or so and we were at this brown café (bars that you can smoke in-not coffee shops where they sell weed. Just normal cafes that people can smoke tabacco, among other things of course). Fleur has a dual personality and skates competitively so it was the post skate competition party at this bar. It had like combat boots hanging from the ceiling, posters of rock bands, and playing screamo music with a thick cloud of smoke making the atmosphere really different for me but really cool. The two people she introduced me to were Frobbie and Jack-two guys from London (Yioo sawnd lyk yer frm LAWNDN) which I ended up hanging out with the rest of my time in Amsterdam.

Jack´s face in every picture is wonderful (guess which)

My time in Amsterdam was really fun. Unfortunately it was raining a lot so outdoor activities, aka my picture taking, was a little limited. But I did all the crucial things: Red light, Anne Frank, Dam square, WOULD of gone to Van Gogh but the line was so long outside of Anne Frank I figured it would be as long, or longer, at that museum, and of course walked around the canals.

It is so pretty! I love cities with canals! And people in the Nederlands are super friendly! While waiting for the tram, this guy starts talking to me. Normally in Spain if this were to happen, they were just trying to get my number or something, so at first I was a little hesitant kind of waiting for the punch line. To my delight, we just talked. He was a student in Rotterdam and was there for a concert. He wished me a great journey through Europe and then we parted ways. This happened to me a number of times while in Amsterdam. It’s kind of funny to think of all the small interactions that you have with people you will never meet again. It’s interesting that these small encounters can really make your day.

But yeah so Amsterdam was quite fun. Hanging out with two skater Brits and Fleur around canals and noming on delicious Dutch pastries ;)

Fleur if you are reading this: Thank you so much for hanging out with meeee. Next time I will have to go to your home city. It has been a wonderfulllll semester and I LOVED getting to know you. You should def come to Croatia to hang out with Neva and I. If not, see you in the USA soon for our roadtrip! I’m not sure who will be my cig or peeing buddy… Know everytime I pop a squat I will think back on all our “bathrooms.” Love you GUAPA!

Anne, I am sad we couldn’t meet you in Amsterdam. But likewise I loveee you and look forward to seeing you again very soon J Wonderful times in Ibiza and VLC. It’s almost too painful to look at picures from Ibiza partially because I miss it so much and partially because we look drunk as shit. I will have to come back to the Nederlands soon to kiss a Dutch guy ;) Oh and P.S. you were right about the cheese.

Officially a Backpacker!

My dad and brother have returned to the United States! I have my last month on this continent. To be honest, I am kind of getting to the point where I want to come homeee. I have been gone for so long and seeing my family was kind of like waittt I have people that I like in the United States.

WELL even with that being said, I am most definitely enjoying to the upmost fullest my adventures solo.  Actually, I have yet to be solo. I am currently traveling with Nicole for four days in total (Prague and now Budapest) and when I was in Berlin and was friendless.. made some friends at the hostal :)
What is really cool about my whole Erasmus adventure is that I was able to meet people from all over Europe--literally. It´s funny because before coming to Europe, I had a pretty set list of the cities I wanted to visit. They have changed tremondously whether it be the time I spend in each city or even more so the cities I am actually going to. [BTW don´t judge me for my English. I can tell that my grammar is out of wack but struggles of speaking it with people that know it as their second language and living with Spanish roommates and taking classes in Spanish... no pasa nada.]

You may have already seen my list on my FB BUT here it is again.

france.paris
nederlands.amsterdam
germany.berlin
czech republich.prague
hungry.budapest
austria.vienna
croatia.zagreb.rijeka.pag
slovenia.ljubljana
austria.salzburg.innsbruck
germany.munich
denmark.kobenhavn
sweden.stockholm


I am spending a week in Croatia and Slovenia to hang out with NEVA and all of her friends I met over the past semester that came to visit her. SO EXCITED. I have to take a stop in kobenhavn because the Eurail is a pain in the ass. It's really great if you are going from city to city that is within 6 hours of each other, but for those that you need to reserve, especially the night trains, it's literally impossible and I would have to buy a normal ticket.. and after paying almost 600bucks for the ticket that is stupid. So I have to travel more, spend more time in trains, and spend less time in cities.. oh well so far it has worked out great :)

Tour de France

This vacation has finally become a vacation!!! Instead of the 3 to 4 hour train rides everyyyday we are actually getting to enjoyyy for more than just the afternoon. This being said, does not mean we are just chilling in a countryside home for a few days. We are actually biking from city to city stopping at random points of interest, be it “chateuxs” (castles) or wine tasting at local producers and of course to picnic after buying fresh bread, meat and cheese products from small bakeries and “charcuterie” (basically a deli). I am pretty impressed though, because we are really doing a tour de France averaging 60km a day. It´s not so hard, persay since it´s quite flat, rolling hills err once in a while but it´s not like you are biking through the countryside of North Carolina. And it is SO beautiful!!!! Look at these pictures!!!

But still after I burn off my breakfast I am FAMISHED as if I haven´t eaten in days. I think I can speak for the three of us because we end up eating about 2 baguettes, a bottle of wine, and like 300g of meat/cheese products.

So maybe I´ll lose some of the weight I gained during Erasmus… drinking less and riding bikes for about five or six hours.

Of course the castles themselves are also veryyy impressive and all have really nice gardens, afterall, this is what we are doing this bike tour: the Chateuxs of the Loire. The Loire is a river that runs through this area.

 I am still confused on how royalty works and who lived in which castle (pastle.. haha Nicole) during which era… Catherine de Medici seems to be a big deal which confuses me because she´s of Italian descent but I know all that royalty stuff and kingdoms were traded like Pokémon cards.

we got bored of always smiling

"look artsy"

one of our many picnics in random places

yes we always had a bottle of wine.

Random other fun things we found along the way..

Found em! Why is he buried in France?

This whole biking thing is really ballin´though. Anyone want to bike around the Midwest for fall break?? J

I get to eat OUT?

If it is one thing that traveling with my dad HAS allowed me to do, it is to eat. So much for losing the weight I gained during Erasmus....

Normally when I travel solo, I go to the super market and buy wutevu is easy and cheap. Orrr if I am couchsurfing eat with my host, which normally is super delicious. When I was home in Valencia, I would cook or go to 100 Mondaditos or some tapas place. Neverrr spend more than 10 euros... NEVER go to a restaurant.

Traveling with mon pere has opened a whole new dimension of traveling. I get to eat! And when I say eat, I mean eat a really nice restaurant, drink wine, and evennn order dessert! YUM :)